I have a tendency to base the characters I play in dnd after songs (I have a very long list), and wanted to know if anyone else does this. I would also love to hear about them! I’ll go first with one of my many examples:
Song: Curses by The Crane Wives.
Shes a half-elf Druid who used to live in a small cabin in the woods with her husband and 4 kids. After a forest fire broke out where she lived, she ran away with the kids and went to start a new life. She struggled quite a lot, and ended up making a pact with multiple fiends, gods, and more not so savory beings to get by. The people who lived in the town where she moved with her children, because of her very liberal use of magic distrusted her, and chased her out one day, killing 3 of her 4 children after she morphed herself and the kids into animals to get away. She moved to another forest, and essentially abandoned each of her patrons, then dedicating herself to learning the magics of the forest around her. A patron cursed her last remaining child to become a barn owl permanently, and she now travels the world, trying to increase her knowledge of the forest and possibly find a way to help her child with the curse.
Most of the music I bought has no words. Those that have words are mostly silly or in a language I don't know. I think that if I could go with songs appropriate to my monks, it would be music one might hear during a funny, chaotic bar-fight.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I don’t necessarily base my characters off of songs, but lately, I’ve been finding “theme songs” for my characters. I handed them to my DM, and sometimes he plays them at important character moments. I’d totally suggest the practice, it just makes such a difference.
yes I do this all the time. half of my characters are based of songs. here is one example, song: the reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg. by Iron Madden. character: Male lizardfolk fighter.
his back story is; this guy was the commander of a battalion solders, who served under the banner of a human kingdom. one day the battalion was ambushed by orcs, and every one in his battalion was killed, and he was badly wounded and left of dead. in his last moments he called out to a evil entity, who revived him, and he returned to his kingdom and was put in charge of a new battalion. that went well for about 3 years, then him and his entire battalion where killed in a battle, but he was revived, and after he went back to his kingdom he was put in charge of another battalion. but that one died to along with him, but he was revived yet again. this kept happening, and when he dreams, he sees the souls of his fallen comrades being forever tormented by the entity that keeps reviving him. after that he left the kingdom.
The things that make up my character are kind of complicated but I have a character who’s based off the song red water dreams from aviators and their album with powers based on a book called skyhunter. I pull from ranboo lore to add alternate personalities and I use mlp twice removed to determine how this fits together.
so I have a person who’s experienced great tragedy and hides from it by making the person who did it into somebody else, but they subconsciously know they did it so it comes out as an alter ego.
I do the reverse. For each character I play I build a playlist. My favorite is one I built for a dragonborn sorcerer who I had based on Jafar from Aladdin. Sure enough, he ended up turning evil, betraying the party, and became a devil. You, the usual shenanigans. Anyways.... https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2yMpxVXSlbG81TUFcUXhtkkWCWGeK2q0
I tend to base my characters off of theme songs or soundtracks. One of my recent characters was based off of Out of Tartarus, from the videogame Hades, and yet another one was inspired by the Assassin Creed Black Flag theme. I would highly recommend this method, as it might allow you to get into the character more than if you didn’t have a theme.
The author, Sebastian de Castell, when he was writing the “Traitor’s Blade” series, even posted some music he felt represented his characters on his blog.
The titular Falcio val Mond, for example, drew inspiration from the Chris Cornell song, “You Know My Name”.
One of the players at my table had a tiefling with the Gladiator background, named Mort Balorfist, who was a parody of WWE wrestling’s “heel” archetype.
A funny story with him was when we were fighting Zuggmatoya, our music playlist suddenly cut to AC-DC’s “Thunderstruck” RIGHT when Mort Balorfist’s turn came up.
Naturally, the tiefling strutted towards the demon with all his gladiator swagger and cast “Thunderwave”.
Mentally, some of my characters are "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" level of simplistic, nonvariable mentality, but I still wouldn't claim that the song inspired the characters.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I've chosen songs that fit several of my characters, but most of my characters aren't based on a song.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
My name is Sakura, I am a halfling- donut hybrid that is true neutral. I am learning French but am still influent, and speak English fluently. My hobbies include: reading, writing, dungeons and dragons, drawing, and listening to Dames and Dragons. I play both player and DM roles.
The author, Sebastian de Castell, when he was writing the “Traitor’s Blade” series, even posted some music he felt represented his characters on his blog.
The titular Falcio val Mond, for example, drew inspiration from the Chris Cornell song, “You Know My Name”.
One of the players at my table had a tiefling with the Gladiator background, named Mort Balorfist, who was a parody of WWE wrestling’s “heel” archetype.
A funny story with him was when we were fighting Zuggtmoy, our music playlist suddenly cut to AC-DC’s “Thunderstruck” RIGHT when Mort Balorfist’s turn came up.
Naturally, the tiefling strutted towards the demon with all his gladiator swagger and cast “Thunderwave”.
This is how I made one of my favorite characters about 11 years ago. I was listening to Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold" on repeat and eventually the chorus started sounding like "Haakar" over and over again. And in like 5 minutes I had Haakar the Red, a Bugbear Barbarian/Fighter, ready to go; I don't really remember statting him up, but he was a lot of fun to play.
Yes! The Longest Johns are great! I never thought of basing a character off of one of their more comedy songs like Hoist up the Thing or The Last Bristolian Pirate. I’ve based one of mine, Aled, off of Bones in the Ocean. Now I need to do an Aarokokra off of Moby Duck…
Now you have me thinking of all these rock songs I like; and now I’m formulating characters based of them!
”Sweet True Lies” by Beast in Black will be a Genie Warlock who is hopelessly in love with an efreeti patron, despite the fact that she is obviously exploiting him in order to amass power for herself. Lyrics like “I’m burning alive” or “say you’d want me for a lifetime; I’d believe you even though I know it’s a lie” would represent the elemental / awareness of the relationship.
”Berserker”, also by Beast in Black, is so purely BARBARIAN that a “Haunted One” background where a Zealot Barbarian hunts demons must be played!
”The Saints” by Helloween just reminds me of a Hexblade Warlock who is masquerading as a cleric, who “harvests souls” of the recently deceased while claiming to be pious.
”We Damn the Night”, also by Helloween, leans heavily into a Light Cleric, garbed in pure white, who dispels darkness wherever it may gather.
”Fear of the Dark” would be a Shadow Sorcerer, Shadow Monk, or Gloomstalker Ranger…
It's not one specific song, but a player in the campaign I'm DMing said she wanted to be "Stevie Nicks but witchier", so I homebrewed a sorcerer subclass for her where all the features are named after Nicks lyrics: Crystal Visions, Black Moons In Those Eyes of Hers, The Nightmare Was Not Over etc. I named the whole subclass Nightbird
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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I have a tendency to base the characters I play in dnd after songs (I have a very long list), and wanted to know if anyone else does this. I would also love to hear about them! I’ll go first with one of my many examples:
Song: Curses by The Crane Wives.
Shes a half-elf Druid who used to live in a small cabin in the woods with her husband and 4 kids. After a forest fire broke out where she lived, she ran away with the kids and went to start a new life. She struggled quite a lot, and ended up making a pact with multiple fiends, gods, and more not so savory beings to get by. The people who lived in the town where she moved with her children, because of her very liberal use of magic distrusted her, and chased her out one day, killing 3 of her 4 children after she morphed herself and the kids into animals to get away. She moved to another forest, and essentially abandoned each of her patrons, then dedicating herself to learning the magics of the forest around her. A patron cursed her last remaining child to become a barn owl permanently, and she now travels the world, trying to increase her knowledge of the forest and possibly find a way to help her child with the curse.
I hadn't thought of doing this, but it's a really cool idea!
"Never walk away from home ahead of your axe and sword.
You can't feel a battle in your bones or foresee a fight."
- Havamal, The Sayings of Odin
I love The Crane Wives, and that's such a good song. I added it to my druid playlist as well! :D
Most of the music I bought has no words. Those that have words are mostly silly or in a language I don't know. I think that if I could go with songs appropriate to my monks, it would be music one might hear during a funny, chaotic bar-fight.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I don’t necessarily base my characters off of songs, but lately, I’ve been finding “theme songs” for my characters. I handed them to my DM, and sometimes he plays them at important character moments. I’d totally suggest the practice, it just makes such a difference.
What am I supposed to do with a signature?
Egg
yes I do this all the time. half of my characters are based of songs. here is one example, song: the reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg. by Iron Madden. character: Male lizardfolk fighter.
his back story is; this guy was the commander of a battalion solders, who served under the banner of a human kingdom. one day the battalion was ambushed by orcs, and every one in his battalion was killed, and he was badly wounded and left of dead. in his last moments he called out to a evil entity, who revived him, and he returned to his kingdom and was put in charge of a new battalion. that went well for about 3 years, then him and his entire battalion where killed in a battle, but he was revived, and after he went back to his kingdom he was put in charge of another battalion. but that one died to along with him, but he was revived yet again. this kept happening, and when he dreams, he sees the souls of his fallen comrades being forever tormented by the entity that keeps reviving him. after that he left the kingdom.
The things that make up my character are kind of complicated but I have a character who’s based off the song red water dreams from aviators and their album with powers based on a book called skyhunter. I pull from ranboo lore to add alternate personalities and I use mlp twice removed to determine how this fits together.
so I have a person who’s experienced great tragedy and hides from it by making the person who did it into somebody else, but they subconsciously know they did it so it comes out as an alter ego.
Mostly nocturnal
help build a world here
I do the reverse. For each character I play I build a playlist. My favorite is one I built for a dragonborn sorcerer who I had based on Jafar from Aladdin. Sure enough, he ended up turning evil, betraying the party, and became a devil. You, the usual shenanigans. Anyways.... https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2yMpxVXSlbG81TUFcUXhtkkWCWGeK2q0
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
I tend to base my characters off of theme songs or soundtracks. One of my recent characters was based off of Out of Tartarus, from the videogame Hades, and yet another one was inspired by the Assassin Creed Black Flag theme. I would highly recommend this method, as it might allow you to get into the character more than if you didn’t have a theme.
Ah yes. JOJO's bizarre adventure.
My only good homebrews: Races, Subclasses.
An aspiring DM and Homebrewer. Ask me if you need anything.
It’s actually more common than you might think!
The author, Sebastian de Castell, when he was writing the “Traitor’s Blade” series, even posted some music he felt represented his characters on his blog.
The titular Falcio val Mond, for example, drew inspiration from the Chris Cornell song, “You Know My Name”.
One of the players at my table had a tiefling with the Gladiator background, named Mort Balorfist, who was a parody of WWE wrestling’s “heel” archetype.
A funny story with him was when we were fighting Zuggmatoya, our music playlist suddenly cut to AC-DC’s “Thunderstruck” RIGHT when Mort Balorfist’s turn came up.
Naturally, the tiefling strutted towards the demon with all his gladiator swagger and cast “Thunderwave”.
It became his official introduction song. XD
Mentally, some of my characters are "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" level of simplistic, nonvariable mentality, but I still wouldn't claim that the song inspired the characters.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I've chosen songs that fit several of my characters, but most of my characters aren't based on a song.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Yes definitely
My name is Sakura, I am a halfling- donut hybrid that is true neutral. I am learning French but am still influent, and speak English fluently. My hobbies include: reading, writing, dungeons and dragons, drawing, and listening to Dames and Dragons. I play both player and DM roles.
Oh heck yes! I have, like, 3 characters based off of songs, and I'd probably have more if I could find good songs that would work in a D&D setting.
There's "Captain" Gary, who's based off of Hoist Up the Thing by The Longest Johns,
https://www.dungeonmastersvault.com/pages/dnd/5e/characters/17592252941406
Captain "Tractor" Jack, based off of The Last Bristolian Pirate, also by The Longest Johns,
https://www.dungeonmastersvault.com/pages/dnd/5e/characters/17592252939661
and Thyrakir, based off of The Curse, which is also by The Longest Johns.
https://www.dungeonmastersvault.com/pages/dnd/5e/characters/17592265835981
In case you didn't notice, I kinda like The Longest Johns.
Looking for a campaign? Or, perhaps, trying to start one? Come join Rolegate! Just send me a friend request (same name as here) and I'll help you get started!
Ducks are just geese lite. Focus on the future. It'll become the past soon enough.
Istari and White Counsel in Club. Not the wish-granter of a thread.
Become a Plague Doctor today!
Join the Knights of the Random Table and Calius and Kothar Industries!
Homebrew: Artifact, Dungeon
May be offline due to school
Looking for a campaign? Or, perhaps, trying to start one? Come join Rolegate! Just send me a friend request (same name as here) and I'll help you get started!
Ducks are just geese lite. Focus on the future. It'll become the past soon enough.
Istari and White Counsel in Club. Not the wish-granter of a thread.
Become a Plague Doctor today!
Join the Knights of the Random Table and Calius and Kothar Industries!
Homebrew: Artifact, Dungeon
May be offline due to school
This is how I made one of my favorite characters about 11 years ago. I was listening to Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold" on repeat and eventually the chorus started sounding like "Haakar" over and over again. And in like 5 minutes I had Haakar the Red, a Bugbear Barbarian/Fighter, ready to go; I don't really remember statting him up, but he was a lot of fun to play.
Yes! The Longest Johns are great! I never thought of basing a character off of one of their more comedy songs like Hoist up the Thing or The Last Bristolian Pirate. I’ve based one of mine, Aled, off of Bones in the Ocean. Now I need to do an Aarokokra off of Moby Duck…
Now you have me thinking of all these rock songs I like; and now I’m formulating characters based of them!
”Sweet True Lies” by Beast in Black will be a Genie Warlock who is hopelessly in love with an efreeti patron, despite the fact that she is obviously exploiting him in order to amass power for herself. Lyrics like “I’m burning alive” or “say you’d want me for a lifetime; I’d believe you even though I know it’s a lie” would represent the elemental / awareness of the relationship.
”Berserker”, also by Beast in Black, is so purely BARBARIAN that a “Haunted One” background where a Zealot Barbarian hunts demons must be played!
”The Saints” by Helloween just reminds me of a Hexblade Warlock who is masquerading as a cleric, who “harvests souls” of the recently deceased while claiming to be pious.
”We Damn the Night”, also by Helloween, leans heavily into a Light Cleric, garbed in pure white, who dispels darkness wherever it may gather.
”Fear of the Dark” would be a Shadow Sorcerer, Shadow Monk, or Gloomstalker Ranger…
It's not one specific song, but a player in the campaign I'm DMing said she wanted to be "Stevie Nicks but witchier", so I homebrewed a sorcerer subclass for her where all the features are named after Nicks lyrics: Crystal Visions, Black Moons In Those Eyes of Hers, The Nightmare Was Not Over etc. I named the whole subclass Nightbird
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)