Gallium Damascus

## Charachteristics

Class: Fighter

Subclass:

Lineage: Earth Genasi

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Faith: None

Gender: Male

Size/Height: Medium/6ft

Weight: 220Ibs

Age: 23

Hair: Gallium

Skin: Desert Sand

Eyes: Green Fluorite

## Background

Mercenary Veteran

Feature: Mercenary Life

You know the mercenary life as only someone who has experienced it can. You are able to identify mercenary companies by theur emblems, and you know a little about any such company, including the names and reputations of its commanders and and leaders, and who has hired them recently. You can find the taverns and festhalls where mercenaries abide in any area, as long as you speak the language. You can find mercenary work between adventures sufficient to maintain a comfortable lifestyle (see "Practising a Profession" under "Downtime Activities" in chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook).

## Backstory

Gallium was born in the streets of Pangolin, where living is as rough as the sands that surround the port-town. He enjoyed stampeding with the other urchins through the bazzar, seeing all the wonderous oddities on offer, the bright and colourful trinkets of possible worlds far beyond the dusty dunes he was familiar with fascinated him, though he was always wary of getting too close - witful merchants employed mercenaries to keep their stock safe, and they were often brutal in demonstrating their authority.

One day, when Gal was fairly young, he came home to find his parents gone. Two men stood in their place, draped in blood-red cloaks. Gal noted the tell-tale signs of the Sons of Sand and a fear clutched him that he remembers to this day. They told him his parents had made some poor trades, leaving them indebted to the Sons, and had fled Pangolin. Seeing the child withering before them at this news, the men took pity on the young man, barely a teenager. They left Gallium with a coin, telling him they will clear the debt themselves - and should he ever need help, that coin will buy him anything he needs.

For days the young man tried to survive, alone in the slowly decaying home, the coin weighing heavy in his pocket. The thing is, living in the desert is hard, but surviving is damn near impossible.

Finally, he used the coin. Walked right up to a merchant he knew to be affiliated with the Sons and let the sun catch it's surface. He will remember that womans expression until the day he dies: the abject terror bearly shadowing her pity. She instructed Gallium to stay with her until she goes to pick up more stock, then show the coin to the guards. Sons, Gallium predicted accurately.

Then began his training, scurried off into the far recesses of the desert to a fortress Gal was sure he would never find on a map, he was instructed in the ways of combat and camaraderie. He quickly learned that the Sons weren't as terrifying as they seemed, that all the awe and superstition the Pangolin streets whispered about them were just that - supersition. The Sons weren't lead by a Stone Giant, there was no forge that turned sand into steel or adamantine, Terra though - she was real. The only other earth genasi Gal had ever met outside of his mother, Terra was like as immoveable as the earth itself. She took a liking to Gal as soon as she sensed him - recognising the connection to the ground beneath their feet to be the same as her own - and took him as her apprentice.

Nine years of being by the side of thier leader did a lot for Gallium: he passed their trails easily, shook hands with the best in the business and had a constant resource of knowledge to draw from - even in the more arcane matters. Before he knew it, Gallium was being hand-picked, by name, for the mist lucrative job in the Sons history: protecting an archeologist as she discovers an ancient relic for some fancy wizard school near Arvandor.

He wasn't allowed much more information, clients always have odd quirks, secrets that need to stay hidden, and ever the porfessional - Gallium didn't pry. Maybe he should have.

The archeologist, an elven woman, lead them to a large antechamber covered in Primordial languages, threats of peace and war in equal measure etched into the floor all pointed toward a central dias, with what seemed to be a handle embedded into it. Before Gal could stop her, the archeologist turned upon Gal's retinue, burning them alive where they stood. She turned to Gallium. Her words still singed into his mind:

*"Might I suggest you walk up to that dias, grab the handle, and wake up."*

He didn't even question it. Letting his weapon fall to the floor, he turned from her and did as suggested.

When he grabbed the handle, hus mind was flooded with strange images. Memories. Not entirely his own. Not entirely not either. Most made little sense to him, jumbled as they were, but he recognised a particular symbol: the sigil of the Monster Slayer's Guild.

Now out on temporary leave, he has joined the Guild in hopes of discovering what those memories mean. He must learn why his men were killed - and perhaps more importantly, why *he* wasn't.