Fargrim Salamene – D&D Character Concept

I spent some time this weekend playing with the DDI Character Builder just to see what types of PC’s I might want to play. Of the 1/2 dozen or so I made this is the one that I am most interested in. I really like the idea of focusing on push and pull, and enhancing the bull rush option with my feat. Pushing people into terrain, off of cliffs and against walls is his typical tactic. Once he has pushed one enemy off of a cliff he uses his flail and his Thorn Strike power to pull a fresh enemy in before pushing him off a cliff as well.

Character Summary

Fargrim Salamene, Level 1 | Dwarf, Warden

Build: Earth Warden

Guardian Might: Earthstrength

FINAL ABILITY SCORES

Str 18, Con 16, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 8.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

Str 18, Con 14, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 8.

AC: 16 Fort: 15 Reflex: 10 Will: 12

HP: 33 Surges: 12 Surge Value: 8

TRAINED SKILLS

Nature +6, Intimidate +4, Endurance +9, Perception +8

UNTRAINED SKILLS

Acrobatics -1, Arcana, Bluff -1, Diplomacy -1, Dungeoneering +3, Heal +1, History, Insight +1, Religion, Stealth -1, Streetwise -1, Thievery -1, Athletics +3

FEATS

Level 1: Improved Bull Rush

POWERS

Warden at-will 1: Thorn Strike

Warden at-will 1: Weight of Earth

Warden daily 1: Form of the Fearsome Ram

Warden encounter 1: Thunder Ram Assault

ITEMS

Hide Armor, Adventurer's Kit, Heavy flail

Background

For hundreds of centuries the Dwarves of Nalimutan pass protected and maintained the road through the Matang Mountains. Many decades of relative peace and prosperity brought a quiet calm to the dwarves, who began to spend more time quarrying and selling stone. Their ever vigilant eye waned, and the ancient enemy of the dwarves took the opportunity to strike.

Allied with a small group of Storm Giants, the Stone Giants who had mysteriously left the pass, returned in great numbers over running the unprepared dwarven clan. The dwarves suffered many casualties and were scattered into the surrounding valleys.

Fargrim was a young boy when the attack occurred, and fled from the giants at the demands of his father. Blindly the young dwarf ran down the mountain into the forests below, and finding a quite place to sit waited for his father to join him. While waiting, he was approached by a most unusual creature. Salamene, a forest Dryad, found young Fargrim in the forest, and thinking it odd to find a young dwarf here set about talking with him. Fargrim was quite taken aback by this odd mix of humanoid and plant, and they talked over the course of many days. Eventually, Fargrim decided to set out to find the remainder of his clan, but when he emerged from the forests edge and looked up to the mountain his heart sank. The pass that had stood open for so many hundreds of years was gone. The top of the mountain collapsed down upon the pass wiping all that Fargrim had ever known from the world. Salamene followed Fargrim from the forest, and when she arrived behind him looked up at the mountain. "Poor, poor Fargrim", she said. Salamene had watched part of the battle over the past few days and knew the power that was unleashed upon Fargrim's home. She quietly left Fargrim to his thoughts.

Fargrim searched this side of the mountain for any sign of his clan members, but if any had escaped this way he found none. Alone, Fargrim set out to build what he could on the forests edge. Unskilled in stone working, but not entirely untrained, Fargrim built a small cottage just inside the eaves of the forest. A month or more had passed since Fargrim looked up at his former home, and he had settled in as best he could. He had not seen Salamene since she left him on that day, but now heard her voice through his window, panic was in the voice. He cautiously opened the door, hefting a spear he had made from the branch of a fallen tree and a sharp stone that he carefully hewed to a perfect point. She appeared then before him, but not as he had seen her before. She was in the guise of a beautiful elf maiden, wearing the hide of some great beast across her breast. She carried a large sword, and approached him with great speed.

"You can avenge your family today Dwarf, a giant has come down from the mountains and is destroying the forest. It is my job to protect this forest, and the trees that live here. Help me to destroy this monster and free your conscious." Fargrim was running before she even finished speaking, in the direction of a sound that he now understood to be that of a giant tearing down trees. As he ran Salamene seemed to vanish and reappear again and again moving with speed that he could not match. He burst quickly into a newly cleared area of the forest and saw Salamene fighting the Giant. She danced around the giant confusing it, slicing into his think flesh with her sword. Without thinking Fargrim charged into the battle, and with the giant distracted managed to impale the giant through the lower leg. A howl of anger and pain emanated from the unsuspecting giant, and as he turned to see what had happened, he lost his balance and fell with a mighty crash. Salamene smiled a fleeting smile, and jumped upon the fallen giants body. She stabbed deep, still moving quickly across the giants body. The sounds of the giants anguish filled the forest, and Fargrim's ears. He climbed upon the giants chest and Salamene stopped next to him. She handed him her sword, and as he looked into the giants eyes, plunged the weapon deep into his heart.

Fargrim quietly turned and left the giant and Salamene behind, returning to his new home on the edge of the forest and the mountain. It was many years before Salamene returned to Fargrim. He had cultivated a small area of land just outside of the forest and grew many crops. Over the years Fargrim tended to the goats that grazed in the high mountains and on the forests edge. He explored the forest and the mountains, and learned to live from the earth. He met few others in this small area of land at the bottom of the mountain. Humans and elves mostly, but never any dwarves. When Salamene returned Fargrim was just entering his adulthood. Salamene came by regularly over the next 15 years, and slowly began teaching Fargrim what she knew about the forest, the earth, the mountains and the world. She taught him about the power in the earth, the trees and even the rams that he tends to. She taught him to use his strength to push and pull the enemies of the earth and throw them off balance.

After all of the years of training, after all of the years of unusual friendship Salamene visited Fargrim one last time. She explained that her task of finding a new guardian for this part of the world was complete. She was returning to her home, and to her kind, and to her family. Fargrim accepted that he would return to his clan if he could, and said a quick good bye. Salamene gave Fargrim a gift before she left. A flail fashioned from the materials of the land that Fargrim would now protect. She promised the weapon would be an extension of himself and all he learned, and it turns out it was.