Delilah (full name: Delilah Felicia Melynda Stephanie Raquel Shaniqua Gearcaster) was born forty-one years ago in the small town of Eldon. Her parents, Miranda and Horace Gearcaster (full names withheld in the interests of space constraints), came to the village as newlyweds over a century ago; her mother was a priestess of Gonza Goldwrench, and her father was a “precision smith”, a term created by Horace because the other races in the area simply didn’t know the word “mechanic”. The two of them worked to fix the devices that normally would have broken with time, helping the townspeople to preserve their favorite tools and simple machines for whole generations. Horace also built a few simple clocks, allowing for the townspeople to keep more accurate schedules. The town quietly prospered as a result, but the Gearcasters themselves only managed to have one child despite their material comfort.

Delilah’s first name was chosen by her parents because of its beauty, but her other names were all taken from other important family members, as is gnomish custom. She was, naturally, a very bright girl and took after both of her parents closely, following her goddess with a pure heart while learning the mechanic’s trade at her father’s side. When she was a small child, Delilah spent most of her time in her family’s home, not socializing much with the few other children of the village; it was only when she was just starting to enter her thirties the young gnome– still very much an adolescent to their people– began to talk to the people on her own and get to know some of the other youths of the village. She bonded with a particular group, most of whom would become her best friends, simply by crafting some toys for them out of wood and stone and bits of scrap metal from her father’s shop.

Her life, and the lives of every other person in the village, took a sharp turn for the worse after a catastrophic explosion destroyed most of the buildings in town. By the grace of their goddess, the Gearcasters’ shop suffered only light damage, and with their help the town was not only able to rebuild more readily, but they also discovered the source of the catastrophic explosion…

Delilah, for her part, stuck with her new friends, even as they trained to someday leave their village. The explosion, and the unusual, arcane reasons behind it, had told them that there were dangerous, terrible things outside their home. In order to prevent such a thing from ever happening again, they vowed to get stronger together, seek their fortune and glory, and return home to ensure it was never harmed again. Delilah focused her training to include both the passive spirituality of her mother’s religion and the active works of her clever father. Not content to be a simple priestess, she took up the vestments of the Cleric, donning both the armor of faith and armor of steel to venture forth and repair a broken world…