Johnny Kritz

Johnny Kritz was a battle master fighter, and the main protagonist of the 1,000 Mile March campaign. He was chosen by the power of the 1,000 Mile March to represent the material plane's current strength, and its ability to handle the return of the avatars of the gods.

> "Free or not, you assaulted an officer of the law. You're fucking dead."
>
> - Johnny Kritz, shortly before assaulting a surrendering bandit with a handaxe.

## History

Johnny Kritz was the son of a male Efreeti and a female human, born in the desert town of Oasis. He was imbued with the drive to defend the innocent inhabitants of his home town, as well as the desert surrounding it. Growing up, he served as a member of the town guard, learning some basic combat training and survival skills. At the age of 21 however, he began to feel a magical force attracting him away from his home, toward the 1,000 Mile March. He ventured along on a journey there, and while passing through a mountainous region, met the Roug the goliath. They became friends, and Roug accompanied Johnny on his quest to the march.

Just outside of the march, Johnny and Roug encountered a group of people also heading towards the march, and after fighting alongside them against some wandering undead, they decided to form a group to traverse the trail together. Among the group was Luthis Hawkfist, Delmuth Magfir, Drago, Uncomfortable, and Stanfal Kental. The quest eventually lead the group to an alliance with a lizardfolk tribe that gave Johnny a gift of a wooden box that only he could open. He later used the box's innate magic to recover a magic silver longsword from a petrified humanoid. After attuning to this sword - called the Locksmith - his magic attraction to the trail was magnified. The sword granted Johnny the ability to magically create and remove locks, and was able to magically defend Johnny from incoming attacks by forcefully moving his hand to deflect the attacks.

Johnny eventually reached the fabled Emerald Tower at the heart of the march, and used the Locksmith to break the magic seal on the structure. He and his companions descended into the tower, entering a demiplane where the avatars of the gods reside. There Johnny and his friends were put through a series of trials, ending with a battle against the Grim Reaper, an avatar of one of the gods of death. With his defeat, the enchantment of the Emerald Tower and the 1,000 Mile March ended, freeing the gods from the demiplane and allowing them to roam the material plane once more. With this, Johnny's attraction to the march came to an end, and with no further purpose there, he returned to his home town to resume his duty to protect the innocent there.

Along the way home, Johnny was interrupted by Heat Miser, one of the lesser gods of the elemental plane of fire. Johnny had previously made a deal with Snow Miser to slay Heat Miser, and as a result, Heat Miser and Johnny were not on good terms. Heat Miser placed a curse on Johnny, promising that his trip home would be nothing but miserable. When he reached the desert, he became trapped in a cycle of constant daylight, roaming a seemingly endless desert for an extremely long period of time. His desert survival experience as well as his natural heat resistance as a fire genasi allowed him to survive the trek, eventually finding Oasis. Upon arrival however, the town became under attack by swarm octahedrons, and Johnny was rescued by the half-elf warlock Charles Beaufort. Charles, who possessed a temporal shard, used it to send Johnny Kritz and himself into the future, where Oasis was converted into a large swarm structure. Charles left Johnny to destroy the swarm elder brain, while a younger Charles Beaufort used his temporal shard to unintentionally travel to Johnny's current location in time and space. Taking advantage of the damage the older Charles had caused, they stole an octahedron and escaped the structure, but were pursued by several other octahedrons. In a desperate bid to escape, Charles used the temporal shard to send the octahedron to a random place in time, accidentally bringing one of the nearby enemy octahedrons with him.

They ended up some time in the recent past relative to Johnny's lifetime, and nearby Ellisor Island. There, they managed to destroy the pursuing octahedron and rescue Ellisor, who was exploring the island for the first time. They then returned to Charles' native time and place in Driland, spending the night in Charles' Casino and Hotel Resort. The casino was robbed by a group of burglars during the night, and Johnny assisted Charles in fending them off. The next day, after solving some business issues with Charles, they attempted to return Johnny to his native time in Oasis, but were unsuccessful and ended up in a far future where the Devils Fog and the Swarm are locked in an eternal battle. Johnny and Charles escaped to Terra Incognita, where they met a much older Charles Beaufort captaining a ship of aquatic darklings. Having experienced the return of Johnny to his native time before, the older Charles guides Johnny and his younger self in traveling to Oasis just moments after the Swarm attack began. There he sent his younger self to rescue the Johnny that had just arrived from his trek in the desert, and sent the time traveling Johnny down to Oasis to help defend it. The battle results in the death of the older Charles Beaufort, but in the victory of Oasis against the invading swarm forces.

## Personality

Johnny has a rough and tumble attitude, with an explosive personality to boot. Quick to make adversaries, he often displays a severe lack of care for self preservation, charging into situations headfirst without thinking things through. Despite the dangers and risks involved in such behavior, he always manages to survive and overcome whatever trouble he finds himself in, often due to his companions coming to his rescue.

## Trivia

* Johnny apparently has three children, at least one of which is confirmed to be female. Little information is known about them otherwise, including who the mother is.
* Johnny Kritz is based off of a character of the same name from Dracarria, a fictional setting created by Stevie, who is also the player that portrays Johnny Kritz in the 1,000 Mile March setting.
* Johnny Kritz made an appearance in the Bear campaign - a campaign in a Dungeons & Dragons setting created by Spark - as a player character run by Stevie.
* Whenever Johnny uses the fighter's Second Wind feature, his wounds catch ablaze and appear to heal from it.
* Initially, Johnny was a brute fighter, but was switched to champion, and again to battle master.
* Johnny has been shown to possess many similarities with the fictional character and main protagonist John McClane of the Die Hard franchise. Both have John in their names, have a history in law enforcement, have similar sounding voices and verbal mannerisms, and both tend to take risky and extreme choices in dire situations.

## Appendix

### Appearances

* The 1,000 Mile March
* My Name Is Johnny

### References

1. ↑ https://discord.com/channels/464189538114338828/464189538114338830/551683105556004877
2. ↑ https://discord.com/channels/464189538114338828/464189538114338830/551678923549835275