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Friday, May 8, 2015

30 Days of D&D Day 8: Favorite Character You Have Played

The favorite character I've played?  Can I do a top 5?  Top 10? Sure I can!

(I'll do as many as I want, apparently. Every time I thought I was done with this post, I was like "no, what about...")

These are in no particular order, other than Brigid.
First is Brigid DeValera, the human fighter I played in the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. She was either level 13 or 14 when we ended, the highest level I've ever earned as a player. She bought a bastard sword (which was short lived. that story will come later this month) and took to the road to send money home to her two younger brothers, because their alcoholic father sure wasn't doing such a good job earning anything. With her, I had longsword feats specifically, weapon focus, weapon specialization, and even signature weapon from the Mercenary book (a 3rd edition compatible sourcebook which was published by either Mongoose or Green Ronin, I forget which.) She also had the feat "pain is my friend" from the Net Book of Feats. It was the days before we decided to use core material from the publisher only. She also had cleave, great cleave, and one we came up with (before an official equivalent was actually created) called Rolling Riot, where she could take a five foot step between great cleaves.

Brigid wore armor made from red dragons we'd killed, complete (eventually) with a cloak made from the wings that let her fly, and a helmet made from the skull of one that gave her darkvision. Brigid performed such fantastic feats as getting wrist deep in a blue dragon with that sword and taunting "I'm touching your organs" in order to distract it from the rogue and wizard. She killed 3 bad guys with a big wooden table, rather than chase them around it. She's the one I rolled three 20's with and insta-dead crit a fellow player character, to save the aforementioned rogue (again). She was disarmed in a big fight (that happened a lot), picked up a halberd, and walked down a hallway to kill seven men. After the wizard lightning bolted a hydra....2 times? 3? She was able to great cleave many of its heads off. And at the end of the Temple of Elemental Evil, she crit the face off (literally) a big old Formian (ant people).

Second is Sylvia Hawkins. She was the first character I played in the very first iteration of the steam world, a tiefling wizard. She'd been adopted by a gunsmith, and so had a single pistol she used. She also had a lemur familiar, named Flint, who she trained to sit on her shoulder and reload the pistol for her after she fired.

Third is Penny Bright, short for Penelope Brighton, short for (and I only remember part of this) something Marie Brighton Sutherland. She carried a mandolin which had no strings (and that she couldn't play) but when asked about it, she made up a different story each time. She was part of the royal family (the king was her uncle; the royal treasurer was her father), the rest of which was felled during a nighttime coup. She was a rogue, meant to be kind of an information agent, and it did eventually come to light that she was the last member of the royal family. Y'know, as the gods rose up again and the kingdom fell apart, like it does. Penny is somebody I have a consistent gaming regret with; mind you, I played her years ago, but I always wish I hadn't hesitated when it had occurred to me to shove her boot-toe-knife in a political opponent's throat as he stood next to her while she was mounted on a horse.

Fourth is Kate Walker, another rogue I played for the first go at the Age of Worms campaign which the people who would become the Pathfinder people published as an adventure path in Dungeon magazine. Kate is one half of what our group refers to as "The Wonder Twins", the other half being played by our friend Bryan. He was adopted, our father was a gunsmith/locksmith/general kind of tinkerer. The Wonder Twins did things like finish each others' sentences, one of those magical ways a game can just kind of come together unplanned at the table. Kate ended up with a lot of pistols by the end of that game, and she invented a wind-up gun reloader which binged when it was done.

Fifth is Larkin, another fighter. We tried out the Age of Worms a second time (and got further than the first, actually), and I played Larkin for that. She was a half drow (those are dark elves), and I traded out the ability to cast Darkness once a day for full on darkvision (instead of the usual lowlight vision elves and half elves got; 5th edition has gotten rid of all lowlight in favor of granting those races darkvision), which meant she also had light sensitivity. Larkin wore smoked glasses, had a curved nine ring broadsword and a chakram, which she could use either in melee or throw (one of her feats was, in fact, "throw anything", in addition to blind fight and two weapon fighting).

Sixth is  Tempest Ballard, an aasimar paladin who'd taken a vow of chastity. She ended up with a griffin as a mount, one of my Life Gaming Goals fulfilled early. She used a greatsword, one of my few characters to ever require such a ridiculous weapon, and her slight touch of angelic nature revealed itself physically with gold eyes and white feathers which grew in her black hair.

Seventh is Ylora, a witch I played during a campaign where dinosaurs featured heavily. Her familiar was a tiny preCambrian pony. She took a couple hairs from each party member and braided them in with her own, so she could heal them better. She had bones she tossed for fortune telling on important decisions, and would frequently call out if something seemed particularly favorable, or particularly unfavorable (seven is a favorable number, one reason I saved it for her). She unsettled other party members, including our barbarian, who once a game would say things like "You don't question the Circle."

This is the figure I used for her, painted in this lovely fashion by my fiancé, who is amazing at such things.


Eighth is Dolly, a tiefling rogue from the bad part of town, as it were. Which worked out well, as two other party members were also from that neighborhood, as though we all came from Southie or something. Dolly wore men's pants backwards to accommodate her tail, using the fly. Dolly was a little too tall, a little too lanky, and had your standard set of fairly upright horns. She also had a greensteel dagger, recovered as a reward from a Good Thing the morally ambiguous party ended up completing.

Ninth is White Raven, an elf in a homebrew campaign world whose true name was She-Who-Goes-to-Face-the-Enemy. She was a duskblade, which was a rather highly powered fighter/wizard combo class in the Player's Handbook 2 in edition 3.5.  As she leveled, she did the Dragon Disciple prestige class. White Raven gave up her name (She-Who-Goes-to-Face-the-Enemy) when the party found the body of a dragon and it....gave the dragon life again. Which happened in one of those gaming sessions which ended up being overnight but nobody realized it until they noticed the birds singing and the sun had come up and it was 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning and I had to be to work at 8:30. I wish we still did that sometimes. It happened at least once with the Temple, probably  more than once. Totally worth it.

And Tenth is Madeline Chambers, the character I rolled up after I retired White Raven. She was a bard, and in the Master of Masks prestige class (I think that's what it was called), very secret spy organization oriented and loyalist to the throne and all that good stuff. She slotted into the party pretty well, though if I remember right it isn't long after her addition that the game ended, as these things sometimes happen.



Other than Sylvia, Penny, and White Raven I had a figure for each of the aforementioned characters, and certainly still own them....somewhere. But not all of them were painted (I'm pretty much Not Good at painting miniatures), and I had a ready picture for that one.

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