Tok

PERSONALITY.

"There's plenty of folk in dangerous jobs who ain't got 'alf the means I do t'come back from an injury. I mean t'even that field."

Personality goes here.

TALENTS.

"I built 'er. Every weld an' rivet. Ain't she champion?"

Skills go here.

HISTORY.

"Oh, I'm from all over't place, me. You ever been to Sharn, like?"

A fairly innocuous-looking kobold possessed of rust-colored scales and a manner of speech gained over a young life spent around the mad sort of people who get very serious about things like slide rules and differently-sized wrenches, Tok is usually found wearing heavy, flame-retardant clothing, including reinforced leather gloves and a blacksmith's apron. A pair of smoked-glass goggles are never far from hand, nor is the faintly-glowing metallic apparatus wrapped around her back, a work of brass and steel that gives her silhouette a slightly hunchbacked appearance. Never far from hand, either, is a wide-barreled rifle nearly as long as she is tall, slung with care across her back, easily within reach.

Born in a warren in the Ironroot mountains, Tok from an early age was infatuated with metal. The mountains were famed for their rich veins of iron and copper, and metal, at least, was never in short supply. She found easy employ with the warren's smithies, earning praise for her natural talent and enthusiasm for the job. But she was an imaginative child, one who saw uses for the metal that went beyond the basics of better tools and weaponry, and her head fairly danced with ideas of what she could accomplish, if only she had the knowing.

The knowing came in an unprecedented windfall- the warren's raiders turned up a gift- a House Cannith Forge Manual. Within the pages of that worn and weathered tome were such mechanisms she'd never seen before, and from its pages she learned more than she'd ever been taught by the older smiths. Boilers and pipes to heat the caves in the winter, fans to keep air flowing in the deeper caverns, more efficient forges- her first clockworks, constructs powered by artifice that could perform mundane tasks- and for a time, things were wonderful. She had the respect and adoration of many in the warren, and had matters continued in such a way, she might have stayed- had a conflict with a dwarven mining claim not escalated to the point of blows, and an attempt at undermining that caused a cave-in, a collapse of thousands of tons of stone that barely avoided killing her- but left her maimed, an arm and a leg mangled in the collapse to the point of needing amputation to save her life.

Her capacity to work was hampered, but the warren was not unkind to her. She was not cast out, but so grievously wounded it was difficult to even return to her old position, let alone carry on at the pace she had been. Tok quickly grew infuriated with her lack of independence, and turned to the Forge Manual- and therein found an answer, detailed designs on prosthetics that moved. Her first attempt was sloppy, a glorified clamp- but it was a start. It let her forge again. She could revise the designs as she improved, and return in time to her best, with effort. With conflicts with the warren's dwarven neighbors increasing by the day, she looked for a more peaceful solution, pushed to meet with the dwarves, to offer trade instead of violence, to show them the metalworks she was capable of, how they could surely improve the lives of their neighbors as well, and to the surprise of all... it worked. The second version of her arm and leg, though they were crude and clicked and clacked wherever she moved, attracted the attention of even the most dour dwarven engineers. Her improvements to the warren proper were well-received, and in her excitement when asked where she'd learned such metalwork she showed them the source of her inspiration- the manual that had showed her so much.

It didn't take long, after that, for House Cannith to catch wind of what had happened. Wielding vast political power, the Dragonmarked houses care little for those who would compete with them- and even less for those who steal their knowledge. Cannith offered the dwarves a better deal: retrieve the Manual, destroy any product of it, kill any responsible, and receive better gifts than any imitators could hope to offer.

What had been mere disagreement over land ownership became outright warfare. There was little time to assign blame- she escaped with her life, but only just. The Manual was lost, and with it all the knowledge she might have continued to gain from it. She was furious, of course- at herself for believing, at the dwarves of the mountains for their betrayal- and, later, when she learned the people responsible, Cannith, for their machinations. Unfortunately, with her current level of knowledge and resources, she couldn't do much. She sought out teachers- and she found them, in the end, in Sharn. There she studied, learned the advanced mathematics that could make metal dance and sing, learned the word for what she'd already thought of as 'fiddly smithing'- Artifice.

And, with time, she refined her designs, finding she enjoyed the feel of cool metal moving at her command, more than flesh and bone. The metal parts of her were more durable, easier and faster to fix, faster, stronger- and she began to wonder, at the possibilities. After all, Warforged existed, and nobody worth listening to would argue they weren't every bit as alive as those around them. Ideas began to circulate through her mind, sparks of inspiration that would soon take root in the kindling of her soul and ignite- lighting the fires of the forges of her mind.

It didn't help that around that time, she met a band of oddballs and misfits that had suffered similar injustices, had similar mindsets. Adventurers by trade, but with sights set on changing the world to make it a better place, on revolution-
And then she found a little metal construct that fell from the sky, invited her to search for a star... and how could she refuse such a tantalizing prize? She bade her friends and comrades a temporary farewell, assured them she'd be back, one way or another- but this? This could change everything, skew the odds in their favor like nothing else ever had.

NOTES.

"A good hammer's hard t'find, an' it's a sad day t'see a wrench break, but an engineer's notebook- that can't be replaced."

Other miscellaneous notes go here.