Baghator Sobam
Description
Terror incarnate: that is what Baghator Sobam represents, though at first glance he may not precisely look the part. Sure, he’s a wicked giant, towering over 11-feet, thick with muscle and blubber like a half-ton beached whale – a beached killer whale. The giant seems somewhat simian and hirsute in appearance, with shaggy and uncut black hair. A seething fury burns in his squinty dark-brown eyes, as if he were just looking for an excuse to rip a tree out of he ground and beat you to a gruesome pulp with it. Although it is more likely that he’d just hack you to pieces with that big axe he hefts. Just as frightening as his sheer girth is the hill giant’s armor. It is simple flaps of hide roughly stitched together, yet there are intricate tribal designs also stitched around a number of spiny protrusions. Baghator looks like a giant, mean-tempered, axe-wielding porcupine.
But his animalistic nature is far worse than some rodent. When Baghator assumes his “war form”, he becomes a hybrid of boar and giant. His shaggy hair stiffens like bristles and the ruddy skin pales and hardens. He grows another foot and his body swells with corded, vein-striped, and puissant musculature. His bare feet become cloven hoofs. Fortunately, he doesn’t grow so big that his armor pops off. It fits still, the spikes in the hide only adding to the immense dread of the beast. His eyes brighten but with scarlet, unnatural bloodlust. The giant’s head thickens and jaw broadens, from which now jut two long and sharp tusks capable of goring a bull, never mind a man. Both hands now boast sharp and long nails, though Baghator typically spares one hand for that dangerous axe. With a guttural snarl so unnatural that most listeners wet themselves in abject terror, the were-dire boar hill giant lowers his head and charges...
Or perhaps instead of a hybrid shape, the lycanthropic giant will assume a more bestial form – still monstrous and frightening. He drops to all fours, and all four limbs become hoofed. While he drops the axe (or left it at home while out roaming in this guise), the spiked hide armor still fits. Baghator boasts a thick, stiff mane of black hair down his neck and spine, decorating brown, pale-splotched flanks beneath the armor. His head alters most of all, emptying all humanoid intellect from the crimson gaze. There still lurks an animal cunning. But the hungry saliva dripping from an insatiable mouth only brings attention back to those sharp bony protrusions jutting from the dire boar’s lower jaw, designed to skewer any enemy that dares wander into his bad-tempered path.
History
Baghator Sobam was like any other hill giant in the frigid Mautyn Hills: vicious, cruel, bloated, stupid, hopeless, and angry for being all of those things and not knowing why. Even in these early days, Baghator had little to do but throw rocks at anything that moved (including his own kind) and hone his fury to a deadly degree. He took out his rage eventually on his father, the chieftain of the Sobam giants, slaying the dodder and taking the chief’s legacy armaments for himself.
One day, when he was hunting for food, he threw a small boulder at a giant wild pig. Instead of going splat like most piggies, this one got mad and squealed and charged him with its tusks. Baghator freaked out and tried to fend the furious boar off, but it managed to gore him and even knock him over before dashing off into the brush. Baghator thought it a normal clash, but he began to feel something growing inside of him. It wasn’t just anger, it was an itch, a desire to be out in the woods away from everyone, to run free. When the next full moon rose, that itch overpowered his senses. He sundered through the cave village of his people, a rabid beast, charging off into the forest and never to return.
While out in the woods, Baghator slowly came to grips with his disease: for he was a lycanthrope. For months, he simply dwelled in the wilderness, eating from the forest, and largely left alone (being a were-dire boar hill giant). Finally, a tiny druid (well, he was a grugach elf) approached the giant calmly. He guided Baghator through the process of controlling his shape, and presented a small ring to wear that would help. Baghator did try to smash the pointy-earred elf, but the druid was too quick, shapeshifting into critters so small that Baghator could barely see them, like pretty butterflies. Hmph. Well, at least the druid gave him a pretty bauble before leaving. Now, Baghator still dwelled alone in the wilderness. Though his temper occasionally flared with dramatic and devastating results, he was less apt to rampage through and trample entire copses of the forest.
Personality
Baghator embodies “big and stupid”, though he’s actually not as dumb as he often acts. He was forced to smarten up a little while living on his own. But he’s still more emotion than intellect by far, and prone to acts of self-gratifying impulse and thoughtless destruction.
Goals
Baghator will only follow the barbarian class (20th-level+). It’s all he’d be good at, really.
Character Sheet