Let Me Tell You About My Character(s)

We had a game yesterday that I should be writing a log entry for, but due to massive real world chaos I haven't really gotten started, don't feel like doing it, and, worst of all, don't have an illustrative sketch from Jen to add to it (and I suspect her growing fan club would never forgive me for that). In my opinion, the best thing about yesterday's game is that now that it's over we're retiring that party and in two weeks I'll be playing 4e instead of DMing it for the first time. I just want to talk about that, and I can illustrate it with something from the random sketch pile... like this pirate parrot.

Anyway, the plan is to start another party of 6, two characters each, with the same 4-person group that's been involved in the Dragonslayers "campaign".* The difference is I'll be playing and Laurel will be DMing.

So here's what the party is looking like (half of them even have names already):
Jason

• Dragonborn Cleric
• Tiefling Wizard

Me

• Half-elf Rogue/Warlock - Tsoen-tso
• Githyanki Warlord (Tactical) - Kain Gaa'zaith

Jen

• Halfling Fey-Pact Warlock
• Minotaur Fighter - Revis Marun

I was actually going to go with eladrin for my taclord, but Laurel already has that character in the other campaign I'm running, so I wanted something at least a little different. The githyanki has the Int bonus and an encounter power comparable to fey step, so it seemed a good substitute. It was only after I read up a bit on the githyanki entry in the Monster Manual that I saw the problem: a member of a race of militaristic xenophobes in a party with one of the wildest racial mixes I've seen at my table in ages.

Obviously the stereotypical xenophobe part of the gith personality would have to go, but I was hoping to keep the rest. I asked myself what might happen to a non-xenophobic githyanki given their society. Obviously the top answer was "he'd be killed", but we're not playing Traveller so that was out. I settled for exile instead and came up with this back story:

Kain (not his original name) was expelled from his cadre and citadel for espousing heretical ideas. He wanted to recruit members of other races into the cadre to take advantage of their different abilities and specialties. He was dubbed Kain Gaa'zaith, which means something like "foul thrall of enemies" in the gith language. To make sure he wouldn't forget it, his superiors branded his new name on his right forearm before throwing him out into the world alone. He now seeks to gather his own multiracial "cadre" and sell its fighting services to the highest bidder. He thinks that if he molds his new cadre into a formidable force, it will show those who expelled him that he was right. As the campaign starts, Kain has his fledgling cadre (the party) assembled and is willing to lead them anywhere there is someone to fight. He figures the best training exercise is one that might kill you.

* In a bit of irony, the Dragonslayers actually skipped the dragon encounter in the adventure I ran yesterday.