New Character - Mesmerelda

[TriangleKat]

Name: Mesmerelda Kendall (Messy)
Race: Half Giant
Age: 18
Alignment: TN
Class: Cleric 8 Fighter 12
Deity: Grannoch
Domains: Air and Protection




1402 and the skies grew dark. Crops around the small northern village of Shen, just south of town of Khedell at the edge of the White Horn Forest and the shores of the sea, failed as the deadly frost killed what was to have been a bumper crop. The Kendall family thought things would improve with the coming of spring, for the sky could not remain dark and the air cold forever. They had prepared for lean times with stores of root vegetables and salt fish and figured they could whether the leanest time. They had not planned on the tricks of the gods however. It was that winter that their boy, the eldest of three children, was cursed by Grannoch. Why they did not know. But when like any twelve year old he should have been growing and filling into the shadow of his father, Davie Kendall's body became possessed by giantess herself. In a single month he grew from the height of mother to equal with his father. His appetite knew no end and the precious stores the family had stocked away were in sore danger of not being able to provide the family of five.

Spring came and Davie was head taller than his Dad. The people of the village shunned the family and pointed fingers. They called them cursed by the skies and wanted nothing to do Davie or his family lest the curse rub off on them. The Kendall's were a poor family and could not afford the skills of a healer to drive the demon from their son's body. They feared for him but also for the rest of the family. In lean times it did not bode well to be ostracized and the family's survival might hinge on the support of their peers. Davie was the approaching 7 feet tall in the summer of 1403, but his height was no boon. His body was wracked with pain from the fast growth. His teenage mind could not understand his fate anymore than the rest of his family could. He was a good boy. He had done nothing to deserve this. The village's accusations that his family worshiped Grannoch were false. Never had they Lady Giant's prayers been uttered in the household. When the skies did not clear and the people of the village began to feel the pain of hunger they took their ire out upon Davie. They were simple folk and in their minds Davie was the root of the evil that had come upon them.

It was a bitter cold night that the villagers descended upon the cottage of the Kendalls. They demanded Davie be put to death for he was an abomination. He was a curse upon the whole village. He was causing the sun to be covered and the Mistress of Cold to blow her breath over them. He was the reason that crops failed. They demanded the lad be sent back to the Tamer of Flame so the curse might end on the village.
The Kendall's loved their son, but they could not save him. Fourteen year old Davie knew this when he heard the calls of the mob and the look on his parents faces and the disgust in the eyes of his sisters. His shame was intense for he did not want to die.

It was a pleading look he gave to his mother as he filled a small sack with some unleavened bread, salt fish and apples and made his escape from the bedroom window. It must have been with some charm from Grannoch or pure luck that he was able to bend his bulk out the small opening without notice. Davie made for the cliffs at the edge of the village and the sea; for in his isolation, he had found solace in some sea caves when the taunts and jeers became too much. A raft of his own making lay moored there. Davie knew he had to leave. He just didn't know where it was he would be going. He raft set out into the night.

---------------------------------------------------------------


Sa'jus was sickened by what he saw. The dwarven war party had chunks of flesh and clots of blood hanging from brow and beard. They reeked of stale ale and the distinctive iron tang of blood. It appeared this band of *warriors* had just finished the whole scale slaughter of a gathering encampment of hill giant females and their young. The dwarves had the infants and toddlers penned as they hacked up the remains of the mothers and older siblings. One did not have to understand dwarven to understand the meaning of the taunts and jeers called out as they toyed with the defenseless, jabbing them with the tips of their axes and spears.

Sa'jus had no overwhelming love of giants, but what these dwarves were doing was wrong. Kill them outright and be done with the job, but the pleasure they were taking in toying with them. It made him want to vomit. He was no warrior and no match for a war party, but his sense of justice somehow overcame his sense of preservation as Sa'jus could take it no longer. He stepped out of his tree shadow and strode forth into the fray, placing himself between the tiny ball of pink weeping flesh and hot poker of the dwarf. Sa'jus knew no dwarf, he barely knew common as an elf of the forest, but his determination must have transcended all language barriers. He did not remember what was said or how, but the cost of his sense of justice was this now pink frail newborn giantess in his care. Sometimes Sa'jus wondered at the sense of humor of the Gods.

An elderly elf in care of infant giant. He did what any good elf would do; his duty. Perhaps like a wolf can be tamed to be a good companion, a giant can be without the influence of its peers. Thus began Sa'jus's little experiment. He had little experience with infants of his own kind, let alone that of a different race. When faced with such a dilemma Sa'jus did what any good elf would do. He prayed and he read; for Sa'jus was a not a warrior, but a sage. He didn't get along well with most humans, but Aragen was different. Aragen understood his need to know things. It had been several hundred years since Sa'jus had had such a task but he felt that perhaps this might be his most important. So for fifteen years, Sa'jus was a father. The role model and mentor to a strapping young giantess he named Fate.

Sa'jus thought she was strapping. He was an elf and stood just over 5 feet tall. When fate turned four she stood to her father's chin. It was a good thing that she was an even natured young one for she could have easily done harm to him with a whim. Fate and Sa'jus struggled with this paternal relationship. It was clear early on that while Fate was sweet natured she was simple. Like a pet she could be taught a task but only the simplest of things did she understand.

Sa'jus had an inking this was strange but then elf children developed so slowly he didn't really fathom how much of a handicap this was. He was quite proud of his eight foot tall ward, though he did worry how she would survive without him. By this time the skies had darkened and the cold had set in. His small tower and tree home at the edge of the forest served the two of them well but he was not a young elf anymore. Nearing 600 years old he was beginning to get stiff in the mornings and his eyesight was failing him at times.

It was his failing eyesight in the dim light of the early morning he blamed for tripping over some logs the tide had washed ashore in the night when he went to check the weir for some fish for breakfast. It must have taken him a good half hour to realize it was not a log but a body he had tripped on. The groaning may have given it away. Washed on the beach below his home was the body of either the biggest human he had ever seen or the puniest of giants.

This was how Davie met Fate, and of course Sa'jus. The elf was delighted to take the boy in and Davie was happy to be accepted. Free from the jeers of the villagers and the threat of death was much preferable to Davie. Sa'jus was intrigued by Davie's plight. While he was no healer, Sa'jus studied his texts trying to understand why the boy would just not stop growing. He was clearly human by his account, but he was at risk of being larger than Fate. While Sa'jus studied Davie Fate studied Davie as well. She had never seen another soul outside of her adopted father and the few animals of the place. She was intrigued. Intrigued enough to try out the few words of common that her father had been able to teach her, her first words were "Fate good girl. Have fish?"

Thus began the story of Fate and Davie and in telling it the beginning of the tale of Mesmerelda. When you place a teenage boy and teenage girl in the care of slightly dotty elf sometimes things happen and the Gods have a strange sense of humor.


Messy as her Da called her, was born in darkness on the first day of spring of 1411. She was to her family a herald of the return of the sunshine and warmth into the word, even though for most of her life she had no idea what the word sunshine meant. Her mother Fate loved her dearly but had difficulties communicating with her precocious child. Her Da was her sun, and by default, the elf her moon. Her life was far from idyllic at the edge of the forest, being raised by a dotty elf, a teenage boy learning to be a man and a giantess that was sweet but simple.

If Fate had been his first experiment, Messy was Sa'jus's second. He found her mind so much more open to ideas and from the time she was two a chatterbox of sounds. He had never been able to teach Fate to speak a word that even resembled his native tongue, but Messy was able to grasp some of the simple elven concepts. For the first time in a hundred years Sa'jus had someone to talk to in elven that actually understood what he was saying, well mostly understood. Messy understood elven. It was a cruel twist of fate that she could not seem to make her thick giant tongue wrap around the sounds in more than the basest of ways. So while her grandfather delighted in having someone to chatter to in his native language she could not reciprocate the sounds. It didn't matter though, because he loved her.

Davie, her father, thought it best that his daughter learn some of the ways of Grannoch since he was still convinced that his lot in life was somehow tied to the goddess giantess. Of course what did a human or for that matter an elf know of the Mother of Giants? They did the best they could with the texts accumulated by Sa'jus and the old elf's recreations of rituals he had seen in the forest when spying on the tribes or just trying not to get eaten on a trek for berries or some such. He constructed a crude altar like he had seen the giants use. Crude for him at least but in fact far far more decorative than anything of a giant construct. He practiced some of the tamer rituals he had seem the giants prepare, sparing his granddaughter the goriest of things and made up prayers he thought would be appropriate for a giantess. Fate also joined her daughter in these rituals, and seemed to be at ease with them even though she was just an infant when Sa'jus took her under his wing.

But then the Gods have a strange sense of humor and it seems Messy did catch the eye of Grannoch is some way. Just shortly after her coming of age, she felt a twinge in her left pinkie. When she examined it she discovered that if she concentrated really hard, it would glow light. This amazed her. It amazed her father, it confused her mother and well Sa'jus just amused at the thought of Messy with a glowing finger. Over that summer Messy's talents grew, and so did her desire to see the world. Sa'jus knew that the world outside his would be unkind to Messy. While her heart was good she would be judged by her appearance first and her nature second.

The sight of a elder elf teaching an seven foot tall, 300lb female the finer arts of combat and defense would have made the dwarves that put him in the predicament double over in laughter. Wooden swords and old doors for shields eventually gave way to a metal blade and suit made from every last piece of metal Sa'jus could purchase from the traveling tinker of Khedell. What Messy lacked in finesse she made up for in enthusiasm and innate talent. Her giant blood showed when she was in the thick of sparing with some conjured beast of Sa'jus's design. Both Davie and Sa'jus knew that the little farm and nets held no future for Messy. Messy knew this too. She felt the pull of her goddess in her and a sense that she was meant for more. She enjoyed the thrill of battle even if it was errant goblins and illusionary Balors. She wanted to learn more, see more, and be more.

As it was then in the spring of 1429, on the shores of Mistone, south of the town of Khedell, the product of what happens when intolerance and fear meets compassion and curiosity leaves to carve a path of her own.



1) I have read the dogma of Grannoch and will play a faithful priestess of Grannoch to the best of my abilities.

2) Messy feels a pull toward an outside calling, never being formally *schooled" in the dogma outside that of the writing of non giants and the outsider version of what she was taught by those well meaning to her. As such she embraces the idea of the mother and balance. Her own mother was rather simple and she has not experienced the violence of giant life even though she feels the tendency to violence within her. This is her inner balance much as she feels Grannoch's balance toward her children or aspects of herself.

3) The Handbook places all player half giants of Hill Giant blood but in truth Messy has little ideas of her true giant heritage and as such her manner of dress changes with her mood. She favors Air as representation of growing up in a coastal environment that would have been windy and cold most of the time, but knows Fire for warmth and protection, Earth for security and might and Water as change and security as well as her main source of nourishment in the Dark Ages of her youth. She would never have had much access to a maul, but instead as taught by her grandfather a sword is her weapon of choice behind a shield as big as a door. When she gets out among those who would fear her for just her looks, she will attempt to dress as "human" as possible and appropriate for her station, but in battle it will something good for smashing.

I would like an ear for elven, Messy will never speak it well, but she can understand it. I acknowledge the characters in her back story are but commoners unless the GM team wishes to flesh them out more at some point in the future. She gains no rank or privilege from her mother, father or Sa'jus.

[jrizz]

Great story! Just one question. Was Davie just a really big human or was he a half giant?

The whole curse thing in the beginning of the story is a issue. What did he do to get "cursed". And would Grannoch really think making someone part giant, a curse?

[TriangleKat]

Davie was a human that suffered from pituitary giantism - the medical condition that causes "giants" in our society. In a medievial society with no medical knowledge this could have been understood as a curse would have been one explaination for uneducated minds.

I'm sorry I just assumed that in this day and age the description of puberty onset unconrtrollable growth would be linked automatically to the condition.

Grannoch had no part in Davie's genetics.

[darkstorme]

As Jrizz says, a great story - but there's one major issue I'd like to see addressed before Mesmerelda steps into game.

Clerics do not "discover" their abilities. Were Mesmerelda a sorceress, that would be a different story, but as a cleric, her power comes from faith. A cleric's "spells" are in fact prayers - as they pray or meditate, the deity places the latent key to the power in their minds. When they then make the gestures and speak the words that came to them in their prayer, a little bit of the deity's power is channeled through the cleric, and manifests as the spell.

Many people worship a deity, and seldom get anything but peace of mind from this worship. A cleric's devotion and faith are so outstanding, so unbelievably unswerving, that they serve as a beacon that even attracts some small part of the attention of their deity.

I'd like to see this faith reflected in Mesmerelda's bio. Other than that, a very nice story.

(Be aware, as well, that if you intend for Mesmerelda to begin the game knowing Elven, she will require a starting INT of 16, because of the ESA of the half-giant subrace.)

Thanks!

[TriangleKat]

Respectfully I submit another point of view on faith and the abilities of clerics that is similiar but different that the one you present.

Clerics to have power must have faith in the god to whom they pray but conversely the god must also have faith in them to grant them their divine blessing.

As Deity X reclining in a chair in the Heavens filtering out the chatter of those praying and giving lip service to them and zoning in on those individuals that seem to truely have within them something that the Deity feels like rewarding.

As is repeated in the bio - the Gods sometimes have a sense of humor...

This is not direct divine intervention - Grannoch never appeared to Messy and anointed her a chosen one -, but is a alternative to the Toranite or Lucindite or other formal religions and calls to the basis of faith. Who has faith in whom?

Picture if you will Grannoch in the heavens filtering the prayers of those who claim to be devote to her. She hears the sincere chanting of a tiny female part giant living no where near her children and yet she at least TRYING to venerate her. Gods know what mortals do not. Perhaps Grannoch has a sense of humor? Perhaps Messy is her experiment as much as Sa'jus's.


Not every faith is going to have a rigid structure of indoctination. I present the view of a young half giant that will grow into her faith, not spring from the eternal ground blessed.


I ask you to consider this point of view before I alter the bio from the direction which I had intended.

I am aware of the point sacrifice for giving her the intelligence to understand elven.

[osxmallard]

This submission is approved.

Approved for elven ear as well.

[darkstorme]

As an addendum:

While the development of faith can come by many routes, faith is intrinsic to the cleric class. Without faith, a god will not grant a portion of their powers to an individual.

Specifically, in this case, the "twinge in her pinkie" is not in keeping with the mechanics of faith in Layonara, and so can't have happened. The approval remains in force, but if the character as played deviates dramatically from those mechanics, it may be rescinded.

As a further aside, while Grannoch may indeed have a sense of humour, the minds of the gods are the domain of the GMs. While we respect players' opinions on the matter, the decision of those who set the dogmas are the final word in such matters.

Have fun!