Building Characters - Neeba the Half-Elf Psion

The following attempts to be a miniature background for a Psion, a player character for Dungeons and Dragons, the imposed restriction on physical prowess comes from the character stats, low numbers were rolled for  Strength and Constitution...


Castaway

I don’t remember much of my early childhood, just glimpses, feelings… Mostly feelings of disappointment, my own family was ashamed of me, my own people watched me with estranged eyes.

As time went by the strange things happening around me could not be ignored anymore, the town elders decided it was best for everyone to send me away, not far, just to the nearest wizards a couple of days down the road, there I could learn control. For a while my life improved, I learned to read and write, and just a couple of years later I began my studies to become a great wizard. Alas, failure was my constant companion, none of the books or the teaching from my master could help me, I could feel a connection with something bigger, powerful, but the arcane teachings eluded me.

Tired of me the wizard casted me out, and ashamed of my failure, rather than going back and face my people, I spent most of the next few years in the company of beggars, barely surviving, scraping and fighting for every peace of bread, until I found it, it was just laying there, inside a ruined monk temple where I was weathering a storm, in the middle of an untouched library, an ancient tome of knowledge; the cover had an emerald in the form of a leaf with green flames against a silver background and lined in fine gold.

I was hungry, and that piece of jewelry could have bought a lot of meals and decent nights in a nice Inn, with a proper bed and a big cozy heart to keep me warm and dry. Something possessed me to open the book, maybe it reminded me of all those years of hard study with the wizard, or maybe it was just fate pushing mi hand and eyes inside those pages.  

On the first page there was an inscription, “Tempered by Flame”… Over the next weeks I poured over the contents, I finally understood, the connection I had always felt was not with arcane, the power I could feel swirling about me didn’t come from without, but from within, discipline and the mind where the keys… 

Enfeeblement

As time went by my control grew stronger and so did my power, it required a lot of effort and discipline, but I wasn’t hungry anymore, my newfound control gave me the ability to hunt, the ruins gave me shelter, the book gave me hope, I was surely and steadily getting better, until I got greedy… I sought knowledge in every book of the library, I devoured every tome I could find, most only contained useless information, I was becoming desperate, I needed to know more about these power… 

Then I found it, in a secluded section of the library, a book filled with the knowledge I needed, the power I craved, a book filled with what I believed were shortcuts and “forbidden” rituals, the first page had a message: 

“True power comes from practice and knowledge, this pages have been collected with the express purpose to  serve as guidelines on were the forbidden path lies, never attempt this rituals to rise above your natural talent, always be true to you” 

But that wasn’t going to stop me. I needed to be better, to become powerful, only then could I return home and show them...

I’ve never felt such agony, as I finished the last concentration exercise required by the ritual, I was engulfed in green flames, I could feel the flames burning me from the inside out, I was dying, if I hadn’t been such a fool… I woke up many hours later, my body felt wrong, awkward, feeble, I knew then I would never be the same, I had been tempered by the flames of my foolishness… The exercises helped me attain a higher awareness of my mind’s true potential, at the cost of my physical strength and dexterity... I left the ruins shamed, never to come back.

For months I’ve wondered the land, alone, an outcast in my own mind, everywhere I go people fear my power, magic they can handle, but not what they see me do. The strange physical manifestations of my powers are too weird, too different, too foreign. 

I might be feeble of body, but my weapon is my mind, and it’s as sharp as any steel and as resistant as any blade, cross me and I will crush you, offer me friendship and a place on your table and I will be as true as anyone you’ve ever know, allow me to follow you on a worthy quest and you will not regret it, this I promise you for I am Nebba, and I have the psionic power in me!

He's a Half-elf and the tattoos
are permanent.