Bakris Tarak
By and large, Bakris Tarak has the stereotypical demeanor of a half-orc. He is loud and aggressive, communicating through sheer intimidation as much as anything else. This anger has its roots in the one positive thing in his life, his love of sailing. Bakris used to be a different man, a kinder man, who took to the sea with aspirations of one day having a ship of his own. It came to an abrupt interruption when pirates raided the vessel, cutting down much of the crew and looting the cargo. Bakris was one of a handful of survivors. He joined the crew of the Venture to continue his education in sailing and was hopeful that opportunities to rid the world of pirates would soon find him.
Table of Contents
History
History
Shipwrecked
Bakris was hired by Captain Reynolds and served on the Venture for a month before the ship was attacked by the Argus Pirates on its maiden flight. He fought the attacking Gunkers bravely, destroying many of them with his thunder magic, before being forced to abandon ship with the rest of the crew and passengers (minus Captain Reynolds, who stayed with the ship). As they trekked through the jungle towards the crash site, they came across a pair of injured, frightened civilians. One of them (Evie) pointed a pistol at the group and Bakris kept her talking while Fast James "Jimmy" Deric disarmed her.
When the party tried to guess where these civilians came from, Bakris jumped on the theory that they were members of the group that attacked the Venture. He grabbed Evie's hair and put his sword to her face. Evie was clearly scared but managed to stay brave in the face of his intimidation and demanded parley. Bakris was still an honorable sailor; he agreed to negotiate and released her. When Evie later said she and her companion would take their chances alone rather than travel with the party, she cited Bakris as the key reason for her decision.
The party moved on until they managed to reunite with Captain Reynolds, finding him building a raft to get off the island. After being caught up on the party's activities, Reynolds berated Bakris for his behavior towards the civilians. Ashamed by his captain, Bakris was guilted into going back to help the civilians off the pirate-infested island. When the party attacked the pirate hideout, Bakris supported his allies with a combination of magic and swordplay. Later, when the group was forced to retreat to the civilian campsite, Bakris made a heartfelt apology to Evie for his earlier actions by explaining his history with pirates and anger issues. This placated her and allowed the party to use the campsite with her blessing. After a few more adventures, the group used makeshift rafts to get to a new island.
Getting a New Boat
When the party arrived in Mirebol Village, they decided to look into an attack by the local fishmen. They eventually discovered kuo-toa]kuo-toa and fought their way into the fishmen's village. Making their way through the wet caves, they went down a tunnel that reeked of rotting fish. Inside, they met a bloated, albino kuo-toa named Mathilda, who did not seem hostile. She offered him a deal: a powder that could knock the other kuo-toa out if he slipped it into their communal cookpot in exchange for a favor, to be determined later. While Bakris took the powder, he thankfully didn't have a chance to use it and fulfill his end of the bargain. He and his friends never realized Mathilda was a disguised sea hag who had caused the chaos among the kuo-toa and was trying to get her hooks in Bakris too.
After brokering peace between the kuo-toa and villagers, the party found themselves in Nassau Town. They took a job to harvest magic crystals from the belly of a beached kraken and arrived at the worksite to find an altercation between a pair of workers and the foreman. When one of the angry workers pulled a knife, Bakris stepped in and used his orcish charm to dissuade the workers from escalating things any further. After the job was completed successfully, Bakris stayed with Captain Reynolds to help work on the Venture II for a few days while the rest of the Venture Boys sought out additional funding. Once they returned, he and Jimmy assisted Captain Reynolds with starting to train the rest of the group to sail a ship.
Bakris rejoined his friends on their next adventure, following a treasure map to a hidden cave. He was particularly useful in their battles against a manticore and a group of giant spiders that were nesting within. Following that particular excursion, Bakris was forced to stay behind and help Captain Reynolds work on repairing the Venture II. When the Captain realized he needed N64 for something, he sent Bakris to go find him and check on the rest of the crew as well. Along the way, Bakris encountered Arachnor trying to get his bag of holding down from a tree Guu the Slime's beast spirit had dropped it in. He offered to help and Arachnor thanked him by giving him a "potion of healing" (really a potion of poison) for his assistance.
Getting lost in the woods, Bakris missed the rest of the party heading back to town before heading back himself. He helped Captain Reynolds finish preparing the Venture II just in time to set sail against a Sea Devil frigate threatening the town. Bakris quickly fell into the role of bosun, using his bardic magics to raise morale and fill his companions with inspiration. Once the frigate was sunk, the party spotted a rowboat attempting to flee and Bakris obliterated it with a direct hit of round shot. Unknown to him, he killed the father of Captain Xendros with this action and made a powerful enemy.
Helping the Kids
Arriving back home in Aliisyos, Reynolds sent the party ahead to find a doctor after Jimmy woke up severely ill. N28 brought them to a local Church of Kelemvor that Bakris refused to entered for reasons he would not disclose. He stayed outside with Gibby, who challenged him to a game of cards and took him for several copper by cheating. Bakris then left to take care of some personal business in the city, not rejoining his crewmates until they were ready to set sail for Hopewell Harbor to deliver supplies to an orphanage.
They arrived to find the town on lockdown due to a murder investigation. Althea, N64, and Charles "Chuck" Ling were hired by the sheriff to investigate while Bakris remained on the ship with the rest of the crew. The next day, he and Ürek Thëch Ösen joined their companions for a clandestine meeting in the orphanage's basement with one of the sisters running the place. Entering a back door left unlocked, Bakris found a fake wall concealing a door as they searched the dark basement. Inside, doppelgangers were kidnapping the sister and a fight broke out that ended with two doppelgangers dead and the last captured.
Interrogating the prisoner, Xaeyruudh, Bakris found his intimidation tactics useless due to a control spell a hag had cursed Xaeyruudh with. After Chuck freed him from the spell, they learned a hag was abducting children and switching them with doppelganger copies who fled during the fight. Healing up from the battle, Bakris almost inadvertently killed Ürek by giving him the potion of poison he'd received from Arachnor, still believing it to be a potion of healing. Bakris and his companions ventured into the darker side of the fey to rescue the abducted kids. On arrival, the hag Nightwhisper pulled Chuck and Ürek into an underground cavern, leaving Bakris, Althea, and N64 to deal with her monsters. Bakris found himself attacked and swallowed by a banderhobb, which gave him the opportunity to attack from the inside with his thunder magic.
Narrowly defeating the beasts, they dug Chuck and the children out of the cavern and summoned animal mounts from their bags of rust. The group raced towards the portal as it began to close with the sunrise, narrowly making their way through. The town hailed them as heroes and rewarded the party handsomely for the rescue. But returning to the ship, they were greeted by Mathayas and Arachnor at the docks. The pair offered to purchase the Venture II's magic engine, to which the rest of the party vehemently refused. Bakris remained polite with his refusal and offered to work together with the sky pirates at a future date, which struck everyone else as a bold and odd offer.
Pirates, Cannibals, & the Undead
Heading back to Aliisyos for a little R&R with the rest of the crew, Bakris decided to go bar hopping looking for information on the Sea Devils. He found a barkeep willing to be bribed to answer his questions, failing to notice a few shady figures spying on him from a corner booth until Vinnie and Mac entered the bar and pointed them out to him. Shortly after, when the ship set sail, Captain Xendros attacked the Venture II using a tip from those informants. She came to avenge her father's death at Bakris' hand, though Althea claimed she was the one who fired the fatal cannon shot to protect Bakris. Bakris repaid the favor at a critical moment during the fight, using a spell of silence to block Xendros' magic and buying precious seconds for Vinnie to intervene and save Althea's life.
The ship then sailed towards the Hircona Isles to deliver dwarven mead to a local feast festival. The crew stayed to enjoy the party until an injured halfling wandered in with a spear embedded in his backside. The locals quickly noticed no one from the man's village had come to the festival and the party resolved to investigate. They found the village deserted, the inhabitants dragged off to the southern isle by grung. The frogmen admitted they kidnapped the villagers when the local lizardfolk demanded sacrifices, offering others in place of their own people. The grung elder led the group to the lizardfol'sk site a worship, an ancient ziggurat where they had begun cooking and consuming the halflings. After the lizardfolk queen fled, Bakris offered to escort the captives home while the rest of the party followed the queen to rescue the remaining villagers.
When the Venture II found its path home blocked by a mysterious fog and a massive, seemingly abandoned ship, Bakris joined his friends as they went aboard to investigate. The ship proved to be haunted by spirits and commanded by vampires as they fought their way through, Bakris using his magic to both bolster his allies and confuse their enemies. They managed to rescue the captives (and treasure) onboard after breaking the dark magic powering the vessel, escaping with the last of the loot just as it began to disintegrate. With the haunted ship gone and fog cleared, the Venture II resumed its journey home.
Secret of the Porvenir
After taking a little R&R in Allisyos, the party set out for the town of Fidanza for their next job. Xaeyruudh had heard a shipping company was looking for someone to recover one of their vessels captured by pirates. Bakris helped resupply the ship while other crew members got the details of the job. The Venture II set sail the next morning, aiming to recover a merchant ship seized by pirates.
The voyage went smoothly until Captain Reynolds discovered they were working for the Sonavellas, enraged that the party had already agreed to a contract with people he described as "sharks in humanoid skin". He angrily locked himself in his cabin to avoid being seen by Lady Sonavella, much to the party's confusion. Despite the lack of detail, Bakris and his comrades concluded there must be some sort of bad blood between Captain Reynolds and the Sonavella family. The Venture II eventually arrived at the isle of Fellcay. Since the previous mercenaries approach from sea failed, the party opted to cross the island from its opposite end and approach the ship, the Porvenir, by land.
Coming to the cove after a few days of walking across the island and boarding the Porvenir, Bakris searched part of the ship with Vinnie and located a journal in the captain's cabin. He read the journal and learned of Captain Deze's disdain for the Sonavellas. Deze tolerated these feelings because the Sonavellas paid well but strange things began happening aboard the ship. The last line simply read "Betrayed - Tis a Trap!". Bakris went and found Althea, N64, and Erica to share his discovery with them. While they were reading the journal, Vinnie showed up with the ghost of Captain Deze himself.
The ghostly captain was enraged when he learned the Venture Boys were working for Lady Sonavella and was prepared to kill them or be destroyed trying. Althea managed to persuade Deze back to calmness so that he could explain the situation to them instead. Deze informed them how his crew had unknowingly been carrying some monster on the ship that then became the ship before attacking and devouring him and his crew. He also spoke of a traitor onboard who was still alive and his thirst for vengeance against the man. He offered them a reward of gold and jewels for the traitor, who he believed was in the cargo hold.
As they descended deeper into the ship, a telepathic voice bade them come down into the hold to speak to it. It was there they met the heart of the ship, revealed to actually be a massive mimic. The mimic explained its history, how Lady Sonavella orchestrated its creation and put it on a ship to control what form it took and allow it to feed on the crew. It regretted killing the crew but had no more than animal intelligence when it did so. It was only by consuming the crew and their traits that it became self-aware enough to feel ashamed of its actions. They left the creature in peace after it promised to raise its children away from inhabited areas and teach them not to hunt humanoids.
On their way out, the party did find and capture the traitor working for Lady Sonavella that Deze wanted dead. The party knocked him out and allowed Deze to strangle the man, despite Althea's failed attempt to convince the ghost otherwise. The ghostly captain paid them for their services before departing to the afterlife with his unfinished business concluded as the party resolved to confront Lady Sonavella, the real monster of this entire event.
Fighting is Easier than Keeping Secrets, for Some People
The party returned across the island to find the Venture II's crew had evacuated the ship and was camping on the beach. Someone or something had been killing crew in their sleep without any visible wounds and the crew feared either plague or curse. Father Costa ruled out plague, so Bakris and the rest of the party went aboard to find the source of the apparent curse. Bakris and Vinnie explored the upper decks and cabins but found no signs of foul play. However, Althea and Erica spotted a stranger in the hold who vanished as well as evidence of the apparent stowaway.
Vinnie was able to use the information they found to deduce that a night hag was likely behind the killings. They laid a trap for the assailant with Althea ready to use a magic sword found on the Porvenir that could strike creatures in the Ethereal Plane, where the hag was likely hiding. She awoke just in time to see the hag reaching for Bruce and leapt at it, channeling the full force of her holy power on top of the sword's magic. She dealt a near-fatal injury to the hag who shrieked in pain and fled. The danger passed, the crew returned to sleep and prepared to speak with Lady Sonavella the next morning.
Vinnie took the lead speaking to Candelaria Sonavella after other party members had concerns about Althea and N64's inability to lie. Vinnie and Lady Sonavella traded half-truth barbs as they tried to get information from each other, all the while Althea struggled to keep from blurting out anything. This worked until Lady Sonavella turned her attention to the rest of the group and questioned them directly. Althea's tight lips quickly flung open under Lady Sonavella's hard stare and she quickly (and truthfully) recounted everything that had happened on the Porvenir. Lady Sonavella thanked her for her honestly and paid the group the agreed-upon fee before taking her leave. With the hag dealt with and payment in hand, the crew got back aboard the Venture II and Captain Reynolds set course for Soeurs Noires.
Wizards, an Auction, and Truths Revealed
Arriving in Shiptown, Bakris and the rest of the party (plus Gibby) departed for the annual Wizard Swap Meet while Captain Reynolds left to secure an air elemental for his magical cannon. The group split up on arrival and Bakris spent his time wandering aimlessly, checking out the various booths but not making any purchases until he could meet back up with his friends. Their plan was to attend a magic item auction the next day and see if there was anything interesting worth bidding on.
Turning in for the night and heading to the auction the next morning, they ran into Captain Reynolds on the way there. Inside, Reynolds recognized a tiefling that Althea had met the day before seated next to Falzar Sonavella. Bakris left the bidding to his companions, not seeing anything of interest to him on the auction block. After Lord Sonavella accosted the group while leaving the auction and all but openly mocked Captain Reynolds over his murdering Reynolds' family, Bakris showed concern for his Captain's well being and asked if he was ok. Reynolds somberly said, "No."
The group returned to the Venture II just as the local guards were driving Mathayas and Gyaos off it, the pair having attacked the ship looking for the spelljammer engine in the party's absence. Unable to take direct actions against the perpetrators at this exact time, the group decided to go look for a lost treasure ship belonging to the Sonavellas that Vinnie had overheard something about. It was only then that the group noticed Gibby sniffling and starting to look sick, having spilled a half-finished magic potion on himself earlier when Althea briefly left him unattended.
Sirens, Pirates, & a Sea Serpent
Gibby's sniffles soon turned into a full-blown cold. Each time he sneezed it created some kind of magical side effect for a member of the crew. Bakris was standing on the deck next to his friends and one very sudden sneeze later found himself up in the crow's nest. After Vinnie and N64 summoned a sphinx to acquire an item that cured Gibby, the Venture II continued onwards towards the Sorrow Shoals to find the missing treasure ship.
Their first stop was the town of Eishum, the closest settlement to the shoals, to see if they could pick up any information from the locals. Vinnie said there was one place in every town that was guaranteed to have information: the bar. The party found a tavern called the Sailor's Delight and Bakris sat down to look over the menu. He noticed the frightened barkeep gave Althea an iron fork to go with her salad after mistaking her for a fey, but didn't make the connection regarding what that meant.
When Althea approached a ship's crew getting the stink eye from other bar patrons, Bakris and the others joined her to ask what that was all about. Captain Molly explained that her all-female crew were the only ones who could fish the rich waters near the Sorrow Shoals because they were the only crew completely immune to the songs of the sirens that lived there. The rest of the party came over and started to negotiate for Captain Molly to take them towards the Shoals, learning she saw the missing treasure ship enter the area fleeing pirates a few days beforehand. They eventually settled on a deal and set out the next morning on Captain Molly's ship, the Crystal Wave.
Captain Molly would go no further than a quarter mile from the Shoals and the party took rowboats in, Bakris riding with N64. They were quickly attacked by a group of sirens, which fled after half their number were killed. Soon after,Vinnie's familiar found a siren nest nearby and saw a man in a cage among them. Althea insisted they save the man, despite arguments from Erica and Vinnie that they should leave him since he was either a pirate or one of Sonavella's men.
The Venture Boys snuck up on the sirens and the battle began, this group being led by a more powerful siren queen. Once the sirens were all dead, the now free man, Todgar, told them how he was a sailor on the missing treasure ship that was grabbed off the deck by a siren. His ship was still fleeing the pirates that had chased them into the Shoals, so they couldn't come back to help him. He was also able to provide the direction he last saw his ship sailing in, giving the party a general direction to head in.
They did come across the treasure ship, but it was half sunk. The pirate ship was also there, temporarily trapped in a small cove barricaded by rocks until the high tide finished coming in. The pirates yelled at the party, getting them to row over just as a sea serpent tried to snatch up one of their rowboats in its jaws. Pirate Captain Ward explained the sea serpent had sunk the ship and was staying underwater to avoid their cannons. He told the party that if they could lure the beast into firing range, they'd kill it together and split the treasure 50/50. Erica, planning to betray the pirates, agreed on the party's behalf. The sea serpent was a powerful draconic opponent, but in the end the party was victorious through a combination of their own efforts and support fire from the pirates.
When Vinnie tried to lie to the pirates to keep most of the treasure, Captain Ward saw through his deception. However, Ward had heard about how Althea had spared a member of the Sea Devils and gave Vinnie a chance to come clean rather than turn the situation to violence. Vinnie very reluctantly agreed since he was unsure they could win another fight after being banged up by the sea serpent. After the pirates left, Vinnie's familiar managed to locate the sea serpent's treasure horde and the party looted gold, jewels, and mithril onto their boats. The lair also contained several magic items on a shrine to Bahamut, Dragon Lord of Justice, which Erica claimed despite Althea's protests that they might be angering a god. After heading back and giving Captain Molly her cut, Bakris and co. boarded the Venture II to find Gibby once again ill.
End of the Argus Pirates
This time, Gibby's situation was his own fault. The party returned to find him surrounded by empty candy wrappers while rubbing his swollen tummy. Seeking a cure for his tummy ache, Gibby asked if they could visit the nearby kuo-toa village where he was born to get them to pray for him. They set sail for the island and just as it came into view, they saw beams of light, globs of Gunkers, and trails of smoke coming down from the Jeweled Eye as the Argus Pirates launched a full-scale attack on the island.
Once they got close enough, Gibby teleported all the officers to the beach on the outskirts of the burning village. People were fleeing & hiding as Gunkers swarmed the area looking for them. Bakris remained on the beach and used blasts of magic to destroy Gunkers at range before the party saw a running kuo-toa killed and Gibby became transparent a moment later. They realized why the Argus Pirates were here: to kill the kuo-toa and remove the source of Gibby's godly power. The fires from one building turned into an immolith demon and approached the group as Mathayas, murderer of the kuo-toa, started coming up the street firing spells at them. These foes proved no match for the Venture Boys and were dispatched with fairly minimal effort.
The group then split up; Bakris and the other Venture Boys would cut straight through the forest to get to the main kuo-toa village while Gibby, Captain Reynolds, and Xaeyruudh would follow the road around the woods. Bakris stayed behind to help the villagers, promising to catch up to the rest of the party as soon as he could. Halfway to their destination, the group was ambushed by the revenge-seeking Vengeance Coven. Bakris caught up with them just as the battle ended with two hags dead and another fled. After his friends took a brief moment to bandage their wounds, the group pressed forward.
Standing at the tree line, they saw Gunkers entering the pond leading to the tunnel entrance of the kuo-toa village. Beyond that, on a hillside, was Captain Elgar using his disintegration ray to dig straight down into the village caves. The party split up and went around the pond to surround Captain Elgar and his minions on all sides before attacking. Bakris focused on Captain Elgar and unleashed his most powerful magic against the beholder, firing waves of psychic energy at the aberration. Bakris was injured badly during the fight and put into a magical slumber by Captain Elgar, though he managed to wake up just as Vinnie was delivering the killing blow.
During the battle, both Erica and N64 had been slain. Only N64 had a body remaining; Erica's remains were nothing but ash. Vinnie having fled after the fight, Bakris approached N64's body with Althea only for a teleportation beam from the Jeweled Eye to snatch it away. Somberly, the pair returned to the pond where their remaining comrades had killed Arachnor and his Gunker minions to give Captain Reynolds the sad news. As they did, they heard a voice and Althea Filanes noticed David's face reflecting on the water of the pond.
David revealed himself to be a warforged, N36, and his plan to harvest N64's cadaver for parts. He said he "did them the favor" of destroying the Abyssal Shard but would be taking the Jeweled Eye out into the Astral Plane. He was telling them this because he wanted them to chase him, saying it would be fun. N36 cut the transmission and what was left of the Venture II's officers wondered if their next adventure would take them to the stars.
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