A Goliath cleric, isekai’d to Edyrea from Val, and former surgeon of the pirate ship the Black Wake (e00 01:15, e00 01:33), which left him behind in a cavern below Wriem when it was pulled back through a portal (e01 00:41, e01 00:45). He is wanted for execution in most seas, and now counts the other three isekai’d arrivals as his crew (e02 00:43, e02 00:45), with whom he is heading to Holst to cure the Hollowing Plague (e04 01:19).
Details
Appearance and personality
Vargus is a Goliath standing about seven foot eight and weighing well over 400 pounds — a large, rotund figure (e00 01:15); in e01 – When the Moon Hits the Sky he is described as seven foot nine and well over 400 pounds, with gold teeth that shine in the torchlight (e01 00:39). He is quick to laugh and quick to joke, takes life as it comes in classic pirate fashion, and believes in taking what’s his while answering to whoever is strongest in front of him at the time (e00 01:16, e00 01:36). He has never walked on solid ground in his life, and his legs are wobbly on it (e01 00:44); where he comes from there is no land (e03 00:04), and he doesn’t know what a rabbit is (e03 00:03). He is too big and heavy to sneak (e03 00:19). He insists he is not a brute but a healer and surgeon (e03 00:31). He believes you can’t save everyone — “that’s just a fact of life” (e03 01:39). He will eat or drink anything with almost no reaction — once a party trick for easy money among other ships and gamblers, now a morbid curiosity of his own to find whether there is anything his ironclad stomach can’t handle (e04 00:07, e04 00:07). He has excellent handwriting, and signs his name in fine, classic calligraphic cursive (e04 01:24, e04 01:24). He swallows food whole, without chewing (e05 01:24). He calls himself a man with a herbalism kit and a will to make money (e05 00:31), and says he’s a pirate but a man of his word, who honors all deals (e05 01:15, e05 01:15).
He’s known back home as the Butcher of Macari, a region of ocean on Val (e00 01:15). He tells Rue that “Butcher” is a nickname, that everyone should have one, and offers to find one for her (e01 00:45, e01 00:46); he calls Wisp “Otter” (e02 00:57). He can read, and speaks four languages (e02 00:50, e02 00:50). He thinks keeping a written record is dangerous — things should be kept in memory, where no one who catches you can use them against you (e02 00:51). Robbing, he says, has been his whole life up to now, and he’s good at it: he robs big men who take from others and gives it to the people they stole from, but not the poor, or allies and comrades at arms — “it’s what I was made to do” (e04 00:37, e04 00:37, e04 00:37, e04 00:38, e04 00:38, e04 00:47). He says everybody gets one death, sometimes two, and that people here who get three, four, or five should be robbed and killed for the last time (e04 01:02, e04 01:02, e04 01:02, e04 01:02).
Background
Vargus served his whole life as surgeon of the Black Wake, captained by a man named Zachariah (e00 01:33). He says he was born in the southeast, spent some time in the island chains, and came aboard the Black Wake early on — raised from a baby on the ship (e02 00:15, e02 00:15, e02 00:45). As a crew member of a notorious gang of pirates, he isn’t legally allowed to set foot on any land or flotilla anywhere, and is wanted for execution in most seas (e02 00:43, e02 00:43, e02 00:44). He calls himself a criminal whose job is pillaging and stealing, as well as being butcher and surgeon for his crew (e02 00:44, e02 00:45, e02 00:45). Where he is from, a few trees’ worth of lumber would make someone very rich (e02 00:42); his ship kept a couple of flowers below deck, which the crew liked to look at and sniff (e03 00:33). He says the ship left him behind; he doesn’t think it was on purpose, and doesn’t think he upset the captain (e01 00:45). Other crewmates included Johnny, whom he was picking up in the fight when the ship was pulled back into the portal, and Bonnie Sue, who swung on a rope into the front of a ship and couldn’t be put back together (e04 00:52, e04 00:52, e04 00:54, e04 00:54). He says that if his captain were here, he would have killed everybody up top already (e04 01:02); the captain likes to break wheels, and would have problems with the status quo here (e05 00:56, e05 00:57). On the ship, the crew paid for the cabin, refitting, food, and keeping the weapons clean before getting their cut (e05 00:29, e05 00:29, e05 00:29). He owes an unpaid debt to a crewmate named One-Arm Pete, who has no legs and only one arm — Pete once saved Vargus’s life during a cannon exchange between ships, and Vargus has long promised, but never managed, to restore his missing limbs (e00 01:18).
He reveres Our Lady of the Deep, Val’s presiding god, mostly out of the pervasive superstition of life at sea; he otherwise defers to whoever holds the most power in the moment, placing only his captain above that calculation (e00 01:36). He can’t swim; he says Our Lady of the Deep takes the souls of those who enter the water, screaming, into the depths, for blasphemy (e01 00:58, e01 00:59). He says she will take you just for sitting, so you have to keep running; everything they have comes from her, but she will murder you for funsies, and takes a lot more than she gives (e04 00:56, e04 00:56, e04 00:56, e04 00:56). A deal with her always comes out worse for you than for her — you mostly get what you want, at a horrible cost — and such deals are signed in contract with the sea; Vargus already has one (e05 01:09, e05 01:10, e05 01:10).
Abilities and gear
Violence isn’t Vargus’s first instinct — he’s a healer by trade, though his tools resemble a butcher’s, and he maintains that surgeons and butchers are fundamentally doing the same thing (e00 01:16). He’ll remove a crewmate’s limbs if he judges them too damaged to save, replacing them with a peg or, when convenient, someone else’s spare limb (e00 01:17). He fights with a butcher’s cleaver and sutures wounds with surprisingly deft fingers (e01 00:40).
He is a cleric, though he didn’t specify a subclass in session zero (e00 01:32). He heals by touch (e01 01:58), and can turn into water and move about 30 feet before turning back, which he credits to the many gifts Our Lady gives (e01 01:19). He keeps herbs and salves in the many pockets of his apron (e05 00:44, e05 01:17). He puts people to sleep by blowing on a pinch of sand and rose petals, whispered words on his breath; sprays a cloud of poison from a bottle with the same whistling breath; and, pointing his cleaver, tolls a solemn horn at a foe (e05 01:17, e05 01:17, e05 01:37, e05 01:37, e05 01:46, e05 01:46).
Flaws and Covenants
Flaws are drawbacks the GM gives when a character does something they maybe shouldn’t have, or something goes badly; covenants are deals a character makes with the GM for a result, costing more the stronger they are (e01 01:29).
- Flaw — for going down in the first combat (announced e01 01:24): the GM notes that he will give a flaw to everyone who went down in the first combat; Vargus was one of them (e01 01:24, e01 01:27). What the flaw is isn’t stated on-air.
- Flaw — remembers only what isn’t written (received e02 00:52): Vargus has advantage on remembering things that have not been written down, and disadvantage on remembering things that have been; Orrin was given the opposite flaw at the same moment (e02 00:52, e02 00:52, e02 00:53).
- Flaw — Spell Burn (received e03 01:03): the arcanery explosion in Wriem engulfed Vargus and the others in fire that burned, but not physically; the GM gave everyone caught in it a flaw called Spell Burn and didn’t say what it does (e03 01:02, e03 01:02, e03 01:03).
- Flaw — Stealthy Spellcasting (received e05 01:19): if someone doesn’t know a spell is being cast on them, they have disadvantage on the save — and the same goes for spells cast on Vargus (e05 01:18, e05 01:19, e05 01:19).
Story so far
The Fissure Below Wriem (e01–e04)
Vargus came halfway through a portal on the deck of the Black Wake, fighting beside its skeletal captain, Zachariah, until a tentacle pulled the ship back and left him behind in a cavern below Wriem (e01 00:39, e01 00:41). Knocked down fighting the moon goblins, he was stabilized by Wisp, then healed Rue and Orrin (e01 01:41, e01 01:58). He kept Orrin’s wand out of Gilbert’s reach, admitted he is a pirate wanted for execution in most seas, and counted the party as his crew (e02 00:33, e02 00:43, e02 00:45). In the attack on Wriem he shielded civilians and Matilda, received the Spell Burn flaw, and dressed a plague bite a mother was hiding; when he said you can’t save everyone, Mikhail Asimi told him, “You’re wrong” (e03 00:19, e03 01:03, e03 01:12, e03 01:40). At Willy’s Wards he laid out his code for who to rob and told Orrin about Our Lady of the Deep, before setting out with the others for Holst (e04 00:38, e04 00:56, e04 01:19). See e01 – When the Moon Hits the Sky, e02 – We're Not From Here, e03 – Kaiju City Battle: First Responders, e04 – A Spot to Rest our Pot.
Relationships
The Road to Holst (e05–)
e05. Vargus balked at the binding Vormondian slip Anise wanted signed, and got the truth of what she had told their rivals added to it (e05 01:09, e05 01:11). He put Kendrick’s guards to sleep, receiving the Stealthy Spellcasting flaw, and offered Kendrick a way out before granting him a fair fight; afterward he paid Kendrick’s bandits to get him out of town alive, and talked them out of fighting over the money (e05 01:19, e05 01:32, e05 01:34, e05 01:53, e05 01:54). See e05 – The Mask of Humanity Falls From Capital.
Relationships
- Val — Vargus’s home world.
- The Black Wake — Vargus’s former ship and crew.
- Our Lady of the Deep — the god Vargus reveres.
- Orrin, Wisp, Rue — fellow isekai’d party members; he calls them his crew now (e02 00:45).
Episode history
- e00 (01:15) — introduced; established as a Goliath cleric and former pirate ship’s surgeon from Val.
- e01 (00:39) — arrives through a portal on the Black Wake’s deck and is left behind when the ship is pulled back.
- e02 (00:43) — reveals he is wanted for execution in most seas; flaw for not trusting written records.
- e03 (00:19) — shields civilians and Matilda; Spell Burn flaw; Mikhail tells him “You’re wrong”.
- e04 (00:07) — his ironclad stomach; crewmates Johnny and Bonnie Sue; heads for Holst.
- e05 (01:19) — Stealthy Spellcasting flaw; already has a deal with Our Lady of the Deep; spares Kendrick.