Gnoss

### Aliases

Champion of Tymora, Impaler of the Planes, Heckler of Big Fire Chickens, She-Who-Would-Fight-The-Storm, The Bane of Beshaba

## Relations

### Affiliations

The Harpers, The Lords' Alliance, Fortuneboon Hall

## Physical Attributes

### Eyes

Black with yellowish sclera

Gnoss is both a lover and a fighter. Her reverence for the world, and all of its many wonders, is only rivaled by her compulsion to fight in its defense. She was a thrill-seeker before she ever learned the doctrine of Tymora, but she has been an ardent follower of The Lady who Smiles for the majority of her life.

## Background

### Early Life

Born to a warmongering, heavily militarized community of Hobgoblins nestled into a high valley of the Cloven Mountains, Gnoss was primarily raised into her childhood by instructors. Both of her parents were warriors, but her mother specifically held a leadership position within the banner. Her father was eaten by a Dragon Turtle shortly after birth as his raiding party was crossing The Deepwash, on their way to the Lizardfolk village called Surkh. Much of the party survived to carry out the conquest, but they were ultimately beaten back. Surkh later launched a counter-invasion, which led to the decimation of her banner and the loss of her mother. The smell of blood still hung thick in the air, columns of smoke rising across the landscape, when the child decided to leave for the north instead of remaining to look for survivors.

Gnoss' path has always been wrought with the foreshadow of fate and the influential hands of both sides of fortune. She would find something to eat, but it would have just become rotten. She would be chased by creatures, but find a safe place to rest as a result. It rained the entire journey, but towards the end of it, she was picked up by a traveling merchant caravan and taken to the small town of Lheshayl.

### Lheshayl

Gnoss stumbled into the town knowing no other language but Goblin. She was treated as being feral by everyone except for the young, bright-eyed daughter of the owner of the local inn, who would keep her a secret in the stable and give her food. The girl's mother eventually discovered Gnoss, but instead of throwing her out, brought her into the inn, cared for her, and began to teach her the common language.

About a year later, having grown very attached to her hosts, the Hobgoblin child began to entertain dreams of being able to stay in Lheshayl indefinitely. This was when the hand of misfortune once again dipped a talon into her life, sending a band of wandering mercenaries to the inn for a night. The lack of security within the city tempted them, and they decided to take what they would. Gnoss ran to enlist the rest of the town for aid, but because none of them had prior knowledge of her existence, she was met with only closed doors and, at times, violence. By the time she awoke from unconsciousness, the damage was done. Gnoss, terrified of seeing the aftermath, once again took to the road, heading towards the Dragon Coast and Westgate.

### Westgate

Once again, Gnoss' journey was the product of an unseen battle between the goddesses of chance. She arrived within the free city of Westgate and lived on the streets for many moon cycles. Several different gangs offered her work in exchange for protection, and she did try to assimilate, but there always came a point at which the memory of the inn-keeper and her daughter would resurface. She would remember kindness, and then she would deny the methods of the gangs, ultimately denying them.

One blessed day, Gnoss was very literally smacked in the face by fate. A strong gust had caused a torn piece of parchment to fly, spiralling, right at her head. After she peeled it off and looked at it, a breathless Human man ran up to her and asked her if she'd seen it. Her skill in Common remained terrible enough that she couldn't read it, but she had seen it, so she answered yes in earnest. The man offered her protection and sanctuary at the Temple of Tymora, a place called Fortuneboon Hall. That man would become her adoptive father, Reimin Ollero.

There was electricity the moment she laid eyes on the statue of the golden goddess. She knew this was her home at that moment. She understood that she had never been alone, and would never be again.

Years passed beneath Reimin's wing. He picked up where her combat training had ended in the Cloven Mountains. He also schooled her in the Common language and the teachings of the Lady of Luck. She developed relationships with the other members of the temple, as well as much of the Westgate community. One really sweet hip-hop montage later, and Gnoss was no longer a child.

Like many teenagers, she started harboring resentment towards her father's restrictions. There was an enormous world to go out and experience, and her fighting game was on point. Still, Reimin insisted she had a lot left to learn before she could even think about getting a job. So, Gnoss got a job.

Her first job was working as security for a seedy tap room called The Other Abyss. Her employers mistook her (and her muscles) for being older than she was. Several calm nights passed before she was called on to perform her duties. That was the first time her rage consumed her. She bit a man's fingers off. Her reputation began to establish itself around the event. With the exception of similarly violent encounters, as well as a variety of new social encounters, the days slid into routine again. Reimin eventually did discover Gnoss' secret night life, prompting an emotionally brutal fight that caused a rift in trust and respect on both sides.

Westgate is a free city, meaning its governing system wasn't beholden to any greater states or countries. Because of this, it's a popular place for criminals to seek refuge. One such person, who had a particularly enticing bounty on their head, entered Gnoss' tap room one night. She succumbed to the temptation, catching them in an adjacent alleyway on their inebriated walk back from the place. That single job earned her more money than she could accrue by working for months as security, and she started using the tap room to find more of the same kind of opportunities. The owner of the establishment found out what she was doing, and she was promptly fired. However, she wasn't banned as a customer, so she continued to use it, trading the one job for professional bounty hunting.

Gnoss made many friends this way, her life on the streets prior to Fortuneboon Hall and her reputation providing inlets for gaining information from several criminal organizations. She made many enemies too. She took on a bounty which was ultimately revealed to far exceed her capabilities: an assassin going by the moniker of Anguin Kole.

Kole was a sadist with an enormous ego. Gnoss learned that he'd come to Westgate not as a man on the lam, but to hunt. She decided to guard his mark and wait to ambush him, but he'd been expecting her. The savage battle that ensued left her on the ground, clinging to life and the gaping wounds threatening to expose her organs to open air. Kole was no worse for the wear, and seeing her virtually incapacitated, returned to finish his job. Gnoss was able to escape at that moment, and while she hid, waiting for the predator to give up, he vowed to turn her into an infamous example for what would happen if any like her came seeking bounties. He vowed to hunt down and slaughter everyone she knew and loved.

While the defenses at Fortuneboon Hall were formidable, the young Hobgoblin knew they'd stand no chance against someone of Kole's caliber and skill set. She made a gamble and decided to leave Westgate, hoping that the assassin would lose interest in pursuing her loved ones when she wasn't there to suffer from witnessing it. Much later in life, she would discover that she'd been correct.

### The Sword Coast

The journey to the west by river was laden with racial intolerance and stereotyping. Faerûn had begun to grow out of these draconic ways of thinking a century ago, but it would be a long time yet before they were completely eradicated. Gnoss kept to herself out of necessity. When she finally arrived at Baldur's Gate, she was met with similar prejudices, though to a lesser degree, and began to research whether or not there was a city, similar to Westgate, where being a Goblin wouldn't immediately earn distrust. This was when she heard about Luskan. Gnoss headed north along the coast.

During her travels, she was robbed of almost all of her belongings, including her weapons. When she arrived in the City of Sails, she was destitute, and she was unable to immediately find any work that didn't involve becoming a thug for one of the pirate lords who ran the city. She had no sailing experience, and she had no intention of leaving land, so she accepted work as an unofficial part of Ship Rethnor's contingent. It was not honorable work. It often caused her to question what she had become. Eventually, however, she was able to amass enough savings to afford a new glaive to be commissioned. That glaive would go on to mean much more to Gnoss than its function merely as a weapon. It became a symbol of her resilience, emotionally and spiritually.

Gnoss resumed her former job as a bounty hunter as soon as she had enough money to fall back on to survive long periods without a successful hunt. It was during one of these droughts that she signed on as a gladiator, within Luskan's legendarily vicious fighting pits, to earn some additional coin. It was during one of these matches that she was paired with a white-haired Dwarf from Mirabar named Wampem Thunderbelly against two other opponents. She and Wampem worked spectacularly well together. After their great victory, the Dwarf treated her to drinks and proposed they continue to work together. He was on a mission to track down, and kill, a cabal of criminals who had attacked his clan and killed many in his family due to the fact that their brewcraft, Thunderbelly Ale, had begun to defeat its competitors in consumer popularity. The reason why Gnoss agreed to join him was due to the fact that he was a member of the Lords' Alliance. It was her hope that she could earn enough fame and glory by his side that her reputation would protect her from ever again being forced to the outskirts of society due to what she was.

Over the course of a year, Gnoss and Wampem's list of targets was whittled down to three names. They tracked one of them down to the city of Neverwinter where, in a stroke of luck (and with the aid of a leaking head in a box), they caught the attention of Cael Irvyn and Lafcadio Whitehorn, who became her companions and, eventually, formed the family she's always wanted.

## Born Again

Wampem's personal mission had been put on hold for several months in order to thwart the machinations of a shapeshifting madman bent on destroying the boundaries of the planes and the order of the universe. But after the group had successfully defeated Jianus, the mission resumed. There was one name left on the list, and she would be the most difficult to kill: an excommunicated Drow Matron with a fortress on the Plane of Fire.

During the battle, Wampem recklessly leaped directly into the middle of all of the Matron's highly skilled warriors, his father's demise doubtlessly playing over and over in his mind's eye. While his armor was thick, and the enemy missed many times, every hit that landed was staggeringly painful and efficient. She knew he would die in that swarm if she failed to draw some of the attention away. So, she found her way to the top of the single pillar, surrounded by primordial lava, and broke into the enemy's flank. She succeeded in drawing enough attention for her companions to quickly even the numbers on the battlefield. She fought like a wild beast, but she became surrounded, and then grounded, as the others had begun to engage the Matron directly. In the center of a pile of Drow bodies both dead and living, she commanded Wampem to finish the mission before the blade of a scimitar found her heart and she lost consciousness. What remained of the enemy forces shoved her body off of the top of the pillar, and she sank into a sea of boiling magma.

The battle was won. The mission was completed, but when her companions were finally able to stand and realize the cost of it all, there was no celebration. Wampem blamed himself entirely. During their time together, he'd begun to see Gnoss as a daughter, and he had failed to protect her. Similarly, Cael also blamed Wampem, but instead of focusing on what had already transpired, he began to pour every resource he had into finding a way to bring her back, denying her death. He reached out to the gods. Specifically, he pleaded to Tymora. He was rewarded with an answer: to seek Reimin Ollero.

Reimin had already been on the road, headed to Neverwinter, at Gnoss' request. The party met up with him in the south after a long journey, near Boareskyr Bridge. Together, they were able to locate a Ki-rin, who possessed the ability of True Resurrection. They pursued the Ki-rin through many hardships to finally stand in his presence, and after he laid the weight down on them of how they had earned the loss of their friend, he brought her back to them under Tymora's direct command.

When they saw her for the first time since her complete annihilation, she descended on a pair of huge, glorious, golden wings. Her eyes blazed with the warm light of the upper planes. She was no longer just a Hobgoblin, but an angel in the material body of what she once had been. During her time in the beyond, her duties to champion the side of good had continued, and Tymora had equipped her with the abilities she'd needed to do it. Gnoss doesn't remember much from her time in the Heavens. Tymora mercifully took away much of that information, predicting she would only end up pining away for Ysgard during the rest of her time on Toril.

## The Glaive of Wonder

During the White Hand story arc, the party traveled to the Plane of Fire in order to destroy one of the nodes of power siphoning energy from the elemental planes. Unlike other nodes they had come across previously, extra protection was placed on this one. If it was struck by a magical weapon, it would also siphon away the magic the object contained. When Gnoss did this, the +1 glaive she'd commissioned to be custom made in Luskan was rendered mundane.

After the battle, she brooded heavily over the stolen effectiveness of her personal symbol of resilience in the face of adversity. It had taken a lot of effort to acquire originally. She'd had to compromise on her core beliefs for it. On the Plane of Water, she was offered daggers and tridents, but she refused to let go of her glaive.

The journey soon took the party to the Plane of Air, to the floating city of Aaqa. There, they held audience with the famous Wind Dukes. In exchange for forcing an Elder Tempest away, who had taken up roost nearby, they would be granted with one wish. The party didn't kill the Tempest, but they did succeed in their objective. On the flight back to Aaqa, they collectively decided that the wish would be best spent asking for items that would most potently aid them in the greater battles to come, intentionally leaving the phrasing up to interpretation.

Each person was given an item. When it came to Gnoss' turn, the Wind Dukes asked her for her glaive, and she handed it over. It transformed into the legendary Glaive of Wonder before her eyes. The blades shifted to a crimson hue, and golden, cloud-like embellishments appeared down the shaft.

It is a +2 weapon, and connecting to it allows her to move an additional five feet per combat round. Its most fascinating feature, however, is that on a critical (natural roll of 20 or 1), it has the effects of a Wand of Wonder, which has the chance of greatly helping or hindering, from fireballs and lightning bolts to growing grass or illusory butterflies.