Torfik

Description

Name: Torfik Valthur
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Class: Warlock
Race: Ascre
Gender: M
Age: 20
Height: 4'
Personality traits:

• Self-reliant: Doesn't want to be a burden
• Helpful: Feels he owes a debt

Ideals

• If you're powerful enough, you need not rely on others

Bonds

• The surface: Loves the light and feels trapped and stifled underground

Flaws

• Refuses help

Backstory

Most Ascre are born unlucky; that’s just the way of things. Children with missing limbs are so common that most of the dwarves hardly even notice them anymore. Torfik Valthur, however, had the misfortune of being born thrice unlucky. Thank the gods he at least had his left arm, or he really would’ve been in a bind. Given the nature of his infirmity, Torfik’s family and clansmen were able to be more accommodating than most societies would have been to someone in his state, but you can only do so much for someone while still living a life of your own. While Torvik’s peers were out playing, socializing, and using the limbs they likely never thought twice about, Torfik spent most of his time at home, working on his studies and eagerly awaiting the day he was old enough for the binding ceremony.

Once finally was able to do all of the things that he had only seen others do, he relished every moment of it. (It must’ve been a good ten hours after he first got his legs before he finally stopped running.) Now every place he traveled, every hour of work he spent toiling, every task he accomplished unassisted, was a treasure. The feeling was addicting; and the more things he did for himself for the first time, the more Torfik began to despise his younger self. He couldn’t believe he had ever been so helpless, and he vowed to never allow himself to fall into that state again.

Despite all they had done for him, Torfik found himself growing to resent his family and neighbors. They meant well, but they would always see him as the one-armed boy, and would always serve to remind him of the burden that he used to be. He found himself pulling further and further away, jumping at any excuse to leave the house, leave the city; and be around new people who only saw what he was, not what he used to be. When a group of traveling merchants came through the oasis, bound for the surface, and didn’t immediately balk at Torfik’s pleas for them to take on a teenager so young as hired help, he left without a moment’s hesitation.

Torfik traveled with the merchants for the better part of a year, learning anything that anyone would teach him; but he always made sure he provided something of value in return. He was done getting handouts from anyone. After some months on the surface, the company crossed paths with another, larger, more experienced merchant group bound for greater riches on a route through the desert. Called by the opportunity to reap larger benefits from this new group, and content that he owed his former compatriots nothing, Torfik signed on with the new company and set out for the desert.

About two weeks into their travels, the group was caught off guard by a particularly nasty sandstorm that ripped through the caravan and almost buried them all alive. During a lull in the storm, they took off for the nearest underground entrance in haste; not realizing until it was too late that they had left Torfik behind, alone.

He had come to possess some survival skills during his travels; but without proper maps or extended supplies, he couldn’t survive in such a harsh environment for long. On his fourth day alone in the desert, things were looking grim. He was out of water and becoming dangerously dehydrated, with the nearest settlement still a day’s journey away. Just as he had begun to resign himself to his fate, a great white light washed over Torfik, and he felt himself... swimming, in the sunlight.

He told himself that this must be what the sun madness he had always heard about was like, and that it was surely a sign that he wasn’t long for the world. But he began to feel something he had never felt before: it was like someone was trying to talk to him, but they weren’t using words, more like ideas and feelings. But even that wasn’t quite right; they weren’t discrete concepts like words or sentences, more like... a stream of consciousness. Like the beams of sunlight themselves were washing over him, carrying a steady flow of intent as they did.

The light conveyed that it had sensed a sort of utility in him, and that it was willing to offer certain benefits if he aided it in it’s endeavors; which Torfik couldn’t quite ascertain. Those came through... too bright; incomprehensible. He couldn’t quite look directly at them with his mind’s eye. But the powers being offered... now those he could see, and certainly make use of. Whatever this thing was, it was clearly powerful; but it didn’t seem like a god... At least not the kind of god Torfik had grown up knowing of. The gods had never appealed to Torfik; they required you to plead, and beg them to bestow upon you their great and mighty gifts that you had done nothing to deserve. It was the errand of a desperate man, but this... This was services rendered for services gained, honest and simple. This was a power he could get behind.

He opened himself to the light, let it wash over him for a long while; and when the brightness subsided, Torfik opened his eyes to the vast, empty desert once more. He was no longer thirsty, no longer tired; his body had been renewed, along with his sense of purpose. Torfik resumed his path out of the desert, trying to grasp at some kind of new energy he felt inside of him, and wondering how far his new path might lead.