Luca

Background

Luca is as alien to this world as the elementals and demons summoned by brave and foolish spell casters. The world he came from was called Earth, where he was a priest in training in the city that was the center of one of the world's largest religions. There he was specializing in tracking down and eradicating demons that crawled their way up from Hell. In this world demons and angels were beings of myth, and exorcists were seen as saviors by some and charlatans as most. Secluded deep in the forbidden libraries of the Vatican, Luca had stumbled across a very old book apparently forgotten by all. The spidery and cryptic lettering across the spine made his skin crawl, but the scholar in him could not resist, and he opened it. The words directly on the inside cover called to him, and he worked to pronounce them out loud.

As soon as he read the last syllable, the world spun around him, and the words burned with an inner fire. There was a sense of falling followed by slamming into something, and Luca blacked out. When he woke up, he was staring at a sky with two moons, and the tribe of small, green skinned humanoids was going crazy as he bleed onto their most holy of holies. Before they could sacrifice him, the wisest of them, the keeper of their lore and legends, recognized the Sect tattoo on Luca's head as part of a prophecy the shaman's in his tribe had never thought would come. He stopped his tribe, and took Luca under his guidance, teaching the big human the goblin language and culture, as well as what he knew about the outside world.

Eventually the shaman read the signs, and felt it was time for his student to depart. Another goblin went along for the journey, a foul mouthed young goblin dubbed simply Speaks. The two became friends, and Luca became the only human Speak's trusted. For his part, Luca's eyes were opened wide at the numerous cultures on this vastly different world. Here magic was real, and the divine was there for everyone to see. Or so he thought. They finally arrived in Corisca and went to see a display of divine powers at the local university, where aspiring students would show their prowess to the locals. A man broke up the event, branding the priests liars who no longer had any connection to their gods and fooled the common man simply for gold. Before the man could be taken into custody, an explosion rocked the event, killing and injuring hundreds. Luca went down to the arena floor without thought, intending to help as many as he could.

Real healing energy poured from his hands, surprising him as much as the man who had branded the priests liar, who was near him healing other in the same manner. Luca healed as many as he could before exhaustion took over, and he collapsed against a wall. The unknown holy warrior stopped some time later, sitting next to Luca. The two talked for some time, the man sharing his views with what he considered to be a true cleric in the time of no gods. He told Luca of how the gods had abandoned most, but there were a rare few who had not lost their holy magic, and how this fact was being covered up by all of the churches who continued to charge money for magic they could no longer cast.

The next day, Luca was getting ready in his room to depart the inn when he heard a scream from Speaks's room. Luca charged to his friends defense, but not before the deed was done and the murderer escaped out the window. His friend dead, Luca now truly wonders just what god watches over this world. After burning his freind's body in a pyre outside of the city, Luca sets out to journey with the others.

Several days later they arrived in Akterumn and settled in an Inn for the night. Their group was heavy one child, the girl from an inn they had stayed in one night in a town called Aspenbrook. 'Billy', as she referred to herself as, refused to travel back and had somehow wormed her way into the company. While Jace was summoned to the nearest temple of his faith and Glim had gone to investigate the local Mage's Guild, Luca set to the task of teaching Billy how to eat properly. A commotion had broken out soon after, with a group of armed men running past the inn in the same direction as Glim had gone. Arming Billy with one of his daggers, Luca had set out into the rain after them.

He caught up to them outside the mages guild, where Jace stood at the top of the stairs, blocking them from anyone coming up. He spoke to the angry crowd loudly, calling on them to join him and end the control of the corrupt priests. Hearing his own desires in Jace's words, Luca pushed himself to the top of of the stairs and added to it, calling on the men to realize their gods were no longer answering for some reason and see the light of truth. The mob's reaction had been to attack, and Jace had hauled Luca back inside the guild just before Luca managed to fire off a darkness spell on the top of the steps, stopping the mob. Inside, they thought they were safe, until Glim came running around the corner with four very angry knights. Luca, Jace and Glim and the Wizard along with his apprentice had squared off against the intruders, killing them all, but not before taking several wounds themselves. If not for a quick healing spell, Luca would have surely died.

After the battle, the had spoken with the wizard for some time, trying to decide what to do. Though they had killed the four knights, there was still a very angry mob outside the main doors. The wizard recognized something in this group, and rather more specifically in Luca, and had brought out a long wooden staff covered in iron and covered from top to bottom with symbols. No one knew what the staff was, but the wizard felt that Luca was the one to unlock it's secrets. After several more minutes in coversation, they had thrown open the doors of the guild and Jace had gone out to speak with the clerics and paladins. His speech swayed several of them to join his fight, and the rest had simply left, their faith broken and their path unsure. The remaining sixteen swore oaths to each other and Jace, and a new brotherhood was born.

Luca and Glim set off to infiltrate the local church, where the orders to attack the guild had come from. Luca had entered directly, posing as a simple, traveling cleric with more then a little alcohol in him and managed to pry a few answers out before the head priest revealed that he knew who Luca was. A short battle ensued, with Luca shooting off his last darkness spell, buying him a little time. Glim's energy bolts seemed to have no affect on the preist, and he had stepped through the darkness as though it did not affect him. He had spoken to Luca at this time, attempting to convert Luca to what he called the true faith. The man's words had ignited the fury within Luca, and his anger had travled into the staff, resulting in a powerful lightning bolt that had blasted through the preist's chest and killing him in an instant. As Jace gathered everyone to leave the city, Luca stripped the dead preist's body of items, pausing when he pulled a necklace out. The symbol hanging from the chain was very familiar to him, and once he wonders just how many times this world and his own have contacted each other.

They then traveled towards the city of Valenshire, following the rumors of something catastrophic and strange happening to the city. When they stopped at a roadside inn, they saw a massive black dome in the distance, where Valenshire was. Inside the Inn they discovered that the city was completely enclosed within the dome, and nothing could penetrate it. Curious, Luca had gone to the wall the next day and tried many methods to try and break through the wall, but all failed but one. There was yet another mystery to this world, for with a simple touch Luca could penetrate the wall, and the following day, took Jace and the other's through into eternal darkness.

On the other side they were beset with dozens of ravening zombies, extremely weak but numbering in the dozens, if not hundreds. Choosing the better of valor, they fled to the city in the distance, easily outrunning the shambling undead. The city of Valenshire was sealed tight, and only after proving to the local populace that they were indeed alive where they allowed within. Now they wait at the one Inn remaining, hearing the stories of what has happened to the city when the darkness fell.

At the inn they gained a guide through the sewers of the city leading to the castle at the center, a filthy half elf in need of work named Maneser. He had more or less led them safely through the sewers and into the lower levels of Xonn's castle, all the while battling various vermin and undead that attacked them. In the dungeon level of the castle they came across a pathetic looking dusky skinned half elf named Kaven locked and alone in a cell. After a quick conversation they busted him out and continued on only to lose Maneser to what should have been an EASY trap to spot!

The next room they came across was a study of some kind, with bookcases on three of the walls, a huge family tree tapestry on the fourth wall and a massive fireplace. While investigating , their resident warlock Glim had discovered a magic closet that was in fact a teleportation device and moved them all much higher in the castle. This room was a stellar observatory of some kind with a massive telescope inset in a circle runes in the center of the stone floor. After much probing and gum flapping among the group, Luca figures out the use of the telescope and uses it to transport himself up the tower where Xonn was presumably hiding.

What followed the groups' arrival was a short but painful battle in which their new found ally Kaven was reduced to a pile of ash against a foe none of them was prepared for. They had gone into the castle with the intention of finding this mad wizard and somehow through a combination of sheer luck and divine intervention, destroy him. Instead they found said mad wizard in a magically induced coma inside of a stasis field impervious to all magic. After wasting spell after spell on the lunatic holding Xonn and the entire region prisoner, Luca had resorted to plain ol' telekinesis and dropped the madman in front of Jace, who made quick work of him.

Luca pulled Xonn out of the anti-magic field and revived him. In return the quite sane master wizard gave each of them a powerful gift and is allowing them to stay.

Luca

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Abilities

Offense

Defense

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Special Abilities

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Notes

Staff of the Magi

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