Aramil Din'Ravaniel
Aramil's Character Sheet here
- Race:
- Elf
- Class:
- Ranger
History
I was raised as the second son of house Din’Ravaniel. My home, as it was, was not part of any large elven city, it was simply a tree top mansion in what the nearby humans call the Harken Forest. My father, the head of the household, and a mage of no small power, had the house built as a marital home close to two centuries ago. Living there was my younger brother Kelsen, fascinated by the magical arts, and favored by my father. My dearest mother and my darling twin sisters, only infants at the time. My mother’s father in his constant travel would often visit us and recount tales of times long gone. While he was at the home he would also teach me the ways of the bow, it was he that first led me to becoming a ranger.
One tragic night while my grandfather and I were away tracking down a nearby band of goblins that were starting to make trouble in the forest, my wonderful home was attacked by creatures most vile. I was first alerted to the attack by the smell of smoke in the forest, I immediately knew something was wrong. I ran as quickly toward my home as I could only to see it already consumed by flame, the bodies of my father and brother maimed burned and broken on the forest floor far below one of the balconies. Neither my grandfather or myself could find any trace of my mother or sisters, but we did find a single weapon of black steel that immediately pitted and burned away in the early morning light.
We spent two days trying to track down the fiends that destroyed my home and killed my family. We rarely found any trace of them, either they were very skilled at not leaving a trail of their flight was assisted by magic. On the third day our pursuit finally led us to a small cave where their footprints count them at about twelve with three prisoners. They dragged the still struggling prisoners nearly a mile to the back of the cave where all three were brutally tortured and murdered, a sacrifice to some foul god.
From there the trail led to the far back wall of the cave where it would appear that one by one they somehow slipped through a crack barely the width of my thumb.
My grandfather and I spent days in that cave trying to find some way down after them but the stone they slipped thru seemed all but impenetrable. Exhausted with bloody hands our chase of the killers was defeated, and my family was not avenged.
After a month or so of wandering, trying hopelessly to find a cave that could reach down to the bowels of the earth to where those monsters fled, our minds and feet returned us home, spirits broken, and lifeless. After a few days of salvaging all that we could from my family’s home, and it wasn’t much, we picked up the trail of goblins again. It was the same band that had been causing trouble over a month before, and had pulled us away from our loved ones in their time of need.
We came down on their encampment with a hail of arrows and all the fury of our torn hearts. Before a single goblin even spotted their elven assailants nearly a score of the group was dead or dying. My grandfather was the first one spotted, I think he wanted them to see him, when they started charging he did not retreat to a more advantageous position, as he had taught me, he simply drew blades and charged through their numbers like a hurricane of death. I saw nothing but murderous fury in his eyes.
Having finally spotted an attacker the goblins turned on him in full force, not caring about the arrows coming from the trees, they charged him stabbing slicing and biting. I did all I could to cover him but he was still rapidly taking on serious wounds amongst the nicks and scrapes from the savage goblin onslaught.
After what seemed like hours the host of goblins were broken. Out of what had been a tribe of one hundred less than a dozen survived. I found my grandfather nearly a quarter mile away, his wounds were too much for any man to endure let alone one his age.
That week I buried my entire family next to a burnt out tree that used to be my home. Then I left my family's home into the woods where I grew up.
Journal
The other day I came upon an elderly woman in black robes carrying a huge scythe searching for her horse. After speaking with her for only moments it was obvious that she was painfully senile and quite lost.
It took two days, much convincing, and a horse to get Myrna to come with me to the nearest human town. Fallcrest was only a days travel by foot and after only four days on the road we had nearly made it there.
In the midst of one of Myrna's many senile episodes we witnessed several adventurers in the cemetery doing battle with an undead uprising. Myrna got a sudden fire in her eyes and sudden clarity came over her mind. She began screaming about the unliving and ran off towards the cemetery, so of course not wanting any more deaths I followed.
The undead were quickly dispatched and Myrna and I were greeted by the strangest group of adventurers I have ever seen. A pair of human females in armor a human wizard and a demonic looking warlock and, and the oddest thing of all was that they seemed to have a goblin pet fighting for them that they had taught a bit of magic to.
Since meeting this crew we have been to a keep full of undead several times, apparently they were contracted to clear it of its evil denizens and map the entire thing, the wizard was killed and resurrected, only to be replaced by a dragonling paladin.
This group seems to be entirely overcautious, we slew one of the clerics that were creating all of these undead, and this was immediately after returning to Fallcrest to resupply. And they wish to rest again to be more prepared for the fight ahead with Kalarel, the Orcus death priest that seems to be running this whole place. The goblin, the draconic paladin and the old woman stayed behind in Fallcrest because they feel we are ill prepared to fight this death priest. I was more than happy to continue on with the women the eldarin and the teifling, whats the worst that this fragile old man can throw at us?
Well that went as well as could be expected. We defeated Kalarel, the death priest, after a long and bitter fight.all of his cronies are dead and he was dragged screaming into the abyss by orcus himself. No one came out of the battle unscathed, the human druid apparently lost all heart for battle and adventure, and has decided to retire from adventuring for now. It seems like a decent idea but i really dont have much else to live for, and being constantly so close to death just makes you feel so Alive!
The human druid is officially retired and we have some person from the plane of shadow to replace her. she seems.. honorable but she seems to see us all as weak or somehow un prepared. she was amazed however that while travelling from one town to another we were only attacked once, and that it was only one troll. We made it to fellcrest fine and caught wind of a mage and goblin heading to thunderspire, more accurately the seven pillared hall. Seems like we have the next location at wich we might dance with death.
On the way into the thunderspire we caught a band of the bloodreavers trying to capture a lone halfling as a slave, the were quickly killed and the last one standing dropped his weapon and surrendered! we dragged him along to the seven pillared hall and glory in mind took him back to his 'superiors' and offered to sell him back to them. They didnt like that too much and a little scuffle broke out, next thing i know a couple mages pop into the room and start blasting everything in sight. Nobody was left standing and i was dragged back to the halflings mothers inn to recuperate from a couple of mage blasts.
Day two in the seven pillared hall and everyone went to the local curio shop and struck a deal with the owner for a great deal on his wares. Using the blodreavers as a cover i coerced Yulef in to heading to the hall of eyes in search of a pack of hyenas. Cant wait to get that cloak. Well looks like were moving again, the first room was just a few goblins and a bugbear. barely a warmup.
Cleared out about half of the Hall of Eyes, mostly nothing here, a couple of goblins that made bows out of what had to semed to be a bit of string from their pockets and wet clay, alog with an equally motley crew. Found a hidden door in what has to be a cooking area of some sort, leads to some sort of audience chamber seemingly full of the leaders of this place. Arranged to flank and ambush, will continue if we survive, days like this are what I live for.
Point of note… don’t stand toe to toe with a wizard while wielding a bow. Man that celing hurt, not nearly as much as the floor though, well we survived and cleared the place out, guess theres no more Bloodreavers in this area, still no sign of those dogs.
One of the humans chained to the floor in the audience chamber are still alive and is coming with us, all of his gear was in the storage room in the back of the Hall, as well as a nice wealth of treasure. Apparently only to be split between five not seven, Millinia and Nobody are gonna head back to the surface, cant really blame them im getting kinda sick of not being able to see more than 30’ at a time.
Got a note in there pointing to this Murkelmore person as the buyer of the riverdown slaves (friends of the halfling and his kin). Should head after them next, whats one more dead dwarf?
Heading back to the Seven Pillared Hall I kept my eyes open for those dogs but theres no sign of them.. gonna have to have a talk with that black skinned elf.
Apparently those dogs spread all over the place they may have gone to some huge underchamber, but they may also be in the horned hold, home of Murklemore. Yulef is also heading out to the surface, he was smart enough to get his cut from the Hall of Eyes first. And we all Finally got the bright idea of exchanging our gold for gems, must be at least 40 stones lighter now!
Finally heading the right way to the horned hold, never take directions from duregar, hairy bastards tried leading us to a kolbold pit. Maybe I should give him his bosses beard as a ‘list of supplies’.
On the way to the horned hold there was some self proclaimed king of this area that demanded we bow to him and his ragtag followers to pass… ridiculous dwarfs. I wonder if this is what happens to your mind when you spend too much time away from the sunlight, I've noticed that my skin is getting paler and the smell of deep earth is almost natural to me now.. maybe soon i will start licking rocks as a form of communication, or even sprout a beard and braid it down my chest!
We arrive at the Great Mighty Horned Hold, apparently the backdoor, 'guarded' by some orcs and an ogre. They kindly left the door unlocked and distracted themselves with cards, they were all slaughtered. But not before alerting the people in the next room.
Continuing through there was a second room of duregar and Demons! First time in my life seeing a demon and they arent really what I thought they would be, deadly for sure but no where near as terrifying as I thought they would be. My hopes raced as I noticed the large pits in the room, maybe I had finally found those dogs!
A great battle was fought demons destroyed and only one of the duregar taken prisoner, but to my dismay the only things in the pits were slaves, the Riverdown slaves but still.. Don’t think were gonna get cash for em. One pit was fried by a duregar during the fight and only half of those slaves lived but the other two pits were fine if a bit shaken. For some reason the paladin spared one of the duregar and we're taking him prisoner.
Paletshi and I decided we were the best choice to bring the slaves back to the Seven Pillared Hall as Paletshi is most familiar with caves and I seem to be most handy with making would be attackers dead. I hope they don’t clear the place out before we get back…
This map is Wonderful! Led us right to a dead end where we were bottled in by the wild dogs I was looking for! Tried feeding the duregar prisoner to the dogs as a peace offering, didn't work too well. But now I have five dogs bound, muzzled and unconscious to be taken back to Gendar. Hopefully I can use the four extra dogs for a little discount on my new cloak. Immediately after we finished tying up the dogs Baranor came jogging up behind, telling us that the group forged ahead in the dungeon and got into a vicious battle with the ruler of the Horned hold… Jerks.
Went to Gendar's place n got my new cloak, I don't see any difference but Baranor complains it makes his eyes hurt when i lead so i guess that's good. Met a few more adventurers in town, theyre interested in helpin' clear out the Horned Hold too so were all heading back soon as everyones ready. Taking another three hour hike back to the hold, hope there's still loot to be gained.
The crew that stayed behind after killin' off old Murklemore got ambushed while sleeping in his throne room… Idiots. They snuck out and seem to be fine. Looks like the new guards figured out how to lock the back door, luckily we brought a skeleton key shaped like a really big axe! Guards slaughtered again.
Moved through the Hold killing any resistance left, the druid we picked up threw some duregar off a bridge, I think I'm in love. Found that Scepter Gendar was looking for too, as well as two more slaves with info on where the rest of their buddies are, Some place called the Well of Demons.. Swell.
- Stats Block:
Aramil: Level 6 Ranger; STR: 16, CON: 14, DEX: 20, INT: 10, WIS: 17, CHA: 10; Speed: 7, Initiative: +14; Defenses: AC: 20, Fort: 19, Ref: 21, Will: 18; Max HP: 51; Race Features: Fey Origin, Group Awareness, Wild Step, Elven Accuracy; Class Features: Defensive Mobility, Prime Shot, Hunters Quarry; FEATS: Lethal Hunter, Weapon Focus Bow, Quick Draw, Improved Initiative; POWERS: At Will: Hit and Run, Twin Strike; Encounter: Elven Accuracy, Fox's Cunning, Disruptive Strike; Daily: Split the Tree, Close Combat Shot; Utility: Hunters Privilege, Evade Ambush
Wish List: :
Sureshot Gloves ignores targets cover with ranged attacks
Eagle Eye Goggles +1 bonus to ranged attacks