Before the Descent of Elturel the Year of Three Ships Sailing, 1492 DR, Zevlor was a proud member of the Hellriders of Elturgard. When the city returned to the Prime from Avernus in the Nine Hells, newfound bigotry against tieflings led to them being expelled from their home.
Zevlor arose as a leader of the group and led them west along the Risen Road towards Baldur's Gate. Eventually they were given shelter at the Emerald Grove, by the grace of Archdruid Halsin.
Some time later, the adventurer Aradin led a pack of goblins led by Za'krug towards the grove's main gates. After expressing his disapproval about the group's entrance, Zevlor tried to let them in but were stopped by the assaulting goblins. As a result, the tiefling Kanon was shot dead with an arrow. Zevlor was presented with a dilemma, he had to keep the peace with some druids who did not approve of his group's presence, while simultaneously getting his kind ready for a long trek to Baldur's Gate.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh man there's so much
Like more than I can realistically put here spanning 6 unfinished fics and 3 finished ones
so
if you want to know go read charlie's lore but its in there mostly.
He was born in the underdark, his parents were about as well off as deep gnomes can be (what with the constant infighting between the iron hand gnomes and… everyone else + the whole constantly being captured/killed/enslaved)
His mum has this grand realization that they could just, fucking leave. It would suck bc sun sensitivity but at least their infant child won’t have to deal with all the hells of the underdark.
His dad is totally on board until he isn’t but she’d already committed to leaving so instead of two people strategically moving as much of their life as they could above ground, it was a single chronically ill woman with what she could carry and her toddler.
Roughly a month later she’s out of the underdark, emerging near Elturel where she ends up being taken in by a temple of lathander.
Charlie ends up being raised mostly by the folks at the temple, as the stress of escaping ends up permanently hospitalizing his mum.
Nothing interesting happens for like, 6 years. He learns to read (but not write- he lacks a formal education and only really knows enough to do his chores) and ends up becoming a devout follower of lathander (it’s hard not to when you’re raised in his temple and the only other local deity is notoriously strict with the races allowed in his clergy and your other option is only worshiped by your dying mom who spends every other interaction with you yelling and bitching- I’ll expand on that later.)
anyway
He’s 9 now, he’s started developing the same illness as his mother (he’s ambiguously chronically ill bc I’m ambiguously chronically ill) and is forced to start working to pay off his mothers hospital fees. Usually catching pests for the church (being tiny and naturally stealthy makes him an incredibly effective rat catcher)
Once again, nothing notable for a bit.
He’s 14 now, though convenient plot things he’s began formal martial training.
Also his mother ate shit and died. He’s indifferent to it (and feels incredibly guilty about that indifference) but now with only his medication to pay for he’s able to spend more time actually training and studying.
He can sorta write now. Barely- he lacks the fundamental skills so it’s mostly illegible. But he can write his name.
traaaaansgendah
(Magically assisted)
He’s 19 now, takes his oath (Redemption) and fucks off to join Fort Morninglord as a paladin.
He’s sent along with a senior adventuring team to escort some important guy to Baldur’s Gate for a political discussion amid the growing animosity.
Nothing bad happens /gen
And then they get back and Fort Morninglord was eaten by a fucking curse or some shit (that’s a canon event in dnd btw)
So with everyone he knew dead (at best) and all his shit now in a very barricaded and heavily guarded fort he did the only thing he could think of
And he fucked right off.
All the way to waterdeep.
Nothing interesting happens for a long fucking time like, this is the last major life event before he gets fucking wormed at 150.
Being in waterdeep kinda sucked though in itself so I’ll elaborate on that.
So. Waterdeep, expensive as fuck, diverse, magic heavy.
He went there, briefly joined the temple of lathander there as a hireable paladin but he wasn’t interested in adventuring and that’s all anybody really wanted so he tried to find employment elsewhere.
That didn’t work, not as a paladin anyway. Lathander’s clergy is 90% humans and the other 10% is elves and tieflings. And the gnome gods don’t typically take paladins so no one really took him seriously when he said he was a paladin of lathander.
But he wasn’t totally boned bc he did have one thing going for him- and it’s that he’s unreasonably fucking strong by *human* standards. Even moreso for a gnome.
So he did manual labour jobs, any he could find. It made… enough. He lived in a room above a cafe, worked his ass off and never really got anywhere but he was happyish. He resented having to leave elturel, but it was barely safe there before the whole situation with fort Morninglord, then even worse after the descent.
Then he gets fucking wormed, literally on his way to meet up with a group of merchants who wanted an escort to elturel bc he’d planned on going back, and at least with a merchant convoy he’d not be flat fucking broke when he got there.
So, wormed. We know it we love it I’ll tldr the changes that would’ve happened in each act.