Rack Jackham

FRIENDS!!

I am the demi-god Rack Jackham, scion of the Cat Lord, avatar of redemption, slayer of Accererak, wielder of the Staff of the Forgotten One! And bearing me aloft is my trusty steed Glimmermoon!

We each must decide how to live our lives. And we each must bear individual responsibility for our choices. I am here to set you on the correct path. The path of goodness. The path of rightness. The path of redemption.

FRIENDS!! A powerful ruler once asked, "What is best in life?"

A fool replied: "TO CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, TO DRIVE THEM BEFORE YOU, AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN."

No no no. To that I say NAY!

FRIENDS!! What is truly best in life?

The righteous answer is, of course, FRIENDSHIP!

And what is Friendship? Dear friends, surely you know that FRIENDSHIP…. is MAGIC!

The Story of Jack, excerpt from The Book of Jack:

Rack “The Jack” Jackham Eloquence Bard 4 Redemption Paladin 6 Warlock 3 (Celestial with Cat Lord)

Rack Jackham was the product of a dalliance between his father The Cat Lord and his mother Mina Noor, a Rakshasa who renounced the Nine Hells and sought redemption on the material plane through a life of quiet contemplation.

Marked with fiendish ancestry by the backwards hands of his mother, he was shunned by most common folk out of fear and ignorance. As a young tom, Rack led the lifestyle of a notorious hell-raker and dandy before falling into an accidental life of piracy and adventure.

Reluctant to use violence except as a last resort, he always styled himself as “a lover, not a fighter.” He made many friends during his journey through Chult, most notably with Withers, the undead majordomo for the arch-lich Acererak. With great pride Withers gave Rack and his band of adventurers a tour of the Tomb of Annihilation, where Rack acquired the control gem of a bonded Slaad who he freed and took into his service.

Rack dubbed his new wingman ‘Vlad’ and equipped him with powerful artifacts and weapons, including the sentient greatsword Hazurawn, which he acquired from his Harper colleague Gash the Good.

Soon Rack and Vlad were fast friends like the mythical duo Han and Chewie, working together with his party to slay the arch-lich Acererak and end the feared Death Curse that had afflicted the land.

With Acererak defeated, the lich’s legendary staff came into Rack’s possession after being passed over by all other members of his adventuring party. Known to sages as the Staff of the Forgotten One, Rack felt the first stirrings of Holy Purpose when he wielded the staff and communed with the spirit of the arch wizard within.

In the hands of Acererak the staff was an instrument of great evil, but Rack was overwheled with the conviction that it could be redeemed by the hand that wielded it. If his mother, spawned as a fiend of the nine hells, could renounce her evil nature and take up a life of gentle contemplation, then hope of redemption resided in all beings.

Contemplating this epiphany, Rack set out on a pilgrimage to meet the Cat Lord and learn of his own heritage. After a meandering journey walking the path of a holy avatar, spreading the power of redemption among the Lost and Fallen, he finally got his wish and met his father in the flesh.

The Cat lord, seeing his child’s earnest wish to spread his mother’s Redemption, made Rack a deciple and charged him to go out into the world and spread his message of the one true path open to all free souls.

For as the Cat Lord said: “We each must decide how to live our lives. And we each must bear responsibility for our choices. There is only one correct moral path. The path of goodness. The path of rightness. The path of Righteousness. The path of Patient Redemption.

Go now. Follow your own path and make your own choices. But choose wisely! For all beings can find redemption even in the darkest hour.”

With that, Rack set out on a new quest. A quest to bring redemption to the world through UNIVERSAL FRIENDSHIP! He shares his story, and free copies of his book, The Book of Jack, every night by the campfire with all who will listen.

“FRIENDS! What is truly best in life? The righteous answer is, of course, FRIENDSHIP!

And what is Friendship? Dear friends, surely you know that FRIENDSHIP… is magic!”

• The Book of Jack