Fosco de Avis

Fosco de Avis is a Halfling barbarian played by Andrew Lachapelle.

History (Backstory):
Fosco was born in the large village of Ayahuya. This village welcomed people of all races, and was positioned on a bustling crossroads, and should’ve become a major city in it’s own right if not for one problem that plagued it. A fierce tribe of barbarians had made their home just next to the city in the Forest of Kel-Tar. While not a very large tribe, it had existed for a long time as a mostly nomadic tribe, so long that they had forgotten their own name, and simply referred to themselves as “The Tribe (™)”. The village called them the Kel-Tar tribe after the forest they had decided to settle in. Nobody knows why they decided to abandon their nomadic lifestyle, but whatever the reason, they spend the majority of their days raiding the farms surrounding the village, and on rare occasions diving into the heart of it. They were a fierce tribe of berserkers, and no one in the village could stop them, nor could anyone they hired to protect them. But Fosco and his family were relatively lucky, because while they were on the outskirts of the village, they were on the other side of the forest, so The Tribe (™) never bothered to go that far. Fosco was born an adorable child, and never really seemed to grow out of his adorableness. He wasn’t beautiful or handsome, no one would call him that, just adorable. Fosco hated this fact, and while he tried to tell everyone this, they just found him more adorable for it. Nevertheless, he lived in relative peace until he was 11, but then disaster struck. The Tribe (™) finally attacked them, with 3 of their warriors coming to raid their farm. His parents, perhaps not realising that this was in fact The Tribe (™), tried to stand up to the tribe, and were slaughtered. Fosco was hiding under his bed when they burst into his house and began to ransack the place. One of them looked under the bed, and saw this adorable little thing hiding under the bed so they said, surprisingly knowing common “Aw look there’s an adorable little halfling hiding under here.”. This was the last straw for Fosco, and screaming a furious battle cry (well, for an 11 year old), he charged this hulking beast of a human, with no weapons to speak of. Let’s just say he was not able to walk for a solid year. Now Fosco was about to learn his first lesson about The Tribe (™). They respected feats of strength, and this tiny halfling kid just hamstrung one of their finest warriors. So instead of killing him, they knocked him out and took them back to the forest.

 

Once they returned with spoils and halfling in tow, they presented Fosco to the village elder, Demiro, an ancient half-orc druid who had been with The Tribe (™) since its creation, although even his memory of the early days of the tribe is fuzzy at best. They had a process for letting in strong enemy warriors, which was to have Demiro alter a person’s memories to make them think they came to the tribe willingly, whatever memories needed to be altered or erased to make that happen. However, after two years the spell would break, and then the person was free to choose whether to stay or leave. Once Fosco’s two years were up, he realised that he fit in with these people far better than he did at home, mostly because they respected him, even with his adorable appearance. So he decided to stay with them, even with what they had done to his family. Eventually, a paladin came to slay these pesky barbarians, and Fosco went to face him on his own in order to prove himself to the tribe. The paladin came with a fresh battle horse, gleaming plate mail, and a well kept lance. All Fosco had was some fur clothing, a shoddy wooden club and 2 handaxes on his back. 1 handaxe through a horse’s neck, one in a tree, one club obliterated on armor, and two fingers in two eyeballs later, Fosco came out on top. He took the man’s lance as a token of his victory, and went back to the tribe to train with this new weapon he had acquired. About two years later, after much training, raging and plundering, they heard of a caravan that was to come through, and they went to raid it. However this was no ordinary caravan, this was a group of slave traders, with a powerful half-elf warlock at it’s head. This warlock, Vandin, was powerful enough to magically bind all 3 of them that were attacking the caravan almost instantly, and they could not resist. Vandin, instead of killing them, figured they would make great slaves for the fighting pits, and added them to the slave train.

The closest major slaving city was about a three weeks journey away, through harsh deserts. The city of Kantithis, like most any city in the Imperium, had quite a few slaves, but unlike most, Kantithis sold few slaves. Instead they kept slaves to fight in the grand fighting pit that drew many far and wide not disgusted by slavery. This fighting pit had only a few simple rules. If a combatant won 4 matches in a row, they would be put in a 2 on 1 matchup against the strongest combatants they could find, and if they somehow won that, they were put into a match against a lion, barehanded and without any armor. If they could somehow triumph that challenge, they could walk out a free man. While few, there had been several who made it to the lion. However, they would rig the fight, stabbing the combatant before hand and dressing them in red clothing to hide the blood, so nobody had ever defeated the lion. They didn’t let any of the other slaves see that they did this of course. A little bit of hope that they could get out led to way fewer rebellions. They allowed Fosco to use his lance that they took from him in the arena, and with it he was able to defeat his 4 opponents, but in his 5th match they pitted him against the other two from The Tribe (™). Knowing that this was the only way that he could escape, and that the guards would likely come in and kill them if they did nothing, he did not hesitate in killing his two comrades. So he was now ready to be prepared for his last match, and whether it was because the guard who was supposed to stab him thought there was no way this tiny adorable halfling could beat a lion, or that it had been so long since this had happened that he simply forgot to do it, Fosco was not sabotaged before his fight, and he managed to defeat the lion in a similar manner to the paladin. The leader of the games, furious that someone was actually able to defeat the lion, pulled out an empty vial and shouted “This halfling savage has cheated! We found this potion of giant strength in his cell, he must have drank it to gain an edge. Guards! Kill this man who would dare defile our great games!” Of course this was a farce, that vial merely contained water that he himself had drunk, but there was no reason for the crowd to disbelieve him, and the guards didn’t care that he was lying. Several guards came rushing in, pikes at the ready, when suddenly the guards stopped cold in their tracks, and then ran away, screaming. Fosco looked behind him to find a man who seemed to be weaving magic with shaky hands, but his face was anything but shaky.

Curse of Strahd
Fosco was called adorable or child by many enemies and npc's throughout the campaign. Almost always throwing him into a fit of rage. When the party had dinner with Strahd, Fosco met the Count's chamberlain, Rahadin, who Fosco instantly bonded with. Rahadin hinted at a friend that Fosco would like to meet. Which culminated shortly after the assassination of the Burgomaster of Vallaki, when Rahadin brought the halfling to the amber temple. Where Fosco then made a pact with Yog the Invincible. Causing him to change, growing oily black hair and a thick beard, becoming highly resilient and becoming Neutral evil.