aka Muspell the Immolated, Muspell the Unlucky, Last Son of Clan Heavyhand |
Muspell Heavyhand is a deep gnome illusionist. He is hunchbacked and burn-scarred, and the left side of his face is paralyzed in a grimace. Lacking eyebrows and his head a web of scar tissue, Muspell prefers to shave off what little black hair still grows there. His slate-grey eyes are rarely visible because of the dark-lensed goggles he keeps on unless he is underground. To avoid stares in very populated areas, Muspell usually hides behind his illusion magic. He is gruff in all senses of the word but also sagacious. He is paranoid, neurotic, and has a short, violent temper, but is ultimately good-hearted and fiercely loyal to those who have won his trust. He speaks little of the Underdark, so full of shame are his memories there.
Muspell was born during the Festival of the Star Ruby in the remote deep gnome outpost of Eudialyte, far below the Kron Hills. Though birth at such a time is usually considered an auspicious omen, Muspell's life has been anything but lucky. Nearly strangled by his own umbilical cord, it was only through the intervention of a skilled midwife that he survived his first day. He was the only child of his family, and unusually happy and curious. He was always poking around the forbidden corners of his family's property, a sly grin on his angular face.
Muspell idolized his father Surtr, a mighty breachgnome who answered directly to the king. Shortly after his family was moved to the outskirts of the territory for a long term assignment, they were attacked by a band of drow. Muspell's father was on patrol when the drow came; Muspell hid successfully and watched from the shadows as the drow viciously butchered his mother. When Surtr returned, he vowed vengeance upon the dark elves and departed with his son in tow.
Muspell spent his adolescent years deep in the drow tunnels following his father in his quest for revenge. Father spoke to son but minimally, numb to all feelings but rage. A gnome possessed, Surtr provided but the barest essentials for his son's survival as he cut his way through the drow ranks. Eventually making their way to the temple of the drow priestess that ordered the raid, Muspell and his father stumbled into a chamber with a surprise - a chained red dragon. The dragon attacked instinctively with its flame breath. When Muspell came to, his body seethed with the pain of a full body burn.
As a slave of the drow priestess he'd come to kill, he often wished he'd succumbed to his injuries that day. Muspell was beaten daily and nearly driven mad by starvation, surviving only on carrion rats and mold scraped from the corners of his cell. The priestess loved to tease him about his dead father as she forced him to do humiliating acts for her entertainment, ranging from the sadistic to the disgusting. He managed to escape his cell one night while the priestess did battle with a rival in the nave of her temple. While sneaking out, Muspell stole a book from under an altar, hoping its pages might provide some nourishment for his aching belly. After somehow finding his way outside of the city, he opened the book. The eldritch tome contained profane secrets unfit for a sane mind, and would have killed him outright with its energies if he were not already half insane. The experience left the poor young gnome in a coma.
Muspell would not awaken until nearly a year later, back in the outpost of his birth. Though the book was nowhere to be found, its evil had infected his psyche, the images within burned into his brain. He was physically rehabilitated and adopted by a family friend, the illusionist Segojan Seamseeker. Unfortunately, Muspell's mind had been warped by his traumatic childhood in such a way that he exhibited antisocial behavior, eventually driving away even his would-be guardian. Forswearing all kinship, he threw himself into physical training, hoping to join the king's forces to avenge his parents. He was rejected, however; years of abuse and malnourishment during his younger years had left him stunted and weak. Broken, Muspell attempted to succeed where his own umbilical cord had failed by hanging himself.
He awoke with Segojan standing over him. 'Your sword arm may not be strong, but you possess a strength far rarer.' Segojan pointed to his head. 'That of the mind. Study under me and channel your pain into a power which will aid you in your future.'
Muspell saw no other path. He was simply not strong enough to be a miner or gemcutter, he thought. He accepted. He started his studies late, but by adulthood he'd overtaken his apprentice peers in magical proficiency. He simply had the knack. The confidence that accompanied this proficiency produced an emotion quite alien in him: confidence.
Muspell began, cautiously, to try his hand at courtship. The object of his affections was Frigga Seamseeker. Though Segojan carried many reservations about a relationship between Muspell and his daughter, he withheld them with the hope that Muspell and his daughter, who was herself troubled by mental illness, might find mutual comfort.
Frigga was apprehensive at first. Muspell was kyphotic and scarred from head to toe, marked by dragonfire and drow's whip. His demeanor was vulgar and uncultured. Yet, within him she saw the boy that once explored caves fearless and with a permanent smile, the boy whose only joy was to be nuzzled in the crook of his mother's neck. They married in the Temple of the Earthcaller, and for the first time in his life, Muspell wept with joy.
All seemed to be well, but for one thing. Months went by and Muspell failed to consummate the union. He was simply... impotent. Muspell came to realize to his great shame that he was only aroused by drow, the image of his former captor. Frigga tried to be understanding but grew impatient. She wished for children. Indignance turned into arguments and arguments turned into yelling matches.
Eventually, Frigga struck Muspell with a particularly strong verbal volley. Surtr was not dead, she claimed. He had been imprisoned as a traitor for abandoning his post, and lay crippled in the burrow's dungeons. She painted Muspell an idiot for his ignorance. Muspell screamed with the rage of his father and threw a stone pot at Frigga, barely missing her. He flew to the dungeons, where he found Surtr, missing an arm and leg and pockmarked with burn scars. Muspell dared not interrupt his father's labored snores, and forthwith journeyed to the surface, cursing his land and its people and swearing never to return.
Once on the surface, Muspell was taken in by the Temple of St. Cuthbert in Hommlet for a time. Muspell took to St. Cuthbert's teachings of common sense, though they did not come naturally to a gnome. He became a lay follower of the church, and began carrying a book of his teachings with him, meditating on those teachings when in despair. He also found a new purpose at the temple: to hunt chaos wherever it lurks.
Muspell now hunts monsters. He sees himself as a monster who kills monsters, and is happy to have found strong, trustworthy allies to aid him in that goal. Maybe, if he destroys enough evil, he will find the peace he so desperately craves.
