Sloop

When Wizard King Marik Kosmodias Blackstar, monarch of the kingdom of the Shattered Moon and Lich-King-to-be, set about making a perfect vessel for his soul to inhabit in order to become immortal, he made some uh-ohs. Sloop's first memory is of being called a failure and rinsed down the drain.

It's all been uphill from there. Washed eventually into a living dungeon in the northeast Dragon Empire, the purple goo lived simply at first, just surviving, but a voice within urged him toward greater things: to learn, to adapt and to become strong. Sloop's early memories are a bit scattered, but he remembers finding his suit of armor, and how right it felt to slip inside and fill it out, even though it took some time to learn how to move around in it. Though the countless adventurers he watched pass through the dungeon also carried impressive armor, from ruthlessly efficient to opulent, he felt no need to take any from them, for what he desired was knowledge. From adventurers and resident monsters alike, Sloop learned to understand language, and eventually to speak it; to navigate the ever-shifting landscape of the living dungeon; and to defend himself against any physical threat thrown his way. All these skills made it easy for him to befriend the local kobold tribe, and Sloop felt a great satisfaction in protecting the tiny "movers" as they scoured the tunnels for scraps. Just like a hero in a story told around the campfire!

Everything changed when Sloop and his closest kobold companion, Skitter, accidentally stumbled topside, and the whims of the living dungeon blocked their path back. What at first began as a quest to get Skitter back home snowballed into something starting to resemble saving the world--though Sloop has had to learn a lot of difficult truths about life outside the dungeon. The line between Adventurer and Monster isn't so clear (some people are neither?), might doesn't always make right, and when you're trying to be a hero, people you love tend to get hurt. On top of that, he's still reeling from the revelation of his own origins, while a preserved memory of the Wizard King has taken up residence in Skitter's brain. Everything is awkward, and terrifying, and Sloop wouldn't trade this experience for anything; after all, now he knows what it really means to be a Bro.