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Pork - class and level unknown, though he is known to be able to cast
a first level wizard spell (Affect Normal Fires),
by smah@csu.murdoch.edu.au (Seng Ann Mah)

Pork is a wizened old man, scrawny, wiry, bald, with unruly whiskers.
His features are unusually gnarled, though his eyes are bright and
betray a spark of intelligence (even when he is in his less lucid
moods).  His complexion is tanned and weathered which suggests that he
spent most of his life outdoors.  When PCs meet Pork, he will come
across as a beggar or a vagabond living "rough" in the rural
countryside.  He is always raggedly dressed - in a dirt-encrusted,
stained sleeveless tunic, and wears no shoes.  If pressed into combat,
he fights with a crooked walking stick (1d4/1d4 damage).

Pork's constant companion is Bacon, a fat piglet which squeaks and
squeals whenever danger presents itself.  Pork named the piglet thus
as he fully expected to kill and cook the beast ("an' make bacon
rashers outta him," he drawls) but, surprisingly, Bacon nevere "growed
up a'tall," thus remaining a fairly cute piglet and preventing the
tender hearted Pork from giving it the chop.  If pressed in combat and
having no recourse to his crooked stick, Pork will swing Bacon like a
club, smashing enemies with the fattened piglet.

There is one thing Pork is incredibly proud of:  and that is his
ability to use magic.  He can only cast one spell:  affect normal
fires, which he does most creatively, using one of the many fire-forms
the spell allows to startle and frighten friends and enemies.  He will
claim to have "magic" and when asked how he casts his spell without
aid of scrolls or a spellbook, he will simply say:  "Magic...
magic..."

My players thought that Pork would finally reveal himself to be a
powerful wizard or magical entity (ala Fizban in Dragonlance), but
this enigmatic old man is simply a harmless, if slightly insane,
individual with a magic and piglet fixation.  Nothing more, nothing
less.  He can be taught magic by a wizard PC and, surprisingly, once
taught, he need never re-learn the spell:  it seems to be committed to
his memory.

In my scenario, Pork (and Bacon) accompanied the PCs on a dangerous
adventure, surviving it all through sheer luck (another one of his
abilities) and left them with a teary goodbye to continue his
adventures elsewhere.

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Dram the Fat, 3rd Level Paladin (now deceased),
by whitten@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Marc R. Whitten)

Posthumously (sp?) awarded the Order of the White Swan by
Bishop Avere of Tarsis.

str: 15
int: 14
wis: 14
dex:  4
con: 16
chr: 17

equipment
chain armor
heavy mace
body shield
halbert
Eilron's Pot of Masterful Cooking
Ring of Sweet Repose

Dram was a paladin of Shynael who, shall we say, had a weight problem.
Although he was kind, good hearted, and heroic, he was borderline
gluttonous.  This fact alone had him spend more than his paladanic
share of time in the temple.  Dram's life, Unfortunately, was to be a
short, yet memorable one.  Dram and his friends managed to uncovered a
plot by a sinister power to take over the town of Tarsis, by any
means.  To that end, they dispatched a force to destroy the small
farming town of Larksdale.  Dram and his friends hastely tried to do
what ever they could for the small town, where they already had many
friends.  Flight was the only possible solution, yet the force was to
close for an all out exodus.  Thus, the elderly, the children, and all
other non combatants left, leaving a total force of about 50.  Thus
ensued the "Battle of 50 Farmers" The townspeople fought hard, buying
there loved one's escape with there own blood, but at last, hope was
fading.  The enemy pressed ever near, and the inexperienced and poorly
armed farmers were exhausted.  Thus was the seen when the leader of
the fould organization arrived.  Over seven feet tall, he was, clad in
a dull black armor.  Before his gaze hope wilted, and all seemed lost.
The townspeople, as well as Dram's friends began to flee then,
throwing down there weapons and running in dread.  The enemy laughed
then, knowing the victory was one, and, once again turned his
attention to Tarsis, the next step.  Yet Dram had not fled, instead he
dropped his halberd to the ground (a large unwieldy weapon seemed
fitting for a large unwieldy paladin.)  withdrew his mace, and
charged.  Somehow, he reached the evil one without him noticing, and
struck, with all his might.  Dram had swung with all of his might,
yet, the mace had slid off the armor, without a trace.  Dram knew his
death was near then, and resolved himself, lifting his mace high
again, futily.  He died there, in the next moment as eldritch energy
arched from the tall knight's fingertips, enveloping Dram's body in a
mercifully short burst of seering pain.

The town of Larksdale has been rebuilt know.  new buildings replace
the charred remains.  Dram's friends (thereafter known as the
FarmerKnights) are still welcome, and one even lives there, running a
tannery.  on the outskirts of town there is a grassy mound, beneath
which are buried the remains of 17 farmers, and Dram.  A small alter
to Shynael crowns the hill.  Every so often, a farmer, or his wife
brings a bit of food and leaves it there, where, somehow, it vanishes
before morning.

<* sniff *>

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Cermalus Spellslayer,
by ujchoi@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Jason Choi)
Male human,18 Mu/7th R, TN

Cermalus was born on a prison colony on a world called Scarlore, the
land he called home was a island continent known as Plague Isle, and
on it Carrion city looms, a immense city which spans the entire
surface of the continent, a city of smaug, plague, and ruins, infested
with orcs and trolls and humans and controlled by the omnipotent
Emperor Carrion Corpseater the demon mage and his council of royal
advisors who happened to be ancient Liches of extreme cunning and well
versed in the dark arts.  This council governs the unruly citizens of
Carrion city through their demonic servants,who police the streets,
interrogate criminals, and hunt down rengades or runaway slaves.

Cermalus was an orphan, born in the slums where he was forced to steal
and pillage in order to survive.  One day he tried picking the pockets
of a old man who crossed the alleyway in which he lived, the man
nabbed him red handed, but instead of turning Cermalus in he took him
into a hidden location deep in the sewers, for a Cambion patrol was
fast on his heels, and he didn't want to see the young boy killed.
Typically thieves were turned in and handed over to the demonic
authorities in exchange for water and other goods, and the criminals
devoured, but this was not the case.

It turned out that the old man was named Zar, a former apprentice of
the emperor himself long, long ago, and one of the most powerful
conjurers in the land, who turned against the foul, decadant ways of
the emperor, and refused to embrace Lichdom.  Zar was slowly dieing of
a incurable virus instiled upon him by Ichor Greenblood, the Emperor's
chief assassin, and so Zar used his psionic abilities to impart his
vast knowledge of magic into Cermalus' head before he died.Cermalus
gained years of knowledge, wisdom, and experience in the course of one
year, which nearly drove him mad, but he used every iota of discipline
to control this newly aquired power.

Booking passage aboard a cargo ship, he used his sorcery to coerce the
captain to allow him to come aboard.  About two weeks through the
journey, the entire crew came under a strange sickness which left them
drained of blood.  In the end the whole crew soon became the undieing
slaves of a ancient, 10,000 year old Vampire who's coffin was in the
cargo hold...  Ironically the merchant ship was swept into a storm,
forcing Cermalus to make a hasty retreat in the lifeboat, leaving the
vampire and his slaves to their fate.

Stranded in the sea of planes, Cermalus was swept into a vortex into
another world [insert campaign world here], but was secretley being
pursued by one of the emperors spies.  It turned out to be Ichor
Greenblood himself, who gouged Cermalus' left eye out and severed his
right hand before the young although powerful sorceror managed to
summon the power to destroy the foul assassin of his mentor.

In appearance Cermalus has long silvery white hair, and a youthful,
chisled face.  His right eye is dark gray, and his left is covered in
an eyepatch, the eyeball grafted into his socket is known as the
'cats-eye', and indeed appears as the eye of a tiger.  His right hand
is wrought of carved silver, and can handle extremley hot or cold
objects,and acts as a glove of missile snaring.  Three times a day it
has the ability to cast a spectral hand, and acts as a ring of spell
storing for the following spells:  vampiric touch, lich touch,
shocking grasp, chill touch, burning hands.

Cermalus is approx 6 ft tall, and always wears robes made of Greysilk
(treat as AC 4), and also wears platnuim bracers engraved with runes
around his wrists.  A leather satchel is always strapped around his
side.  His cloak clasp shows his magius sigil, a large black crow.
This clasp allows him to call upon his familiar x3 a day, a large
black Crow, from the Astral Plane.  The crow allows him to regenerate
1 hp a round, he can see through its eyes and hear through its ears,
and once a week he can contact higher plane.  (ok, I've watched too
much of The Crow,so whaaaaa)

To defend himself, Cermalus usually carries a Staff of Sharpness, that
is, on a 17 or higher roll concealed blades at the tip of the staff,
designed to look like dragon wings, extend to sever an extremity.  He
is also prone to using a Thri Kreen throwing wedge with his silvery
hand, anyone using it with an unprotected hand receives 1 hp damage
and instantly drops it due to its sharp edge.  The wedge is a +2
weapon and acts as a sharpness weapon,it does 1d6+2 hp damage.

================================================================================
Lister,
by rtrimmer@iastate.edu (Ronald S Trimmer)

My favorite character was Lister (that was her nickname), a female
(very ugly) dwarf psionicist/thief.  She had exceptional wisdom and
con and barely enough dex to become a thief.

She came from a merchant family, rare dwarves that travel and trade
both legally and illegally.  She struck out on her own.

She met up with some offworlders and left the planet to go to the
Forgotten Realms world of Faerun.

In her early life, she wanted to become an assasin.  She was cold and
in some ways selfish.  Her most noticable quality was her vengefulness
(sp?  well you know what I mean) She had this warped sense of revenge.
If someone tried to stop her from doing something, she'd kill them, no
questions asked.  Even if they had good reason, she'd still kill them.
I played her straight neutral with evil tendencies.  Once she made
friends, she was pretty loyal.  The rest of the group did not like her
very much even though she saved them all a couple of times.  She
argued with the others alot and made fun of them.  She really did not
get along with the Elven bladesinger.

Her psionic powers only made her a better thief and killer.  She
developed a modified version of dimension door that sent enemies
falling to their death.  She developed a deadlier version of double
pain (ouch).

To kill people, she would preferably use Dim door.  If she thought
that they could get around this (mages or ones able to fly), she would
double pain them, timeshift, and backstab.  Ouch!  To escape she used
ectoplasmic form or timeshift.

She became pregnant and became extremely defensive of her unborn
child.

Most of her experience is from working for this powerful GOOD mage
(with rest of party) who was a harper and always fighting the red
wizards of thay.  When she reached 9th thief, 10th psionicist, she
wanted to quit adventuring.  All the adventuring and killing had made
her hate killing.  Now, she doesn't want people to stand in her way
cause then she HAS to kill them.  So she tried to get funds (alot of
funds) to start a legitimate trading fleet.  Her desire was for it to
be legal first and eventually do some smuggling.  She went after a big
mythral caravan and ended up killing a harper (why did he have to make
his poison-knock out save?).  After that the nice, powerful, GOOD mage
made her give up all her magic (we got all our magic from the mage).
The other party members all wanted her to leave (except one).

That was a big turning part for her.  She argued with them and told
them they were not any better than she was.  Nobody cared when she
killed bodies in red robes that way, in fact they were happy about it.
She was very disgusted with them.  She was sick of killing.

She tried to hit a gem shop, got caught, was thrown in jail, and then
she escaped.  This gem shop was massive and it was the biggest one in
the whole world.  She planned for about 6 months to a year on robbing
the place.  She had an incredible plan and pulled it off, barely.  But
before I could spend any of my money, the DM put me in RAVENLOFT.  I
have not gotten her out yet.  She's in Strahd's domain with part of
her old party.  She thinks the party could defeat Strahd, but she is
scared that she would take his place.

There was alot of me in Lister.  She felt pain and guilt for her
actions.  She felt she did things out of necessity.  All she wants to
do now is live a non-chaotic life and raise her daughter.  I think she
will eventually run a thieve's guild.

================================================================================
Barthomier,
by scuminus@panix.com (Scuminus Dregg)

So Barthomier it is:  Human male, Psionicist (assassin kit; I made it
up...not much, it gave a x2 backstab that he maybe used once in the
whole campaign, and let him learn Rogue proficiencies).  Lawful
Neutral.

Barthomier was once a young, LG (TN) minor noble (*very* minor:  you
remember Lestat's family lands?)  of Cormyr.  His mother was a rather
powerful psionicist, and an ostensibly retired adventurer.  One day,
while on one of her periodic excursions with the other "retired"
members of her company, she got apparently herself perished at the
hands of Zhentarim.  When Barthomier found out about this, he went a
little revenge-crazy and took it into his head to take out Zhentil
Keep singlehandedly (he wasn't even 1st level).  Needless to say, he
failed.

He managed to not get killed, and ended up in Skullport, where he
learned the arts of assassinry.

This was all pre-game background.  When the campaign started, he had
become a walker in shadows, hardened and full of venom at the
Zhentarim -- not only now for his mother's death, but for what he had
made himself because of it; and, of course, he blamed himself for not
being there to help her.  Essentially, he was a sort of standard
revenge-crazed antihero.  The one thing that had kept him from
slipping completely into darkness had been the companionship of a
certain priestess of Elistrae, but that was behind him.

Barthomier was also a vehement atheist.  Not that he didn't believe
there *are* gods -- that's a little hard in the Forgotten Realms --
but he didn't think they were worth worshipping, and detested anyone
who'd sell his soul to become a priest; druids were acceptable, though
-- he felt forests were a good thing (yeah, I know this doesn't gibe
with the priestess of Elistrae, above.  He wasn't comfy with it,
himself).  When it turned out we were on a damnable Epic Quest, he was
furious; the idea of having anyone monkeying with his destiny was
unacceptable, but to have *gods* doing it was the final insult.

In short, he hated just about everything, himself not excluded.

As time passed, however, Barthomier came to explore his own fears and,
with lots of neat use of psionic thingies -- like Dream Travel
sequences -- he recognized and overcame his insecurities and
assimilated the fragments of his subconcious into a reasonable
harmony.

During this time, he also came upon the study of ethics, and began to
question his life as an assassin, and the ultimate worth of his quest
for revenge.  He also found the friendship of one of the party members
-- who later turned out to be his half-brother, coincidentally -- a
strapping fighter whose Neutral Goodness helped keep Barthomier stable
as he walked the razor's edge of Evil.

Ultimately, Barthomier discovered within himself, to his shock, a
quiet but unconditional sort of love, or at least a sense of
responsibility, for humanity -- and not just Humans, he'd been in
enough minds and bodies that genes didn't mean a lot to him.
Eventually, he came to accept the light within himself, as he had so
long ago accepted the darkness.  He reclaimed and rebuilt his family
lands, but gave it up for what he felt were more important things --
spreading enlightenment and whatnot (as well as managing a very
profitable psionics-oriented business venture; he was a die-hard
capitalist).

He eventually founded a quasi-militaristic psionic organization, the
Order of the Phoenix, which was a sort of amalgam of a smigdin of the
Jedi from _Star Wars_ and a larger part of the Bene Gesserit from
_Dune_, with a lot of my own stuff thrown in.

Through it all, even at his closest to true Evil, Barthomier remained,
to me, a hero in the true sense -- he was always true to himself,
regardless of the consequences; he never betrayed his own ethics, and
never ceasesd to strive for the truth, however much it hurt him.  And
when he finally achieved the ultimate reward -- he was offered godhood
-- he turned it down, and returned to the world at large; for, to me,
the true destiny of the hero is not his own agrandizement; as Joseph
Campbell said, the hero will not allow himself this luxury.  He must
return to share with others what he has gained.