My, how they grow!

[Ambigue]

Much like how beloved celebrities often have embarrassing early careers, the characters we create often start off as awkward, half-formed things. Maybe they become epic, mighty beings with fantastic stories of their own in time, but their origins maybe aren't so much.

Feel free to share the secret, shameful early lives of your favorite characters. Maybe their original concept was just weird. Maybe you accidentally thought playing a vampire was a good idea. Maybe you played a guy who worked at a Honda dealership who somehow woke up in Cordor. It doesn't matter.

I only ever had one character of minor note ever reach close to level 20 and I made a TON of typical RP mistakes playing him. I recount him below.

Real D'Angeles: Ended up a super-grim, depressed guardsman and defender of what he thought the balance would be. Friend of Aristotlus Bibliophilius and Rune Degram at the height of their power. Wayman. Guardsman. Repeated infiltrator of Stonehold. Complete loon. Secret origin? I got drunk one night and decided it would be fun to play a crazy hobo who was also secretly a ninja bear. Early Real was usually only played when I was drunk, lending a certain authenticity to his inchoate ramblings.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Nelehein started as a bouncer to that casino created by Kuma's neutral aasimar.

[Flameborn]

Quin started as a super evil necromancer lady.

And somehow turned into a sparkly chaos fairy. I even ended up scrapping necromancy from her.

I think I just started realizing that playing a dark and depressing character wasnt going to be a lot of fun.

[Kuma]

Ayin Mesmer started on a create-a-new-character day run by Izaich because I thought it'd be neat to play a street diviner.

The only other character created as part of that was Amadeo Pneuma, btw.

[Xarge VI]

Joron was created as sidekick for Jim Blade.

[CoastalSurf]

Airk dar'danowin came to arelith as a sculptor looking for pink marble.

[Iceborn]

Ceeeertain lizard that I played elsewhere started out as a generic bard.
Ended up as copper disciple paragon.
So, more or less the same thing.

[Cuchilla]

the characters we create often start off as awkward, half-formed things. Maybe they become epic, mighty beings with fantastic stories of their own in time, but their origins maybe aren't so much.

I mean to remember that I created the char I most loved to play, like this:

• How much lore can a char gather IG?
  Can you play a non-evil, non-violent Underdarker?
  What's that about Blingy (the maps just turned to be PC run maps at that time).

[Black Wendigo]

Grendal Bloodwater was originally Lawful Neutral (but still a banite. He was my first char on the server and while I was familiar with playing evil and wanted to do so, I was unsure how to do so on this server. It took him a while to really find his center. That began when he was invited to join the second iteration of Stonehold, under Lothar the Steelsworn.

Most of my chars begin with a very basic or a one line concept. I tend to create the class/race first and then find a concept to make it work. The ones that don't get deleted in a hurry . No one will ever know my true failures .

[Ork]

There was a server called Anchordeep that I started my foray into NWN on. SILVER THREAD, I know if you're still out there, we share this bond!

Anyways, I had the bright idea of making a paladin when I was at the infantile age of 13. A paladin of what god? Why the one true god, our lord and savior Jesus Christ, of course.

He didn't survive long.

[Lorkas]

That happened on Arelith also, but the character was a cleric.

[In A Motionless Scene]

Josh Khan was a 'press recommended throughout character creation', concept-wise rather weak idiotic drunktard.

Then nothing changed.

[Daedin]

For Daedin Angthalion, I had no idea what I was doing from the day I made him to the day I deleted him.

Lurg Norgar I made a couple of days after orogs were introduced as a supported race, though I also had no idea what I was doing. I made him a big dumb brute and just went with it.

Urebriwyn I made because I wanted to see how high my stealth I could get, and to duplicate a wild elf in a warhammer game trailer I had seen.

Erodash Uzdshak was mostly an attempt at playing a proper orog, the proper way, and to try and produce some decente roleplay with him. I failed.

For Ubaldo Ferraz, I just wanted a character with a high parry skill.

[Dunshine]

Had a chat with another online gamer one day, he found a nice server (Arelith) where we could play goblins in the Underdark. Not knowing anything about goblin rp, we decided right then and there to pick names with a lot of O's, and since I was to be the cleric, I figured our deity should have the most O's of them all. Oboo and Oogooboogoo were born on MSN...

Oboo pissed in his rags everytime he saw a Drow for many many years.

[Naiphe]

Thats cool. I always imagined that Oogooboogoo was actually a d&d goblin diety, what with all the books in arelith etc

This server is so immersive, its incredible.

[CragOneEye]

Vistigor Torkill started off as a young sex crazed teifer, and remained that way for about thirty in game years even after he converted to Bane. Once he started to take his servitude to Bane more seriously that all began to change. Eventually he became a seer of Bane. (And none of this was planned, Torkill's build developed as he developed) he was also made before they even had epic tiered equiv of spells for taking things like epic focus divination.

[DSM-IV]

My old Character Toad, started out as a Sigil Hiver. A beggar upon the streets of Cordor. I pictured him moving up the ranks of some local gang, always being that lackey who the boss kicked around to do stuff.

He pretty much turned out that way, then the boss died and he took over. Did a bunch of stuff that got him in trouble. Lost everything. Then joined up with Sencliff and was again that Lackey I envisioned.

What happen towards the end though I never really pictured. IG deaths, love interests, and contacts with Harpers lead him to questioned much. He was very much on the verge of turning neutral and in different circumstances would have joined with the Harpers, if they would even have him. Then Amodeo died, and that pretty much was the end of that.

[Feral One]

Ambroz started as a half formed idea to create a brooding character that was set out to do whatever would get him any bit of power over others.

[Tarkus the dog]

I just wanted Nik to be a goodly-goodly paladin guy of Tyr.

But everything changed when he met Morgan...

[DonaldTrumpsBoyfreind]

Zankas is a 'Ex' druggy, who still feels the need.

Came to Arelith to escape a drug circle in Amn

Decided as an ex noble, maybe he should try to be a part of something bigger then himself..

[Cough-cough-cough]

[Durvayas]

Sinithra Auvry'ndal was started as a not at all religious CE merchant who specialized in making crossbows and furniture with aspiriations of becoming a wealthy merchant in an established house and living a cozy life of luxury with slaves and fine wine.

She ended up converting to Kiaransalee, her build(which would have made her an amazing spellsword assassin) was abandoned when IC events put her on a quest for revenge, and she switched alignments over time to CN as she became pragmatic and was seeking allies without paying attention to race or religion, and became a divine champion(took CoT levels) necromancer whose drive for revenge against House Fumavhid led to her effectively reforming the drow government into a monarchy just so she could stand eye to eye with the first matron and laugh in her face. Petty revenge gets out of hand when its your character's entire religion.

I had never intended for her to become a political character, it just kinda... happened.

[Stath]

Ryax Whitewolf started off as a dairy farmer. Who got a bad deal at the Rosewind Troupe and watched his family starve to death and succumb to the wilting because those damn gypsies ripped him off.

...So he started killing people for Bhaal.

[Baron Saturday]

Rolled Helene of Arque recently, so this seems timely - plus I'm feeling nostalgic.

Started out as a beggar and quiet drunk on the streets of Cordor. And then she met Kainda - just once, very briefly, almost in passing. She heard the name Nhymax and Wharftown and got it into her head that serving devil-worshippers wouldn't be the worst thing one of the Pacted could do. Aaaand then she went back into a drunken stupor for a few years, emerging in time to join the Wharftown Banites under Ramirez Macleod.

When they got booted, she was still unimportant and unknown enough to ditch the black and green, become a heretic, and - a little while later - follow Judith Feathermayne into joining the crew of the Liberator under Khayal Khamsin when he took over Wharftown. When power transitioned from him to his first mate, Robert Brimstead and the pirates became Waymen, she remained but watched with growing concern as the shady characters she was used to were slowly replaced by righteous folk. It was around this time that she came (briefly) to possess the Liber Diabolica, setting her on the mad quest to try and kill or imprison a Lord of Hell. (How's one of the Pacted gonna manage that, you ask? Goooood question.)

Helene's search for the answer led her into the Underdark for the first time, into service with House Xun'viir. When she'd gleaned what she could, including getting her hands on the Compendium Onrora. She was different when she returned above, and confrontations with former allies led to her exile from Wharftown and sanctuary in Shadow Cordor. Increasingly desperate, Helene rushed towards a solution, taking a boat to the mainland - but never arriving. She disappeared.

And then, some years later, an old woman wrapped all in chains and sporting a slave collar appeared in Andunor, seeking a worthy mistress. She wound up in service to House Auvryn'dal where she was frankly not terribly competent as a servant, but an excellent blunt instrument against assassins. It was during this time that she met Lucia Malveaux, who would later become her (final) owner before Helene reasserted herself over the servile Lady in Chains, betrayed Lucia, and was subsequently dragged off to Hell, laughing all the way (ho ho ho).

TL;DR: Drunk -> Banite -> Heretic -> Pirate -> Wayman -> Drow Servant -> Obsessed Exile -> Slave -> Infernal Cultist -> Ded. What a ride! Thanks, folks.

[Bashagain]

Aristotlus Bibliophilius the Fifth was made in a casual attempt to satirize the classic paladin character with a ridiculously long character name and usage of mangled Middle English in telling "yo mama" jokes.

Erik Silverarms was started as a sewer cleaning Janitor/paladin who dressed like Dirk the Daring with modern English dialect and graduated into an over-the-top, geriatric, violent, fundamentalist Tormite, Kamina-Thor mashup who spoke in Middle English.

Archer Arrowhead-Bowman began as a Mage school dropout who earned an associate paladin certificate in Ride-by-Shooting from Riding Academy of Divine Tight Beeches of Beregost( a school that is no longer in existence). He graduated into Myon's Horse Protector of Lake Minmir that almost no one knows or remembers.

Daltanius Silverarms began as a port of an early 1980's anime robot named "Mirai Robot Darutanias (Il Futuro Robo Daltanious for the Italian friends out there) into an Arelithian paladin character. He was then modeled after Robert Baratheon after he chose war hammer as his main weapon focus. He was then sacrificed to Bane, and is now continuing his post-sacrificial work by gaining some valuable first hand experience as the latest victim to the Asmodeus cult. He will likely end up as a mashup of Aristotlus, Erik Silverarms, and Archer which is essentially just Sir Bedevere from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[Kashisjonny]

Nhymax was loosely based off Sephiroth - white hair, clone soldier and supposed to be pretty powerful. Gladly I managed to adjust his character from that one dimensional hell once I started reading sourcebooks. .. also we briefly made ~ popular. Yeah ~. I know you remember that ~.

Now for my drunk stories

Once I got drunk on Nhymax and just happened to walk by Erik Garinson. We had some dialogue and a goblin npc ran up behind Nhym. Erik did some street fighter emote on the goblin which I mistook for a pvp initiation. A fight broke out which everyone in Bendir at the time jumped into to beat down the nasty cleric. Poor poor confused hell priest :/

Once I got drunk and battled Samir Lyons through Cordor whom was a councilor at the time for some reason. This one didn't end too well for me either ...

Erik Silverarms and Godfrey scare the shit out of me. Some time ago Trintiren and I decided it'd be a laugh for Nhymax and Co to invade the Myon crypts. This lured Trin and Myon out where we had a pretty sweet battle. Coming out victorious Nhymax was feeling pretty damn good about himself when we walked into Lightkeep coming to Myons aid. Who the hell is this Godfrey guy I ask. Then run into a fist full of smite.

As for Erik. By nature the infernal hierarchy was treacherous and I encouraged members to screw each other over. One day Nhymax, Jel and I think Bathore walked into Erik. Jel quickly stepped aside as did Bathore leaving Nhymax to potentially walk into his death. Luckily I won but hoh that was terrifying. Later i raised Erik and he superman smite punched me to death.