Start from the Beginning

Chapter 1- The Tavern on Edge of Town

Chapter 1: The Tavern on the Edge of Town A small tavern on the edge of a hardworking village is bustling with life. If you were to enter that tavern on this particular night, you would see 2 unlikely mates are having a heated discussion. Sarkon, high-browed elf of the Fuckass clan, and Grushnag, previous Warboss of a large orc hoard, were having a heated debate over who actually killed the White Wizard. Grushnag fervently exclaiming that it was he, with his legendary Bone Ax Arm of Mass Death(TM) that slayed the great White Wizard and Sarkon obviously didn’t do the deed. Sarkon scoffs.  "How could it have been the Bone Ax Arm of Mass Death(TM) when you, Grüshnag, weren’t even pulled from the dirt and mud orcs normally are made of?" Sarkon protests.   Whilst impressed at the Bone Ax Arm(TM) itself, Sarkon is not impressed with Grushnag’s braggadocios attitude. Grushnag throws his arms up in the air and scoffs louder but then barks at the nearest tavern wench to ...
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Inspiration and Background

 Grüshnag and Sarkon are 2 very special characters to me. They take me back to when times were simpler and slower. 

No working 6 day weeks to just make it only to have a busted pipe in the ceiling dash the hopes we have of getting ahead this time around... Oh well. It is what it is and shit happens. You get over it.

No, these characters were from a great time. The sheer nerdiness of hanging out in a dorm hall study room playing our own version of D and D and talking about science and politics and religion like we knew something about it all. Ahh, good times. 

A bit of context is in order here. Our friend group was composed of 6 guys, including us 2. While differing in nearly every conceivable way, religion a big one but politics and scientific interests as well, we all were big into fantasy and talking lore. Lord of the Rings was the world we all flocked around. The quintessential sword and magic universe. We all somehow put aside our differences to gather around, talk nerd and not take anything too seriously. 

I crafted Sarkon to be an older, by human standards, but young by elf standards. This let him be wise and old to the group but still no more mature than a teenager by elven culture. I also wanted Sarkon to have some of  my traits like a strong desire to learn and be a bit a of an outsider even as a part of a group. This makes Sarkon a fun character to walk through interacting with the world around him. Sarkon is both effortless to write about and the most difficult. He must be a balance of independence and agency as himself and an abstract projection of myself. A tricky balance at times.

Grushnag is another brilliant addition from Jacob. He is about the opposite of his personality as it gets. A white ork(The Hobbit, anyone?) that is brutal in battle, a tad crude, uncivilized for populated places, intelligent enough (for an ork) and ambitious for power. Grushnag has some very fun elements to him. He can be a blunt instrument for making stuff happen and yet can layer some very nuanced points, like him telling unsophisticated lies to escape unfavorable situations. It adds challenge to write but in a way of balancing out our own bias towards making a more reactive character than one that directly works towards his own goals.

The loyalty of these two is sort of a reference to real life and referencing our tabletop narrative. They both ended up teaming up to do their own side mission about halfway or so through the run and we wanted to keep that past story to bring the two together. We sprinkle those Easter eggs around to add in more details and bring the characters to life.

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