D&D

[Josh]

Born in a small snowy village, Bob was supposed to grow up and become an artisan like his father- spending his days creating various knick-knacks for travelers and would be adventures that often passed through their village. However, life doesn’t always work out like one would expect. Instead, when he was but a few hours old, his family and the entire village were rounded up by slavers and hauled off to be traded like cattle.

For as long as he could remember, Bob had done nothing but toil without end, creating weapons, and armor while chained to a bench for 18 hours a day surrounded by hundreds of his brethren under the watchful eye of goblins. If any dared to slow down for even a second, or make a mistake, they would feel the sharp touch of a whip’s tongue and for those that could no longer work- they became food for the master’s pets.

A fat bastard in blood stained leather, stroking his tangle of a beard, and sitting on his throne to watch over his horde of gnomes as they labored for his benefit. All while getting fatter on biscuits and cream.

Bob would never forget that man; Zant Aklauss.

Once a year the fat bastard would gather up everything they’d made and load into large bags of holding, and then have Bob and some of the other gnomes haul it out to his sled. Once everything had been packed up, he’d ride off being pulled by his dire reindeer and disappear for a couple days and upon returning, the bags would be loaded with gold. Not that it mattered to Bob or the other gnomes, as despite obviously getting paid well, none of them ever benefited from the hardwork they’d done.

This cycle continued on for five decades without an end in sight, despite Bob trying numerous times to start an uprising to overthrow their master- only to fail every time, and would have continued without end had it not been for a group of greedy adventures. Because of Zant’s rising popularity, he started to become a popular target of so-called “heroes”.

Bob had heard other gnomes talk about them, groups of mercenaries that would travel around the world pillaging and plundering the loot of villains and leaving swaths of destruction in their wake. A weapon like that was exactly what he needed to bring Zant down, and to gain his freedom. He schemed for the next few years against Zant, smuggling out maps that detailed the location of Zant’s little slave compound, and even went so far as to disable traps and equip the goblins with faulty armor and equipment- waiting desperately for his chance.

His perseverance eventually paid off and Zant’s compound was overrun by a large group of adventures in search of wealth, unfortunately he lost quite a few friends as collateral damage in the skirmish; however, he was finally free and Zant Aklauss was going to get his comeuppance.
Or at least that had been the plan.

Unfortunately the heroes greed was so great they were willing to let Zant go in exchange for more treasure, which he was more than willing to hand over in exchange for his life. Bob could only stand there powerless, unable to stop Zant from escaping his deserved fate. It was difficult to accept, he would have to let Zant go, but it was okay, he’d waited more than 50 years already. What was another 10~20 years to a gnome?

Zant Aklauss would pay one day, Bob would make sure of it.