Jeremiah von Gottsctein

Jeremiah von Gottsctein was the adopted and oldest son of the Gottsctein family and a member of the Sharpeye Crew. Later in life, he would marry the crew's captain Vomo Sharpeye and father two sons, Lancelot and Gabriel von Gottsctein. Around 2700, Jeremiah would be murdered in his sleep by his own son, Gabriel.

## Biography

Jeremiah's true parentage remains a mystery, but what is known is that he was born as a human child in 2640 and was experimented on by Sigma.

### Beloved of the Gottscteins

He was transformed into a half-orc and sent out into a tribe of other orcs in the arctic north, likely for experimental purposes. He was rejected as a whole due to his inability to exhibit aggressive behaviors. He was considered weak and defective and left in the cold woods to die. It was here that he was discovered by Braddock von Gottsctein and his wife Gwyneth, heirs of the Gottsctein family. Grieving the loss of their son, they went out to bury the child when they discovered the abandoned half-orc infant. Feeling an incredible amount of sympathy for the infant and seeing it as a sign, they took Jeremiah in and raised him as if they were their son. They even gave him the name they would have given their deceased son.

### Life in the Gottsctein Household

Jeremiah's life since than was quite interesting.

Though he loved his family dearly, he felt obligated to live up to everything their real son could have been, which was not easy for a half-orc. He always had the sense he did not fit in with the other human members of his family.

His initial interactions with Annabelle, the oldest of the Gottsctein children, further enforced this insecurity. Annabelle could remember a time when her family did not have Jeremiah, and thus could recall the gossip and ridicule the Gottsctein family received from other noble families due to Jeremiah's adoption. Thus, she grew up resenting Jeremiah up until the two's late teens.

Oswald von Gottsctein was another member of the Gottsctein household that Jeremiah had difficulties adjusting to. He would succeed in all areas of prowess, including combat, diplomacy, and romance, where Jeremiah felt he failed. The two likely trained together in the art of fencing under their father, but Jeremiah would fail, lacking the finesse that characterized the rest of the family. Similarly with Annabelle, Jeremiah's relationship with Oswald mellowed out as the two grew older. However, Jeremiah still felt some remnants of his past resentment moving forward.

Jeremiah also grew up alongside Lillith von Gottsctein, the second youngest child of the Gottscteins. She trusted Jeremiah with her true nature as a shameless flirt, as she knew he wouldn't tell their parents. For the most part, he was fine with it, though he would try to stop some of her more indecent impulses.

Of the members of the Gottsctein family, Jeremiah was closest with Bethany von Gottsctein. Since a young age, Bethany had been close friends with Jeremiah. She was his confidant whenever he had insecurities about his place in the family. She teased Jeremiah for a long time about him finding a girlfriend even though, given that he was a half orc in mostly human social circles, he had a hard time doing so.

### Setting Off

Between 2671 and 2672, Jeremiah would leave the Gottsctein estate for an adventure on his own. On his travels, he would come across a drunk Robert Rogers, who was living as a man without a country. Sympathizing with him, Jeremiah allowed Rogers to join him on his treasure-hunting expedition, and Rogers vowed to protect and serve him.

Jeremiah and Rogers would later cross paths with Captain Vomo Sharpeye and join her crew of adventurers, meeting the likes of Jessam Rainbow, Dusk Fipner, Dawn Fipner, and Earl Tau'an'tu.

### The Adventure on Blue Island

With a brave, diverse cast of characters, Jeremiah and the others ready to take on anything. Anything, that is, except for a bronze dragon that rose out of the sea in front of the ship. Unbeknownst to the crew, this was an illusion created by Alan Greenleaf, an artificer under the employ of Primus. Jessam tried to flirt with the dragon but failed. In response, the dragon sent a violent storm that sent the ship careening across the sea for miles until it wrecked on the beach of the Blue Island.

Washing up on the shore, Jeremiah and the rest of the crew awoke to see that the ship was totaled and most of the crew were dead. Then, Earl, fed up with the losses he has had to deal with, forcibly repaired the ship back in working condition by sheer force of will (in the session, the DM rolled multiple natural 20's). Though initially shocked, Jeremiah helped in putting the ship back in order, using his jacket as a temporary sail.

Then, a small, talking bird approached the group on the shore: a blue-footed booby. Earl kicked the bird, seeing it as a threat. It was killed instantly. Then, a few other blue-footed boobies joined together to avenge their fallen friend. Fortunately, Jeremiah and the rest of the remaining crew fought them off. The birds flew off to inform the Elvish Empire of the adventurers' deeds.

Afterward, the group decided to split up to find food and supplies to survive their time on the island. While Vomo and Dusk stayed with the ship, Jeremiah followed everyone else to venture out into the forest. They wandered through a tropical rainforest, luckily not losing their way. They arrived at a cave where they encountered a deranged man, driven crazy by talking birds on the island. He tried to smash their skulls with a massive club he swung around, but he was swiftly defeated.

About a couple hours later, the group successfully arrived back at the ship. Jeremiah and Dusk checked to see where Vomo had gone off to, not seeing her on the beach. They followed the sound of an instrument being played and saw that Vomo was playing the cornett. Upon noticing the two, she hid the cornett away, embarrassed.

Vomo and the group then tried to procure food in the form of native turkeys. However, while their backs were turned, Dawn released the turkeys from the island, and acted innocent in front of the group, saying that they escaped. Rogers, however, was not convinced and remained suspicious of the young gnome. Meanwhile, Jeremiah kept an eye out on Rogers.

### An Outpouring of the Heart

Jeremiah woke up early the next morning when he heard Dusk re-entering the tent. She told him that something was wrong with Earl, and that he ought to talk to him about it. Jeremiah exited the tent and saw that Earl was standing on the beach, looking out at the ocean. Something didn't feel right. Jeremiah approached Earl, asking him what was wrong. At first, he was hesitant, but Earl then offered to walk with Jeremiah along the shore.

Earl began to tell Jeremiah his story. He told him about when he was once a monk of Tau'an'tu about a thousand years ago. Earl was once a red dragonborn among many others at the temple. He wanted to escape the in-fighting that was going on with his family, especially between his father and uncle. He lived in the temple until elves one day showed up and left behind some strange technology, one of them being a cryostasis chamber. It was at this moment that the temple was starting to flood with water. It was coming from a portal in the sky that opened to the elemental plane of water. Earl's first instinct was to rush inside of the chamber to stay safe. It activated, froze his body, and put him to sleep for a thousand years. When Earl woke up, his red scales were changed to purple, and Vomo was the first person to discover him in the scared, disoriented state that he was in.

After the long walk-and-talk on the beach, Jeremiah hugged Earl, reassuring him that he'll have a friend who will support him throughout their journies.

### The 'Dragonborn' Tribe and the Abbott's Island

The next morning, the crew sailed off of the Blue Island and to one of the other neighboring islands. As they were approaching the Abbott's island, two seagulls flew overhead and greeted them. They introduced themselves as dragonborn, coming from the island nearby filled with plenty of other dragonborn. Then, the pair transformed into two men, both naked, one a human and the other a half-ogre.

Vomo was rather attracted to the human, but was not able to act on those emotions because the half-ogre then strangled her into a bear-hug. Jeremiah, watching this, couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy, as he developed an attraction to Vomo.

Upon arriving at the island, the group walked into a temple full of countless other races around them, from humans to dwarves, gnomes, some halflings, dragonborn, and others. Among the rest of the crowd was an abbott, who called himself He Who Reigns.

At the center of the temple, planted firmly on a pedestal, was a magic staff. Jeremiah, Jessam, and Dusk grabbed onto the staff, each of them being effected different by it. Leaves and vines wrapped around Jeremiah's body and rejuvenated his pale, green skin, making it a more lively shade of light green.

The group, however, did not have long to wonder what kind of magic this staff contained, as the Elvish Empire was encouraching on the island and were armed to the teeth. The group, minus Vomo who stayed with the Abbot, ran outside to meet the Imperial soldiers and fight them. Jeremiah took the staff with him. During the fight, the Abbot's son , a bronze wyrmling, stormed onto the beach and killed the remaining soldiers.

Jeremiah, not knowing what else to do, decided to harness the strange power that the staff had without thinking about the potential consequences. Seeing Earl, who was wounded, he decided to use the staff to try and heal him. However, Jeremiah did not see the intended effect on Earl. His scales began to glow in several different colors, turning into a glowing aurora of color. When he realized what was happening to him, Earl broke for the ship, ashamed of what he was becoming. He tried to push the ship back out into the water to escape, but Jeremiah grabbed the ship's anchor, keeping Earl from leaving. Then, Earl's scales began to fall off his body, revealing pink skin underneath. His snout cracked and faded into dust, revealing a human, feminine face underneath. Before Jeremiah's eyes, Earl had transformed into a naked, female Elf.

Meanwhile, the bronze wyrmling was still going berserk on the beach, fighting the rest of the party. Jeremiah ran to the young dragon and used the staff on it to attempt to calm it down. However, similarly to Earl, the staff also began to transform it. Vines enveloped around the wyrmling's body and constricted it. The dragon struggled to escape from the vines in vain, but eventually gave up and collapsed, seemingly dead. The Abbot, taking its true form as a bronze dragon, flew up to Jeremiah. He asked if he was the one responsible for his son's death. Jeremiah deeply apologized. Then, the wyrmling's body began to change right in front of them. Thanks to the power of the staff, it was transformed into a giant, sentient boat with the head of a dragon. With this new ally, the Sharpeye Crew was ready to move forward onto new adventures elsewhere.

### Atlantis

The dragon ship was dragged down under the waves and into an undersea kingdom of Merfolk called Atlantis. Everyone, minus Vomo, went into the kingdom to meet with the people there for food and supplies. While there, Robert Rogers cooked up some of the sauerkraut that he took with him from the Abbot's island and served it to the Merfolk king and all the rest of the Merfolk villagers. This, unfortunately, did not end well, as Rogers had accidentally laced the sauerkraut with God's Metal, a powerful hallucinogen able to kill even in small doses. When the Merfolk ate of it, they all started foaming at the mouth and choking. Panicking, Jeremiah and the rest of the crew evacuated Atlantis before the blame could be laid on them for the mess. Jeremiah, however, knew exactly who was to blame for this, and knew that Rogers was a scoundrel. Despite this, he was unwilling to confront him about this, and seethed with anger against him for most of the rest of their journey.

### Journey through the Undersea Caves

Jeremiah and the rest of the group quickly returned to the ship before they could be hunted down by the city guards. However, while Vomo was piloting the dragon ship through the underground caves, she was acting strangely. She was trying to ram the ship straight into the rock wall of the cave! She had to be knocked unconscious before the ship crashed, but then she was almost sent flying off deck. Jeremiah grabbed her before she could fall to her death, and she was left in her quarters to rest while Jeremiah piloted the rest of the way.

When they found proper landing, the crew journeyed on foot. They came to a two-way split in the path, and chose to take the path going right. This led them to a grand, golden library whose ceiling towered high and hall stretched deep. The master librarian here was none other than He Who is Divided, or 'Ulskin' as he referred to himself.

## Personality

Being a son of the Gottscteins, Jeremiah was raised to act in a calm, gentlemanly manner. He tries to keep his and others' behaviors in check to keep order and peace. Thus, he clashed heavily with Rogers whenever he would act of his own accord, especially when he would try to steal things. Jeremiah feared that Rogers would cause unwanted trouble for the group and put people in danger.

Jeremiah cares very much for the safety of his friends and traveling companions, and acts as the emotional support for the group. When someone has a secret or some kind of insecurity about their past, he is the one who will usually go out of their way to let them know they have someone who will listen. Earl, Vomo, and Jenkins are just some of those he has cared for. He understood, through his relationship with his sister Bethany, what it was like to have someone who will listen to him. Therefore, he passed on that compassion his sister gave to him onto others.

## Design Notes

"*With Jeremiah's design, I went to a place that I didn't think I'd go back to: my family history. I had a picture of my great-great-grandfather I got from my aunt while doing research a few years ago. When Charlie pitched to me the idea of a character who's super-fancy and had an excellent mustache, I thought of grandfather Emil. And then, to inspire Jerry's muscular build as one half of the barbarians of group one, I looked to Alex Louis Armstrong from* Full Metal Alchemist *for reference. Looking at it now, I can also see a lot of the facial structure for Jerry came from a mix of Emil and Armstrong. Pretty neat."*

## Trivia

* Jeremiah's first and last name are unintentionally similar to the character Jeremiah Gottwald from the anime *Code Geass.*
* The surname Gottsctein is the German word for 'god stone,' another unintended reference.