Akakios' Backstory (Patreon)

Just a rough little backstory written up for Akakios! My poor DMs always get way more info on my characters than they probably need :'D For those that don't know - Akakios is a character I play in my current D&D campaign. She's a minotaur trying to figure out her place in the world. 

Backstory:

For Akakios’ entire life, as far back as she dare remember, something always whispered to her at the dead of night, when all had fallen asleep, when she was alone in the solitude of her mind. As a child, the voice inside her mind terrified her. As she grew, it beckoned her to walk into the shadows of the trees outside her home, to listen to its words, to allow it to take her.

She never did. She feared what might happen if she did as it asked.

Instead, Akakios went to her parents. She told them of the whispers. She told them of when the voice came, how it sounded. And, terrified of whispers from a king her parents would not name, they took a switch, and they tried to beat it out of her.

Each night, the whispers came louder. Each night, the switch punished her for the words she could not stop from entering her mind. It grew to be too much. She took the blanket off her bed, she stole what food she could and made it into a pack, she climbed out her window, and she did as the voice said.

Akakios left, in the middle of the night, and entered the woods under a blood moon.

She hunted. The memories are vague and confusing, but she remembered tracking her prey, watching them, and by the time she killed them, her horns had grown several inches.

Even with the simple act of remembering, she is able to feel the rush, the excitement, the joy. It was the first time since she spoke of the whispers that she ever felt so happy. And that terrifies her to this day.

Keeping the voice locked up was harder as she spent time in the woods. It nearly broke her until she came across a small baby crow, who had fallen from the nest. She placed the tiny creature back home, fighting the urge to crush the baby, only for her to stumble across it again and again, having fallen from the nest. Eventually, Akakios realized the child’s parents would not return, and she took the small bird in as her own. With a companion, the whispers in her mind grew less violent, less painful to push away. She found her desire for blood to fade.

The two grew up in the woods together, with Cryus as Akakios’ eyes in the sky, taking down prey and eating well.

But as all things do, the time within the trees ended, and Akakios found herself on a road. She returned to a town full of her people and spent her time making a living as a young huntress. It is here that she heard of her parents, who were slain in their home a few years before. She paid it no heed. And yet, that night, she discovered the switch her parents used on her in her belongings. She did not remember ever taking it with her.

Terrified, Akakios dove into religious studies. What was this voice, and did it bid her to do horrible things? Did she cause the death of her parents, or was the switch accidentally taken all those years ago? She studied Baphomet, she studied Erathis. She feared over which might be speaking to her. Certainly the god of civilizations did not ask her to wander into the woods in the middle of the night.

Akakios and Cryus left shortly after their research led to further fears. It is on the road that they joined with a band of other travelling minotaurs, who spoke about a grand hunt to increase the strength of their clans. Wary at first, she helped them track a travelling group of merchants with livestock in tow. When the other six members of the party attacked and slaughtered the travellers as well, Akakios found herself drawn to the bloodshed. As she and Cryus fought alongside each other, she felt a rush.

A rush she felt each time her blade cut into prey. A rush she felt each time she murdered.

She joined the group for a bigger attack. She entered the city of Elturel, chose a new group of adventurers, and tracked them with Cryus’ aid. They would follow for days, weeks, sometimes closer to a month as the adventurers journeyed away from the city. Akakios and her companions slaughtered the would-be adventurers. They collected their gear, armed themselves further, and sent a runner to deliver the leftover armaments to a distant clan.

The group laid low for a few weeks, before Akakios was sent in once more to Elturel to find a new group of adventurers to track and kill. While resting in an alleyway eating street food, Cryus sat perched on her horns, preening. And a dwarf, thinking he was doing Akakios a favor, threw a rock at the crow on her head.

It hit Cryus. And Akakios hit the dwarf. In fact, she gored him with her horns in terrified rage, spun to see Cryus was all right, and found herself met moments later with city guards.

With tears in her eyes, Akakios surrendered, hands shaking. Something was wrong with her, that was clear. A normal person would not kill another for a misunderstanding. Cryus flew overhead as Akakios was brought to the jail, and sang outside her window each night to help keep the whispers at bay. Akakios wept. She feared now she knew who spoke to her at night, feared that part of her had always known. When Elturel was pulled to hell, and she could hear that voice clearer in her skull, muttering things she wished she could not understand, she feared what might become of her if she dared listen to him again.