Harlee is a self named half elf Archfey warlock.
Born and near instantly dropped off at an orphanage, she never really felt the need to find her family, nor did she ever really even stop to think about them. They were simply a non-factor, as medieval orphanages are not quite known for being amazing; she fled with one or two friends to join the circus, which the little group quite enjoyed. She was a wholesome fun happy go lucky soul who took great enjoyment in her work. Trained by acrobats and harlequins she adapted well to the circus life and really started her family there.
She never knew her parents, nor did she ever even come into the concept of understanding parents. To her, everyone was brother and sister. Her older siblings were the veterans of the circus who she happily revered. The illusionists, the acrobats, and her fellow harlequins. Life was good and the circus was good to her. Granted, a life of peasant food didn’t do her physic any favors. She was a perfect little Harlequin, making the children laugh and getting a good chuckle from the adults as well. But when she entered a rather rough nation things took a bit of a darker turn.
This land was ravaged by war and in a state of constant conflict. She personally had a bit of a close call, saved by her siblings they decided it was time she became able to defend herself. She was small and cute, just the kind of person that would be nabbed by creeps. And so the little Harlee was taken in by the older members of the circus and while they were not too thrilled about sharing it, they introduced her to their faith. The mildly frowned upon Laughing God.
With the elders as the medium, she was led to strike a deal with the laughing god who happily agreed to give her power. She simply needed to remain in his service for life. Spread the laughter, whether it be happiness, or madness, the laughter was to continue.
But tragically, only days after she had made the deal, the local government seized the entire circus “drafting them” into the war. To her knowledge, she was the only survivor. She still looks for her family, but ended up with a rather odd ragtag group of people directed by various deities to perform a quest.
The first portion of the quest was to purge the unholy taint from a city of dead. All at once, a massive city had gone silent, overnight, the undead flooded the streets and it became an unholy battleground of ghouls, death knights, wights, and skeletons.
The DM played the entire mission very high difficulty. In just the first four fights, we lost two player characters and we had one TPK which was sorta retconned with the arrival of an NPC, Knight Captain Howard. Every single mission had us shaking in our boots wondering who was going to die next, and the DM kept us going. Until just before the final fight of this area, the BBEG was some sort of super necromancer or something. Everyone got some specialized gear, mostly high quality armor. But as it stood, poor harley, no armor in conjunction with her free mage armor was much better so she didn’t get anything. That is until the DM private messaged me and we worked out an idea. An item she could have that wouldn’t do too much but it was certainly flavorful for poor little Harlee and it would make sense for the Laughing God to give it to her.
So when the battle started, Harlee did her best to hide in the darkness as usual, she was very fragile despite some good dex and mage armor, She occasionally fired off eldritch blasts and used her only two spell slots to counterspell the main necromancer. But when all the chaff was gone, we had to go through some shadow monsters, a blood kiss, a minotaur skeleton, and some sort of eldritch horror homebrewed in from the call of Cthulhu.
The BBEG here just started wiping the floors with our level six characters using level 8 spells which made us all gasp in horror. But I got the idea and little Harlee started her process.
Harlee’s first turn against the BBEG. “I take something from my hat and place it in the shadows.”
Harlee’s second turn against the BBEG. “I take something from my hat and place it in the shadows.”
This continued with the whole team wearing the enemy down and begging for me to jump in….
We already were two players and two pets down. But he was so close to dead. My party was almost starting to lose their patience until turn three against the BBEG.
“I take something from my hat and place it in the shadows. And then… with all the might I can muster in my little lungs I yell… CHAAAARGE!”
From my hat, the DM’s relfavored Bag of Tricks, I managed to pull two axe beaks and a giant weasel who crossed the distance and tore the BBEG to shreds.
The party was far more than just a little surprised, and little Harlee proudly stood atop her new giant weasel proudly knowing she had saved her new family.
She was a servant of the laughing god, but more than that, she was Harlee, the Harlequin who would not give up on her family, whether it was the circus she grew up with, or her rag tag team of adventurers fighting for the various Gods who directed them to carry out their will.
[zombify_post]
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