Nopalo, Chief cook and bottle washer

[Nopalo]

Character Name: Nopalo

Gender: Male

Apparent Age: Mid – 40s

Race: Human

Appearance: He is of less than average height, but makes up for it in girth, being nearly as big around as he is high. He wears a set of chef’s whites, the trousers tucked into a high laced boot on his right foot. His left leg ends at the knee, and is supported by a peg, its point wrapped with leather. His hair and beard are sprinkled with grey, and the laugh wrinkles are deep around his eyes. He frequently wipes sweat off his face and balding head with a huge red kerchief.

Background, in his own words: “I come from a family of loggers. Loggers we be, and loggers we've been, for generations gone. And a logger I was, too, until a falling tree took an ugly twist and I couldna' run far enough fast enough to get away from him. I slipped and scrambled, but he caught me. 'Twas a meetin' of the limbs, you might say, but his limb was harder than mine, an' it was mine what got trimmed. While I was waitin' for it to heal, I got me a chunk o' that tree an' carved me out a new leg. I figured it was no more than fair, since he took mine, I'd be replacin' it with his.

"When I was up and about again, 'twas agreed that, since I'd be needin' to pull my weight in the family, I should be doin' the cookin'. But after the first couple o' meals, they thought better of it. So my Pa sent me to the town an' arranged for me to be apprenticed to the best cook there. I spent a year, an' when I returned to the woods, I could cook to satisfy even my Ma, herself. Word got around, an’ ‘twasn’t long before I was getting’ an offer t’ cook back in the town. I moved around a bit, an’ wherever I went I was learnin’ more an’ more, till I finally set me roots down at Mylanders. After th’ disaster there…. Ye’d not heard of it? Aye, well, I’d not be speakin’ ill o’ the dead, so we’ll be lettin’ it lay. I moved here an’ there, sometimes takin’ advantage of a handy portal, till I wound up in this land, cookin’ in Egralner. Then Lady Luck smiled on me, (see Nopalo’s Place in ‘Places’) an’ I fell heir t’ this establishment.”

Strengths: For all his bulk, he is extremely strong and agile with a sharp eye and quick reflexes, which have saved him from many a bite or kick from his mule Jake – one of the meanest mules in the multiverse. He is deadly with a sling from a distance, and at close range can cut a swathe through a mob with a frying pan or an iron ladle – or his wooden leg, if nothing else is handy.

Weaknesses: Usually optimistic and happy-go-lucky, he is occasionally subject to fits of deep depression, especially when confronted with injustice that he cannot remedy. At these times, he usually rides away on his mule, seeking solitude until the mood wears off – anything from two days to a month.