ER:Grope

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A troll appearing in the Errant Road free-form on-line role-playing game, portrayed by Graybeard. He does not, and will not, appear in the main story, or in anything else set in the "canon" (Poe-verse). His basic concept appears in this thread in the Forum.

Description

Grope is your basic adult male troll, if a rather strapping specimen of one: nine feet tall, heavily muscled and scarred (trolls treasure their battle scars), with reddish-brown skin and a countenance that can reasonably be called "intimidating," and not just to humans. He is roughly 400 years old, placing him right in the prime of a troll's life, except that most male trolls tend to die young, whether in combat, by accident, or through other forms of testosterone poisoning. If he can avoid this fate himself, he has another 400 years or so of life to look forward to.

As usual for trolls, he hunts and fights with bow and arrow, and uses a sword for close-in work. However, also as usual for trolls, his claws are potent weapons themselves, and he is a nasty customer in hand-to-hand combat. He has occasionally played around with firearms that he got from various humans (whom he and his fellow trolls refer to as the "Small Ones"), but that didn't work well.

Grope's usual clothing is a cruddy brown tunic that he calls the "Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe," or just Robe for short. It is not only clothing (you really don't want to see a naked troll) but also a key artifact in his, and his people's, religious practice, as it incorporates small bits of hide from his ancestors (and others) placed there during the trolls' cannibalism rituals for the dead. He frequently pauses to consult the "Wisdom" contained in the Robe when confronted with challenges or questions. Unfortunately, the Robe stinks something awful, at least to human noses. He therefore has found it valuable to keep a basic loincloth and non-magical tunic handy for those rare occasions when he knows he'll be interacting with humans.

He travels for some time with a magically-enhanced chipmunk bearing the imaginative name "Chippy." This unlikely alliance began soon after he landed in Farrel and lasted for quite a while, Chippy basically serving about the same role that a familiar does for a more conventional mage-character. The partnership has recently ended (on friendly terms), out of concern on Grope's part about being seen by his people with anything so peculiar on his shoulder, as well as concern on Chippy's part as to whether those people might be more inclined to eat him than Grope is. (Both concerns are quite reasonable when you stop to think about them.)

Backstory

Grope was one of the elders of his tribe in the troll homelands, wherever those are, and became friends with the human Lucas Ravanel when the two took turns saving each other's lives. When population pressures in the troll lands grew to the point of causing trouble for the tribe, he and his mate Zhbrigeeul, a powerful troll shaman/priestess, left the tribe to go exploring, in search of a place that the whole bunch might move to and settle down. Rumor had it that the islands of Tsuiraku (not the floating city, just the landmass) were sparsely populated and might offer some places for a small band of trolls to settle, out of harm's way. Grope and Zhbrigeeul therefore trotted off to Tsuiraku, having some adventures on the way that solidified their friendship with Lucas Ravanel (and also left the mysterious Mr. Stagpoole eternally in their debt).

On arrival, however, they discovered that they'd landed not on a wilderness shore, but close to the substantial city of Kiyoka. This wasn't at all what they had in mind: the idea of this exploration was to avoid places full of humans, not settle right in the middle of them. For undisclosed reasons, they went their separate ways on landing (uncomfortably for both, as trolls hunt in pairs, mate for life, and are deadly serious about it), planning to conduct their explorations independently and get back together as soon as one of them found something suitable for the tribe to move to ... and that, about three years back, was the last time Grope ever saw Zhbrigeeul, who seemed to simply disappear. Alas, it's now known that her hide was adorning a wall of the main house at Rising Moon Vineyards, having been placed there (to the disgust of Rising Moon proprietress Layla) by the Gewehr thugs who used the winery as a front. Grope discovered this unfortunate fact during a chance visit to the vineyards, and it's fair to say that he didn't take the news well.

He's now wandering through the wilds of Farrel, having linked up with Lucas (to whom he is now connected through a "Blood-Binding" ritual) and colleagues. On the way he connected with another band of trolls led by his sister Bri'igeah, themselves trying to start a colony in Farrel equivalent to what Grope and Zhbrigeeul were doing in Tsuiraku. Most of this bunch have now gone missing following an unfortunately timed volcanic eruption, but Grope's nephew Scrobian has attached himself to Grope and (improbably) Lucas' band of humans for the time being.

Known Connections

Adventurers

  • Jamie: Part of the band he's currently traveling with. He's saved her life a few times, but basically considers her just another one of the mystifying Small Ones who hang around Lucas. He does respect her spunk and willingness to fight. Jamie's mother Jasmine is completely perplexing to Grope, but he certainly gets the basic "family" concept.
  • Layla: Grope and Layla have never actually met, although Layla saw him once at a distance during one of her trips north with airship captain Ace. This is probably just as well, as each was involved, directly or otherwise, in the death of the other's spouse -- Layla's husband Arty Samuels being winged (although not outright killed) by an arrow fired by Grope in the early melee in the docks of Kiyoka, and Zhbrigeeul falling victim to the Gewehr thugs under Layla's command, although she herself wasn't present for the killing and didn't approve of it. Since both have sworn a blood oath to exact revenge on their mates' killers, an eventual meeting of the two could pose a certain degree of social awkwardness.
  • Lucas: Inseparable friends, via the Blood-Binding ritual mentioned above. Grope finds Lucas' golem Ayiee distinctly spooky, but tolerates her (and much else) for the sake of his bond with his friend.
  • Marcus: Grope finds Marcus more than slightly scary, because Marcus tends to use magical means for doing things that Grope would rather see done by plain old trollish brute force. However, Marcus is another of Lucas' friends, and that means a great deal to Grope. In addition, Marcus has always been respectful when the two have interacted, and that counts for something too.

Others

  • Scrobian: Grope's nephew (the troll language would describe the relationship much more precisely, but we're not speaking troll here...). Family means a lot to trolls, and he has taken the younger troll under his wing following the tragic weirdness at the volcano.
  • Zhbrigeeul: His late, lamented mate, although her essence lingers on in his Robe. Although he was devastated by her death, Grope is moving on, as trolls do, and searching for a new mate.
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