completed Montauk, Arcana Cleric of Mystra

[Dr Jackal]

 

MONTAUK

Child of a Dark Cult and Priestess of Mystra

 

Water grows foul and then evaporates to nothingness.

Glass chips and shatters and falls back into dust.

It's not that the cup is half empty.

It's that someday the water will be gone and the cup itself will be no more than grit blowing on the wind.

 

 

Background

 

Fifteen years ago, a cult of corrupted druids sought to summon an ancient and unspeakable terror. Their goal was to annihilate all life, then build a new world that they might rule according to their cruel whims and dark desires. They were thwarted by a band of five adventurers -- two of whom gave their lives in the process.

After the cultists had been vanquished and the ritual had been averted, the adventurers found a young girl in a cell in the dungeons. Despite her confinement, she seemed to be in good health, and she gave her name as Montauk. For the adventurers, there was nothing left to do but take her to the nearest city and drop her off at an orphanage, really. But it's funny how things have a way of working out.

 

 

Personal History

 

Tessia Locke was a priestess of Mystra and a graduate of Vance's Academy. She had been one of the three survivors of the attack on the cult, but when the time came to give the girl up, she found that she didn't want to. Instead, Tessia retired from adventuring and raised Montauk as her own child. When Montauk grew old enough, Tessia enrolled her in the academy, just as she herself had been.

Montauk loves her adoptive mother, and strives to follow in her footsteps and to be true to the faith of Mystra. However, she was old enough to have a few memories from her time with the cult, but they are frustratingly vague. Had she just been a convenient foundling, intended as a sacrifice, or perhaps as a vessel for the summoning? Or is the truth that her parents were cultists? Was she born evil? Has she been bound to something evil? Is she already doomed?

Tessia assures her that her biological parentage doesn't matter, that she carries no dark passengers within her, and that her choices are her own.

Still, Montauk cannot help but wonder.

 

 

Personality

 

Montauk is a glass-half-empty sort of person. She expects the worst, always. Despite this, she soldiers on, for reasons that she finds hard to explain. The forces of evil will win in the end, but that only makes it all the more important to strive against them now, to buy another moment for loved ones, for friends, for people she's never met.

 

 

Mechanics

 

• Montauk is an arcana priest with a druidic slant to her magic. She's intended as a front line defender.
• Although it wasn't pre-approved, I used the Haunted One background from Strahd. I can change it if needed.
• For one of her languages, I selected Druidic. I think it's not technically on the list, but it seemed appropriate.
• Tessia keeps in touch with her surviving adventuring partners. Montauk considers them to be her uncles. I can come up with names and backgrounds if needed, but 'generic dwarf fighter' and 'generic half-elf bard' work for me.
• Montauk has never learned the cult's plan, as her mother and her uncles refuse to speak about it under any circumstances. OOC, it seems possible to me that the whole thing was a scheme by Vecna, that the cult had been completely duped, and that the summoning was not going to do what the cult thought it would.
• I don't want Montauk to come across as an edgelord, because she's really more of an Eeyore. I think she'd be really great paired with someone who's chipper and perpetually upbeat.

 

 

Link to character sheet: https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=2803868

Edited June 20, 2023 by Dr Jackal (see edit history)

[bwatford]

Thanks for the application. On vacation until next week but will be going through applications when I return.

Marked as completed for now.

[bwatford]

Only thing I can see is that Wee Jas is a god from the Greyhawk setting, and is not present in the Forgotten Realms. So might need to rework that a bit. Everything else looks good.

 

Good luck in final selection.

[Dr Jackal]

Huh. I never realized that Vecna was both Greyhawk and FR, so when I looked up 'foes of Vecna' and found Wee Jas, I just assumed she was FR. (To be fair, I've always played pretty fast and loose with official lore.)

 

I'll change Montauk over to Mystra -- unless the Raven Queen counts as a deity in FR, in which case I might have to think about it.

[bwatford]

Raven Queen is a deity in the Forgotten Realms

[Dr Jackal]

I'm going to stick with Mystra. Raven Queen seems to think that fate is fate. Montauk believes that the outcome is inevitable, but the timing is subject to change. I'll edit the app.