![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
This is the story of my Dungeons and Dragons character. It is the story that has set the stage for all levels of her character development. It is DeeDee's Story.
DeeDee's Story
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dallydee Dogglepuss. My human friends know me as DeeDee. I have also been known by many other names, such as Dally Dumplin (by my father), Daggle Dearie (my mother), Dugglebreath (my brother), Pussydiggle (my grandparents) and Dallydidum (my uncle). One of my favorite names is what most of my gnomish friends in Zilargo call me, Dali Lama. They say it’s a symbol of my high charismismatic appeal and musical talents, which bring people together under a peaceful common purpose.
I am a young, middle aged adult gnome: only 89 years, in fact. I grew up in the captial gnome city of the world, Zilargo, as a member of the somewhat presitgious Dogglepuss clan. Actually, my clan was a member of the lower nobility of the city. My family didn’t have much money though, so we had to make an honest living, unlike my uncle Draco Dogglepuss, who somehow ended up with most of the clan’s funds and spent his time flirting with members of upper society. My papa said that his brother, at a young age, got involved in politics, and no doubt became rich through some method of corruption. It didn’t bother my parents though. As long as my uncle Draco would stay out of our business we’d stay out of his.
My parents made their honest living in Zilargo by taking on the honest profession of being merchants in rare and valuable antiques. People from all over the known world would come to our shop to either buy or sell from our select wares. We didn’t just deal in the average everyday antique though. Our antiques were truly the rarest of the rare, with rich history and priceless value. Nobles all over the city did business with my parents. The arrangement made everyone happy. The nobles knew that when they came to the Dogglepuss antique shop, they’d be getting the best of the best. For my family’s part, we were able to intermingle with members of high society without overstepping our bounds as members of the lower nobility, but we were also not the same as just any run-of-the-mill merchant. The merchants were fine with our business too, because they knew that we only specialized in rare and expensive items that most of them didn’t deal in, so we didn’t really provide much competition.
I spent many days in that antique shop browsing, especially as a child. Often I would point something out to my papa and get him to tell me the story behind it. I learned more history from that antique shop than most people learn in any public education system. Once my papa brought into the shop an antique mandolin that he had aquired at a flea market, in a nearby city on one of his exploratory travels for merchandise. He told me the story of how it used to belong to the legendary Prince Figaro Flamenco, the gnome Price Bard. My mind captured by the story I began to spend my afternoons in the shop holding the mandolin and strumming it, pretending I too was a famous royal bard. My parents got the hint. They sent me to the famous Bardic school in Zilargo, and I became an apprentice to the Bard Biljo Bragglebunch. As I reached adulthood, I began to go out on journeys with him across the known world and soon I was proclaimed a journeyman in my own right and given the freedom to travel myself. I often went out and travelled for most of the summer, but I always found myself returning back to Zilargo near the end of the fall, to spend winter with my beloved family and antique shop.
Around the time that I was only 56 years old, still a young adult, my papa came upon the possession of a very strange antique. It was a medallion, or rather, a half medallion that was wrought of ancient design in solid gold. On the medallion was ancient writing, forgotten by most, and my father spent many evenings up in his study trying to uncover the history of the unconventional object. One day he pulled me aside and asked me to take care of some business for him on my next bardic journey, as I often did. He handed me the medallion and told me it possible that it was a very powerful artifact that many greedy and corrupt people would do anything in their power to obtain. As the story goes, this Medallion of Egat was separated into two pieces long ago so its power would not fall into the wrong hands. My father wanted me to take the medallion, to an associate of his in the human hill country, who was a specialist in arcane objects, who would be able to affirm the medallions identity. I agreed and set out that summer to meet Mr. Jekyl, arcane artifact specialist. It was the last time I would ever see my parents alive.
As fall approached, I once again made my way home. I had visited Mr. Jekyl and he had confirmed my father’s fears that this was indeed one half of the Medallion of Egat. When I got home though, I was shocked to find our proud little Dogglepuss Antique shop all boarded up. The house was empty. As I stumbled out into the street in confusion I bumped into my old friend Allegra. She told me the news. One night in the summer, while the household was asleep, someone had snuck into my parents workshop and ransacked the place. When they didn’t find what they were looking for they moved up into my parents room and ransacked that too. While the thief was searching, he must have woken up my parents, because the next morning they were both found brutally stabbed to bits in their bed. After that, my uncle Draco had taken control of the family holdings, “in trust”, he said, for my brother and closed up the shop. My brother, Dynamite, who was only 21 at the time, still quite young, was taken in by my grandparents who had agreed to foster him until he became an adult.
I met with my family later the next day. Many members of my clan stopped by my grandparents house to pay their respects to me and my brother. As we sat around the dinner table the conversation turned towards what the thief had been looking for as he ransacked the house and murdered my parents. I sort of drifted off in the middle of the conversation and discreetly pulled out the medallion I had been wearing to examine it. This was supposed to be a powerful object that many people would kill for; had the thief been looking for this? I suddenly felt a quick chill up my spine and looked up to see my uncle peering at me with a strange look in his eyes that gave me the willies. I quickly covered up the medallion, finished what was left on my plate and excused myself from the table, not sure what I had seen.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I got up and walked over to a local tavern that stayed up until all hours of the night, with my beloved antique mandolin, to do some late night entertainment to take my mind off of my troubles. When I arrived back to my room the next morning, the entire place had been ransacked. It seemed that whoever was looking for my parents was now out to get me.
I didn’t need much more encouragement. I packed up what was salvagable of my stuff that day and left. Not sure exactly where to go, I decided to set out towards Mr. Jekyl once more to perhaps get some answers on the strange medallion I carried. I got a bit waylaid on the way, however, so the day I arrived at his shop, I was informed of some very sad news. Apparently, Mr. Jekyl had received a visitor yesterday in the form of a very dangerous looking gnome. The gnome had gone to talk with Mr. Jekyl but never emerged from the room. When a clerk went to look in on them hours later it was too late. Mr. Jekyl had been stabbed to death and the assassin had fled out of an open window.
Convinced that this most recent murder was not a coincidence, I quickly packed up and left town. I travelled for days at a relentless and almost suicidal pace. I finally collapsed near the small human village of Glenna. A local ranger found me on one of his forays through the woods and took me to his home, where his wife and children resided. When I came too, I told them that I was having a streak of bad luck and needed a place to stay for the winter. They agreed to give me room and board for a small fee, provided I help out around the house. Over the next number of years I helped the Missus help raise the kiddies, picked up some wood survival smarts from the Mr. ranger, and obtained employment in the local taverns with my musical talent. Come the summers I would go out on my journeys as before, but they no longer stretched quite as far or took quite as long as before. I was trying to live low-key.
I succeeded in living in virtual anonmity for 29 years. The human townsfolk knew me as DeeDee and life wasn’t bad at all. People from all the surrounding towns would come to hear me play when it was my night on the tavern stage. It wasn't the role of a royal bard, but that was okay as long as I was alive. The medallion I kept on me at all times and never showed to anyone. It was my deep dark secret. Only it and my antique mandolin were the symbols of my shadowed past.
After 29 years I decided to take a brief foray back to Zilargo. It was my brother’s coming of age; he was a true adult now and I wanted to be there for it. I was secretly hoping that I had changed enough over the course of years living with humans that the assassin-thief would not recognize me if I went. In any case I’d keep a low profile, just to be sure. I rode back to Zilargo and surprised my grandparents one evening by my arrival. They did all the typical “where have you been?” and “how have you been doing?” questions, which I answered somewhat vaguely, just in case anyone else was listening.
The next evening was my brother’s party. All my relatives came, including my uncle, who looked a great deal richer, fatter and meaner than he did before. His eyes were on me all night, even while I played for the guests, which gave me the chills. As I stepped down from the dias I saw him coming towards me, as though to talk to me, and for some reason that I did not quite understand, I turned and quickly found myself a gaggle of my gnomic lady friends who were all married and probably all already working on their second or third child by this time. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he paused, and after a short while, turned on his heel to leave the room in seeming disgust.
Slightly curious I kept my eyes on the door he exited for about the next 10 minutes, but he did not emerge. I excused myself from the group and quietly snuck out the door, intent on following him. I wandered quietly around the courtyard, until, while near the gardens I heard the murmur of low voices. It was my uncle, as well as another male gnome who was dressed in black. My uncle was showing the man something that he held in his hands. I silently gasped. It was the other half of the Medallion of Egat. “...has something like this...” the words drifted back to me slightly cut off by the ruckus made in the nearby household. I quietly adjusted my position to get closer so I could hear more. The next words paralyzed me with fear, “...kill her.” The gnome in black silently agreed and disappeared into the night. My uncle cast a couple of glances around to look for intruders, then straightened up his suit and set off back to the party. I remained hidden in the shadows, partially trembling, and reeling over the terrible information I received.
There was no time to waste. I kissed my brother in congratulations that night and fled the house, leaving a note to explain I would be leaving. I headed back towards my safe little town only to find out after a couple of weeks, as I went to work, that another gnome had arrived in town, looking for me. The patrons of the tavern had sent the gnome up to my little house on the woody hill. I didn’t even stay for my shift at the bar. Without bothering to pack much I left for the next town with my mandolin, and medallion and bought supplies there to last me for a journey. My options were clear now. I could either run for the rest of my life and be the pursued, or I could defy fate and become the pursuer. I knew my uncle had the other half of the medallion, but I also knew he was surrounded by many other powerful and dangerous people. I was not yet ready to confront him on my own. I’d need help. I also needed a place where I could prepare for this confrontation in relative safety. In short, what I needed was options.
So, what do you think? What's missing from the plot? In some ways it's a very very typical plot for a novel. Soon I'll post about the first night of my being an adventurer, which (spoiler alert!) begins with me getting nearly killed.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dallydee Dogglepuss. My human friends know me as DeeDee. I have also been known by many other names, such as Dally Dumplin (by my father), Daggle Dearie (my mother), Dugglebreath (my brother), Pussydiggle (my grandparents) and Dallydidum (my uncle). One of my favorite names is what most of my gnomish friends in Zilargo call me, Dali Lama. They say it’s a symbol of my high charismismatic appeal and musical talents, which bring people together under a peaceful common purpose.
I am a young, middle aged adult gnome: only 89 years, in fact. I grew up in the captial gnome city of the world, Zilargo, as a member of the somewhat presitgious Dogglepuss clan. Actually, my clan was a member of the lower nobility of the city. My family didn’t have much money though, so we had to make an honest living, unlike my uncle Draco Dogglepuss, who somehow ended up with most of the clan’s funds and spent his time flirting with members of upper society. My papa said that his brother, at a young age, got involved in politics, and no doubt became rich through some method of corruption. It didn’t bother my parents though. As long as my uncle Draco would stay out of our business we’d stay out of his.
My parents made their honest living in Zilargo by taking on the honest profession of being merchants in rare and valuable antiques. People from all over the known world would come to our shop to either buy or sell from our select wares. We didn’t just deal in the average everyday antique though. Our antiques were truly the rarest of the rare, with rich history and priceless value. Nobles all over the city did business with my parents. The arrangement made everyone happy. The nobles knew that when they came to the Dogglepuss antique shop, they’d be getting the best of the best. For my family’s part, we were able to intermingle with members of high society without overstepping our bounds as members of the lower nobility, but we were also not the same as just any run-of-the-mill merchant. The merchants were fine with our business too, because they knew that we only specialized in rare and expensive items that most of them didn’t deal in, so we didn’t really provide much competition.
I spent many days in that antique shop browsing, especially as a child. Often I would point something out to my papa and get him to tell me the story behind it. I learned more history from that antique shop than most people learn in any public education system. Once my papa brought into the shop an antique mandolin that he had aquired at a flea market, in a nearby city on one of his exploratory travels for merchandise. He told me the story of how it used to belong to the legendary Prince Figaro Flamenco, the gnome Price Bard. My mind captured by the story I began to spend my afternoons in the shop holding the mandolin and strumming it, pretending I too was a famous royal bard. My parents got the hint. They sent me to the famous Bardic school in Zilargo, and I became an apprentice to the Bard Biljo Bragglebunch. As I reached adulthood, I began to go out on journeys with him across the known world and soon I was proclaimed a journeyman in my own right and given the freedom to travel myself. I often went out and travelled for most of the summer, but I always found myself returning back to Zilargo near the end of the fall, to spend winter with my beloved family and antique shop.
Around the time that I was only 56 years old, still a young adult, my papa came upon the possession of a very strange antique. It was a medallion, or rather, a half medallion that was wrought of ancient design in solid gold. On the medallion was ancient writing, forgotten by most, and my father spent many evenings up in his study trying to uncover the history of the unconventional object. One day he pulled me aside and asked me to take care of some business for him on my next bardic journey, as I often did. He handed me the medallion and told me it possible that it was a very powerful artifact that many greedy and corrupt people would do anything in their power to obtain. As the story goes, this Medallion of Egat was separated into two pieces long ago so its power would not fall into the wrong hands. My father wanted me to take the medallion, to an associate of his in the human hill country, who was a specialist in arcane objects, who would be able to affirm the medallions identity. I agreed and set out that summer to meet Mr. Jekyl, arcane artifact specialist. It was the last time I would ever see my parents alive.
As fall approached, I once again made my way home. I had visited Mr. Jekyl and he had confirmed my father’s fears that this was indeed one half of the Medallion of Egat. When I got home though, I was shocked to find our proud little Dogglepuss Antique shop all boarded up. The house was empty. As I stumbled out into the street in confusion I bumped into my old friend Allegra. She told me the news. One night in the summer, while the household was asleep, someone had snuck into my parents workshop and ransacked the place. When they didn’t find what they were looking for they moved up into my parents room and ransacked that too. While the thief was searching, he must have woken up my parents, because the next morning they were both found brutally stabbed to bits in their bed. After that, my uncle Draco had taken control of the family holdings, “in trust”, he said, for my brother and closed up the shop. My brother, Dynamite, who was only 21 at the time, still quite young, was taken in by my grandparents who had agreed to foster him until he became an adult.
I met with my family later the next day. Many members of my clan stopped by my grandparents house to pay their respects to me and my brother. As we sat around the dinner table the conversation turned towards what the thief had been looking for as he ransacked the house and murdered my parents. I sort of drifted off in the middle of the conversation and discreetly pulled out the medallion I had been wearing to examine it. This was supposed to be a powerful object that many people would kill for; had the thief been looking for this? I suddenly felt a quick chill up my spine and looked up to see my uncle peering at me with a strange look in his eyes that gave me the willies. I quickly covered up the medallion, finished what was left on my plate and excused myself from the table, not sure what I had seen.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I got up and walked over to a local tavern that stayed up until all hours of the night, with my beloved antique mandolin, to do some late night entertainment to take my mind off of my troubles. When I arrived back to my room the next morning, the entire place had been ransacked. It seemed that whoever was looking for my parents was now out to get me.
I didn’t need much more encouragement. I packed up what was salvagable of my stuff that day and left. Not sure exactly where to go, I decided to set out towards Mr. Jekyl once more to perhaps get some answers on the strange medallion I carried. I got a bit waylaid on the way, however, so the day I arrived at his shop, I was informed of some very sad news. Apparently, Mr. Jekyl had received a visitor yesterday in the form of a very dangerous looking gnome. The gnome had gone to talk with Mr. Jekyl but never emerged from the room. When a clerk went to look in on them hours later it was too late. Mr. Jekyl had been stabbed to death and the assassin had fled out of an open window.
Convinced that this most recent murder was not a coincidence, I quickly packed up and left town. I travelled for days at a relentless and almost suicidal pace. I finally collapsed near the small human village of Glenna. A local ranger found me on one of his forays through the woods and took me to his home, where his wife and children resided. When I came too, I told them that I was having a streak of bad luck and needed a place to stay for the winter. They agreed to give me room and board for a small fee, provided I help out around the house. Over the next number of years I helped the Missus help raise the kiddies, picked up some wood survival smarts from the Mr. ranger, and obtained employment in the local taverns with my musical talent. Come the summers I would go out on my journeys as before, but they no longer stretched quite as far or took quite as long as before. I was trying to live low-key.
I succeeded in living in virtual anonmity for 29 years. The human townsfolk knew me as DeeDee and life wasn’t bad at all. People from all the surrounding towns would come to hear me play when it was my night on the tavern stage. It wasn't the role of a royal bard, but that was okay as long as I was alive. The medallion I kept on me at all times and never showed to anyone. It was my deep dark secret. Only it and my antique mandolin were the symbols of my shadowed past.
After 29 years I decided to take a brief foray back to Zilargo. It was my brother’s coming of age; he was a true adult now and I wanted to be there for it. I was secretly hoping that I had changed enough over the course of years living with humans that the assassin-thief would not recognize me if I went. In any case I’d keep a low profile, just to be sure. I rode back to Zilargo and surprised my grandparents one evening by my arrival. They did all the typical “where have you been?” and “how have you been doing?” questions, which I answered somewhat vaguely, just in case anyone else was listening.
The next evening was my brother’s party. All my relatives came, including my uncle, who looked a great deal richer, fatter and meaner than he did before. His eyes were on me all night, even while I played for the guests, which gave me the chills. As I stepped down from the dias I saw him coming towards me, as though to talk to me, and for some reason that I did not quite understand, I turned and quickly found myself a gaggle of my gnomic lady friends who were all married and probably all already working on their second or third child by this time. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he paused, and after a short while, turned on his heel to leave the room in seeming disgust.
Slightly curious I kept my eyes on the door he exited for about the next 10 minutes, but he did not emerge. I excused myself from the group and quietly snuck out the door, intent on following him. I wandered quietly around the courtyard, until, while near the gardens I heard the murmur of low voices. It was my uncle, as well as another male gnome who was dressed in black. My uncle was showing the man something that he held in his hands. I silently gasped. It was the other half of the Medallion of Egat. “...has something like this...” the words drifted back to me slightly cut off by the ruckus made in the nearby household. I quietly adjusted my position to get closer so I could hear more. The next words paralyzed me with fear, “...kill her.” The gnome in black silently agreed and disappeared into the night. My uncle cast a couple of glances around to look for intruders, then straightened up his suit and set off back to the party. I remained hidden in the shadows, partially trembling, and reeling over the terrible information I received.
There was no time to waste. I kissed my brother in congratulations that night and fled the house, leaving a note to explain I would be leaving. I headed back towards my safe little town only to find out after a couple of weeks, as I went to work, that another gnome had arrived in town, looking for me. The patrons of the tavern had sent the gnome up to my little house on the woody hill. I didn’t even stay for my shift at the bar. Without bothering to pack much I left for the next town with my mandolin, and medallion and bought supplies there to last me for a journey. My options were clear now. I could either run for the rest of my life and be the pursued, or I could defy fate and become the pursuer. I knew my uncle had the other half of the medallion, but I also knew he was surrounded by many other powerful and dangerous people. I was not yet ready to confront him on my own. I’d need help. I also needed a place where I could prepare for this confrontation in relative safety. In short, what I needed was options.
So, what do you think? What's missing from the plot? In some ways it's a very very typical plot for a novel. Soon I'll post about the first night of my being an adventurer, which (spoiler alert!) begins with me getting nearly killed.
Current Mood: 
sun-burnt
sun-burnt2 comments | Leave a comment