Goro Voronin-Bell

Goro is a male half-elf cleric played by Lina. He claims to work for the Church of Helm, but secretly he serves Mask, the god of thieves. Goro is ambitious and interested in arcane magic. ~~He harbors secret dreams of becoming a warlock.~~ ~~Wants fucking nothing to do with warlock patrons ever again.~~ Some warlock patrons might be okay.

## Backstory

### The Short Version

Goro has no memories of his elf father, a wood elf named Luka Voronin, and only faint memories of his human mother, Jasmilia "Mia" Basha, who abandoned him when he was very young. He lived on the streets for most of his early life, joining gangs and becoming a skilled thief and conman. At age eighteen he was arrested for stealing a coin pouch and sentenced to a month of service with the Church of Helm. The cleric assigned to watch over him, an older half-elf named Amari, saw the potential for goodness in him and decided to reform him. She took him on as an apprentice. Over the years she attempted to make him into a good person, and failed time and time again. But her belief in him never wavered, and her unfailing love and support softened his heart toward her, if no one else. He became fiercely loyal to her. When Amari was branded a heretic and thrown out of the church, Goro remained behind but swore to find a way to get revenge on her behalf.

### The Long Version

#### The Street

Goro's earliest memories are of living on the street with Jasmilia. These memories are fuzzy and dream-like, more images and feelings than events. He was a clingy child who sought refuge in the safety of his mother. She held him and sang to him and would always feed him before feeding herself. As far as he knew, she loved him.

She vanished one day when he was six years old, telling him to wait for her in the shack they lived in and then never returning. Not only was he too young to properly fend for himself, he was afraid and lonely, feelings that defined his formative years above all else.

Goro survived partly with luck and partly by being a quick learner. He watched other street kids to learn how they got food and water and to find places to sleep. He ate anything he could get through begging, scavenging, and stealing, though he frequently went hungry and was largely malnourished.

Although he was timid at first, his loneliness drove him to seek people out anyway, and by early adolescence he had grown out of his shyness. In its place, however, he learned to distrust most people. He was naive and easily taken advantage of. He was often robbed and beaten up. He learned to defend himself to the best of his ability—biting, kicking, and punching, and ultimately learning to use knives, which became his weapon of choice. But always his best bet was hiding and sneaking around, since he was small and quiet, and highly observant.

Most street kids associate with each other for protection, but Goro had a hard time forming bonds with people. He would quickly grow attached, but they often found him strange or annoying and would wind up ditching him or hurting him. The rare occasions where he did find people who genuinely cared for him ended badly, with them being killed or disappearing like his mother.

Goro associated with a handful of gangs during his time on the streets. In some cases (like with Ella Fletcher's gang, where he got the old tattoo on his forearm) he was a fully-fledged gang member, but in others (like with the half-orcs he learned Orcish from) he merely tried to gain favor in exchange for protection. In either case he found it difficult to integrate himself into already-established social circles, and would always end up drifting away.

Like most street kids, Goro made occasional devotions to Mask, taking and leaving coins from shrines and saying prayers for protection before stealing. When he was fourteen, Mask intervened against a mark who chased Goro down. Goro became a fully-fledged Maskarran then, not yet realizing he had been chosen to develop clerical magic but nonetheless becoming more actively dedicated to Mask.

During his teenage years, Goro matured into more of the canny fast talker we know today, although he was still young and inexperienced. He gained some minor fame on the streets when he killed a small-time crime lord called the Big Baron who attempted to rape him. Goro left the scene covered in the Baron's blood, tracking bloody footprints, and earned the street name Footprints thereafter.

Loneliness continued to plague him, and even though he'd been hurt, he kept trying to form connections with people. One night he shared a bed with someone who stabbed him in his sleep, nearly killing him. He went crawling back to Ella Fletcher, who saved his life, but belittled and insulted him while she did it. In a way, this was Goro's lowest point—a last straw moment when he realized no one was ever going to love him, and any attempts to get close to people would only put him in danger.

#### The Church of Helm

When Goro was eighteen, he stole a coin purse that split moments after he lifted it. The contents spilled all over the street, causing a scene and alerting nearby paladins. For the first time in his life, Goro was caught.

Deemed a non-violent criminal, Goro was sentenced to service with the church. Amari was assigned to supervise him. She was drawn to him immediately and believed Helm wanted her to take him on as an apprentice. When Goro's term of service was complete, he stayed at the church as an acolyte—not enthusiastically, but because it was a place to eat and sleep, and because Amari said she would teach him magic.

Amari first taught Goro basic self-care and emotional regulation. The latter in particular was a years-long undertaking. Goro was easily angered and frightened and would lash out violently. In one sense, it didn't take Amari long to earn his trust—within a matter of months, he believed she was a truly kind and humble individual who wouldn't trick or lie to him. But he still fundamentally believed himself to be unlovable and had a deep-seated fear of abandonment. It would be many more years before he really opened himself up to her and accepted her as his family. In the meantime, he treated her horribly, cursing and name-calling and acting out, trying to provoke her into hating him. He wanted to show her what he was "really" like.

Goro didn't get along with the other members of the church, either. He was frequently in trouble and sent to the dungeons, sometimes tortured and starved for his refusal to cooperate. He despised their insincerity, but at the same time learned to emulate it. In the years that followed, Goro grew into a skilled liar and con artist, with no greater goal in mind than stealing from the church because they annoyed him and mistreated him.

As an acolyte, Goro's day-to-day life was mostly taken up with work and study. The chore rotation at the abbey gave him basic skills in cooking, housekeeping, gardening, shopping, and accounting. Amari trained him as a medic, and he learned the nonmagical side of treating injuries and illness.

On top of all this, she began his education as a cleric, teaching him extensively about religion, how to speak and read Celestial, and eventually how to cast cantrips and simple spells. Goro played along with being a Helmite, but in secret he continued to practice as a Maskarran. He spent most of his free time in the library, devouring books about magic and other arcane subjects.

When Amari was thrown out of the church, Goro snapped—almost. His resentment toward the church had been building for years over how they treated him, but when they turned on Amari, he could not play nice anymore. He knew he wasn't strong enough to take them all down right then, so he vowed to bide his time and get his revenge piece by piece.

#### The Graverunners

When he began working for the Runners, Goro was firmly entrenched in his identity as a loveless loner bastard. He had Amari, and that was all. It was easier to believe he'd never even wanted to be close with someone than to believe he'd wanted and been denied it.

It was really due to a group effort that the Runners were able to break down his outermost defenses in a relatively short amount of time. Here he was once again joining a gang of sorts, being his strange but loyal self, and for the first time that gang actually responded well to him and accepted him as an integral member. The group identity combined with the tight bonds he formed added up to a year of major growth and recovery for him. The groundwork Amari had laid for the past fourteen years could finally be put to use as he tried out having close relationships for the first time.

## Goro Guide

**How he relates to others:** In his personal life, Goro is introverted but enjoys the company of people he loves and trusts. He is an intensely private person and respects other people's privacy, too, unless he feels there is a good reason not to. On the business side of things, he's more outgoing and likes to meet people and gather information.

Goro is prickly, suspicious, and very slow to trust. When he likes someone, he's loath to admit it because doing so would invite rejection. Therefore he is often harsh and insulting even to the people he cares about.

Loyalty to one's gang is paramount. You don't have to like the people in your group, but you need to look out for them. A person who sells out their teammates is scum and deserves whatever happens to them in retribution. All that said, when facing mortal danger, a person can't be blamed for saving their own skin first. Loyalty doesn't have to mean self-sacrifice.

**Quickest ways to get on Goro's bad side:** Harm or threaten somebody he cares about. Steal from him or otherwise breach his personal defenses. Sell him out.

**Quickest ways to get on Goro's good side:** Don't be deterred by his prickliness or weirdness. Although he is distrustful of affection in general, Goro responds well to loving touch. He prefers to be around people who don't put on any pretenses. He has a soft spot for *genuine* altruism and kindness, though it is certainly not a requirement. He likes to banter and appreciates it when people lob good-natured insults back at him.

**Moral stance:** Actions can't be good or bad on their own; it all depends on circumstance. It's a tough world out there and anyone who thinks theft and murder are never justified is out of touch with reality. Even so, Goro doesn't consider himself a good person and would readily admit many of his actions have no justification besides his own selfish whims. He does look down on people who needlessly cause others to suffer.

**Hobbies and interests:** Goro is very curious by nature. He likes to read and research all things weird and magical. He can often be found in the library or in his room with a book. He likes to take walks and explore. In a new environment, Goro will always strike out to get a lay of the land and talk up locals. He is a people-watcher and particularly interested in anything his loved ones are doing.

## Appearance

Goro is 5'10 and ~160 pounds. He has black hair, blue-gray eyes, and medium olive-toned skin which tans easily in the sun, though he doesn't spend much time in the sun. His torso and arms are scarred from knife fighting.

He has a tattoo of a crow on the inside of his left forearm. His earlobes are pierced and he wears small gold earrings, which he secretly thinks look stupid, but since Ombre helped him with the piercings he doesn't want to take them out.

He wears a chain around his neck with the astral whistle for calling Ombre and a nazar, a superstition-based item from Calisham meant to ward off the evil eye. On his wrists he wears several bracelets.

He wears a Ring of Mind-Shielding on his right hand, and two rings from Hansel on his left.

## Statistics

No. of characters who have seen Goro's torso: 8

No. of characters who have hit Goro in the face: 8

No. of characters who have broken Goro's fingers: 1

~~Total hugs, including awkward side hugs: 18~~ Maintaining this statistic is no longer practical given that Goro just basically hugs people for days at a time now

## Testimonials

"Fuckin' Goro." -everybody, at some point

"You lying motherfucker." -Mishka

"...what an unpleasant gremlin of a man." -Azriel

"Goro's ability to say the worst, weirdest shit at exactly the right time is truly a thing of beauty." -Izzy

"people fall into three groups: people Goro plans to murder, people Goro would murder for, and people Goro doesn't know yet" -Coyote

"Goro doesn't just want to poke the hornet's nest, he wants to set up a bucket underneath it, poke it until it falls, slap a lid on the bucket, and run home with it" -Lina

"There were times that Sami almost wished he had chosen a different god than Ilmater and all of those involved Goro." -Sami

"god, I think my favorite thing about Goro is how whenever he hears someone's tragic backstory, he's like 'neat, another murder'" -Coyote

"Fuck Goro but also poor Goro" -Jen

"Goro is my favorite trash boy." -Abby

"Goro has some serious attachment issues. He needs to swap that switch out for a dimmer." -Jen

"In his defense, he did not pull a knife on a seventeen-year-old." -Izzy

"You lying motherfucker." -Morgan Wyn

## Vignettes

Do the Right Thing

Your Dream Come True

Give Them What They Really Want

Kissing

All the Thrills Your Body Can Handle

Is This the Worst You Can Do

Dreaming Butterfly

Ducking Out of the Way

Goro's Notes

Something to Hold

A Glaring Contradiction

Lucky

The Hardest Lesson I've Taught You

What a Small Thing Can Do

Something Sacred

Look What I Found

Wait Right Here

The One Thing

Little Begging Boy

Like You're Not One of Mine

A Sanctum Hidden in the Wilds

It Doesn't Have To Be That Hard

We Do Our Best

Nice and Simple, Easy