Alright, I have a bit of an issue. When I write character backstories, it's generally for untrained characters starting at level 1. This causes an issue when I have to make somehting that's at a higher level, as I'm having trouble with right now (My last character in a campaign got his soul eaten by a barghest - not coming back.). We're currently level 8, but I'm having trouble figuring out what my character
did to
get to that level
And so, I come here, hoping someone might be able to help me with this. Perhaps An idea of what to do
Here's what I've got so far
[spoiler]Ged is the child of Amelia Harth and Garreth Amlith, and was born a healthy baby boy. He always loved to play with the other children, though his strong personality would usually dominate them and bring them around to what he wanted to play. He was a happy child, an only child who loved his parents, would stand up for and defend his friends without hesitation. He had inherited his mother's good looks and calm demeanor while also getting his father's strength of will. It seemed he would be a perfect and upstanding example of the community - a real hero among his peers.
But like all true happiness, it didn't last. Someone from Garreth's past came looking for him, not three days after Ged's ninth birthday, and not to play dice. Ged can remember it all clearly - He came down the stairs after hearing his mother scream, and saw her held with a knife at her throat, a man in black with a face half-scorched off by what he now knows must have been acid burns. His father stood at the other end of the room, a sword in his hands. What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion; His father screaming as he ran forward, the blade piercing his mother's throat as the assassin prepared himself for combat with the large man. the battle was over in seconds - the man clad in black dead on the floor, in a pool of blood from both his severed head and his mother's slashed neck, as she died struggling for air in her husband's arms, and the tears running down the huge battle hardened man's face.
For weeks the village barely saw anything of the two outside of the funeral, and they never got an answer at the door. Garreth never pulled himself out of depression, drinking and drinking until he could try and forget his sorrows, but he would either pass unconscious on the tavern floor or come home - either way, he would weep in his sleep.
Ged began searching through every book he could find. He was filled with the childish belief that he could somehow bring his mother back to life, and it became an obsession for him for almost a year - when something unexpected happened. He began developing magic, a sorcerous talent stemming perhaps from heritage, perhaps from natural skill; whatever the case, Ged thought he had found the answer to his problems! at last! he could bring her back, somehow! Ged was obsessed, not stupid - he knew his best bet was to find someone who already knew magic and get a way to bring her back from them. With a few conversations with the local wizard, he quickly realized that necromancy was the manipulation of the dead. What he failed to understand was that this was beyond all but the power of the gods.
He snuck into the wizards tower late at night and retrieved a disk from his basement. It was made of pure onyx and somewhere within himself Ged knew he had found what he was looking for... an artifact of necromantic power. It took him months of experimenting, obsessively going over every rune on the disk, every small image until it was all burned in his mind, forcing magic into it until he knew exactly how to try and activate it. Finally he had completed what he thought would be a ritual to bring his mother back. he had done it! he had activated the disk and connected with something!
For a brief moment, he saw the face of his mother once more, but then, in a blinding flash of darkness he saw something terrible. He no longer saw his mother, Amelia. He saw an endless void of pure darkness, and it reached out to him, trying to rend his soul from his body. It was only when his father burst into the basement that Ged realized he was screaming,the cold tentacles of that void trying to reach into his body, to reach him and separate him from what he was physically. Garreth protected his son from it, pulling him away from the void and calling on the wizard who Ged had stolen the disk from in the first place to seal the planar breach, which he did with no small difficulty. He found the shattered remains of the disk on the floor of the black colored basement, but he never told Garreth, who cried that he had almost lost the only thing left to him, his son.
Ged did not get away unscathed. His still budding magic Was corrupted by the negative energy he had nearly lost his soul to. he continued to develop his magic, his father oblivious, but he never truly mastered what most sorcerers would, bolts of magical energy and small tricks like changing the color or taste of food. ged's primal connection with the negative energy plane had bent his magic to such a point that it was almost beyond his scope to simply learn how detect magic in the area around him, a simple divination, but anything - everything - involving negative energy, even some things that other sorcerers would never have learned, he learned quickly and effectively in the energy saturated basement of his home.
He stayed withdrawn, a child that had once been a leader among his friends was now the recluse almost everybody thought was tragic, and almost none knew about truly. his skin became pale as he spent more and more time away from sunlight, and his originally hazel eyes turned a blood red color, corrupted by the energy he wielded.
Recently though, Ged was suspected of his black magical doings,as has fled to seek shelter elsewhere. Only time will tell where it will take him...[/spoiler]
That's good for a level 1 character, but I have no idea where to take it from there. Please help?
