Fippy Darkpaw: The Biography of a Determined Gnoll

[Chitiwok]

<div align="center"><img src="http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu19 ... ppy1-1.png" alt="Fippy Darkpaw"></div>

For as long as anyone in Norrath can remember, a gnoll named Fippy Darkpaw has lived and died and lived and died and lived and died some more outside of the gates of Qeynos. Not content to level up in the same manner as the PCs he so loathed by killing the numerous and readily available rats, bats, and skeletons in his natural environment, Fippy took a more ambitious approach. The way Fippy saw it, if the white and blue con rats gave good experience, then the red-con city guards would give great experience. On top of that, there were sure to be many defenseless citizens inside the city to level up on if he could get past the guards. And so day and night, Fippy stormed the gates of Qeynos, determined to get to the rich, nougatty, XP-filled core of the city. More hardcore than any player ever to set foot in Norrath, Fippy did this for six years straight, day and night (Other than server downtime of course). Unfortunately for Fippy, as hardcore as he was, Guard Gehnus and Guard Hezlan were apparently harder-core. Each time the determined creature approached the city gates, he was quickly cut down by one of the Qeynos guards and never gained a bit of XP.

After six years of constant deaths, the Creators of Norrath - the great and mighty Devs - took pity upon their creation's most determined individual. As a birthday gift, they provided him with some extra power in recognition of his hard work over the years.

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Sadly, this power did little to make Fippy a threat to the guards and things continued largely as usual for our hero for another four years.

<div align="center"><img src="http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu19 ... dFippy.png" alt="Fippy Darkpaw"></div>

Then one fateful day, things began to turn around for Fippy. On that day, Nizzi, the benevolent leader of Eternal Sovereign, was venturing to Qeynos for supplies to use in the research of his most recent necromantic spells (supplies in this case being a few human corpses). While gathering supplies inside the city, Nizzi was shocked by the lack of reaction on the part of the guards he had seen at the gate on his way into Qeynos. Apparently, they had bigger concerns than the cries of "Aaargh, my spleen! That skeleton just pulled out my spleen!" and "Help! I'm on fire!" emanating from within the city. Having gathered enough spell components, and curious as to what could be of more concern to the guards than the immediate safety of the citizens of Qeynos, Nizzi hid in the shadows near the gate and observed the guards for a few hours. The only thing occupying the guards for the duration Nizzi watched was the repeated slaughter of a low-level gnoll named Fippy Darkpaw, who Nizzi reckoned the ex-baker in his bag could have fought off with a baguette were he still in possession of his spleen. It seemed the sadistic guards of Qeynos were more concerned with the repeated slaughter of this defenseless creature than with the safety of their own citizenry. He decided then and there that he would petition the Creators of Norrath to give the determined gnoll enough power to take his vengeance on the despicable humans that had tormented him for so long.

In order to petition the Creators, Nizzi would have to make a long journey to the temple of the Creators, known among their worshipers as Fan Faire. In order to get there, he would have to cross a great desert to reach the mystical land of Las Vegas. Knowing this journey would be too dangerous to take alone, Nizzi took with him an adventuring party of other Eternal Sovereign members. Memzin - a cleric, and Kaput - a paladin - in order to heal any injuries and sunburns incurred in the searing heat of the desert, and three rangers - Naedidar, Rohgziel, and Whipsnade - in order to help track down the Creators and to serve as sacrifices if such a gesture was required. After a long journey, the party arrived at the front gate of the temple. There, they met a young Paladin and Ranger who had wandered to Fan Faire on their own. These fledgling adventurers, barely over level 50, had gotten lost on their way to the Plane of Justice and ended up in Las Vegas. Seeing it as a chance to provide an eye-opening experience to the young adventurers, Nizzi invited them to join the party when the time came to have an audience with the Creators. This, as it would turn out, was his first and most grievous mistake of the journey.

When the time came, the party met with Absor the Smasher, Wielder of the Mighty Nerf Bat. Absor had been looking for ideas for a new raid encounter and heard that our band of adventurers may have a likely candidate. “Oh mighty Absor, whose Nerf Bat is merciful and just,” said Nizzi, “hear our plea. There is a gnoll residing outside of Qeynos who has, since the beginning of time, been tormented by a pair of cruel and sadistic guards. We ask that you provide this brave and determined creature, whose name is Fippy Darkpaw, enough strength to overcome the injustice your other creations have imposed upon him over the course of his many lives.”

“We have seen the plight of the one known as Fippy Darkpaw. I have been moved by your words and believe he would make a great candidate for a power-up to raid encounter.” replied Absor, “Do any of you have suggestions as to what powers he should have in his new form?”

It was at this point that the young Ranger and Paladin, who had never experienced a raid themselves, began to chime in with ideas. Horrible, terrible, gruesome ideas that the Creators themselves dared not joke about when discussing new creations. “He should have lots and lots of friends to help him out!” cried the Ranger. “Yeah! And if his friends get to a certain spot BIG BOMBS GO OFF! And there should be sharks with lasers on their heads!” added the young Paladin. “Oh OH! He should be super scary so that everyone should run away afraid! And they should all trip and fall over while they're trying to run!” shouted the Ranger. “And he should be able to kill a bunch of people in one hit! And have super awesome area effect spells that need to be cured!” the over-excited Paladin exclaimed. Absor cackled gleefully as he thought to himself, “If casual players enjoy dying this much, imagine how difficult I can make this event and still have high-end raiding guilds enjoy it!”

At this point, Nizzi saw things were getting out of hand, as Absor had started swinging the Nerf Bat dangerously as he laughed. “I am going to hate calling this event for my guild. This raid does not sound fun or enjoyable,” Nizzi plainly stated. However, by this point it was too late. “I love these ideas,” boomed Absor, “I will get to work on providing the poor creature with more power immediately. Look forward to the results in the next expansion! Now, I have many things to nerf and must take my leave. Good day to you, and enjoy your time in Norrath!”

And so all of the guilds of Norrath were made to suffer at Fippy's hand the same fate that Fippy had suffered for years at the hands of the Qeynos guards due to Nizzi's ill-fated decision to bring two inexperienced adventurers into the presence of Absor. All of the members of Eternal Sovereign knew it was up to them to defeat the scourge that their leader had unknowingly released upon Norrath. Night after night, we ran at the gates of Brell's Rest only to be slain by Fippy and his fellow gnolls. In order to repent for the sins of their younger brethren, who would likely never see the horrors they had unleashed, the Paladins and Rangers were ordered to handle the most dangerous jobs – bringing the fearsome beast to the raid and controlling his many allies, respectively:

<div align="center"><img src="http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu19 ... ulling.png" alt="Paladin Pulling Fippy"></div>
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After many weeks of hard work, hard gnoll fists to the face, and endless refinements to our tactics, Eternal Sovereign finally put an end to the pestilence born in the deserts of Las Vegas and defeated Fippy Darkpaw. Now we can only hope that he keeps his promise that if we strike him down a thousand times, he will return a thousand and one, as he drops some very nice loot these days.

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