Characters

Stelmach the Mage, a male halfling

You were born Stelmach Bonwhackitt, outside of Pittsburgh, in the once-thriving coastal community of Very Long Beach. Your town was made up of various fisherman, tradesman, millworkers and shopkeepers. The main reason that the town was so successful was its prime location on the road to Pittsburgh. Your parents were honest, decent folk, who owned a grocery store in town, and you were their only son. Growing up, you helped out in the store as much as you could, but you always felt that growing up to be a shopkeeper just wouldn't suit you. This was a big world, and there was much to see beyond Very Long Beach. You had the traveling bug.

None of your halfling friends, however, seemed to understand what was so important. One of your best friends, Schmitty, would often say, "Whadd'r ya talking about? We got everything you could want here! Good food, places to hang out, the beach. Whadd'r ya gonna find out there? Orcs or somethin'? You can count me out!" But you still wanted to know what you were missing. What exactly did the world have to offer you?

Well, you got your chance, but not in the coming-of-age, teary, whole-town-waving-goodbye way you expected. You were twelve at the time, when 'The Decree' came down from the capital of the empire, East Lansing. Apparently the Grand High Pooh-bah at the time, Hammerhan, felt that the interests of the Kingdom would better be served by changing the course of the main route between Ypsilanti and Pittsburgh to be about a league further inland, passing through the Barony of Pixel, rather than your coastal town. You don't even think that the town elders had a chance to argue with the Pooh-bah. One day, you were told that the road would be changed.

It wasn't long before you saw a drastic change in not only your town, but in the townsfolk themselves. Humans and halflings alike became depressed. Few children played anymore. The happy-go-lucky fishermen now returned from a day of work glum and morose, heading straight for the bar. It seemed as if when the money line was cut off from your town, the joy was as well. You thought that this was a shame. These were good people. They certainly didn't deserve this fate. "That bastard Hammerhan!" you said to Schmitty one day. "Can't he see what he has done? Doesn't he care?"

Soon after the mills closed, your father sat you down and had a talk with you. "Son, I know you have a lot of friends here, and that you care about them very much. But your mother and I have decided that we can't keep our store here. We have to close up and move away. Now, you are thirteen and can make your own decision. We'll probably end up in a small town that certainly won't have much to offer you. And I know that you have this desire to travel. So if you choose not to come with us, we will understand."

You loved your parents very much, but your dad was right. Another town like this one was would be nice, friendly, and homey, but it certainly wouldn't cure your traveling bug. As a good-luck token, your dad gave you the family heirloom, the Bonwhackitt half-pipe. "Smoke it in good health", he said.

You decided to start off in Pittsburgh. Now, you had only been to the big city once, and it was when you were much younger, but you remembered it being immense, with tall, sparkling buildings and people everywhere. On the way there you stopped in another coastal town, Pawtjef. The Pooh-bah's stupid new law obviously didn't hamper this place, based upon the busy townsfolk and travelers milling about. Then you saw the road coming down from the north. You must be in the outskirts of the Barony of Pixel, you thought.

You entered a tavern and spent some of the money your parents had given you on a small meal. As you ate, you overheard a halfling and a dwarf who were sitting at the bar, having an interesting conversation.

"Listen, Louie", said the dwarf, "I don't care how long you've known that Baron's cousin, that Baron Pixel is still a jerk."

"Now hold on there, Baltaks", replied Louie, the halfling, "dat guy helped me out a couple a times, once when I was in deep foo-boo. I owes him."

"I don't care who you owes, Louie", said Baltaks the Dwarf, harshly, "I'm not helping that Baron one bit. First, he goes on and on bragging about how he's buddy-buddy with the Pooh-bah, and then he starts gloating about how he robbed those poor villagers by getting the Pooh-bah to move the road. No way, Louie, I'm not wasting any of my time helping out someone like that. Besides, Perigar says that we can't waste any more time. We need to get to Pittsburgh and catch the very next passage to Bremen."

You didn't know where Bremen was, but it sounded a long way away. It sounded like these two were heading to this Bremen place with a couple of others on some kind of adventure. It sounded exciting, but way too dangerous for you. At least there were others who felt the way you did about Baron Pixel and the Pooh-bah.

The next morning arrived and as you headed out towards the main road out of town, you saw the dwarf and halfling again, this time with two humans. You were quite concerned about the safety of the road and took a chance.

"Excuse me, Mr. Baltaks?" you said to the dwarf.

"That's Baltak. What?" he replied with a look of suspicion in his eye.

"Mr. Baltak... My name is Stelmach and I couldn't help but notice that you're traveling to Pittsburgh today", you said.

"And what if we are?" replied the dwarf.

"Well", you began, "I'd really consider it an honor to travel with you, just to Pittsburgh. I have my own food and a small knife if there's trouble."

The dwarf, with his great helmet of horns and large axe looked as your pathetic knife and puny arms and chuckled. "Hold on a second, kid", he said and wandered over to where the other three were. He came back shortly. "All right, kid, but you better let me carry your shovel. I do all the digging in this group."

The travel to Pittsburgh was short, but enjoyable. Baltak the Dwarf introduced you to Louie Bentfoot, the halfling you had seen in the bar, and the two humans, a cleric named Secros and an older man by the name of Perigar Adanac. They seemed nice enough, and told you that they would be heading far to the south to find some sword. When you arrived in Pittsburgh you bid them farewell and wished them luck in their quest.

Arriving in the big city, you found that it wasn't quite as big as you had remembered. You found some work as an errand boy down at the docks. You wanted to help out more with the actually loading and unloading, but you were just way too weak. They had you delivering messages and such, and you became fairly friendly with some of the dockworkers, but it was really a dead end kind of job.

There happened to be a carnival passing through Pittsburgh and you saw a posting on a pole that read 'Traveling magician seeks assistant for act. Ask for The Magnificent Marzak at the large blue tent'. Now, you had heard that all circus performers were thieves, traveling gypsies with nothing on their minds but fleecing innocent people out their hard-earned money. But this posting intrigued you. You had always thought you might be a good magician. Maybe this Marzak could teach you a spell or two.

You talked with this Marzak, a rather tall human with a very low voice and a mysteriously long moustache. He asked you a few questions about magic. You really didn't know much about it, but you must have said something intelligent, because 'The Magnificent' agreed to take you on. At first, learning the ropes of circus life, as well as your parts of Marzak's act, was much more difficult than you could have imagined. Everything moved so quickly, you didn't think you could ever get your hands to move that fast. Soon enough, you learned that it wasn't a matter of moving anything faster, just a matter of moving it to make it appear faster. This was also very difficult, however. Then, one day, Marzak approached you.

"Stelmach", he began. "You've learned a lot so far, your fingers are nimble and your mind is sharp, and I think you're ready to move on to bigger things. I'd like you to help me with my disappearing coins in the bag trick."

Now everyone knew about this trick. It was his closer, and his most famous. He had his assistant pass a small leather bag around in the audience. Each person inspected the bag and then dropped a copper piece into it. Then Marzak sealed the bag, said a few magic words, re-opened the bag and the money was gone. He then had his assistant pass the bag around again, and indeed, there were no holes, and no money. You didn't know how he did it, and neither did anyone else. Then he let you in on the secret. Marzak indeed created a hole in the bag that dropped the coins into a small pouch beneath the table. He then needed an apprentice who could cast a spell that could reseal the hole that he had made, while he was taking it to the audience. Marzak now sat you down to teach you that spell, Mending.

The study was fairly brief, you seemed to pick it up quickly and in no time you were successfully casting the spell and helping to close Marzak's act. It was pretty cool. This magic stuff was great. Over the next few months you learned a couple of cantrips here and there, but unfortunately, there wasn't much more magic that Marzak could teach you. Almost all of his tricks were slight of hand.

"Real magicians try to use magic as little as possible", he said.

Due to your newfound interest in magic and despite Marzak's remarks you decided to leave the circus and set out to find a reputable mage who was looking for an apprentice. The next stop on the circus route happened to be Pittsburgh again. The yearly route was complete. Surely you could find a teacher here. It was a sad goodbye from the friends you met there, but you knew that the future held much more for you.

Unfortunately, finding a reputable mage wasn't as easy as you had hoped. All of the good ones had far too many students already, and those that were available to teach you didn't have any students already for good reason. You started to run out of money.

Then, things changed abruptly as you met some halflings who wound up almost getting you in a lot of trouble. Their names were Starskey and Dutch and somehow they duped you into trying to help them steal a golden necklace from this old mansion. You were convinced that the mansion, and the necklace, belonged to a greedy tax baron who had swindled poor Starskey's mom out of it. It turned out, however to be just some poor old human lady that you were robbing, and after the two of them maliciously hit the feeble woman over the head with a vase, knocking her out, you demanded that they drop the necklace and help the woman. The next thing you knew you were being chased down a dark alley with two knife-wielding thieves on your tail. You tried to hide, something you were usually good at, but these two had sharp eyes. You were getting tired, and lost. You decided to go where they hopefully wouldn't follow, into the sewers.

Well, you ran and ran through the sewers, and eventually, you thought you were alone. Although your infravision wasn't too good there was some ambient light down here, but you weren't going to touch the glowing moss. You tried to find a way back up, but the going was difficult. A small ledge kept you out of the muck for the most part, but in some places it was broken or even just missing. Then you hit a dead end and went to turn back, but thought you heard voices. The halflings! You were trapped! You tried to think of a cantrip or spell to cast at them when they came, but you had nothing blast-able. You looked around and saw some crisscrossing chains on the ground, and about six inches under it was a hole, filled with not-so-mucky water, and some kind of tube leading downwards. Now, you were a pretty good swimmer and you could hold your breath, but you were never going to squeeze through those chains. Then you looked closer and saw that a few of the links were broken. Maybe you could fit. It was difficult, but you squeezed past and dropped into the water. Just then, you heard the halflings start running towards you. They must have heard your splash, and they could probably get through the chains as well. Then you remembered your favorite spell, and soon, a key link in the chain was Mended back together. You took a deep breath and as you dropped into the underwater tube you looked up to see two figures clawing helplessly at the chains above you and poking their daggers into the water.

You resurfaced in the corner of a room, half filled with this watery muck. It was ruined and extremely old, but it looked like part of an old temple of some kind. You swam to some higher ground and took a look around. This was weird place. It seemed to have been devoted to either a god of traveling, a god of music or a god of rats, you weren't sure which, but there certainly were quite a lot of rats around. You managed to light a torch to keep some of them away and after a long search, found some hidden passageways which led back to the main sewers. Now it seemed as if you were under the good part of town. The filth here had a more stately, regal 'air'. You made it up a shaft and into somebody's bathroom. Luckily, the tenants were not around and you slipped out, tracking filth through the whole place. Back home, after two human merchants chastised you for your smell and appearance, you took a really long shower.

In the off chance that those two were still looking for you, you decided to get out of town for a while. You decided to head to East Lansing. There had to be mages there to learn from.

East Lansing. Capital of the known world. Seat of the most powerful Council in the lands. Home of the Great Hunt and anything else this great world had to offer. You sought out the mage's guild and applied for an apprentice's license. Then you put your name on several interview lists. Eventually, you got an appointment with Jenkins the Arch-Mage. Now, you had heard of him, of course, who hadn't? He was perhaps the most powerful mage in the Kingdom. Everyone knew how he slew ten dragons with only handful of spells and brought the mighty gargoyle legions from the south to their knees in the border wars. You put on your best 'serious student' look.

Again, your approach must have worked because a week later you found yourself in the library of the great Arch-Mage Jenkins, pouring through some textbooks he had given you. After some generic magic teachings, he sat you down to teach you about your first spell. You were very excited.

"Stelmach", Jenkins began, "magic is about power. It is about calling forth the energies that surround us, shaping it to suit our needs, and blasting it out upon our enemies. The most basic of these spells is called Magic Missile. This spell is the life-blood of a mage. Without it, you are nothing."

So you sat down to learn the holy spell, but you just didn't get it. It wasn't like that Mending spell Marzak taught you. The flow was foreign to you. Eventually, after trying very hard, harder than at anytime when you had tried to learn something before, you realized that Magic Missile was beyond your grasp.

"Can't learn it!" yelled Jenkins when you told him. "What do you mean can't learn it! It's the most basic spell! I've seen 35 year-old elves that can cast this spell! If you can't cast Magic Missile then you might as well be a... a... a hedge wizard! Forget it, Stelmach. It's nothing personal, but I can't teach you. I guess you just weren't cut out to be a mage. I'm sorry."

And with that, Jenkins the Arch-Mage dropped you as a student. You were crushed. You didn't exactly know what a 'hedge wizard' was, but you were sure that it wasn't a good thing to be. You resigned yourself to the fact that you would never be a mage, and left East Lansing. You had to find out what you would be.

You decided to head north, perhaps to the city of Whippany. You had heard that the surrounding lands were quite beautiful. You were on the fringes of the Stuntylands, a vast hilly region to the east, which was populated by gnomes. You had heard that East Lansing was at war with the gnomes, but had never seen any signs of conflict. In fact, a number of gnomes that you passed along the way were quite friendly.

After a while, at a time when you felt that you should be nearing Whippany, you realized that you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. You were on the edge of a great swamp. You skirted the edge of the swamp for a while, but realized you were running low on food. That's when you came upon a house, beautiful and well kept, strange that it was so near the swamp, but it looked so inviting. You knocked on the door. A beautiful halfling woman answered. Now, you knew there weren't many halflings in this part of the world, let alone a lone woman living near a swamp. But she was so pretty, so pretty, so pretty...

The next thing you knew, you were tied up in a pot of water that was getting very hot, very quickly. The beautiful woman was now an old hag and the lovely house was no more than a hovel.

"Well, well, my little friend", the hag began, "it's a shame that you haven't eaten more on your travels. I prefer a little meat on my bones, and it's been quite a while since I had good halfling. But I guess scrawny will have to do. Oh, well, it's nothing that a good dose of seasoning can't fix. You know, back when I was with the Gehenge Coven I was known as 'Warty Spice'. The sisters always would say 'no dish is tastier than the Thrice Basted Gnome of Selma Haggyhair'". She cackled loudly and dipped her spotty hand once again into the thin jar.

"Bam!" she yelled, as she threw another dash of some foul dust all over you.

Fortunately for you, although Selma Haggyhair was supposedly great at seasoning her prospective meals, she wasn't very adept at tying knots. You managed to slip free and leap out of the pot, surprising the hag and knocking her to the ground. Then, you picked up a rather large cookbook (entitled 'How to cook forty Halflings') and gave the witch a tap to the head, which fortunately was enough to knock her unconscious due to the sheer weight of the book, which fell from your hands. You went to run away, but then worried that she might come after you. You looked around, and quickly found both of the items you were looking for. You grabbed the witch's spellbook and broom and took off. She probably would have a hard time catching you without these, you thought. You tried to break the broom over your knee, but couldn't (you were just way too weak), and eventually you threw it into a river. The spellbook, however, you kept.

You followed the river downstream, and eventually found your way to Whippany, lugging the spellbook the whole way. Once there, you got a job at a local tavern named Isaac's Bar, as a busboy. Maybe you could get into the restaurant business. This bar was peculiar due to a large black block lodged in one wall of the place. The story was that a wizard named Isaac brought a large chunk of this stuff, called Vodkasium Martinium, to this world thinking that he could do something with it. Well, he couldn't. This bar was built around the other 'bar' and now this place was pretty popular.

You spent your spare time reading through the witch's spellbook. Many of the spells in here much simpler than that spell Jenkins tried to teach you, and some were pretty cool. You especially liked Ventriloquism. Well, maybe you couldn't be a proper mage, but being able to cast a few spells surely wouldn't hurt.

Soon it was time for the Great Hunt 97, the event that would decide who the Grand High Pooh-bah and Splendiferously Excellent Council members would be for the next seven years. Your bar was packed. Even though the real festivities were in East Lansing, it seemed that the entire Empire loved the Hunt and loved to celebrate at Hunttime. You even placed a bet on Namor's team, The Sub-Mariners, figuring that his underwater team had the best chance to beat that jerk Hammerhan.

Not too long after the Hunt began, one of the Hunt teams arrived at the bar. It was Pharondonderama, a bunch of adventurers from the other continent who were Hunting for the shipping merchant Pharondondalae. They wanted the big Vodkasium Martinium block of stuff. At first, you weren't too thrilled when your boss sold them the thing. Rumors had it that The Sub-Mariners were spending far too long trying to get an item from Spellbinder's Tower. But then you noticed that they had two Items already and had a real chance to beat Hammerhan. The local ogres union, who the Hunters had hired, were having quite a difficult time trying to lift that chunk onto the big boat that Pharondonderama had parked outside of the bar. 'What the hell', you thought. You cast one Grease spell in the right place at the right time, and they were sailing off towards Item number four. No one would know. You felt quite satisfied when they won it all, keeping Hammerhan from being a third time Pooh-bah. It was a small but sweet measure of revenge.

As part of the deal, your boss closed up shop to move his business to East Lansing. This meant that you were out of a job. But it also meant you could travel some more. You headed southwest along the river, beyond Lake Plotz, and into the western reaches of the Dark Forest of Ewing. You were quite wary of this forest, but local villagers claimed that this area was known for being 'not quite so dark'. This fact made you feel a little better.

You spent a good deal of time visiting with local villagers. Although you weren't much help in the fields, you were helpful in fixing fences, tying up stuff and entertaining them with some small tricks Marzak had taught you. You thought that maybe you would make a good bard. At one point, you were out gathering wood with some farmers when you encountered a large furry monster with a sharp snout and razor claws. You managed to confuse it with your Ventriloquism spell and drive it off.

More than a few times people commented that you reminded them of a human named Damon, who traveled around doing stuff like you did. You had never met him, but from all accounts, he seemed like a decent guy.

Soon you reached Livonia, home of the Decimators Blood Bowl team. You were in dire need of money and saw an ad for a mage's assistant, with the requirement that the employee be rather agile. It was clear that it was an assistant that the Mage was looking for, and not an apprentice, so you responded.

This was no step and fetch job, however. The mage Saltyplex was developing a new spell and needed a test subject. At this you balked. You were not going to be some guinea pig for some crazy wizard's experiments. Who knows what you might end up looking like? But then, Saltyplex explained the spell to you.

"Stelmach", he began, "my spell is called 'Saltyplexterity'. A good spell with an even better name. The nature of the spell is to increase the subject's agility, much like the common Strength spell increases a subject's, well, strength! Now, I've thoroughly tested the spell on myself, but have only seen marginal improvement. However, I'm quite clumsy, and I've really designed this spell to be effective on those who are already quite dexterous, making them even more so. That is why I need you. I'd like to run you through a battery of tests. All that will be required of you is to perform tasks that you are already familiar with, and are probably quite good at. You know, things like moving quietly, running an obstacle course, tying a rope quickly, unlocking a door... stuff like that."

You thought this might be cool. "Ok. What's the pay?"

"Well", Saltyplex said, "You can have room and board here while we're testing, and I'll give you 300 gold when were done."

That sounded fair. You accepted and got to work. The first several weeks, however, were quite boring. Saltyplex had you perform all kinds of mundane tasks over and over again. He had this pad where he kept writing down groups of numbers. You figured it was either the time it took you or some other measure of how well you did. He always insisted that you rest fully between each 'trial' as he called it. 'These samples need to be unbiased', he would say. Some of the tasks were sort of disturbing. He had you pick peoples' pockets and then return the money to them. If you got caught, Saltyplex would step in, apologize to the person, and explain that he was conducting an experiment. He then made a note on his pad, gave the person a few gold, and they always left without a problem.

Finally, he cast the spell on you, and you started the same tasks all over again. This time, however, they were much more fun. Whereas before, it would take you a full minute or two to unlock some complicated lock, with the spell, you could do it in less than 15 seconds. And the tasks that weren't judged on time were better too. He had this one test where he hired the Livonia Decimator quarterback to throw Blood Bowl balls at you. You had to dodge them, and he was extremely accurate. Without the spell, you probably got hit on every other throw, and those things stung! Your welts lasted for days. With the spell, you only got hit four or five times out of at least fifty throws. This was much more pleasant. And you never got caught picking pockets, not once.

Satisfied, Saltyplex thanked you for your efforts, gave you your money and small bone case.

"What's this?" you asked.

"Oh, that's a copy of the spell", he said. "I noticed that you had a spellbook and figured that you'd like a copy. Besides, the more this spell is used, the more famous it will become."

With that, you thanked him and went on your way. It was only later that you discovered that he had given you an additional bonus, two more spells. A spell called Bind, which ties and unties ropes, and a spell called Deeppockets, which allows you to carry more stuff.

You traveled again for quite some time, always learning new things and always helping out where you could, picking up a few new spells along the way. In the Northern Splinter Spire Mountains you helped a town survive an attack by hordes of goblins. You cast your Bind spell to secure the main gate just before it gave way, and you cast a Message to prevent a squad of archers from being surprised from behind, which would have turned the tide of the battle (or so you were told by the town Marshall). You joined a small band of Paladins for a while on a quest, but didn't quite fit in, and soon left (for some reason, they kept referring to you as 'junior').

Eventually you ran across Damon the Bringer, a traveler, like yourself, who himself had actually heard a lot of good things about you. The two of you became close friends, and exchanged ideas, stories and a few spells. It was clear that you both had the same philosophy. It wasn't what you could do that counted, but how you did it. It was shortly after this that you realized that you were a mage, and a good one at that. Maybe you didn't hurl fiery bolts down upon your enemies, or cause legions of monsters to flee in terror from your billowing clouds of death, but you were still a mage. Your spells helped save a town. You thought back to your failure with Jenkins. 'Stelmach the Hedge Wizard' actually sounded pretty cool.

Ironically, it wasn't soon after, that Jenkins the Arch-Mage sought you out.

"Hello, Stelmach", he began. "I have to apologize to you."

You were surprised. "Really?" you replied.

"Yes. I've been a bit the fool. You see I've always had this notion that the word Mage meant power. It meant fear and intimidation and respect. And in some cases it meant death. Well... I was wrong. Unfortunately, it took a crippling explosion for me to realize it."

"Explosion?" you asked. You had heard about something exploding in East Lansing, a tower or something, but you didn't know that Jenkins was involved.

"Yes. Some highly dangerous substances in the Great Vault happened to get mixed. The resulting explosion killed everyone in the Vault at the time but me, and I am no longer an arch-mage", he said.

"Holy Hunter's Oath!" you exclaimed. "I'm... I'm sorry. Is there anything that can be done?"

"Well, I'm gradually recovering", he said, "but, the thing is, I don't have a lot of time. The Hunt is only two months away."

"Hunt?" you said. "You're going to be in the Great Hunt?"

"Me, and you. If you're willing", he told you. "I'm sorry that I treated you the way I did. Pharondonderama could use a good mage like you. What do you say?"

This shocked you. The Great Hunt was such a staple of East Lansing society. Only the greatest individuals were asked to be on a Hunt team, and it was the dream of almost every boy and girl in the Empire... and... you could stick it to Hammerhan again, for real. Besides, you held no grudge against Jenkins. After all, if it wasn't for him, you might not be who you are today, Stelmach... the Mage.

"All right, Jenkins", you told him. "Where do I sign up?" Knowing what you did about East Lansing bureaucracy, you regretted the question the moment you asked it.

The team is finalized. Along with Jenkins, Big John Drott (the great barbarian and a member of last Hunt's championship Pharondonderama team) will join you. Then there is Sourdough Nocinuer of Nar, a human who rescued Jenkins from the explosion in the Vault. He is also a newspaper reporter and should add a vast amount of local knowledge to your group. Also, Pharondondalae has imported three heroes from the other continent again. These include a dwarven fighter named Olten Narlagh, who is the brother of Hjorvard Narlagh, a member of last Hunt's winning team, a gnomish cleric named Bones Granitt-Bröugh, and Mikey Two-Eyes, the halfling thief. You're not sure that you wanted to deal with any more halfling thieves, especially one as infamous as Mikey Two-Eyes, but then again, you're no naïve kid anymore. Other than Jenkins, you don't know much personally about your team members, but you will meet them on the night of the pre-Hunt party.