Digger Hackstone

[smacrasmacrasmacra]

Digger Hackstone



Height: 7' 1" // 216cm

Weight:  320 lbs // 145 kg

Build: lurching, lumbering, just a little elongated--he has a tendency to loom and lean over when speaking to people like a total creeper.  Picture early to mid career Shaquille O'Neal without social graces.

Head: Some people have been hit with the ugly stick. Digger was repeatedly dragged through the ugly forest at high speed. His mouth hangs open almost impossibly far at nearly all times. His nose ring is glistening with mucous. His topknot tugs at the gnarly tangle of filmy hair, always greasy, despite his best efforts to keep it perfumed and clean. He is a warty, splotchy, acne-scarred, lash-scarred roadmap of pain and unfortunate genetics. His eyes are permanently squinting out from under the oppressive weight of his prodigious brow like a monstrous Gilbert Godfried. He stares too long. He breathes through his mouth. His ear hair is braided.

Fashion sense:

Speech:  He tries so hard to figure out common.  He has made significant strides of late and has studied his arse off to do so.  His misunderstanding of a potentially incarcerating near-offense has proven beneficial.  Still, he makes the occasional faux pas ranging in intensity from minor verb disagreements to inadvertently fomenting a coup d'etat.  YMMV.

Weapon:  His faithful friend is his super-heavy pick-axe (scythe) which he's replaced so many parts so many times it is an entirely different item by this point, but who's counting?  

Common knowledge:  raised in a lightless and isolated mining slave camp in Undermountain, freed when adventurers destroyed it and escaped in the chaos.  Made his way east with his pick and cobbled together clothing as colorful as he could find.  Has great difficulty with the mixed syntax of Common.  Claims to be the King of Orcy Fashion.  A bit of a humongous lost puppy.

[smacrasmacrasmacra]

Digger dragged his pickaxe behind him through the Bramblewood, the smell of tilled loam mixing with his own perfumed sweat. Heavy footfalls carelessly overturning bark, to the consternation of unnoticed chipmunks. His head lolled aimlessly, bobbing with each dragging step. He'd left Greatgaunt behind, but the thought of that backwood forum mocked him from his mind's recesses. His mouth, normally hanging agape, pulled taut into a bitter smile and he stopped to look up and saw a woodpecker in the boughs ahead. It saw him, stopping to eye him with animal stillness before, satisfied of his harmlessness, the bird began again drilling its face into the meat of an elm.

The big orc pulled his pick up to him and placed his foot on its head, his hands on the butt of its upturned haft. He swallowed hard and watched it for some time, allowing himself to become lost in a fantasy. The bird had purpose: build a home, breed, rear young, repeat. He couldn't help but view this through the prism of his own past.

Despite the horrors of being a half-orc enslaved by orcs, despite never knowing anything other than the constant toil of tunneling at their inscrutable command, his life was once so simple. He would get occasional respites as they decided where to dig next or squabble over leadership, but his rests always ended the same way: one of his superiors would kick at him and bark "Digger! Hack stone!" He would rise, grab his pick, and tunnel--lest the routine beatings gain rancorous enthusiasm. It was simple.

Since his release, at the hands of unknown adventurers on their way through the labyrinthine passages of Undermountain, he had been thrust upon a world flooded with choices. It was all he could do to keep his mind. He found early on that the people of the free world wanted nothing to do with him, short of mocking him in a tongue he had never encountered. The children threw things gauche and rotten at him. Women and men would audibly recoil at his face. He was hounded by animals.

The only people who routinely kept their tongues civil were the merchants. No matter the weight of scorn in their eyes, they would always treat him with at least a modicum of terse respect. He knew only of the orcish gods...cruel, violent, raging. He quickly made his first real choice in the world: He would worship Waukeen and follow as much of his code as he could stomach.

The cities he passed on his quest towards the sun's rise were dwarfed by Waterdeep, but no less awe inspiring to him. Everywhere he went there were different looks, different fabrics, different patterns, textures, knots, layers, folds, stitches, cuts. He managed a guard's position for a textile merchant. The ease with which Digger swung his pick-axe and his great stature led the fabric magnate to invest in his training in martial arts. Digger knew him only as Rautme, but he was an inspiration to the young half-orc. He knew not how to sew. He could not forge plate. He could not tool leather. But by gum, Digger had watched him sway the dress of entire towns by transporting new stock to them. The way people reacted to it, to new expression, was a microcosm of Digger's own experiences in coming to the surface world.

He drifted back to attention and noted the silence in the elm before him. The woodpecker had gone, left to find a meal or chase a mate. Digger found himself feeling better than before, if not exactly happy. He did not fit in anywhere...yet. He had as yet been banging his head against the small society he'd encountered here. He would probably beat his head into it further yet. Maybe he would...it was all he knew. Like a woodpecker, maybe it would be enough for him. Laughing at himself, he picked his weapon and hung it from his shoulder as he retrieved his wineskin and quenched a nagging thirst. He finished the skin and smacked his lips with gusto before heading back to Greatgaunt.

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Digger looked for his friends again. Again, he failed to find them. He threw himself carelessly into battle and woke to gray light in an infirmary. The nurse entreated he stay and rest, but he rolled onto the floor and went shopping. A few choice purchases and modifications later and he hadn't felt any better. He went to Greatgaunt and sat in the North tower again, much to Merton's chagrin. Poor Merton, yet again forced to stand post for the town while Digger poured out his woes from above. Merton had no luck.

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Digger tried to be himself. He really did. But it only made him and everyone around him feel worse. He almost did it today. He was ready to walk south and keep going until he was in chains at the Enclave. After the fool he made of himself at the play, unable to stay out of embarrassment, and in the presence of one of his idols, he couldn't dare face anyone...but he needed to. Annoying Merton again, he decided to take one last stab at a legitimate job and would entreat V for a spot on one of her chartered operations. He ran into Mystogan, the mage he'd had fun playing with in town a week prior. He asked if he could write a letter for him, one of introduction and a resume' of sorts. Mystogan said yes and then pawned him off on a table of strangers.

Digger tried to maintain composure but the fear took hold and he again donned his outrageous attire. He managed to give away another ensemble to a man who seemed genuinely grateful. Chuffed, Digger sat about and watched the townsfolk flustering over a seated figure on the opposite side of the dirt path. He marveled at the filth of the refugee from the dragon's wrath and was, in turn, inspired. He spent the rest of the day telling Merton all about the new direction of fashion and how refugee stylings would be all the rage in the coming months. He held off the urge to sell himself back into slavery for yet another day.

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Having signed on with the Cornucopia Trading Company, Digger immediately set about commissioning alterations to his regalia to match the company uniform standards and proudly became a walking ornament in Greatgaunt.

[smacrasmacrasmacra]

His contract with the Cornucopia expired, Digger renewed his search for Melic.

On the thirteenth of the ninth, he recovered the body of Diggum Gobbledeegook and headed west with Skookum for a small service in Corm Orp.