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| Ahh yes, Garthon the Death Seeker. |
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| In all gamers lives we come across a character we create that takes a life of his own. A character who�s� actions and antics surprise you as much as the game master and other players. Garthon was just such a character. This withered half crazed old orc was one of the oddest things I ever came across, but it was a hell of a fun time. |
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| The Birth of a Death Seeker |
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| Garthon�s creation happened during the summer of 1996, I had recently moved to Andrews AFB and had only just gotten tuned to the local gamer community and found a group looking for a player. I jumped in on a current TMNT campaign (oh, palsy bear, we hardly knew ya) and played a one shot character, Carter (heretofore known as the psychotic deer). |
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| During the "Psychotic Deer" session I decided that this group was pretty damn cool and so I decided to hang with them. It was here I met the man who made it possible, Jon Schloe. He said he was starting a new campaign for a system I hadn�t yet played, Earth Dawn. I said sure and we went through the process and I created an Elven warrior named Nigel, based off an assassin I played in a Palladium game I was in a few years ago. The first session went by (Lesson one, don�t attack giant crabs in their own caves. It�s a disarming experience.) and I wasn�t entirely pleased with Nigel. He just didn�t fit, it didn�t feel right and besides, I was rolling like crap so he just appeared to be a big sap. I let Schloe know about it that night and he said if I really wanted to I could make a new character but he better be good, because I was gunna be stuck with him. |
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| I was stumped for an idea for a while, so we just hung out. We started talking about old characters and old games and laughed a lot at the weird and ridiculous adventures and characters we�ve been through. That�s when it hit me, a character I made back in the days of first edition Dungeons and Dragons, the Black Banshee. |
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| The Black Banshee was a thief. A damn horrible thief. He was ugly, he was old. He had a bad Scottish accent and the muscles and brains of an eight-year-old. He earned the name "Black Banshee" when he heard the old tale that when a banshee wails outside your home, a person in your home is doomed to die. Well, BB would climb his ancient butt into a tree in the middle of the night and howl pathetically outside his next victims� home. "AROOO!!! AROOHH!! Coff coff!! ARRoOOo-coff!!" The Banshees career was as short lived as you would expect a 3 hit point life to be, but it was fun, yelling in bad Scottish accent and acting like I knew everything. Telling the tales of the banshee Schloe and I laughed for hours, tears in our eyes, that when the idea for Garthon the Death Seeker came into full bloom. The Death Seeker had been born. |
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(An early picture of Garthon) |
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| The Death Seeker Cometh |
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| Enter: GARTHON the DEATH SEEKER. The Earth Dawn system is an amazing thing. It allows a decent number of different and interesting races and has a great take on how your characters talents are really magically based. It also has a system of "steps" to determine which dice are rolled for situations. If I had to point out a problem with Earth Dawn, it would be that your discipline determined your basic personality, which is kinda constricting. Despite it all, I went through to create the Death Seeker, deciding on the Troubadour as an interesting way of life for my character. Looking over the races I went with Orc, as Orcs are passionate, strong, misunderstood, ugly, and have a short life span. |
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| He was an old, hunch-backed, half-crazed bard with a tendency to say the wrong thing at the right time. He slept in ditches and continually complained of being poor. He smelled like a cow pasture and ate eggs by the dozen. He carried around a bag of miscellaneous bones, which he claimed were the remains of his dead dog "Spot" who had been stomped by a horse. He carried a gnarled stick with a knot on top that he swore resembled Spots head though only he saw the resemblance. He yelled and constantly berated all around him and was quick with temper and fists. He had a terrible Scottish accent and a red fez. He was born. |
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| and fists. He wore a red fez. He was born. |
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