Badger Boulderbasher

[Ichabod]

First Name: Badger
Last Name: Boulderbasher

Appearance:
Race: Dwarf
Age: 70
Height: 5’1”
Weight: 215 lbs
Eyes: Grey
Hair: Red
Facial Hair Style: None - it was shaven off and won't regrow
Personality Profile:
General Health: Supernatural
Deity: Dumathoin, Keeper of Secrets
Initial Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Profession: Vagabond, Bodyguard,
Base Class & Proposed Development: Base fighter, developing into Fighter/Mage/Pale Master/Dwarven Defender (Something like a death knight)
Habits/Hobbies: Before his “accident,” Badger enjoyed whittling, fishing, and reading history books. Now, he mostly just looks for answers.
Languages: Common, Dwarf, Orc, Terran
Weapon of Choice: Anything paired with a tower shield, usually a dwarven waraxe.

Background:
Badger’s memories are as fuzzy as his beard. He honestly doesn’t remember where he is from, what he did for a living, or even his real name. He isn’t sure how old he is, or his clan name, or even his parents. The memories he does have begin in the laboratory…

Badger doesn’t know this, but he died. Not just a little, either. The big Dead. Having fallen victim to some highwaymen, and in typically dwarven fashion, refusing to surrender, he was mobbed and killed on the road between Beregost and Baldur’s Gate. His body was sold to a necromancer as fodder for experiments…this is where Badger’s new life begins.

The necromancer who purchased Badger used Badger’s body to learn about the path to becoming a lich. Numerous unholy rites and arcane energies were infused into Badger’s brain and corpse in the necromancer’s quest for knowledge. Badger’s soul, in the afterlife, was essentially unaware of what was happening…until the necromancer made a mistake.
During one of his experiments, the necromancer placed too much negative energy into Badger’s body, reanimating it. Unfortunately for Badger, the tinkering the dark wizard had done with Badger’s brain, coupled with the necromantic energies infused into the body, sent out an irresistible beacon, pulling Badger’s soul back into a semi-undead husk.

Much like a golem, Badger’s newly animated form went berserk. At this point, Badger begins to remember…pain. He has brief flashes of the necromancer’s workshop, including an image of the necromancer himself…a short figure, possibly a gnome or hin, shrouded in a brown and red hood, with tattooed hands. The necromancer fled before Badger, in his torporous stupor, could pursue. Stumbling, half-awake, half-alive, and half-clothed, Badger shambled into the surrounding countryside.

As days turned into weeks, Badger realized something about him was…wrong. He didn’t need to eat or drink, or even sleep much. His skin was cold and clammy, and looked terrible – the sutures and staples from the necromancer’s experiments were the only thing holding the necromancer’s surgical work together. New scrapes and bruises healed normally, but those awful incisions appeared to be permanent. He also noticed that the plates bolted over parts of his body appeared to have some magical protective properties. Ugly but tough, fierce, and determined, it was at this point the dwarf adopted the name Badger…it was as good as any other.

As luck would have it, Badger stumbled onto the very same bandits who robbed and killed him. He saw their fire from afar in the night, and wandered over, half-clothed, to ask to share the warmth. They took one look at him, a dwarf they had killed not a month past, covered in a maze of stitching and metal plates across his pale skin, and fled into the night. Ever the pragmatist, Badger looted their campsite for any useable equipment. He found several choice items, including a tower shield and dwarven axe, which his hands seemed to remember how to use. Little did he know, these items were his, taken by the bandits. The shield’s insignia showed a hammer smashing rock, the symbol of the Boulderbasher clan to which Badger (unknowingly) belongs.

Feeling slightly more stable, with a name and some clothes, Badger decided to head back to civilization to find some answers. Who were these bandits who seemed to know him? Who was this necromancer that mutilated his body and robbed him of his memories? Is there any way to undo what was done to him? Badger will dig out the truth.


Goals:
Figure out who he is.
Determine if the changes to him are fixable.
Make the shrouded necromancer pay.

Possible Plot-Hook Ideas and Misc Facts:
1. Badger doesn’t know who his family is, or even what clan he belongs to.
2. Badger would like to have a word with those bandits that seemed to know him (he has no idea they killed him, he just wants answers.)
3. Badger suspects the necromancer is responsible for all this pain and mutilation to his body. Badger wants answers, then revenge, in that order.
4. Badger would like to find an expert in…whatever was done to him…and learn if the situation is fixable or treatable.