Cheese

Cheese

**Cheese**, also known by his performance name of **Cheese the Demolisher**, and occasionally **The Parmesan Beast**, is a gladiator and cheese connoisseur who joined the party as an adventurer late in their travels. An experienced, intelligent, and eccentric young man, he has chosen to journey with this ragtag group of warriors in order to help those in need, to continue his search for a valuable family heirloom, and to escape the stifling world of show business in the Kolshet Empire. He is a devout worshiper of Booyahg and a friend of all Goblin-kind.

## Description

Cheese is a very muscular young human man with long, intensely blonde hair, a kind face, and a flamboyant fashion sense. He is 27 years old, 2 m (6’8”) tall, and could only be described as being built like a brick wall. His body is a specimen of human form, with flawless skin and perfectly-sculpted muscles, which he earned through years of hard farm work and training, and a strict diet of many cheeses. In spite of his six years spent in a gladiatorial ring, and his many perilous adventures, he bears no scars, and retains a miraculously youthful visage. He often wears brightly colored clothing, and has a penchant for high heels and extravagant dresses, when he isn’t dressed in his signature performance outfits, or simply shirtless. His weapons of choice are his fists accompanied by the Insignia of Claws, but he also wields the powerful Great Blade of Pain, gifted to him by Grulem, and a magical warhammer forged using pure steel and an entire wheel of parmesan cheese.

## Background

### Childhood and Adoption by Goblins

Cheese was born into a family of simple cheesemongers in the Kolshet Empire. Mere days after his birth, as his parents were traveling with their newborn to peddle their cheesy wares at a market in a nearby town, they were ambushed by bandits and both murdered. Helpless and alone, the child could do nothing but cry in the abandoned cart of cheese. This attracted the attention of a goblin nearby. She took pity on the young child, and adopted him into her growing family, naming him Cheese and raising him as her own son. Cheese grew into a strong young man, with his adopted parents and six siblings, and together they lived in peace for many years.

### Career in Ordninig

As he reached teenagehood, Cheese began to become more aware of his unique nature. Not only was he a human living in a goblin village, but he was a strong human. Very dedicated and fond of his goblin family, he spent his days working in the fields and helping his neighbors. He became known for his immense strength, eating a diet composed of only cheese, and his flamboyant and intense personality. At the age of 18, he was confronted by a traveling showman who witnessed his acts of strength and eccentricities, and offered him high-paying work as a gladiator in Ordninig. While he was at first unwilling to leave his family, their excitement encouraged him, and he left to become a performer, vowing to support his family with the money he earned. Before parting ways, his goblin father gifted him with a set of bagpipes passed down from six generations of goblin performers, and Cheese promised to work his best to make their family proud.

Cheese quickly became a sensation in the Ordninig gladiator arenas, using his parmesan-powered strength to destroy his enemies with single blows and fabulous performative fighting. He earned wealth beyond any he could have possibly fathomed, sending most of it back to his goblin family, donating much more to local orphanages, and stashing a small portion of his earnings away to work towards his dream of opening a communal farm where he could make and sell his own cheese. However, after six years working in the tiring world of show business, stifled by controlling managers and difficult-to-please audiences, The Parmesan Beast’s reputation began to fade as he grew weary of the fast-paced life. He yearned to see more of the world, and to help people with his abilities rather than simply using them for entertainment. Slowly, he became disenchanted with this world, and longed for something much greater, something which he felt was written in his fate.

### Retirement and Travels in the Kolshet Empire

While working as a performer in the city, Cheese had also built a small reputation for himself as a bagpipe player, writing his own songs and performing them in small, working-class taverns for rapt audiences. One day, after a particularly wild night, and far too much mead, he was attacked by several men dressed in dark cloaks and wielding powerful magic. In spite of his best efforts, he was overcome, and his heirloom bagpipes were taken from him. He became overwhelmed with guilt for losing this precious object, and obsessed over finding the thieves and recovering his heirloom, as well as uncovering the intent of those who stole it from him. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Cheese chose to enter retirement as a gladiator, seeing this as his chance to go out into the world and pursue his true calling. He left a simple note explaining his new life for his manager, and set off. The thieves remained elusive, but in his travels he came across many different wonders. First, he traveled back to his home, where he received comfort and forgiveness from his father, and explained his situation and dreams. Cheese parted ways with them, leaving them with enough money to live comfortably for a long while. Not a month after leaving, while seeking shelter from a storm, he entered an ancient and hidden cave once used to store vast amounts of cheese during a specialized aging process. As he explored further in the depths of the cheese cavern, he stumbled upon an old and worn scroll written in a goblin dialect, which appeared to be titled “The Recipe for Diabolical Cheese”. Intrigued, Cheese took the scroll in order to study it further in the future. After this incident, he felt a change, a strange shift in his mind itself, and the occasional feeling of something lurking just beyond his line of sight. And yet, he continued to wander through the far reaches of the empire, seeking the thieves in vain, and on his way learning of many new cultures, trying new cheeses, helping anyone who needed aid, and making new friends and enemies alike.

### Love and Tragedy

Cheese’s wanderings brought him far beyond the Kolshet Empire. After a year of wandering, he eventually found himself a passenger aboard a merchant vessel which docked in the city of Kena. While passing through a tavern in the great city, Cheese encountered a gorgeous young Elven man, the likes of whom he had never seen before. The two made eye contact across the crowded room, as the Elf, a young sorcerer named Corrinn, attempted to impress several young women with conjuration tricks. Immediately enamored by the extravagant muscular young gladiator, he excused himself, and began making conversation with Cheese. The two were drawn to each other immediately, soon beginning a passionate affair, which became a long-term relationship. For a year they stayed in Kena, living in peace and comfort in Corrinn’s lodging. Cheese found work helping the locals, as he had in his goblin village, aiding with difficult physical labor and caring for those he saw in need. Corrinn practiced his magical skills, while continuing to work as an assistant at a local bakery. They became, in their own small ways, parents within their community, watching over children that played in the street, adopting the stray animals that came begging to their door, helping their small, beautiful world in whatever ways they could. Finally, Cheese felt that he could settle down and be content with himself.

As their first anniversary rolled in, however, events took a dark turn. During a visit to a tavern, Cheese heard rumors of men in dark cloaks wandering the wilds outside the city, who had attacked a wealthy merchant on his way into Kena. He recognized the description as similar to the men who stole his bagpipes two years before, and returned home to wish Corrinn goodbye, promising to return in a few days once he had settled this score. He traveled deep into the surrounding rural area, venturing many miles outside of Kena as he attempted to follow the trail of his enemies. After three days of searching in vain, Cheese returned home. However, upon entering the city walls, he found only destruction. The city was crumbled and burned, a pile of nothing but ruins with thousands of trees emerging from the rubble; growing through the ceiling of his once-loved home was a willow, twisted and contorted as if the wood itself was screaming with pain. Cheese was confused and horrified, but became more so when he noticed the fine outlines of what were unmistakably Corrinn’s tattoos on the bark of the tree. Suddenly understanding and overcome with horror, Cheese fled from the city, taking refuge in the wilderness, where he spent a month wandering in horrible, inconsolable grief.

### Return to the Kolshet Empire

Feeling helpless in the face of such horror, Cheese could do nothing but return to his family, weak and broken. The goblin village came together and nursed their adopted human back to good health, and Cheese slowly but surely rose back to his former glory. Soon he was able to return to Ordninig, where he re-ignited his career as a gladiator, although to a lesser extent than before. In spite of his grief and rage, he continued to try and help all those he could, hoping to carry on the love which Corrinn had shown him in any way possible. He remained in the Kolshet Empire, living in the heart of the city in a meager apartment and wandering the surrounding countryside in his spare time, for nearly a year, until encountering the Party on one of his walks, and joining them on their adventures.