Hyde Eichel, the Fat Friar
Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2015 6:31 pm
HYDE EICHEL, the Fat Friar of Eldath
First Name: Hyde
Last Name: Eichel
Appearance:
Race: Human
Age: 29
Height: 6’6”
Weight: 325
Eyes: Gray
Hair: Burnt, Ruddy Orange, balding
Facial Hair Style: Long bushy sideburns, moustache and eyebrows
Personality Profile:
General Health: Hyde is in good general health but is very large and overweight. He is not blubbery but just massive in girth and limb. His bones are thick and his belly is large and protruding. He sweats profusely from the sheer effort required to move his body. While obviously not “fit” there is definite pure strength evident from the Fat Friar.
Deity: Eldath
Initial Alignment: Neutral Good
Profession: A traveling Friar, minister, counsellor, civil arbitrator, novice brewmeister and physician (both humanoid and animal), tending to the spiritual and physical ailments of the country folk and farmers.
Base Class & Proposed Development: Cleric/Hospitaler
Habits/Hobbies: Hyde is a great lover of food and drink and will go to great lengths to find enjoyment in both. He is a natural glutton, never refusing a meal even if he has just eaten. He happily travels the country offering blessings for crops, tending to sick animals and families and guiding new homesteaders in finding sources of water for wells and irrigation. He will often trade these services for room and meal instead of coin given the poverty of most farm families. In such instances Hyde will gladly help with daily chores and has a prodigious work ethic for physical labor. His ministering message is always one of peace and acceptance of what is to come.
Languages: Common, Dwarven and Elven. He will happily preach to others though.
Weapon of Choice: Hyde is a man of peace. He carries a stout cudgel hoping to shoo things away rather than draw blood.
Background: Hyde was born and raised in the rural farm country outside Baldur’s Gate. He was the middle of nine children, six of which survived to adulthood. As is the case with most farm families their fortune waxed and waned with the severity of the climate. In years of plenty the Eichel homestead was rife with laughter. Hyde’s father, Horace, would play the fiddle in the evenings on all but the most strenuous work days. The children were free to play and explore as they saw fit until they were old enough to help more than hinder in the chores. The Eichel’s mostly farmed for subsistence but in productive years they would take their excesses to market. From a young age Hyde was large, healthy and strong. Where his brothers and sisters were lean and quick, he was thick and ponderous. His preferred chores were those that used his strength but without a need for urgency. Hyde would work from sun up to sundown picking heavy rocks from a field waiting to be plowed or moving the livestock from one pastureland to another. His thick, sausage fingers found agile tasks difficult and in such instances he would quickly grow to furious anger.
At twelve, during a particularly dry spring season Hyde was helping his father search for a location suitable for a new well. Though no outward sign indicated water, he begged his father to dig. When his father refused out of hand Hyde cursed and spat, furiously grabbing his spade and attacking the ground with it. Red faced and raging he tirelessly dug, his father watching silently. Within an hour he struck running water that turned out to be a prolific spring fed pool and threw the shovel down, mopping sweat from his face. When asked, Hyde responded that he could feel the water begging to be freed. Both boy and man stood stoic, watching the water fill the pool, Eichel the younger calming visibly at the gentle bubbling. The senior Eichel immediately decided to utilize his son’s talent to trade work with some neighbor farmers and Hyde began to spend more and more time away from the farm, helping other farmers find water sources. He was eager to learn from other farmers their tricks and techniques to bring home and was inquisitive regarding animal husbandry, crop locations and fertilization and irrigation practices. The Eichel’s became more and more prosperous as Hyde returned with new ideas about improving the homestead.
As Hyde grew into adulthood he began to realize another lack amidst the rural folk and that was faith and ministry. Nearly all the farming folk prayed for good crops and rain and a bountiful harvest but privately as there was no central church and the families could not stray from their lands for long. Hyde began to speak of this to the farmers as he traveled between them tending sick cattle and treating blighted crops. He spoke of the need for peace amidst the turmoil of surviving at the edge of the wilderness. He spoke untrained, from the heart; first as musings exploring his own difficulties with anger and explaining how he had come to sense water. Later he began to speak outwardly, preaching to others about the power of healing and salvation. Rumors began to spread of the young man who could lay hands on animals and children alike, of the gentle giant who could halve the time for a bone to knit or a gash to mend. He began to spend less time at the family homestead, preferring to circuit to the neighboring villages and farmsteads trading work and prayer for meals and board.
On one such day, nearing harvest, Hyde was working a farm on the northern fringes of Baldur’s Gate. As the midday meal neared and the workers were called in from the fields, one of the children was absent. Spirits were high and farm children often wander so while there was a mild concern for the child’s whereabouts no sense of urgency was high. By supper the boy had still not returned so several of the men decided to search the surrounding countryside. The men, Hyde among them, came upon a man walking the edge of the far fields and asked him if he had seen the boy. One of the relatives recognized a sling that he had made for the missing boy at the strangers belt and the men demanded to know the boy’s location. Hyde, in a great furor, hoisted the man off the ground by his greasy hair and smashed one ham fist into the man’s middle, shaking him by his scalp and howling at him to answer. The stranger spoke of a cave where his fellows had taken the boy. At that, Hyde proceeded to drag the man by the hair as he gave direction to said cavern. When the men reached the cave there was argument over who should go in and who should not. As the debate became heated Hyde’s booming voice erupted above them all telling the men to watch the ruffian and that he would go in to retrieve the boy.
“I do no wish to have ye break the peace ‘tween one ‘nother. If there is violence what needs doin’ then let it not be on yer hands.”
Ripping a stout branch from a nearby oak Hyde strode off into the cavern a seething fury plainly visible. After long minutes Hyde emerged from the cave with the boy cradled gently in one massive arm, bloodied club in the other. Over his shoulder were satchels of goods that the bandits had apparently stolen from the surrounding area. Hyde set the boy gently on the ground and put his ear to the lad’s chest listening to the faint drawing of breath. His head came up and he looked about, picking the boy up and carrying him to a nearby spring. The great bear stepped into the spring holding the boy and beseeched the Goddess of the spring to save the boy. As he prayed he felt a great weight tugging at his waist where he had tucked the recently used weapon. Suddenly the weight of the boy lifted from him as the water suspended him on its surface and the weight at his waist was lifted as the cudgel floated up as well. The two were suspended as if on scales in front of Hyde. Without hesitation Hyde reached out with both hands and snapped the oak branch in half, flinging it from the pool. Within the span of a heartbeat the boy gasped deeply and his eyes fluttered open. Hyde took the boy in his arms and wept great sobs as he climbed from the pool. Then men raced to the pair, awestruck and overjoyed, the remaining criminal forgotten as he slinked away.
Hyde remained silent and thoughtful as the group returned to the farmstead the conflict of the encounter at the forefront of his thoughts. He remained apart for the remainder of the afternoon, finally deigning to speak simply to ask to bless the evening meal. As the extended family surrounded the tables Hyde began the blessing, deep baritone drawl booming.
“Most merc’ful Gods of harvest n’ hearth, we do be thankin’ ya fer the bounty we do be ‘bout ta receive. Yer servants here also do be askin’ yer fergiv’ness for breachin’ the peace for which we do constantly strive. Our Lady of the Singing Waters has gifted us wit’ rain an’ plentiful springs, askin’ only that we do no do harm to one ‘nother. I do no be standin’ here and sayin that them fellers din’t get what they had comin’ but that do be my burden ta bear and not on you’ins. The Mother of Tranquility has seen fit to give ya’ll yer boy back and do no ever forget what she has done fer ya’ll this night.”
After speaking, the fat friar lowered his head and silently begged his Goddess for her peace to be upon all of these goodly folks as well as on his own troubled soul. As he stood there so engrossed the soft celebration of the farmers at having their kin returned to them descended upon him and ushered in a sensation of forgiveness and acceptance. Hyde smiled broadly and returned to the harvest feast, once more his boisterous, food loving self. He engorged himself on the plentiful bounty laid before them and drank toast after toast in thanks for recovering the lost boy. The next morning Hyde was gone, continuing his circuit to the outlying settlements and homesteads, offering hard work and healing, ministering and prayer and, as the occasion arises, violence to protect those in need.
Public Goals: The Fat Friar tends to wander alone but would not be against membership in some greater order than his simple ministry. He also seeks to create some sort of system amongst the rural folk to mount a common defense as the need often arises. Perhaps some sort of “rural policing force” to travel the countryside from homestead to homestead on a routine basis. He would also like to develop a system for settling disputes amongst neighbors such as a rural court system for minor petty squabbles and grievances. For now he assumes this role himself oftentimes claiming authority from his deity Eldath rather than any sort of legal authority.
Possible Plot-Hook Ideas and Misc Facts: Anything involving Eldath, folks in the country that would fall within his ministering flock, or anything related to the peace of the realms or the breaching of that peace.
Comments, concerns, corrections and criticisms are all very welcome!
