[SecondRevan]

Champion will be speaking in Navy

Champion
Male NG Human Gunslinger, Level 1, Init +5, HP 12/13, Speed
AC 18, Touch 13, Flat-footed 15, Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +3, Base Attack Bonus +1, Power Points 3/3
Pistol (25) +5 (1d8, x4)
Chain Shirt, Buckler (+4 Armor, +1 Shield, +3 Dex)
Abilities Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 17, Cha 11
Condition None


Backstory

Spoiler

I have often wondered whether I should tell the story of Champion, because it contains elements that I thought were best kept personal. However, I’ve made my decision, and shall tell the story, though I shall keep the exact details of Taria and me secret. Knowledge of what we really are is too valuable to let slip in something like this.

I met Champion by chance, both of us wondering the lands. I feel he may have been drawn to me unconsciously, but I never bothered to find out. Champion was one of those new breed of fighters, called gunslingers, I believe. He was one of the first I met, when it was still a novelty to me, though these days I have amassed a large collection of guns that I’ve collected in my travels as souvenirs.

We shared a fire for a night, and told each other stories. I told him some of my many tales from my travels, and asked only in return for his tale. He refused to tell me his real name, but I eventually found out from Taria that he was called Anton Cole. His life begun as most people’s does, and he grew up in a village blessed with peace, even marrying his childhood sweetheart and having two children. He started life as a hunter, and was skilled with the bow and arrow, though he assured me that today that he was so out of practice it was hardly worth mentioning. One day, he returned to his village, to see it burning. A gang of adventures that were littered around the village saw him, and offered him their aid.

They told him that they were hunting a deadly mage, and had failed to stop him before he burnt the village down. This was of course a lie, but Anton had no reason to doubt them. The gang’s leader, the mysterious Paladin, came wished up to him shortly after Anton was told, wishing to recruit him. Paladin was a gunslinger just like Anton would later become. Apparently, Paladin was the bastard child of some Brevoy noble, though neither Champion nor I know his real name nor the truth of this story. All either of us know is that Paladin was rejected from his family, and made his life as a hired thug until an encounter with an evil sorceress forced him to rethink his past. He said he found the light, and took up the life of a gunslinger, eager to use technology to fight the mage threat, and renamed himself Paladin, though he has no connection to the holy knights that are his namesake.

Personally, Champion believes, and I agree, that he is telling the truth of his parentage, but the rest were lies. As much as Paladin spoke rhetoric about the evils of magic, he simply wanted to hunt the biggest game in town. However, back when Champion was still Anton, he was enthralled by the story, and joined Paladin’s gang of mage hunters, casting aside his name like the rest of Paladin’s crew and renaming himself Shooter.
He spent three years hunting mages with Paladin and his allies, until a fight went wrong and he ended up left for dead. He was saved by a mysterious half-elf, who took him to Taria. Taria tended to his wounds for a month, which he spent mostly delirious. Eventually, he woke up, and was at first afraid that he was in the hands of mages, but eventually Taria calmed him down and the half-elf, a girl named Aril, explained the truth about Paladin, and how Paladin had likely burnt down Shooter’s village himself to kill a mage. Apparently, Aril had been hunting Paladin now, aware of his many crimes.

Though Champion refused to admit it, it appeared that he and Aril got quite close to each other while he recovered. Aril was a gunslinger like Shooter, but also a sorcerer and Champion credited her as being an important role in letting him escape his prejudices and hatred. His relationship with Taria was less close, as Taria refused to tell him her name, stating only that she ‘was the memory of two dreams’ and equally as enigmatic answers. I only know Taria’s was involved because I recognised her from some of the things that Champion said, like how she would say that her ‘other third was better at this sort of thing’, and because I met with her later and managed to ask her. They did eventually develop a rapport, and Taria asked Shooter to become her champion, to walk the lands and stop any evil he comes across. I am not sure whether or not Taria had an ulterior motive to this, but I believe she did it simply to provide Shooter with some much needed guidance to his life. He agreed, and, demonstrating the death of Shooter and the start of what he called his third life, renamed himself Champion.

I never met him after that night after the fire, but I understand that he found his way into the Stolen Lands.

- From the Chronicles of Edwin Hollander