I’ll go first. He’s a reborn necromancer wizard, with a 1 level dip into death cleric.
His backstory comes with a clichénwarning for lost memories…
He lost his memory just before the start of the campaign. He was conducting a gruesome experiment on a dog, when something went wrong involving lightning. He died, but also didn’t, and came to wandering around his lab years later, clutching the skull of the dog, which had rotted away to just bone.
He didn’t have a name at the start of the campaign. I let a different player name him, as his character knew mine from before the accident. He came up with the truly awful name Melvin Kingston, which I’ve grown to love. He had a massive fear of death, having died once already, and was quite the coward in early levels.
His memories have been slowly returning, and he’s had to come to terms with all the evil things he did in his previous life. I recently took a level in death domain cleric, cos we had no healer, and I found the god Jergal, Scribe of the Doomed, who is concerned only with documenting the dead in his great book. Melvin’s faith has allowed him to come to terms with death, and accept it as a part of life. (His newfound ability ro wear medium armor has helped as well, lol). I love having 8 cantrips, and so so many spells to choose from. I have so many options!
I love playing him, and I’m loving the progression he’s gone through. I have more planned for him.
Now your turn!
Olivia of Hightower, Circle of Spores Druid who’s family and community is a Circle of Stars group but instead of partaking in Star study she went out foraging for mushrooms. As such she was a bit of a loner at Hightower.
One night her tower was attacked by Vampires and ultimately she too got bit, but when she did she was able to connect with the mycelium of the forest around her and it stopped the transformation halfway, leaving her a Dhampire. Now she seeks a cure and hopes to possibly save any of her family that is left that she can find.
E Li, a Warforged Artillerist Artificer with 6 wis who believes he is a Dwarf. His dwarf “father” named him “Yer eh liability, I’m turning ya off” (a sound byte whose semantic meaning E Li can’t parse), so he goes by E Li for short.
Just recently into level 2, but my current character is an artificer who escaped a Cult of Magic Worshipers who would have nothing to do with technology. Character also has some inspirations from Icarus, so he’s working on his own pair of wings!
Nice, although if I eat you DM and you mentioned Icarus and making a set of wind, if be planning for you to have at least one fall along the way!
Mine is Binky the Blemished, a butt-ugly gnome druid who is essentially a glorified livestock handler. He wears a mask because his face is so ugly it provokes a fear response from people, balanced out by Binky being a super-virgin. He has to roll a CON save if a female character ever touches him, and if he fails that save, he faints.
Lol I was wondering where that last sentence was going, but it ended itbended sweetly 😅
I am playing Arthur Cuddington, a 49 year old human man who until recently was a professor teaching the history of magic. He then had a mid-life crisis and decided to strike out as an adventuring wizard, enrolling as a studen in an academy for adventurers at which our current campaign takes place. He’s a skinny and incredibly dorky dude, but he loves to tell the party fun historical facts about the regions we visit, which I make up with the help of ChatGPT.
I think tools like ChatGPT are going to be such a great utility for D&D. Especially if the group you’re playing with enjoys leaning into the typical tropes and stereotypes of the game like mine is.
I sent my DM a backstory created by GPT that was multiple paragraphs long. His reply was “pretty good, just missing an orphan backstory”. I think that tells the full picture here.
I’m playing Laevyn Artoris. An Assimar Glory Paladin/Swords Bard. What started as an over the top, ham of a man bound by honor to carry a family sword that imprisons a Demon lord has evolved into a character that puts on a Glorious mask to cope with the impossible standards his father holds him to and his internal struggle with needing to feel useful to justify his place in the military.
Barbagosh, know affectionately as Barb, is an elderly Half-Elf. She seems to be gaining powers of sorcery as quickly as she is losing her marbles. She comes from a fishing village known as Jigow, where she worked in the Unbroken Tusk Inn as a baker. She prided herself on making delicious pies, and resented that Agathe, her orc colleague, held the title for best pies in the city.
Barb is thought of in Jigow as a kind old lady who is everyone’s granny. A wise lady who could help with your garden, or baking tips, a mediator between feuding neighbours, an avid reader that had lots of knowledge of the local area, and a fabulous cook that could fix any problem with food. A few months ago however, she began to change. Working in the kitchen at the Inn, Barb was baking a delicious fish pie when she was unable to find her measuring spoons. She assumed that Zorgath, a cheeky orc child, had taken them for a game. Rifling through a drawer that had been jammed closed as long as she had worked there, Barb came across a set of wooden measuring spoons that seemed deceptively light. She continued baking the pie, and using the spoons, but began to feel ill. Cold to the touch, and pale, Barb went home early, forgetting the measuring spoons in her apron pocket. Overnight, Barb continued to grow weak and unwell, waking in the morning with barely a heartbeat, and a bluish tinge to her skin. Wearing the same clothing as the day before (unheard of for the meticulously clean woman), Barb left her house to head back to work. She did not greet the neighbours with her usual ,cheery smile, and did not respond to Zorgath, running up to her with a cheeky grin, holding out her beloved spoon set. Barb went through the motions of baking her fish pies, but each one was a little off. Instead of adding baking powder to the flour, she would add sugar, instead of water to make the gravy, she poured in vinegar. When Agathe appeared to begin her shift, she was shocked to see Barb placing the pie the gently in the oven using hands that were not hers. A spectral hand had appeared, that Barb seemed to be controlling, Barb was totally unresponsive.
The following day, Barb continued on her routine as normal. Walking to work, she greeted the neighbours cheerily. She play-acted the grumpy old lady with Zorgath as she gave back the stolen measuring spoons. She walked through the door of the Unbroken Tusk Inn and picked up her baking apron, ready to start her day. Agathe questioned Barb about what she had witnessed, but the old lady was confused and told Agathe she must be imagining things. Barb remembered feeling unwell and staying home from work, how could she have possibly been doing what Agathe was claiming?
As the weeks went on, these ‘funny spells’ as Barb refers to them, became more frequent, with the magic persona taking skillful control, while the non-magic persona became increasingly vague and confused. One day, Barb woke up on the back of a Horizonback Turtle, with no clear idea of how she got there, and nothing on her person, but a bit of gold and a set of bizarre measuring spoons that she didn’t remember owning. Barb had lost all memory of who she was, where she was from, but she knew one thing- she could do with a nice cup of tea.
TL;DR- A senile, but surprisingly powerful sorcerer who loves a cup of tea.
She sounds delightful, and that’s a great story
Thank you. She’s so much fun to play!
Not in a campaign right now, but my next character is going to be a bard named Billiam Shadmer that only doe spoken word renditions of classic rock ballads. That is all I have so far.
E Li, a Warforged Artillerist Artificer with 6 wis who believes he is a Dwarf. His dwarf “father” named him “Yer eh liability, I’m turning ya off” (a sound byte whose semantic meaning E Li can’t parse), so he goes by E Li for short. High Int and low Wis make for a fun RP, especially given sufficient Cha to play out some social skills.
Haha, I love it! And I’m loving the variety we’ve had here. Is he trying to figure his past out, or does he not have any doubts? Also, does he have a personal goal or is he a live-in-the-moment kind of ‘dwarf’?
I am pretty new to DnD and have absolutely no idea what i am doing, but right now we play 2 campaigns parallel in our group (one is a shorter one-shot campaign). I play a dwarven barbarian in the main campaign and I really enjoy it. He’s tanky and strong and does a lot of dmg (i can hit 3 times now in a turn, thats pretty neat). I think a lot of people will find my barbarian cliché, but i don’t care, i enjoy playing him :)
In the one-shot i play a human cleric who I was told is really OP with the rolls that I did for my stats (but since i have no idea what I am doing - i dont know if thats true and how to really use her to the maximum potential lol) in contrast to my barbarian i play the cleric pretty RP heavy and I try to have her do things that the character would do instead of what I would do - its pretty fun :)
Classic player arc there. Start with a simple martial who’s basically you but a barbarian, moving on to a magic user with heavy RP.
No problem with cliches if that’s what you enjoy!
I have played a few longer campaigns, one in particular that started before COVID and ended with a grand finale IRL at a local game store. But I’m still a relatively new player so I still love the classic character tropes and arcs.
Tarek is a half orc circle of stars druid, would use a stolen star map to perform astrology readings for townsfolk, really he was sneaking into their houses in wild shape and learning what he could about them ahead of time. One day he was performing a reading for a lord ahead of his wedding when Tarek had a vivid vision of the lord’s gruesome future, in shock Tarek lost his words and the lord arrested him. Tarek is now imprisoned ready for the start of the campaign
Awesome premise - a charlatan gaining real power. Sounds like a great jumping off point for fun role-playing!
