Roderick
Player Character in the Voyager campaign. Cleric/19, who worships Imhotep.
Roderick's character sheet is here.
Roderick was the oldest of three children born of middle-class parents who were shopowners in a large city. The shop was small, but moderately successful, so the family was never hungry. The whole family worked in the shop in one way or another.
By the time Roderick was fourteen, he had shown the aptitude, but not the desire, to carry on his family's business. His parents thought that having a son in the priesthood would help the family name, so a position for him was secured at the local temple of Imhotep (not a huge place like the temples to other gods, but popular because free healing was always available).
Roderick rose through the ranks of priesthood slowly, and was never that great at magic or performing priestly duties. However, his business sense made him stand out, since priests of Imhotep were great healers and builders, but lousy businessmen. Eventually Roderick became a senior official in the church, and the top businessman of the church. Over the years he had trained many of the followers of Imhotep on how to run a business, and the business dealings of the church ran better than they ever did before.
Now in his late forties, Roderick had ceded most of the business responsibilities to others. His primary role was as a fundraiser, hitting up wealthy benefactors for donations to build temples. His status was akin to those benefactors, with wealth and power available to him. Roderick went to the resort numerous times, partly for vacation, and partly to keep in contact with other wealthy patrons, so that it would be easier to press them for donations.
After the magic changed, and after the long trip across the continent, Roderick gained a couple of things: his priestly abilities, and a faith in Imhotep that he had never had before. When the group had finally reached civilization, Roderick was of a skill level that he could return to his home and easily become one of the top three clerics to Imhotep in his region. But he didn't want to go back there, at least not yet. First, he knew that there were major problems brewing in the world, and he was one of the few people with the knowledge and willingness to deal with those problems. Second, he had become used to adventuring, and wasn't sure how he could handle being surrounded by wealth and opulence all the time (but now and then is OK). Finally, he wished to bring the influence of the Egyptian gods, and particularly Imhotep, to this continent, and he doesn't want that task to fall on the other priest here, Sorgul. In Roderick's mind, Sorgul may be a powerful, knowledgeable person, but he is a lousy priest who doesn't have enough faith.
Roderick's family is all alive and doing fine. His parents have done well enough to semi-retire, as Roderick's brother (one year younger) and his family runs the business quite well. Roderick's sister (three years younger) married another businessman, and now has many children and grandchildren.
Additional notes:
Roderick is quite a bit older than the rest of the humans in Voyager - a fact that doesn't matter all that much, but does make for some interesting color.
When Roderick was first apprenticed to the temple of Imhotep, he was 14 years old and quite uncertain what he really wanted to do with his life. The temple (at that point) was little more than a small enclosed shrine. The priests (there were only two) shared a nearby apartment and lived in relative squalor. Roderick was obligated to live with his parents and study the holy books in the priests' apartment.
The head priest was an outgoing and friendly man named Daniel. His junior (in title only) was a gruff, but pious man named Burol. Daniel insisted that they provide free healing services to the community, while Burol preferred to study engineering and seek hidden knowledge. However, as high priest, Daniel was able to dictate the temple's mission and so the focus remained on healing.
Since he had no useful healing skills (yet), Roderick took to the holy books with great aplomb and found that he shared Burol's love of the obscure. It was in these books where he learned of what Imhotep called the “Science of Engineering” and found what he later realized was his first divine inspiration.
As the small shrine was always filled to capacity with people in need of healing, the priests spent almost all of their time with healing rituals and had no time to devote to engineering or the pursuit of knowledge. Roderick reasoned that all it would take was some land, building supplies, and labor. He further concluded that since the two overworked priests provided such vital aid to the community, that the community could be persuaded to assist in this endeavor.
The priests were skeptical (especially Burol) because they feared they would become beholden to the wealthy patrons of the city and be expected to favor them with their healing. But Roderick pursued his plan with a determination that won the two over. Within a year, Roderick had not only secured promises of financial assistance from local businessmen, but also had obtained the deed to a parcel of land near the waterfront that contained the burnt-out shell of an old, abandoned fish market.
While some snickered and thought the land would be an Albatross around the temple's neck, Roderick managed to convince even the skeptics that the parcel was of sufficient size to hold a small temple and living quarters. By the time of his 16th birthday in March, 1076, he was already helping build his first full-fledged temple to Imhotep. He had been with the priests for only nineteen months.
When the new temple became operational, the priests found themselves performing regular services in additional to the free healing. And (slowly at first) the donations began to roll in. When Burol grumbled about the promises that Roderick had made to secure the financing, Roderick wrote up a “business plan” that showed the temple would be able to retire their debt in five years. Daniel felt that was a reasonable length of time, and once again Burol (as the junior priest), was obliged to agree.
When the debt was retired early after only four years, Burol happily admitted that Roderick had been right all along.
The next few years were ones of great expansion. Two new priests (Samhunt, or simply “Sam”, and Rynther) joined the ranks of the temple, as well as several acolytes. In time, Sam would prove to be Roderick's greatest friend in the temple. He had come to Teleme from the kingdom of Backbone in what the Telemi quaintly referred to as “the old world”.
About this time, Roderick's membership in the temple became official as he joined the ranks of the acolytes, but his heart remained in business administration - and the priests obliged his muse, often commenting that Imhotep must have a reason for him to be good at such things.
When Roderick had been with the temple for 11 years, the goblins invaded the hinterlands. It was December, 1085, and as it was over 100 miles away, across land still in dispute with the native Ourai peoples, the war was barely noticed in the city. However, the priest Daniel spent many weeks travelling back and forth to the hinterlands to heal the warriors who fought in the futile attempt to win back the lands. During this time, Burol was left to run the temple and he did such a decent job that when Daniel returned, he handed over the priestly duties to Burol full-time.
Daniel never spoke in detail of what horrors he had seen during the war, but after his return, he was a changed man. While he was only in his mid-40's at the time, his health deteriorated quickly after his ordeal in the hinterlands and he remained frail until his death six years later in September, 1092. Burol always felt that Daniel must have extended his healing magics too far, though Daniel never believed (or admitted) that he had.
By the time Daniel died, Roderick was 32 years old and the temple had once again outgrown its building …