Howdy there! While I'm working on all sorts of things, I had a random thought of writing a short article on the various D&D character I've played, as well as some of my favorite NPCs. While I recognize most of these are tied to their setting in one way or another, feel free to use them in your own games as NPCs. If it makes your game better, it will make me happier.
Sam Eks Kopee
While the name is a little on the nose, this is one of my all-time favorite characters I've ever played. In a long-term solo game, Sam served as a master infiltrator to the Thieves' Guild wielding the combination of his changeling powers and roguish training for spying. Better yet, I got to play one of my favorite creations, the faceless (which was my rework of changelings before the 5e Eberron book has been released). It also came with several feats for expanding the shapeshifting powers, which was just awesome.
When it came to his personality, he was careful but curious. In his free time, he worked as an actor for the local theatre. This profession was so ingrained into his personality, that he would usually entertain his closest ones by transforming them when with them to jokingly mock them. However, that was always just a facade that he used to hide his insecurity about who he feels like he should be, and whether society could accept him for that. Due to his risky profession, he turned his faith in the Goddess of luck and chance, Avandra (although this could be replaced by a fitting deity in your own games).
When it came to mechanics and magical item equipment, he is a simple character. Two magical items I can't imagine him without are glamoured studded leather armor, and gloves of thievery. While the gloves make his hands much more dexterous than they normally would be, the armor serves as his second skin. Not only can he change his appearance using an action, but he can also alter the appearance of his clothes as a bonus action too, completely changing how he appears. Other potentially useful magical items for him are the medallion of thoughts and the slippers of spider climb. While his subclass was originally Swashbuckler, the truth is he could be almost any roguish subclass depending on the world and his role during the infiltrations. Soulknife sounds rather fun if you wanted him to have more supernatural powers. While most of his stats could be adjusted easily, I would keep his Dexterity and Charisma high.
Picture not included, because he could literally look like anyone. While he did have a default appearance, revealing it would kind of ruin the surprise, right?
Katerina S.
A bit of a metagame backstory before I get to the character herself. Over two years ago, I have started my live campaign that lasted for quite a while. I overestimated myself, and managed to gather another group of people, "just for a oneshot". However, as it goes, those friends have called their friends, and then friends of friends have been called. When the number grew too big, I asked my friend for help, if he could take over DMing this group for me. He helped me out, and I am thankful to him to this day. After the oneshot, he actually started to DM a game for us that's been going on to this day. My character in that game, which simply put was a half-orc monk with some extra homebrew stuff, didn't last too long though. He has fallen in combat against an owlbear, trying to help out his cleric companion by attracting the monster's attention away from him and to himself. However, the beast has rolled a little too well, and in one mighty swoop, the legend of the half-orc has ended. I wasn't sad, however. I was glad because I knew this could have an impact on the party. I have chosen to not attend the next game on purpose, to let the party feel the void, and to give them some space before the new character arrives.
Since this happened before a major release like Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, I was looking for inspiration in the homebrew. Turns out I had a little too many ideas, so my DM asked me to make a "vanilla" character. Without homebrews.
Katerina is a human, who has lost the memories of her early childhood. The earliest memory she has is that of waking up on the street without a home, knowing she just made a pact with the Evening Star. She uses her magical powers to protect all that is good, and fight the evils of the world. If this doesn't ring any bells for you, let me add that one of her eldritch invocations was Armor of Shadows, which lets her cast mage armor. And since the appearance of that could be reflavored...
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| ~Fighting evil by moonlight, ... wait, wrong lyrics. Uhh... ~Caught in destiny we shine for we are meant to be the Star Guardians ... wait, wrong again. Wait, I remember now! ~We are, the great Starlight Brigade! Artwork kindly provided by Yurco_. |
Yes. It used to be a joke character. Emphasis on used to.
Katerina is a considerate optimist. Since she was made to patch up something that the party was missing at a time, she is more intelligent than charismatic and uses her Intelligence for her spellcasting too. If there's one thing that makes her happy, though, it's making other people happy. Whether it's through generosity, motivational words, or a little bit of magic. She also suffers from claustrophobia due to an accident when she was growing up.
The world she lives in is an unwelcoming one to the arcane casters. Wizardry is outright banned by the United Order, a religious organization that rules the entire continent. Sorcerers are kidnapped by the soldiers and trained for unknown purposes. And warlocks, well... people don't know yet that those exist. Katerina didn't get much choice in becoming one, at least as far as her memories go. Being a child of the street, she has been found and raised by the previously-mentioned half-orc monk. What he did wasn't legal, but Katerina knew that he did it out of necessity, not because he wanted to. When the United Order has begun founding adventuring guilds all over the continent, he decided to leave his criminal life behind and joined one. In part thanks to this, Katerina got to study under the tutelage of one of the last wizards living in secrecy.
Katerina is a warlock, serving the Great Old One patron. All of her abilities are flavored in a positive optimistic way, usually related to the stars or hearts. What others would consider a disturbing way to telepathically communicate with people by crossing the linguistic and auditory barriers is Heartspeech, a way to speak to another person's heart directly across the barriers. The Pact Boon of choice for her was Chain, with her first familiar being a sprite named Xandra. With her powers, she could tell the good people from evil using her tiny friend, but after an encounter with a genie, she achieved the powers of Heartsight. Since then, her familiar has used the statistics of an imp, still resembling a fairy but a bit more fiendish. The vast majority of her spells revolves around utility outside of combat—long-distance communication, illusions, and charms. Some of her iconic magical items are a robe of stars for some extra spells and a misty scarf that she regularly uses for short-range teleportation.
TCUU
This entry will be quite a bit shorter, but I do want to return to this character someday or reuse it. Since at the moment I don't have games in which I would play him, I don't have any need to hold back the spoilers for his backstory.
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| Artwork by shinji2602. |
Once upon a time, there has been a research facility hidden from the world someplace underground. And in this facility worked an elf called Vittor Robotnik, clever for an artificing apprentice and loved by his family who didn't know of this job. What he worked on he didn't know, it was way above his paygrade. However, his life has changed forever once the accident happened. The facility has blown up, killing many, and among them Vittor too. Unexpectedly, though, he was the only one who did not die completely. Since there were exotic materials related to the current study of the ethereal plane present, his soul was stuck there, lingering and unable to move on. However, over the time spent there, he learned that he could move very small objects on the Material Plane around.
It took him decades, but his project was finally finished. Combining the small parts, he managed to make bigger and bigger parts that he could move. Luckily, everything important for the construct was present, which is why he was able to create a mechanical body for himself. His soul is now bound to the mechanism, which he called TCUU (pronounced tee-see-yous), resembling a local legendary hero who has supposedly recreated his own body.
The decades have made him cold and calculated, but patient. While some of his humor still remains, it is completely dry by now. Each of his jokes told in a monotone voice has to be followed with "Ha. Ha. Ha." to let others know that it was meant to be funny. His motivation was like a boulder rolling down a hill—it takes a while to get moving, but it's hard to stop its determined roll. Upon finding out that his wife has died, he was hopeless until he came to learn that she too is now stuck in the Ethereal Plane. He is dedicated to crafting a body for her to inhabit, which is why he'll do anything he can in order to obtain more robotic parts.
TCUU is a warforged artificer of the armorer specialization. Unfortunately, since the campaign he was in ended after a couple of sessions, he didn't get to experience all that much stuff. One day, though, I'll get to play him some more, and define him better.
The magical rings salesman
This one is even shorter, since it's an NPC. There are very few constants across my various games. However, I always try to find some way to include this character. He's a simple NPC to portray. A fire genasi whose skin and "hair" are blue (possibly due to Wild Magic?), he doesn't have a consistent backstory of any kind. What's better, his name is remembered by nobody. He probably sold it to a fairy or something.
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| A wonderful rendition of a cross-dimensional NPC magical rings salesman, provided kindly by /u/Seqarian. |
But oh what's this? A cart that's filled with all kinds of magical rings! Wait, why isn't anyone paying attention to him? What's this, they're saying that his magical rings are all just pranks? Nonsense, there must be something useful! Let's dig in...
Oh, how about a ring of flying? Oh wait, it only makes you fall upwards. Hmm, maybe a ring of fishing? Huh, so it attracts fish only because it's glittery. Aha, here we go! A ring of impressions, which lets you do supernaturally good handshakes, even when the other person would try to bluff you by turning it into a high-five or a fistbump!
... maybe they were right about him. What was his name again?
I could go on and on about my other characters. Some of my favorites being the Seven-Cursed Queen Arcadia, Doirend the archfey, Gray the noble, Ebenezer, Krush, Kyrislav, and so many others. But for now, I'll spare myself, and see if this is something people like and want to see more of. I hope you've enjoyed this, that perhaps you'll find a use for these in your games someday, and I wish you a great day!
