Gregorotto's Cadre of Characters

[Gregorotto]

Character	Race, Background, Class & Level	Setting	One-Liner	Active Game	Links
Mercedes Kilgrace	Tiefling Folk Hero Path of Wild Magic Barbarian 5	Forgotten Realms	Lost Scion of Neverwinter looking for purpose and people to rely on	The Shattered Obelisk	Sheet | Log

Edited March 31 by Gregorotto (see edit history)

[Gregorotto]

"Keep screaming: it'll only make this go faster"

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Name: Mercedes Kilgrace, aka Lady Myranda Freegrace of Neverwinter

Character Concept: Scornful noble scion on a mission of vengeance who quite likes the storm raging within her, actually

Race, Background, Class (Subclass): Tiefling Folk Hero Wild Magic Barbarian

Description: Wild red eyes and flowing crimson hair mark the purple tiefling's horned head at its center, feral fangs revealed to show the left one slightly crooked. Her nose has a perpetual bruised quality to it, her chin constant with nicks. Indigo ram-like horns rise out of her mane of hair and twist back like wind-swept trees, almost symmetrical in their paths. If not for these, she might have a pleasant face, but there is something undeniably dangerous about the woman, standing six feet in total and made of pure muscle, hardly an ounce of fat upon an inch of her frame. At times her red eyes have an orange band about their center, often at the same time her hair starts to have a smoky quality and a wind of its own. Completely normal occurrences in the life of one Mercedes Kilgrace.

Her stature denotes one of noble raising or just really good posture; in truth, it is the former but she tries to maintain the latter for the sheer martial discipline she has before she allows herself to become a blunt force instrument to the "storm," which is what she calls when the magic flowing through her takes over. There is no predicting it, there is no attempt to control it: Mercedes loves the thrill of it, born of pain and a force of grief that frankly? Makes her feel damn good. Every step of her life is spent attempting to recapture these ruptures of her soul into the physical, as Mercedes explores this new side of her life. No longer Myranda the one day Lady Freegrace of Neverwinter, she seeks to live as she never did before: wildly, freely, with reckless abandon. Fight when she feels like fighting, drink when she's thirsty, read what she wants to, and who knows? Love whom she wants to love.

In terms of dress, Mercedes Kilgrace does not care much. All must fall to two of her most compelling tiefling traits: her long, wide whipping tail barbed with a fleck of red hair, and her heavy, nearly scaled tail. She dresses appropriate to the weather but her fallback outfit is a simple white tunic, a padded leather jacket, doeskin boots over simple leather pants, and a signet ring around her neck hidden beneath her tunic, all worn tightly, as if squeezing her in. She prefers dark clothes, and while once she preferred armor, she now enjoys the freedom of life without it. She is rarely seen without her massively oversized axe.

Origin: Mercedes Kilgrace was born on the Sword Coast, after a terrible storm. That's what she tells people: in realty, Lady Myranda Freegrace was born in Waterdeep's Castle Ward, afforded by her merchant family's attempt to rise back into noble stature, and it was here she spent the first fifteen of her sixteen years.

Past is Prologue: Mercedes Kilgrace has a simple story to tell. She is a merchant's daughter who now wanders the many trails of the North, where the storms take her. That merely describes the last few months of her whole life, but Mercedes Kilgrace is new to this life: she has a hard time hiding who she once was.

The House Freegrace was a high and mighty noble house whose home lie near Neverwinter's Dolphin Bridge, a beauteous manor gracious with its time and resources to the commoners that lived nearby. Truly they lived up to their name, a nigh-democratic house in one of the North's mightiest bastions of civility.

Then came the fires of Mt. Hotenow, down upon Neverwinter, shattering it from below, drowning it in ash from above. Only a single son escaped Neverwinter that day, and he, like many, fled south to Waterdeep. With no resources, no proof of identity, nothing but the name Darryn Freegrace, he came seeking the generosity of his forebearers only to find closed gates and false allies in Neverwinter, eager to renounce the debt on their ledgers. Darryn was named a charlatan and forced to get creative to rebuild his life. Vowing to get to Neverwinter one day and make things right, Darryn put the work ethic of a unicorn into his daughter Valerya, whose merchant empire spanned from broken Chult to the Icewind Dales, from newfound Tymanther to the Moonshaes. She worked hard in her life, combining her clever mind with the mysterious magic that seemed to follow her. She took to lovers, took no spouse, yet produced a single child: tiny Myranda, with dancing tail and tiny black horns. Beyond that, she was a completely normal child and despite the infamy of "House Freegrace," Myranda was raised fully believing the stories of her mother and ignoring the reputation House Freegrace had.

Where her grandfather Darryn had charisma and grace, and her mother Valerya had cunning and sorcery, Myranda had neither: what she did have was a steel-like determination, a desire to build a mind for how to break things, and the steady hand to wield the hammer of building and breaking. Valerya leaned into her daughter's gifts and made a warrior of her, as well as giving her a study in building and architecture. Her education was more physical than mental or social, and there Myranda thrived. Her relationship to her mother was close; nothing was kept between them. Well, almost nothing.

Then the time came: the Chasm had closed, and Neverwinter was in the full process of being rebuild. While Valerya could wield her massive resources, Myranda could join the monster hunts and free Neverwinter from the grips of abominations from beyond the Chasm. Both were enthusiastic as Lord Neverember, now solely Lord-Protector of Neverwinter, and soon boarded a ship with other nobles of Neverwinter.

It was near the Mere of Dead Men that the storm found them. Everyone did what they could, including Myranda and her mother, to keep the mast up, to keep them afloat. But the storm proved stronger. Some fled, to certain death when the mast fell but did not immediately sink the ship. In the lightning, there she saw him: the man on the rock on the beach, holding out his arms before a crowd behind him, commanding the storm. Her mother spoke a name, one she didn't hear. With that, she cast a spell of protection upon Myranda, just as lightning from the storm fell directly upon the tiefling girl and shattered the ship.

When next she awoke, in deep pain and wrapped in bandages, she was in the shack of a saltbearded dwarf named Martoon Shieldbanger. Not a real name, but Myranda did not know that. She was the sole survivor; the others who had drifted to the beach had been buried. While none matched the description of her mother, Myranda knew. More importantly, she had physically changed: her skin was now purple, her hair now a bright flaming red instead of a black, her eyes red and burning. Martoon helped nurse her to health in the following month and gave her an axe he called Blood Vow, which he had used to exact revenge upon a rival at Mithral Hall once. The two agreed the best course of action was to seek out a purpose to the storm that still surged within her: and find out why, if possible, the storm had come at all, if the man was still out there. They also agreed Myranda Freegrace was dead, for now. She wore the ring her mother had given her as she completed the spell of protection, the signet ring of House Freegrace, to prove her name and retake the family fortune and mission, in due time.

First, Mercedes Kilgrace needed a life.

And so, she wandered from the Mere of Dead Men up to Leilon, then to Neverwinter, clearing out a group of ashmodai cultists, then over to the Neverwinter Wood, where her magic first manifested as she slew an owlbear. Realizing the storm was manifesting, combined with the magic her mother had cast upon her, she could herself command the storm and use it to become a monster man she sought would fear. Through her journey she became the folk hero she loved reading about in her chapbooks, especially in her trashy romances.

And so, following rumors and hope of glory and purpose, Mercedes Kilgrace comes to Phandalin.

OOC: Originally belonged to a Princes of the Apocalypse game, adapted for the Shattered Obelisk. Started at level 5.

Edited March 28 by Gregorotto (see edit history)