New Character: Mesnik

[M33S3]

Full Name: Mesnik
Age: 20
Classes: Wizard/Fighter (undecided on levels, likely leaning toward wizard)
Race: Human
Subrace: Tiefling
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Deity: none
Bio: Neither remembering nor caring what his full name was, Mesnik adopted his name long ago at the age of six. It started with the murder of his mother and subsequent burning of his home, the reasons for which he never knew, and cares too little to find out about now. Escaping the flames, he fled to a nearby town, where he chanced upon a kindly guard, responding only to the guards request for a name, to which he replied “Mesnik”, a word his mother had spoken years before (to the best of his memory) to her husband in a language Mesnik didn't understand, which he found odd owing to his mother having taught him a language she told him was special, taught to her by her parents, and only to be spoken with her.

With his home burnt, mother murdered, and having only a vague recollection of his father coming and going a few times a year, there was nowhere for the guard to bring him, and so brought young Mesnik to stay at the barracks, until it could be arranged to bring him to a temple. On arriving at a temple, who’s patron deity has passed beyond Mesnik’s recollection, his fiendish taint, felt by the presiding clerics, led to the temple turning him away. While the guards were instructed it would be best to do away with him, he had acquired the sympathy of the guards, who believed he could be raised to do good and was not inherently evil. They brought him back to the barracks, where he began to learn swordplay, wielding in two hands the standard long sword issued to the guards. Years later, at the age of ten, with the length of the swords he used growing with him, the temple leadership slowly took the view that teaching a fiend-tainted individual to fight was wrong, and arrested Mesnik's benefactors among the town guard. With many of the guard growing suspicious of Mesnik's heritage (some enough so to frequently draw the attention of the church), and rumours spreading ranging from Mesnik being a Tiefling assassin and spy, to a half-fiend of terrible power corrupting the guard, Mesnik slipped out of the familiar old barracks he was now prisoner to, and made his escape.

A traveling wizard, interested by the gossip this young boy had generated, suspected that Mesnik would flee, and upon observing Mesnik's haphazard escape, aided him from afar with his magics. Approaching the boy, he asked Mesnik if he should like to travel with him, and learn why the townspeople feared and hated him so. With nowhere to turn, and little understanding of what it was to be a tiefling, Mesnik agreed, and began an apprenticeship of sorts to the wizard, carrying gear, magical components, and sometimes nothing more than dead weight for the wizard, and in exchange received the promised information on his heritage, some basic magic tutelage, and, importantly, protection, for after his escape, word spread that the arrested guards "confessed" to Mesnik's evil intents, and for a time Mesnik was a wanted boy. But being ten years old, Mesnik quickly grew beyond recognition, and with the wizard's interjections, the rumours gradually changed into tavern gossip, and were all but forgotten. The wizard and tiefling then set out, beginning a new stage in Mesnik’s life, where he learned why these men he was told were good wanted him jailed, even killed. The knowledge of what it was to be a tiefling, and that the childhood language he had so lovingly clung to was in fact Infernal, drove Mesnik even harder in his studies, lusting for more knowledge of who and what he truly was. For six years he worked, studied and traveled with the wizard, perfecting both his Common and Infernal languages, and beginning his study of magic. Yet, as time passed Mesnik became suspicious of why this wizard, not a particularly good person, would save and help him, especially since in all this time the wizard not once told anything of himself, his goals, his past, not even his name. Rather than questioning the wizard and his motives, Mesnik concluded that it was time to move on, to seek out knowledge and power on his own.

It was during these next four years alone that Mesnik became jaded against the normal, "pure" races. With the development of some of his more tiefling traits, most notably his horns, which were never visible until entering teenage years, and what he learned of his heritage from his wizard mentor, the general populace tended to dislike Mesnik on sight. This, combined with his deeply ingrained distrust of law--and especially religion--led to many confrontations, well intended though they may have been, and through these Mesnik learned that knowledge is a powerful tool, but won't do much good when a blade is skillfully run through your gut; it was time to pull out a blade again after so many years. His desire to escape the prejudice that plagues his race and to further his knowledge drives him to his adventures, always with a resentment towards evil and the lawful.

Description: Pale skinned and tall for a Tiefling, Mesnik stands 5'9", and while the most obvious trait belying his heritage is found in the horns protruding from his black hair, on the rare occasion that he smiles it can also be observed that he possesses slight but noticeable fangs. Favoured at birth with great intellect, his childhood has left him strong and dextrous, though noticeably frail, likely due to the less than generous meals he enjoyed in his youth. Unusually, he does not instill the feeling of discomfort most feel around a tiefling, but rather a cautious trust, allowing him to make quick but temporary friendships to further his own goals, except in the case of any religious figure, especially paladins.





This is a first character for me, and I'm not sure if tieflings get just common or abyssal and infernal as well. if its all three, i don't want the abyssal, as it goes against my char, and if its only common then i'd appreciate the infernal as well.

[Dezza]

[approve]