Gilick Stickyfoot
An origin story for a Dungeons and Dragons character in the Dragonlance setting.
I did my best to weave the setting into the story, as well as making sure that the events included made sense in the D&D mechanics. Mostly ensuring the magical effects are all player-usable spells in 5e, and work the same as they do in the rules.
Monster illustrations included are the property of WOTC/Hasbro. No ownership is implied. (please don’t sue me). Gilick model was created in Heroforge. Language warning: the bad guys like to swear, sorry.
Gilick Stickyfoot.
RACE: Kender
CLASS: Hexblade Warlock (patron: Hiddukel)
BACKGROUND: Archeologist
CURRENT LEVEL: 7
STR (12) DEX (18) CON (12)
INT (12) WIS (7) CHR (18)
Three hundred and fifty years the two of them had been trapped in this - quite literally - godforsaken temple. Hundreds of feet above them generations came and went, whole societies fell and were rebuilt. Down here it was as if time had stood still. To be fair, three and a half centuries was barely a notable amount of time for the servants of a God—unless of course they happened to be trapped on this tiny insignificant world, in a miserable underground temple, bound by long forgotten chains of abjuration.
The best that they could figure, they were in what remained of the underground temple of a tiny, yet surprisingly powerful cult dedicated to the high lord of deception: Hiddukel. AKA, Tishka and Garanak’s boss. The cultists were likely spooked by the recent warnings that the Gods had been sending before they finally brought down destruction on the entire mortal world. The humans had summoned them in some last ditch effort… to do what? Whether they wanted to be saved, wage war themselves, or be taken back to see their God, who could say? They never got a chance to tell them. The two fiends were on the material plane for literal seconds before most of the temple caved in. The two of them… trapped by chains of Imprisonment. The cultists… all of them either dead or dying.
As the dust settled and the two fiends began to fully appreciate their predicament one of the dying cultists managed to choke out a single selfish demand. “Save. Me.”
His back obviously broken, his dust-caked eyes were wild with fear. “Save me, you must. I’ve devoted my life to Hiddukel. I have been his humble servant since I was a boy.”
Tishka, from the waist up a gorgeous humanoid with six arms, all bearing blades, stood up on the serpent tail that made up the bottom half of her body. She examined the chain tight around her middle. After a moment she wound over to where the old man lay prone, his body completely broken. Slowly she bent over, allowing the cultist to fully take in her deadly seductive beauty and hissed in his face. “You abduct me, chain me to a wall like chattel, then have the nerve to DEMAND THAT I SAVE YOUUU?” Her voice boomed in the small chamber. The man choked out a scream as she dragged a blade across the old man’s face, his paper thin skin opening up to reveal a wide crimson gash. He screamed until he choked on the dust… and went silent, his face frozen in a death mask of fear. Looking down Tishka realized that she had, almost absentmindedly, pressed a scimitar into the human’s belly, his internal organs bisected.
She heard slow clapping behind her and swung around. Garanak stood there, two giant clawed arms hanging from his shoulders, his dragon-like feet chained to the ground, slowly clapping with the two humanoid arms that extended from his waist.
“What the fuck are you clapping for?” She asked him, fuming with rage.
“You know that he was probably our last chance to be freed of these chains, right?”
The marlith didn’t respond, she just turned away from her glabrezu cell-mate and slumped into the default resting position of her serpentine body. They both knew he was right, there was no need to admit it.
___
Three hundred and fifty years the two of them had been trapped in this hole.
“Hey Tishka. What’s green and brown and jiggles with nervous energy?”
“A juiblex on a blind date. You told that one like a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“Yeah, but it’s still funny.”
“It was never funny.”
A moment of silence passed, not more than a year, until Garanak replied. “You know what WAS funny?”
“What?”
“The look on your face after I told you you killed our one hope of…”
Instantly she was up and quickly slithering towards him before she was jerked back by her restraints, just short of blades-reach. She waved a scimitar a foot from his face. “If you bring that up again I swear I’ll…”
“YOU’LL WHAT?” Garanak roared. “WHAT WILL YOU FUCKING DO? We’re both as helpless as kittens while these chains bind us.” The demon towered over her. With her tail fully extended, she might be considered the same size as the hulking red demon, but while he was standing, he was an incredibly intimidating presence, despite him being her inferior.
“I thought you could dispel mortal magic with the wave of a claw?” Tishka replied, sarcastically.
“Yeah, well, I guess I was wrong. We all have our shortcomings.”
Unexpectedly their stand-off was broken by the sound of a new voice, muffled and distant. The first they’d heard in centuries. “Hello? Is there someone down here?”
They froze. And waited.
“Helllooooo?” There it was again. Despite being filtered through layers of stone and concrete, it was undeniable. There was indeed a voice, and it was distinctly kender.
“UGH” The two demons groaned in unison.
They knew that they couldn’t afford to be picky about who their rescuer might be, and to be honest, a kender stumbling down here was the best case scenario. While annoying, the race was one of the few that the demons could count on not to flee in fear, plus their innate penchant for theft meant that their liege held a soft spot for them, despite an incessant tendency to be selfless in almost every other aspect of their being.
They turned back to each other and nodded. It was time. Centuries ago they had come up with a plan. Without another word Garanak cast darkness and filled the chamber with inky black. To mortal eyes nothing changed in the chamber, as it was lightless to begin with, but now the kender’s torch wouldn’t reveal them before they were ready.
Stones and dirt started caving into the chamber from the direction of the voice and a hole appeared in the ceiling. “Hello?”
“Oh. Well isn’t this curious.” The kender mused as he waved his torch in and out of the wall of black below him. His enthusiasm was renewed. “There must be something especially fun hidden down here.” The kender dropped a rock into the blackened room and was greeted by a thud as it hit solid ground. He made a satisfied noise and dropped his lit torch as well. It disappeared into the black. After a few moments the end of a rope uncoiled into the chamber and he descended.
The demons, able to see clearly in the magical dark, looked at each other quizzically. Was this mortal carrying on a conversation by himself? Tishka slowly slithered into position… mere feet from the interloper as his his head swivelled, attempting to triangulate the noises she made. “Hello?” he called again.
She nodded towards Garanak. As planned, his concentration on the darkness lifted, and the room filled with natural light for the first time in generations. The kender gasped in surprise as he looked up at the horrifyingly gorgeous demon, her face inches from his own, entrancing him as she loomed.
In an instant one of her six hands firmly held the mortal’s chin while another pressed something cool into his hand. “Hello little one. Please accept this loan from my lord. It needs blood, and I need you to keep it safe.” Reluctantly she parted with one of her treasured blades, the same small dagger that sliced the face of the selfish old man centuries ago. She paused for dramatic effect, waiting for an indication of understanding. She felt his head nod lightly in her hand. “It shall serve you well. But know that I will be coming back for it. We will meet again.”
“Oh! Thanks! I’ll… I’ll do my best.” Gilick said, with the same enthusiasm he would have displayed to anyone who entrusted him with something important. “I’ll keep it as safe as my hoopak!”
A second later the glabrezu cast Confusion on the tiny man who hastily grabbed onto the dagger’s handle and waved it about as visions even stranger than the one already in front of him filled his head. Then, with as gentle of a touch as Tishka could manage, she clubbed the pitiful being with the hilt of her blade, and he slumped into unconsciousness, and onto the cold damp floor of their prison.
___
“You hit him too hard. He’s going to die.”
“He’s not going to die. They look fragile, but these worms are surprisingly hard to put down.”
“We’re going to be smelling his rotting corpse for months. It will be just like before. We’ll have to watch as our only hope turns into dust before our eyes because you were horny with blood lust.”
“Look. He’s moving. I told you he wasn’t going to die. Put up the darkness.”
Garanak did as he was asked.
They watched as the kender pulled himself up to his feet. His new dagger safely stowed behind a leather belt on his body armour by Tishka before he awoke. He groggily touched its handle, he could feel it pressed up against his chest. Hands out, he cautiously felt for the rope he’d left dangling only minutes earlier. After shaking his head, as if freeing water from his ears, he slowly, silently climbed up and out of the tomb. His enthusiasm dampened.
The demons listened as they heard the kender climb his way out of the ruin. Their hopes for rescue now in the hands of an unlikely, and unknowing ally. A short time later they heard the passage cave in, surely closing them off from the outside world yet again.
They sat in silence for a few moments, possibly a month or so, until the large red hulk looked over at his companion as she methodically sharpened a scimitar on a temple stone. “So, do you think it’s going to work?”
Without even pausing to look over she replied “I have no fucking idea.”