Flich
Race: Goblin
Class: Wild Mage Sorcerer
Backstory
Flich Kahra-Suuren was born middle child of five and eldest daughter of her family in the lower-east hillside of the Sword Coast. Under normal circumstances, this would mean she would be expected to take care of the family as the new matriarch when she came of age, as per her horde’s customs. However, no one really expected this of her.
Flich was anxious and shy, barely bold enough to raise her voice above a whisper at times. Constantly afraid of whatever may jump out of the shadows at her, as well as physically weak in many ways, she proved to be a failure in most goblin activities such as hunting, scavenging, and farming. Truthfully the only skill she seemed to have was that of weaving and braiding, but given every goblin in Horde Suuren (Goblick for “Hair Knotters”) is taught how to do this as soon as they can use their hands, this was no miracle.
Flich’s home life was just as unexceptional, sadly. Her mother, Myrn, was left to raise five children by herself while her husband Yore travelled up and down the sword coast doing who-knows-what. Myrn was strong, but still only one goblin, so her children rose to the occasion to help her as soon as they could.
Wahk, Flich’s oldest brother, was strong and capable, and a fantastic hunter. He was the only one who saw the struggles his oldest little sister was dealing with and was able to help, teaching her how to make snares and nets capable of trapping small game. Grel, her other brother, was far less kind. Injured in a hunting accident that left him permanently crippled, Grel took his anger of being made “useless” out on his cowardly sister, calling her “Flinch” and reminding her of how much of a burden she was on the family so that he would feel better.
Flich’s younger sisters were kind – Nok proving a true talent at gardening and Urhn beginning to show promise in her weaving skills at a very young age – but their success created a barrier between them and their fearful older sister. And thus, Flich spent most of her time alone. In that time she learned how to gather, and understand the environment she explored. She scouted all of the hillside and into the forest around her home, but always made sure to stay clear of the Giant’s Mound, where a terrible Hill Giant was known to keep his gluttonous mountain of food. Of course, always is a bit of a strong word.
One year, the winter was bad. The crops that summer had been few, and game had been scarce, so the entire horde was starving. Desperate, and unable to think of any better way to help her family, Flich took an empty sack and snuck off to the giant’s home. The cave dug within the mound smelled of wet earth and wretched body odor, but lying inside was all of the giant’s spoils – unprotected and ripe for the taking. Hurriedly she filled her sack, so hurriedly she did not hear the beast sneak up on her until he had her tight within his grasp.
What happened next no one is quite sure of. What Flich remembers of it comes back to her in bursts – the smell of his breath as the giant raised her to his lips, the feeling of her hair getting caught in his teeth and she pulled her head away just in time, the roar of anger…and the strange, searing pain that traced its way through her body unlike anything she had ever experienced. There was a bright flash, then…darkness.
When Flich awoke she ached inside and out, barely able to grasp her surroundings. However, the giant was all she needed to see. In a panic, she ran – as far, and as fast as her feet could carry her. Not far behind her she heard the same roar that had haunted her all her life, now chasing behind her. For three days and three nights she ran without peace, until finally the beast seemed to give up his chase. Lost and scared, unsure when or even if she could return home, she struck out in search of food, shelter, and rest.
The next few days were a blur, for Flich. Survival was key, but something felt off. Her body hummed with an energy unfamiliar to her, and she would occasionally catch glimpses of things that couldn’t be – things like a rock floating, or strange colored light coming from her hands. She assumed these were signs of exhaustion, or maybe madness, but couldn’t ignore them any more after The Incident.
One night, while she was camping by the side of the road, she found herself attacked by a gnomish man who began shouting slurs at her – berating her for what “her kind” had done and threatening her with violence. Feeling fear well up inside her, she wanted nothing more than to flee this man. With that thought, she felt that strange hum again, and in the blink of an eye found herself within the forest, away from her camp and the man. At the sounds of screaming she turned around and saw the camp behind her, as well as the same gnome being attacked by a strange mechanical beast she had never seen before. She watched as it picked him up with its giant mouth, and right before swallowing him disappeared into the ether. Flich was terrified, unsure what had just happened, and how. The only thing she knew for certain was somehow, some way, she had been the cause of it.
Taking the bag the gnome left behind as her own travel supplies (it wasn’t as though he could use it anymore), Flich’s travels continued until she found herself within the walls of Waterdeep, along the shores of the Sword Coast. Lost and confused in such a large urban place, she wandered the streets until she came across a building boasting of a large collection of magical artifacts and history. Unsure what a “museum” was, but curious for answers, Flich snuck in after hours to try and find something that could help her, maybe even explain what happened to her.
What she found instead were Ettie Lewellyn, a Fire Genasi woman who was one of the chief explorers and researchers of the museum, and her partner Ren, a human druid who did their best to keep Ettie’s more wild behavior in check. Responding kinder than Flich anticipated, the two took the young goblin in and began to help her learn the ways of the city, society, and magic – for that was the strange new power Flich possessed.
Grateful for what they’d done and glad for companionship, Flich happily stayed with the two adventurers. And when they decided to go in search of the strange Candlekeep Library to find information on an artifact, (some “Jewels of Denial” or whatever Ettie insisted they were called), Flich went with them to learn more about herself, and the world at large.
The Nightstone Incident
Nightstone, a small town south of Waterdeep, was hardly notable. An agricultural place, surrounded by a moat and walls crowned with a small outpost tower to keep its people safe, nothing should have happened there. But nothing interesting ever happens where it should, does it? Such was the case for our heroes when they decided to stop at this small, unsuspecting hamlet for the night.
They barely made it down the road before encountering the next member of their party – Malim, the strange blue tiefling nobleman. Though wary of each other, the four got along well enough to travel together for the near future, since it seemed like worse things stood over the horizon. A corpse lay on the side of the road in Nightstonian garb, and smoke drifted from the walls of the city, clearly crumbling from the weight of attack.
The streets were near barren, save for large boulders crushing various victims and items and goblin scavengers with their worg steeds. Wary of killing, the party scattered the worgs and goblins to the far reaches of the buildings, and found themselves alone in the center of town.
Now Nightstone was a strange name for a town – especially one as small as this one – but there is always a story behind strange names. This one was spawned from the strange stone obelisk that jutted from the earth in the center street, the buildings laid out around it to preserve it. Its smooth face was dark and near-abyssal in its depth, like glass with no light behind it – yet no one could deny the hum and call they felt, should they stand too close to it. Many people came to stare and study this rock.
This is pretty hard to do when all you have is an empty crater in the middle of your town, no stone in sight.
Knowing whispers of the town’s namesake, the party stopped to study this notable lack of stone. Ettie, bending down, pulled a rather sizable piece of the stone from the earth that seemed to have broken off from the greater whole. Though no longer than what we know as a football, it still had an impressive girth to it, and subtle swirling and patterning throughout. She smiled, waving it around and talking about it, until the party noticed it had a strange reaction to them – one specifically.
Flich wanted nothing to do with it. Remembering the pain and fear of her night faced with the giant, she began to back away from Ettie and this crystal that seemed to glow when presented to her. Still, the crystal had other plans. It flew out to her, awakening a similar power within her that sent her flying up in the air as well. The goblins around the party in the nearby buildings took note of this, whispering the title “Booyagh” under their breath – the ancient goblin word for magic.
While these goblins wondered and worried about this occasion, the rest of the party made their way to the Nightstone Keep, to find any remaining settlers and ask for their aid. After shenanigans, disguises, and mistrust, the party was left to camp outside the keep until dawn, when they could plan.
When dawn rose, kissing the hillside with its gentle light, it brought a horrifying sight with it: two armies flanking the city, one of orcs and one of elves, with the worst just over the eastern wall – Hill Giants. The party sprang into action, Ettie and Ren running to the town below to fight on the ground, and Malim and Flich staying on the tower walls. They fought likes devils, tearing their way through enemies and taking no mercy – except for little Flich. Faced with the monsters that had plagued her with fears for so long, she stared down the giants in horror. Then, feeling the shard of the Nightstone growing warm in her hand, she did the only thing she could think of.
Strange arcane energy tore through the sky, seeming to almost rip it in two and wrapping itself around one of the giants like barbed wire. Flich was barely in control of what she was doing on the other end, but she knew one thing for sure: these giants would not hurt her again. The magic began to tear through the beast, forming a strange, Giantish glyph in the sky Flich had never seen before. The giant seemed to lose all of his power, his strength, until finally when the spell ended he was a mere husk of himself, grasping for life.
The rest of the fight was a blur of hiding, fighting, and screaming as life after life was taken. The two armies – not here to fight the town, but each other – tore into each other like animals. One among them, a mercenary named Rica The Bear, fought like ten men. He destroyed all in his wake, until finally he turned his eyes towards the giants his Goliath brethren called kin. Seeing one of them weak, he threw himself at it and began to tear into it, beating it until it fell with his massive stone sword.
After hours more of fighting, both giants fell and the orcish army retreated. The elven army of the forest, vague allies of the people of Nightstone, touched base with the party and the guards protecting the keep. Malim, who had come to the town to speak to one of their healer women, found her house swathed in hellish ice – the doing of his dark lord Asmodeus, of whom the woman was also a follower. Worried though he was, the party (who after this encounter with the frozen home began to refer to themselves as The Christmas Hellraisers) realized there were more timely concerns. The goblins (who had swept through the town after it had been attacked by a strange floating castle in the sky by way of falling rocks) had taken many of the survivors into their lair of the nearby caves, where they intended to feast on them because of their own lack of food.
Horrified, the party hurried to the caves as fast as they could, but not before being stopped Rica The Bear. Being interested in helping these people who had been wrongly taken by goblins, a people he hated for their nuisance and problems, he volunteered his services. He did not know, however that this little ‘halfling” who had hidden herself with disguising magic from all of the humans and elves The Christmas Hellraisers had met, was actually a goblin herself. After a brief, awkward interlude where this information was shared and apologies were exchanged, the party agreed to let this Goliath man with the wrath of a bear into their party, and off they set to the caves.