Percival
OP had come saying "/tg/, the new guy in our group (his first time gaming) just sent in his backstory. I'm not sure whether this is the stupidest thing ever, or the most awesome thing ever. How do I respond to this?" And then related the following,
Percival[edit | edit source]
Born to high-class parents in an affluent village, Percival was given everything a child could possibly need to grow into a strong, upstanding man. The fact that he completely failed to do so is not a testament to the power of destiny or the sudden caprices of fate, but was because he was kind of a dick.
Whatever one may say about Percival, his ability to brood was absolutely unmatched. He brooded pretty much constantly from the age of four onwards, and anything could set him off, from a gift of a new tunic when he really wanted a toy sword to the peas on his dinner plate touching the carrots. His soul burned with a dark and hidden fire, and he knew that one day vengeance would be his.
He did not join the service of the Lord of Vengeance until his sixteenth year. At that time, Percival was sickly (he found manual labor beneath him) and had cultivated an unfortunate little moustache, but he had still managed to win the heart of a local barmaid's daughter, who liked him because he really understood the pain she felt.
That is, until Sir Tristan moved into town. A newly-minted paladin, lantern-jawed and pious, he won her affections effortlessly with his displays of strength and caring. Percival was unable to challenge him in any way whatsoever, and so he sat in his darkened room and brooded while reading poetry. He decided, in the end, that he would strike back for all of the daily injustices the world inflicted on him. He would become a paragon of righteous fury, a beacon of justice in an unjust world. He would become a cleric of Saint Cuthbert, and the world would quake at the sound of his coming vengeance.
The monks of Saint Cuthbert welcomed him, for they were all dicks as well. Vengeance for them was an everyday thing. In the refectory of their monastery, a hundred monks ate every meal with only ninety-nine chairs between them. The corridors were so narrow that shoving was mandatory, even for midnight trips to the only chamber pot in the dormitory. The halls were always filled with sacred music, provided by colicky babies placed in ornate alcoves along the walls. Percival soon grew strong in his petulance, and was ready for his first trial: to destroy the woman who had ruined his life.
He left for his hometown early one morning, with a mace in one hand and a bottle of cheap spirits in the other. By the time the sun went down, he had dropped the mace but still held the spirits, beating impotently on his ex-girlfriend's parents' front door and screaming about how he was the only one who really loved her. The local constabulary came to haul him off, but before they did he had already pissed on the front door and punched her dad in the stomach.
In Saint Cuthbert's eyes, that was vengeance enough.