by bac8434 » 23 Nov 2011, 04:06
Ah, that does make more sense. I'll try to put some more detail into my backstory in order to work that kind of stuff out. If you don't mind, I'm going to take some slight liberties in terms of the setting since we don't have a lot of detail on them, but I won't make any wild assumptions.
Ancor was born into a small community called Uldhaven on the eastern side of the Esterwall Range, outside of the realm of Valacia. His father, Gamsig, ran a successful business facilitating trade between the people of Uldhaven and the dwarves inhabiting the Esterwall Range, particularly with the nearby Dwarven settlement of Duranth.
This was only possible because one of Ancor's descendants, Cargath Goddfelekan, had helped Duranth to repel a Galeb Duhr uprising 18 generations ago. Cargath's surname of Goddfelekan, translated loosely from Dwarven into Common as "Godcarver", was not his natural name, but one granted to him by the ruling council of Duranth in the wake of their victory. The name symbolized not only his proven skill in battle, but also his contribution to the Dwarven people. Cargath passed the surname on to his only child, and it became a family name.
In his later years, Cargath began to lose his sanity. Family members tried to diagnose him, but no cause was ever discovered, and he died approximately twenty years after saving Duranth. Over generations, the remaining members of the Goddfelekan clan began to forget their linkage to Duranth, eventually attributing their unusual family name to some past eccentricity of their descendant, "crazy" Cargath.
Cargath's belongings were passed down as inheritance for generations, but were regarded more often as a burden than as a gift. The man had left behind dozens of journals, many full of ramblings from his later years that seemingly made no sense. It was not until 17 generations later, with the birth of Gamsig Godcarver, that anyone bothered to examine the tomes in detail. Always a curious man, Gamsig discovered Cargath's tomes in an unused corner of his family home, covered in a thick layer of dust, and couldn't resist reading them. Though he couldn't understand most of Cargath's later entries, Gamsig's persistence paid off when he found in one entry the true origin of his family name, and his personal connection to the forgotten city of Duranth.
By this time, Gamsig Godcarver was the last remaining patriarch of his line, and thus the last remaining link to the Duranth. As such, he felt that the rediscovery of Duranth and the restoration of his family line was his destiny, and he set forth to fulfill it at the age of 22. For three years Gamsig searched unsuccessfully, and would have continued on hopelessly if not for an accident. While traversing the rocky slopes of the Esterwall Range, Gamsig was startled by a jumping deer, and lost his footing. Falling into a crevasse, Gamsig hit his head on a protruding rock and was knocked unconscious.
He woke up three days later, surrounded by pale, artificial light. In what he would later attribute to the intervention of Sardior, Gamsig had fallen very close to one of the hidden entrances of the Duranth underground, and was happened upon by a dwarven maiden who had ventured out of Duranth in search of alchemical reagents. Though it would normally have been forbidden for a human to enter Duranth's halls at that time, the maiden had, in her curiousity, glanced through Gamsig's belongings. Flipping through the copy of Cargath's old journal that Gamsig had brought along, the dwarf recognized the name Cargath Goddfelekan as one she had heard as a child, and felt it prudent to bring the man inside for further examination.
Learning of his heritage, the dwarves of Duranth nursed Gamsig back to health. They explained to him his heritage and the debt that they owed to Cargath for his valiant defense of their city. Finding that Gamsig was not harsh, callous, and dim-witted like the humans on the Western side of the mountain range, the Dwarves allowed Gamsig to come and go as he pleased, under the pretense that he not reveal the location of the city to anyone. At this time, the Dwarves were at war with the humans of Valacia, and were concerned that if their location were given to anyone, the Valacians would traverse the mountains in order to reach them. Still, this arrangement proved to both sides' advantage, because Gamsig could sell Dwarven goods to the people of Uldhaven, and the dwarves could buy much needed surface goods from Gamsig.
Gamsig eventually found time to settle down and married the daughter of a sea captain, giving birth to his first son Ancor. He would later give birth to another son, as well as two daughters. As each child matured, Gamsig explained to them their heritage, and gradually introduced them into the Dwarven society that had become his second home. Ancor immediately took a liking to Duranth, and made a number of connections amongst the Dwarven noble families. At the age of 8, and after numerous, rather pesky requests, Ancor was eventually granted the right to train in the ways of the Duranthian warriors, most of whom were Aleithian battleminds. Learning alongside the Dwarven children, Ancor found that he was a naturally talented psionic, and by the age of 16 he was capable of holding his ground against even many of his instructors. Finding that they could teach him little more, the ruling council declared Ancor a Duranthian by blood, binding him to the ways of the battlemind, and to the Dwarven people. Though Ancor had hoped to eventually be able to fight for the defense of Duranth like his ancestor Cargath had, the conflict with Valacia had since ended with a tenuous truce.
At 18, Ancor decided that it was time for him to leave home and make a living for himself. Unfortunately, he had little skill in any practical application, and without the threat of war his combat skills were of little demand. At his mother's behest, he went to work for his uncle on the frigate Victor, as part of a newly established, ramshackle blockade on Valacia. A number of industrious captains had chosen to take advantage of Valacia's weakness by enforcing a strict policy of anti-aggression, meaning that they would attack any Valacian ship built for aggressive action. For a time this provided Ancor with the action (and glory) he desired, as Valacia attempted to fight back against this new naval threat.
Ancor managed to build a name for himself in boarding combat, and even became rather skilled at leading ship crews. After two years, he was given his own ship, the Threshold. Unfortunately, only two months after taking command of his new vessel, Valacia and the seafaring coalition reached a peace agreement, with Valacia agreeing to produce only fishing and transport ships in order to avoid further bloodshed. With that, Ancor's new job became a miserable hell, at least in his eyes. Instead of sailing into battle, the seafarers had become tax agents, extorting money from passing ships and occassionally appopriating useful supplies. As a battlemind, Ancor's dream was to gain honor and riches through glorious battle, not through the management of a tedious naval bureaucracy. As time went on, Ancor and his crew became more and more disillusioned with their position.
Therefore it should have come as no surprise, when the Ascodel crested the horizon, grounded on a sandbar yet in pristine condition, that Ancor would take advantage of the situation in order to escape the hell he found himself in. Sailing closer to the grounded ship, Ancor could tell that the Ascodel was not of human construction. Most evident was the fact that the ship lacked any sort of mast or sail, an extremely unusual sight that peaked Ancor's curiousity. After attempting to hail the grounded ship and recieving no response, he dropped anchor and rowed over to the sandbar to get a closer look. The ship was most certainly stuck, dug deeply into the sand, but it was not evident how long the ship had been there, or how long its crew had been missing.
Looking inside, Ancor found that other than the mess naturally created by the ship being tilted at nearly a 45 degree angle, the interior of the Ascodel was pristine. If he hadn't known better, Ancor would have guessed that the ship had never been manned at all. There were no signs of the ship ever having been occupied, but perhaps it was being towed when it ran aground.
Ancor would have been more concerned by these facts, if not for the distraction of the hoard of treasure he soon located beneath the decks. Crates upon crates, filled to the brim with what appeared to be extremely valuable weapons, armor sets, and jewelry pieces. Ecstatic that he would finally have enough money to escape blockade duty forever, Ancor ordered his crew to load the crates onboard, and set sail for the nearest port city. A few hours later, the Threshold made port in the Valacian city of Kerville, which had a bustling marketplace filled with all kinds of merchandise.
Ancor and his small crew unloaded crate after crate of what appeared to be valuable elven-crafted items, something rarely seen as far south as Kerville. Given the rarity of the goods, and their already high value as masterwork items, the haul immediately drew the attention of the biggest spenders in Kerville, and Ancor managed to offload nearly 60000gp worth of weapons and armor within a day. After dividing the haul with his crew of 9 men, and taking a somewhat larger portion for himself, Ancor walked away with over 12000gp. Hoping to live a life of relative luxury, he impulsively purchased a small seaside villa on the outskirts of town, as well as an enchanted glaive that had caught his eye in the marketplace. With only 400gp left in his pocket, Ancor walked to his new home and went to sleep in comfort.
Unfortunately, his sleep was cut short. Shortly after daybreak, Ancor was awoken by some sort of commotion, and what appeared to be a crowd moving towards his new home. A man came running up the road, waving frantically to Ancor. Arriving a few hundred feet ahead of the crowd, the stranger quickly infomed Ancor that the goods he had sold the day before, primarily to the most powerful men in town, had turned into worthless pieces of scrap metal immediately after dawn. The stranger explained that some of the most powerful men in town wanted his blood, and that most of the Threshold's crew was already dead. Ancor thanked the man for the warning and threw him a couple of gold pieces, whilst simultaneously packing up his meager belongings and preparing to run for his life.
Luckily, Ancor was able to escape Kerville alive. Unfortunately, his crew was not as lucky. Their deaths weighed heavily on Ancor's conscience as he rode north, away from Kerville and the angry mob. However, Ancor's grief was overshadowed by his confusion. Why had the goods on the Ascodel turned into junk, and why had they taken so long to change after being purchased? Where did the Ascodel even come from, and how had it gotten there without sails or any obvious method of propulsion? And what happened to the Ascodel's crew? Those questions remain a mystery to Ancor, who can no longer return to the southern portion of Valacia without balancing his life on the tip of an assassin's blade.