@Mae I was thinking about that, and I had the idea that Vodalus decides to join the party not entirely out of his own free will. What happened was, he found out while he was in the tavern that the church authorities had caught up with him, and were closing in on the tavern. He searched frantically for exit points, but found church agents coming through each one.
Then, he sees an adventuring party about to go into the dungeons. He grits his teeth, reviews his options, and decides that his only way of escape is going into the dungeon. He frantically yet amiably approaches them, and offers to join at the last minute before they descend.
So to answer your question, I guess he's been in the tavern a decent amount of time (especially if he was enjoying having drinks bought for him thanks to the sermon he performed in the town the previous day). But he only met the party at the last minute.
I'll try to post as soon as I can! Sorry I haven't been able to yet– I just started school today and I'll be busy tomorrow. However, I think I can get a post up by Wednesday.
In other, more charitable words, “stout,” “plus-sized,” “big-boned.” In less charitable ones, “oversized,” “corpulent,” “ventripotent.”
It is clear that serving as the priest of a fabulously wealthy temple to Bahamut in a major city allows for one to live a certain lifestyle possessing many qualities, but abstemious not being one of them. Vodalus clocks in at almost thirty stone. His is not a squat, pot-bellied figure, however. He can be (and has been many times) likened to an upright bathtub filled with lard– tall, broad-shouldered, and not entirely lacking power, even if his middling strength comes only from his general volume. His shaved head, bald as a stone and round as a dome, is in its own way equal in marvelousness to his frame.
But Vodalus is more than the sum of his flesh, great though that sum may be. He has also clothing: an immense mauve cassock shrouds most of his frame, and a periapt of lazulite hangs around his bloated neck.
Before any discussion of Vodalus’ origins, it is mandatory that a disclaimer in colossal, capitalized letters be attached to the foremost end of the recounting. A stern, exacting declaration that Vodalus’ career path is not representative of Faerun’s population of priests, fat people, and fat priests, and that stereotypes of gluttony, cupidity, and mendacity are wholly inappropriate to sign off entire groups of people.
That being said, Vodalus is exactly what you think he is.
Vodalus was born into a noble family of not inconsiderable wealth, power and influence. Had he been born earlier in line, he might have actually had the chance to enjoy some of that wealth, power, and influence, and the background listed on his character sheet would be “noble” rather than “acolyte.” Such was not the fate of a third son, and a career in either the civil service or clergy beckoned.
Vodalus was given the choice between the two, as well as the third and terribly overrated option of voluntary exile. Since third born sons are typically married off to women of fourth and fifth-rate attractiveness, he chose the vestments of the Church of Bahamut to avoid such a fate, at least until such time as he had improved his bargaining power.
Vodalus found the religion of Bahamut to be very quaint. Its tenets were honesty, compassion, mercy, and justice, just as the platinum dragon commanded. He was swiftly enamored by it. Honest, compassionate, merciful, and just people are quite easy to take advantage of. Vodalus worked his way up the sacerdotal ranks with the help of his booming sermons of incomparable zeal. For a long time, his fellow priests of Bahamut watched in awe and respect as the worshippers used to solemn, somnolent ceremonies were overwhelmed by pathos, theatrical displays, and all manner of priestly histrionics. It became easy, then, for them to turn a blind eye to unaccountable lacunae in the financial records, overflowing collection baskets that were strangely sparse when they left the altar, and the swelling weight of their star priest that suggested a lifestyle a little far from mendicancy.
The moment of judgement came, as the flock and clergy would insist later, from divine intervention. Vodalus is today not sure if he would disagree. However, he does not think that the deity in question was Bahamut.
During a sermon that Vodalus would look back upon as being possibly his most orotund and accomplished, the great priest suddenly collapsed. The worshippers were stunned and horrified to discover their favorite cleric had been caught in the grip of a seizure.
The subconscious mind of Vodalus had been struck by a misfired spell! The caster was a being from the Astral Plane that neither Vodalus nor anyone else of the lesser, Material Plane could see. To this day, the priest has no idea what was the intent of the spell, or even entirely what transpired. All he knows is that for a long while, time melted into an abstract concept. He wandered the ethereal seas of the Astral Plane as a wraith of some form. He might have been an elemental, a demon, a lesser god. He can only remember hazily that he encountered and conversed with other such entities, and that his presence in their realm was not welcome.
If Vodalus had been expecting to regain his consciousness in his own bed, surrounded by concerned followers and clergy, then he would have been correct. Yet he also would have been more than a little surprised to find the crowd gathered around his bed seething with rage. His attempts to explain the numerous items of evidence they procured before him, from the hoards of gold hidden around his manse (which, to his credit, had been hidden well enough so that they could not find all of them), to the multitudinous mistresses he had kept sheltered away from the sight of the flocks to which he preached chastity and abstinence, did not go as successfully as he would have liked. Vodalus would have been stripped of his priestly garb had he not thought of some cunning legerdemain to distract his accusers and make a hasty getaway.
Now, he finds himself still in the holy profession, albeit with his reputation transformed from an asset into a constant peril. In general, encounters with his former flock and fellow clergy are rare. When they do occur, Vodalus has no choice but to quit town or find some ingenious way of covering his tracks.
So far as covering his tracks has gone, the others in his party know nothing of his scandalous past. Or, at least, the ones that do know value the much desired place he fills in their ranks as a healer enough to stay silent and ignore his continued indiscretions. Vodalus is made even more irreplaceable by his command of no less than three exceptionally uncommon tongues: Celestial, Primordial, and Abyssal. If Vodalus is not totally honest as to how he acquired these languages, then, to be fair, it may be because he doesn’t really know himself.
Do you have any restrictions regarding what alignment we can play as? I was thinking of playing as a priest who was ousted from his position for corruption– a fact which he hides from the rest of the party– and, while possessing some desire to reform himself, also retains some of his base tendencies.
And what is the method for rolling stats? Is it in order, or can we assign the numbers wherever we like? And is it 4d6, drop 1 or some other method like just rolling 3d6?
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