For those who were interested in the Arrarat character notes by Tim Jiardini, here's an excerpt:

"Arrarat began his career as a Ranger in a vain attempt to please his peasant mother.  On his very first adventure his group met utter disaster, and yet somehow Arrarat came out the hero.  Part of a small group of rookie rangers, Arrarat and his friends were brought along basically as load-bearers for a group of battle-hardened veteran adventurers.  Too bad for them that no one listened to the young rangers' observations that there were several fresh sets of large dog tracks near the entrance to the dungeon.  Sure enough, as our bedraggled and wounded party of adventurers climbed out of the dungeon, a pack of Hell Hounds sprang their ambush.  The battle was long and fierce.  The screams of his dying comrades as they burned in hell-fire ring in Arrarat's ears to this day.  But it was the glory of being the sole survivor agains such vicious and cunning beasts that made the strongest impact on Arrarat.  From then on, our hero was addicted to the thrill and glory of a close battle between the forces of good (Arrarat) and those of evil (anyone in Arrarat's way)."

Man, I can't WAIT to play this character.  :D

afoolandhis$ wrote:For those who were interested in the Arrarat character notes by Tim Jiardini, here's an excerpt:

"Arrarat began his career as a Ranger in a vain attempt to please his peasant mother. On his very first adventure his group met utter disaster,

He's actually MET Utter Disaster? I've only skirted and dodged his aquaintence....

Mike B.

Xaxaxe wrote:Actually, kidding around aside, it's pretty cool that you posted this. Not only is it a slice of our shared gaming heritage, but the character background is about 10 times better than any that I ever made up. I was more into asking my DM, "Okay, I just rolled up some more cannon fodder; can't I just meet the rest of the party at the tavern?"

I always require my players to jot down a quick background, even if it's only a paragraph, and I require them to include one "hook" in the description that could possibly lead to a game session or two (some through the years have led to entire campaign long quests).  One guy we used to game with, I loved the guy, but all his characters were exactly the same...when I encouraged him to write up his character background to give them a little variety, he protested by just writing the sentence "Billy (or whoever his generic fighter was) is an orphan raised by wolves who was found and raised by a wealthy prince." Then he would tell me "This means he has a lot of money and no immediate family to tie him down."  He wrote the exact same background for every character in every campaign we had just to piss me off.

Mike B.