Merric Thunderlute

==Stats==
===Mark Tracker===
Marks: 0-21
Afflictions: (List of Afflictions resulting from every third mark above.)
===Advances===
*Calm after the Storm
==Significant Relationships==
Helga - 295 gp
The bloody bears - 821 gp
Dargan- 19gp
Havwarlen - 102gp
Krunk - 1234 gp,1 new chair, official apology to Drest,78 new mugs, 2 new doors, 1 red rug, 1 new cat,1 new door sign,
Arianna -201gp
Ceryndra - 162gp
Dragonborn -480gp
==Background==
The Thunderlute family was good at making money. Through different activities including but not limited to adventuring, trading and bit of banditry they accumulated a rather sizable amount of wealth. While this feature of theirs is already quite fortunate for any potential prodigies its full potential is only realized when paired with their crippling inability to spend that wealth at any reasonable rate. Add their tragic deaths and by the age of 16 their only son Merric Thunderlute was an extremely wealthy halfling.
Most people in such circumstances would mourn their parent’s deaths in a hazy embrace of alcoholic inebriation while performing body movements distantly related to dancing on a table. Merric wasn’t most people though. Merric had a vision. A vision of building a palace of joy. A place where people can abandon all worries and enter a state of bliss. A temple to the god of relaxation and a shrine to everything that is good in this world. Merric wanted to build a tavern.
Since honoring the memory of once parents is serious business Merric wouldn’t settle for anything less than the best tavern so the next logical step in his mind was to name it “The Tavern” (coming up with names never was his strong suit). With staff recruited, stocks stocked and building erected on a trade route between Fey Woods and Unity Island, “The Tavern” was in business. A two story building, with some simple façade decorations, standing slightly away from the main road with a small well made path leading to a large pair of doors crowned with a sign “Why go to a tavern when you can go to The Tavern” welcomed its first customers.
Making their way inside first costumers encountered a large well lit room filled with tables. Walls were covered in some paintings and other decorations giving the whole establishment a solid medium level of fanciness. After inspecting the walls the first explorers were drawn towards the centerpiece of the room and the reason the whole place existed. A bar table made of solid wood with basic ornaments on its front guarded a wide selections of drinks ranging from fruit flavored wines of fey woods to rock solid ales of the god cursed mountains know to turn lesser men inside out. A rather large goliath named Turl Vjiledan manned the bar like a barricade separating the worthy of his beverages from the unworthy with his wise gaze. Rooms for travelers were also available on the second floor.
After the first customers formed their opinions of the establishment and its refreshment offers and left the second customers arrived and soon the flow was established. All was good in The Tavern. Through observation Merric soon established the rules by witch the ecosystem that formed inside his establishment was functioning.
First you had local farmers and households. Usually down on the money side they preferred cheap strong drinks and were normally not interested in rooms on account of having houses in close proximity. While not generating much income they created a sort of cozy background that lured in bigger fish.
Bigger fish in this case included travelers and merchants down on their luck. With presence of money and absence of nearby housing this second layer inhabited cheaper rooms and consumed most of the cheaper ale. Providing a stable income and little trouble they formed the base of the ecosystem.
And at the top of chain sat wealthy merchants and occasional nobles. Residing in biggest rooms and indulging with best wines they would bring massive if unpredictable bursts of money into Merric’s pockets. On some days after a couple of drinks one of the chosen ones would buy a round of drinks for everyone bonds of camaraderie born on those days stronger then ties of blood.
For a while the ecosystem functioned perfectly, steadily improving Merric’s wealth. But as it turned out in his observations Merric didn’t consider another rather major participant. Coming in groups of 4 to 6 with wide range of races, usually ordering most expensive drinks available and then sleeping in the same room to cut the expenses, across the lands they were known as Adventurers.
Upon arrival adventuring groups usually commenced interrogating the bartender on duty about news and jobs. Merric tried to, on multiple occasions, explain the adventurers that bartending doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything except bartending which usually just made them believe that he was hiding something and was after them or their loot. When they were not harassing the bartender they were harassing other patrons in a similar fashion. Luckily for Merric’s sanity he soon learned to completely ignore adventurer’s existence while coherently explaining to another adventuring party that he is not in fact the evil dark overlord of someplace or other.
And all of that bring us up to what started as any other day. At around mid day however Merric’s left eyebrow started twitching. He looked up hoping it to be a mistake. A heavily armed group marching through the doors proved it wasn’t. At the head of the group marched a human dressed in baggy clothes and armed with a rapier. He was followed by a half orc with a pointy hat a long staff, a heavily armored gnome, a barrel shaped dwarf dressed in a camo armor carrying a hammer his own size and the ugliest half elf the world has ever seen armed with a bow followed by a thing that Merric could neither describe nor identify.
The entire group proceeded to one of the corner tables where another group of people, who up to now avoided Merric’s attention, was sitting. The two groups seemed to discus something but Merric had no chance of making out what they were saying. Several minutes later the voices started to go up catching Merric’s attention. As the conversation seemed to evolve into a heated argument which was on the verge of further evolving into a fight Merric started making his way towards the table. As he left the bar a tankard crossed the disputed table at high velocity. A plate soon followed its college and half way across the table came across a big green fist going in the opposite direction while Merric entered the room ducking and weaving between tables and patrons. As he bypassed the first row of tables the side that now missed a tankard and a plate received the fist and raised their opponents a throwing knife. As Merric struggled with a table in row two that was desperate two share their happiness with him, the fist side considered the knife, found it lacking and showed the tankard side how things are done with a throwing great hammer. Merric’s imprisonment was ended as a man hugging a great hammer flew past and disintegrated the table.
Finally arriving at the site of disturbance Merric saw a wizard looking man throwing a fireball at the half orc and missing. He would have seen half orc hitting the wizard with a staff that was currently on fire if he wasn’t too busy following the trajectory of the fireball. Meantime the owners of the disintegrated table decided that they are too drunk to find the responsible party and unleashed their righteous fury on the inhabitants of the closest table. Bar fight spread like a wild fire while the actual fire was spreading across the wall that seconds earlier was hit with the rouge fireball.
As the room turned into a war zone Merric mounted an offensive to reclaim his tavern. Arming himself with chair leg and mounting a table Merric unleashed his fury on any who dared to go near. While the Halfling was not about to give any ground the table he chosen to make his last stand on was not as stern in its believe and was moved around until it finally reached the bar. At the bar in the meantime the fire was advancing on the alcohol reserves while Turl was valiantly saving said reserves by depleting them.
Seeing Turl who was at that very moment downing two jars of wine simultaneously Merric followed his example and downed a bottle of, as it turned out, brandy after which resumed his attacks with renewed rage. The combination of fire and crazy armed Halfling slowly driven most of the people outside. Turl depleting all the alcohol stores within reach started to relocate to fresh pastures when he noticed that the box containing the God Curse Mugrat has caught fire. Without second thoughts he grabbed two biggest jugs he could see and jumped onto the table. Grabbing the Halfling, who was now armed with a chair leg a another chair acting as a shield and bowl performing helmet duty, Turl jumped onto a heavy dinner table and tilted it forward. Seconds later Mugrat decided that it’s not going to take any more shit from the fire and detonated. People still outside saw an image of a Goliath riding a table on a wave of fire holding a Halfling who was swinging a chair leg with one hand and downing two jars of wine with another. Moments later the image faded and with it so did the inn.
Lightning illuminated the valley and soon after thunder rolled down from the mountains. Drops of rain fell on the ground. A lonely Halfling was sitting in front of a still smoldering building. That day revenge was sworn.
Category:Characters
Category:Champions