Your most developed character

[atemu1234]

I rather like in-depth characters, ones that have deep, meaningful, and story-and-character-development important backstories. So I'd like to hear about yours.

[Doc_Maynot]

Adolamin Swordhand, Son of the Knight-Defender of Glavomanon, Dreamwalker, Vampire Hunter, Dragon Slayer, Inventor of NASCAR*, Former Chair of the Neverwinter Gentlemen's Association**, Standing Member of the Tower of Stars, Rider of the Great Worm and the Twister of the Orcish Deserts, Exile of the Druid Priests, Factotum

He's my longest ran character, a Human Factotum that comes from a small village named Glavomanon. His father Horril Swordhand is a Knight-Defender that insists on Adolamin following his footsteps, and that only the knight's way is what's best for him. Adolamin left in his youth and went exploring and learning from the peoples of the world.
The non-setting specific ones are as follows:
The Wizards of the Far Coast which he was expelled from after sneaking into the forbidden section of a library to learn a bit of dark magic. (The fluff behind why he casts as SLAs)
The Druid-Priests who worship the Dragons, he was exiled after dissecting a still born dragon to find out how they are able to fly as such huge lumbering beasts and how they breath elements. (Opportunistic Piety)
And then he settles with the (Ŝtelita) Theives' Guild, which he does so well in he stays for quite some years and is eventually one of the people in charge. After some time in it however he realizes that he still hasn't proven his father wrong and that he abandoned his quest, so he leaves the guild and the city in the night and begins at this point.

In his time of running him I've played him one of two ways Either Factotum/Chameleon or straight Factotum.
He's still in the campaign I first invented him in, but he's also been in a few others.
One, he joined as a new member of the Tower of The Stars Neverwinter Branch, in which his first mission, along with a Beast Man Initiator (I don't ask for information I wouldn't know in character, so I have no clue what he was), a Human Sha'ir (he always announced that he was "Sha'ir of the Sands") and a Grey Elf Wizard, was to figure out what attacked a nearby village and bring an end to it in defense of Neverwinter.
There was a lone survivor who remembered the incident and was in a crazed state constantly having nightmares about that night.
So I did what any sensible Factotum would do, ask the beastman politely to knock me and the man out so I could enter his dreams and find out what. All I could see was that it was a being with incredible regenerating powers. So Adolamin instantly came to the assumption of a troll or troll blooded creature.
It later turned out to be a Troll-Blooded Vampire Frenzied Berserker (I should mention the group was about level 10 when we stumbled across and fought this thing, IT HAD EPIC FEATS) The wizard, the sha'ir, and I put the lockdown on this thing while the beastman kept swinging at it (Which I packrat-ed Trollsbane for).
We followed the thing to it's coffin after it gastrous formed away, due to me scrying it.
We got there, and I had to packrat a wooden stake (which didn't work) I ended up chopping off it's head and stuffing it into a sack. Which our totally not evil wizard boss made sure to dispose of.
And that's how he got the title Vampire Slayer

I have a little story for almost every title Adolamin has, which he always says the whole thing (except the game/setting specific ones) when introducing himself for the first time.

*NASCAR, Neverwinter Area Sport Carriage Accociate Racing. Totally not a Tax Scam.
**The name for the Thieves Guild, under Adolamin they did some charity work to the poorer districts to look for recruits and to look like a reputable association so they wouldn't be looked at so closely.

[Kazudo]

Zerick, the First Time Mage

Which is all a title, really. I hate to be that guy, but he actually had long forgotten his own name. In the game world, the DM had homebrewed a property called "Permanency" which only SOUNDS like the spell. Realistically, it's a property that is primarily given to artifacts and magical items to avoid the Highlander Clause* via time travel. Basically in all of time and space there is only ever one of the Permanent artifact or magical item. If you went back in time to where the artifact was a thousand years ago, you'd never find it, since its current state is a thousand years in the future. Likewise, if you went to the future a thousand years where the artifact will be, it'll never be there since its current state is a thousand years in the past.

We also used a form of time travel that, for 99.99% of the universe was Read-Only.

Then there was Zerick. Due to some epic-level wizardry and plot shenanigans, he had a problem with temporal stability. Sometimes, mid sentence, he and whoever wore a ring with his mark on it would blip through time to somewhere/when/how else. At one point, he found the character (my Avatar's namesake) who was a master blacksmith (another character at the table) who had the ability to smelt down magical items and pour their magical abilities into other forms. He could take, for example, a Holy Avenger and make it into a greataxe. Which is a really big deal and also a huge slopping wet pile of homebrew. Anyway, it worked. We're epic level, who cares about the nitpickery. The other characters show up but it's been ages since we've played that particular group. Can't recall the details. At any rate, at some point Zerick, Kazudo, and the other three party members managed to royally piss off the God of Time. So at this point the God actually smote Zerick with Permanence. This caused a huge temporal rift which basically hard restarted the game (and got my character sheet taken away. I was cool with it, less headache this way).

Then we played the game of "hunt Zerick down because you all worship the God of Time". It turns out that due to a trick of fate, Zerick was the only person in all of creation who could edit the time stream, and he was doing it to get something or other accomplished. It pretty much was described as the world's "reset button": The Black Beast, a giant formless pitch-black truly-evil ooze that, when summoned, would engulf the world and destroy all but the highest mountaintops.** It was pretty bad, but I was impressed that the character was THAT important and capable. We inevitably managed to hunt down the remaining party and corner Zerick in time for him to blip out in front of us, leaving us to deal with the Black Beast. Which we couldn't do.

Then we graduated and left. Sigh.

*THERE CAN ONLY BE OOOOOOOONE
** I hadn't played Blazblue until much later.

[Sir Grave]

The thing about highly developed characters is that they're a bit tricky to explain, and while I will certainly do my best to make this short and sweet, I may not succeed. This is the tale of Sir Grave 'ir Wyrmslayer, in which I chose my username.

Sir Grave ‘ir Wyrmslayer [LG Human Saint (Augmented Outsider) Paladin 6/ Fighter 2/ Citadel Elite 2/ Vassal of Bahamut 1(CR 13)] (D&D 3.5/Pathfinder Eberron campaign setting)

This character started off as a Brelish soldier serving under Bulwark during the last war. In his first battle, he almost died at the hands of a hobgoblin cleric. Knowing his end was near, he looked at the sun one last time... and he swore he saw a silver dragon glistening above. Then he felt a new strength in him, smiting his enemy down.

After the war, he became a devout servant of Dol Arrah. He was also the son of the High Marshall of Sharn, and after the events of Tower of the Black Pearl, he joined the King's Citadel and recieved an ancestral relic from his father: Wyrmslayer, a longsword from ancient times. Soon after, he and his party were sent to investigate the Elissar Vale for the Red Hand of Doom campaign (Elissar Vale was just west of new cyre in our game.)

The Red Hand campaign was where Grave shined the most. He realized that his sword was a dragonbane and a fiercebane weapon, making it a powerful tool against evil dragonkind, which they dealt with regularly in the Elissar Vale. Later, he was ordered to secure an alliance with a Lich known as the Ghostlord. At first, he was going to follow orders, until his near death experience with the half-fiendish behir. After cutting himself out of the bellly of the beast, he prayed hard... and realized that an alliance with the lich could not be done.

He destroyed the lich, forsaking his loyalty to the Brelish Crown and to his father for only a few moments. This sacrifice was deemed worthy of the gods, and he became a Saint. Now bear in mind: there are few paladins on Khorvaire to begin with. But Saints are even fewer, even unheard of.

This sparked new questions for Grave. After the Battle for Brindol, he prayed to Dol Arrah hoping to find answers. Then, another entered the church, hearing of Grave's exploits. He said to him "Have you ever played the game in which you tell a story, and then that story is passed to another, and then another, until it is told back to you, but the story is completly different?" He then revealed that he was a dragon, and that the true name of Dol Arrah was Bahamut. This was obviously not the answers Grave was expecting.

Throughout the rest of the campaign, Grave struggled with this newfound revelation. Accepting that the gods that he prayed to were once dragons was not an easy concept to grasp. In Tiamat's realm, where Azarr Kul awaited them, it was fully realized.

That particular game was put on the back burner, however, I had planned after the whole Red Hand thing was wrapped up, I would take Vrath Keep and turn it into a monastary for Bahamut, and start an order of knights. Later on in the game (say around 15th level) Grave would not only sacrifice his ties to the crown, but give up his humanity in order to be reborn as a Dragonborn of Bahamut.

Hope it wasn't too long winded. If so, I'm terribly sorry.

[atemu1234]

Mine was actually an NPC I created and used to take part in the group for a while. It was an Angel (not a celestial. I homebrewed it.) His was a race created by a god as servants, that went through several wars. Unfortunately, his breed of angel couldn't properly "die". They would return, same as they were, every seven years. The wars were literally between law and chaos, and he was charged, as the last neutral (neutral good) angel to kill every one of the warring angels that should "die". To do this he was given a scythe capable of this. And thus, he came to be hated by his people. All in all, kind of a DMPC, and a really bad one, at that. But I liked it. Now a librarian in a dwarven city.

[PraxisVetli]

Rain, my LE Monk/Assassin Vampire moon elf. She was my baby, the third character I ever played.
She was the apprentice of the master of her guild, the White Lotus (cliche as all getout, I know). She was a death-dealing machine, switching between dual Chakrams and her guisari-Kama.
Eventually I should go and replay her as a Swordsage/Telflammar....

[RedMage125]

I DM, mostly, so most of my PC concepts end up NPCs in my world.

Soldrin Teken'rae my very first character concept for 3.0 when it was new. He was a drow monk, Lawful Evil, and a devotee of Vhaeraun. Never got to actually play him, though :smallfrown:.
As an NPC: He's a Monk11/Assassin9. He's still LE. He keeps his word on contracts, once he's bought, he stays bought. And for a cover business, he runs a magic item shop, the Woven Web, in the city of Val Lumina (the City of Light, which is the center of magical learning in my world). None of his neighbors know he is a drow, although the party eventually figured it out, and he was the one they went to to sell drow gear when they appropriated it from fallen drow. Incidentaly, he is onvolved in one sort of selfless endeavor. He helps drow who are dissatisfied with the rule of Lolth's priestesses escape the Underdark. He's made an uneasy truce with the followers of Eilistraee, and they've got this town they've founded, Elisana (means "children of darkness" in drow). Elisana is fairly isolated, it's on the other side of the Silverflow (a geographical region consisting of lots of hilly country and a warren of riverways), which is largely halfling territory. The town has a good number of drow and half-drow, as well as some tolerant members of other races (usually halflings and humans). The town has a rule that forbids fighting between the Eilistraeans and the Vhaeraunites, as well as forbidding attempted religious conversion of anyone who has declared their faith to be one or the other. Soldrin himself had 2 half-drow daughters with a human woman he used to adventure with when he was younger. One of my PCs made a half-drow shadowdancer, and she was Soldrin's granddaughter.

Clain Windsong Elf Bard. I've only played him to about level 6 or so, but he's a hoot. He's Chaotic Neutral. His lifelong goal is to write one of the best heroic epics ever. He loves to adventure with Good-aligned people, not because he has any personal interest in helping others or dedication to what's "right", but because stories about great heroes who save the day make better stories. Thus, when the princess is kidnapped, he's one of the first to volunteer, not because he cares one bit about helping the king or the princess, but because it sounds exciting. His thirst for excitement and adventure sometimes gets him in trouble. He occasionally steals things, he makes free with other men's wives, he cheats at dice (in game, not me cheating my dice rolls at the table), and he certainly doesn't fight fair if he can help it.
As an NPC: Clain's getting up there in years for an elf. In my world, I use the old 2e lifespans, which is about 900-1000 years. He's around 400 or so now, and he's unusually...fertile for an elf. He's left a slew of illegitimate children over his 4 centuries of life, and he's really not all that concerned about it. "No one writes epic ballads about responsible fathers who stayed at home and raised their children" is what he would say. If you counted up all his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great grandchildren (he is 400 years old), Clain's descendants account for close to 5% of the half-elf population of my world. I've had a few PCs be half-elves, and decide to be Windsongs, just for kicks. One of them, a paladin, even met Clain at one point. His sole response was "You're a paladin? Sounds kind of stuffy and boring".

Now to my favorite...
Tessrel Moonshadow True Neutral Sun Elf Wizard. That name is, of course, the Common translation of his name, which is a mouthful of soft syllables that most humans have trouble with. He was played in Forgotten Realms, where he eventually made it up to a Wizard (General Specialist) 5/Incantatrix 10/Archmage 3. When he was level 1, he had come from a society that was exclusively elven (grew up in Evermeet). He was extremely ethnocentric, believing elves to be superior to all other races. At times this was grating on his party members, but his arcane superiority could not be denied. As he adventured with more and more diverse peoples, he came to see how much other races had to offer. Human ingenuity, in particular, impressed him greatly. Their ability to quickly think outside the box was nearly alien to the long-lived elf, and eventully(by level 12 or so), all traces of his racist attitudes had faded. He was part of an adventuring party that, during the Elven reconstruction of Myth Drannor, entered the ancient school of magic, and made peace with Darcassian, the ancient elven headmaster who had merged his consciousness with the school itself. After foiling a plot by the Shadovar to use an ancient elven artifact (essentially a Nether Scroll) to try and destroy the Weave (accidentally blowing up the Sharn Wall in the process), Tessrel retired to Myth Drannor, to assist renovating the school of magic, and making more keys to the wards so that the school could re-open, with himself and Darcassian as the acting heads of the school.