Help Adding Character to Goblin Shapeshifter

[Maat Mons]

I'm building a character on short notice for a Symbaroum session. Here's what I've got.



Wamba

old goblin woman
stooped and bowed with age
moves slowly
leans heavily on walking stick

cloak with hood pulled over face
features disfigured with animalistic characteristics
compact form and withered appearance belies surprising strength

can speak with animals
can transform into animals

lived as hermit in woods
has son named Chumba
tried to raise him to revere nature
instead he left to live in city

has begun having visions of Chumba dying
underground room
jewel-encrusted skull on pedestal
men in crazed delirium slaying one another
Chumba among them

has ventured to city to find Chamba and avert this fate



Does anyone have ides for fleshing out her personality/backstory?

Some things I'm having trouble deciding on:
What did she do before she became a hermit?
Why did she become a hermit?
Who is Chumba's father?
Why hasn't he been around Chumba's whole life?



I'm planning to have her attempt to converse with every animal that comes close. And maybe not tell the other players that she has the supernatural ability to talk to animals. See how long I can keep them thinking she has dementia.

I also plan to have her be very standoffish to non-animals.

[Duff]

Chumba's father was a travelling bard. He traded fathering Chumba for help he needed - maybe getting a curse lifted or illness cured (illness might be for a person, place or animal or could be for self)?
He then travelled on.
The inherited wanderlust was part of what sent Chumba "looking for his father" though really that was mostly an excuse.

Wamba's family were always a bit odd. Their home was on the edge of the village. Well, actually, a bit past the edge really.
When catastrophe came (invaders? disease? the farmland wore out and it was time to move on?) She stayed behind when the survivors from the village moved on. She used her skills to encourage the forest to take back the former village lands

[Pauly]

Well obviously if she gets knocked down she gets up again. She’s in nature because she doesn’t get knocked down by others so often.

The father was a one night stand. She had a vodka drink, a whiskey drink a lager drink and a cider drink and therefore has no memory of it.

Has a fondness for singing to the animals, songs that remind her of the good times, songs that remind her of the bad times.

[Monsterpoodle]

What are her quirks? Does she talk to herself? Is she afraid of mirrors? Does she flirt (shudder) with travelkers.?
Was she always a goblin?
Maybe she was always a druid but got reincarnated as a goblin. Maybe she had her son before she got reincarnated and her son is an elf. Obviously being a goblin when she was once a beatiful elf disgusts her which is why she hides in the woods or in her cracked and damaged mind she is still that beautiful elf maid.
Maybe sbe has been in the woids so long she is agoraphobic and is terrified of crossing the open spaces she needs to.

Maybe she was swayed by a charming bard to betray her village and hides to avoid the survivors finding her but now she needs the help of the other goblins.

[Maat Mons]

I hadn't considered that Wamba might have conceived Chumba just because she wanted a child, and not out of any deep feelings for his father. That's an interesting direction to take things.



Thinking more about the timeline, Chumba is an adult, which for a gobloin in this setting means he's at least 10 years old. And Wamba is elderly, which for a goblin in this setting means she's at least 20.

Conversely, Chumba is nowhere near being elderly, which means he's quite a ways from 20. And Wamba is alive, which for a goblin in this setting means she's probably quite a ways from 30.

So, actually, she might have conceived Chumba shortly after becoming an adult, and that could have been around the same time she began living in the woods as a hermit.

Alternately, she could have left goblin society as an adolescent, say at the age of 5. And then she could have spent 10 years in the wilderness before conceiving Chamba close to the time when a goblin woman ceases to be fertile (I'm guessing, like, 15, but the book doesn't say). That would mean she'd be at least 25 now, which is pretty darn old for a goblin in this setting, but not unreasonably so.



Well, there's plenty of disaster to go around in this setting. Nowhere is safe. Also, 21 years ago, a human kingdom from the south migrated here and absorbed/subjugated the local barbarian clans (humans) and goblin tribe.



If she get's knocked down, she really does get up again. When shapechanged, she regenerates 1d4 hp per round. She doesn't revert to her natural form when unconscious/asleep/dying (in fact, it takes a directed effort of will to transform back). And there's no negative HP, so this will always restore her to at least 1 hp. The only way she can die is to roll a natural 20 (1d20 roll under system) on her death check, which is a 1 in 400 chance because she has a boon that lets her roll twice and take the better result. Most people could also die by accumulating 3 failures on checks, but only one of those is made per round, and her regeneration guarantees she'll never be in the dying state for longer than a round.



She has the burdens Bestial, Elderly, Nightmares, and Slow. I'm also playing her as senile, just for fun.

Thus far, she greats strangers fondly, likes making people tea, doesn't bat an eyelash when a vague acquaintance gets stabbed to death right in front of her, doesn't hesitate to risk her life because she doesn't expect to be around much longer anyway, and prattles on about "young love" whenever the subject arises.

She regards herself as friends with a giant glowing spider monster that injected her with venom last session. It's web is full of goblin corpses.



She was always a goblin. This setting doesn't have any form of magic that brings the dead back to life.



A minor revision to what I said in the earlier post. She knows that Chumba is dead (he was always going to be dead, but I was previously thinking that she would believe he was still alive). Her nightmares of his death stem from a vivid description of events relayed to her by a bird friend who she had following him around to keep tabs on him. (Previously, the nightmare was a sort of vision.) She seeks answers regarding the strange artifact that caused his demise, and maybe revenge, if she can find someone to take revenge on.



As of right now, she has taken a job with a group exploring ruins that are believed to have been the source of the artifact. They haven't quite gotten into the ruins yet, but virtually everyone who was sent to explore them has died horribly. That's pretty normal for anyone who ventures anywhere in this setting. She'll probably be able to explore within the tomb next session though, unless the giant glowing spider monster isn't trustworthy, and letting it inject its venom in her turns out to have been a mistake.