Notes

Since I have the clan crafter archetype and am a genasi, those two combine pretty easily to “orphan adopted/fostered by gnomish clan”

Now, though, I’m a wanderer that goes out of my way to suck up to powerful people and tries to make myself seem necessary to those that might otherwise abandon me

That’s because my clan was massacred by giants! (Or maybe goliaths or orcs, idk)

Basically everyone I knew, the parent figures and the mentors and the friends, was killed off. Only me and a few other non-Dwarven locals were kept alive as slaves (racism is weird innit?)

I spent a good number of years enslaved to a raider tribe, and I watched as most of the other slaves were discarded or eaten at a whim over the years. Eventually I was the only one left of the original Dwarven clan

I had to survive so I learned to be quick to backstab other slaves (SOMEONE’s always gonna get eaten, best if it’s not me)

I also learned to make myself useful to have around, just barely enough that I wasn’t discarded

I was there for years, learning to work with tools and items stolen from dead villages to keep the raiders happy. Cleaning weapons, fixing armor, prepping the fire pits (genasi!)

Eventually I offered my services with the class ability that lets me make the temp hp turret. The slavers were happy to carry that on their raids, and they’d gotten used to me being obedient so I was allowed to come with them

(Which is necessary to make the thing work)

I was a party to slaughter for months, giving monsters a health buffer as they shrugged off the arrows and spears of small town guards and farmers

But then one time they got cocky and went for a more heavily armored caravan. It wasn’t as easy of a fight

It was actually hard enough that they didn’t even notice that the healing totem the leader was carrying on their back wasn’t doing much

Right at the tipping point of the battle I started using it again. Fun fact: all my turrets look the same. Second fun fact: when you accidentally carry a 2d8 force ballista with 120 foot range and 5ft knock back on your shoulders, it’s really easy to get headshot from behind and driven onto your opponent’s spear.

I saw a chance and I took it. The raiding party was killed and I was able to convince their targets that I was a harmless innocent victim brought along for a snack after the attack. They took pity on the poor little genasi, especially since I said that I was well able to fix the damage to their carts if I could get some tools.

My character feels a *little* guilty about leaving behind the other slaves at the tribe’s camp, and about abandoning his new rescuers later on right as they were heading into too much danger, but Clyde always looks out for #1—whether he’s sucking up to the nearest scary person or sabotaging his bosses right when they start to trust him.

The specifics are up to you, but I figured this was sufficiently traumatic to make the sort of self-serving asskisser I’m running Clyde as.