Ok, so as I posted a few weeks ago I'm new to the whole roleplay scene. I'm trying to come up with an origins story for my dwarf pit fighter and it's just not happening. I come from a fantasy battles background and until our gaming group picked up WFRP, I didn't know dwarf pit fighters even existed! I've never been much into the fluff side of the hobby and I hated writing in school, I'm a numbers guy. I didn't really want to post on here asking for help, as I wanted this to be "my character" but I'm stumped. Yeah, I know about the ten questions in the character creation section of the rulebook but I'll be damned if I don't get stuck on the first freakin' question. So i ask, what does the community think of when you hear, Grom Helmsplitter,dwarf pit fighter?

Wasn't Grom the Paunch from the Misty Mountains a goblin big boss? Or was it Crom? Either way I would imagine a dwarf with a similar name to have chosen this kind of a name for himself. Quite possibly for the same reason he was forced to leave his clan and join such a perverse sport as pit fighting. His nickname (or last name) would indicate that he has a signature strike. Like striking a thunderous blow to the head splitting any helmet (and skull). I'd see him as a rugged fighter who despises the "natural" ways of dwarfs (making him a suitable companion for an adventure party).

Other than that I REALLY would like you to watch Spartacus: Blood and Sand. It is an excellent tv-series showing the life of gladiators in Rome. Also if your GM allows you to there is a neat pit fighting group in the Omens of War supplement.

Thanks Doc. I'm thinking along the lines of "regular dwarf warrior from a lost hold moves to the empire becoming a pit fighter to support himself". It's the details that are hard to come by. I want my story to fit with current fluff and not be generic but I'm just not familiar enough with the setting/lore of warhammer even though I've played fantasy battles for ten years.

just add a little flavour. perhaps he joined the pit fights because he was looking to resolve a grudge against another fighter. the only way he can get to this fighter is through the competition circuit.

Ok,what does the community think of this? Grom Helmsplitter is a talented but aging blood bowl player,gets traded to a team in the empire(which would explain why he's in the empire) and eventually gets cut/retires. He finds the quite life isn't for him. Missing the rush of his playing days,he sets to pit fighting to prove he's still got "it", a la' a professional boxer/wrestler to MMA.

Grom is pretty much a greenskin name and seems a bit weird for a dwarf unless you have a good RP reason for it.

Blood Bowl isn't really canon. I mean, it doesn't actually exist in the "normal" version fo the Warhammer setting.

I remember Pit Fighter was a warrior type in Warhammer Quest and had a special rule based on being in debt. Basically, pit fighters were indebted to their managers and earned money in the pits to buy their freedom. I dunno, there might be something in that? Dwarfs are sticklers for settling their debts.

Yeah, Grom is a dwarf(ish) name. I'm a member of Bugman's Brewery(a WHFB site for dwarfs) and got it from a article on dwarf names. As for blood bowl,I know about the whole "parallel universe" bit but our gaming group is open to pretty much anything. I've thrown out a couple ideas to our GM to include blood bowl in "our warhammer" and he was more than happy to do it.

What if Grom is just a brute, and a drunk at this point? I mean sure there is more to the guy than that, but you'll have to figure that out in the course of roleplay.

All you need in addition to brute + drunk (or just brute) is a bit of thrust in two directions. Two opposed ideas that have currently got him all bound up into the pit fighting gig. All he needs is the impetus from the GM's planned events to introduce a bit of drama betwist the two.

So what makes a guy a brute and a drunk? Lots of things. But some good ones for roleplay would either be man vs self or man vs world. Man versus self, he's feeling pretty crappy about what he's done, who he is, what he keeps on doing. But has himself locked in some pattern. Then you break that via roleplay. Man versus world, he's feeling pretty hopeless in the face of a world that just keeps piling on the crap regardless of how much he tries. Dwarf society has ample room for both of these scenarios what with grudges, honour and the sins of the great great great great great great grandfather passing down to his s-- heel of a descendant who still owes Barak Varr a new custom forged and engineered set of hinges for the sea gate to make up for some minor (by human standards) infraction of duty about 670 years ago.

So…a dwarf starts drinking (more than the 12 beer daily recommended dose for all dwarves) and taking out some of that pent up agression every Festag night to the roaring of a few dozen c---s in a butcher's cellar in Ubersreik. You live in a human town because at least the only debts you have to worry about are from your pox riddled land lady and your fight manager Fidgel Stote (a halfling fight organiser that owns most of the butcheries in town that sit above the fighting pits, and the closest thing you have to a friend).

But your man Grom is getting bogged down in the same old thing, and a few more concussions are going to see the vision in your left eye go from s-- to completely blind. And then Fidge will probably put you down instead of dealing with the blowback from the city magistrate for letting broken old abussive bums walk the streets. What a friend! And there are a few new fighters that are just younger and faster than you are…getting punched in the head and resetting your nose might be getting old…

What could his heroic motivations/complications be? Maybe he'd really like to prove to himself or someone else that he's not a total waste. Maybe he'd just like to make a bit more coin and work for someone a bit taller gutting people under the open sky instead of in a stinking cellar twice a week. Or maybe he's going to be in some legal trouble unless he makes a deal to "help" out one of the other player characters. Never mind that 'ol Grom was framed up for whatever it was that landed him in the klink.

Or…something else entirely

Wow callidon, that's much better off the top of your head than I've been able to do in a week…I suck at descriptive writing. To be honest, only 1 person(between here and bugman's brewery) has liked my blood bowl idea… I thought it was pretty good. So I've been thinking of a conan"esque" story. Grom gets captured as a young beardling in a chaos attack and forced to pit fight somewhere in the northern wastes. He escapes to the empire where he pit fights because it's all he knows. If I went this route, I'd want my age ,dates/timeline,named karaks, and famous battles to match up to current fluff. I'll see what I can come up with.