Ookay. I'm in a bit of a pinch here. I've been making my recent character and like I do for all my characters I'm using Xanathar's Guide to Everything's 'This is your Life' section with tables to rolls for all their information like age, background, life events, and so on. I do it mainly because my imagination sucks and you can get some really nice coincidences and this time it seemed too good to pass up.
Anyway I ended up with a Changeling Sorceress and for life events I got two good ones. Firstly that I got married but that my husband's current status is dead. His cause of death was a "Bizarre event, such as being hit by a meteorite, struck down by an angry god, or killed by a hatching slaad egg". Then I rolled another event and got"You witnessed a falling red star, a face appearing in the frost, or some other bizarre happening". So they line up quite nicely. I thought this is interesting. I saw a meteor and it killed my husband. But then for the reason I became a Sorcerer I got "After I escaped from a magical conflagration, I realised that though I was unharmed, I was not unchanged. I began to exhibit unusual abilities that I am just beginning to understand".
So then I was thinking that perhaps I too was hit by this meteorite but I survived because it awakened the Sorcerous Origin's magic. And that gets me to the point - what origin would that be best for? What could cause a meteorite to kill at least my husband just to wake up my powers? I've looked at all the official ones I have access to (which I think is all of them) none of them seem to fit. (Well Wild could fit but I'm not very keen on playing that).
The best I've been able to wrangle is that my character is a farmer's wife and together we go in to town to sell some produce or buy supplies (or something) and my character and others see these silhouettes in the sky falling and before we know it we're all dead - except me. Find out after waking up in a crater that a dragon is looming over me. They then take me prisoner. Turns out they did the attack because they knew someone was there with dragon blood and they needed that person. For what ends - that would be for the DM to play with.
That all seems a bit contrived though. Any thoughts?
Also just a bit (edit: a lot) of background on the character if it helps. Her name is Taliyah and she's a Changeling like I said but grew up in a family of orphans. She's the 4th child of 5, all born within 3-4 years of each other (1st 2 were twins) but their parents are gone and they lived with their guardian, a Half Elf man. My character believes she's a human because she looks human until she's about 5 when her face 'melts' and she realises she's not human - she's something else. Luckily she was in a room by herself when it happened and is able to fix it. Her siblings all seem to be human though - as far as she's aware. (Note that I'm assuming Humans and Changelings can have children and those children won't always be Changeling but can be. Is that okay?) When she's in her very early teens their guardian finds out she's a Changeling and tries to kill her. 'You're one of them!'. In defending herself she accidentally kills him with his knife and then flees. She runs into town and changes herself to become a mid-20's woman, a persona called Ariana and gets a job playing music in an inn/tavern and really enjoys it. It's as if she had never been Taliyah. A few months later she's playing some music and she's let her guard down. Sometimes she plays some music she made herself when she was Taliyah and this time - unbeknownst to her - her youngest sister is in the room and immediately becomes suspicious and later confronts Ariana on where she learned that music. She says she heard a girl playing it on the street one day but probably failed her deception check. Her sister hounds her and in the end she flees town again and becomes someone else. This time Charlot. Charlot entertains in an inn/tavern again and she falls in love and has a good 5 years of married life before the meteorite event happens.
I don't know if all that was necessary but I thought it might help.
The meteorite/falling red star doesn't have to work the way it would IRL (giant fireball). It could have been magic in nature and origin. Maybe it dealt a damage type your dragon blood protected you from. Maybe your proximity to the impact blasted you through the shadowfell, protecting you from damage. Maybe some divine influence protected you (actually, a divine trial might fit your backstory pretty well).
As far as I can see, you have two real options here: Divine Soul or Wild Magic.
Divine Soul: Consider perhaps that the meteor was sent by a divine being that wanted to marked you for a higher purpose. Now imbued with divine powers and the real possibility to wrestle your husband from Death, your character must now master her powers to ensure her success. This is my recommendation, as it provides plenty of good buffs, an extra known spell, and a whole other spell list to choose spells from (Cleric).
Wild Magic: Perhaps the meteor was a freak magical event caused by unknown powers from beyond the Aether. I myself don't like playing this as I find the randomness of it unsuitable for most of the campaigns I play, so I understand your unease in playing this.
If you want to play Unearthed Arcana, there's also Phoenix Sorcery. It provides very fire-based magics would would be similar to a meteor, although you may need to edit it with your DM as the current version can only go full-strength once per long rest, which is lame.
For a Dragon Sorcerer I was thinking Blue for Lightning. That probably makes even less sense but I wanted to avoid fire. My current character is a Fire Genasi Divination Wizard and thought a change would be nice.
I hadn’t really considered Divine because the event killed an innocent and that doesn’t feel very divine. Though a trial makes sense especially from a more neutral god. My character is the kind where if there’s any strife or conflict - she cuts and runs and just becomes a new person. A trial could force her to face up to her actions. I like that. The question would then be which Divine? Would the character even know? (At least to begin with).
Yea that could work. She gets hit by the meteorite or whatever it is while in her home with her husband and it kills him and destroys their home but she's fine. In grief she makes a new persona and runs again - but now with magic she doesn't know how to use - blending into normal daily life becomes almost impossible so she winds up in the adventuring life and it's this new persona the party meet. I'm really happy with that. Thank you.
Edit: For the alignment spell - what would you say this character is? I'm guessing Neutral?
Just pick whichever you want. You are supposed to ba able to change it to any cleric spell when you level up, but that doesn't work on DDB, so just pick the one you want to have the entire campaign (usually cure wounds).
I'm going throw out an out of the box suggestion. your origin would be Divine, and the god testing you is Ilmater (the broken god). This test has obviously broken you, but ultimately you must come to grips with your race (changeling) and the death of your husband. you are basically a good person who killed someone (the orphanage Half-Elf) and must atone for it in some way. Coming to grips with the racism involved (he wanted to kill you for simply being what you are), you are very insecure about how others will react knowing you are a changeling, pass any changes off as a "disguise self" cantrip whenever this occurs. Learn of Ilmater after the comet event, and strive to be one with who you are. divine soul allows for Cleric spells as Sorcerer spells greatly improving your spell choices, also being of Good alignment you gain the bonus "Cure Wounds" spell. Your story arc should be redemption and accepting yourself for who you are.
As far as the comet event I like where you are going with it, but killing an entire town but yourself is a bit much. I think it better that you were returning from town when the comet/meteor strikes your farm while your husband is in the doorway waving to you at it strikes, the blast knocks you off the wagon knocking you out. When you recover all you see is the crater that used to be your home and life, there is nothing left. No trace of your husband remains, nothing to bury. The pain is always in your heart. Instead of seeing the pity in others eyes when they see you, you leave and change your appearance and personality to avoid such things. Returning as someone else because this town is all you know....you are now a travelling entertainer making a meager living as such.
This is where your sister comes to town seeking the killer of her "father" and catches you in the lie via your music, accuses you of killing your orphanage "father". She doesn't know about the attempted murder by him, or that you were defending yourself. After you left, she has been hunting you for revenge. She is a Hunter Ranger who's hated enemies are humanoids (changelings & ????). You are the driving force of her motivation. Will you redeem yourself and repair the relationship with sister? Will you be tried for murder unable to prove self defense? Will you come to grips with yourself and the Loss of your husband? Adventure begins.....
This backstory has a lot of options. A god could have shielded you, or you could have dragon blood that protected you. The fire from the meteor could have awakened your pyromancer or phoenix powers or sent you hurtling through shadowfell or into an ocean, giving you sea sorcery power. Maybe the meteorite had runes inscribed on it that makes you a runechild.
She’s collecting dust like nearly all of my characters unfortunately. I make characters quicker than I can play them.
The update to Changelings broke her a little too thanks to the removal of Divergent Persona.
Argh. As a DM, I LOVE the Divergent Persona, and it's not a game-breaking feature. (Like letting a changeling get hold of shiftweave clothing for virtually instant complete identity changes...) I'd totally allow Divergent Persona in a game.
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Ookay. I'm in a bit of a pinch here. I've been making my recent character and like I do for all my characters I'm using Xanathar's Guide to Everything's 'This is your Life' section with tables to rolls for all their information like age, background, life events, and so on. I do it mainly because my imagination sucks and you can get some really nice coincidences and this time it seemed too good to pass up.
Anyway I ended up with a Changeling Sorceress and for life events I got two good ones. Firstly that I got married but that my husband's current status is dead. His cause of death was a "Bizarre event, such as being hit by a meteorite, struck down by an angry god, or killed by a hatching slaad egg". Then I rolled another event and got"You witnessed a falling red star, a face appearing in the frost, or some other bizarre happening".
So they line up quite nicely. I thought this is interesting. I saw a meteor and it killed my husband. But then for the reason I became a Sorcerer I got "After I escaped from a magical conflagration, I realised that though I was unharmed, I was not unchanged. I began to exhibit unusual abilities that I am just beginning to understand".
So then I was thinking that perhaps I too was hit by this meteorite but I survived because it awakened the Sorcerous Origin's magic.
And that gets me to the point - what origin would that be best for? What could cause a meteorite to kill at least my husband just to wake up my powers? I've looked at all the official ones I have access to (which I think is all of them) none of them seem to fit. (Well Wild could fit but I'm not very keen on playing that).
The best I've been able to wrangle is that my character is a farmer's wife and together we go in to town to sell some produce or buy supplies (or something) and my character and others see these silhouettes in the sky falling and before we know it we're all dead - except me. Find out after waking up in a crater that a dragon is looming over me. They then take me prisoner. Turns out they did the attack because they knew someone was there with dragon blood and they needed that person. For what ends - that would be for the DM to play with.
That all seems a bit contrived though. Any thoughts?
Also just a bit (edit: a lot) of background on the character if it helps. Her name is Taliyah and she's a Changeling like I said but grew up in a family of orphans. She's the 4th child of 5, all born within 3-4 years of each other (1st 2 were twins) but their parents are gone and they lived with their guardian, a Half Elf man. My character believes she's a human because she looks human until she's about 5 when her face 'melts' and she realises she's not human - she's something else. Luckily she was in a room by herself when it happened and is able to fix it. Her siblings all seem to be human though - as far as she's aware. (Note that I'm assuming Humans and Changelings can have children and those children won't always be Changeling but can be. Is that okay?)
When she's in her very early teens their guardian finds out she's a Changeling and tries to kill her. 'You're one of them!'. In defending herself she accidentally kills him with his knife and then flees. She runs into town and changes herself to become a mid-20's woman, a persona called Ariana and gets a job playing music in an inn/tavern and really enjoys it. It's as if she had never been Taliyah.
A few months later she's playing some music and she's let her guard down. Sometimes she plays some music she made herself when she was Taliyah and this time - unbeknownst to her - her youngest sister is in the room and immediately becomes suspicious and later confronts Ariana on where she learned that music. She says she heard a girl playing it on the street one day but probably failed her deception check. Her sister hounds her and in the end she flees town again and becomes someone else. This time Charlot.
Charlot entertains in an inn/tavern again and she falls in love and has a good 5 years of married life before the meteorite event happens.
I don't know if all that was necessary but I thought it might help.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
The meteorite/falling red star doesn't have to work the way it would IRL (giant fireball). It could have been magic in nature and origin. Maybe it dealt a damage type your dragon blood protected you from. Maybe your proximity to the impact blasted you through the shadowfell, protecting you from damage. Maybe some divine influence protected you (actually, a divine trial might fit your backstory pretty well).
Draconic bloodline with a dragon ancestor whose breath weapon is fire. The fire from the meteor awakened your sorcery.
Professional computer geek
As far as I can see, you have two real options here: Divine Soul or Wild Magic.
Divine Soul: Consider perhaps that the meteor was sent by a divine being that wanted to marked you for a higher purpose. Now imbued with divine powers and the real possibility to wrestle your husband from Death, your character must now master her powers to ensure her success. This is my recommendation, as it provides plenty of good buffs, an extra known spell, and a whole other spell list to choose spells from (Cleric).
Wild Magic: Perhaps the meteor was a freak magical event caused by unknown powers from beyond the Aether. I myself don't like playing this as I find the randomness of it unsuitable for most of the campaigns I play, so I understand your unease in playing this.
If you want to play Unearthed Arcana, there's also Phoenix Sorcery. It provides very fire-based magics would would be similar to a meteor, although you may need to edit it with your DM as the current version can only go full-strength once per long rest, which is lame.
Some interesting ideas here, thank you.
For a Dragon Sorcerer I was thinking Blue for Lightning. That probably makes even less sense but I wanted to avoid fire. My current character is a Fire Genasi Divination Wizard and thought a change would be nice.
I hadn’t really considered Divine because the event killed an innocent and that doesn’t feel very divine. Though a trial makes sense especially from a more neutral god. My character is the kind where if there’s any strife or conflict - she cuts and runs and just becomes a new person. A trial could force her to face up to her actions. I like that. The question would then be which Divine? Would the character even know? (At least to begin with).
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
You can leave that part up to the DM. The character would likely not know they were being tested (or protected, whichever) by a god.
Yea that could work.
She gets hit by the meteorite or whatever it is while in her home with her husband and it kills him and destroys their home but she's fine. In grief she makes a new persona and runs again - but now with magic she doesn't know how to use - blending into normal daily life becomes almost impossible so she winds up in the adventuring life and it's this new persona the party meet.
I'm really happy with that. Thank you.
Edit:
For the alignment spell - what would you say this character is? I'm guessing Neutral?
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
Just pick whichever you want. You are supposed to ba able to change it to any cleric spell when you level up, but that doesn't work on DDB, so just pick the one you want to have the entire campaign (usually cure wounds).
I'm going throw out an out of the box suggestion.
your origin would be Divine, and the god testing you is Ilmater (the broken god).
This test has obviously broken you, but ultimately you must come to grips with your race (changeling) and the death of your husband. you are basically a good person who killed someone (the orphanage Half-Elf) and must atone for it in some way. Coming to grips with the racism involved (he wanted to kill you for simply being what you are), you are very insecure about how others will react knowing you are a changeling, pass any changes off as a "disguise self" cantrip whenever this occurs. Learn of Ilmater after the comet event, and strive to be one with who you are.
divine soul allows for Cleric spells as Sorcerer spells greatly improving your spell choices, also being of Good alignment you gain the bonus "Cure Wounds" spell. Your story arc should be redemption and accepting yourself for who you are.
As far as the comet event I like where you are going with it, but killing an entire town but yourself is a bit much. I think it better that you were returning from town when the comet/meteor strikes your farm while your husband is in the doorway waving to you at it strikes, the blast knocks you off the wagon knocking you out. When you recover all you see is the crater that used to be your home and life, there is nothing left. No trace of your husband remains, nothing to bury. The pain is always in your heart. Instead of seeing the pity in others eyes when they see you, you leave and change your appearance and personality to avoid such things. Returning as someone else because this town is all you know....you are now a travelling entertainer making a meager living as such.
This is where your sister comes to town seeking the killer of her "father" and catches you in the lie via your music, accuses you of killing your orphanage "father". She doesn't know about the attempted murder by him, or that you were defending yourself. After you left, she has been hunting you for revenge. She is a Hunter Ranger who's hated enemies are humanoids (changelings & ????). You are the driving force of her motivation. Will you redeem yourself and repair the relationship with sister? Will you be tried for murder unable to prove self defense? Will you come to grips with yourself and the Loss of your husband? Adventure begins.....
multiple edits for spelling and grammar
This backstory has a lot of options. A god could have shielded you, or you could have dragon blood that protected you. The fire from the meteor could have awakened your pyromancer or phoenix powers or sent you hurtling through shadowfell or into an ocean, giving you sea sorcery power. Maybe the meteorite had runes inscribed on it that makes you a runechild.
Zargorth Dakzonar, High Elf Sorceror
How did things turn out for Taliyah?
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She’s collecting dust like nearly all of my characters unfortunately. I make characters quicker than I can play them.
The update to Changelings broke her a little too thanks to the removal of Divergent Persona.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
Yeah changlings got nerfed hard (maybe the hardest).
Bummer
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Epic Boons on DDB
for freak magical accidents, wild magic origin is always an fun option, especially as an curse
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Argh. As a DM, I LOVE the Divergent Persona, and it's not a game-breaking feature. (Like letting a changeling get hold of shiftweave clothing for virtually instant complete identity changes...) I'd totally allow Divergent Persona in a game.