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- What is your character concept going into this game? What role would you want to fill, and how at this point would you see that role contributing to the campaign's goal?
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The character I'd like to go with is a character called Olethros, for which I have a fairly epic-scale origin in mind.
Basically, Olethros as he will be in this game is in a very weakened state in comparison to the height of power he had a couple of centuries ago. He is the son of a particularly powerful Solar, but born of a mortal woman. The result of this strange union was a child of great power (say, oh, a Half-Celestial with the Paragon template on top to give a crunchy example) who grew up on Mt. Celestia, but was never really included in anything due to his comparative lack of purity. Problem is, he started growing resentful and as he came more and more into his power that resentment turned to hate. It might have turned out differently than it did, but a certain goddess chose to reveal herself to him then. Shar. That might not have been too bad if he had turned away from her in horror, realised his foolishness and turned over a new leaf. Except he didn't. Olethros thought that he was understood by the dark goddess and, after some time, actually fell in love with his idea of her.
And that's when things turned really downhill. He began studying dark arts, conducting experiments in secret, until his actions were discovered and he was banished from Mt. Celestia and turned his attentions to the Material Plane. He went a little mad, then, and made Shar's cause of returning everything to its primordial nothingness his own. Due to his great power and obsession with the goddess, he never joined the Church proper, but was still considered one of Shar's greatest servants on Toril for a long time.
Until he met his match in combat, that is. An agent of Mystra defeated him, intending on ripping apart Olethros' very essence. He nearly succeeded, but a pale fragment of the fallen half-celestial remained. His memory, his knowledge, was intact, but not his power. And the corrupted essence of the divine inside him could not be restored so easily. Thus, he had to search for a new source of power that would serve his needs and vanished for centuries.
Olethros found his new power in the manipulation of negative energy and undeath itself. He experimented with various forms of undeath in secret before he finally settled on Lichdom of a sort, having found the bloodthirst and emotional heights of vampirism too distracting.
His goal is the same as always, but he is firmly convinced that he has finally found the key to destroying all we know. The Wall. He believes it to in reality be an integral part of Ao's Creation, and that to rend it apart in its entirety would not only weaken the gods who oppose Shar, but also strike a powerful blow to existence itself. Not to mention that such a grand deed may well catapult him to such a height that he himself could become a god, which would serve his needs nicely -- and make it possible to restore himself to his original state. A small bonus in enacting the will of Shar.
His long disappearance gives him the perfect cover of being disillusioned of his worship of Shar and now, being ever the pragmatic mastermind, wanting to ensure that his ultimate fate is not that loathsome Wall. But he will need allies, for such an undertaking is far beyond his own power and would have been even before his unfortunate loss.
As for a role in the group, I see him as a very strategic mastermind that can be trusted insofar as to act in his own best interest. He actually has a dislike for lowly undead and prefers to manipulate negative energy and souls with his necromancy, so there won't be huge numbers of minions running around all the time. He'll know lots of stuff, particularly about things dark and forbidden, and is a very driven character. I'm not sure if I want to stick with Thaumaturge for him as Ebon Initiate would potentially also fit him very well, but that one's already been requested, so I may just have him be a lich with a regular casting class. I'd like him to have found some way to retain his proper appearance and not rot, if that's at all feasible. (And possibly be a Lichfiend, that lich variant that outsiders can turn into). Can't work with your old rep amongst beings who still might remember you if you're ... not recognizable. Not at all recognizable. He's very manipulative, but would in this instance have no reason to turn his machinations against the group except to somehow make them accept him as an erstwhile comrade.