Character Talks

Journal 129 30 Sept- 6 Oct. 2024

I doubled down this week on getting together my new characters. And not much else to be honest.

Part of the problem (reason) is due to computer troubles. Not the dead desktop, but rather the software of the Virtual Tabletop (VTT) that we use to run our games. The new sheets for the 2024 ver. of D&D are pretty broken. Lots of small problems that create huge headaches. Like, erasing your entire character when you try to add and save your character backstory.

It sucks.

Last week, I talked about one of the two characters I’ve created for the three games starting this and next week. I went a little long, and I fear I might go equally long this week as well.

Since I’m trying to keep to a weekly schedule again, I try to keep these at a manageable level.

As such, I might only concentrate on a single topic rather than run through everything in a week.

School Daze

It’s a weird name, but it is also the last hurrah of the 2014 ver. and a super ambitious campaign idea. I have already talked about it three times in the last posts, and I FEEL the need to constantly clarify what the game is about. To rehash the entire set-up and what makes this game so unique.

You really should just go back and read the last 2-3 posts.

The short version: The game is about a thousand-year war and a bunch of characters are summoned back to the only true neutral ground left in the world, a College of Magic. BUT, before we get to play those characters entering the school, we have to play through 10 chapters of story that jump around the timeline of the war.

Chapter One: Fallen Temple

The first story takes place nine years before the summons. A band of mercenaries are hired to travel into a cursed and haunted battlefield to find an ancient temple complex. Their task is to delve into the temple and retrieve a holy relic that might just tip the balance of the war.

That’s the set up and I brought out my character.

Graza Gaintraised

Graza is a bugbear, a fey creature often lumped in with goblins and orcs. They are large, furry brutal creatures, but his people were living in a small vale. Away from the war and trying to eke out a quiet existence away from all the fuss.

As usually happens the war rolls into such quiet places and destroys them. Though in this case, it was a stunning act of betrayal. It was elven soldiers that rolled through the vale, burning and destroying everything in their path. Fey on fey violence, as the elves burned the land to cover their retreat.

A very young Graza survived and fled up into the mountains. And days later he would be found by a pair of stone giants. Graza was adopted into the giant village as a refugee and he grew strong among them.

Return to the War

Bugbears are fairly large creatures, and Graza grew quickly. Becoming a tall strong specimen, but even at his 8’3” height he was half as tall as his adoptive mother. Life amongst the giants was not something he could sustain forever. He would need to be among the “smallfolk.”

Graza learned the arts of rune-carving and engraving from his foster parents. He was sent back to the world to find his own path. And while he really did think he would make his living as an artist, and he fully intended to settle down. He was still a teenager and held anger in his heart.

He traveled into the HHH, the Holy Hobgoblin Hegemony and discovered a country practically built for him and his kind. A place were hobgoblins rules, humans and bugbears stood shoulder to shoulder, and even little goblins were treated with respect.

Graza was among equals here, and he found himself quickly pressed into service. Joining the armies of the Alliance. He fought for two five-year tours in the worse fronts of the war. Mostly sitting huddled in trenches waiting for the waves of violence that would erupt.

Muster Out

After putting in a full ten years at the front, and acquitting himself heroically he offered the chance to muster out and return to civilian life in the HHH. He could engrave armor for the officers, or train fresh troops, or he could sign up for another five-year stint.

As he was settling back on his leave, thinking over his options a member of the Horned Croak Mercenary legion stopped at his table and outlined the lucrative pay and lower danger level of joining.

Graza mustered out of the HHH Legions and joined the Horned Croak, traveling around a wider section of the world. His one regret has paradoxically changed his mindset. As a merc his unit fights for the pay and he’s been forced to work with elves instead of against them. While this started out as a difficult problem, he has grown and now understands the elves better. He no longer hates them as a collective people. He only saves his hatred for deserving individuals. Though his mistrust is automatic, he is aware of this bias and tries to improve every day.

NOW

Just past his two-year anniversary with the company, Graza is offered a shit job with a great pay. Besides the money and loot to be plundered, and being away from the frontlines, it comes with a promotion if he returns.

Graza has been tasked with taking some new and hireling members of the company into the haunted forest, a hundred-mile-wide forest that is twisted with curses and broken spells that constantly pull dead soldiers from the ground and summon ghosts from everywhere.

Sometimes the land sleeps and you can simply cross the area. But we need to find an ancient temple in the middle of the unholy place.

He has the dubious honor to guide Ephraim the Necromancer, and his skeletal servant Zebullon; Stabby, the kobold swashbuckler; and Thalen, an elf bard.

Mechanics

OK. So, all story aside, here is where I talk the character build.

I’m playing a bugbear, level 5 Fighter, Rune Knight.

As a bugbear I get natural stealth, extra five feet of reach, extra damage when I attack characters who haven’t acted in initiative, and the ability to carry a shitload of treasure like a pack mule.

As a rune knight I get a couple rune spells that have minor effects. Once or twice a day I can cause an enemy attack to hit someone else of my choosing, and I can create flaming shackles that burn and lock a foe into one place. And then three times a day I can grow up to giant sized, topping out around 16 feet tall.

Gear wise

I’m encased in adamantine full plate +1. Basically, enchanted armor made of black metal that is nearly indestructible and negates all crits that hit me. The black plates are covered in gold cracks like kintsugri.

I carry a great sword made of tempered steel based on the Jian sword from Goblin (K-drama). Pic below, though Graza’s sword is probably two feet longer, and two inches wider.

Besides the sword and armor, I also have two magic tattoos that grant me one-time uses of Lightning Bolt and Haste.

I feel like my character is a mix between the Juggernaut (Marvel) and Guts (Beserk). He’s large, strong, barely gets hurt when he does get hit, and he has a few extra tricks to handle problems.

Last Character

I haven’t started the third character yet, as that game is at least two weeks away. I have a general concept that I now realize is elements of this character. Since I planned that one to also use a great sword and be a front-line combatant. Shit.

Maybe I can go great axe? Ha, that’s only a slight change. I’ll figure it out. I mean Graza is only going to be used for a couple months and then I move on to Chapter 2 and a wholly different character. So, it doesn’t matter.

Next week we’ll talk the third character, and hopefully I’ll have something else to talk about as well. Either some solo RPG material or maybe get some other writing done.

Outro

Thanks for reading this far and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

It’s spooky season, better be watching some horror movies out there.