Ross

Ross the Transient


Ross isn’t your average tourist. For one, he’s got nothing except a rough brown wool poncho, with a bright gold trim, and a heavily worn pair of black gray trousers. And two, he’s a 6’ 3” man with arms the size of redwoods! Well, not really, but he’s rather muscular. To the average observer, he’s a bitter wayward soul, whose infamous pessimism and “interesting” superstitious make him rather unpopular wherever he goes. He seems to drift in and out of reality, and sometimes, it seems like he doesn’t belong here at all. He has a strange disdain for monsters, and doesn’t trust the “multicolored floozies” as he prefers to call them. He’s also a chronic insomniac, though nobody's quite sure why. One has to wonder if he was always like this, or if something happened to him long ago. Though, people tend to be too afraid to ask him questions, for his visage isn’t the friendliest.

Biography
This whole mess started about six years ago. Well, actually, that’s relative. A more concrete date would be when he was twenty-nine, right on the precipice of middle age. He was involved a bit of a blunder. Well, it was more than a “bit” of a blunder. It was a major cock-up, for lack of better words. Before any of this happened. Ross was an instructor. A martial arts teacher, if you will, in some run-down hamlet up in the arid plateaus a geographical equivalent of nowhere. He wasn’t too popular, as people were too busy farming to keep themselves alive to go seek his guidance, or they chose instruction with a weapon instead, since the common argument was “why do I waste time battering people with my fists when I can just stab them with a spear?”. But, he still had his trainees, oh the bitter few. Starry eyed boys seeking glory and riches, the usual sort of people to follow a harsh training regimen. And with that, he made a living… What, did you expect him to just let them train for free? Ross has, or had, bills to pay, food to buy! It’s society man, deal with it. Anyway, years went by, he saw his students come and go, he cleaned nosebleed after nosebleed from the floors. He occasionally questioned why he didn’t become a painter instead, but it was in those moments that he heard ,way off in the distance, a bone crunching, followed by a very loud “Ow!” that he knew this was the profession for him. And he hoped it was going to stay that way too. He really, really hoped it was going to stay that way. Of course it didn’t though, that’s not how life works, now is it? One ridiculously warm spring night in May… Or was it June? Augh, doesn’t matter. One ridiculously warm spring night, there was a cry out in the middle of town square, and then silence. The village people, welling up with trepidation, hesitantly checked the pavilion in the center of town, only to find a girl nearly snapped in twain, bleeding all over the pavement. Ross didn’t know what her name was, and only knew her as “that one girl who manned the grocer’s stand down at the market”, but it bothered him. He felt as if he could have done something, like he could have stopped it somehow. They called down the coroner, then priest, and eventually the gravedigger, and the night went on, and this moment in time should've faded away into a memory. Should’ve. Except the same thing happened the next night, except it was two gents this time. These slaying continued at random for the next two days. The increased presence of night watch was all in vain, and fear and paranoia grew. Everyone feared for their lives, and everyone wanted something done about the “Barwood Row Butcher” (That’s what they townsfolk called it at least. The slayings happened in the Pavilion off of Barwood, but that doesn’t matter too much). And for one reason or another, no one was actually capable of doing anything. Except for Ross, he had come up with a plan. On the night after the last killing, he called all of his students together. When he had a fine-looking assembly of his proficient brawlers, he formed a team, a squadron of his most elite. Gathering his Militia, he sent them out into the night, following the bloodstained trail of the Butcher. Dawn came, and they still hadn’t returned. There wasn’t a killing that night, so that was a plus, so there was always the possibility that they found the Butcher’s lair off in the desert, and they just haven’t returned yet. So he waited. It was an agonizing fourteen hours that he had to wait, when finally, right at dusk, they returned, right on the edge of town, every single one of them. All hacked up lumped together a series of bloodsoaked hessian sacks. And among them, was a lone figure, with its face concealed by a roughspun jute mask, who then dissipated into the night, right after delivering the bodies of the fallen. Ross’ boys indeed came home, just not in the manner that anyone expected. And Ross, Ross was absolutely devastated. What was he supposed to tell the parents of the boys whose deaths were completely in vain? What was he supposed to tell the townspeople who now detested him for sending out a dozen or so young men out into the wilds, just to get slaughtered? In a single poorly thought out move, he had wiped nearly all of the town’s youth. That night, in an equally ill-thought fit of rage, he broke into the town’s winery, and consumed inhuman amounts of alcohol before setting out into the desert to confront the being who slaughtered his students. I say being, rather than person, because at this point, no human was capable of such atrocities, or so Ross thought. Following the bloodied tracks of the Butcher, he eventually stumbled upon a dilapidated cathedral, in which he near immediately broke into. Of course, inside, was the masked figure from before, seemingly waiting for Ross. Normally, Ross would assess the situation before charging in to deal with it, but in his intoxicated state, he immediately blundered into the room and tried to shove his fist down it’s throat. The next few moments were a blur involving an Elder Lich, desperately searching for souls to support its phylactery, Ross the human hurricane, and a flash of light, then nothing. As Ross awoke, he noticed the sun beaming down on his face, a very strange occurrence when indoors, so strange, some might consider it impossible, and for quite obvious reasons. The roof from the cathedral had collapsed around him, and a thick layer of dust covered everything. The strangest thing of all, was that there was no sign of the Lich anywhere. No footprints, no blood, nothing. As he arose, and walked around, he felt dizzy, and disoriented, like he was fading somehow, and one misstep would cause his consciousness to slip away. A very addled Ross left the Cathedral, and hobbled back to town, or at least, the direction he thought town was in. He couldn’t remember much about his trek here, it a very hazy piece of memory, locked up in the back of his mind. After hours of bumbling around in the desert, he came back on the familiar gates of town. Well, almost familiar. Everything had been razed long ago. The winery, his house, the market, all just bits of mortar and foundation now. Along with the buildings, the populace has been reduced to a few stray vultures, and a curious looking snake. Completely crestfallen, Ross returned to the squalid remains of his house. As he walked through the collapsed doorway, and passed through the mass of shattered masonry and earthenware that was his living room, he noticed something, peculiar. There were some things here that weren’t here before. And he’s not talking about the massive bits of rubble, or the rattlesnake under the three-legged table, it was more of the fact that Ross didn’t own that table. Someone had been living in his house, and proceeded to destroy it in about twelve hours flat, and run back to the cathedral, and destroy that too! That theory… Doesn’t make any sense at all. Confused as ever, Ross went to his room, and rummaged through his nightstand, finding a series of notes that didn’t belong to him, all dated on… Dates that haven’t happened yet.

 

Oh….

Oh no….

It was at this moment in time, Ross entered a state of total denial. He concluded that he had died in the cathedral, and everything after that was all his own personal hell. It made sense in a sick horrifying way. He spent the rest of the day sobbing uncontrollably, and taking what he could from the neighboring houses after he realized that his cellar was completely empty, and he had no food. After scavenging what he could, and attempting to calm down, he settled down on his old bedroom floor to rest, in which, he was accosted by a terrible nightmare. It was the lich from before, or at least, a partially skeletal woman with a pallid looking face. So yeah, it was the lich from before. She spoke of his failures to save his fellow townsfolk, and his major error of formalizing his students and sending them out against her. She then went on to speak of the curse that now follows Ross, that if he ever remains in once place for too long, he may suddenly slip into a catatonic state, never to resurface, forcing him to become an eternal vagabond. Before leaving his thoughts, however, she did mention that Ross had been “removed” from time for a span of five years, and that she may have been responsible for the destruction of his home. She never gave a reason for her atrocities, nor did she explain why she’s beating an already broken man. I guess she’s just some bitter monstrosity, hellbent on ruining the lives of the living. Fitting for an undead, really. Ross awoke with a start, and a sudden burning sensation in the back of his skull. It was there, that he writhed on the dirt laden floor, clutching the back of his head, that he knew it was all going down hill from here.

Traits
Bitter

Just to get this out of the way, Ross is a major pessimist, and he lets people know it. If someone has a terrible opinion, he’s going to make it known. Feelings don’t matter too much, they’ll get over it. He’s just here to stop mistakes from being made.

Reserved

Ross doesn’t speak too much, that’s probably a given. He just doesn’t seem to see the point sometimes. His words tend to fall upon deaf ears as of late, so he sticks to himself most of the time. Though, if anyone asks him a question, he’s quick to provide an answer. A dark one, but one nonetheless.

Macabre 



For one reason or another, Ross’ jokes and saying tend to take an abrupt dark twist. He’s learned the very definition of gallows humor, and is more than happy to share it. Though, others don’t appreciate it nearly as much as he does.

Restless

Ross can’t seem to stay put, he always has to keep moving, and he can never stay in one play too long. When he does, he gets shifty and starts muttering about a “lich”, worrying those around him.

Philanthropic

This one is the most surprising. Ross may be a crazed and bitter man, but always helps out those in need when he gets the chance, much to the amusement to those that know of him. You wouldn’t expect help from the man with the personality traits of a particularly dense thicket, now would you? Some say it has to do with something he balls’ed up in the past, but he claims that it’s “just a compulsion”.