Gadurk.txt

Gadurk Nightforge is the son of the war hero Burne Firebrandt and the renegade orcish priestess Ruonu Nightforge. Married in secret and running away to the farmlands in central Elios, the two settled down and had two children; the closer-to-human Ganotir and the much more orcish Gadurk. The difference between the two brothers is almost night and day. Gadurk was bigger, stronger, and when they were younger, Gadurk was the more ferocious. However, since entering adulthood, Gadurk has become more pensive and introverted. Despite his appearance and orc heritage, he was like any other boy. He worked the fields with his parents in the early morning and most of the day, went to school in the afternoon, prayed, and slept at dark. What made him different were his large size, pale skin, tusks, pointed ears, and ornery disposition.

His peers feared him because of these factors, condemning his early years to isolation. He never had a lot of friends growing up and tended to lash out when someone tried getting close to him. This lasted until he turned fourteen years old when he reached adulthood. At that age, he would become part of the local monastery’s clergy. He practiced holy texts and performing his duties in the monastery; such as tending to the elderly and the sick, reading holy scrolls and books from saints and priests of the past, preach and teach the way of the Gods of Man, and teach people the tales and lessons of the Gods. He felt, for once in his life, he had direction and something to live for. He often describes this time as "it was like a thick, grey fog was lifted and [he] could finally see the sun." It's an apt description, since his entire attitude seemed to turn a one-eighty over the course of his time as a young priest.

He wasn't trusted as a priest at first, most worrying that the orcish boy would inadvertently bring the taint of Chaos in to the monastery. Gadurk pushed himself to prove them wrong, becoming almost evangelistic in his pursuit of breaking this stereotype forced upon him. For five long years, he preached and healed and studied with all his mortal strength. To some people, he did prove himself a worthy priest. But there were still others who distrusted the half-orc boy. At first, this knowledge saddened him; he couldn't prove to anyone that he was a true follower of the Gods of Man or Lady Elina. For a spell, he fell melancholy and depressed. Though, after being picked up by family and monastery faithful, the light returned to his life and he accepted the fact he can't please everyone (though that doesn't mean he shouldn't try to.)

When he was eighteen, he was chosen among all the priests and priestesses to be a missionary. Becoming a missionary in the Monastery of Lady Elina means abandoning his homeland and wandering the lands of Evermore until he is either slain or given a blessing from a saint. For his journey, he was given a weapon, a shield, some supplies, holy books, a bag of Imperial Riels, a set of armor created by monastery blacksmiths, and a horse. But most important of the items he was given was a Monastery Seal, the sigil of his monastery for use when Gadurk finds other monasteries and fellow preachers as proof of his faith and mission.

On the night of mission, he said a tearful goodbye to his family and rode off in to the full moon. Five years after that night, he has grown in to a warrior-cleric of Lady Elina, taking his role in stride. He writes letters to his family, sent through the Imperial Postal System whenever he finds a Postage Center in a town or city when he finds them. For the past half decade, he has helped and healed people, slayed beasts besieging innocent towns across the continent of Elios, and even meeting royalty; such as the exiled King of the Dwarves, King Thugnar the Brave. Though he rides alone, Gadurk has gained allies and friends along his travels. Such as the beautiful half-elf rogue, Tylmae Winterwinds and fellow follower of Lady Elina, human Paladin Ruskin Stormgaze. People who know of him, call him Gadurk the Gentle or Gadurk the Healer because of his gentle disposition and proficiency with healing magic and miracles. Gadurk, to this day, holds true to his faith and to his mission, being a messenger of mercy on the face of Evermore.

Gadurk stands at 6'6" and weighs an impressive 340lbs of muscle. He has long, curly dark brown hair that extends to the nape of neck and kicks out to the sides at the bottom. His skin is a pale grayish color, inheriting this from his mother's pale orc blood. His ears are long and pointed with a slight droop and a noticeable curve upwards, much like a pig's ear. His jaw is squared, adorned with coarse hair in an average looking beard. His eyes are large and round, with a deep sapphire blue color to his irises. Elongated canines jut out from his bottom lip like tusks, accentuating his orcish heritage. His shoulders are broad; his body adorned with defined muscle. Hair adorns his chest in a vaguely bird shaped formation; he also has hair on his forearms and legs.

A special ability he has from his mother’s side is the ability to see up to sixty feet in the dark. The orcish ability of “Darkvision” has proved most helpful whenever he has to ride through pitch black nights or decides to go adventuring in caves to save runaway cats and stop Chaos cults. He’s also has near superhuman durability, being able to withstand prolonged physical trauma on par with ferocious pit fights. Due to being a cleric, he has healing magic which can be channeled through the use of talismans and chimes. He can heal deep wounds given the time and concentration, however, in the heat of battle, he can only heal superficial, shallow wounds. He can also dull pain and incite battle fury in his party as well as use it on himself.

An ability he has learned to suppress, however, is the primal orc ferocity he has in his blood.  When in this state, he becomes nearly completely numb to pain and his strength increases tenfold. As a trade-off, he loses his mind, becoming beast-like in his rage. Through meditation and prayer, he’s buried this urge deep in his mind, keeping the “beast” in the darkest corners of his mind. But, when he slips, even for a moment, and when the beast is unleashed, those whom have seen it describe it as nothing less than frightening. Only twice has this happened, once when he was young and another one on a quest to save a young girl from orc slavers. When he was a boy, no older than ten-years-old, he lashed out violently against a group of boys who were throwing rocks at him, taunting him for being born with orc blood in his veins. He was stopped from killing the boys by a teacher who was going out to check on the students. Gadurk was heavily reprimanded following the violent altercation.

The second time was when he was twenty-years-old, two years in to his mission. He was aiding a small town at the time and was sent on a quest to recover a girl who was kidnapped by orc slavers. Gadurk and the town’s champions, Herc Whitestone and Terrence Dullember, went off in to the forest where the orcs had set up camp according to scouts. When they stumbled across the camp and led an attack against the orcs, Gadurk was knocked off his horse and hit in the head with the broad side of a greatax. This caused him to black out and the beast was unleashed in his mentally lapsed state. When he finally came to, it was day time, the orcs had been completely ripped apart, the girl had been saved, and he had a knife sticking out of his shoulder. When he returned to town, the twin champions filled him in on what had happened. After being taken care of, he promised never to return to the town he had helped.

Before becoming his monastery’s missionary, he honed his combat abilities with his father at a young age after expressing an interest in joining the military, his father made his schedule more military-like; involving rigid exercise in the early morning and combat practice. The combat practice focused on sword-and-shield style combat, with blocking, thrusting, slashing, and parrying being large parts in such style of combat. He was also taught wrestling and boxing techniques during this time. This continued until he became part of the monastery clergy, which would eventually swallow up all of his free time. However, eight years of regimenting is hard to break and he made sure to keep up his training despite losing his will to join the Empire’s army.

Gadurk isn’t afraid of much, though he does have a very particular phobia. He’s deathly afraid of lizards. Despite not having any particularly bad experiences with lizards of any type, the things trigger terror in the boy something fierce. Such a phobia has led to misconceptions between him and the race of humanoid lizard-like people called Geckoneans, with allegations of racism. Though no geckoneans truly buy his explanation, it is the truth. Also due to this phobia, he’s deathly afraid of dragons, perhaps more so than the average man.

Gadurk is bilingual, able to speak in the tongues of man as well as in the language of orcs, which has saved his life on more than one occasion. He also has a tattoo, one on his back; a banner made to look like aged parchment paper with his family’s motto written upon it, “Gods be with Us.” He’s able to lift two hundred and thirty pounds over his head and push more than a ton. He’s also quite fast; he can sprint for a short time at speeds of nearly twenty feet per hour.