My new back up character: A Warforged envoy who got blasted out of Eberron.
Confusion, it’s every Warforged first experience when they are created. A fully functional mind, soul & body but with no clue on how or why they are there. It was the same for MWC11. In the days that followed he received basic combat training, gained an understanding of the world and learned why he was here. His batch was designed to assist House Cannith in weapon construction for the ever profitable war that raged across the continent. Over the following months MWC11 learned how to work metal in the forge. And to tinker with his dexterous envoy hands. But then a lucky accident happend. Some new employee had caused an explosion in weapon development, killing and injuring half the department. House Cannith needed the workshop fixed and filled as soon as possible, so they called upon MWC11 batch since they already had a fair amount of knowledge and were eager to learn. After a few weeks MWC11’s batch had repaired the workshop and were working on finishing the projects that were left behind under guidance of a senior artificer. Afterwards MWC11’s and his brothers were permanently assigned to the workshop, continuing to develop weaponry. The group had become more social by now and they were starting to name each other. MWC11 adopted the name Artifact for his interest in ancient magic.
As the war continued over the years, so did the need for special weapons. And eventually Artifact was ready to demonstrate his latest creation the “ethereal shot” an ballista bolt that would bypass defenses and detonate behind enemy lines. But something went horribly wrong during the demonstration on the plains outside the forge, rumbling sounds filled the air followed by a destructive wave of fire and magic crashing over them. What he remembers only flashes; speeding through a world of gray, a bond snapping, a bright light and suddenly he was free falling in a world he didn't recognize.
I might add some more backstory depending on how he will meet the party.
My Sword Dancer(An cleric Subclass) Aasimar Protector's backstory.
Vallia is the daughter of a adventuring female bard whose father was an Aasimar, and of a Drow Cleric of the curch of Eilistraee. Her father saved her dying mother and they fell in love and have since then lived together at the small hidden temple town in the northern parts of The High Forest. With an cave mouth leading to the Underdark in the nearby Nether Mountains. Vallia was raised to a devout believer in Eilistraee and have been fighting off monsters, drow and others hostile creatures that come out of the underdark cave. She has traveled to the Elven City of Silverymoon for diplomatic purposes of her church, traveled in the underdark to save and bring the goddess message to all drow.
She rose up to become the most respected and powerful Dark Lady in her temple, but then she started to feel like her life was empty, that she had no passion in life outside of battle and preaching. Like she had no goal in life and nothing to live for, which lead to her becoming more and more emotionless. When one day while playing her Shawm instrument in secret(Something due to her getting teased in the past by the other children that her instrument sounded rather goofy, which since then made her feel a little embarrassed playing it). She were done playing it for the day and suddenly she heard inside her head someone say "That was beautiful". Not knowing the voice was heard only in her mind, she thought someone had snuck up behind her, she turned and did a kick that hit the close-by tree by mistake. The next second she heard someone scream above her and looked up to see something green fall towards her and knock her down to the ground. The green thing was on top of her and she reached for her sword, thinking it was some sort of goblin. But then to her surprise she saw it smile to her and say "Play it again!".
Vallia stopped her hand and looked on the creature in surprise, with only one word coming out of her mouth: "HUH!?" The Green thing stood up. It was a 4 ft tall female looking creature with black hair in a pony tail tied with a red ribbon, she grinned and said that Vallia playing the shawm was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard and that her name was Schilli. Hearing that someone thought her shawm music was beautiful made Vallia blush for the first in a very long time. She then remembered reading about Schilli's race, that she was a Verdan.
After that they both spent lots of time together, and Vallia did not feel so empty anymore, infact, Shcilla made her laugh and smile. Schilli was usually asking curiously about the things Vallia had done in her life, while Vallia was shocked to hear that not only was Schilli 71 years old, but that she had been a male until 14 years ago(read about Verdan). And after being together for a year, they fell in love with each other. But one day, Schilli did not appear at their meeting day, and out of worry, she traveled the way Schilli said she was gonna travel to before her departure. She then came to the city of Sundabar where she heard that Schilli had been arrested after throwing a rock at a influential woman of the city, who had whipped a tiefling beggar that had asked for coin. As she heard this, Vallia went to the influential woman and asked her to let Schilli go. But she refused, and when she noticed that Vallia was a member of the Church of Eilistraee, she said she would let her go if she gave her a certain artifact of her order. Vallia could not do it and asked if she wanted something else. The woman then demanded that if she gave her an artifact worth twice as much as the previously mentioned one, she would also let Schilla go. Vallia agreed and was then given a year to bring it to her.
These are my current two characters being used in different campaigns, I've added some backstory to the Monk as the story has progressed, but I've only put on here the initial back story.
Here's my Halfing Monk:
A wayward youth, I was always getting into trouble with my elders. Generally for being too headstrong, fidgeting, and getting into fights standing up for my friends, and others around me.
This developed as I grew up and I joined a local monastery to become a monk and I studied martial arts, not for my betterment, but for the protection of those around me. After leaving my monastery, I went back to my village to lead a quiet life, standing up against bullies and those who came into the village to cause trouble, but trying to lead a quiet unobtrusive life. However, the quiet life is hard to find, and these days trouble often comes past and finds me, regardless of my wishes.
I have always enjoyed the outdoors, and prefer the quiet village life to the big city. In the city there are many traps, and I got myself ensnared with hard drink one night, and I now avoid strong drink in case I go too far again.
And my Dwarf Barbarian:
War! I was born to war. My father was a Captain serving in the army of Kaldrum, Lord of the Mountain.
I was born in a time of war with the evil Orcs, and Goblins, which seems to be a constant state of affairs. As I was growing up, I learnt the arts of fighting (and drinking), but a lot of fighting was going on. I took my place in the army as my father wished, though not in the same unit to stop any favouritism. My father however, still had a role in shaping my progress and my training in the finer arts.
During this time, I made many friends and still have attachments of loyalty with those of my unit. My early years were spent scouting and raiding in defence of the kingdom. There were many losses, far too many in my opinion, due to stupid orders and soldiers blindly following those orders! One night, we were ordered out to hunt down a dragon stalking the mountain and to not return without killing it. That night, I barely made it out alive. Our unit was annihilated, and only a few of us returned.
The officer in charge was incompetent, a flunky of Kaldrum who was only there to magnify his own position - our regular officer was "reassigned" for that mission. So many of our troops used to following good orders blindly followed the orders of Jorrol without question, and ended up becoming martyrs to the cause. I was nearly a martyr myself, however a good friend I had grown up with, Náli, pulled me aside from the dragon's breath. Jorrol, may Dol Dorn take his rotten soul, fled with barely a hair singed. Together, myself, Náli and a handful of others battled for two days and defeated the dragon.
We returned to the Kingdom, and received a reception far different to what we expected. Jorrol had returned before us, and had taken all the credit. We were accused of cowardice and disobeying orders. I was angry, furious even, and struck Jorrol with the leg of the dragon that I carried back as proof of his death. Jorrol, weakling that he was, hid behind Kaldrum and ordered we all be punished for our deeds. My father pleaded on my behalf, and due to his standing with the army, and the people, Kaldrum listened to him. Instead of being restrained with loss of rank, we few were banished from the Kingdom to find work wherever we could, in the army of another Lord, or as guards in the mines.
The loss of my position with my people and family drove me mad, I was no longer a soldier - I had been made to become a mercenary, seeking out the highest bidder. To this day, the horror of battle, of ignorant fools follows me, the loss of my friends that night has made me slow to make new friends, especially with those humans whose lives are so fleeting.
If I ever come across Jorrol again, I have sworn an ignominious death for him.
I really like your dwarfs backstory, Really dwarfish and intriguing with a fitting setting. But I have a question about your halfing. If he likes the quiet life in his village, how do you plan to explain why he ends up travelling to fight in the Underdark?(this is just an example of a campaign setting, since it is an often used setting). This question is in both part to help you think of that when the times comes and also for me to learn of different ways to make my own characters with similar traits to fit into the campaign setting. So I am really interested in the answer :)
When I was constructing a possible character, I was blissfully unaware that Dragonborn was an actual class. So, I figured that a Barbarian with dragon abilities (fire breathing, claws, teeth) would need to be explained in-universe and would require house rules to bring to life. To compensate for this, I decided to make him completely blind, and to explain the existence of a draconic hybrid, I built the backstory of a team of alchemists genetically engineering a dragon super-soldier for the big bad emperor. The only working model of over 20 test subjects was born with a birth defect that left it completely blind, and imprinted upon two of the scientists, identifying them as "mother" and "father". The subject, registered as DRACONIC EXPERIMENT TEST 20, or D-20 for short spent it's entire life in the lab, being experimented on, and running training exercises to prove the viability of a super-soldier. The local villages started taking notice that citizens were being abducted and taken to the labs, so they hired a crew of wandering heroes to break into the lab and mount a rescue. The "heroes" were more akin to a bunch of Chaotic Neutral PCs, and their rescue operation left almost the entire staff dead. The fighter beat up "father" to obtain information, the rogue started pocketing the shiny lab equipment, and the barbarian took "mother" into the back room for some....intense roleplaying, which didn't sit well with D-20. Not. One. Bit.
The empire saw the smoking ruins of the lab and decided it would be better to cut their losses on the project. And so, there my D-20 sits. Prowling around the empty labs that he used to play in, growling at night as memories of "mother and father" come to him in dreams and nightmares.
PS: How do I format this monstrosity so it's actually possible to read?
My new character, a half wood elf Barbarian, has a simple backstory. His home was destroyed, he taught himself to hunt, and found a weird helmet. Of course, the helmet is an ancient relic created to kill monsters by the mightiest druids and artificers working together.
Our campaign isn't going through the underdark. But even though he likes the quiet trouble continues to visit his village. So he travelled to a city (I can't remember which one) to get some advice from his order. During his visit to the city he was tempted by the noise and lights he never got to his order and ran into trouble of his own. Thrown out by the guards he then stumbled across his current travelling party.
The backstory for my circle of dreams druid. She's honestly kind of a mess and I love her for it.
After being kicked out of the elite Willow Spire Academy of Arcane Arts (WSAAA) and disowned by her family, young Chia Valdemar wandered through the woods for weeks alone and aimless until she accidentally stumbled unknowingly into the Feywild, where she met an Unaligned fey Dryad (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/dryad) who she called Oak (full name, unknown to Chia, Quercuse Ablan Fagale). Oak took her in, teaching her the ways of the fey in exchange for menial labor and generally keeping Chia as a pseudo-pet/servant/apprentice. Chia was happy for a long time, until one day a Seelie guard showed up at their door and tried to conscript Oak into the Seelie Army to fight the Gloaming Court, as well as take Chia to be a servant of Queen Tatania. Oak sacrificed her freedom to help Chia escape. The next thing she knew, Chia awoke in the mortal plane. She had been asleep for so long that moss and algae had turned her hair green, and a small bird had make it's nest in it. Upon returning to the world she discovered that she had been gone for 900 years, and having never paid her school dues, she owed WSAAA hundreds in gold. She now travels the land, working odd jobs to pay back her debt and searching for her mentor.
My character for an upcoming level 12 one shot....
Sir Squiffy Banjaxed (not his real name) is a disgraced noble (Human Variant). He fell from grace due to a predilection for all things alcoholic. He fell in with Dwarf bootleggers and moonshiners at a young age and became a drunken wastrel in his 20's. He now roams the world leading taverns in drunken sing songs and generally leads a self destructive life style. He gets drunk, indulges in bar fights and generally carouses the nights away.
He has picked up many skills and talents along the way although he is hard pressed to recall when, where or how he learned them. He long ago sold his soul to the Archfey called Sqeelookal (made up fey of drunken revelry) and became a pact of blade warlock, his chosen weapon? a tankard (how is this accomplished? he has the tavern brawler feat and proficiency with improvised weapons so the tankard just scraps in as a weapon for purposes of the pact of blade ability), his drunken brawls & Sqeelookal's influence have also led him to multiclass to monk (Drunken Master level 8 and a wee twist to say his tankard is a monk weapon).
Stats: Str 8, Dex 18, Cons 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 13 (Standard Array, human bonuses +1 Dex, +1 Cha)
Feats: Tavern Brawler (from human), Mobile (level 4 warlock), Grappler (level 4 Monk), ASI +2 Dex (level 8 Monk)
Skills: Sleight of Hand (from Human), Deception & Intimidation (from Warlock), Performance (from Drunken Master), History & Persuasion (from Noble background)
Languages: Common, Dwarf, Sylvan
Warlock Cantrips: Booming Blade (for use with his tankard), Mage Hand (for when the next drink is just out of reach) and poison spray (which I may try to do as a vomit spray)
Warlock spells known (2x level 2 slots): Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, Hellish Rebuke (see poison spray), Misty Step, Unseen Servant (for when you need a butler to tidy up)
Invocations: Eyes of the Rune Keeper, Improved Pact Weapon
More Monk abilities than I'll likely remember to use but I think it'll be an interesting diversion to play.
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* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
My Sword Dancer(An cleric Subclass) Aasimar Protector's backstory.
Vallia is the daughter of a adventuring bard whose father was an Aasimar, and a Drow Cleric of the curch of Eilistraee. Her father saved her dying mother and they fell in love and have since then lived together at the small hidden temple town in the northern parts of The High Forest. With an cave mouth leading to the Underdark in the nearby Nether Mountains. Vallia was raised to a devout believer in Eilistraee and have been fighting off monsters, drow and others hostile creatures that come out of the underdark cave. She has traveled to the Elven City of Silverymoon for diplomatic purposes of her church, traveled in the underdark to save and bring the goddess message to all drow.
She rose up to become the most respected and powerful Dark Lady in her temple, but then she started to feel like her life was empty, that she had no passion in life outside of battle and preaching. Like she had no goal in life and nothing to live for, which lead to her becoming more and more emotionless. When one day while playing her Shawm instrument in secret(Something due to her getting teased in the past by the other children that her instrument sounded rather goofy, which since then made her feel a little embarrassed playing it). She were done playing it for the day and suddenly she heard inside her head someone say "That was beautiful". Not knowing the voice was heard only in her mind, she thought someone had snuck up behind her, she turned and did a kick that hit the close-by tree by mistake. The next second she heard someone scream above her and looked up to see something green fall towards her and knock her down to the ground. The green thing was on top of her and she reached for her sword, thinking it was some sort of goblin. But then to her surprise she saw it smile to her and say "Play it again!".
Vallia stopped her hand and looked on the creature in surprise, with only one word coming out of her mouth: "HUH!?" The Green thing stood up. It was a 4 ft tall female looking creature with black hair in a pony tail tied with a red ribbon, she grinned and said that Vallia playing the shawm was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard and that her name was Schilli. Hearing that someone thought her shawm music was beautiful made Vallia blush for the first in a very long time. She then remembered reading about Schilli's race, that she was a Verdan.
After that they both spent lots of time together, and Vallia did not feel so empty anymore, infact, Shcilla made her laugh and smile. Schilli was usually asking curiously about the things Vallia had done in her life, while Vallia was shocked to hear that not only was Schilli 71 years old, but that she had been a male until 14 years ago(read about Verdan). And after being together for a year, they fell in love with each other. But one day, Schilli did not appear at their meeting day, and out of worry, she traveled the way Schilli said she was gonna travel to before her departure. She then came to the city of Sundabar where she heard that Schilli had been arrested after throwing a rock at a influential woman of the city, who had whipped a tiefling beggar that had asked for coin. As she heard this, Vallia went to the influential woman and asked her to let Schilli go. But she refused, and when she noticed that Vallia was a member of the Church of Eilistraee, she said she would let her go if she gave her a certain artifact of her order. Vallia could not do it and asked if she wanted something else. The woman then demanded that if she gave her an artifact worth twice as much as the previously mentioned one, she would also let Schilla go. Vallia agreed and was then given a year to bring it to her.
I just happened to pop back into this thread. Would this, by chance, be my homebrew Sword Dancer subclass?
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Lightning Strike - A rebranded Fire Bolt for Wizards & Sorcerers.
Spirit Bomb - A holy fireball for Clerics, Paladins, & Divine Soul Sorcerers!
Sword Dancer - A Cleric subclass specifically for the Drow goddess Eilistraee.
Nope. Made a new private one. With some changes and inspiration from the original Sword Dancer class of 3,5E. Though I took some inspiration with one skills name from a public homebrew Sword Dancer class. Though there are 3 of them. Did you Sword Dancer class possess a skill called War Dance? if so, then yes, I did use the same name for a similar skill
I like writing ridiculously detailed background stories (which my DMs actually love as story hooks). So, for anyone who enjoys a long tale, here is the background of my Lightfoot Halfling Warlock - she is a Celestial warlock, but Fey flavored; the campaign setting is TalDorei.
The calling of Cymbelina Tumbletoe
The Tumbletoes were one among five or six sprawling families of siblings, cousins, nanas and gaggles of children that formed the sunny hobbit town of Shinglebits, within a two-day walk of Byroden in the lush Mornset countryside. Like most of the hobbits of Shinglebits, the Tumbletoes had been farmers for many generations, busily growing grain and vegetables in neat gardens, herding their flocks of geese and plump little sheep, selling their surplus produce and the silky luxurious wool of their hobbit sheep at the monthly markets in Byroden. But Mornset, and within it Shinglebits and Byroden, lay in the Rifenmist Peninsula. The untethered, self-governed, often selfish and ruthless societies of outsiders that the rule of Drassig had left behind as the main inhabitants of the Peninsula had left the hobbits of Shinglebits less carefree than their relations in other, more orderly, civilized, and prosperous parts of Tal’Dorei. Bombadin Tumbletoe kept a scythe by the front door of his cottage. His eldest daughter had killed a bugbear with it that was hunting their sheep, and Bombadin had chased off more than one band of burglars. His wife Aurelia, who had a knack for tinkering and fixing things, had taken up mending pots and buckets, sharpening all manner of things that should be sharp, and making small tools and such, as a means to supplement their livelihood when the harvest had been devastated by marauding beasts or men, or when their goods were stolen on the way to market in Byroden. Despite the losses and hardships that came with life in Mornset, it also came with the fierce beauty of an untamed, mostly roadless expanse of rolling hills and windswept grasslands, bordered by ancient, gnarled, fey-touched forests. The hobbits of Shinglebits might not have been as carefree as their kinfolk in the civilized cities beyond the Verdant Expanse, but they had a zest for life, a sense of wonder for the beauties of their land, and an appreciation for a good breakfast, a bawdy song, and a jolly gathering of friends and neighbors rivaling any hobbit you may find in Tal’Dorei. Aurelia and Bombadin Tumbletoe raised their children in consciousness of frugality, in dedication to hard, but shared and joyful labor, in frequent expectation of loss, mitigated by sharing, and in the comfort of caring, hard-partying community. Their middle child, Cymbelina, was a dreamer and tinkerer. From a very young age, she loved playing with her mother’s tools, and “helping” her fix things, mostly by taking them apart. She loved to investigate not only the inanimate, but also all the little living things around her, running after butterflies and following pixies into their forest hideouts. Cymbelina was tiny, even for a hobbit, but whether it was her diminutive size or her knack for noticing and approaching with disarming kindness and naïve curiosity the tiniest and weirdest and most misfit creatures, she came to be tolerated, even trusted and liked by many of the little fey creatures that were curiously numerous in the woodlands just above Shinglebits. Few of the hobbits had time or inclination to pay too much heed to the presence of the mostly inconspicuous and secretive fey in these parts. But if you listened to Nana Bramblemutt’s stories, you would hear her sometimes talk of a door, a portal to the Feywild, in a tangled, lush grove of oaks and sycamores, just an afternoon’s walk above the Tumbletoes’ sheep pasture, where it bordered the woods. Cymbelina was much too young to understand that she was passing through a portal into a different plane, she only marveled at the beautiful green glow enveloping her on the summer morning she followed her three pixie friends skipping between two towering trees into a twilit clearing filled with myriad buzzing, humming, singing noises, surrounded by strange, colorful, monstrous trees. The pixies showed their little hobbit friend the squealing joy of sliding down giant vines into sparkling pools of softly glowing water, and introduced her to Holmoe, the three-legged centaur, who happily gave a joy ride to anyone who would listen to his endless tales of the bygone glory of his fighting days. Some minutes, or maybe hours, or maybe days later (time seemed to float suspended in the eternal twilight surrounding Cymbelina), the hobbit, one of her pixie friends (the other two had gotten distracted somewhere along the way by other shiny pursuits), and two brownies, went tumbling and chasing through the lush understory in a game of Catch-the Dancing-Lights, when Cymbelina’s toes got caught in the mossy fur of what had just looked like a large rotting log on the edge of a babbling brook. The pixy and brownies scattered with startled fear when the log sat up and looked at the little play party with unblinking black eyes, but Cymbelina just looked back into the bottomless black pools in awe. After the tiny hobbit had held this gaze for an impressive amount of time, Cymbelina heard a rumbling, amused voice, that she hardly noticed was just in her head. The voice asked her, since she was here, and her little bare toes well entangled in his fur, to stay a while and tell him some stories from the world of hobbits and humans and dwarves. The voice was soothing, and alluring, and gentle, and Cymbelina found nothing more natural than to drop down on her bottoms in the warm, comfortable fur on his knee, and tell the fuzzy log all manner of stories about shearing sheep, going to market in Byroden, and hiding under the bed when her parents and big sister were fighting off a band of roaming tabaxi trying to steal their chickens. When Cymbelina finally got sleepy, and realized with a knot of fright in her stomach that she didn’t know the way home, or how long she’d been away from there, she asked the log with a tiny, quivering voice whether he could show her the way home. He looked at her again for a long while with a bottomless gaze. She then heard a long, low peal of laughter in her head, and suddenly, Holmoe, the centaur was back, bowing deeply before the log, and bearing her back to the glowing green portal through which she had come a seemingly very long time ago. To her relief and delight, the sun had not even crossed the zenith when she emerged from the woods, climbed over the low stone wall protecting her family’s sheep pasture, and ran home across the pastures and gardens. In the evening, when the day’s work was done, and Cymbelina had received a pat on her woolly head from her father for tirelessly helping to pick beans, and a scolding from her mother for scattering the pieces of a clock Aurelia was working to repair for a merchant in Byroden, Cymbelina excitedly told her family the stories of her morning’s adventure in the wonderous forest in the hills. Her mother listened to her tales with much indulgence and mirth, being well acquainted with her young daughter’s wild and lively imagination, and taking it for nothing but a particularly colorful phantasy. Bombadin however did not take her wanderings and tales quite so lightly, remembering Nana Bramblemutt’s old stories of a gate to the Feywild. He warned his daughter not to stray so high into the forest, for not all fey creatures are kind and playful, and besides, one never knew when the next tabaxi thieves or human marauders might be wandering through the woods around Shinglebits. Having inherited her hobbit kinds’ fearless heart, and her mother’s strong will, Cymbelina stayed away from the grove in the hills for a few months, but egged on by her pixie friends, began venturing through the glowing gate again after the harvest was brought in, and the golden days of fall left her wild curiosity more leisure. She soon discovered that the twilight in the alluring world beyond the tree gate was never-ending, and that time stretched in unfathomable ways. No matter how much time she had spent playing brownie games or going on wild rides with Holmoe, when she slipped back into the woods above her home, never more than an hour or two seemed to have passed. She tried to take care now not to venture so far that she would not remember the way back to the portal; she memorized tree roots and bends in a brook, a field of enormous flowers and a dryad’s grove. She was not aware of her good fortune that this nook of the Feywild, which the mostly forgotten portal above her home village opened into, was as sleepy and friendly and forgotten a region of the Feywild as Shinglebits was in the comparatively wild and lawless world of the Rifenmist Peninsula. She didn’t speak of her secret adventures to her parents again, feeling just a little guilty, but convincing herself that they just didn’t understand the wonder of this world, and that she needn’t worry them unnecessarily. It was more than year later when Cymbelina stumbled upon the friendly mossy log again. He opened one deep black eye at her while she sat on his rump; intent on the brook beneath her, she was sitting next to a sprite who had dared her to try her small hands at spear fishing, and who was now looking on and mocking her first clumsy attempts. The sprite darted off in fearful haste as soon as the log’s eye alit upon them, and Cymbelina only had time to briefly wonder at the sprite’s flight, when she heard the log’s rumbling, amused voice in her head again, greeting her with “the hobbit child has returned!” From that encounter on, Cymbelina made a habit of wandering along the small brook to look for the mossy log whenever she ventured through the portal, and if she found him, entertain him for a while with stories and news from the other side of the portal. He was an eager and amused listener, and Cymbelina revelled in his warm, enveloping presence, and the jaw dropping tales of the high courts of the Archfey that he would sometimes regale her with. Just as she was unaware of her luck, Cymbelina was mostly unconscious of the watchful presence that had begun to direct her carefree steps with guiding fireflies when her pixie companions had left her behind in a new and confusing place, or scare a hag or redcap off the path she might be wandering on. Sometimes when wandering alone, she glimpsed a large stag, or a figure like a faun just vanishing from sight, and she imagined excitedly that it might be the great Archfey god Cernunnos that her friend the mossy log had told her stories about. As she grew older and more mature, so did the stories the log would ask her for – instead of tales of sheep and flower gardens, she would tell of bloody raids in the countryside, meetings of important folk in Syngorn, tribal warfare by local wood elves, and, well, she seldom could satisfy his curiosity for the love- and lust-affairs of anyone more interesting than her adolescent sister and her consorts... The stories of violence and warfare and politics became more prevalent not only due to the listener’s requests, but also due to the changing experiences of the teller. Life in the Mornset countryside was becoming more precarious, raids and robberies becoming almost commonplace. Much as they would have preferred to, her parents could no longer shield their now 10-year old from assisting in the defence of their homestead and witnessing, even participating in the inevitable violence and death that came with it. She also needed to take more responsibilities in tending the farm and raise her little brother, while her mother was away at Byroden to make ends meet working as a tinkerer more often. The nook of the Feywild that the portal above Shinglebits opened to was becoming less serene and more dangerous as well: ruthless and malevolent fey creatures were starting to use the gate to gain access to and take advantage of the growing outlaw traffic on the other side. Cymbelina was increasingly learning to hide and travel on secret paths, helping fey creatures that were getting injured or in trouble from outlaws on the outside or evil fey on the inside. Slowly, the Feywild was turning from a playground of her early childhood into a natural, yet secret part of her life, where she built relationships, took responsibilities, and was learning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the fey creatures. Her attempts at catching fish with a spear, picking mushrooms that wouldn’t jump out of her basket and run away, and identifying herbs by their healing qualities were becoming less clumsy. One day, her little brother followed Cymbelina through the gate, unbeknownst to her. The little boy, enchanted as Cymbelina was the first time she had passed into the twilit wonderland, serenely wandered through a field of red poppies and began plucking them by the armful, when a hag spotted the hobbit child. Summoning a pack of hounds, she was about to close in and take him for her own, when a sprite friend witnessed the scene. Knowing the hobbit child as Cymbelina’s brother, the sprite darted off to where Cymbelina was sitting and telling stories to the mossy log by the stream to alert her to the danger. As Cymbelina ran to do – she didn’t know what, but was determined to do anything she could to save her brother, she was overtaken by an enormous antlered man who scooped up the hobbit boy in front of her eyes, put him to sleep with nothing more than a silent gaze, and without uttering so much as a word sent the hag and her hounds scattering. Cymbelina stood in awe, slowly letting the realization sink in that the antlered figure was her friend the fuzzy log. She didn’t need to ask the question out loud for him to hear and answer her: yes, he was Cernunnos, the Archfey lord that had featured in some of the most phantastic stories of the Archfey court he himself had told her over the years. He revealed that he kept coming to this region of the Feywild as his favorite resting place, assuming the form of the mossy log to be one with the calm of the forest brook. His meetings with her had become a beloved pastime to him, and a way to keep tabs on the ongoings in the other plane without having to cross over there himself. His interest in those ongoings was partly driven by his wish to keep this, his favorite, nook of the Feywild safe from dangers that may push through the portal, and partly by whimsical, vicarious curiosity in the doings and strong desires of the mortal creatures on the other side. He expressed his desire to maintain their friendship, and at the same time warned her about the increasing dangers of travelling here, but also shared his observation and appreciation of her increasing competence and ease in navigating both worlds. Cymbelina felt awed, honored, and reassured all at once by the Archfey’s revelation and his offer of continued friendship. She took great care never to have her brother follow her again, and took to guarding and even attempting to conceal the gate from other outsiders the best she could. Cymbelina was 15 years old when a raid by half-starved human outlaws got out of control and resulted in two thirds of the farmsteads in Shinglebits consumed by a raging fire. Her father Bombadin died in the fire, along with almost a third of the hobbit population of Shinglebits. Devastated, Cymbelina struggled to shake the self-reproach for wandering unharmed and oblivious in the Feywild at the time of the raid. Her older sister was among the badly injured, and Cymbelina used the healing herbs and all the knowledge she had learned from the fey in a desperate struggle to keep her alive. But although she was able to help some of the other villagers with less severe injuries, the skills and tools at her disposal were not enough to save her sister. After her father’s and sister’s death, and the destruction of their farmstead, Cymbelina moved with her mother and little brother to settle in Byroden. Cymbelina was trying to contribute to her remaining family’s living by helping her mother with the tinkering business, but her enthusiasm for tinkering was not matched by her talent for it, and she soon missed the forest. She returned to live part-time with a now also widowed uncle and cousin in the Tumbletoe family who, along with a handful other families, were stubbornly rebuilding their lives in what was left of Shinglebits. There, she began to put the hunting and gathering skills to good use that she had learned and continued to hone in company with her fey friends. To her contentment, she found that her skills were sufficient to provide for herself, and to supplement the village’s and her mother’s and brother’s livelihoods, regularly travelling to see and supply her family in Byroden. Her skills with healing herbs came more in demand as well, since the fire had killed or driven to emigration any other skilled healers that previously had called Shinglebits their home. On one of her visits to Byroden, when she brought a heavy bag full of fruits and roots and another full with mussels and rabbit meat, her mother hugged her tightly and told her to keep trusting her instincts since they always seemed to serve her well, and keep her friends close, both mortal and fey. When Cymbelina looked at her in sheepish surprise, her mother smiled gently and told her that she had suspected for a long time that her daughter had indeed found the rumored Feywild gate, and made the place on the other side a second home. She smirked when asking Cymbelina whether she expected her mother to believe that she had learned to hunt and fish and gather herbs and roots all on her own, oh, and speak Sylvan to the dryad in their old orchard? Cymbelina hugged her mother back just as tightly, and promised her to stick close to her instincts and her friends. Life didn’t become easier, on either side of the Feywild portal. Raids and famines in the Mornset countryside, and the proliferation of greedy, seedy creatures on both sides continued. Cymbelina took solace and refuge with her friends in the Feywild often, helping there too with providing for those who suffered loss, and with healing the injured and sick as much as she was able. Whenever she could find Cernunnos, she reveled in the warmth of his caring, comforting, calming presence, a presence she appreciated more deeply, sometimes desperately, since her father’s loss. One day, a man came travelling through the village with a caravan of merchants, but instead of travelling on the road as the rest of the merchant company, this man curiously kept to the edge of the woods. Then, instead of leaving with the caravan as it travelled on to the south, he suddenly decided to rent a room from one of the hobbits in the village. Cymbelina secretly observed him spending much of his time wandering the forest and showing an unsettling interest in the common occurrence of fey creatures hereabouts. Although she was careful, Cymbelina’s scrutiny did not escape the equally suspicious eye of the man, and he waited for her to leave on an extended trip to Byroden until he unlocked some considerable magical power to find the portal he suspected in the area, and entered the Feywild. Using a captured pixie as his hostage and forced key to entry, he immediately set to collecting pixies en masse to harvest their magic dust, slaying who and whatever was attempting to impede his path. Once his doings had attracted sufficient attention that the threat of significant opposition started to drive him back, he retreated and hid instead on the other side of the gate. Having gathered enough local information, he now sent magical servants to continue his awful work, and expand it by sapping energy from all manner of small fey creatures his magical servants encountered. He made his subsequent attacks sporadic enough to become unpredictable, devastating, and elusive to his victims in the Feywild. When Cernunnos tread onto his most beloved turf again, he found it in chaos and pain, bleeding out the very life and magical core of its existence. He felt the source of this devastation outside of the portal, and knowing that it would not be staunched from within alone, he gave shelter and healing to his folk while patiently waiting for the one creature from the outside he knew he could trust, the hobbit he knew would return. When she did return, Cymbelina managed to sneak by the mage’s attention, who was distracted by his revel in the fruits of his hideous labor, and she entered the Feywild to freeze in horrified contemplation of the mage’s work. Cernunnos wordlessly summoned her to him, explaining to her that their enemy was a warlock in pact with a demon. The time had come to seal this portal once and for all, to undo the horror this man was causing, and thereby also end the reciprocal harm that greedy, evil creatures were increasingly inflicting while passing in and out of what had once been a quiet, overgrown gate between two sleepy, serene nooks of their respective worlds. He needed her on the other side to achieve this deed. Cernunnos offered her a pact with himself, to become a warlock in her own right, to give her the divine power to combat the power she had seen spawned by a pact with a demon, to heal the damage it had done to those that were dear to him and her both, and to become his hand and eyes and agent in her plane. He had seen her loyalty and love for the feyfolk, and knew her heart to be compassionate and eager in its pursuits, and for a long time (as far as a hobbit was concerned, at least) shyly, yet deeply attached to him. Accepting his offer would mean to shut the gate forever, to bar her entry into a place that had become more her home than anywhere else in the world was these days. But it would also mean to accept the charge he prescribed, to give a direction to her life she had been secretly desperate for and had felt so powerless to achieve in the frenzy of just surviving as a hobbit in a hostile world: the charge to befriend and help fey where she encountered them, to defend and heal those who were dear to her, and others who were threatened and injured and powerless; and, she heard him whisper in the back of her brain somewhere, to share with him all the stories and the sensations of the wondrous, dangerous, sensuous world she would wander…. And through all of it, she would be guided by and connected to him; a thought that filled her with warm, reassuring, boundless joy and security. She looked into his calm, waiting eyes for several breathless minutes before she silently but wholeheartedly nodded her head. Cernunnos then bowed down to her, took her head into his hands, and touched his lips to hers. Although the touch was featherlight, she felt as though his entire being, the almost boundless power, timeless depth of wisdom, eternal compassion, and unfathomable whimsy of a Lord of the Archfey, and his undeniable, enveloping affection for her filled her to the brim. It felt like the embrace of a father who will never die, and the kiss of a lover who will never let go of her at the same time, and it made her head spin. When she was able to see and hear and breathe again, she beheld a green-golden glow connect herself to him, that faded to a barely perceptible thread of light, binding her to his core. Cernunnos passed his hand through the thread, and when he opened it, a drop of light had crystallized in his hand into a glass bead mirroring his unblinking eye. He laid the amulet in Cymbelina’s hand, conveying that this was the material token of their bond, the focus for the magic he was gifting her. While she still breathlessly contemplated the amulet in her hand, she heard him laugh inside her head, and looking up at him, saw that the massive ancient countenance of the horned god that had greeted her upon her arrival here had turned into the lithe appearance of a young, antlered faun, full of mischief and a soft, romantic twinkle in his eye. He kissed her again, but this was a deep, a lover’s kiss, and she again felt like fainting unto the forest floor. He caught her in strong arms before she could fall, and with a brief regret that she could feel, turned into a stag and bore her to the edge of the portal, where apprehension of what she must attempt chased away any butterflies of romance. What she didn’t lose, but felt inside with a still astonished and overwhelmed gratitude was the reassurance of his presence, the power of his gift. She stepped outside with one more glance at the great stag that stood watching her, and dashed through the gate to the other side, for the last time. With awe, Cymbelina felt the power of her patron’s frightful countenance and beguiling will coursing through her when she tricked, and lured, and frightened the warlock (she, a tiny hobbit, intimidating another mortal!) into passing through the gate himself again. There, Cernunnos had assembled warriors (and to her satisfaction, Cymbelina glimpsed Holmoe among them) to cut the warlock down after a brief but furious battle. Meanwhile, it took Cymbelina a few long and frenzied days to search for and gather and do everything she could to heal all the little creatures he had captured but were not yet beyond help; and she was exhilarated to discover how everything she could do was so much more through the healing magic guiding her hands now. After she sent all of the little fey back beyond the gate so they could become whole again in their home, she turned her mind to sealing the portal. Cernunnos did his part on the other side, each completing one half of a ritual that took an entire week to perform. When the deed was done, and Cymbelina watched the last green-golden glow fade between the two towering trees that had been the door posts to one half of who she was, her mind and body and spirit were exhausted beyond the remedy of sleep with everything that life had given her and taken from her in just a few days. She lingered a few more days in Shinglebits, gathering up the memories and saying her farewells to the community of her childhood, before travelling once more to Byroden. There, her mother had recently married a rock gnome, a tinkerer himself and a merchant of used goods, and together they were making a solid, shared living and an affectionate home for a little family. She stays for a few weeks with them, but Byroden life never having held Cymbelina for long, while it now provided new contentment and security to her mother and little brother, Cymbelina soon takes her leave from her mother, brother and new stepfather. The gnome, fond of his step daughter’s adventurous spirit, but always of a planning mind, gives her a set of tinker’s tools as a parting gift to give the young woman a “respectable means to start her way through life” as he puts it, and so endowed with her family’s blessings, she heads north…. She finds occasional employ repairing and sharpening things in the towns she passes through, but she gets chased out of a halfelven magistrate’s home when she puts together his son’s gnome-made toy backwards, and most of the little tools she fashions end up just a little more crooked and whimsical than is appreciated by their owners, or frankly, useful to them. So, she mostly provides for herself the way she knows best: hunting, fishing and gathering, while always on the lookout for fey creatures, and the wonders of Tal’Dorei that lie beyond the Mornset, eventually making her way to the great city of Emon that the stories along the road’s taverns describe in the most wondrous, alluring proportions...
Cymbelina wakes up the morning after an exhausting, but successful day of clearing out a mine from an infestation of nasty kobolds, and making (she hopes?) some new friends in the process, to blink at the carefully guarded, suspicious, but strangely hopeful face of what she recognizes as an impish brownie… one of the more mischievous denizens of the Feywild who have a talent for disguise and deception, who delight in persuading more naïve creatures into causing monumental mayhem, and then disappearing into nothingness. While Cymbelina and the brownie are still just watching each other, a massive set of antlers roughly sweeps aside the leaf and bow shelter she had built for herself the night before. Cymbelina jumps to her feet and restrains herself from climbing up the giant stag’s rump to hug him around the neck only because he stamps and snorts and shakes his neck mane in exhilaration from a long gallop through the woods. When he collects himself, he takes a moment to nudge her affectionately, and then proceeds to tell her that he has sent this creature to serve her and be bound to her wishes. He explains that what she sees is a form that the spirit within has chosen to take in this world; that she may command him, if she wishes, to take many other forms. The spirit is a fey, and was one of the more malevolent creatures that was drawn to the nook of the Feywild Cymbelina had known so well, by the growing opportunity for greed and evil in the time before she helped Cernunnos close the portal. Cernunnos and the older inhabitants of this region had since worked on rooting out and chasing back the most evil denizens to whence they came; they had found a few of the lesser creatures around the edge, however, who were persuaded into changing their allegiances, into embracing the light, and bright, and whimsical aspect of life as a fey. This one, finding he had lost much of his taste for inflicting harm when he saw the horror that the warlock whom he had secretly aided had done to hundreds of pixies, sprites, and other tiny fey, had been attempting to change his ways as best he was able, and to befriend those he had earlier helped to harm. Yet, the impish brownie’s old ways were hard to shake, and carelessness and mischief got the better of him too often. When a dryad caught him ripping out and stealing branches off her holy tree, she brought him before Cernunnos. When in his shameful confession the brownie accidentally let slip his previously carefully guarded secret that he had actually aided the warlock bent on enslaving and destroying fey in entering the Feywild portal, Cernunnos almost extinguished the brownie in his initial rage. But letting his rage cool, he thought better of it, and decided to bind him instead to one he knows will turn his spirit to compassion and benevolence, or break his spirit trying – and Cernunnos does not care which. Whether this bond will be a punishment or an opportunity and adventure for this impish brownie, neither of them are sure of, but Cernunnos knows it will serve his own purposes in both forcing the brownie off his destructive path, and rewarding Cymbelina’s loyalty and devotion to himself with a familiar companion that promises to be versatile, eager, and entertaining in the most unexpected ways. Cymbelina looks at the tiny fey with a brightening smile, deciding that “Sprout” will be a fitting name for such a creature…
This was partly based off of a 4 chan post I saw on r/d&d. Anyways the whole point if I remember correctly was his character had a ribbon covering a wound that would drip blood causing damage so he had to make a potion to stop it each day. I thought of that and came up with this.
Blackwood, or as he was formerly known 22, he was an envoy, but he was flawed, his root like veins were severed after the forge he was created in was attacked during the last war. This made it so whenever attempted to cast a damaging spell his roots would rip open spraying his arcane life blood in order to cast them. He eventually asked an artificer to implement a way to harness this defect meaning when ever he cast a damaging spell would open valves on his arms releasing the arcane fluid in a controlled way lessening the damage, and it worked perfectly or so he thought. One day in the middle of a tense battle his friend, an elf soldier named Sucrasal charged in front of him and the other troops prepared to make a dent in the enemy's lines. As he ran he yelled "shield, now", but Blackwood's valves jammed and he couldn't cast and he watched in horror as the enemy's arrows and bolts and rained down on his friend. The battle waged on and their lines weren't holding, they were losing when all of a sudden his ally's yelled, "retreat!", and grabbed him. The image of his friend's body falling was burned into his mind. After the last war when trying to leave Ebberon and his past and travel to Faerun he was nearly killed when his ship was attacked by a dragon who ravaged the ship leaving nearly nothing behind. Despite losing everything including his spell book and parts from his body he carried on, he didn't know why though? was it just instinct to live?, or was he determined to somehow make up to himself, for his friend after causing their death. He continued on relearning all he could, trying to somehow forget the horrors of Ebberon.
by the way heres the feature/stasts for his defect:
Defective Engineering: Whenever Blackwood casts a damage dealing spell he takes 1 d4 damage.
Rewired: When Blackwood reaches level 15 he can add +1 to hit or +1 to damage on all damage dealing spells.
During the anarchy of a vicious ostrich attack, R'ruuby survived, more by luck than by skill, by clutching to the feathers and holding desperately on as the birds continued their rampage. It wouldn't be safe for little R'ruuby to let go until the ostriches returned home and went to sleep, taking her far far away from the family and friends that she held dear. She new, that she would probably never see them again. Fending for herself among the ostriches was a difficult upbringing most of the time but helped her hone her skills and better understand the limits of her own body. After a year or so of depending on the ostriches for transport and food, R'ruuby yearned for freedom, freedom that only sea travel could provide! Hitching a ride on a water-seeking ostrich, R'ruuby made her way to freedom and stowed away on her first ever pirate ship. It wasn't long before she was discovered, and the crew, hungry as they were, attempted to make a frogs leg stew from her. But she sure showed them! A few quick jabs with her poison tipped spear and some fancy footwork made quick work of a few of the pirates, earning her a place among the crew. The pirates decided that her grip would come in handy in the crows nest, and so she became the lookout, learning how to navigate the seas and spot land from afar. But this too, was cut tragically short, when a rival pirate ship attacked! Her captain and crew were slaughtered. R'ruuby, again scraping through by the skin of her teeth, slipped into the water before she was spotted by The Ruthless Renegades. Vowing to have her revenge, she swam to the nearest shore, the shore of Fort Inevitable...
(Older) My Dungeon World Human Cleric named Pope Pickles (warning, prepare for alliteration):
Pope Pickles
The Plastered Prophet of Port Poland
To properly understand Pope Pickles, I propose this prose.
Port Poland was a prosperous providence parked purposefully on the Pacific Rim; perpetually providing produce poled periodically as per the precedent set predominantly by Peter Parker the Polish Prime minster. People piled in from Palace and pigsty alike to peruse the products that Port Poland had presented along the parade. Peddlers peddled their products: portioned, packaged and prepared. Perch, Pilchard, Pike and even Puffer Fish were poached, peppered and pickled for prospective patrons. Pope Pickles provided his parish with parable and passage, pertaining to the proper perception of the All Powerful. The precepts he preached were practiced by the public and his purity pronounced perfectly by his purple and pink panoply. He was the precise personification of priesthood. Pope Pickles and Port Poland were prolific with prosperity, progressing past previous presumptions.
Per contra, paradise was predestined to plunge into perniciousness. For where there are princes, there will also be peasants. The poor prepared to pilfer pennies from the plush and the pretentious. Prefects were posted to police the proletariat, preventing pickpockets and plunderers from pushing Port Poland into panicked pandemonium. The prowling purloiners used their powers of persuasion and proficiencies to profit despite the pursuit of patrolling prosecution. Port Poland was plummeting into poverty as profanity, polygamy and prostitution took place in the Pants Party Inn on Pultney Place.
Pope Pickles was petrified; his once persuaded population had pivoted into promiscuity and pugnaciousness. He perched himself by the podium of his once profound Pantheon and as he pondered the point of propriety, he pointed himself purposefully before the All Powerful Holy Potato altar and prayed. “What about me? It isn’t fair! I’ve had enough, now I want my share, can’t you see?? I just want to live, but you just take more than you give!” The All Powerful Potato remained persistently poised, perfectly protecting its purpose. Pope Pickles became pallid, his position as Pope had proved pointless and he pondered what life pertained to.
Pope Pickles had procured plentiful piles of bread and wine for non-present parishioners, he perturbed that it may perish. Peculiarly Pickles presumed that the prime proposition was to get pissed. Pickles partook of plenty of precious booze until he passed out. The All Powerful Potato presented Pope Pickles with a premonition, previous pursuits were problematic, and perhaps a proxy path would prove more paying. Pope Pickles perceived his purpose and prepared to patch up Port Poland and in the process, provide the population with providence from the All Powerful Potato. Pope Pickles’ Polish Potatoes was his point, a place where people procured all manner of potato products, fries and vodka were popular picks among patrons, served promptly while piping hot. The populace of Port Poland praised Pope Pickles for plotting Port Poland on the parchment, for prosperity had returned.
Pope Pickles presumed that the All Powerful Potato was primarily pleased with the prophet’s performance. Pickles was perplexed, however, at the possibility that perceiving premonitions perhaps only pop up when he was plastered. A phial of Pope Pickles’ Polish Potatoes vodka, 4Ps as the Polish people pronounced it, the Pope pocketed predominantly for the purpose of parlaying with the All Powerful Potato. Pope Pickles, the Plastered Prophet of Port Poland prepared his pack and progressed past the palisades of Port Poland to practice his prayers and proffer the pacts of the Potato to the public.
Yes, that one is mine. Went in the direction of keeping within the spirit of the class instead of attempting to convert it wholesale from 3.5
I kept almost nothing and just made it granted some bardic spells and some sword related Sorcerer cantrips. Other than that there was just one war dance that gave allies adnvatage in attack and damage rolls for one turn and a add in power when fighting undead, fiend and fey
I will change it a little if i choose another archetype, but here is Rufus, the halfling rogue.
Rufus has few memories of his life before he became a slave, he does not remember where he came from or his surname. Despite the rather unusual misfortune for a halfling, the luck of his race soon helped him to be bought by a gang leader, belonging to one of Luskan's two robber guilds, who trained him to be one. However, Rufus does not feel any loyalty to his benefactor because he recognizes him as a despicable person involved in the slave trade, and knows that it is only a tool for him.
Rufus likes to be a criminal. Running through the rooftops of the city, breaking into houses, stealing anything he want to avoid money as a problem is a life of great freedom. Or would it be, if he were not tied to his guild hierarchy, to his leader who expects great gratitude from him. Gradually he began to tire of it all, Luskan seemed more of the same, it was boredom and irritation that made him dare more and more in his heists. He realized his self-destructive route when one of his plans almost went wrong, and only escaped because his prodigious luck made him encounter an unfortunate man while fleeing, who was caught in his place. One's luck is the other's bad luck, he thought, but there he decided that it was best to have as little as possible with it.
He knew he had to get out of Luskan or he was going to die there, but he wasn't going to run away to be immediately hunted and killed, he needed a good plan. For that, he went to his boss and with all his disguise argued that it would be better to disappear for a while after the blow that nearly failed, to wait for the dust to settle. But instead of simply hiding in the city and risking being arrested, the best way would be to serve as a security for any trader going on a trip, as this would give him some money that would be split between the two as usual. He knew that his boss's greed and arrogance in his submission would make him agree to this plan, and from there the second part of it began.
Rufus sought out some rival gangs of his within the robber's guild, and offered valuable insight into his now ex-boss's plans and much of the gold he had accumulated in exchange for being indicated by them the special condition of having the freedom to move around. wherever it pleased. So when your former boss found out he wasn't coming back, he would have too many problems to deal with to invest too much in his revenge.
Finally, he could get to the last and best part of his plan, an adventurous life. Yes, the stakes were huge, but so were the rewards. And in his particular case, he would be constantly on the move, and possibly protected by skilled and well-armed companions. He would know a lot of new places, and make a name for himself in a socially accepted way, and perhaps retire as a respectable family halfling with a huge house and farm. He could not resist, and bought ink, quill and paper to draw this house. He also decided to give himself the surname of Good Farm, which was both a wish, a disguise, and shame of being an orphan slave.
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My new back up character: A Warforged envoy who got blasted out of Eberron.
Confusion, it’s every Warforged first experience when they are created. A fully functional mind, soul & body but with no clue on how or why they are there. It was the same for MWC11. In the days that followed he received basic combat training, gained an understanding of the world and learned why he was here. His batch was designed to assist House Cannith in weapon construction for the ever profitable war that raged across the continent. Over the following months MWC11 learned how to work metal in the forge. And to tinker with his dexterous envoy hands. But then a lucky accident happend. Some new employee had caused an explosion in weapon development, killing and injuring half the department. House Cannith needed the workshop fixed and filled as soon as possible, so they called upon MWC11 batch since they already had a fair amount of knowledge and were eager to learn. After a few weeks MWC11’s batch had repaired the workshop and were working on finishing the projects that were left behind under guidance of a senior artificer. Afterwards MWC11’s and his brothers were permanently assigned to the workshop, continuing to develop weaponry. The group had become more social by now and they were starting to name each other. MWC11 adopted the name Artifact for his interest in ancient magic.
As the war continued over the years, so did the need for special weapons. And eventually Artifact was ready to demonstrate his latest creation the “ethereal shot” an ballista bolt that would bypass defenses and detonate behind enemy lines. But something went horribly wrong during the demonstration on the plains outside the forge, rumbling sounds filled the air followed by a destructive wave of fire and magic crashing over them. What he remembers only flashes; speeding through a world of gray, a bond snapping, a bright light and suddenly he was free falling in a world he didn't recognize.
I might add some more backstory depending on how he will meet the party.
My Sword Dancer(An cleric Subclass) Aasimar Protector's backstory.
Vallia is the daughter of a adventuring female bard whose father was an Aasimar, and of a Drow Cleric of the curch of Eilistraee. Her father saved her dying mother and they fell in love and have since then lived together at the small hidden temple town in the northern parts of The High Forest. With an cave mouth leading to the Underdark in the nearby Nether Mountains. Vallia was raised to a devout believer in Eilistraee and have been fighting off monsters, drow and others hostile creatures that come out of the underdark cave. She has traveled to the Elven City of Silverymoon for diplomatic purposes of her church, traveled in the underdark to save and bring the goddess message to all drow.
She rose up to become the most respected and powerful Dark Lady in her temple, but then she started to feel like her life was empty, that she had no passion in life outside of battle and preaching. Like she had no goal in life and nothing to live for, which lead to her becoming more and more emotionless. When one day while playing her Shawm instrument in secret(Something due to her getting teased in the past by the other children that her instrument sounded rather goofy, which since then made her feel a little embarrassed playing it). She were done playing it for the day and suddenly she heard inside her head someone say "That was beautiful". Not knowing the voice was heard only in her mind, she thought someone had snuck up behind her, she turned and did a kick that hit the close-by tree by mistake. The next second she heard someone scream above her and looked up to see something green fall towards her and knock her down to the ground. The green thing was on top of her and she reached for her sword, thinking it was some sort of goblin. But then to her surprise she saw it smile to her and say "Play it again!".
Vallia stopped her hand and looked on the creature in surprise, with only one word coming out of her mouth: "HUH!?" The Green thing stood up. It was a 4 ft tall female looking creature with black hair in a pony tail tied with a red ribbon, she grinned and said that Vallia playing the shawm was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard and that her name was Schilli. Hearing that someone thought her shawm music was beautiful made Vallia blush for the first in a very long time. She then remembered reading about Schilli's race, that she was a Verdan.
After that they both spent lots of time together, and Vallia did not feel so empty anymore, infact, Shcilla made her laugh and smile. Schilli was usually asking curiously about the things Vallia had done in her life, while Vallia was shocked to hear that not only was Schilli 71 years old, but that she had been a male until 14 years ago(read about Verdan). And after being together for a year, they fell in love with each other. But one day, Schilli did not appear at their meeting day, and out of worry, she traveled the way Schilli said she was gonna travel to before her departure. She then came to the city of Sundabar where she heard that Schilli had been arrested after throwing a rock at a influential woman of the city, who had whipped a tiefling beggar that had asked for coin. As she heard this, Vallia went to the influential woman and asked her to let Schilli go. But she refused, and when she noticed that Vallia was a member of the Church of Eilistraee, she said she would let her go if she gave her a certain artifact of her order. Vallia could not do it and asked if she wanted something else. The woman then demanded that if she gave her an artifact worth twice as much as the previously mentioned one, she would also let Schilla go. Vallia agreed and was then given a year to bring it to her.
These are my current two characters being used in different campaigns, I've added some backstory to the Monk as the story has progressed, but I've only put on here the initial back story.
Here's my Halfing Monk:
A wayward youth, I was always getting into trouble with my elders. Generally for being too headstrong, fidgeting, and getting into fights standing up for my friends, and others around me.
This developed as I grew up and I joined a local monastery to become a monk and I studied martial arts, not for my betterment, but for the protection of those around me. After leaving my monastery, I went back to my village to lead a quiet life, standing up against bullies and those who came into the village to cause trouble, but trying to lead a quiet unobtrusive life. However, the quiet life is hard to find, and these days trouble often comes past and finds me, regardless of my wishes.
I have always enjoyed the outdoors, and prefer the quiet village life to the big city. In the city there are many traps, and I got myself ensnared with hard drink one night, and I now avoid strong drink in case I go too far again.
And my Dwarf Barbarian:
War! I was born to war. My father was a Captain serving in the army of Kaldrum, Lord of the Mountain.
I was born in a time of war with the evil Orcs, and Goblins, which seems to be a constant state of affairs. As I was growing up, I learnt the arts of fighting (and drinking), but a lot of fighting was going on. I took my place in the army as my father wished, though not in the same unit to stop any favouritism. My father however, still had a role in shaping my progress and my training in the finer arts.
During this time, I made many friends and still have attachments of loyalty with those of my unit. My early years were spent scouting and raiding in defence of the kingdom. There were many losses, far too many in my opinion, due to stupid orders and soldiers blindly following those orders! One night, we were ordered out to hunt down a dragon stalking the mountain and to not return without killing it. That night, I barely made it out alive. Our unit was annihilated, and only a few of us returned.
The officer in charge was incompetent, a flunky of Kaldrum who was only there to magnify his own position - our regular officer was "reassigned" for that mission. So many of our troops used to following good orders blindly followed the orders of Jorrol without question, and ended up becoming martyrs to the cause. I was nearly a martyr myself, however a good friend I had grown up with, Náli, pulled me aside from the dragon's breath. Jorrol, may Dol Dorn take his rotten soul, fled with barely a hair singed. Together, myself, Náli and a handful of others battled for two days and defeated the dragon.
We returned to the Kingdom, and received a reception far different to what we expected. Jorrol had returned before us, and had taken all the credit. We were accused of cowardice and disobeying orders. I was angry, furious even, and struck Jorrol with the leg of the dragon that I carried back as proof of his death. Jorrol, weakling that he was, hid behind Kaldrum and ordered we all be punished for our deeds. My father pleaded on my behalf, and due to his standing with the army, and the people, Kaldrum listened to him. Instead of being restrained with loss of rank, we few were banished from the Kingdom to find work wherever we could, in the army of another Lord, or as guards in the mines.
The loss of my position with my people and family drove me mad, I was no longer a soldier - I had been made to become a mercenary, seeking out the highest bidder. To this day, the horror of battle, of ignorant fools follows me, the loss of my friends that night has made me slow to make new friends, especially with those humans whose lives are so fleeting.
If I ever come across Jorrol again, I have sworn an ignominious death for him.
Cross me with care!
Odo Proudfoot - Lvl 10 Halfling Monk - Princes of the Apocalypse (Campaign Finished)
Orryn Pebblefoot - Lvl 5 Rock Gnome Wizard (Deceased) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Deceased)
Anerin Ap Tewdr - Lvl 5 Human (Variant) Bard (College of Valor) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
I really like your dwarfs backstory, Really dwarfish and intriguing with a fitting setting. But I have a question about your halfing. If he likes the quiet life in his village, how do you plan to explain why he ends up travelling to fight in the Underdark?(this is just an example of a campaign setting, since it is an often used setting). This question is in both part to help you think of that when the times comes and also for me to learn of different ways to make my own characters with similar traits to fit into the campaign setting. So I am really interested in the answer :)
When I was constructing a possible character, I was blissfully unaware that Dragonborn was an actual class. So, I figured that a Barbarian with dragon abilities (fire breathing, claws, teeth) would need to be explained in-universe and would require house rules to bring to life. To compensate for this, I decided to make him completely blind, and to explain the existence of a draconic hybrid, I built the backstory of a team of alchemists genetically engineering a dragon super-soldier for the big bad emperor. The only working model of over 20 test subjects was born with a birth defect that left it completely blind, and imprinted upon two of the scientists, identifying them as "mother" and "father". The subject, registered as DRACONIC EXPERIMENT TEST 20, or D-20 for short spent it's entire life in the lab, being experimented on, and running training exercises to prove the viability of a super-soldier. The local villages started taking notice that citizens were being abducted and taken to the labs, so they hired a crew of wandering heroes to break into the lab and mount a rescue. The "heroes" were more akin to a bunch of Chaotic Neutral PCs, and their rescue operation left almost the entire staff dead. The fighter beat up "father" to obtain information, the rogue started pocketing the shiny lab equipment, and the barbarian took "mother" into the back room for some....intense roleplaying, which didn't sit well with D-20. Not. One. Bit.
The empire saw the smoking ruins of the lab and decided it would be better to cut their losses on the project. And so, there my D-20 sits. Prowling around the empty labs that he used to play in, growling at night as memories of "mother and father" come to him in dreams and nightmares.
PS: How do I format this monstrosity so it's actually possible to read?
My new character, a half wood elf Barbarian, has a simple backstory. His home was destroyed, he taught himself to hunt, and found a weird helmet. Of course, the helmet is an ancient relic created to kill monsters by the mightiest druids and artificers working together.
Our campaign isn't going through the underdark. But even though he likes the quiet trouble continues to visit his village. So he travelled to a city (I can't remember which one) to get some advice from his order. During his visit to the city he was tempted by the noise and lights he never got to his order and ran into trouble of his own. Thrown out by the guards he then stumbled across his current travelling party.
And I'll probably flesh it out from there.
Odo Proudfoot - Lvl 10 Halfling Monk - Princes of the Apocalypse (Campaign Finished)
Orryn Pebblefoot - Lvl 5 Rock Gnome Wizard (Deceased) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Deceased)
Anerin Ap Tewdr - Lvl 5 Human (Variant) Bard (College of Valor) - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Ok, now I know
The backstory for my circle of dreams druid. She's honestly kind of a mess and I love her for it.
After being kicked out of the elite Willow Spire Academy of Arcane Arts (WSAAA) and disowned by her family, young Chia Valdemar wandered through the woods for weeks alone and aimless until she accidentally stumbled unknowingly into the Feywild, where she met an Unaligned fey Dryad (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/dryad) who she called Oak (full name, unknown to Chia, Quercuse Ablan Fagale). Oak took her in, teaching her the ways of the fey in exchange for menial labor and generally keeping Chia as a pseudo-pet/servant/apprentice. Chia was happy for a long time, until one day a Seelie guard showed up at their door and tried to conscript Oak into the Seelie Army to fight the Gloaming Court, as well as take Chia to be a servant of Queen Tatania. Oak sacrificed her freedom to help Chia escape. The next thing she knew, Chia awoke in the mortal plane. She had been asleep for so long that moss and algae had turned her hair green, and a small bird had make it's nest in it. Upon returning to the world she discovered that she had been gone for 900 years, and having never paid her school dues, she owed WSAAA hundreds in gold. She now travels the land, working odd jobs to pay back her debt and searching for her mentor.
My character for an upcoming level 12 one shot....
Sir Squiffy Banjaxed (not his real name) is a disgraced noble (Human Variant).
He fell from grace due to a predilection for all things alcoholic. He fell in with Dwarf bootleggers and moonshiners at a young age and became a drunken wastrel in his 20's. He now roams the world leading taverns in drunken sing songs and generally leads a self destructive life style. He gets drunk, indulges in bar fights and generally carouses the nights away.
He has picked up many skills and talents along the way although he is hard pressed to recall when, where or how he learned them. He long ago sold his soul to the Archfey called Sqeelookal (made up fey of drunken revelry) and became a pact of blade warlock, his chosen weapon? a tankard (how is this accomplished? he has the tavern brawler feat and proficiency with improvised weapons so the tankard just scraps in as a weapon for purposes of the pact of blade ability), his drunken brawls & Sqeelookal's influence have also led him to multiclass to monk (Drunken Master level 8 and a wee twist to say his tankard is a monk weapon).
Stats: Str 8, Dex 18, Cons 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 13 (Standard Array, human bonuses +1 Dex, +1 Cha)
Feats: Tavern Brawler (from human), Mobile (level 4 warlock), Grappler (level 4 Monk), ASI +2 Dex (level 8 Monk)
Skills: Sleight of Hand (from Human), Deception & Intimidation (from Warlock), Performance (from Drunken Master), History & Persuasion (from Noble background)
Languages: Common, Dwarf, Sylvan
Warlock Cantrips: Booming Blade (for use with his tankard), Mage Hand (for when the next drink is just out of reach) and poison spray (which I may try to do as a vomit spray)
Warlock spells known (2x level 2 slots): Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, Hellish Rebuke (see poison spray), Misty Step, Unseen Servant (for when you need a butler to tidy up)
Invocations: Eyes of the Rune Keeper, Improved Pact Weapon
More Monk abilities than I'll likely remember to use but I think it'll be an interesting diversion to play.
I just happened to pop back into this thread. Would this, by chance, be my homebrew Sword Dancer subclass?
Lightning Strike - A rebranded Fire Bolt for Wizards & Sorcerers.
Spirit Bomb - A holy fireball for Clerics, Paladins, & Divine Soul Sorcerers!
Sword Dancer - A Cleric subclass specifically for the Drow goddess Eilistraee.
Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch - A pair of magical firearms for your Gunslinger or Artificer.
Nope. Made a new private one. With some changes and inspiration from the original Sword Dancer class of 3,5E. Though I took some inspiration with one skills name from a public homebrew Sword Dancer class. Though there are 3 of them. Did you Sword Dancer class possess a skill called War Dance? if so, then yes, I did use the same name for a similar skill
Yes, that one is mine. Went in the direction of keeping within the spirit of the class instead of attempting to convert it wholesale from 3.5
Lightning Strike - A rebranded Fire Bolt for Wizards & Sorcerers.
Spirit Bomb - A holy fireball for Clerics, Paladins, & Divine Soul Sorcerers!
Sword Dancer - A Cleric subclass specifically for the Drow goddess Eilistraee.
Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch - A pair of magical firearms for your Gunslinger or Artificer.
I like writing ridiculously detailed background stories (which my DMs actually love as story hooks). So, for anyone who enjoys a long tale, here is the background of my Lightfoot Halfling Warlock - she is a Celestial warlock, but Fey flavored; the campaign setting is TalDorei.
The calling of Cymbelina Tumbletoe
The Tumbletoes were one among five or six sprawling families of siblings, cousins, nanas and gaggles of children that formed the sunny hobbit town of Shinglebits, within a two-day walk of Byroden in the lush Mornset countryside. Like most of the hobbits of Shinglebits, the Tumbletoes had been farmers for many generations, busily growing grain and vegetables in neat gardens, herding their flocks of geese and plump little sheep, selling their surplus produce and the silky luxurious wool of their hobbit sheep at the monthly markets in Byroden.
But Mornset, and within it Shinglebits and Byroden, lay in the Rifenmist Peninsula. The untethered, self-governed, often selfish and ruthless societies of outsiders that the rule of Drassig had left behind as the main inhabitants of the Peninsula had left the hobbits of Shinglebits less carefree than their relations in other, more orderly, civilized, and prosperous parts of Tal’Dorei. Bombadin Tumbletoe kept a scythe by the front door of his cottage. His eldest daughter had killed a bugbear with it that was hunting their sheep, and Bombadin had chased off more than one band of burglars. His wife Aurelia, who had a knack for tinkering and fixing things, had taken up mending pots and buckets, sharpening all manner of things that should be sharp, and making small tools and such, as a means to supplement their livelihood when the harvest had been devastated by marauding beasts or men, or when their goods were stolen on the way to market in Byroden.
Despite the losses and hardships that came with life in Mornset, it also came with the fierce beauty of an untamed, mostly roadless expanse of rolling hills and windswept grasslands, bordered by ancient, gnarled, fey-touched forests. The hobbits of Shinglebits might not have been as carefree as their kinfolk in the civilized cities beyond the Verdant Expanse, but they had a zest for life, a sense of wonder for the beauties of their land, and an appreciation for a good breakfast, a bawdy song, and a jolly gathering of friends and neighbors rivaling any hobbit you may find in Tal’Dorei. Aurelia and Bombadin Tumbletoe raised their children in consciousness of frugality, in dedication to hard, but shared and joyful labor, in frequent expectation of loss, mitigated by sharing, and in the comfort of caring, hard-partying community.
Their middle child, Cymbelina, was a dreamer and tinkerer. From a very young age, she loved playing with her mother’s tools, and “helping” her fix things, mostly by taking them apart. She loved to investigate not only the inanimate, but also all the little living things around her, running after butterflies and following pixies into their forest hideouts. Cymbelina was tiny, even for a hobbit, but whether it was her diminutive size or her knack for noticing and approaching with disarming kindness and naïve curiosity the tiniest and weirdest and most misfit creatures, she came to be tolerated, even trusted and liked by many of the little fey creatures that were curiously numerous in the woodlands just above Shinglebits. Few of the hobbits had time or inclination to pay too much heed to the presence of the mostly inconspicuous and secretive fey in these parts. But if you listened to Nana Bramblemutt’s stories, you would hear her sometimes talk of a door, a portal to the Feywild, in a tangled, lush grove of oaks and sycamores, just an afternoon’s walk above the Tumbletoes’ sheep pasture, where it bordered the woods.
Cymbelina was much too young to understand that she was passing through a portal into a different plane, she only marveled at the beautiful green glow enveloping her on the summer morning she followed her three pixie friends skipping between two towering trees into a twilit clearing filled with myriad buzzing, humming, singing noises, surrounded by strange, colorful, monstrous trees. The pixies showed their little hobbit friend the squealing joy of sliding down giant vines into sparkling pools of softly glowing water, and introduced her to Holmoe, the three-legged centaur, who happily gave a joy ride to anyone who would listen to his endless tales of the bygone glory of his fighting days.
Some minutes, or maybe hours, or maybe days later (time seemed to float suspended in the eternal twilight surrounding Cymbelina), the hobbit, one of her pixie friends (the other two had gotten distracted somewhere along the way by other shiny pursuits), and two brownies, went tumbling and chasing through the lush understory in a game of Catch-the Dancing-Lights, when Cymbelina’s toes got caught in the mossy fur of what had just looked like a large rotting log on the edge of a babbling brook. The pixy and brownies scattered with startled fear when the log sat up and looked at the little play party with unblinking black eyes, but Cymbelina just looked back into the bottomless black pools in awe. After the tiny hobbit had held this gaze for an impressive amount of time, Cymbelina heard a rumbling, amused voice, that she hardly noticed was just in her head. The voice asked her, since she was here, and her little bare toes well entangled in his fur, to stay a while and tell him some stories from the world of hobbits and humans and dwarves. The voice was soothing, and alluring, and gentle, and Cymbelina found nothing more natural than to drop down on her bottoms in the warm, comfortable fur on his knee, and tell the fuzzy log all manner of stories about shearing sheep, going to market in Byroden, and hiding under the bed when her parents and big sister were fighting off a band of roaming tabaxi trying to steal their chickens. When Cymbelina finally got sleepy, and realized with a knot of fright in her stomach that she didn’t know the way home, or how long she’d been away from there, she asked the log with a tiny, quivering voice whether he could show her the way home. He looked at her again for a long while with a bottomless gaze. She then heard a long, low peal of laughter in her head, and suddenly, Holmoe, the centaur was back, bowing deeply before the log, and bearing her back to the glowing green portal through which she had come a seemingly very long time ago.
To her relief and delight, the sun had not even crossed the zenith when she emerged from the woods, climbed over the low stone wall protecting her family’s sheep pasture, and ran home across the pastures and gardens. In the evening, when the day’s work was done, and Cymbelina had received a pat on her woolly head from her father for tirelessly helping to pick beans, and a scolding from her mother for scattering the pieces of a clock Aurelia was working to repair for a merchant in Byroden, Cymbelina excitedly told her family the stories of her morning’s adventure in the wonderous forest in the hills. Her mother listened to her tales with much indulgence and mirth, being well acquainted with her young daughter’s wild and lively imagination, and taking it for nothing but a particularly colorful phantasy. Bombadin however did not take her wanderings and tales quite so lightly, remembering Nana Bramblemutt’s old stories of a gate to the Feywild. He warned his daughter not to stray so high into the forest, for not all fey creatures are kind and playful, and besides, one never knew when the next tabaxi thieves or human marauders might be wandering through the woods around Shinglebits.
Having inherited her hobbit kinds’ fearless heart, and her mother’s strong will, Cymbelina stayed away from the grove in the hills for a few months, but egged on by her pixie friends, began venturing through the glowing gate again after the harvest was brought in, and the golden days of fall left her wild curiosity more leisure. She soon discovered that the twilight in the alluring world beyond the tree gate was never-ending, and that time stretched in unfathomable ways. No matter how much time she had spent playing brownie games or going on wild rides with Holmoe, when she slipped back into the woods above her home, never more than an hour or two seemed to have passed. She tried to take care now not to venture so far that she would not remember the way back to the portal; she memorized tree roots and bends in a brook, a field of enormous flowers and a dryad’s grove. She was not aware of her good fortune that this nook of the Feywild, which the mostly forgotten portal above her home village opened into, was as sleepy and friendly and forgotten a region of the Feywild as Shinglebits was in the comparatively wild and lawless world of the Rifenmist Peninsula. She didn’t speak of her secret adventures to her parents again, feeling just a little guilty, but convincing herself that they just didn’t understand the wonder of this world, and that she needn’t worry them unnecessarily.
It was more than year later when Cymbelina stumbled upon the friendly mossy log again. He opened one deep black eye at her while she sat on his rump; intent on the brook beneath her, she was sitting next to a sprite who had dared her to try her small hands at spear fishing, and who was now looking on and mocking her first clumsy attempts. The sprite darted off in fearful haste as soon as the log’s eye alit upon them, and Cymbelina only had time to briefly wonder at the sprite’s flight, when she heard the log’s rumbling, amused voice in her head again, greeting her with “the hobbit child has returned!” From that encounter on, Cymbelina made a habit of wandering along the small brook to look for the mossy log whenever she ventured through the portal, and if she found him, entertain him for a while with stories and news from the other side of the portal. He was an eager and amused listener, and Cymbelina revelled in his warm, enveloping presence, and the jaw dropping tales of the high courts of the Archfey that he would sometimes regale her with.
Just as she was unaware of her luck, Cymbelina was mostly unconscious of the watchful presence that had begun to direct her carefree steps with guiding fireflies when her pixie companions had left her behind in a new and confusing place, or scare a hag or redcap off the path she might be wandering on. Sometimes when wandering alone, she glimpsed a large stag, or a figure like a faun just vanishing from sight, and she imagined excitedly that it might be the great Archfey god Cernunnos that her friend the mossy log had told her stories about.
As she grew older and more mature, so did the stories the log would ask her for – instead of tales of sheep and flower gardens, she would tell of bloody raids in the countryside, meetings of important folk in Syngorn, tribal warfare by local wood elves, and, well, she seldom could satisfy his curiosity for the love- and lust-affairs of anyone more interesting than her adolescent sister and her consorts... The stories of violence and warfare and politics became more prevalent not only due to the listener’s requests, but also due to the changing experiences of the teller. Life in the Mornset countryside was becoming more precarious, raids and robberies becoming almost commonplace. Much as they would have preferred to, her parents could no longer shield their now 10-year old from assisting in the defence of their homestead and witnessing, even participating in the inevitable violence and death that came with it. She also needed to take more responsibilities in tending the farm and raise her little brother, while her mother was away at Byroden to make ends meet working as a tinkerer more often.
The nook of the Feywild that the portal above Shinglebits opened to was becoming less serene and more dangerous as well: ruthless and malevolent fey creatures were starting to use the gate to gain access to and take advantage of the growing outlaw traffic on the other side. Cymbelina was increasingly learning to hide and travel on secret paths, helping fey creatures that were getting injured or in trouble from outlaws on the outside or evil fey on the inside. Slowly, the Feywild was turning from a playground of her early childhood into a natural, yet secret part of her life, where she built relationships, took responsibilities, and was learning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the fey creatures. Her attempts at catching fish with a spear, picking mushrooms that wouldn’t jump out of her basket and run away, and identifying herbs by their healing qualities were becoming less clumsy.
One day, her little brother followed Cymbelina through the gate, unbeknownst to her. The little boy, enchanted as Cymbelina was the first time she had passed into the twilit wonderland, serenely wandered through a field of red poppies and began plucking them by the armful, when a hag spotted the hobbit child. Summoning a pack of hounds, she was about to close in and take him for her own, when a sprite friend witnessed the scene. Knowing the hobbit child as Cymbelina’s brother, the sprite darted off to where Cymbelina was sitting and telling stories to the mossy log by the stream to alert her to the danger. As Cymbelina ran to do – she didn’t know what, but was determined to do anything she could to save her brother, she was overtaken by an enormous antlered man who scooped up the hobbit boy in front of her eyes, put him to sleep with nothing more than a silent gaze, and without uttering so much as a word sent the hag and her hounds scattering. Cymbelina stood in awe, slowly letting the realization sink in that the antlered figure was her friend the fuzzy log. She didn’t need to ask the question out loud for him to hear and answer her: yes, he was Cernunnos, the Archfey lord that had featured in some of the most phantastic stories of the Archfey court he himself had told her over the years. He revealed that he kept coming to this region of the Feywild as his favorite resting place, assuming the form of the mossy log to be one with the calm of the forest brook. His meetings with her had become a beloved pastime to him, and a way to keep tabs on the ongoings in the other plane without having to cross over there himself. His interest in those ongoings was partly driven by his wish to keep this, his favorite, nook of the Feywild safe from dangers that may push through the portal, and partly by whimsical, vicarious curiosity in the doings and strong desires of the mortal creatures on the other side. He expressed his desire to maintain their friendship, and at the same time warned her about the increasing dangers of travelling here, but also shared his observation and appreciation of her increasing competence and ease in navigating both worlds. Cymbelina felt awed, honored, and reassured all at once by the Archfey’s revelation and his offer of continued friendship. She took great care never to have her brother follow her again, and took to guarding and even attempting to conceal the gate from other outsiders the best she could.
Cymbelina was 15 years old when a raid by half-starved human outlaws got out of control and resulted in two thirds of the farmsteads in Shinglebits consumed by a raging fire. Her father Bombadin died in the fire, along with almost a third of the hobbit population of Shinglebits. Devastated, Cymbelina struggled to shake the self-reproach for wandering unharmed and oblivious in the Feywild at the time of the raid. Her older sister was among the badly injured, and Cymbelina used the healing herbs and all the knowledge she had learned from the fey in a desperate struggle to keep her alive. But although she was able to help some of the other villagers with less severe injuries, the skills and tools at her disposal were not enough to save her sister.
After her father’s and sister’s death, and the destruction of their farmstead, Cymbelina moved with her mother and little brother to settle in Byroden. Cymbelina was trying to contribute to her remaining family’s living by helping her mother with the tinkering business, but her enthusiasm for tinkering was not matched by her talent for it, and she soon missed the forest. She returned to live part-time with a now also widowed uncle and cousin in the Tumbletoe family who, along with a handful other families, were stubbornly rebuilding their lives
in what was left of Shinglebits. There, she began to put the hunting and gathering skills to good use that she had learned and continued to hone in company with her fey friends. To her contentment, she found that her skills were sufficient to provide for herself, and to supplement the village’s and her mother’s and brother’s livelihoods, regularly travelling to see and supply her family in Byroden. Her skills with healing herbs came more in demand as well, since the fire had killed or driven to emigration any other skilled healers that previously had called Shinglebits their home.
On one of her visits to Byroden, when she brought a heavy bag full of fruits and roots and another full with mussels and rabbit meat, her mother hugged her tightly and told her to keep trusting her instincts since they always seemed to serve her well, and keep her friends close, both mortal and fey. When Cymbelina looked at her in sheepish surprise, her mother smiled gently and told her that she had suspected for a long time that her daughter had indeed found the rumored Feywild gate, and made the place on the other side a second home. She smirked when asking Cymbelina whether she expected her mother to believe that she had learned to hunt and fish and gather herbs and roots all on her own, oh, and speak Sylvan to the dryad in their old orchard? Cymbelina hugged her mother back just as tightly, and promised her to stick close to her instincts and her friends.
Life didn’t become easier, on either side of the Feywild portal. Raids and famines in the Mornset countryside, and the proliferation of greedy, seedy creatures on both sides continued. Cymbelina took solace and refuge with her friends in the Feywild often, helping there too with providing for those who suffered loss, and with healing the injured and sick as much as she was able. Whenever she could find Cernunnos, she reveled in the warmth of his caring, comforting, calming presence, a presence she appreciated more deeply, sometimes desperately, since her father’s loss.
One day, a man came travelling through the village with a caravan of merchants, but instead of travelling on the road as the rest of the merchant company, this man curiously kept to the edge of the woods. Then, instead of leaving with the caravan as it travelled on to the south, he suddenly decided to rent a room from one of the hobbits in the village. Cymbelina secretly observed him spending much of his time wandering the forest and showing an unsettling interest in the common occurrence of fey creatures hereabouts. Although she was careful, Cymbelina’s scrutiny did not escape the equally suspicious eye of the man, and he waited for her to leave on an extended trip to Byroden until he unlocked some considerable magical power to find the portal he suspected in the area, and entered the Feywild. Using a captured pixie as his hostage and forced key to entry, he immediately set to collecting pixies en masse to harvest their magic dust, slaying who and whatever was attempting to impede his path. Once his doings had attracted sufficient attention that the threat of significant opposition started to drive him back, he retreated and hid instead on the other side of the gate. Having gathered enough local information, he now sent magical servants to continue his awful work, and expand it by sapping energy from all manner of small fey creatures his magical servants encountered. He made his subsequent attacks sporadic enough to become unpredictable, devastating, and elusive to his victims in the Feywild.
When Cernunnos tread onto his most beloved turf again, he found it in chaos and pain, bleeding out the very life and magical core of its existence. He felt the source of this devastation outside of the portal, and knowing that it would not be staunched from within alone, he gave shelter and healing to his folk while patiently waiting for the one creature from the outside he knew he could trust, the hobbit he knew would return.
When she did return, Cymbelina managed to sneak by the mage’s attention, who was distracted by his revel in the fruits of his hideous labor, and she entered the Feywild to freeze in horrified contemplation of the mage’s work. Cernunnos wordlessly summoned her to him, explaining to her that their enemy was a warlock in pact with a demon. The time had come to seal this portal once and for all, to undo the horror this man was causing, and thereby also end the reciprocal harm that greedy, evil creatures were increasingly inflicting while passing in and out of what had once been a quiet, overgrown gate between two sleepy, serene nooks of their respective worlds. He needed her on the other side to achieve this deed. Cernunnos offered her a pact with himself, to become a warlock in her own right, to give her the divine power to combat the power she had seen spawned by a pact with a demon, to heal the damage it had done to those that were dear to him and her both, and to become his hand and eyes and agent in her plane. He had seen her loyalty and love for the feyfolk, and knew her heart to be compassionate and eager in its pursuits, and for a long time (as far as a hobbit was concerned, at least) shyly, yet deeply attached to him.
Accepting his offer would mean to shut the gate forever, to bar her entry into a place that had become more her home than anywhere else in the world was these days. But it would also mean to accept the charge he prescribed, to give a direction to her life she had been secretly desperate for and had felt so powerless to achieve in the frenzy of just surviving as a hobbit in a hostile world: the charge to befriend and help fey where she encountered them, to defend and heal those who were dear to her, and others who were threatened and injured and powerless; and, she heard him whisper in the back of her brain somewhere, to share with him all the stories and the sensations of the wondrous, dangerous, sensuous world she would wander…. And through all of it, she would be guided by and connected to him; a thought that filled her with warm, reassuring, boundless joy and security.
She looked into his calm, waiting eyes for several breathless minutes before she silently but wholeheartedly nodded her head. Cernunnos then bowed down to her, took her head into his hands, and touched his lips to hers. Although the touch was featherlight, she felt as though his entire being, the almost boundless power, timeless depth of wisdom, eternal compassion, and unfathomable whimsy of a Lord of the Archfey, and his undeniable, enveloping affection for her filled her to the brim. It felt like the embrace of a father who will never die, and the kiss of a lover who will never let go of her at the same time, and it made her head spin. When she was able to see and hear and breathe again, she beheld a green-golden glow connect herself to him, that faded to a barely perceptible thread of light, binding her to his core. Cernunnos passed his hand through the thread, and when he opened it, a drop of light had crystallized in his hand into a glass bead mirroring his unblinking eye. He laid the amulet in Cymbelina’s hand, conveying that this was the material token of their bond, the focus for the magic he was gifting her. While she still breathlessly contemplated the amulet in her hand, she heard him laugh inside her head, and looking up at him, saw that the massive ancient countenance of the horned god that had greeted her upon her arrival here had turned into the lithe appearance of a young, antlered faun, full of mischief and a soft, romantic twinkle in his eye. He kissed her again, but this was a deep, a lover’s kiss, and she again felt like fainting unto the forest floor. He caught her in strong arms before she could fall, and with a brief regret that she could feel, turned into a stag and bore her to the edge of the portal, where apprehension of what she must attempt chased away any butterflies of romance. What she didn’t lose, but felt inside with a still astonished and overwhelmed gratitude was the reassurance of his presence, the power of his gift. She stepped outside with one more glance at the great stag that stood watching her, and dashed through the gate to the other side, for the last time.
With awe, Cymbelina felt the power of her patron’s frightful countenance and beguiling will coursing through her when she tricked, and lured, and frightened the warlock (she, a tiny hobbit, intimidating another mortal!) into passing through the gate himself again. There, Cernunnos had assembled warriors (and to her satisfaction, Cymbelina glimpsed Holmoe among them) to cut the warlock down after a brief but furious battle. Meanwhile, it took Cymbelina a few long and frenzied days to search for and gather and do everything she could to heal all the little creatures he had captured but were not yet beyond help; and she was exhilarated to discover how everything she could do was so much more through the healing magic guiding her hands now. After she sent all of the little fey back beyond the gate so they could become whole again in their home, she turned her mind to sealing the portal. Cernunnos did his part on the other side, each completing one half of a ritual that took an entire week to perform. When the deed was done, and Cymbelina watched the last green-golden glow fade between the two towering trees that had been the door posts to one half of who she was, her mind and body and spirit were exhausted beyond the remedy of sleep with everything that life had given her and taken from her in just a few days.
She lingered a few more days in Shinglebits, gathering up the memories and saying her farewells to the community of her childhood, before travelling once more to Byroden. There, her mother had recently married a rock gnome, a tinkerer himself and a merchant of used goods, and together they were making a solid, shared living and an affectionate home for a little family.
She stays for a few weeks with them, but Byroden life never having held Cymbelina for long, while it now provided new contentment and security to her mother and little brother, Cymbelina soon takes her leave from her mother, brother and new stepfather. The gnome, fond of his step daughter’s adventurous spirit, but always of a planning mind, gives her a set of tinker’s tools as a parting gift to give the young woman a “respectable means to start her way through life” as he puts it, and so endowed with her family’s blessings, she heads north…. She finds occasional employ repairing and sharpening things in the towns she passes through, but she gets chased out of a halfelven magistrate’s home when she puts together his son’s gnome-made toy backwards, and most of the little tools she fashions end up just a little more crooked and whimsical than is appreciated by their owners, or frankly, useful to them. So, she mostly provides for herself the way she knows best: hunting, fishing and gathering, while always on the lookout for fey creatures, and the wonders of Tal’Dorei that lie beyond the Mornset, eventually making her way to the great city of Emon that the stories along the road’s taverns describe in the most wondrous, alluring proportions...
Cymbelina wakes up the morning after an exhausting, but successful day of clearing out a mine from an infestation of nasty kobolds, and making (she hopes?) some new friends in the process, to blink at the carefully guarded, suspicious, but strangely hopeful face of what she recognizes as an impish brownie… one of the more mischievous denizens of the Feywild who have a talent for disguise and deception, who delight in persuading more naïve creatures into causing monumental mayhem, and then disappearing into nothingness. While Cymbelina and the brownie are still just watching each other, a massive set of antlers roughly sweeps aside the leaf and bow shelter she had built for herself the night before. Cymbelina jumps to her feet and restrains herself from climbing up the giant stag’s rump to hug him around the neck only because he stamps and snorts and shakes his neck mane in exhilaration
from a long gallop through the woods. When he collects himself, he takes a moment to nudge her affectionately, and then proceeds to tell her that he has sent this creature to serve her and be bound to her wishes. He explains that what she sees is a form that the spirit within has chosen to take in this world; that she may command him, if she wishes, to take many other forms. The spirit is a fey, and was one of the more malevolent creatures that was drawn to the nook of the Feywild Cymbelina had known so well, by the growing opportunity for greed and evil in the time before she helped Cernunnos close the portal. Cernunnos and the older inhabitants of this region had since worked on rooting out and chasing back the most evil denizens to whence they came; they had found a few of the lesser creatures around the edge, however, who were persuaded into changing their allegiances, into embracing the light, and bright, and whimsical aspect of life as a fey. This one, finding he had lost much of his taste for inflicting harm when he saw the horror that the warlock whom he had secretly aided had done to hundreds of pixies, sprites, and other tiny fey, had been attempting to change his ways as best he was able, and to befriend those he had earlier helped to harm. Yet, the impish brownie’s old ways were hard to shake, and carelessness and mischief got the better of him too often. When a dryad caught him ripping out and stealing branches off her holy tree, she brought him before Cernunnos. When in his shameful confession the brownie accidentally let slip his previously carefully guarded secret that he had actually aided the warlock bent on enslaving and destroying fey in entering the Feywild portal, Cernunnos almost extinguished the brownie in his initial rage. But letting his rage cool, he thought better of it, and decided to bind him instead to one he knows will turn his spirit to compassion and benevolence, or break his spirit trying – and Cernunnos does not care which. Whether this bond will be a punishment or an opportunity and adventure for this impish brownie, neither of them are sure of, but Cernunnos knows it will serve his own purposes in both forcing the brownie off his destructive path, and rewarding Cymbelina’s loyalty and devotion to himself with a familiar companion that promises to be versatile, eager, and entertaining in the most unexpected ways. Cymbelina looks at the tiny fey with a brightening smile, deciding that “Sprout” will be a fitting name for such a creature…
This was partly based off of a 4 chan post I saw on r/d&d. Anyways the whole point if I remember correctly was his character had a ribbon covering a wound that would drip blood causing damage so he had to make a potion to stop it each day. I thought of that and came up with this.
My newest character, Grung Monk named R'ruuby:
During the anarchy of a vicious ostrich attack, R'ruuby survived, more by luck than by skill, by clutching to the feathers and holding desperately on as the birds continued their rampage. It wouldn't be safe for little R'ruuby to let go until the ostriches returned home and went to sleep, taking her far far away from the family and friends that she held dear. She new, that she would probably never see them again. Fending for herself among the ostriches was a difficult upbringing most of the time but helped her hone her skills and better understand the limits of her own body. After a year or so of depending on the ostriches for transport and food, R'ruuby yearned for freedom, freedom that only sea travel could provide! Hitching a ride on a water-seeking ostrich, R'ruuby made her way to freedom and stowed away on her first ever pirate ship. It wasn't long before she was discovered, and the crew, hungry as they were, attempted to make a frogs leg stew from her. But she sure showed them! A few quick jabs with her poison tipped spear and some fancy footwork made quick work of a few of the pirates, earning her a place among the crew. The pirates decided that her grip would come in handy in the crows nest, and so she became the lookout, learning how to navigate the seas and spot land from afar. But this too, was cut tragically short, when a rival pirate ship attacked! Her captain and crew were slaughtered. R'ruuby, again scraping through by the skin of her teeth, slipped into the water before she was spotted by The Ruthless Renegades. Vowing to have her revenge, she swam to the nearest shore, the shore of Fort Inevitable...
(Older) My Dungeon World Human Cleric named Pope Pickles (warning, prepare for alliteration):
Pope Pickles
The Plastered Prophet of Port Poland
To properly understand Pope Pickles, I propose this prose.
Port Poland was a prosperous providence parked purposefully on the Pacific Rim; perpetually providing produce poled periodically as per the precedent set predominantly by Peter Parker the Polish Prime minster. People piled in from Palace and pigsty alike to peruse the products that Port Poland had presented along the parade. Peddlers peddled their products: portioned, packaged and prepared. Perch, Pilchard, Pike and even Puffer Fish were poached, peppered and pickled for prospective patrons. Pope Pickles provided his parish with parable and passage, pertaining to the proper perception of the All Powerful. The precepts he preached were practiced by the public and his purity pronounced perfectly by his purple and pink panoply. He was the precise personification of priesthood. Pope Pickles and Port Poland were prolific with prosperity, progressing past previous presumptions.
Per contra, paradise was predestined to plunge into perniciousness. For where there are princes, there will also be peasants. The poor prepared to pilfer pennies from the plush and the pretentious. Prefects were posted to police the proletariat, preventing pickpockets and plunderers from pushing Port Poland into panicked pandemonium. The prowling purloiners used their powers of persuasion and proficiencies to profit despite the pursuit of patrolling prosecution. Port Poland was plummeting into poverty as profanity, polygamy and prostitution took place in the Pants Party Inn on Pultney Place.
Pope Pickles was petrified; his once persuaded population had pivoted into promiscuity and pugnaciousness. He perched himself by the podium of his once profound Pantheon and as he pondered the point of propriety, he pointed himself purposefully before the All Powerful Holy Potato altar and prayed. “What about me? It isn’t fair! I’ve had enough, now I want my share, can’t you see?? I just want to live, but you just take more than you give!” The All Powerful Potato remained persistently poised, perfectly protecting its purpose. Pope Pickles became pallid, his position as Pope had proved pointless and he pondered what life pertained to.
Pope Pickles had procured plentiful piles of bread and wine for non-present parishioners, he perturbed that it may perish. Peculiarly Pickles presumed that the prime proposition was to get pissed. Pickles partook of plenty of precious booze until he passed out. The All Powerful Potato presented Pope Pickles with a premonition, previous pursuits were problematic, and perhaps a proxy path would prove more paying. Pope Pickles perceived his purpose and prepared to patch up Port Poland and in the process, provide the population with providence from the All Powerful Potato. Pope Pickles’ Polish Potatoes was his point, a place where people procured all manner of potato products, fries and vodka were popular picks among patrons, served promptly while piping hot. The populace of Port Poland praised Pope Pickles for plotting Port Poland on the parchment, for prosperity had returned.
Pope Pickles presumed that the All Powerful Potato was primarily pleased with the prophet’s performance. Pickles was perplexed, however, at the possibility that perceiving premonitions perhaps only pop up when he was plastered. A phial of Pope Pickles’ Polish Potatoes vodka, 4Ps as the Polish people pronounced it, the Pope pocketed predominantly for the purpose of parlaying with the All Powerful Potato. Pope Pickles, the Plastered Prophet of Port Poland prepared his pack and progressed past the palisades of Port Poland to practice his prayers and proffer the pacts of the Potato to the public.
I kept almost nothing and just made it granted some bardic spells and some sword related Sorcerer cantrips. Other than that there was just one war dance that gave allies adnvatage in attack and damage rolls for one turn and a add in power when fighting undead, fiend and fey
hi
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I will change it a little if i choose another archetype, but here is Rufus, the halfling rogue.
Rufus has few memories of his life before he became a slave, he does not remember where he came from or his surname. Despite the rather unusual misfortune for a halfling, the luck of his race soon helped him to be bought by a gang leader, belonging to one of Luskan's two robber guilds, who trained him to be one. However, Rufus does not feel any loyalty to his benefactor because he recognizes him as a despicable person involved in the slave trade, and knows that it is only a tool for him.
Rufus likes to be a criminal. Running through the rooftops of the city, breaking into houses, stealing anything he want to avoid money as a problem is a life of great freedom. Or would it be, if he were not tied to his guild hierarchy, to his leader who expects great gratitude from him. Gradually he began to tire of it all, Luskan seemed more of the same, it was boredom and irritation that made him dare more and more in his heists. He realized his self-destructive route when one of his plans almost went wrong, and only escaped because his prodigious luck made him encounter an unfortunate man while fleeing, who was caught in his place. One's luck is the other's bad luck, he thought, but there he decided that it was best to have as little as possible with it.
He knew he had to get out of Luskan or he was going to die there, but he wasn't going to run away to be immediately hunted and killed, he needed a good plan. For that, he went to his boss and with all his disguise argued that it would be better to disappear for a while after the blow that nearly failed, to wait for the dust to settle. But instead of simply hiding in the city and risking being arrested, the best way would be to serve as a security for any trader going on a trip, as this would give him some money that would be split between the two as usual. He knew that his boss's greed and arrogance in his submission would make him agree to this plan, and from there the second part of it began.
Rufus sought out some rival gangs of his within the robber's guild, and offered valuable insight into his now ex-boss's plans and much of the gold he had accumulated in exchange for being indicated by them the special condition of having the freedom to move around. wherever it pleased. So when your former boss found out he wasn't coming back, he would have too many problems to deal with to invest too much in his revenge.
Finally, he could get to the last and best part of his plan, an adventurous life. Yes, the stakes were huge, but so were the rewards. And in his particular case, he would be constantly on the move, and possibly protected by skilled and well-armed companions. He would know a lot of new places, and make a name for himself in a socially accepted way, and perhaps retire as a respectable family halfling with a huge house and farm. He could not resist, and bought ink, quill and paper to draw this house. He also decided to give himself the surname of Good Farm, which was both a wish, a disguise, and shame of being an orphan slave.