| Relatives | Ergal & Lannath (parents, current status unknown) |
|---|---|
| Languages | Common |
| Affiliations | The Unravel |
| Species | Goliath |
| Gender | Man (he/him) |
| Height | 7'6" |
| Weight | 285lbs |
| Eye Color | Blue |
Kludzu (he/him) is a goliath druid currently adventuring in the Fantasial Freeze.
Description[edit | edit source]
Kludzu is a 28 year old goliath man. He has gray skin with symmetrical patches of darker gray, stands 7'6" and is of a slightly slender build for his race and height. He is bald, but has a short-cropped black beard. His eyes are bright blue, and he has a tendency to stare with somewhat unnerving intensity. He wears a simple tunic and pants but typically covers this with a hooded cloak that appears tattered and mottled at a distance but is in actuality made of sewn-together rat pelts, and carries a staff adorned with pigeon feathers. He tends to be taciturn and impatient, but will move mountains for misfits and outcasts.
Background[edit | edit source]
Kludzu was the child of a pair of goliath adventurers, born at just the wrong time. Initially raised in the mountains, he was barely a child when his parents Ergal and Lannath were called upon to voyage across the sea on a perilous quest. Not wanting to risk their son's life, they brought him to Ravel to stay with a friend of theirs; Renderson, the tavernkeeper of the Brass Eye, in whose establishment they had first met. Renderson was old but willing to look after the boy, and teach him his trade if the worst should befall his parents. Keenly observant, Kludzu spent his time watching as the whole diverse tapestry of urban life walked in and out every day. Unfortunately, the life of a tavernkeeper in a city like Ravel involves dealing with unsavory people at times, and Renderson had failed to mention his gambling debts to the departing adventurers. A year after Kludzu came to stay in Ravel, a local loan shark decided those debts were due; Renderson vanished one night, and the Brass Eye opened the next morning under new ownership that had no use for a goliath child.
From then on, Kludzu lived on the streets, scrounging for food and stealing what he could. He was a clumsy boy and ill-suited to joining the other street urchins at pick-pocketing, but proved durable enough that he could withstand the occasional beating for being caught, and his grey skin helped him hide among the buildings of the city. When he wasn't stealing, he gravitated to those places where the walls of city life cracked and the wild forced its way in; overgrown empty lots filled with trees, abandoned buildings half-collapsed and choked with weeds, alleys filled with wildlife the people of the city dismissed as vermin, forgotten cellars filled with mushrooms and the screech of bats. Parks were nice, but they were planned and maintained and controlled; Kludzu loved those places that lived and grew in spite of those who wanted control, the green that cracked the cobblestones. He slowly started to learn the plants and animals of the city, learn their ways, and see how the wild crept its way through even this bastion of civilization.
One day, Kludzu spotted an old tabaxi walking alone near one of his favorite haunts. As he snuck up to steal his coin pouch, he stopped cold; the tabaxi had bent down and was calmly petting and apparently having a full conversation with a group of Ravel's famously aggressive and bitey rats! As he stood there gaping, the rats evidently alerted the tabaxi to his presence, then left. The old cat faced his would-be pickpocket, introduced himself as Seven Opal the wandering Druid, and was immediately bombarded with an avalanche of questions from the boy. Kludzu had never seen anyone else treat the urban wild as anything but a nuisance, and he desperately wanted to know how to commune with it the way he had just seen. Seven Opal, for his part, knew a young Druid-to-be when he saw one. He was a solitary wanderer through and through and would not stay in the city long nor take the boy with him, but for a month he taught Kludzu the basics of his art.
It didn't take long after Seven Opal left for Kludzu to take note of the less-than-reputable potential for his new skills. He could use the unnoticed wildlife of the city as his eyes and allies, and even change his shape into theirs to find a mark or get away. In turn, it didn't take long for The Unravel to take note of Kludzu and his new skills. He began doing odd jobs for them around the city, and while he was by no means the greatest fighter he quickly gained a reputation as a useful person to have around. After a number of years of working for them, a now-adult Kludzu made a request of his employer, and in short order the Unravel "acquired" the Brass Eye, behind which at last Kludzu made a permanent home.
Kludzu's Home[edit | edit source]
(descriptions are pre-freeze)
The Brass Eye[edit | edit source]
The Brass Eye was once a popular hub for traveling adventurers to seek work, recruit others to join them, and regale others with tales of their exploits. There is still a board here to post job offers, but the tavern's glory days have faded somewhat and it is now more a place for backroom dealing and discrete trading of information than acts of daring-do. Though quietly owned by the Unravel, the tavern maintains the appearance of a respectable, if slightly seedy, business; a number of tables, a bar, and a couple of private rooms, all open to clientele of all sorts. The ale is unimpressive but never watered down, and the food includes a surprising quantity of fresh produce for how cheap it is. A variety of curios and artifacts line the walls; trophies from various heroic adventures, later used to pay a bar tab or settle a wager. Pride of place behind the bar belongs to the tavern's namesake: a roughly circular fragment of a brass statue, a full three feet across despite only depicting half of a man's face, centered around a single eye whose pupil appears to have once housed a gem the size of a fist. If anyone here knows the story behind the brass eye, they're not telling. One might expect a seedy tavern filled with ancient artifacts to have a problem with theft, but security at the Brass Eye is discreet and effective.
The Gap[edit | edit source]
Behind the tavern there is a courtyard, formed by the Brass Eye and three other buildings butting up together corner to corner, about 20'x40'. To a humanoid, it is only accessible via a locked door through the back of the Brass Eye labeled "The Gap." The Gap is astonishingly lush with vegetation; every kind of plant and fungus that grows around the city is represented here, along with a variety of cultivated food plants in a small garden. In an alcove in one corner, hidden from view behind thick brush, is a hammock, a few chests, a table and a few other accoutrements; here Kludzu makes his home. He is rarely alone, however; small holes between the buildings admit rats, stray cats and dogs, and pigeons and bats occupy the branches of trees.
