You're an ogre.
No shit, right?
After all, what else would you be? One of those spiky stunties from up north? One of those irrelevant swamp lizards that nobody's cared about in generations?
Yeah, no, the thought alone is enough to make you laugh. As if you'd be anything as stupid as those guys.
Instead, you're part of the biggest, toughest, hungriest race on the planet. And you gotta say, life is pretty damn good.
See, the thing about surviving in an ogre tribe is that if you aren't useful in some way, you're gonna get eaten. Ergo, the best way to
not get eaten is to make yourself useful. And for you, that usefulness didn't come around through being another dumb bruiser for your Tyrant to boss around.
Nah, you realized early on that while you might not have been any stronger than the average ogre, you were a hell of a lot smarter.
So you decided to focus on that.
Instead of beating up other members of your tribe to show where exactly you stood in the pecking order, you found ogres with the skills you needed so you could prove that you'd actually be useful to the tribe, and you learned from them.
The first guy you studied under was a hunter, Krark Beastpuncher. He was an old ogre, one that'd been around longer than the last two tyrants. He'd come around the tribe every so often, bring back a few trophies from his hunts, the parts of animals that didn't taste so good, then spend a few days bragging about his latest kill while every damn ogre in the tribe young enough to not know better desperately tried to show off to him. All of em wanted to be his apprentice, but no matter what they did, Krark always left alone, alone except for whatever tame beast he had with him.
Of course, you were different. See, you'd noticed something. All those other ogres did stupid shit to 'prove their worth'. You just waited until he was about to leave and
asked.
And it worked!
Krark shrugged, took you on as an apprentice and emergency food supply, and taught you everything he knew. You learned tracking, survival skills, stealth, a hell of a lot of fighting, but most importantly, you learned Krark's secret skill, Beastpunching.
...You do have to admit it's kind of a stupid secret, especially since the name of the technique was also the name of Krark's title, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that you learned how to punch the beasties of the Mountains in
just the right way to get them to listen to you and do what you say. There's a bit more to it than that, but at the end of the day it's mostly just punching and a bit of yelling.
Not long after Krark taught you Beastpunching, the two of you were caught in the middle of a rock blizzard, which was exactly what it sounded like. After eating all of your tamed beasts, the two of you turned to the only food left available. Each other. Krark was a master at killing shit, but he was old, old and weak. You made it quick.
He was a good teacher, Krark. Out of respect, you didn't even eat his skull, just the rest of his body and the meat on his head.
Your next teacher was a Leadbelcher, Mulg Cannonbite. Mulg was
weird, even for Leadbelchers. He didn't just go to the nearest Firebelly when his cannon got messed up or when he needed more ammo, he figured out how to fix it himself. Apparently he just didn't like firebellies, something about em rubbed him the wrong way.
Either way, you asked if he could teach you how to make and fix cannons if you brought him food every now and then, and he accepted. In exchange for a few Mournfangs every now and then, Mulg taught you the secrets of weaponry and metal, and not just cannons either.
Apparently, Mulg was hiding a bunch of knowledge for
whatever reason, and he decided to teach you
all of it. You learned how to make the scraplaunchers that some of the weedier Gnoblars used, how to beat metal into shape for armor and weapons, and yeah, even how to make crude cannons and cannonballs.
Even more than that, you learned the formula for blasting powder, or Mulg's version of it. Take some Mournfang bones, crush em up and mix that with some volcano rocks, add some charcoal, douse the entire thing in stomach acid, and boom.
Heh, literally boom. Since it's blasting powder.
Eventually though, the inevitable happened. Mulg taught you all he knew, after which he tried to eat you. Something about him doubling his knowledge by eating someone with as much knowledge as him.
To be honest, you weren't really paying that much attention, and it was pretty stupid anyways. Everyone knew that the only way to get stuff other than a full belly from eating brains was to be a Butcher and do some magic on the brains first, and no matter how smart he was, Mulg wasn't a Butcher.
Anyways, you killed Mulg with a surprise Mournfang corpse to the chest, and ate him. Left his skull alone though, same as with Krark. Mulg was a pretty good teacher and it wasn't like he tried to do something
bad.
Your final teacher wasn't even an ogre, it was a
book. Kind of.
Some Butcher by the name of Rakk Drakegnawer apparently decided to write down exactly how he became a Butcher, step by step, for whatever fuckin reason. But hey, you weren't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, so you just kinda shrugged, read the book on how to become magic, and went at it.
It was actually pretty simple, now that you think about it. There was basically only one actual step, figuring out how to send some of your meals to the Maw instead of to your belly. Of course, simple doesn't mean easy, and that step was a lot harder than you thought it would be.
The first big problem was wrapping your head around giving food to anyone else, even the Maw. it was your food, in your belly, and it should be making you full, not anyone else. Eventually though, you decided to try. After all, magic meant you'd get a lot more food in your belly than before. It was simple math.
Then, you had to figure out
how to do it. The book wasn't really helpful, it just said something about eating food without eating it. You figured it out though, even if it did take about a year of failed attempts.
All you had to do was eat a bit of food, pray to the Maw inside your head, take that feeling of being full, and push it away.
Felt fuckin awful, but magic was magic and it was worth it. Your first spell was awesome as hell, you ate a brain and then the gnoblars around you died from nightmares, all while a small spark, a tunnel really, opened itself up in the middle of your belly. You were officially a Butcher. And you still had 80% of the book left.
That 80% was rituals and recipes, giving that small spark/tunnel thing specific types of food. Feed it a Saberfang tooth and you got a spell to send a giant bite down on someone. Give it some Troll guts and the lads around you can grow back their bits like a troll can.
It changed based on how you prepared the food too. Combining two food bits gave a spell that was a fusion of the two, like eating a mournfang bone that would make the lads tougher and a bit of charcoal that made you belch out some fire created a spell that made the lads burn anyone that touched em.
The book's been a real good help. Sometimes you question how you even learned to read, but then you just shrug and move on.
Anyways, after becoming a butcher, kind of, you settled into a nice role as 'way too useful to even think about eating', and for a while, your life was good.
Then your Tyrant pissed off one of the BIG names of ogrekind, and most of your tribe got eaten by a coalition of ogres eager to suck up to that Big Name.
You, however, were too useful to be eaten. That Big Name decided that you worked for him now, and had you tell him exactly what you were good at and what your name was.
You told him, and your new Tyrant liked the answer enough that instead of eating you, he decided to set you up with a few lads, a few gnoblars, a few slaves, a load of dosh, and put you to work.
What exactly are you good at?
General Specialty
[] Beastpunching: In the middle of your fight, Krark saw that he was gonna die. Laughing, he decided to pass on the greatest secret of Beastpunching, his ultimate technique. While the two of you tried to eat each other, Krark taught you how to punch beasts in their
minds, giving them rewards and punishments for doing the stuff you wanted them to. Right as he was done, you caved his chest in with a punch.
Gain Mourne Beasts at TL 3. Weaponry and Gut Magic start at TL 2.
[] Weaponmaking: After you ate Mulg, you looted his hut and found a small journal, one where he wrote down stuff that he didn't even teach you. You spent a few weeks looking through the book, finding ways to make stronger weapons and armor, notes on bigger catapults, and even a formula for better blasting powder. You knew Mulg was holding out on you, but this much? You were actually kinda hurt.
Gain Weaponry at TL 3. Mourne Beasts and Gut Magic start at TL 2.
[] Gut Magic: Right as you finished memorizing the book, you accidentally pressed a hidden key, or activated some sort of magic enchantment, and the result was the book getting about a third bigger. You looked through the new pages and found a bunch of more powerful recipes, ways to prepare ingredients that you hadn't even thought of, and even some stuff on how to combine em better. It's some pretty neat stuff.
Gain Gut Magic at TL 3. Weaponry and Mourne Beasts start at TL 2.
Personal Specialty
[] Necromancy: Sometimes the dead speak to you. It's kind of weird, hearing their voices, and you always have a bit of a headache, but after punching a ghost right in the head and stealing their ghost journal, you figured out some stuff about your little power. Apparently you're a necromancer, one of those fuckers who raises undead and makes vampires and stuff, though you're nowhere near the level of the masters. But that doesn't mean you're a complete novice, you can raise a few undead, you can do some death bolt shit, it's pretty cool. It's early days yet, but you got a good feeling about this.
Gain Necromancy at TL 2.
[] Summoning: There's a lot of times that you're in the Mountains alone, without any food, and you get really hungry. So, eventually, you tried to fix that like most ogres do, yelling really hard for something to come over here. Unlike with most ogres though, it actually worked. You summoned up a big old nasty
thing, some sort of being made up of rock and anger. When it attacked you, you kicked its ass, but when you tried to eat it, it disappeared. Being smart like you are, you realized you'd managed to summon an elemental, and after a few more tries, you realized you could summon elementals, and a few minor daemons, just through yelling. Eventually, you even managed to figure out how to trap em in ritual circles and the like, so they don't try to kill you immediately. They still try, but now they can't succeed.
Gain Summoning at TL 2.
[] Martial Arts: You met a Cathayan Monk once. Obviously, when faced with a human with nobody else with him, you decided to try and eat him. That spindly little human kicked your ass using a single hand. Then, instead of killing you, he offered to teach you some of his tricks. Obviously, you agreed, and over the next few years you learned all about martial arts, forms, katas, different styles and more importantly, how to create your own through looking at the world around you. One day, you woke up and your teacher was just gone. You haven't seen him since.
Gain Martial Arts at TL 2.
First Name
[] Write-in:
Deed Name
[] Pageeater: You ate a bunch of skinny humans once. Well, you ate a bunch of skinny humans a lot more than just once, bunches of skinny humans are one of your bigger food sources after all. But this particular bunch of skinny humans had a stack of books, some sort of tribute to their Tyrant-equivalent, an 'Emperor' or something like that. Obviously you ate those too. The books must've been magic though, since you got a big headache, passed out, and now every so often you get a bit of knowledge on some random stuff, and after a while it goes away. Lads started calling you Pageeater after that.
Gain a randomly rolled Specialty at TL 1 each turn. This Specialty lasts until the end of your turn.
[] Terrormake: One day, walking around in the Mountains, you found a
thing. Obviously, after not recognizing it, you picked it up, rushed back to your tribe, and looked it up in your big book of Gut Magic. You still have no idea what that
thing's made of, or where it came from, but you do know what it's used for. The
thing is the component needed to cast the most horrific spell in the history of ogrekind. It's what you need to cast a spell of famine, one that reaches across half the mountains. And somehow, everyone else found out, which is actually a good thing. Your new boss lets you get away with more than you should, to make sure you don't cast the spell as a last fuck you. The lads have even started calling you Terrormake, for what you can unleash.
Gain an extended doom clock. You're able to fail two extra times without the quest ending.
[] The Teacher: A while back, you looked around at your life, and went 'you know what could make this better? An apprentice.' So, you grabbed one of the young uns that were hanging around the tribe, and decided to teach them some stuff, wait for their inevitable betrayal, and then eat them. Weirdly enough, that inevitable betrayal never came. Instead, you taught your apprentice everything that you could and sent them off on their own journey to learn stuff that you couldn't teach them, all without them even trying to eat you. A short while back, they returned from their journey and made a beeline straight for you, saying that they wanted to work for you as a research assistant. Obviously, you accepted. It's still kind of weird though, normally ogres don't really stay 'loyal' to their teachers. You sure didn't. It's something strange enough to warrant a Name, since the lads are now calling you The Teacher for pulling it off.
Gain an extra hero unit, one completely loyal to you.
A/N: Took a bit, but it's out now. Plan voting only please, and this time you can vote for more than one plan. Huge thanks once again to @Xantalos and @Swordomatic for looking this over and helping me make it better.
As always, if you have any questions, please ask.
