Crustypeanut
2013-01-21, 09:44 AM
Belkzen Gorehands - the so-called 'reincarnated' legendary Orc Warlord-King Belkzen of the Black Sun Tribe. This is the NPC I'm working on creating.
The backstory I've mostly gotten down, and mainly I just need ideas/assistance coming up with how exactly to stat him, to be the final boss of a campaign that hopefully will allow the players to reach Level 20 before they meet him in combat.
Heres a quick* bit of how he became to be:
He was originally an Elf Paladin of Iomidae serving as one of the generals against the Demons of the Worldwound during one of the crusades in recent times. However, during his wars, he came to hate the demons and their worshipers due to the crimes they committed against innocents and his fellows time and time again. This hatred grew over the many years he fought, until one day (After an undecided event that shattered his faith), his hatred of them grew so great that he unwillingly went through the transformation of becoming a Drow. (As particularly hateful Elves can become Drow spontaneously) These two events broke him as a paladin, and he quickly fell from grace, and fled Mendev to the Worldwound, joining his previous enemies as an Antipaladin. He then redirected his hatred towards his former kin and comrades.
He failed in this, however, and had to flee the worldwound, heading through Ustalav and to the River Kingdoms. He was pursued and finally cut down, his body concecrated and burnt so he wouldn't return as an undead, and his weapon and armor destroyed so he doubly couldn't be raised as an undead. (in particular, they were worried about him becoming a Graveknight)
While this would appear to be his end, there was one thing that the paladins did not realize. His former squire, a relatively young, extremely naive despite the circumstances, female human (non-paladin, but virtuous in her own way), had secretly taken a piece of his corpse after they felled him. When he was a paladin, he loved her as the daughter he never had, despite her being human. She however, loved him in a different way that she was never able to show him. Despite his fall from grace, she loved him dearly and believed, if she could find a way to bring him back to life, that she could redeem him.
She took the piece of his body she had and was able to find a gnome druid who was willing to resurrect (reincarnate, technically) the elf. She did not tell the gnome of how he died or who exactly he was. This gnome loved life, and was all too willing to help resurrect the so-called lover of this virtuous woman. (She provided the necessary funds to pay for this spell, of course, as no matter how noble this druid, he can't reincarnate people willy-nilly out of his funds)
What neither of them expected, was that not only that the Elf reincarnated as an Orc, but that he would butcher the both of them with his bare hands, simply out of anger of his new form and his hatred of all non-demonic life.
Once he collected himself, he traveled west through Ustalav and to Belkzen, where he joined a currently-unnamed-orc tribe by passing a test to defeat a half-dozen of their warriors. (Again, with only his fists and not wearing any armor. Not in a monk-fashion, either, but by simply beating them senseless with brute strength) He then learned the ways of the Orcs and within a short period of time after joining the tribe, he challenged the Orc Chieftain and killed him in order to become the new chieftain. As was his growing trend, he used only his fists to beat the orc to near-death, then ripped out the chieftain's intestines so he could choke him to death with them.
Before this, he had yet to come up with a name for himself as an Orc. After learning quite a bit of the history of the orcs and finally becoming chieftain, he chose part of his name for himself - Belkzen. He claimed to be the reincarnated soul of the legendary orc hero. The tribe themselves started calling him "Gorehands" due to his new favored fighting style that caused his hands to be covered in gore when he was done. And thus, Belkzen Gorehands was 'born'.
From here, he lead his new tribe to glory, in particular against the knights of Lastwall and other orcs, claiming victory after victory. Compared to the orcs, he was a genius as well as being tremendously powerful. However, after raid after raid, he slowly ground his tribe to the earth with constant warfare. He never gave them the chance to recoup from their losses, even though their wealth grew with each raid. In time, nearly the entire tribe was wiped out, save for a small few hardened, extremely loyal individuals and the tribe's shaman. With this, he lead what was left of his tribe to Urgir, the 'capital' of Belkzen. Only the Shaman stayed behind, so he could perform final rites at tribe's ancestral home.
He never went to Urgir and rejoined his chieftain, however, as he was appalled at the chieftain's recklessness and slaughter of his own people through warfare. He went into self-imposed exile, and was forgotten about by the chieftain.
When he reached Urgir, Belkzen was able to bring forth numerous demons and staged a coup against the current king of Urgir, Grask Uldeth of the Empty Hand, ursurping him to become the new leader. At first, the orcs were suspect of him being the reincarnation of Belkzen, but he quickly began his reign of terror and with the assistance of demons, he became accepted as their new ruler. With this, he began a campaign of dominance against the orc tribes in the Hold of Belkzen, gathering them under his rule. Normally, this would be an all-but-impossible task, but he had made a bargain with a demon (Which one? Not sure) to gain the Abyss's aid and to become a demon himself.
Over time, he succeeded at gaining most of the orcs under his banner, while simulatenously using hordes of demon and orc slaves to build a massive defensive barrier in the south-eastern portion of the region, as he knew he would eventually grab the attention and ire of the Knights of Lastwall, and perhaps others.
It was during this period where he became more and more demonic, eventually becoming a full fledged unique demon and a Nascent Demon Lord, by offering countless orcs as sacrifices. However, he was able to keep his orc population high due to one major idea - instead of orcs in-fighting and constantly stemming their numbers, they were able to focus their need for violence towards massive arenas where violent bloodsheds happened on a daily basis using demons, slaves, criminals, and professional gladiators. This allowed them to wet their appetites without killing each other, causing their population to grow considerably, even when considering the sacrifices.
This is about where I am with his story.
*Not really
Anyhoo, I'm planning on him to be a level 20 Orc Antipaladin with various demonic traits that should bring his CR up to about 23-25, including a 25-point build and PC Level gear.
The Nascent Demon Lord bit is from the Book of the Damned, Vol. 2. It doesn't mention if the bonus abilities a demon gets from being a Nascent Demon Lord (various immunities and abilities), so I'm going to assume that he'll simply have various demonic abilities above and beyond his antipaladin abilities.
As for his portfolio, he's attempting becoming the Demon Lord of Orcs, Gore, Bloodshed, and Hatred. I need to choose what kind of boons he'll be able to offer as a Nascent Demon Lord, but those will mainly affect his followers (Mostly orcs, in particular the ones who aren't slaves).
I'm considering on making him a Half-Fiend to show his currently-incomplete transformation.. it would offer quite a few useful abilities due to his level.
As for gear, I'm oriented towards him using a modified suit of Demon Armor (+4 Full Plate that gives claw attacks), as he is now particularly fond of ripping people to shreds with his bare hands. This would be his iconic piece of gear, which not only provides protection, but allows him to perform his preferred fighting style easier.
For feats though, should I mainly focus on what feats he had originally (he was probably level ~15+ when he turned), then go from there, or would customizing his feats for his current form be too farfetched, saying that he could've retrained?
Also, for this one character, I'm not against dipping into 3.5 content for feats, weapons, or ideas. However, I haven't the faintest clue on what kinds of things may be useful from 3.5, as I'm mainly Pathfinder oriented.
Any suggestions?
The backstory I've mostly gotten down, and mainly I just need ideas/assistance coming up with how exactly to stat him, to be the final boss of a campaign that hopefully will allow the players to reach Level 20 before they meet him in combat.
Heres a quick* bit of how he became to be:
He was originally an Elf Paladin of Iomidae serving as one of the generals against the Demons of the Worldwound during one of the crusades in recent times. However, during his wars, he came to hate the demons and their worshipers due to the crimes they committed against innocents and his fellows time and time again. This hatred grew over the many years he fought, until one day (After an undecided event that shattered his faith), his hatred of them grew so great that he unwillingly went through the transformation of becoming a Drow. (As particularly hateful Elves can become Drow spontaneously) These two events broke him as a paladin, and he quickly fell from grace, and fled Mendev to the Worldwound, joining his previous enemies as an Antipaladin. He then redirected his hatred towards his former kin and comrades.
He failed in this, however, and had to flee the worldwound, heading through Ustalav and to the River Kingdoms. He was pursued and finally cut down, his body concecrated and burnt so he wouldn't return as an undead, and his weapon and armor destroyed so he doubly couldn't be raised as an undead. (in particular, they were worried about him becoming a Graveknight)
While this would appear to be his end, there was one thing that the paladins did not realize. His former squire, a relatively young, extremely naive despite the circumstances, female human (non-paladin, but virtuous in her own way), had secretly taken a piece of his corpse after they felled him. When he was a paladin, he loved her as the daughter he never had, despite her being human. She however, loved him in a different way that she was never able to show him. Despite his fall from grace, she loved him dearly and believed, if she could find a way to bring him back to life, that she could redeem him.
She took the piece of his body she had and was able to find a gnome druid who was willing to resurrect (reincarnate, technically) the elf. She did not tell the gnome of how he died or who exactly he was. This gnome loved life, and was all too willing to help resurrect the so-called lover of this virtuous woman. (She provided the necessary funds to pay for this spell, of course, as no matter how noble this druid, he can't reincarnate people willy-nilly out of his funds)
What neither of them expected, was that not only that the Elf reincarnated as an Orc, but that he would butcher the both of them with his bare hands, simply out of anger of his new form and his hatred of all non-demonic life.
Once he collected himself, he traveled west through Ustalav and to Belkzen, where he joined a currently-unnamed-orc tribe by passing a test to defeat a half-dozen of their warriors. (Again, with only his fists and not wearing any armor. Not in a monk-fashion, either, but by simply beating them senseless with brute strength) He then learned the ways of the Orcs and within a short period of time after joining the tribe, he challenged the Orc Chieftain and killed him in order to become the new chieftain. As was his growing trend, he used only his fists to beat the orc to near-death, then ripped out the chieftain's intestines so he could choke him to death with them.
Before this, he had yet to come up with a name for himself as an Orc. After learning quite a bit of the history of the orcs and finally becoming chieftain, he chose part of his name for himself - Belkzen. He claimed to be the reincarnated soul of the legendary orc hero. The tribe themselves started calling him "Gorehands" due to his new favored fighting style that caused his hands to be covered in gore when he was done. And thus, Belkzen Gorehands was 'born'.
From here, he lead his new tribe to glory, in particular against the knights of Lastwall and other orcs, claiming victory after victory. Compared to the orcs, he was a genius as well as being tremendously powerful. However, after raid after raid, he slowly ground his tribe to the earth with constant warfare. He never gave them the chance to recoup from their losses, even though their wealth grew with each raid. In time, nearly the entire tribe was wiped out, save for a small few hardened, extremely loyal individuals and the tribe's shaman. With this, he lead what was left of his tribe to Urgir, the 'capital' of Belkzen. Only the Shaman stayed behind, so he could perform final rites at tribe's ancestral home.
He never went to Urgir and rejoined his chieftain, however, as he was appalled at the chieftain's recklessness and slaughter of his own people through warfare. He went into self-imposed exile, and was forgotten about by the chieftain.
When he reached Urgir, Belkzen was able to bring forth numerous demons and staged a coup against the current king of Urgir, Grask Uldeth of the Empty Hand, ursurping him to become the new leader. At first, the orcs were suspect of him being the reincarnation of Belkzen, but he quickly began his reign of terror and with the assistance of demons, he became accepted as their new ruler. With this, he began a campaign of dominance against the orc tribes in the Hold of Belkzen, gathering them under his rule. Normally, this would be an all-but-impossible task, but he had made a bargain with a demon (Which one? Not sure) to gain the Abyss's aid and to become a demon himself.
Over time, he succeeded at gaining most of the orcs under his banner, while simulatenously using hordes of demon and orc slaves to build a massive defensive barrier in the south-eastern portion of the region, as he knew he would eventually grab the attention and ire of the Knights of Lastwall, and perhaps others.
It was during this period where he became more and more demonic, eventually becoming a full fledged unique demon and a Nascent Demon Lord, by offering countless orcs as sacrifices. However, he was able to keep his orc population high due to one major idea - instead of orcs in-fighting and constantly stemming their numbers, they were able to focus their need for violence towards massive arenas where violent bloodsheds happened on a daily basis using demons, slaves, criminals, and professional gladiators. This allowed them to wet their appetites without killing each other, causing their population to grow considerably, even when considering the sacrifices.
This is about where I am with his story.
*Not really
Anyhoo, I'm planning on him to be a level 20 Orc Antipaladin with various demonic traits that should bring his CR up to about 23-25, including a 25-point build and PC Level gear.
The Nascent Demon Lord bit is from the Book of the Damned, Vol. 2. It doesn't mention if the bonus abilities a demon gets from being a Nascent Demon Lord (various immunities and abilities), so I'm going to assume that he'll simply have various demonic abilities above and beyond his antipaladin abilities.
As for his portfolio, he's attempting becoming the Demon Lord of Orcs, Gore, Bloodshed, and Hatred. I need to choose what kind of boons he'll be able to offer as a Nascent Demon Lord, but those will mainly affect his followers (Mostly orcs, in particular the ones who aren't slaves).
I'm considering on making him a Half-Fiend to show his currently-incomplete transformation.. it would offer quite a few useful abilities due to his level.
As for gear, I'm oriented towards him using a modified suit of Demon Armor (+4 Full Plate that gives claw attacks), as he is now particularly fond of ripping people to shreds with his bare hands. This would be his iconic piece of gear, which not only provides protection, but allows him to perform his preferred fighting style easier.
For feats though, should I mainly focus on what feats he had originally (he was probably level ~15+ when he turned), then go from there, or would customizing his feats for his current form be too farfetched, saying that he could've retrained?
Also, for this one character, I'm not against dipping into 3.5 content for feats, weapons, or ideas. However, I haven't the faintest clue on what kinds of things may be useful from 3.5, as I'm mainly Pathfinder oriented.
Any suggestions?