Not everyone in life makes a big impact on the world. So it is with some characters who - no matter how fondly I or others regard them - never quite go on to make as huge an impression on the game as others might. I specialise in characters like this. "Interesting" people with too little ambition, or losers whose lofty goals outweigh their meagre talents. Freaks, sidekicks, social outcasts and the occasional nutball. These aren't my regular heroes. These are the other guys.

Slurm the gripli was the miniscule and surprisingly disreputable offsider of the paladin Rugo. He drank, smoked, gambled and was not all that devout, but his loyalty to Rugo was unquestionable. Wherever Rugo went, Slurn was right there at his back - or on it. Like Rugo, Slurm was a member of the Temple City cult that held the heretical belief that Saint Stephen was a kind and just god (he was neither), a belief which led to persecution and outlawry by the powerful priests. Slurm was a pragmatic soul not much given to faith, but he had suffered at the hands of the priests and joined with the rebel cult to help overthrow their rule of Temple City. In the service of the heretics, he became an expert scout and an occasional assassin, willing to do what the more devout cultists would not. However his friendship with the young paladin Rugo kept him from straying too far across the line, and in time he became so impressed with his childhood friend that he swore himself to his service.

From that moment on they were inseparable, and when Rugo decided to strike out from Temple City on a quest to reform his home, Slurm strung his bow and hopped onto Rugo's back. They travelled to Ivyriensteine, where they met and joined the nascent team of adventurers known as the Harbringers. Over the following months, they grew together in power and reputation, Rugo into an unshakeable bastion of faith and virtue, Slurm as a roguish ne'er-do-well with a penchant for getting his hands dirty while the paladin looked the other way. Though Slurm's tactics often provoked Rugo to harsh criticism, their friendship never faltered. When Rugo converted the people of Rhorton's Grove to his faith, Slurm stayed on for a time, surprising himself by becoming an evangelist for the cause.

Slurm eventually met his downfall while separated from his master. As Rugo went about the dangerous business of converting his own god to a new pantheon, Slurm joined an expedition to the Serpent Peninsula to uncover the secrets of a lost interdimensional artefact. But on the way, he was killed trying to sneak into a Hulean spy ship and eaten by his bullywug captors. His soul was sent into the presence of the evil goddess Hela, with whom he was forced to play endless deadly games of chance for her amusement. He was eventually rescued by the Sisterhood of Slurm, a cult that sprang up amongst the faithful of Rhorton's Grove, where his bones had been laid to rest.

Slurm was cool. He was a foot tall frogoid who always had a cigar hanging out one side of his mouth and was never short of a wisecrack, even though only Rugo ever really understood what he was saying. Slurm often threatened to relegate Rugo to the sidekick position - everyone loved the little guy, especially me. Getting him killed was just plain stupidity on my part, and he was the one character I deeply regretted losing, because he was such a fun counterpoint to the rod-up-his-arse paladin. But his closing scene, as he cuts cards with an evil goddess for his soul, was pretty cool, and eventually he was freed to go on to his eternal reward. I like to think of him now in some swampy afterlife, knocking back a few drinks and grifting some suckers while he waits for his old friend Rugo to arrive.

Freduardo was a son of the Darine, a race of outcasts cursed to live nomadically. Like most of his people, he was raised a circus performer and thought by most - not unfairly, as happenstance would have it - to be a thief. While passing through Ivyriensteine, he fell into the company of the group of young adventurers known as the Blades of the Highmoor. Freduardo was an great swordsman - though not in Flashing Blade's class - but where he truly excelled was on the dance floor. Under other circumstances, he would have been known as one of the greatest dancers of his age, rather than a minor sellsword of brief notoriety. A tempestuous romantic, he lived life enthusiastically, womanising, drinking and always dancing with dazzling flair.

Sadly, as a Darine, he never enjoyed the popular acclaim he desired. Despite many great accomplishments as an adventurer, personal success was always secondary to his greater goals. He longed to lift the curse from his people and to have them welcomed in Haranlarche. Though he managed to lever his influence with Count Olous Sabot into some limited concessions for the Darine, to eliminate the curse once and for all he knew he must travel to the Demiplane of Dread and slay the creature that laid it. He spent the rest of his life in pursuit of that goal, but his final fate remains unknown.

Freduardo started more or less as a joke character ("It is the mystery of the dance" was his stock-in-trade Simpsons quote), but in many ways he was the one I was most serious about. Of all the characters I had played in the World of Mystery to that point, he was the one who I understood best, and who in turn best understood his place in the world. And while he was passionate about pretty much everything, he was especially passionate about challenging the destiny he grew up with, to be "just another Darine". One of these days I'm going to have to pin Johnathon down and work out just what happened to him, but for the moment I find it rather satisfactory to have his success or failure remain a mystery.

Aonul was kidnapped at birth and raised by an orcish war clan which believed him to be a Chosen of the Tempests, elemental storm gods. The warband was captured and imprisoned when he was 18. In return for their release, Aonul became an Agent of W.A.R., Haranlarche's covert espionage ring.

A savage sorceror of not inconsiderable power, the "Storm Lord" featured in only a handful of adventures, helping to roust Hulean spies out of Seacomber and calling down a torrential thunderstorm to destroy the pirate city of Highport (sadly not permanently). There isn't too much I can say about him - he wasn't really around long enough to make a big impression. I would have liked to see more of him and the rest of the Agents of W.A.R., but they were sidelined by bigger events that involved the Harbringers and the Blades of the Highmoor.

After the resolution of the Westshire crisis, the campaign jumped ahead some 70 years. My new character was a dwarf rogue trader, Glangen Dwelfhelmia, known to his shipmates as Noon. Noon had quite the checkered history before commencing his trading career.

He was exiled from Rockholme as a youth for spending more time in the company of an ancient undead dwarven king than his countrymen were entirely comfortable with. Little did they know that the ghost had passed on knowledge of an ancient treasure horde to his protege. The somewhat resentful Glangen saw no reason not to benefit by the knowledge, and stole the cache in partnership with the tragically mad dwarf Morlynd. After stashing his share, Glangen became caught up in the Great Rebellion and found himself fighting on behalf of King Pelops' forces.

A few years later, he unearthed his loot and bought in as a partner in Throg's Shipping Company (later Lord Ogre Shipping and now the Royal Shipping Company. Its board has a high chairman turnover rate.) An indifferent sailor, he became responsible for purchasing and trade negotiations aboard the "Maven II". Unfortunately for Noon, who along with his equally unscrupulous shipmates Iggy and Thornton Mara was always on the lookout for side deals and shifty scams, the company invariably became embroiled in propblems that were bad for business, everything from a host of trade skirmishes to battles with the undead plant god M'Wandah to intrigues by a variety of criminal masterminds.

Noon has no taste for adventure. He prefers the quiet life, where he can dream up schemes to become rich without all these interruptions by monsters and madmen plotting to overthrow his beloved King (Noon is a staunch Royalist). Ironically, he is already fabulously wealthy due to the adventuring successes of the company, but Noon disdains riches he perversely considers "ill gotten". He is all too aware that his fortune was amassed more through the adventuring talents of his partners than his own trading abilities, and resents the "ease" by which he became wealthy.

These days, with the Kingdom of Haranlarche under continuous threat, Noon's plans to branch out on his own and head his own trade company have been put on the back burner. Instead he is engaged in a variety of schemes to create an adventuring company to rival the Knights Below or the Silver Knot, aimed at protecting Haralarche and building his reputation. So far, he has met with less than stellar success, but he's the optimistic type.

Page last updated: 18 July 2002