Silvestre’s Tale Noir (R-rated) 
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Class: Martial Artist
The bellicose WanDamn family was always fighting. It was the way of life in their frontier village. Silvestre’s siblings were fighting each other over broken toys and pieces of gooseberry pie; his mother was fighting neighbors over stolen laundry and abducted chickens; his grandmother was fighting delinquent teenagers; his grandfather was fighting rheumatism and tax collectors; and his perpetually stoned father was fighting everybody, including his own hallucinations. So, it’s fair to say that Silvestre WanDamn was a natural fighter. And, naturally, he did a little time in the slammer. There he was destined to meet and befriend another natural fighter taken into custody earlier, Ping Pong, a monk who hailed from the Far Provinces.
Silvestre was spellbound by Ping Pong’s long-winded stories about his exotic homeland and the awe-inspiring White Crane Monastery situated atop snow-covered Moon Shine Mountain, where leading austere life monks practiced martial arts, including legendary Funk Yu style of mortal combat.
Ping Pong told the inmates about the Morning Meal Ritual: at the Hour of Dragon every monk had to overcome a series of obstacles and deadly traps before reaching his breakfast – a piece of rice paper and a cup of tiger milk. That was the Way of the Chi-P’Monk. Ping Pong also told many wondrous tales about famous Punch-Master Big Bang, renowned Kick-Master Dig Dung, and eminent Grandmaster Peng Win who could walk on thin air and blend with his own shadow before delivering the fatal blow. But the most popular stories were about the bone-crushing Great Tournament held in the Blessed Hall of Jade.
Inspired by the Tournament tale, Silvestre begged Ping Pong to teach him Funk Yu. The monk was reluctant at first, but secretly enjoying all the attention and his new found “guru” status and having nothing else to do anyway, he finally agreed to share his knowledge and wisdom. Ping Pong explained to the perplexed neophyte that his fist was not a continuation of his arm, but of his mind, and proposed to start with meditation and rigorous exercise.
Learning to empty his mind was fairly easy for Silvestre. His mind had always been rather vacant, and after all strikes and blows to the head he had endured previously as a street fighter, there was not much left to present any difficulty emptying.
The chi-channeling proved to be much more difficult: the thin glowing current of Force was teasingly quivering just beyond his reach, like a monkey tail.
Nevertheless, this initial failure to seize chi did not put a damper on Silvestre’s fighting spirit. He kept banging his empty head against the brick wall until frustrated Warden Locust threatened to withhold dessert. As much as Silvestre enjoyed prison-style blancmange, he enjoyed banging his head even more: he stoically rejected the sweet deal and kept on vandalizing prison property.
Warden Locust was a sensible man who believed in law, order, and torture. He summoned a scrawny-necked priest of Ilmater to provide counseling; in other words, to probe and manipulate Silvestre’s mind for the benefit of all.
Upon arrival, the inquisitor unfolded several heavy parchments containing comprehensive questionnaires, and urged Silvestre to fill in the blanks, piercing the testee with a clairvoyant stare while a prison guard watchfully stood in the corner of the torture chamber, his hand resting on the hilt of his falchion.
Writhing in anguish, Silvestre goggled at the manuscript inscribed with the intricate words he was unable to decipher, and at the pen he awkwardly held in his callused hand. The curvy letters were dancing and the sentences coiling and uncoiling before his eyes, making him feel woozy. He emptied his mind and turned his gaze inwards: the thin sliver of chi was faintly flickering in the darkness of his misery, as usual beyond his grasp. Silvestre heard the cleric asking him whether he was hearing voices or seeing things and the words filled him with great pain akin to the resentment he experienced in the tavern every time a bouncer dared to insinuate that he was drunk and should make himself scarce. On pure fighting instinct he sprang in the air striking the cleric’s neck with the back of his palm, turned around in mid-air and, gaining momentum, kicked the guard who whimpered and dropped his falchion as he fell backwards. Not wasting any time, Silvestre rushed towards the window and jumped through, landing on the refuse heap, amid shards of broken glass.
A moment later he felt a tip of longsword pointing at his throat. He glanced up and beheld Warden Locust in all his terrible splendor, flanked by two menacing guards wielding cudgels. Silvestre slowly got up feeling the cold steel drawing a few drops of blood as Warden tried to restrict his upward movement. Ignoring the scratch, he looked Locust squarely in the eye and started reciting his sad tale. He told Warden about his dysfunctional family living in a dysfunctional neighborhood, about long tedious hours he had to work as a kid to buy his first sword because his poor parents could not afford one, and about circus clowns exerting devious influence on innocent children.
Silvestre kept talking, and Warden Locust gradually lowered his longsword, his eyes filled with tears. The guards were sobbing and blowing their noses too. Silvestre sighed ruefully, brushed away a solitary, manly tear, and peeked inwards: his capricious chi was quivering close at hand as if listening to his whining. He promptly grasped the glittering ray of energy and channeled it exactly as instructed by Ping Pong. Bursting with Force, he spun around and kicked tearful Warden Locust and blubbering guards in one powerful sweeping motion, stepped over their sprawled bodies, climbed the nearby wall and disappeared into the woods. At last Silvestre WanDamn was free to pursue his bone-crushing dream. Visions of the Great Tournament were beckoning him from afar.
In Baldur Gate III, you are going to meet Silvestre hiding in the woods after the jail break, slamming his head against tree trunks and hankering for glory. He will join your party if you promise to accompany him to the Moon Shine Mountain and climb ten thousand stone steps leading to the Monastery.
