My D&D Characters Part I - Garrick Tinkerboot

Hello to anyone who finds this little blog of mine and thanks for your time and attention. I've decided to write this to showcase my D&D character designs, their backstories and how I've come up with them. In my 4 years of playing D&D I've mostly been a forever DM, so I'm sorry to say there's not much in the way of stories involving these characters, but I've still put a lot of care into them. Without any more delay, I present to you Garrick Tinkerboot, Goliath Artificer!

This young scholar, engineer and blacksmith stands at 2.20 meters tall due to his Goliath heritage, which means he towers enormously above his adoptive family of gnomes. Yes, you read that right: Garrick was raised by a family of gnomes in the snowy mountains and was taught the sacred and ancient arts of their artificers. 

TW: Fantasy discrimination and bigotry, child neglect.

His parents found him at the base of the mountain when he was a baby, having been abandoned by his biological parents, as the Goliaths, much like a certain ancient culture renowned by their battle prowess in real life history, did not suffer the weak to live. He was expected to either fend for himself in the barren landscape of the mountain, or find a quick, yet painful demise. Yet he was found by an old couple of gnomes who had long lost hope in raising a family. 

His mother taught him the disciplines of magic and artifice and his father, the history and culture of the gnomes amongst which he would live. At both, he excelled greatly from a young age, and his massive size and strength, especially compared to his new compatriots, helped him become a pillar member of their community, having designed and built many contraptions to aid his village in farming and security, and being incredible at manual labor thanks to his strength. 

When he was 14 years old, however, his skin begun to grow red, tattoo-like marks all around his body, resembling some form of tribal pattern. He quickly figured these were related to his Goliath heritage, but didn't know what to make of it. His parents never taught him about the history or culture of the Goliaths; they believed them to be a brutish, savage race, incapable of creating anything of value. Of course, they had taught young Garrick that he was not like them, that he was a gnome just like them despite his massive size, grey skin and red marks. Yet try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to believe that he truly belonged either with the gnomes or the Goliaths. Even then, he took to study Goliath culture and found a new appreciation for it, beyond what his parents had taught him. More importantly, he learned that the red marks that stretched across his skin were known to predict the fate of every Goliath, and that only their priests knew how to read them. He knew no one would help him in this new goal, but at last he had a chance to find out if he truly belonged to either race.

At 20 years of age, having fashioned a magical set of armor, and with a mission having already been set in his mind years ago, he said goodbye to his village, much to his parents' dismay and fear, and set out to find the meaning of the marks etched onto his skin. 

So, that's pretty much it. I've yet to play this character in a campaign, but have been looking forward to it for ages. The reason I came up with Garrick was that I've always loved that trope of the big, beefy character being a massive bookworm. Think Cyborg from Teen Titans or Beast from X-Men. I guess I just really vibe with characters like that, but I also wanted to make one that fell into this trope but was actually relatively timid and naïve to the outside world. 

Anyways, thanks to anyone who took the time to read this. I might continue these if I find the time. The character's image was made by me using Hero Forge, a free 3D character creating tool. See you all next time.