I get to Play a Baladin!!!

My friend, a man who I first ran D&D for many years ago, became a Dungeon Master and he invited me to a one shot.  As I said, I was his first DM and he is now a DM like me, fun.  When the one shot was done he suggested that he could run a campaign and I jumped on it because I do not have fun when I play with other Dungeon Masters, mostly because they have strange ideas different from my own.  So I have fun and then I run in to their quirkiness which spoils the game breaks the fun and it never comes back.  I can play the idea that I have not been able to play on my own. the Baladin.  I back story is that of a bard, but I am forced to turn from my path just before attaining my dreams due to a tragedy, I become a Paladin.  Then after I gain a level I become the man I was destined to be, a Bard, but I still look like a Paladin and I fight like a Paladin, but I am no longer a true Paladin. I wear Plate Mail and carry a shield or a second light weapon.  I inspire people like a Bard but I pour on Holy Smites longer than a paladin would and with my bard abilities I also get end game paladin spells earlier . . ..  I hope we get to play a long time and advance far.    

For years all I wanted to do was tell stories about the great mage Eliminster and the battles of the Red Wizards of Thay, of the great pyramids of the south and the Sea of Stars where I lived in the Border Kingdom.  I wanted to see everything and go everywhere, I heard that there was a land to the east that was protected from the barbarous horse lords of the dry steppe by a glorious wall made of a living dragon wall.  it cam as no surprise to any in the village I lived in that when a wandering troupe visited our village that I had decided to join them.

The menagerie constantly needed slopping out, the lions, the sabre-toothed tigers needed feeding and the cave bears needed brushing the last was a joke they played on all new recruits, as I know it now, if you get close enough to brush the cave bears you will become their dental floss!  The ring master he was my favourite, Gastum The Great, he was an illusionist and a fantastic storyteller, better than most because his stories came to life around you as he talked.  While we played in the south the menagerie stayed close but when we entered Calimport five years ago I learned that our troupe were two troupes and the Menagerie was headed back while the rest was headed North to the Spine of the world and I had to see that.  I heard that it was cold there that there was snow but I never really knew what that could be.

We travelled through Tethyr and Amn and wondered those countries before leaving civilization.  There were always new people in the troupe, bards and ner-do-wells that think they can work in the shadow of a troupe.  There were core people group that stuck through everything.  There was the strongman, who was black and came from Chult he always bested the strongest man in a village and then lifted a cart above his head his name was Xchuc, but everyone called him Chuck.  His wife was depending where we went a bearded lady or the tallest Dwarf(6 feet tall), she went by the name Dina but said once that she was Silverhammer too.  We had a Marksman from the elven wood, no one was quite sure which one, but he was a good fellow and did amazing feats with the bow including shooting apples of people’s heads blind folded or in the dark.  When you got him in his cups he would talk about his youth growing up in the Elven Kingdom of Selune and walking the Gnarly wood back on Oerth, where ever that is,  He was called in the performance Elreth the Elf.  There were three acrobats that set up a highwire act in the tent and called the Chario Triplets, there were three of them and two were sisters and the other was married to one of the sisters, but some spell made them all look alike they were Cheena, Chirna and Shereen.  In addition they did the juggling the knife throwing and tumbling routines and in bigger towns they did some extracurricular work in with the wealthier homes.  They usually took along some of the hired hand as muscle and distractions.  I apprenticed to all of them, I learned from each.  I knew what the Triplets were doing when they were not performing but they were my family.  Some of the hands that we used from time to time were not the most savoury, but they were not with us too long and so were not part of my family. 

I was training to be a Bard and professional storyteller of the troupe and was a devout follower of Milil, god of song, poetry and eloquence.  I was soon going to take the test to be a bard in Neverwinter.  We were going there anyway so that was the plan, but outside Helms Hold, Milil had a different plan for me.  We had set up for the night in a sheltered swale next to the path and we were done with the entertainment and dinner portion of the night and bedding down.  A few of the hired hands had been acting ‘shifty’ and we were watching them closely, three of them were half-orcs, but we are a non discriminating group, although in retrospect one of them was a little more orcish than the rest.  Elreth was on watch when he noticed that we were being surrounded and raised the alarm. 

There were orcs surrounding us, and as soon as they were spotted they attacked.  Two of the half-orcs in the hired hands switched sides and attacked the Elf and I have never seen him again.  The other Half Orc raised a sword that blazed with radiant power and smote four of the orcs in quick order before the rest of the camp was roused.  I fought beside the half-orc Paladin and when he fell to orcish arrows, I swore my Oath to Milil and asked for his power, which he granted me, and I laid my hands upon his form healing him enough to rouse him and then picked up his sword and defended him from the Orcs.  He and I staggered into Neverwinter a week later.  We parted ways shortly after but only after he told me about the Harmonious Order, a small group of Paladins dedicated to Milil.  He was Sir Rocknar of Helm.  I waited in Neverwinter to see if any of my Troupe came to Neverwinter but now my money is running out and I have to go and raise money to post a reward for information of their whereabouts or the vile Half orcs that betrayed us and the orc band that attacked us too.