Romero of Westvale – LVL8   –   Romero of Westvale – LVL8 – Spellsheet

Romero of Westvale – LVL6   –   Romero of Westvale – LVL6 – Spellsheet

Romero of Westvale – LVL5   –   Romero of Westvale – LVL5 – Spellsheet

Appearance

” It was the darnest thing I’ve ever seen on my travels: A dragonborn with blue eyes! By Bahamut, I knew right away there was something special about this kid…”
– Ka’Tau

Romero has a friendly face (if you are able to recognize that in a Dragonborn’s face) and he smiles a lot. His whole body has a brass-colored tone, and the thick strands of ‘hair’ lie loosely from the back of his head.

For a Dragonborn he is of average height and weight, although most other races would find him towering over them.

On a closer look, it’s his eyes that do not seem to fit the whole picture of a Dragonborn: with their light blue hue, they look strangely human and out of place in that fierce and impressive dragon like humanoid frame.

Background

Romero grew up in a simple remote farming village of no more than 8 families called Westvale. He was blessed with loving parents and a few friends of the same age. Nothing out of the ordinary there, except that they were all human and he… looked like a dragon.

His heart lies with his family and his village. To Dragonborn their clan is more important than the gods or life itself, and perhaps this inbuilt gravitas has shifted to his village from lack of having a clan. Whatever the reason may be, he is fiercely protective of those from his village and will put his life before any harm to them.

He was found by his parents in their field one evening in a little wooden crib, with a rattler and a brass-colored dragon scale on a string hanging from a corner.

Foundling

His parents Jonathen and Sansey have told the mysterious story many times before, of how he came into their life as if send by God himself:

It was a clear evening and Jonathen had just finished filling the water troughs for the cows, when he felt a rush of wind from the field he had his back to.

He turned around and was awestruck when he saw a shimmering, translucent blue globe slowly descent from 15 feet up. ‘Sansey!’, he called out, without looking away from the globe. He called out again: ‘Sansey!’

‘What is it, dear?’, Sansey said as she came running from behind their house, where she was just gathering the last of the clothing from the clothes lines. She stopped when she reached her husband and noticed the blue globe: ‘What….’

As the globe touched down on the ground, it blinked out of existence and it left a small wooden crib in its place. A small baby like laugh could be heard from it when the globe ‘popped’, after which they could hear quiet cooing sounds coming from the little crib.

Sansey moved first, a woman’s automatic reaction to the sounds of a little child, and climbed over the fence.

‘Wait, dear, you do not know if it is dangerous!’, said Jonathen as he moved quickly toward his wife in reaction.

‘If it is a little baby, it doesn’t matter how it got here: it needs to be looked after’, Sansey said resolutely as she walked on towards the crib. Jonathen reached her just as she started peering inside the crib. They both looked down at a small brass colored humanoid baby, which was playing with a rattler and making funny noises at it. As they got inside the baby’s view, it looked at them with its big blue eyes and it giggled as a baby does. The little creature showed a large smile (they were 99% sure it was a smile, even with those sharp teeth and it’s scales) and it held out its arms at them.

Again, Sansey reacted automatically without thinking and also reached out to pick up the little not-quite-human. And again, Jonathen was a reaction behind her as he gasped: ‘Wait!’.

She took the little baby in its bundle to her shoulder and held it close. The little baby sounded quite pleased with this as it giggled again. Jonathen felt his worries fall away as he saw and heard this, although his wonderment remained.

‘Where did this little fellow come from?’, he wondered out loud. He took a finger towards the little one, which was promptly held by tiny fingers. He smiled, and suddenly realized: ‘I think it is a Dragonborn baby! I have seen a few Dragonborn on my travels with the army, but never so tiny…’

Sansey rocked the baby in her arms, ‘look at those eyes…  they seem so human… and so gentle…’

‘Yes,’ answered Jonathen, ‘and that is unmistakably a large smile, even with those teeth.’

After a little while the little bundle started crying, and Sansey said: ‘I think it is hungry, do you know what Dragonborn eat?’

‘Let’s find out’, said Jonathen, as he picked up the little crib. They both walked back to their house and they closed the door behind them to the night…

Growing Up

They never tried to find out who the parents were of the little baby. Jonathen knew that the Dragonborn clans lived secluded and far away, and it would be an enormous and dangerous undertaking to reach them. He and Sansey had been trying to get with child for a few years already, but it did not seem they were blessed with fertility. So it seemed to Sansey that their prayers were answered, although not exactly as they hoped for (“perhaps the prayers had not been specific enough?”, Jonathen always joked). Together they decided they would raise the child as their own, forever or until it’s real parents would show up.

They also decided to integrate the kid as much as possible into the village, so that it would be a part of the community and everyone would be accustomed to its difference. And so, Romero grew up in a lovely village without ever feeling an outsider. It may have been his blue piercing eyes or the contagious smile he showed every time he saw someone else, but all villagers accepted him as one of their own.

It took the animals a bit longer to get accustomed to this predatory-looking child, ancient instincts can be hard to overcome. Yet from the moment he walked he kept trying to find ways to overcome this and to be able to handle them like any of the other farmers could. In doing so he learned a lot of tricks and insight into most animals.

Romero loved nothing more than helping others out, so he was always around watching the odd jobs that his fellow villagers were doing and doing his best to help them with it. He seemed to have a knack for woodworking and constructing things, and so without second thought he slowly became a provisioned carpenter as he grew up.

Wild magic showing

One day Romero found out he was even more special in the village than he already knew.

It had started out to be an uneventful day. He led the cows to one of the outer fields were the grass was getting too long, and as always he checked the whole fence afterwards for any signs of wear or damage. And indeed on the far side of the field a part of the fence was broken right in half. Romero gathered his needed tools from his backpack and started working on connecting the broken pieces.

Suddenly he heard a growl from behind him, and he turned around quickly in time to see a wild boar charging at him! He had no time to get up and out of the way or protect himself from this attack, yet as he felt the panic rise in him something inside him reached out with a solution. Without thought he felt energy gather in his hand and he threw it at the animal. A mote of fire hurled from his hand at the boar and it splashes all over the beast, setting it’s thick pelt on fire. The boast roared in panic and it immediately changed it’s course to get away from the source of the pain, running back towards the nearby woods.

Moments later Romero could still hear the shrieks of pain disappearing into the woods, but he was looking at his hand in shock. “Where did that come from?”, he asked out loud at no one in particular, but deep down he could feel the answer as if he always had known. Now that he knew what it felt like, he could feel the power in him. Although it felt raw and chaotic, it also felt quite familiar as if he had always known about it. It did not make any sense, and yet it also did.

As he focused on the energy, fleeting images of other possibilities and forms came to his mind. He somehow knew that he could do more with it than simply hurl it as a burning fire. He saw images pass by of the power giving off light, and of protecting him as if he was wearing it, and of it spreading the energy into his muscles giving him more speed. He also saw the energy flowing into objects and making things as new, and he suddenly remembered what he was doing moments before.

Holding on to that last image, he held the broken pieces of fence together in one hand and then slowly moving his other hand over it. He felt the energy gather under his hand and pictured it flowing into the broken wood. When he looked at the broken part afterwards, he found the wood to be fused together again. In fact, on closer inspection he could not see any evidence of it ever having been damaged!

It still took a little while for his mind to grasp what just had happened, but then he loudly proclaimed: “I can do magic!”  Since there was no one there to hear him, he must have been talking to the cows. The cows however did not really care about it all, or otherwise they hid their excitement quite well. “I CAN DO MAGIC!”

Romero ran back towards the village as fast as he could and he sought out his father and mother.

(to be expanded…what he did with it (help the village), and the reaction of others (useful, scared, positive/negative folklore?) Tie the Brass Scale in this short story. It becomes a comforting weight around his neck, which he touches often, especially when casting)

Inside knowledge: The Brass Scale he  has hanging around his neck is actually his arcane focus (spellcasting focus PHB151/203). he uses it instead of the specified components for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, he must have that specific component before he can cast the spell.
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell. A spellcaster must have a hand free to access these components, but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components.

A new friend

When his dad set the move to Sorø in motion (See the other article), little did he know how much bigger his world would be getting.

On the last day the villagers would all be together in one village and they were preparing for a big feast, a cart came rolling into town. Carts did not come often to the small village, since it was not on any major trade route. Yet that was not the most peculiar thing about this, for the cart had two Dragonborn on board!

When Romero met the first Dragonborn he ever laid his eyes on, he was instantly intrigued by him. Ka’Tau was so much bigger than he was, and Romero figured at first that this must be an old and presumably wise Dragonborn. After all, the older dragons get, the bigger they get. That made sense, right?

He was corrected the same day, however, that the large form of Ka’Tau had more to do with his diet (or lack thereof) than his age. This Dragonborn however did have a lot of knowledge that Romero did not have. During the feast that evening Romero asked many questions about Dragonborn and their culture. He got even more excited when he found out that he could breath lightning and that Romero should be able to do something similar, even though he had never done so before. Ka’Tau gave him his first lesson in it, and Romero found out he could actually breath fire! (although it is was more candle-sized and did not really hurt the tree he was aiming for…) Ka’Tau however promised that it would grow in size if he kept practicing this new-found skill.

A few days later the travelling villagers and Ka’Tau went on board to Sorø, for he was also going to the lost continent. Coincident much?

During the month-long trip, Romero asked the scaly ears of Ka’Tau and learned much about the Dragonborn in the world. He also was learning more and more about the Dragonborn’s language, draconic.

A new land, a new home

As the eventful journey aboard the ship came to an abrupt halt thanks to the beach they landed on (reference to journey story here), they were welcomed with open arms by the citizens of Sorø. It seemed the people here had lived under a lot of hardship, yet they eagerly took the new settlers in and explained all that happened before they arrived. It seems that Romero’s ‘clan’ has grown a lot bigger…