Thursday, December 14, 2017

Dungeons and Dragons, "Character Ideas" episode 2

Ideas for Future Characters
            A while back I wrote up some short biographies for characters I thought about using in a 5th edition game of Dungeons and Dragons.  While I ended up using only one of them and have since moved on to running a game rather than playing in one.  However, and let’s be honest here, the most fun there is in Dungeons and Dragons is making a character.
            Since I like doing it, I figured I would make a chart in Excel and start checking off class/background combinations, by the end of this writing exercise I will have 156 character ideas.  I have decided not to include races, sub races, sub classes, or the backgrounds from supplemental materials.  Just the Players Handbook… FOR NOW.


            For fun, I will also give a numerical rating for whether I think something is “Interesting”.  There are characters that are so common as to be arch typical or even cliché, but maybe there is a reason they are so common, because they are just that intriguing.  Feel free to disagree or offer your own suggestions and objections in the comments.
            If you would like to share some of your own unused character ideas, do so in the comments, maybe use this format (maybe get it to catch on, I like its simplicity) and try and keep to a shorter length, you don’t want people to “tldr” your stuff.
            One more thing worth mentioning, I will make an effort to include a variety of different fantasy races in my character creation.  I have written before that I could run an entire fantasy world with just humans and see most fantasy races as too bland to be seen as meaningfully different from humanity (elves, to me, are too often played as just tall humans with pointy ears).  I also know that this is not an opinion shared by most and I want to try and expand my own horizons.


What Have I Got?
            Only one entry.  Originally, I was planning to take these things 4 at a time, but I got a job and would like to actually PLAY this game from time to time.  This week didn’t even get a theme because a theme tends to suggest a full roster of characters with something in common.

 
It is a little frustrating how much of this is on Pinterest.
It is hard to credit the creators, even though I am citing my source.


Name: Azmiyah Samie
Class: Warlock (Fey)
Race: Dragonborn (Metallic-Brass)
Background: Folk Hero
History: On the edge of the world, before the great waste know by the other races as, “The Land of Wind and Ghosts” the sheen of my Clan’s scales can be seen in heat of the beating sun.  The nearby halfling communities called us the “Horned Clan” after the lizards that would wander thru the scrubland we inhabited.  We were a good people.  Desperation does terrible things to a soul.
            Our resources ran out.  The druid leadership of our community could no longer make the crops grow or the game flourish.  The glass we had worked for trade became brittle to the touch.  Poverty and Hunger hung over us like the shade of cliffs promising a rock slide.  Then it came.
            I know it wasn’t a true Dragon.  Its form twisted as a mirage and it spoke a language none of use knew and we all understood.  Was it a Wind or Ghost from the desert?  Was it Madness called by our dying?  All I recall is it asking for favors in exchange for a crystal bottle filled with amber liquid that would sate all hunger.
            It would fill us up with itself.
            We were so hungry.

Goals: My Clan is known as the Desert Wind now.  Pushing out in every direction we swallowed territory, enslaved the other races, and with our new powers have begun work on sowing the “Seeds of Sands”.  All over the world there are key spots filled with verdant life that must be twisted to the whim of the Mirage that Sated our Hunger.
            I broke free.  Somehow, after walking thru a mental desert chasing awareness of myself, I found me.  I broke from the compulsion to swallow the world in sand.  I still have the power of the Mirage, but I also have my mind.  Thankfully my opposition to my people’s crusade has made me into a legend.  People see me as a source of hope.
            The key locations of verdant life must be protected.  My mental state must be protected from the Mirage.  My people must be freed from this compulsion.  The world cannot be plunged into the Age of Sand.

Rating: 4/5
            I think the big strength of this one is the Fey lord that the pact was made with.  The idea of a desert Fey Lord that takes the form of a mirage is pretty cool to me.  I also like the idea that this entire clan is now effectively warlocks under the sway of a Fey Lord that is seeking to spread its wasteland influence by destroying magical locations that is a good plot for the background of a campaign.
            The character itself is not a folk hero to their own people, but a hero to others because they managed to break free of their people’s influence.  The idea of having the metallic dragons be the ones drawn into this adds another layer as the metallic are traditionally the good guys.


Outro

            What do you all think?  Do you have a request for a class/background combo?  Did you play one of the combos I have featured and want to share your spin on it?  Post in the comments.



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