User:Lhynard/Characters/Brace

Brace Splitbark was a man who played a part in the tale known as the Legacy of the Green Regent, as told by the bard Teseryne Truesilver.

Description
Brace was a short, stocky man with tan skin, blue eyes, and long brown hair. Though he was handsome enough, he rarely was seen to smile and thus had a grim, stoic look and came across as rather standoffish. Brace was usually dressed in the clothes of a simple tradesman, with a belt full of vials and potions.

Possessions
Brace carried a pair of daggers, one of which had once belonged to his father.

After the caravan was ambushed, Brace armed himself with a goblin-sized crossbow and wore ragged leather armor from a bugbear.

Relationships
Brace was the brother of Korrlan Splitbark, an Ilmatari priest from Neverwinter. His mother had been a spellcaster of some kind.

Brace's old master was some sort of alchemist, and one of the things that he had been working on was the use of blueleaf bark to make armor. He preferred, however, to brew potions.

Brace seemed to relate to Blaz Merrymar, one of the merchants in a caravan heading from Zelbross to Loudwater before Shieldmeet, since that halfling appeared to have suffered a great loss and only faked happiness for the benefit of his fellow travelers.

When Brace first saw the halfling Juniper Churlgo, he mistook her for a spectre of his young daughter, Silifrey.

History
Brace received his name when his father had told his mother to brace herself in the final moments of birth pangs before he arrived in the world. She had slapped him then for his failed attempts to comfort her, but they laughed about it afterward and named Brace the Common word instead of after his great-grandfather, the original plan. Korrlan had received that name instead.

When the Wailing Death struck the city of Neverwinter, it decimated the city and also the Ilmatari hospital there where Brace's brother Korr had worked. Brace's children and wife died in the plague, as did the head of the Ilmatari Church. The hospital even ran completely out of supplies. The two brothers were forced to leave the city as refugees, and they found themselves in a merchant caravan heading east away from the Sword Coast.

The caravan was waylaid just before twilight by a small band of goblinoids led by the goblin Skar. The caravan leader, Blaz was rendered unconscious by the bugbear Gvrag after Skar demanded a "tax" that Blaz refused to pay. One of the other travelers, an elf named Ilrien, fired an arrow, beginning a battle in which Brace and his brother found themselves involved. Inspired to courage by Korlann's divine magic, Brace took down the bugbear with a flask of alchemical sleep gas and slew two goblins with his daggers. The battle soon ended, with Skar and one other goblin captured alive, but one goblin escaped into the woods. Several of the caravan members were injured, and Ilrien almost died. When Blaz came to, he mistook those who had fought for adventurers and implored them to rescue his sons, whom Skar had mentioned as being still alive.

The next morning, the small group of those who had helped defend the caravan&mdash;Brace and Korr with Ilrien and a halfling named Juniper and a gnome named Samophlange&mdash;set off into the wounds, hoping to track the escaped goblin. As they searched for evidence, they stumbled upon a tonandurr tree, which was the home of a grig prince, Groef Feythrin. In exchange for some songs from Ilrien and Samo, Feythrin allowed them to strip some bark from the tree, which Brace used to make some bandages for their wounds. He then told them that the goblins could be found in a large pit far to the east.

They found the pits and possible evidence of a battle with an ogre and sacrifices to Maglubiyet there. They found one pit that seemed to lead into a cave or tunnel, but Brace suggested that most caves had exits by water and that perhaps they might find another entrace by the river. On the way down to the river, however, the climb proved more difficult than expected, and both Brace and Samo fell. Hurt but not severely so, they found an abandoned raft and the other end of the tunnel. Despite Brace's suggestions that it was a horrible plan, the others decided that they should ride the raft down the river to find whence the goblins had come. Aboard the unstable vessel, they were shot at by goblin snipers and rafters. Brace was struck in the arm, but they took out a few of the goblins and came soon ashore at the mouth of another, larger cave downriver.

Here, a small number of giant rats approached them, guards of the goblins lair, but Brace quickly appeased them by tossing them some of his trail rations.

Entering the cave, they were met by a small band of goblins, and long-ranged weapons were exchanged. The goblins were driven back, pursued by the party, and slain, in a room where a giant fire beetle was held in a cage. Here, they also found a number of weapons, which Brace recognized as being silvered.

Searching deeper through the tunnels, they at last came to sort of religious chamber with a pit in the floor, where a wererat attacked them. Brace was instantly rendered blind and unconscious by the lycanthrope's spell. When he came to again, the rest of his companions had successfully driven the monster off&mdash;he fell to his death when one of his own traps fell upon him as he was escaping through the hole in the floor of the cave.