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#my druid pc has a pirate npc love interest
lynndoublelegacy · 3 years
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just a cool dnd meme i saw
Yook so it’s less a meme and more like. a big ol questionare but hey, might as well do it. originally saw it on @/probablyottrpgideas, go check them out
1. Game Master, Player, or both? Why?
Ok so technically I’ve DMed twice but I really don’t find it fun? and don’t ever want to do it again. so. Player. I like building characters and their connections with fellow PCs more than building worlds
2. When did you start roleplaying? How old were you?
oh god, if we’re talking about roleplaying in general? I’ve been doing it basically as long as I can remember. As a kid I would play House, and then once I got older in like 5th grade I actually started making characters and playing out their stories with friends. Google+ is what made me realize this was actually like, a THING, though, and I got into some roleplaying groups there, then on DevaintArt. Dungeons and Dragons is a newer development? I got into it in late 2018 when my sister’s friend invited us to a one-shot, and... well, yea, I got hooked lol
3. What was the first roleplaying book you ever owned?
dude, bold of you to assume I really own any. I don’t have that kind of money and literally only own the Guide to Wildemount, and that was a gift
4. Describe the first game you ever ran or played in.
I mean... it’s not a game but ima describe the one shot, bc my first campaign was a hot mess without a true storyline and I used the same character for it anyway. I played a tiefling bard called Aisling Kai (I didn’t know this was a cliche combo at this point, and I honestly played her like a rogue with a music motif but Whatever) and we were a little group tasked to figure out why the hell anyone who goes into this cave never comes out. So we go in, make our way through the dungeon, fight some frog people (I made one of their ears bleed just by getting a nat 20 on a performance check to play a high f# on flute, that was fun, FWEET), and turns out yep, theres a hill giant down here. We kicked his ass and collapsed the cave on top of us (dw I think we were fine but my memory is a little screwy)
5. What system did you grow up with? / 6. Which system do you play now?
i learned on and currently play dnd 5e. I don’t really know anything else, but I’m debating checking out Vampire of the Masquerade.
7. Longest campaign you’ve run or played in?
That would be my Tal’Dorei campaign group, aka The Fatefallen! Started in the Fall of 2019 and still going to this day, just played our 45th session last week. I play Ilia Liadon, the drow grave cleric, and the only member of our party who has been there for every single session since the beginning.
8. Where did you meet your current gaming group?
...well first I feel the need to mention that I have 3 different groups (2 of them are on hiatus now for pandemic related reasons but! we’re still groups). My first group (with Aisling) was formed slowly over time as friends adopted friends into the group, I think it started as a school club? but that didn’t last long. The other two started from a different school club as well, though one has since branched out into other people as well. 
9. Strategic combat or dramatic plotlines?
I am a roleplayer first and a gamer second. Give me all of the backstories and dramatic plotlines. Don’t get me wrong, I still like combat, but story takes precedent for me.
10. Favorite RPG genre?
I don’t tend to define myself by genre? But I tend to fall into more of a fantasy, at most arcanapunk style. Give me all of the magic, and magic powered tech.
11. Your first character.
I got into her a little bit earlier, but my first character was Aisling, aka Calypso Kai. She was a homebrew subclass bard with a criminal background, who honestly? should’ve been a rogue. I’ve since rebuilt her into an Assassin Rogue/College of Eloguence Bard multiclasser, but this iteration was like. Baby her, baby me new to dnd, I did not know what I was doing. She tried to be edgy, but my mom energy came through HARD and she just. Never really had a set characterization. She deserves better and I plan on playing her better sometime in the future.
12. Your favorite character.
You are making me choose between my children. BUT, if I had to pick, either Ilia Liadon, or! Ashe Wednesday, a protector aasimar drunken master monk and my profile picture. Ashe also deserved a lot better from their campaign, so I have a massive soft spot for them, they were made during a really tough time in my life (as was Ilia) and was going through an equally rough time in-game, since I made them for a Curse of Strahd campaign without understanding what I was getting into. They’re my little rebellious asshole and I love them dearly, someone get this kid therapy. Ilia, on the other hand, is just... she’s a comfort character for me at this point. mostly soft edges, such a mom- while Ashe was me yelling “come at me” at the world while crying, Ilia was just... embracing it. Making it better. basically, if they actually existed, I would die for both of them.
13. Your most ridiculous character.
I don’t usually play super ridiculous characters, but! I would say Keothi “Bookfinder” Vaimeil counts. She was basically me looking all of the goliath barbarian stereotypes in the eye, and going “nah. she’s a nerd.” She’s literally a massive puppy dog, just the sweetest big old thing, sitting in her house and reading all the books she can get her hands on in order to make up for her amnesia. Oh, and did I mention that she’s a zombie? ...yea. She’s wacky, but I love her.
14. The best in-character line you’ve ever had.
“I need sleep. I don’t even sleep and I need sleep.”
~Ilia, after a particularly tough fight and an emotionally draining day
15. Your most epic death.
Ok so... none of my characters in game have ever actually died during the storyline? Keothi obviously has in her backstory, and Ilia might have in hers as well, it was never explicitly stated, but during the game? Nope. Ashe got stupid close, but nope. Since Keothi is my only death period, and her death was pretty epic, I’m just gonna describe that. Her parents and siblings in her Goliath tribe had all fallen ill, so she decided to go searching for a possible cure, and ended up getting conned into helping this cult, since they said they would cure her family. Turns out, yea, they were lying, they just needed a goliath willing to sacrifice themselves with a cursed sword. They made the mistake of revealing this before Keothi was actually dead, so as she was dying, she brought the entire goddamn cultist temple down to the bottom of the sea and took the cultists with her. The sword was why she was undead, in the Shadowfell, and couldn’t remember anything.
16. Your most disappointing death. 
As mentioned, I’ve never died in campaign, but I feel like I have to mention this one that happened to our party in Curse of Strahd. We were in the death house, all 5 of us, still level 1, and our barbarian falls into a pit trap with spikes. None of us realize she’s actually dead, so we send out paladin down to get her... with the monk, the bard, and the warlock holding the rope. ....yea both of them died.
17. Something that shouldn’t have worked, but it did.
I’m stuck between two options for this one. First one was the time our water genasi paladin/rogue bloodbended our gnome cleric into a bridge to keep her from falling all the way down a ravine. The second time was when our party managed to defend a small seaside town from a pirate raid with just an NPC with Control Water, a ballista, ourselves, and some explosives. Neither should’ve worked, but both did. Having a triton in your party can really come in clutch in a seaside campaign.
18. Something that went hilariously awry.
I have one that’s hilarious and one that’s horrifying. Hilarious one: in my first ever campaign, someone from Aisling’s backstory popped up and our sorcerer went “that’s shady” (to be fair, he was) and then went to investigate BY HIMSELF. He obviously got kidnapped by the mafia, and then we went all stealth mission to break him out. Stealth was immediately abandoned after our other bard used a SCREAMING SWORD to break open the locks, then we proceeded to go out the way we came, setting everything on fire on the way out, and with our bard lying their way out the front door (with the rest of us in tow as “prisoners”) by pretending to be a fellow mafia member. It was great. Horrifying one: Ilia tries to Send to a member of the party who left in order to let him know that a fellow party member had died. Forgot that he left bc his mind was invaded by a previously dead, very evil old god, and ends up trapped there with him for a while. Ended up with all of our main spellcasters trapped in their own heads while the barbarian paced around worriedly and the rogue decided he was going to get smashed instead of worrying himself silly.
19. Your most memorable in-character moment.
There are a LOT in Ilia’s campaign, but! If I had to pick one, it would actually be a pretty recent one involving Ilia and our party’s wizard, Liara. They’re basically the embodiment of head vs heart? Anyway, Liara is currently suffering from something called magic corruption, though idk if suffering is the right word. Anyway! It basically resulted in her getting... possessed? by her own magic during the night during Ilia’s watch, and they had a really, really interesting conversation regarding guilt, death, and grief, and yea basically I love them. Honorable mention to our druid’s death (he’s back and better now, but that was my first long-time death in a game, we didn’t know he was coming back) and also the moment that Ilia realized that her childhood bff/crush had been revived in a new body and that this NPC was her best friend. That was a trip.
20. The coolest item you ever got and how you came to possess it.
I got this item in the revamp of my first ever campaign and nothing has topped it since which is Sad but hey. Anyway! I got this really cool, possibly cursed dagger after I threw a knife at an absolutely eldritch being and it got stuck in him as he transformed. It looked really badass, and allowed me to cast Inflict Wounds on occasion when I stabbed someone with it. So yea, we love that. Honorable mention to my paladin/bloodhunter’s Helm of the Aberrant Gladiator which allows you to basically do a bunch of fear based affects and psychic stuff.
Numbers 21 through 30 don’t apply to me but. yea. enjoy this summary of my dnd history I guess
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dnd characters I’ll never use: player or npcs
I already shared this with my dnd playing friends but I’ll put them here too to spread the love far and wide. Disclaimer: I’m not at all experienced with dnd, these are all largely based on fun character ideas and not very rooted in stats, class stuff or tactics. Genders are of course always arbitrary and interchangeable.
Before she was a party member, she was a store clerk. Worked at a soul-sucking supermarket. Has very high persuasion, charisma and constitution. Why? Dude, she’s worked in customer service. She had to pretend to be friendly while putting up the with the worst humanity can offer. War is nothing. She’s being dragged along on this quest, but is largely apathetic. Her job has crushed her spark for good. True neutral. A bard? Maybe? It makes sense that she went to music school and ended up with a retail career.
A paladin/knight who thinks he’s Don Quixote - naive and good-hearted, a classic white knight who wants to rescue all the damsels and ride all the noble steeds. The drawback is that he’s a complete idiot. Very low wisdom and intelligence. Good combat stats, and amusingly high charisma. Probably a noble. Very green. Lawful good to the max.
A fine lady who is extremely posh, quite elderly. Lost her rich husband recently. Probably owns a poodle called Wetherby. Wields the biggest, most vicious giant axe you’ve ever seen. It’s called Verity. She is, in fact, a barbarian. Lawful neutral.
(Based on a tumblr post) This character is secretly just two gnomes stacked in a trench coat. Nobody but the DM must know. Try to keep up the facade for as long as possible. Why are they doing this stunt? Literally just fee evasion. It’s cheaper to pay for one human with very short arms than two gnomes. Obviously chaotic, neutral or good. Maybe each is a bit different.
An ex-schoolteacher who becomes the group mother. Literally. She calls the party her ‘children’. A bard, Sound-of-Music style? Or a cleric. Very patronising in the way she speaks. However, much liked. An all-rounder. Lawful good. Might make a good patron-type npc.
A bard who literally thinks life is a musical. Always singing; speaks only in song, or if she does speak, it’s in a disney-like tone - strong Giselle from enchanted vibes. Terrible stealth modifiers, because she does her own theme music like Kronk. She and the above paladin knight fall in love instantly. Nobody has ever understood either of them until now. They will definitely insist on romantic duets and a giant fancy wedding, despite not really knowing each other. Noble background; an ex actress. Lawful good.
Someone otherwise useful and skillful, perhaps a rogue or a fighter, who has a weakness of instantly falling in lust with any villain they encounter. They just have a thing for the bad guys/girls. Chaotic good, or lawful neutral.
A character who can’t seem to talk without mentioning her boyfriend, Freddie: ‘it’s just like Freddie, my boyfriend, said the other day… Back in the city, where I met my boyfriend, Freddie… damn, this monster is so tough even Freddie, my boyfriend, might not be able to kill it!’ Freddie does not, as it turns out, exist. After this is disclosed, the question is - was she lying? Does she actually think Freddie is real? Is she crazy? Or did Freddie exist, once, and some magical weirdness is going on? Who knows. The poor girl - probably a cleric or someone religiously magical - clearly has some mental shit to deal with.
A mage or sorcerer who performs magic in the style of irl kids’ magicians. They don’t actually believe in magic, and keep insisting it’s all just clever tricks and illusions. Idk enough about the magic-type classes to decide which one this would suit best - maybe a book-learned character, who thinks their entire education system was just really in-character with the whole ‘real magic’ thing. A wizard? Very lawful - so lawful they can’t conceive of a force as irrational and physics-defying as magic. Probably good.
A character who is the butler of another party member - jeeves-style, long-suffering and ever efficient. His most common line is “*sigh* very good, sir/ma’am.” It would be cool if he was a monk class character - maybe coming from a kind of ‘training temple’ for butlers, Artemis Fowl style. Has the patience of a god, the combat skills of a champion street-fighter, and makes excellent tea. Might be a good player character for someone who’s new to dnd and is coming with a friend - or rather, a good character for someone who is experienced and is bringing an inexperienced friend, whose butler they could be. The butler could then advise and cover for their inexperienced ‘master’.
A variation on the above: a character travelling with their fussy, overbearing mother or father, another obviously good one for a friend to teach their inexperienced new friend how to play.
A religious character, probably a cleric or paladin, who has an element of the creationist fangirl-religious Christianity of the midwest to her. Speaks in a texas drawl. She wears a shirt that says ‘what would [insert name of deity here] do?’ and is always singing the praises of their lord/lady and saviour, trying to convert people and reminding everyone of various rules from their holy book. Lawful neutral, because she follows the rules of the faith no matter how immoral they may be. Often burst into hymns. Everything good that happens, it was the lord’s blessing. Everything bad, it was punishment for some obscure sin. Probably had a rough background and found and adhered to this faith later in life, as a kind of religious rebirth - maybe to escape a criminal past…?
A character who is a child but has all the skill in certain areas of an adult. Very creepy, Wednesday Addams vibes. Talks like a grown up. Dark and cynical. Always underestimated. Probably a sorcerer. Neutral or maybe a tad evil. Maybe could be a halfling or something, to implement that small-cute-person stealth bonus. Occasionally takes on the performance of being a normal little girl to manipulate NPCs - fake crying to get to the front of a queue, etc.
Two PCs who are long lost siblings. The DM and the two players know this. No other players and none of the characters know - including the two characters who are related. One or both of them may know they have a lost sibling, but it is only in the course of the game that they find out who they are to each other. I feel like this would be most interesting if they were of a non human species, and of very different backgrounds and classes, and maybe different alignments.
A character who is joining the party as a tourist. He has now retired from adventuring in his homeland and travels around other lands, getting the ‘authentic local experience’ by tagging onto other people’s quests. If you’re in a steampunk-y setting or your DM will let you homebrew it a bit, it would be great if he had some kind of camera and was always snapping pictures at inappropriate times. It would be even better if some of these pictures ending up being vitally useful later in the game. Probably neutral good, probably something pretty low-key class wise. Could be joined by a tour-guide type PC.
A variation on the above: a young character who is trying to break into the adventuring career market and is tagging along on work experience, always taking notes. This might be a good one for a new and inexperienced player to help them learn without compromising their characterisation. Neutral good, any class really.
A member of a certain race who is convinced they are of another race, probably due to adoption, and will attack anyone who tries to correct her, like Ellie in ice age 2. The more physically different her ‘real’ race and her ‘adopted’ race are, the better. A warrior type, hot headed. Chaotic something. Maybe even a barbarian. Someone you would be too scared to contradict.
A case of mistaken identity - the party assume this character is someone, but later it is revealed that they are in fact just a delivery boy or a maidservant. There was a mix up, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and when the party mistook them for a powerful ally they were planning to meet, they were too awkward to correct them so they just went with it. The party shouldn’t know they aren’t who they say they are until the person reveals it, either by making enough mistakes and confessing or by being outed by someone else. An NPC or a player. Probably chaotic good. Definitely a people pleaser. Poor kid.
A ‘male’ character who is actually a woman wearing a fake moustache. She had to fake her gender to get into a prestigious all male institution - maybe a cleric or paladin, or a wizard at wizard school. Definitely a con-woman type background. Intensely good persuasion modifier so that people genuinely believe she is a man as soon as the moustache goes on. Other players may or may not know her real gender from the start. Chaotic good.
An adventuring couple who have decided to spend their honeymoon, or second honeymoon, fighting and killing with the rest of the party. Fighters or another physical-combat-heavy class. Good. Full of romantic stories about people they beheaded together and times they almost died together. Bonus points if they have, are having or have had an adventuring child too - the kind who was already wielding a tiny knife in the cradle. Good for couples who play together, and good if one partner is just teaching the other to play, so they can stick together and help them.
A druid who has spent her last ten years in animal form. She has now almost forgotten how to be a person. Still forgets she isn’t an animal sometimes. Lots of animalistic mannerisms and slip ups - trying to fly, using the wrong body language, etc. She’s just very frazzled by everything right now, so please just go easy on her, okay? She’s trying her best to readjust.
A pirate woman who sailed with an all-female pirate crew on a ship with a massively misandristic name. She’s almost definitely gay and very much a bitch to men. Sailor-pirate background, probably a simple fighter, chaotic neutral af. Bonus points if she was the captain. Double bonus points if she was the captain because she engineered a mutiny and is now constantly afraid of finding her jilted ex captain (and possibly also her ex lover) hot on her heels. More bonus points if she is a very butch, bearded dwarf lady.
Champion athlete who turned their particular sporting prowess to a life of adventure, because of some event that befell them - maybe a medal winning runner’s hometown was sacked, and their swiftness allowed them to save forty children before the fires reached the school. Or maybe a record-breaking swimmer was the sole survivor of a flood that wiped out their people and now they have to get by on nothing but their wits and their abnormally massive deltoids. Obviously good stats relating to their sport. Class will depend on the sport too. You could get really creative with sports lauded amongst different races, eg. a dragonborn who was the world champion at distance fire-breathing.
(Based in a tumblr post) A bard whose main attack is Vicious Mockery. Super chaotic neutral, they focus on almost nothing else, just developing this one skill until they can practically just kill with a single insult. Their main driving motivation or goal is to eventually find a certain person - maybe a powerful and abusive parent figure or a hated tyrant, someone who did evil to them or their people - and just fucking obliterate them with the perfect, all-destroying insult, which they hope to have composed by the time they meet this person.
The youngest son of a king or ruler with like twelve children, so far from inheriting the throne nobody knew what to do with him and he ended up being tossed from institution to institution, being kicked out and kicked out until he joined the current party (or an institution the party are working with if he’s an NPC). He’s pretty dumb, with no education, essentially raised by castle servants and never learning a thing about politics. Probably a fighter. Low intelligence, good alignment. All is well, until, uh oh, all his twelve brothers die at once and he is suddenly expected to be king. What do? Help me, more intelligent party members!
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