I am curious just how powerful the queen of air and darkness is. Would she be powerful enough to magically swap an unborn half elf child on the material plane for her own unborn child? My idea was to create a “faerie changeling” kind of character. In other words, a full blooded fey and the actual daughter of the queen of air and darkness, being born to a human father and an elf mother, and then raised in Waterdeep as a half-elf.
The character would not be aware of her true lineage or even realise that she was a fey being. Like her parents she believes that she is a half-elf. The difference is, the character is an unwitting warlock, with her true mother, the queen of air and darkness, being her patron.
Sifa is 18 years old and her parents were trying to marry her into a family who were higher status than them. The family of the boy that she was supposed to marry was more than happy to have such a beautiful daughter in law. Sifa is a full blooded fey however and although she does not know that, she can not ignore the feelings she has that drives her to be wild and free, or her fear of being tied down to one person, one place, one way of being, that boarders on pure hatred.
She wanted to make her parents proud, she really did and she tried, she tried so hard but in the end she just couldn’t do it. Unable to face the prospect of being bound to one person and one place and one life, she abandoned her family and her prospective husband and fled from Waterdeep.
The family of the boy she was meant to marry however, have been putting a pot of pressure on her parents and are insistent that she marry their son as agreed. Meaning that Sifa is on the run, not only from her own family, but the powerful noble family of the boy she was supposed to marry.
Although Sifa misses her parents she has no intention of ever returning to Waterdeep or marrying that boy. She would rather die.
So, what do you guys all think. Is the queen of air and darkness powerful enough to swap am unborn half elf for her own unborn fey child, in order to create this “faerie changeling” type character? Also why might she do that in the first place, assuming that she could?
Any thoughts on how I could pull this off would be appreciated too if you care to give them.
Thanks guys
XD
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
She is exactly as powerful as the DM wants her to be. If the DM thinks she can, and for some reason would want to do this, then she (or one of her agents) can do it. As for why she might, that would be up to the campaign the DM is writing, and how it fits in.
Fey of various power levels do this all the time in stories. The only difference is that you want to do it before they are born? Why is that exactly? Typically the fey wait until the child is born and some little gremlin lackey sneaks in and swaps the babies. I would strongly recommend sticking to this trope, as "poof, now my baby is in your belly" is all kinds of thematically problematic in terms of the themes you're invoking there.
I think for me the question isn't so much 'could' she do it, but 'why?' Why would she want to swap out unborn children with some mortals? I know fae can be chaotic and all but why do this, why do it with this family specifically, what use does she have for the swapped out mortal child etc. I could see an archfey being able to pull that off sure but I wonder what the motivation for it would be.
Besides the problems that scatterbraind and Nyr_Ventus mentioned, I see a whole slew of problems with the "barely legal girl being forced into an unwanted marriage" cliché. Especially since they picture you use for this character looks a lot younger than 18. Also, this isn't the first time you have presented a character that is a victimized underage or nearly underage girl. I don't see the fascination with playing such characters, wasn't the rest of them enough?
That said, an Archfey could definitely pull this of, or at least as suggested, send some goblins to switch out a baby in a crib, but I see a risk of this being very much a grab for attention and wanting this character to be more special than the rest of the PCs which is never a good idea. Scale everything down to just have a changeling child that runs away from home at 18 and whose real parents are fey and they are now an unwitting warlock and that's actually not a bad idea for a character.
Besides the problems that scatterbraind and Nyr_Ventus mentioned, I see a whole slew of problems with the "barely legal girl being forced into an unwanted marriage" cliché. Especially since they picture you use for this character looks a lot younger than 18. Also, this isn't the first time you have presented a character that is a victimized underage or nearly underage girl. I don't see the fascination with playing such characters, wasn't the rest of them enough?
That said, an Archfey could definitely pull this of, or at least as suggested, send some goblins to switch out a baby in a crib, but I see a risk of this being very much a grab for attention and wanting this character to be more special than the rest of the PCs which is never a good idea. Scale everything down to just have a changeling child that runs away from home at 18 and whose real parents are fey and they are now an unwitting warlock and that's actually not a bad idea for a character.
The picture is not actually a picture specifically. It’s computer generated art. By combining various stock images or art and real people who looked around the age of the character, I was able to create that image. I wanted her to be extremely beautiful because of her “feyness” so I only looked for stock of models and art that was of beautiful girls. I then created multiple generations of the generated image until I got one that I was happy with.
I guess the reasons why I play that age range is more a trope than anything. The trope goes that it is the young who go off on adventures etc. I certainly didn’t mean for the character to seem victimised either. It just seems that arranged marriages for political gains etc were more common in the medieval era. Another trope I suppose.
Thanks for your criticisms.
I’ll take them into account, along side the other comments and try to revise the character concept a bit, to make it more normal and a bit less cringe.
I’ll also see if I can find some different art rather than what I created. Something that doesn’t make the character look underage. Maybe age them up a bit as well to avoid the issues with them seeming “ barely legal” as that wasn’t my intention.
Thanks
XD
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I assumed it was a composite or CGI but it still looks way too young. The problem isn't necessarily the age (well, it's part of it) but the combination of age, gender and victimization. It's a trope that has been done far too many times by now. Like I said, change it around a bit and it's not a bad idea.
Well, as some who thinks that background matters a lot, either as player or as GM, I would say you may take care of your expectations here.
As a GM, I wouldn't allow my players to write such world-changing situation that you as character would even know about your self.
The first problem I see, as a GM, is that it would be difficult to you as a player to roleplay that as you don't know about that topic on your characters background and even unintentionally you may make choices based on that information.
The second problem is that it may be something that can make gigantic changes in the world lore. Who could possibly know that the archfey has that child? How it changes the alliences and threats to the archfey? How porewfull are the archfey foes and how much danger the child is in? How important this child is for the entire political scenario of the world and the feywild? That personal characters background should be just a interesting sidequest or is too big to not be the major plot of an entire campaing? (and thats the third point)
For third, is pretty normal that we as players want to have great lores on or characters back, and thats really nice and how the game should work. But at the end of the day, the game isn't just about that player and there is an entire group of people that don't want to be the heros helpers. So the GM may balance between each characters storie, usually making they're backstory secondary to the main campaing that could be about something else far to be related with their personal issues. That could be a expectetion-break for many players that was so passionated with tey're char's backstory.
Me as a player learn from experience to not create expectations like that over my characters. In my early times I make my self frustrated creating great stories about that character and imagine how that plotline in they're backstory would be great playing, until realise that I'm not the story-teller but the GM and I should know just what the character know about itself and anything else isn't in my hands. It save me a lot of frustrations, as long save the GM from being frustrated traying to mak that plotline work with the settling lore and balancing it whit other charaters stories in order to keep the storyline stable and make everyone have the same amount of fun.
I mean, not that its BG is too much and you should thing in a humble storie. Thats not the case and D&D is right about being heroes in some scale. But the whole thing about if the archfey could or couldn't do that is a minor matter, thats up to your DM to decide, and the point is "are you expecting it to be something in your game? could you roleplay properly that you don't know this things? Aren't you preciptating a plot that should be built by the GM? If the GM changes that point on your backstory and you're not the archfey heir, nor you should know that from your past, but rather he/she creates another plot to match another intresting storie, that would make your player experience worse?
And personally, I agree that sucks that thing about forced marriege and the barely legal thing. Maybe she's running from evil forces that she doesn't know why that can be related thi her backstory, I thing thats a better answer why she can come back to her family and stuff. Also, thats a fantasy world, even its stetically inspired in ancient and middle ages, you don't need to be afixed to be accurate with real world matters.
Well, nothing related to your specific question, just points to consideration. You don't need to take it if you don't want, but I personally think that those are important things to think about.
TWForgeCleric, have you ever tried running one of these characters you're regularly sharing with us in a game? If so, what was the GM's reaction to their backstory?
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
TWForgeCleric, have you ever tried running one of these characters you're regularly sharing with us in a game? If so, what was the GM's reaction to their backstory?
i have played them, yes but generally they don’t last long. Sometimes because they turn out to just be bad and sometimes because the person who DMs for me is ruthless with the dice and my characters tend to be squishy. Which is why I play so many because they regularly die. Especially because my characters tend to be more focussed on the story I have in mind for them, than the mechanics of the game.
I tend not to make them just to survive. Rather, I want to tell a story with my characters. Often times though the character doesn’t live long enough to really get into their story because they are weaker or more foolish or more innocent, or so,etching, than they believe themselves to be.
I don’t play all of them either no. Sometimes I just give up because I can’t get the character right, and then make a different one.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
TWForgeCleric, have you ever tried running one of these characters you're regularly sharing with us in a game? If so, what was the GM's reaction to their backstory?
i have played them, yes but generally they don’t last long. Sometimes because they turn out to just be bad and sometimes because the person who DMs for me is ruthless with the dice and my characters tend to be squishy. Which is why I play so many because they regularly die. Especially because my characters tend to be more focussed on the story I have in mind for them, than the mechanics of the game.
I tend not to make them just to survive. Rather, I want to tell a story with my characters. Often times though the character doesn’t live long enough to really get into their story because they are weaker or more foolish or more innocent, or so,etching, than they believe themselves to be.
I don’t play all of them either no. Sometimes I just give up because I can’t get the character right, and then make a different one.
I've made a ton of characters for various game systems, many have never been played. My own personal focal point isn't usually the backstory but, I could see how some people might delve into that element more.
I just have to ask: Do you play any other games? There are ones where game mechanics take a back seat to story(and backstory) themes.
TWForgeCleric, have you ever tried running one of these characters you're regularly sharing with us in a game? If so, what was the GM's reaction to their backstory?
i have played them, yes but generally they don’t last long. Sometimes because they turn out to just be bad and sometimes because the person who DMs for me is ruthless with the dice and my characters tend to be squishy. Which is why I play so many because they regularly die. Especially because my characters tend to be more focussed on the story I have in mind for them, than the mechanics of the game.
I tend not to make them just to survive. Rather, I want to tell a story with my characters. Often times though the character doesn’t live long enough to really get into their story because they are weaker or more foolish or more innocent, or so,etching, than they believe themselves to be.
I don’t play all of them either no. Sometimes I just give up because I can’t get the character right, and then make a different one.
I've made a ton of characters for various game systems, many have never been played. My own personal focal point isn't usually the backstory but, I could see how some people might delve into that element more.
I just have to ask: Do you play any other games? There are ones where game mechanics take a back seat to story(and backstory) themes.
i have recently been looking for a group to play, Vampire The Masquerade, but I have t played it yet. I used to play sci-fi TTRPG when I was in university, mostly related to Star Trek or Star Wars, but I haven’t played them in a very long time.
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Yeah, I was going to mention Vamp but, also Amber diceless. Amber needs a really good story teller as rules mechanics are lite. The system expects the players to have a solid backstory as they may contain the only resources at your disposal to aid in the GM's campaign.
i have played them, yes but generally they don’t last long. Sometimes because they turn out to just be bad and sometimes because the person who DMs for me is ruthless with the dice and my characters tend to be squishy. Which is why I play so many because they regularly die.
So you continually create borderline underage female sex trade victims who routinely die...
Hi,
I am curious just how powerful the queen of air and darkness is. Would she be powerful enough to magically swap an unborn half elf child on the material plane for her own unborn child? My idea was to create a “faerie changeling” kind of character. In other words, a full blooded fey and the actual daughter of the queen of air and darkness, being born to a human father and an elf mother, and then raised in Waterdeep as a half-elf.
The character would not be aware of her true lineage or even realise that she was a fey being. Like her parents she believes that she is a half-elf. The difference is, the character is an unwitting warlock, with her true mother, the queen of air and darkness, being her patron.
Sifa is 18 years old and her parents were trying to marry her into a family who were higher status than them. The family of the boy that she was supposed to marry was more than happy to have such a beautiful daughter in law. Sifa is a full blooded fey however and although she does not know that, she can not ignore the feelings she has that drives her to be wild and free, or her fear of being tied down to one person, one place, one way of being, that boarders on pure hatred.
She wanted to make her parents proud, she really did and she tried, she tried so hard but in the end she just couldn’t do it. Unable to face the prospect of being bound to one person and one place and one life, she abandoned her family and her prospective husband and fled from Waterdeep.
The family of the boy she was meant to marry however, have been putting a pot of pressure on her parents and are insistent that she marry their son as agreed. Meaning that Sifa is on the run, not only from her own family, but the powerful noble family of the boy she was supposed to marry.
Although Sifa misses her parents she has no intention of ever returning to Waterdeep or marrying that boy. She would rather die.
So, what do you guys all think. Is the queen of air and darkness powerful enough to swap am unborn half elf for her own unborn fey child, in order to create this “faerie changeling” type character? Also why might she do that in the first place, assuming that she could?
Any thoughts on how I could pull this off would be appreciated too if you care to give them.
Thanks guys
XD
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
She is exactly as powerful as the DM wants her to be. If the DM thinks she can, and for some reason would want to do this, then she (or one of her agents) can do it. As for why she might, that would be up to the campaign the DM is writing, and how it fits in.
Fey of various power levels do this all the time in stories. The only difference is that you want to do it before they are born? Why is that exactly? Typically the fey wait until the child is born and some little gremlin lackey sneaks in and swaps the babies. I would strongly recommend sticking to this trope, as "poof, now my baby is in your belly" is all kinds of thematically problematic in terms of the themes you're invoking there.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I think for me the question isn't so much 'could' she do it, but 'why?' Why would she want to swap out unborn children with some mortals? I know fae can be chaotic and all but why do this, why do it with this family specifically, what use does she have for the swapped out mortal child etc. I could see an archfey being able to pull that off sure but I wonder what the motivation for it would be.
Besides the problems that scatterbraind and Nyr_Ventus mentioned, I see a whole slew of problems with the "barely legal girl being forced into an unwanted marriage" cliché. Especially since they picture you use for this character looks a lot younger than 18. Also, this isn't the first time you have presented a character that is a victimized underage or nearly underage girl. I don't see the fascination with playing such characters, wasn't the rest of them enough?
That said, an Archfey could definitely pull this of, or at least as suggested, send some goblins to switch out a baby in a crib, but I see a risk of this being very much a grab for attention and wanting this character to be more special than the rest of the PCs which is never a good idea. Scale everything down to just have a changeling child that runs away from home at 18 and whose real parents are fey and they are now an unwitting warlock and that's actually not a bad idea for a character.
The picture is not actually a picture specifically. It’s computer generated art. By combining various stock images or art and real people who looked around the age of the character, I was able to create that image. I wanted her to be extremely beautiful because of her “feyness” so I only looked for stock of models and art that was of beautiful girls. I then created multiple generations of the generated image until I got one that I was happy with.
I guess the reasons why I play that age range is more a trope than anything. The trope goes that it is the young who go off on adventures etc. I certainly didn’t mean for the character to seem victimised either. It just seems that arranged marriages for political gains etc were more common in the medieval era. Another trope I suppose.
Thanks for your criticisms.
I’ll take them into account, along side the other comments and try to revise the character concept a bit, to make it more normal and a bit less cringe.
I’ll also see if I can find some different art rather than what I created. Something that doesn’t make the character look underage. Maybe age them up a bit as well to avoid the issues with them seeming “ barely legal” as that wasn’t my intention.
Thanks
XD
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I assumed it was a composite or CGI but it still looks way too young. The problem isn't necessarily the age (well, it's part of it) but the combination of age, gender and victimization. It's a trope that has been done far too many times by now. Like I said, change it around a bit and it's not a bad idea.
Well, as some who thinks that background matters a lot, either as player or as GM, I would say you may take care of your expectations here.
As a GM, I wouldn't allow my players to write such world-changing situation that you as character would even know about your self.
The first problem I see, as a GM, is that it would be difficult to you as a player to roleplay that as you don't know about that topic on your characters background and even unintentionally you may make choices based on that information.
The second problem is that it may be something that can make gigantic changes in the world lore. Who could possibly know that the archfey has that child? How it changes the alliences and threats to the archfey? How porewfull are the archfey foes and how much danger the child is in? How important this child is for the entire political scenario of the world and the feywild? That personal characters background should be just a interesting sidequest or is too big to not be the major plot of an entire campaing? (and thats the third point)
For third, is pretty normal that we as players want to have great lores on or characters back, and thats really nice and how the game should work. But at the end of the day, the game isn't just about that player and there is an entire group of people that don't want to be the heros helpers. So the GM may balance between each characters storie, usually making they're backstory secondary to the main campaing that could be about something else far to be related with their personal issues. That could be a expectetion-break for many players that was so passionated with tey're char's backstory.
Me as a player learn from experience to not create expectations like that over my characters. In my early times I make my self frustrated creating great stories about that character and imagine how that plotline in they're backstory would be great playing, until realise that I'm not the story-teller but the GM and I should know just what the character know about itself and anything else isn't in my hands. It save me a lot of frustrations, as long save the GM from being frustrated traying to mak that plotline work with the settling lore and balancing it whit other charaters stories in order to keep the storyline stable and make everyone have the same amount of fun.
I mean, not that its BG is too much and you should thing in a humble storie. Thats not the case and D&D is right about being heroes in some scale. But the whole thing about if the archfey could or couldn't do that is a minor matter, thats up to your DM to decide, and the point is "are you expecting it to be something in your game? could you roleplay properly that you don't know this things? Aren't you preciptating a plot that should be built by the GM? If the GM changes that point on your backstory and you're not the archfey heir, nor you should know that from your past, but rather he/she creates another plot to match another intresting storie, that would make your player experience worse?
And personally, I agree that sucks that thing about forced marriege and the barely legal thing. Maybe she's running from evil forces that she doesn't know why that can be related thi her backstory, I thing thats a better answer why she can come back to her family and stuff. Also, thats a fantasy world, even its stetically inspired in ancient and middle ages, you don't need to be afixed to be accurate with real world matters.
Well, nothing related to your specific question, just points to consideration. You don't need to take it if you don't want, but I personally think that those are important things to think about.
lots of mistakes for fast-typing in a different language from mine but I think you will get it. Sorry for that :/
TWForgeCleric, have you ever tried running one of these characters you're regularly sharing with us in a game? If so, what was the GM's reaction to their backstory?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Queen Mab is, like, one of the most powerful Fey in existence. Like, demigod status. Like she’s one of those Archfey patrons.
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i have played them, yes but generally they don’t last long. Sometimes because they turn out to just be bad and sometimes because the person who DMs for me is ruthless with the dice and my characters tend to be squishy. Which is why I play so many because they regularly die. Especially because my characters tend to be more focussed on the story I have in mind for them, than the mechanics of the game.
I tend not to make them just to survive. Rather, I want to tell a story with my characters. Often times though the character doesn’t live long enough to really get into their story because they are weaker or more foolish or more innocent, or so,etching, than they believe themselves to be.
I don’t play all of them either no. Sometimes I just give up because I can’t get the character right, and then make a different one.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
I've made a ton of characters for various game systems, many have never been played. My own personal focal point isn't usually the backstory but, I could see how some people might delve into that element more.
I just have to ask: Do you play any other games? There are ones where game mechanics take a back seat to story(and backstory) themes.
i have recently been looking for a group to play, Vampire The Masquerade, but I have t played it yet. I used to play sci-fi TTRPG when I was in university, mostly related to Star Trek or Star Wars, but I haven’t played them in a very long time.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Yeah, I was going to mention Vamp but, also Amber diceless. Amber needs a really good story teller as rules mechanics are lite. The system expects the players to have a solid backstory as they may contain the only resources at your disposal to aid in the GM's campaign.
My group’s main game for years was the old edition of WoD. Great game.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Content Troubleshooting
So you continually create borderline underage female sex trade victims who routinely die...
Hmmm…