Art done by the amazing, wonderful, super-psychic
Character designed and belonging to me ^_^
Oread species is from the Pathfinder RPG

Oret is the Cohort of my Pathfinder character Addo the summoner.
(yes, I'm a character hoarder. Eidolon, summon monsters, a familiar, pets, charmed NPCs, and now a cohort. Most DM's would kill me lol. Typically, though, I don't travel as a large pack, so it's easy to still RP quickly. Many of my tag-alongs are just for flavor ^_^)

ORET'S BACKSTORY:

Oretarkan (or, Oret, as he prefers to be called), grew up in a small village. Born an oread, his blood was of shaitan ancestry, which speaks for the lumps of stone growing in his flesh. He is slow and sturdy, and much stronger than he might look. The villagers he grew up with held a great deal of respect for him, but his peers had imparted on him a strong sense of wanderlust. At an early age of 20, he set out on his own with nothing but the clothes on his back and excited anticipation in his smile.

He was a survivalist. He knew how to catch and cook his own food, and how to navigate the local wilds, but he decided to stick mainly to the road. It was on the road that all the great stories started off, after all. He spent days traveling the dirt path before he ran into anyone else, and then he wished he hadn't.

These people weren't like the people from his village. They attacked him, beating him with clubs and stones and drove him off with shouts and jeers, calling him a monster. He hid in a cave in the forest for days after that incident, mending his wounds. But youthful optimism was not so easily beaten. Once he was feeling better, he abandoned his impromptu camp and headed back to the highway of adventure. But again, he met a similar disaster, though this time he was quick enough to escape unscathed.

Again and again, he tried, and again and again he was treated with disdain at the best and violence at the worst. Youthful optimism became infected with a cancerous melancholy. Over the following years, he slowly gave up his hopes for a life of venture and fortune and retired to the life of a hermit, fashioning himself a small cave home in the hills.

This is where my character, Addo Oakwald, first meets him roughly 50 years later. While roaming the hills and taking his new pets for a walk, Addo's nose picked up the scent of death lingering down from the hillside. It was common knowledge that there had been a rock-slide earlier that day. Everyone in the village had felt it, and his cabin had been shaken even worse, with its close proximity in the hills. Nobody in town had business up here today though- they were all gathered at the blueberry festival. Still, the scent of death was unmistakable, and Addo decided to check it out.

Following his nose, he arrived at a patch of fresh rubble, and although he thought little of it at first, Cruvie the snake was quick to point out the hand sticking up from the debris. Addo gawked at the sight as he made his way over to it. How Cruvie had spotted it was beyond him; the hand blended in perfectly with its surroundings, as if it were made of stone. Addo bent down and took hold of it, and sure enough it clasped around his own and allowed the rest of its form to be tugged free.

It was no easy task. Almost ten minutes of tugging, combined with the digging efforts of Cruvie and Meikkiel, had only unburied half of the figure that was Oret. Time moved slowly, but the job got done, and Addo had the oread man brought to his cabin, where the village apothecary came to work her magic.

In a few short days, Oret had been nursed back to full health, and had begun to warm up to Addo and his other underlings. Meikkiel didn't seem to mind the oread, and vice versa. They seemed to share some sort of natural, empathic respect for one another. Cruvie's natural suspicious attitude seemed to have faded around Oret as well, and even Gobrin the imp seemed to be on friendly terms with the rock-man.

When he learned that Addo's profession was venturing out, doing freelance work and finding treasures, a long lost glimmer of hope began to rekindle within him. No longer having a home, for his cave had been deeply buried, Addo offered Oret to stay in his cabin, and as the days went by, Oret learned the countless tales of adventure that Addo had undergone in his short life. Each tale told brought Oret's old, buried feelings of wanderlust closer and closer to the surface. It was no wonder he leapt on the opportunity when Addo invited him to tag along on a quick request to sort out the rumors of a hag's hex on a neighboring town.

The endeavor was settled quickly, but Oret's old excitement had fully returned, and he had found the ordeal to be far too short. His help, however, had been monumental, and his skill with a bow invaluable. Thus, Addo decided to officially take him on as a cohort.