Gorbun

Human Male Thief 5 N

STR:16 DEX:13 CON:14 INT:12 WIS:10 CHA:10

HP: 21

Languages: Russian, Norse, Lappish

PP:65% O/L:60% F/RT:5% MS:40%

HiS:35% DN:15% CW:80% RL:0%

Eorl and Gorbun met on the last leg of a grueling trading expedition from Novgorod to Kiev, when the Russian was hired on to a furrier’s caravan as an escort after the previous escorts had been killed repelling a bandit attack.

Eorl’s Russian was so bad it kept Gorbun cracking up all the way to Kiev, and he was enjoying himself so much he totally forgot that he was supposed to backstab the caravan master at a certain point as a signal to his bandit companions to spring on the caravan that had previously gotten away from them. As a result, the attack was botched, and his gang, cold and hungry, ended up jumping the gun and died face down in the snow from arrow fire. So Gorbun started a new life as a trader, and he and Eorl became good friends.

He taught Eorl both Russian and Norse and after several years of working the trading routes, the two made plans to go into business together. Of course, this ended badly when their first caravan full of goods was stolen near Novgorod, and the two joined the disastrous expedition to capture and kill the Chudes believed responsible. Their posse decimated, each had thought the other killed. In reality, Eorl had wandered north in the company of a Polish mercenary in the hopes of finding a settlement, while Gorbun had retraced their steps south, encountered other party remnants and returned to Novgorod defeated.

Two years passed, and Gorbun found himself making the spring trip to Kiev, when he heard news of the Bogatyrs camping in Chrysopolis under the watchful care of some short ugly dude named Eorl who was the laughing stock of Byzantium. Unable to believe his ears, he grabbed a few companions and took advantage of the good weather to sail down the Dnieper and through the Euxine. Sure enough, there was Eorl, looking haggard, but something new was clearly troubling him, something beyond where he would find that day’s meal. Nevertheless, his elf pal was overjoyed to see him, and it didn’t take long before it was ‘just like old times,’ except in a Mediterranean climate and with an overall increase in the number of floating eyeballs, winged horses and goatmen they were commiserating with on a day-to-day basis.