Need a character background written up?

[Tawmis]

Hello, I've got two real live characters for a campaign that I will be playing alongside my other half. Would it be possible to write backgrounds for them and maybe also incorporate how they met and became friends? It's a bit town mouse and country mouse!

Ander Blackthorn
Race: Half-elf
Gender: Male
Class: Celestial warlock
Background: Urban bounty hunter

Personality: Always has a plan for when things go wrong; prefers to make a new friend rather than a new enemy
Ideal: Protects those who can't protect themselves
Bond: Someone he loved died because of a mistake he made
Flaw: It's not stealing if he needs it more than others

Notes: Grew up on the streets, and hardly even remembers his parents. Highly gregarious, but was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and nearly killed. Found by his patron and attracted their attention. Somehow managed to make a pact. Spent the next few years learning magic from them, and now works as a bounty hunter going after the worst criminals when they are pointed out by his patron. Will lie, cheat and steal if infiltrating an organisation of bad guys, which can exasperate his patron, but it recognises that he is doing it for the greater good and overall they've grown quite fond of each other.

Questions: What nearly got him killed? How/why did he attract the attention of his patron and why wasn't he simply healed and left?

So I had totally forgot when I wrote Tana's backstory that it was supposed to tie in with this one!
But - fear not! I was easily able to recover from my mistake by adding some fun spice to this one...
And yet again, tying it all to the Tawmis-Verse! How does his origin help lead to meeting up with Tana? I left that part open - but left the reason they'd meet up very obvious!
Just as before this one ties to Tolfan Folkor's story as well! But it also re-introduces a character made for Krusk Bonesmasher's backstory! What do a Half-Elf and Kobold have in common? You're about to find out!
As always looking for feedback - what you liked, didn't like, loved, hated, what works and what didn't!
Enjoy!
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Usually my kind doesn’t know either their mother or their father. Me? I grew up knowing neither of them and being forced to live on the streets of Waterdeep. My name is Ander Blackthorn and my life has not turned out the way I thought it would…

As I said, I grew up on the streets of the Southern Ward of Waterdeep where the “undesirables” were shuffled off to. When you take the unwanted pieces of society and cage them all in one section; there’s no need for the poor to steal from the poor, so what happens is a foundation is built where we begin to rely on one another and form a loosely formed “family” that goes beyond blood. We cover for one another when we steal from the rich or the foolish who happen to stumble into the Southern Ward.

I formed “The Dire Wolves” – a loosely knit group of loners like myself who helped one another with food, clothing, and basic day to day survival. Some of us found menial jobs throughout Waterdeep, such as shoveling stables, gardening, as well as cooks and cleaners for various establishments. We would bring whatever scraps we could muster for one another; feeding the children and elderly first and foremost.

The name “The Dire Wolves” was a bit of a spin on irony. The dire portion of the name was from our dire need to survive; while the wolves was a reference to the idea of the lone wolf and the idea that we had all become a pack.

My closest friend was a Tiefling named Tayven. He was far more reckless with his behavior than I cared for, but he was the one that has stuck with me throughout my life; the very first friend I made in Waterdeep and one of my earliest memories. Tayven believed that the poor were to be robbed from and that’s why the gods had given them money; to have it taken and learn humility.

He’d never hurt anyone during his robberies since his Tiefling appearance could be frightening enough when he ignited his eyes and spread open his wings with his mouth lined with large fangs.

Tayven and I used to laugh how we were both “cross-bred mutts” whose parents didn’t want either of us.

When we were both twenty-one, we took a job protecting a caravan heading south to Dragonspear Castle to deliver weapons, rations and supplies to the guards of Dragonspear Castle who kept watch over the portals located in the castle. I had been the one to convince Tayven to accept the job with me; though Tayven thought I had every intention of seizing control of the caravan wagons to use for The Dire Wolves. I had to spend nearly an hour convincing Tayven that we were not going to rob the caravan. The caravan was headed for guards who kept the land safe. That was off limits.

This is where things took that drastic turn I’d mentioned.

The caravan had been traveling south, having just passed Daggerford after a few nights on the road, making its bumpy way down the Trade Way. Just as we neared the Misty Forest, orcs launched an attack from the western side of the road.

I immediately recognized the symbols they wore – the Red Eye Orc Clan. I knew them from Grumthar in the Southern Ward. His mother had been raped by one of the Orcs and somehow managed to survive the torture she faced at their hands, including branding their symbol on her back as if she were nothing more than a breeding animal to them.

I fumbled for my weapon but an arrow struck me in the shoulder just as I was drawing my sword (which, admittedly was more for show; I never expected to use it and was certainly not trained to use one). I fell off the wagon clutching my shoulder. Tayven saw me fall and jumped in front of me as three Red Eye Orcs jumped on the wagon. The look in their eyes was crazed beyond anything I’d ever seen; and I’ve seen some people in the Southern Ward on various spices that drugged them out of their mind. These Orcs had that look, only mixed with an insatiable blood thirst that burned in their eyes like a searing Phoenix.

I watched as one jumped from the wagon and brought their sword cutting deep into Tayven’s shoulder. He screamed in pain as blood sprayed my face, still prone on the floor. Another orc jumped down and ran his blade through Tayven’s stomach while the third one jumped down and decapitated him. I stared in horror around me as my best friend’s body slumped to the floor. All around me the other caravan guards were dead and dying. Fear took over from there and I did what any sane person would have done, living with the shame of my actions later – I ran.

I ran fearfully and blindly directly into the Misty Forest. Branches slapped and scratched at me, vines seemed to try to trip me up, but I never stopped running, holding up my arms to protect my face and eyes from being clawed out by the very woods that seemed to push against me.

I finally reached a clearing and stopped dead in my tracks.

The sensation that gripped me in the clearing was not only one of sheer, mystical power, but one of peace as well. Everything else that had just happened seemed to wash away from me. I could remember the events still; my best friend killed trying to defend me. But the sadness and the worry and the pain, all of it was gone.

Then they came bursting into the clearing behind me. The Red Eye Orcs had pursued me into the Misty Forest. Several of them looked hesitant, but the one in front was too far crazed to feel what everyone else felt. He salivated, his eyes wide and focused solely on me. He twirled his axe playfully, which was drenched in blood.

I wanted to run but I felt like there was nowhere safer than where I was right now.

That’s when I saw something that I swear was not there a moment ago.

A Unicorn. But this was no ordinary Unicorn. I’d never seen one before; few people have. But a normal Unicorn while remarkable to see was simply a magical horse with a horn on its head. There was something more to this Unicorn. The magic seeping from its body was electrical so that my hair was standing up. It was so pure I felt ashamed in its presence barely able to breathe.

Its eyes were so blue that it defied any shade or color of blue I’d ever seen before and its mane seemed to be made of flowing strands of silver.

The Orcs looked at each other; the idea of killing a prized Unicorn blinded them to what they were facing. As they led the charge, forgetting about me, there was a blinding flash. It took a moment to recover my senses but the Unicorn was still standing in the same spot it was before, but the six orcs who had given chase were all dead where they had been standing a moment ago.

“Why have you brought evil into my woods?” I heard a voice in my head, echoing with such purity it sounded as if the angels were singing.

“I apologize,” I said aloud, turning to face the Unicorn. “I had no intention of bringing this evil into your woods. I was assisting a caravan when the orcs attacked. They killed everyone; including my best friend.”

“I sense that pain inside of you,” it whispered inside my head. “You were paid to protect a caravan and you fled?”

“I am not a skilled swordsman,” I confessed. “I’ve lived my life below the poverty level doing what I could to get by.”

“I sense purity of intention in your heart when I gaze into your past,” the voice said. After a brief pause, as if flipping through the pages of my soul, it added, “What if I gave you the power to make a difference?” the voice asked. “You will never have to run again.”

“How?” I asked.

“You have no family I can see in your past,” the Unicorn whispered in my mind. “No one will come looking for you. The Red Eye Orcs grow bolder every day and I cannot leave these woods. I need someone to keep an eye on them and destroy them when needed.”

“Destroy them?” I shook my head frantically. “Maybe you didn’t hear me when I said I ran away and my best friend died?”

“That’s because you, as you said so yourself, are not a skilled swordsman,” the Unicorn spoke directly into my mind. “There is magic in you, perhaps because of your mother’s side.”

“Was she the elf blood in me?” I asked, having no memory of my mother or father.

“No, she was human, your father was an Elf, a Wizard,” the Unicorn explained.

“You know my parents?” I asked, puzzled.

“I have peered into your past and know everything about you,” the Unicorn stated matter-of-factly.

“Everything?” I asked.

“Everything,” the Unicorn repeated.

“Well that’s a little embarrassing,” I muttered to myself.

“That’s the impulse from your mother’s side,” the Unicorn explained.

I shook and cleared my head of my thoughts. “So there’s magic in me?” I stared at my fingertips. “I don’t feel any magic.”

“Your father being a wizard, he was around it all of the time, and it’s a part of who you are. You never had the opportunity to learn it. I can be the one to teach you. Become my eyes and my weapon for the land beyond the woods.”

I accepted the Unicorn’s offer – and with a blinding light I learned his name, Truestrike.

The Unicorn showed me how to manipulate magic and explained that I was bound to it. Any pain I felt, Truestrike would feel as well, as a part of the connection our souls now shared. That bond also allowed me to glimpse into Truestrike’s own past and I could see that he embodied the energy and powers of the Unicorns scattered throughout the land and that he was a Celestial being, which explained the energy I felt originally.

Truestrike sent me out after some training to take down various rising leaders of the Red Eye clan. I had effectively become a bounty hunter. It started with the Red Eye clan but expanded to bandits and even poachers.

One day, Truestrike appeared, looking uncomfortable and for the first time, agitated. “I have a new task for you. You must find a Forest Gnome by the name of Tolfan Folkor. It would seem that he has insulted a Queen in the Feywild and her emotional anger is wreaking havoc in the Feywild and it is spilling out into the mortal plane as she continues to send Fey who are entirely too chaotic to be here. Find this Forest Gnome and bring him to me alive, so that I can take him back to the Feywild and have him face trial against Queen Eliysa Deerrunner.”


As always tell me what you like, didn't like,