NPC: Unroch Rexohi, Quotspa, and Zerlina

Unroch Rexohi is a mighty young warrior of the Lost Tribe of the Great Worm. The Lost Tribe arrived in Archwood almost 25 years ago through a one way gate. At that time a hunting expedition came upon an ancient ruin in Lurkwood. They were examining the area and all passed through an archway. The stone archway suddenly blazed with blue fire and transported them across the vast distance to archwood. Here, the tribe essentially re-invented itself and waits for a sign that will take its people home.
Unroch has a brother named Quotspa, who is a priest of Tempus. The two brothers have recently begun adventuring together, joined in their company by a female human ranger named Zerlina.

Zerlina was born in the small Cormyr frontier town of Thunderstone. She was the daughter of two adventurers who were members of the Company of the Flaming Falcon. This company had been employed by a Cormyte merchant to clear a large area of the Hullack Forest for lumbering, and they headquartered in a log fort just inside the treeline. One night black orcs radied the fort and killed all the members of the company, and the young Zerlina was taken by the orcs and placed in a slave pen.

She was rescued by a very old druid named Tildeth and her friend, the ranger Abdenthar. These two women would raise the child, and train her in the ways of Meillikki. Zerlina became a ranger as well, and when it came time to take a follower, she was honored by a fire falcon, a fitting tribute to her murdered parents.

I lived for a very short time in Chicago, and while I was there I started a campaign with Jeff Goode (who played Quotspa), my now ex (Zerlina) and a good friend of ours named Brett (Unroch). We played once a week, but the short story is that I didn't live in Chicago very long, so it was a very short campaign. I think we played through one complete adventure--the Fountain of Health side trip in an issue of Dungeon Magazine. The real lesson here is not to invest mountains of prep and detailed backstory into your campaign...the characters could get killed off quickly or the players could move out of town...or, in this case, the DM could.

The other lesson, I suppose, is that if you are the DM, its nice if you own all the miniatures--including the PCs. I'm glad to still have these on my shelf, and will likely include them as NPCs in my campaign.

Unroch is a Ral Partha figure, I think he came with some sort of animal, Quotspa was from the Heroe Quest game set. I actually thought that was a pretty decent game, though I never played by the rules. You got some decent plastic minis and some stand up things like a fireplace and table...both of which I still use. It was fun painting him up like a priest of Tempus, because their vestments are the dried blood of their foes. To be a priest of Tempus is never to have to wash, I guess.

Zerlina is a Rafm mini, as are the lesiban duo who resuced her. These were my ex-wife's characters and she painted them herself. She seemed to give the whole D&D thing an honest roll. Didn't make my save, though.