Fiskan of the Gemfinders
Description: Male, stocky, and with stubby appendages, this creature stands at three feet, three inches in height. He is labeled as a creature currently because when looked upon he does not quite fit any particular description of race. At first glance it is noticed that his structure is very gnome-like, with the typical large nose and wiry muscle tone. However, he is more gaunt than even most svirfneblin. Looking into his eyes will give the viewer the impression that he is staring at a creature born of death, as the color of his eyes matches so closely with the whites of his eyes as to be indistinguishable, it's pearlish glaze interrupted only by a slight ring of red standing between his iris and the rest of his eye. The pupils of his eyes appear very small, as any man's might when a torch is held in front of their face at no more than a hand's width away.
His skin is more pale than the palest of rock gnomes, appearing even more so when held in contrast to his ruby red hair. This hair is always kept short in a buzz-cut fashion, as it cannot grow any longer than a third the length of his shortest finger. When his hair is allowed to grow any longer than this, his hair falls out, shedding at a very rapid pace, much like a dog or other domestic animal. Scalpel hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes are the only hair on his entire body. This tends to give him a 'clean' look even when he is not. Among the most interesting traits about him are the nails that protrude from his fingers and toes. They are constructed of some sort of exterior bone material, which can double as defense weapons and as digging tools. The nails are an onyx black in color, and are about a fourth as long as his fingers. They end in a blunted point, but the severely strong nails are able to dig and claw quite effectively without the need for a sharp edge.
Lying in stark contrast to his pale skin, the marks of an ancient rune can be seen branding his right pectoral, seemingly in the language of the drow. The symbol is etched in thin black lines, and covers an area just smaller than the palm of his hand. This tattoo is usually kept hidden behind his clothing. He wears a white loose fitting shirt with a drawstring collar and sleeves, although the collar is usually worn loose. A brown vest is worn over the shirt, decorated by the many pockets that line the interior as well as the exterior. A small hole with a dark red stain mark the vest, suggesting that he was either stabbed, or the previous owner had been. His loose-fitting pants are a dark linen color, with a drawstring waist. He wears hard-soled shoes on his feet that lace up to his mid calf.
The only visible item that he possesses is a walnut sized amulet that hangs around his neck, bedecked by the image of the very same symbol that lie on his chest. It is hung by an intricately threaded silver chain that is strong enough as to never be torn from his neck. His voice is deep and rather slow. He knows the common tongue, although it can be inferred that he has had no formal education due to his poor speaking mannerisms. Somber and preferring to travel alone, he will talk only if there is something valuable to be gained from it. Similarly, he will choose to travel with someone as long as it benefits him, such as added security, or the intention of gaining knowledge. He has a curious personality and a short attention span, both of which can be interrupted at a moment's notice at the glimpse of the sparkle of a gem.
History: The outcast Carvnen wove through his incantations in a frantic manner, trying to finish the spell he had been casting before exhaustion overtook him. This spell in particular had consumed his every thought for the last three suns risings, and the lack of sleep was readily apparent in his eyes. He had spent the last three winters of his life wrapped in the creation of this spell, which had had surprisingly successful results.
Carvnen had left the homeland of his youth and heritage, so that the internal house strife and obligations could no longer distract him in his spell castings. That had been many years ago, and his funds had been steadily drawing to nothing. That realization, along side one particularly deviant dream he had experienced, had spawned the initial concept for the spell at hand. As the somatic segment of his spell was nearly completed, Carvnen placed the fetus of a gnome from some nearby city onto the prepared alter, and began pouring the ointments, that he had set aside days before, over the unborn fetus, and then proceeded to wrap the fetus in linen strips.
He had commissioned a group of trespassers that he had found passing through his territory to steal the fetus' for him, in order that he spare their lives for the intrusion. They had complied as he had expected, and the spells that he prepared for them to deliver the fetus' alive worked as perfectly as intended. Carvnen's part in the initial castings were now complete, all that he had left to do was his daily maintenance spell that would keep the fetus developing until it's completion. The coming days would see the fetus grow a rocky exoskeleton, that would later become simply a large cocoon of rock, which would house the babe until the transformation was complete.
Carvnen had performed this task several times before, and each time it exhausted him more thoroughly than the last. The length of time that it took him to cast the spell the dozen or so times before this would have been much too long for the remaining fetus' to remain alive, so Carvnen was forced to go back on his word, and use the souls of the trespassers in order to elongate the unnatural lifespans of the unborn embryo. It was of little consequence, however, as Carvnen had done so many times in the past, never feeling any more guilt than he did for the trespassers he had so readily betrayed.
His previous experiments with his spell had met with differing results, although none were below his lofty expectations. The results of his spell were even now out finding for him his precious gems, which would double as both spell components and items of monetary value for those things that he could not readily come up with himself, such as the gnome fetus.' The crusty-skinned creatures returned to him regularly, bringing with them the gems that they had been taught to harvest in any way they could. This, of course, included both the mining of the raw ore from the extensive walls and caverns of their present homeland, and by stealing them from unsuspecting neighbors.
His spell had been very well thought out, as it would allow for them to learn the vital skills of their predestined profession, that of mining and stealing, while they were morphing in their cocoons of rock. It would also instill in them an inherent lust for the precious gems, one that would outshine even that of the gnomes from which the fetus was taken, which would do nothing for them but aid them in their quests. This would allow them to hatch virtually ready to serve his every command, and little time would be wasted attempting to train them to perform the tasks at hand. They were the perfect slaves, as they would perform every command that he gave them without fail or complaint, nor would they ever bother him with their petty concerns. Everything that they needed they acquired for themselves while they were out on gem hunts, including all supplying of food and nourishment.
* * * * *
It was not long before a fallback to his plan was discovered. It seemed that the lust for gems outweighed even the diminutive creature's best judgement, and they would stop at nothing from stealing gems from wherever they saw them, including those obviously beyond their power level. One of Carvnen's Gemfinders had just left the lair of his master, having recently brought to him a shipment of harvested gems from a particularly rich vein that he had stumbled across in his travels.
This was a rare hunt, in that he had left he lair at the same time as another, much younger Gemfinder, and they had continued to travel together for their current hunt, even though they knew the master would not approve. The pair were little concerned, as the master would be too exhausted form his preparation of the latest of their kind to have the time to use his scrying magics to inquire of their whereabouts. It was not long into the second day's travel when the creatures heard a commotion up ahead of the passage that they were currently in, and the diminutive humanoids were both afraid and curiously interested at the same time.
The Gemfinder was among the first created by the wizard, and had since seen the passing of more than a couple of his kindred, most falling prey to the perils of the Underdark. The two decided to hide, once they figured out that the noise was coming ever towards them. They each found a crevice to slide into on opposite sides of the tunnel, and there sat as motionless as possible until the danger had passed. As the voices grew louder, the creatures grew more frightened, as the strength of the words held the venom of anger that is easily recognizable despite the fact that the Gemfinders could not understand the intruders tongue, nor any other language, for that matter.
As the voices passed the hidden Gemfinders, they saw first the slender figures that led, sharp blades barred, to be followed by the burly shape of a prisoner in chains, who was pulling with every ounce of his strength a cart, one obviously to large for a single man to be pulling, yet he did so, and the knots in his arms plainly visible left one to believe that he had done so for quite some time. The cart held something of particular interest to the Gemfinders, their passion and reason for existence, a cart filled to overflowing of a vast array of gemstones, freshly harvested from a now drained vein.
The sight of the creatures reason for existence drove them into a frenzy, one which could not be satisfied with anything less than acquiring some of the precious fruits. Almost as one, the Gemfinders attempted to sneak from behind the cart, plunging their hands into the cart, their hardened claws plainly audible as they scratched and rapped at the gems, which caused the dark-skinned captors to take immediate notice. They instantly set upon the two creatures, the first taking the head from one of the creatures in one fell swipe. The remaining Gemfinder was snapped back into reality at this site, and began to run as fast as his short legs would carry him. The nimble assassins decided that they would let the creature show them from where it had come.
* * * * *
The wizard was just beginning the incantation that would develop the creature in the cocoon one day further when he heard the frantic running sounds arriving to his cavern. As he turned to look, he simultaneously saw the source of the sound, his ill-fated Gemfinder, and its pursuer, two creatures of the wizard's own kind come to pay him a visit. His first thought was to direct a spell of power in his direction, but the remembrance of his current fatigue and exhaustion from his routine of spellcasting reminded him that he was no match for the creatures at the present time.
He began the workings of a spell that would take him away from this place, to a safe location. The dark-skinned assailants realized that the wizard was casting a spell, and dove for cover from the impending doom. When they recognized that the wizard had vanished, they arose from their hiding places, and looked around at the wizards quarters. They thought to themselves that this would be a good day, despite the fact that they could not track down the wizard, and above that had lost the creature that they had been chasing sometime while they were covering their heads. A quick survey of the room led them to begin to fill an empty cart of the wizard's belongings, which they would take to their rendezvous with the merchants from the surface.
The fey aggressors gathered everything that they found could be worth the slightest bit to the merchants that they would meet shortly, and then some. All manner of vials, tubes, and books, a few curious articles of clothing, and a large rock, carved within a dark rune of power. They would sell more than just gems, this day.
* * * * *
The pale-skinned envoys sat impatiently for their dark-skinned partners, who never failed to be tardy to their little meetings. This time was no exception. Here they had waited for two days for their shipment, and their patience was wearing thin. It was very dangerous here for the surface dwellers, who knew little in the ways of survival in such climes. The leader of this particular caravan, Bolgaar, a surly fellow who had been on this route numerous times, began to grow nervous at the delay. They had already made three of their four stops on this trip, and were nearly overloaded with valuables that they would trade on the surface. His men had begun to tire, and such a state was as good as a death wish in the Underdark. The caverns around them seemed more ominous still in the pitch silence, and it seemed that even the worms could be heard moving beneath the earth before anything else.
Suddenly he heard a commotion at the south end of the perimeter of his guard. Bolgaar rushed to the aid of his men, axe in hand, and as he approached he saw the cause of the concerns. His dark-skinned tradesmen had finally arrived. He handled the transaction smoothly, as a veteran of his trade is apt to do. He ended up paying less for the entire shipment of gems, plus an added cart of supposed wizard's goods for far less than he was prepared to spend on this day. He had even managed to have the shady traders throw in their beast of burden, a humanoid of similar racial stock as Bolgaar and the rest of his caravan. Overall, it was a feat that would certainly keep the smile on his face for days to come.
As soon as their treacherous trading partners had gone, Bolgaar unbound the chains that held their newly acquired prisoner, and gave him some clothes and a weapon, and gave him the option of staying on with his caravan or going on his own path. The prisoner stayed with the caravan, of course, as no one from the surface lands would wish upon their worst enemies to have to be alone in the Underdark, let alone to do it themselves. The newest addition to the caravan was grateful for the release from his captors, and swore loyalty to Bolgaar for three lifetimes.
As Bolgaar's crew reached close enough to the surface to reclaim a feeling of safety, they began to rummage through the goods they had collected along their travels, discarding in their cave of entrance anything that they felt would not sell well among the merchants of the surface, so as to lessen their load for the days of travels ahead of them. Bolgaar himself handled much of the appraising, studying each piece with a well-practiced eye. He lifted from the wagon a rock, nearly featureless if not for the gem protruding from its center. He pried the valuable little object from the rock, having seen little use for very cumbersome jewelry case. They lessened their load by nearly a full cart before they were again on their way, the large encrusted rock not least among the forgotten goods of this trip.
* * * * *
In the forest of Pashi there exists a well traveled path through a surface cave connecting the lands of the suns too those of the eternal night. Dwarven traders use the tunnels as a trading route. In a side pocket from the entry cave lies a huge rock, nearly as big around as a man clutching his knees to his chest as though it would protect him in some way as yet unforeseen.
The rock has lain here motionless and undisturbed for nearly three summers time, dismissed by travelers as insignificant. So little was it regarded, in fact, that the slow decomposition of the rock had gone unnoticed by all. The rock eventually gave way to a naked figure held within. After many failed attempts at developing some kinds of motor skills, the creature was finally able to move, and attempted to reach a standing position. The laborious task of standing for the first time behind him, the creature begins to observe himself. He holds his hands at arms length and began to look them up and down, while opening and closing his hands.
He pauses when he comes to his fingernails and begins to feel the urge to dig them into something, anything, and finally sates himself on digging into the dirt floor of the cave. His eyes widen as he sees the large hole that he has made almost effortlessly, and in even less time than he realizes. This seems to please the creature enough so that he continues his dig for a few minutes, until he has created a hole half as large as himself. He only stops because as the hole got deeper, he had to reach farther and farther into the hole, until it was deep enough that the amulet that hung from his neck swung forward and hit his face. This act caught his attention, immediately stopping to sit up and investigate the source of the sudden touch.
He fingers the amulet gingerly, and feels the holes that make up the lines of the symbol. It means nothing to him, however, the amulet does hold a faint shimmering quality, which attracts the figure. He releases the amulet in favor of the tattoo etched into his flesh. He fingers his chest and feels smoothness. Seeing that both the lines in the amulet and that of his chest were very close, the creature held the amulet to his chest. He proceeds to trace along the lines of each symbol with his finger. He makes a mental note of the differences, though the two marks mean little to him, and so he moves along down the dark passages of the caves.
Before leaving the small chamber, he takes note of the rock from which he had just sprung. Slowly, he walks around the larger pieces of the now broken rock, stopping only when he reaches a particularly large piece that bears the etchings of some sort of script, etched in to the side of a rock. He fingers the deep grooves in the rock and looks once again at the amulet, recognizing that the markings they bear are one and the same. His eyes fall away from the rock to survey the rest of his environment, which consisted of typical cave material. There is a small sliver of light far down the tunnel leading from this cave, a light that attracts his attention and causes him to move towards it.
Once in the mouth of the cave, simultaneously experiencing the pleasure of the warmth of the sun, and it's painful eye-searing light for the first time, he instinctively walks to a small forest a small way off to the side of the cave entrance. The forest would make for a good place to hide from the infernal light from the two great orbs in the sky. Having no destination, he begins to wander aimlessly through the forest.
After many hours of wandering the solitary figure comes upon a well-worn trail through the forest, one wide enough to all at once make him exited and curious, as well as fearful enough to seek the sides of the clearing for shelter. Up ahead there are many voices yelling. The travel pauses at the edge of the forest and watches with inquisitiveness. The commotion involves nearly two hands worth of men, bullying a less fortunate single man with a cart and horse. The eight men grab for items in the cart, causing the traveler to draw a sword in protest. The eight men react to this sudden threat and stab the man in the side. The traveler's rash actions had outweighed his better sense this time it seems.
One of the eight men takes the place of the now dead man on the horse, dumping the already forgotten body to the ground in the process. The aggressors leave, cart and horse towing behind, newly acquired possessions among their latest booty.
The figure in the forest waits for a long while before emerging from the forest. Deliberately, he walks towards the small man's body, lying motionless on the ground, and squats besides the corpse, prodding it with his hardened claws. After many minutes with no reaction, he begins to fall prey to a natural instinct of relieving the man of anything he found of interest, before he would wake and find his possessions stolen. He removes the clothes from the body and dons them himself, in the same manner that he sees that the man had worn them before him. Rummaging through the belongings that would not fit him, he finds a small bladed item, along with two shiny gold baubles in the man's shoe. Feeling that he had taken everything that he could from the man, the creature returns to the forest and continues his wanderings.
Two days passed before long, when, the creatures caught his first waves of hunger, a feeling he would no doubt learn very much about in short time. He frantically surveyed his surroundings, looking for anything that might appeal to him, eventually rising over a short hill, where he noticed the misshapen figure of a beast eating something that could only be described as smelling of putridity, of course that same description of the creature enjoying his meal. The creature would release various animal noises and grunts in between bites of his food, and words of his latest song he had thought up, or what one would call that. The noise was awful, and went as far as to hurt the traveler's small and as of yet unexposed ears. He watched and salivated as the hideously deformed humanoid ate, realizing that this would probably satisfy the pain in his stomach.
He waited until the mongrel-man walked away from hi morsel, to retrieve the nourishment of water from a small nearby spring. He quickly ran to the unguarded food and began to eat savagely, as any beast might when pangs of hunger are prevalent. So caught up in the act of sating his desires, the traveler failed to notice the return of the mongrel-man. The repulsive creature stopped in his tracks, and begins to yell at the intruder, first in rage, and then bewilderment, as he realizes that he has no idea what it is that he is looking upon, and the fact that a creature other than one of his kind could eat the refuse of food that his people had learned to love, was of higher interest than the loss of a single piece of food. His confusions made even more complete, when the intruder looks up at him with a blank look on his face, as if he did not understand that he had just been caught stealing another's food.
Eventually it dawned on the creature that the thief did not know the common tongue, and so began attempting to converse with the minute humanoid in a smattering of languages. The misshapen man pieced together words and phrases that he had picked up over the years, but none of them seemed to hold any meaning for the thief.
The mongrelman eventually settled on the idea that the thief must be some kind of mentally deficient, for it was obvious that he could hear, by the way that he reacted to the sound of his voice, but it seemed that he was incapable of comprehension of anything the beast attempted to say to the creature, nor did he cease in eating the mongrelman's food.
The twisted figure pointed at his chest, and said, 'I am Giork.' He then proceeded to point at the stranger, but the only reaction that he could get out of him was a quick shrug of the shoulders. No matter, thought the beast, I will know soon enough.
Giork was normally a very solitary figure, as most of his kind were, due mainly to their hideous appearance. Their looks had held many at more than arms length, but this one did not seem to mind his looks at all, almost as if he had not seen enough creatures to consider any of them ugly. This innocence intrigued Giork, who grew less and less angry at the theft by the minute, and he decided that he would learn what he could from the creature while it was in the area. He would accept the creature in his territory, for at least as long as the prospect of the stranger intrigues him. Giork began to offer the creature food at regular intervals, in order to keep him close enough to keep an eye on him. All of this contact was necessary so that Giork could teach him the common tongue.
Current Sketch: The two outcasts kept each other's company for a little over one year, and by this time, the two could speak well enough to each other to convey the majority of their thoughts. Giork had since learned that the stranger indeed was not aware of what his name was, or if he even had one. Eventually, Giork began to call him simply, 'The Traveler,' which seemed entirely appropriate to both of them. Giork never did find much information on The Traveler's origins during this time, for which he was terribly disappointed, but soon came to forget as he and The Traveler became steadfast friends. Giork had assumed that all of the answers to his questions would be learned once he taught The Traveler how to speak, but no answers were forthcoming. The time eventually came when Traveler felt he could remain stagnant no more, as the questions of his past began to burn in his mind, as it had Giork's for so long. Of this Giork understood, and wished The Traveler a good journey, and made him promise to return to him one day, answers or no.
Statistics:
Fiskan Gemfinder Thief
Age 86 Sex M AL Neutral Good Lvl1
Ht 3'3" Wt 87 HP 6 AC 7
Hair Red Eyes White
ST 9, DX 17, CN 10, IQ 11, WS 8, CH 9
Equipment: Dagger, White Tunic, Brown Pants, Belt, Belt Pouch (Small, x2), Dried Meat For Ten Meals, Dry Rations (3 Weeks), Backpack, Fishing Net,
Proficiencies: Weapon Proficiencies: Dagger, Wrestling Specialization
Non-Weapon Proficiencies: Mining, Gem Cutting, Appraisal, Natural Fighting
Special Abilities: PP 40%, DN 25%, HS 20%, MS 40%, OL 25%, F/RT 15%, CW 55%, TN 55%, Claws 1d4 damage, Infravision 90 feet, Detect Slope 5 of 6, Detect new tunnel / passage construction 5 of 6, Detect Unsafe Walls, Ceilings and Floors 7 of 10, Determine Approximate Depth Underground 3 of 6, 20% chance of failure when wielding magical device, -4 AC vs. Giant sized opponents, Gem Sense
Languages: Common
