speaking of redcaps, it would be really cool to play as one somehow but then again I have no idea how that would work, considering they need to soak their hats in the blood of someone they jus killed every three days or die.
speaking of redcaps, it would be really cool to play as one somehow but then again I have no idea how that would work, considering they need to soak their hats in the blood of someone they jus killed every three days or die.
I think if you did an "Evil Campaign" - because of the blood soaking - it'd be much easier.
A campaign where you're employed by a hag to go out and kill other Fey kind.
QOTD: What is a monster you have never encountered as a PC?
Prior to my life as a forever DM, especially beginning with 5th Edition...
In 1st and 2nd edition - there was a lot of monsters I never encountered as a PC from the Fiend Folio books. And naturally stuff from Deities & Demigods.
A lot of out of the Monster Manual and Monster Manual II.
During 2nd edition, I eventually became the forever DM - and I try to look at new things to throw at my party so they're not always fighting the same monster. So, for games I've run, I've thrown a lot of different official monsters at the party. There's plenty I've homebrewed if they were common monsters. I believe in throwing new things at the party so they're always interested in what's this new thing we're fighting? Rather than, "Oh. Goblins again, is it?"
The few games I do play in 5th edition (I am in a Curse of Strahd game and a Dragonlance game) - this makes me very familiar with the monsters we encounter. But I toss away player knowledge in favor for character knowledge (as most do, ideally).
QOTD: What is a monster you have never encountered as a PC?
for me, pretty much any of them, lol. As a PC I have fought orcs, one dragon, two mimics, and a bunch of people.
As a PC, I've never encountered a young kruthik, adult kruthik, or kruthik hive lord. I have a slight fear of kruthiks as they remind me of XCOM's chryssalids, which are terrifying. Kruthiks are also loosely related to the kythons from 3rd edition, who had tiers including the impaler, slaymaster, and slaughterking.
The funny thing is, despite me contributing to the "DM" things, I never get to DM. I have homebrew worlds and plots rattling around in my head but I never get to act them out.
Hey, It's me, RaccoonMaster! I'm back! I disappeared for a while there, and I'm very sporadic when I'm online lol.
I'm an actor, writer, singer (opera, musical theatre, and rock are my preferred genres), backpacker, and tall person (6'5 and counting). Pronouns are whatever, I mostly use They/Them though.
My Characters: Elsenia Selevarum:The Popular Paladin, Aasimar Noble, Level 4 Paladin of Redemption;
QOTD: What is a monster you have never encountered as a PC?
Personally, as I've said before, I've gotten little sessions as a player. So, if memory serves right, any monster but goblins, bugbears, and I think an ogre or a giant or something like that. Everything else I've never encountered.
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Hello! I am a perfectly sane gibberer. Hi! :D
Locations are dead, the Temple of Potassium has fallen but its ideals live on
QOTD: What is a monster you have never encountered as a PC?
for me, pretty much any of them, lol. As a PC I have fought orcs, one dragon, two mimics, and a bunch of people.
I have not actually fought a dragon, but that may be changing very soon. Also haven't dealt with the mind flayer family of monsters. But I also haven't played much high level, so who knows what the two campaigns I'm in (one's at level 11, the other 10) will bring?
Ok now, how can you possibly say that Zombies are the least interesting undead?
I mean, sure, if you turn to movies and TV shows, then, I guess, maybe yeah, but actual zombies?
Oh hell no.
At the core of the concept of a Zombie is the idea of a dead thing that has returned to a kind of unliving state, and folks in ancient greece used to pin down corpses with heavy stones in their burial places to keep them from getting up again. The general idea is that of a revenant, folklorically, so revenants are a kind of Zombie and zombies are a kind of revenant. Local tales of the risen dead are all over the place -- although most aren't the flesh eating sorts. THe most common basis for a lot of it is the notion that one "still has something to do", or that some folks have such an indomitable will that they literally refuse to die.
up into the 1700's there were slavic folks who swore to tales of Soldiers who could not be harmed by lead or iron bullets and were no longer living, having died in battle and just kept going. Silver bullets and glass bullets were often said to kill them, though.
Copper was wound around the wrists of the dead to bind them to the earth in other places, for if they rose they could then only be stopped by cutting out their rotting hearts and burning them in a fire of Rowan wood.
Zombies are terrifying, because there is little worse than seeing Pawpaw staggering at you not with some treat or toy, but with a desire to rip your arms off and impale you upon a stake. How do you get close enough to kill a zombie when its Aunt Ida Fay, who used to bake cookies for you? THe fear and conflict can be paralyzing.
Zombies are rotting flesh things, carrying filth and disease and ill humors. Contact with one can leave you sick unto dying -- and in some tales they carried the Black Death, whil ein others they caused leprosy or consumption.
No, no, Zombies are freaking awesome.
ok, yeah, D&D zombies are kinda lame, but meh. That's what homebrew is for, lol.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
QOTD: What is a monster you have never encountered as a PC?
Like almost everyone here, there are hundreds upon hundreds of monsters I haven't encountered. Even if I weren't a chronic DM, that'd still probably be true.
So, I'll just change the question to really cool monsters I wanna encounter that I haven't. There are loads, but here are some ideas: Any Ancient Dragons, Beholders, High CR Wizards, Vecna, Tarrasqe, Lich, etc. There's so many creatures and so many neat ones lol.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
Give them a claw attack instead of or in addition to a slam one and have it deal more damage. Give buffer ones multiattack.
Have them be able to take an action to gnaw out a dead creature's brain. Some more powerful ones could do this to living or even unconscious targets. Spells like Protection From Evil and Good with the creature type being undead would prevent this on a target for the duration.
You could use these zombies in conjunction with the regular ones and more powerful ones. I might try and homebrew these, but I doubt it. And Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft has some creepy zombies, and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount has the Husk Zombie, which is Critical Role attempting to zombify the D&D "zombie".
Dungeons and Dragons isn't the perfectest of systems for the true zombie apocalypse campaign: Gritty, horrifying, potentially full of character deaths, and more importantly having drastically different flavor and mechanics species wise and weapons wise with much more of a fixation on guns and humans in these types of things. But a campaign like that's definitely doable with a boatload of homebrew, and you don't even need these to use things like the Husk Zombie in your campaign. But the typical style of 5e prevents even seemingly terrifying zombies from being that scary merely due to the design of the game and style of bold and reckless play that sees little dstinction between a character's zombification and their death. But you can still make zombies creepy with the right stuff, though the statblock isn't even the worst offender here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
For you then, What monsters do you use rarely or not at all?
Hm. Out of the basic rules, I’d say:
Sphinx (dunno why. I’ll use them eventually, I guess)
Cyclops
Grimlock
Zombies (they’re the least interesting undead. Why bother?)
Angels (why fight them?)
Rug of Smothering (can’t take it seriously)
Unicorn
Yeti
Most Beasts
Heh..
Sphinx: I hadn't used them either. In my "Work Game" (as I call it) - the party recently got a Spelljammer, whose spirit is a female Sphinx (GynoSphinx)
Cyclops: I used a Cyclops recently - as a primitive type giant that was easily wow'ed by magic and was being abused by local Sand Giants (a homebrew) that the party helped defeat the Sand Giants
Grimlock: I've used them - though in my world they're ancient humans that survived beneath the ground when the world was reshaped and gave way to sanity, with the more intelligent of them evolving into Mind Flayers.
Zombies: Just used them a few months back. Like others suggested, they're not much in terms of what they can do - so really emphasizing how creepy they area and giving them a few extra things (even if they do nothing - describe how one of them is vomiting a glowing green liquid). Characters should, ideally be fearful of any form of undead, because the very nature of them.
Angels: Been awhile since I used a good angel - but one of the big bad in one of my games is a fallen angel.
Rug of Smothering: No joke. Just used this a month ago in a low level campaign I run. Was used as a trap just inside the main front door - before entering if you don't speak the command before stepping on the rug - it attacks you. Not sure why you can't take it serious - at low levels it can be dangerous. Several other monsters have the same exact powers as the Rug of Smothering.
Unicorn: Players recently had to let a Unicorn die to ensure the time line wasn't disrupted. And another Unicorn is a patron of another character.
Yeti: LOL. Just used this for one of my Christmas games as the Abominable Snowman.
For you then, What monsters do you use rarely or not at all?
Hm. Out of the basic rules, I’d say:
Sphinx (dunno why. I’ll use them eventually, I guess)
Cyclops
Grimlock
Zombies (they’re the least interesting undead. Why bother?)
Angels (why fight them?)
Rug of Smothering (can’t take it seriously)
Unicorn
Yeti
Most Beasts
Heh..
Rug of Smothering: No joke. Just used this a month ago in a low level campaign I run. Was used as a trap just inside the main front door - before entering if you don't speak the command before stepping on the rug - it attacks you. Not sure why you can't take it serious - at low levels it can be dangerous. Several other monsters have the same exact powers as the Rug of Smothering.
Pretty sure the "can't take serious bit" is because it's, you know, just a living rug.
"As you enter into the dungeon, you encounter a dangerous enemy... A RUG! DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!"
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Hello! I am a perfectly sane gibberer. Hi! :D
Locations are dead, the Temple of Potassium has fallen but its ideals live on
On the topic of Zombies: I see them not as a monster you're supposed to fight, but rather a plot point. zombies hardly pose a threat to the adventurers, but they do pose a threat to the general populous, or they should. it's not a manner of having zombie encounters throughout a campaign, but rather one final encounter where the horde finally catch up with the party, when there is no (easy, at least) escape. also, give DND zombies the normal zombie disease. it not only helps integrate diseases into a game (which I almost never see) but a race against time to find a cure, along with the heartbreaking consequences of failure, would be awesome. in a zombie campaign, don't just use human zombies, use zombies of everything. elephants are vegetarians and generally don't try to hurt people unless you piss them off, but think about a murderous, undead elephant with a swarm of smaller zombies crawling over it, acting as armor, then the swarm detaches from elephant and helps it kill the party. thats frickin scary. or what about something that already has anger issues, think about a rampaging zombie elephant seal or hippo. on a good day, they are territorial and aggressive. but on a bad day, that would be horrifying. if some monsters have become part of the ecology of your world, esssenatialy becoming predators rather than just rare abominations, make them zombies. if Rocs are common in my world, I would definetly make a zombie roc that swoops down, grabs you, and drops you in the middle of a horde.
On rugs of smothering: take them seriously. players expect to fight monsters in a place, they don't expect to fight the place itself. think about if you woke up one day in the afterlife, only to find out your blanket smothered you to death in the night. its scary and serious because you never expect it, not because of the appearance, like, say, a nightwalker or dragon.
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Hey, It's me, RaccoonMaster! I'm back! I disappeared for a while there, and I'm very sporadic when I'm online lol.
I'm an actor, writer, singer (opera, musical theatre, and rock are my preferred genres), backpacker, and tall person (6'5 and counting). Pronouns are whatever, I mostly use They/Them though.
My Characters: Elsenia Selevarum:The Popular Paladin, Aasimar Noble, Level 4 Paladin of Redemption;
Hope to see you around!
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Oh dear, that’s quite terrifying to think about.
speaking of redcaps, it would be really cool to play as one somehow but then again I have no idea how that would work, considering they need to soak their hats in the blood of someone they jus killed every three days or die.
I think if you did an "Evil Campaign" - because of the blood soaking - it'd be much easier.
A campaign where you're employed by a hag to go out and kill other Fey kind.
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
Prior to my life as a forever DM, especially beginning with 5th Edition...
In 1st and 2nd edition - there was a lot of monsters I never encountered as a PC from the Fiend Folio books. And naturally stuff from Deities & Demigods.
A lot of out of the Monster Manual and Monster Manual II.
During 2nd edition, I eventually became the forever DM - and I try to look at new things to throw at my party so they're not always fighting the same monster. So, for games I've run, I've thrown a lot of different official monsters at the party. There's plenty I've homebrewed if they were common monsters. I believe in throwing new things at the party so they're always interested in what's this new thing we're fighting? Rather than, "Oh. Goblins again, is it?"
The few games I do play in 5th edition (I am in a Curse of Strahd game and a Dragonlance game) - this makes me very familiar with the monsters we encounter. But I toss away player knowledge in favor for character knowledge (as most do, ideally).
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
The tarrasque.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I didn't mean to tear down what you've been up to. I've just been out for a week and lost the thread.
As a PC, I've never encountered a young kruthik, adult kruthik, or kruthik hive lord. I have a slight fear of kruthiks as they remind me of XCOM's chryssalids, which are terrifying. Kruthiks are also loosely related to the kythons from 3rd edition, who had tiers including the impaler, slaymaster, and slaughterking.
The funny thing is, despite me contributing to the "DM" things, I never get to DM. I have homebrew worlds and plots rattling around in my head but I never get to act them out.
I would have to say, the Darkmantle. terrifying little beasties, and notable enough to get a quote in the MM.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16837-darkmantle
Hey, It's me, RaccoonMaster! I'm back! I disappeared for a while there, and I'm very sporadic when I'm online lol.
I'm an actor, writer, singer (opera, musical theatre, and rock are my preferred genres), backpacker, and tall person (6'5 and counting). Pronouns are whatever, I mostly use They/Them though.
My Characters: Elsenia Selevarum: The Popular Paladin, Aasimar Noble, Level 4 Paladin of Redemption;
Hope to see you around!
Personally, as I've said before, I've gotten little sessions as a player. So, if memory serves right, any monster but goblins, bugbears, and I think an ogre or a giant or something like that. Everything else I've never encountered.
Hello! I am a perfectly sane gibberer. Hi! :D
Locations are dead, the Temple of Potassium has fallen but its ideals live on
A mysterious link of chain... (Extended signature). PRAISE JEFF THE EVIL ROOMBA! REALLY cool video.
One of the Warlock Patrons on the forums. Low, low price of your soul, firstborn child and liver!
Titles: The Echoing Story Spewer (Drummer), the Endless Maws (Isis), the Mad Murderer (PJ), more on my extended sig
I have not actually fought a dragon, but that may be changing very soon. Also haven't dealt with the mind flayer family of monsters. But I also haven't played much high level, so who knows what the two campaigns I'm in (one's at level 11, the other 10) will bring?
Almost all of them. Forever GM and whatnot.
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
For you then, What monsters do you use rarely or not at all?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Hm. Out of the basic rules, I’d say:
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
Ok now, how can you possibly say that Zombies are the least interesting undead?
I mean, sure, if you turn to movies and TV shows, then, I guess, maybe yeah, but actual zombies?
Oh hell no.
At the core of the concept of a Zombie is the idea of a dead thing that has returned to a kind of unliving state, and folks in ancient greece used to pin down corpses with heavy stones in their burial places to keep them from getting up again. The general idea is that of a revenant, folklorically, so revenants are a kind of Zombie and zombies are a kind of revenant. Local tales of the risen dead are all over the place -- although most aren't the flesh eating sorts. THe most common basis for a lot of it is the notion that one "still has something to do", or that some folks have such an indomitable will that they literally refuse to die.
up into the 1700's there were slavic folks who swore to tales of Soldiers who could not be harmed by lead or iron bullets and were no longer living, having died in battle and just kept going. Silver bullets and glass bullets were often said to kill them, though.
Copper was wound around the wrists of the dead to bind them to the earth in other places, for if they rose they could then only be stopped by cutting out their rotting hearts and burning them in a fire of Rowan wood.
Zombies are terrifying, because there is little worse than seeing Pawpaw staggering at you not with some treat or toy, but with a desire to rip your arms off and impale you upon a stake. How do you get close enough to kill a zombie when its Aunt Ida Fay, who used to bake cookies for you? THe fear and conflict can be paralyzing.
Zombies are rotting flesh things, carrying filth and disease and ill humors. Contact with one can leave you sick unto dying -- and in some tales they carried the Black Death, whil ein others they caused leprosy or consumption.
No, no, Zombies are freaking awesome.
ok, yeah, D&D zombies are kinda lame, but meh. That's what homebrew is for, lol.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I like the idea of zombies carrying regular diseases, so how about let’s make a zombie with consumption?
first, increase hitpoints.
lower speed,
lower strength.
make it spread illness if you come into contact with it.
give it the Nosferatu’s blood vomit or whatever it’s called attack, which also spreads illness.
Like almost everyone here, there are hundreds upon hundreds of monsters I haven't encountered. Even if I weren't a chronic DM, that'd still probably be true.
So, I'll just change the question to really cool monsters I wanna encounter that I haven't. There are loads, but here are some ideas: Any Ancient Dragons, Beholders, High CR Wizards, Vecna, Tarrasqe, Lich, etc. There's so many creatures and so many neat ones lol.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.I have never encountered the Tarrasque.
I really like D&D, especially Ravenloft, Exandria and the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My pronouns are she/they (genderfae).
Turning D&D zombies into horrifying ones:
You could use these zombies in conjunction with the regular ones and more powerful ones. I might try and homebrew these, but I doubt it. And Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft has some creepy zombies, and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount has the Husk Zombie, which is Critical Role attempting to zombify the D&D "zombie".
Dungeons and Dragons isn't the perfectest of systems for the true zombie apocalypse campaign: Gritty, horrifying, potentially full of character deaths, and more importantly having drastically different flavor and mechanics species wise and weapons wise with much more of a fixation on guns and humans in these types of things. But a campaign like that's definitely doable with a boatload of homebrew, and you don't even need these to use things like the Husk Zombie in your campaign. But the typical style of 5e prevents even seemingly terrifying zombies from being that scary merely due to the design of the game and style of bold and reckless play that sees little dstinction between a character's zombification and their death. But you can still make zombies creepy with the right stuff, though the statblock isn't even the worst offender here.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Heh..
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
Zombies, as a standalone monster, are not built to inspire fear. A few more tricks can help change this.
Pretty sure the "can't take serious bit" is because it's, you know, just a living rug.
"As you enter into the dungeon, you encounter a dangerous enemy... A RUG! DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!"
Hello! I am a perfectly sane gibberer. Hi! :D
Locations are dead, the Temple of Potassium has fallen but its ideals live on
A mysterious link of chain... (Extended signature). PRAISE JEFF THE EVIL ROOMBA! REALLY cool video.
One of the Warlock Patrons on the forums. Low, low price of your soul, firstborn child and liver!
Titles: The Echoing Story Spewer (Drummer), the Endless Maws (Isis), the Mad Murderer (PJ), more on my extended sig
On the topic of Zombies: I see them not as a monster you're supposed to fight, but rather a plot point. zombies hardly pose a threat to the adventurers, but they do pose a threat to the general populous, or they should. it's not a manner of having zombie encounters throughout a campaign, but rather one final encounter where the horde finally catch up with the party, when there is no (easy, at least) escape. also, give DND zombies the normal zombie disease. it not only helps integrate diseases into a game (which I almost never see) but a race against time to find a cure, along with the heartbreaking consequences of failure, would be awesome. in a zombie campaign, don't just use human zombies, use zombies of everything. elephants are vegetarians and generally don't try to hurt people unless you piss them off, but think about a murderous, undead elephant with a swarm of smaller zombies crawling over it, acting as armor, then the swarm detaches from elephant and helps it kill the party. thats frickin scary. or what about something that already has anger issues, think about a rampaging zombie elephant seal or hippo. on a good day, they are territorial and aggressive. but on a bad day, that would be horrifying. if some monsters have become part of the ecology of your world, esssenatialy becoming predators rather than just rare abominations, make them zombies. if Rocs are common in my world, I would definetly make a zombie roc that swoops down, grabs you, and drops you in the middle of a horde.
On rugs of smothering: take them seriously. players expect to fight monsters in a place, they don't expect to fight the place itself. think about if you woke up one day in the afterlife, only to find out your blanket smothered you to death in the night. its scary and serious because you never expect it, not because of the appearance, like, say, a nightwalker or dragon.
Hey, It's me, RaccoonMaster! I'm back! I disappeared for a while there, and I'm very sporadic when I'm online lol.
I'm an actor, writer, singer (opera, musical theatre, and rock are my preferred genres), backpacker, and tall person (6'5 and counting). Pronouns are whatever, I mostly use They/Them though.
My Characters: Elsenia Selevarum: The Popular Paladin, Aasimar Noble, Level 4 Paladin of Redemption;
Hope to see you around!