Almost everyone has a charater that they think of when they think of their favorite charater or their first. In many cases e-mail address or screen names are based off of a beloved charater or a nickname developed from a game. Or prehaps you have a fun moment in D&D with a charater that your friends will never forget... if you would, share your story and tell us a bit about this/these charaters.
My story is simple enough. At the age of 16ish I had asked my mom if I could play and she said no because she thougth it was a cult. Being rebellous and working a night job as a babysitter I would call my fiance (then boyfriend) after the children went to sleep and play with him over the phone. His random elf name generator came up with the name Celiwyn. I think three years later we came up with her last name.
Celiwyn is a elf-ranger with an overwhelming and just crazy fear of frogs. I played her as having the mental age of about a 14 year old girl, who had just gone out on her own for the first time. She had long braided hair down to her lower back and brown eyes, her dress was green and frayed at the ends a bit from traveling and she carried a sheild with a large leafy tree on the front of it. At her waist she carried both a long and short sword.
Her first night in an inn by herself, while sitting in her room, frogs began to rain on her head. Myself, not completely understanding that elves don't sleep, roleplayed a cranky tired girl who was freaked out. This contiuned for hours on end until she snapped, pull out her sword and started to kill the frogs. In the end it turned out the patron in the next room was a wizard whose familiar had knocked over a bag of tricks.
There's much more, I think I have a 24 page story floating around on my harddrive about her first few days travel. She was my first ever D&D charater and among my friends got me the nick name of Celi or Lady Alondra. A few people with a sense of humor called me Celery, but it was all in good fun. Even more oddly, since we didn't have a system for awarding XP for roleplaying at the time and Celiwyn never actually fought anything that was real or a challange, 5 years later she is *still* a first level ranger. A 3.0 ranger at that.
It would have to be my very first mage ever, Fireball (woo-hoo! Original name, yes??) My brother was the DM and he ran me through the Caves of Chaos...though she had been reduced to a fine red mist, Fireball was not dead yet!
A year later, my brother and I were creating our own homebrew campaign of Deron (without knowing it - we just made it up as we went along). We had several interesting concepts, now that I think about it, a bullywug civilization that collapsed when their swamps when dry, a race of reindeer-centaurs who excelled at druidic magic, a lost civilization that were snake-worshippers...lots of good stuff! We determined that Fireball was not human, but a member of a race of...pod people!! Um, no, not really, but they were grown much like plants. They were immune to fire and paralyzation gazes, as they used catoblepas as their guardians. They lived an exceptionally long time, much like elves, but had a really low birth rate. They had pretty much died out, except for Fireball and a few others.
My brother (always the writer) came up with a great back story for his character Fireflash and mine. Fireflash was one of a set of triplets. His parents were nobles who were beseiged by...um, goblins I think. Their castle was collapsing and Fireflash's father asked Fireball, who was his court wizard of sorts, to take his newborn son and get out through a secret underground passage. His other two children were secreted away by different people as well. The castle fell, but the children lived.
Later on during the course of their adventures, they met the last prince of the aforementioned bullywug civilization, whose prized possession was a sword that could cut through space and teleport (it was such a cool sword) and a cleric of the reindeer-centaur people (I forget their name :-( ). They also met up with a good lich named Faxandu who died defending one of Fireflash's ancestors.
Despite all that, I still think back to Fireball, magic missles and acid arrows.
First D&D character? That's embarrassing. His name was "The Wierd Wizard". I was like maybe five? He had a cursed magic box with a demon inside that required that I trap the souls of people every so often or it would do something bad to me. Honestly it never went hungry long enough for me to figure out what. I was five, and the idea of sucking people's souls into a demon box was cool! The DM at the time would try to introduce an NPC, like some wounded peasant who'd run desparately up to me and I'd soulsuck 'em. Then I'd gleefully yell instructions at the demon in the box, "Use the axe! Use the hooks!"
I was a demented kid.
My first ever D&D Character was Alaeha, a Half-elven bard. She was the "Face" of the party and the healer for the group. And a linguist. Her list of known languages was pretty ridiculous -- she could communicate with almost any extraplanar creature that had the ability to speak, but only knew a handful of "common" languages. I was kind of sad when that campaign ended, because I'd had cool plans for that character. She was going to become a Dragonmark Heir, and then pilot an Airship.
The first character I ever played... oh wow. Einkil the Dwarven Fighter. It doesn't get any more cliche than that does it? Well, maybe it does. It all began a few years ago (maybe going on five now, wow), we had just started "gaming" (all we had were a few AD&D books, the Internet, and a 3.0 starter box). The elf rogue, another character (a wizard-type, I think), and Einkil the Dwarf Fighter were sort of strolling through a homebrew dungeon. They come upon a room in which a scantily-clad woman was chained to a wall (we were 14). The dwarf, not very interested in human women retired to the previous room to cook himself up some sauerkraut. Turns out, the woman was a succubus, and used her demon-summoning ability to call up some mighty foe from the Pit. Of course, we had no real concievable way of defeating it, until Einkil rushes in with his pot of boiling, salted cabbage and throws it in the eyes of the demon. That blinded it for long enough to banish it back to the fire from whence it came. From then on, every time we stopped Einkil cooked up some sauerkraut "As a precautionary measure, of course!"
One more story I just can't pass up telling is about Kruncher the Minotaur (who was also, gasp! a fighter). Two summers ago, while our best DM was working at a summer camp, the rest of us got it in our heads to try out an evil campaign for the summer. This was quite natural, as we had 3 power-players in the group. It was my turn to DM that week, and as all evil characters do, we were plotting to get rid of each other, so the stronghold we had usurped from the local authorities was heavily protected against magic. I had decided that an evil lich was plotting to take over two neighboring countries, and ours just happened to be one of them. The lich hired a few kidnappers to steal away the leader's favorite concubine, murder her on the frontier of the other country, and leave a momento from one of the guards of that nation in our keep. (I got some of the idea from the Princess Bride) I thought that would give the sorcerer ample excuse to march on the other country, and march he did. As the massive army marched across the rolling plains, the lawful ruler of the neighboring country payed attention, and brought his nearest contingents to bear, with his most skilled commander at the head. They met of the fields of battle (the two armies), one regimented, drilled, and professional, the other held in line by fear and sheer force of Charisma. The battle lasted a week, with 95% casualties on both sides. The evil ones finally won out, but their small army terrifically undermanned. We took a few prisoners, and retired to interrogate them. During the course of interrogations, it was rather late at night, and I said, (half in-character, and half-out) "What's the break DC for a face?" I have more stories, but fear running out of space, and patience from the readers. "Break DC for a face..." Classic.
My first PC was an elf ranger, Bashtahn Silverstaff. This was 1992, Dragonlance Classics campaign.
Kareth the human ranger. Not really my first character - but my first to actully get played in a full campaign. 1st ed, 1980.
He had a flaming shortsword and a crossbow of speed. He would hide silver coins in peasent's homes when they let him stay the night.
I used to draw pictures of him in a "super-hero" style.., he wore a chinmail bernye and no pants!
Klaatu was a half-drow abjurer 1 back in the dark days of 2001, the only member of his neophyte adventuring party smart enough to bring rope or put ranks into Climb. Klaatu eventually discovered alienism, became an NPC, got himself a wizard's tower and a dust mephit familiar/secretary, and has been slowly pushing along in the background towards his eventual goal of godhood. I try to make a point of him showing up in every campaign I run that touches on the Great Wheel (yes, this includes FR. I wasn't even playing FR when it still used the Great Wheel, and I like it better).
Sorry to all those who hate "dead" threads being brought back.
Thanis, you promised you'd post your name sake in here if I started the thread.
Thanks everyone who did post, these charaters are fun! Some people say your first charater says alot about how you look at yourself, but wiether or not that is true, it's still fun to think about that first charater sheet and struggling with how to and what to give them.
My first D&D character was so embarrassing, but I like thinking about him to bring me down a peg when I get too high and mighty as a DM...
I think I was about 10 or something and I was begging to join my older brother's game. After much whining he finally let me roll up a character ("I want to be a mighty wizard")- 1st level of course. Then came the dreaded time to make up a name. I wanted to use my own but my brothers told me it was against the rules. I drew a blank. They told me if I couldn't think of a name in three seconds they wouldn't let me play. Now, like most kids of the eighties, I really liked wrestling (this was the heyday of of Captain Lou, Superfly Snucka, and Andre the Giant)so I blurted out "Macho Man". Macho Man the 1st level Wizard's first adventure consisted of shooting off his only memorized magic missile (which I thought was of the surface to air type) and unlocking a prisoner chained to a wall. A prisoner who promptly beat the snot out of my character when he learned the name of his saviour.
My brothers (cruel villains that they are)let me run Macho Man through a few more adventures (which consited of casting his one magic missile and then running away from angry mobs of villagers who wanted to burn him at the stake for my choice of name), before I decided to find a gaming group of my own.
I DMed before i ever played, but my first character was a cleric of Rao named Fennel Habuldat. My party was made up of several bloodthirsty murderer types who were technically "chaotic neutral." I always tried to resolve every combat through talking. We were 14 and powergaming was more or less expected, so the other players were a bit nonplussed at my behavior. I must confess that my motivations were a bit less than "pure;" I had read the section in the 3.0 DMG on influencing NPC attitudes and realized that in spite of a monster's hit points or what have you, if you could make that diplomacy DC they were helpful to you. So I picked up a reputation for both powergaming and diplomacy in one fell swoop. The character ended up leading a small town of Rao-worshipping pacifist orcs.
...blurted out "Macho Man"...
Why do I have bad mental images of the Village People, who's cast has been replaced with Elminster, Mordenkainen, Rary, Iggwilv, Tenser and the other "iconic" archmages doing the line up for YMCA?
Help!
...blurted out "Macho Man"...Why do I have bad mental images of the Village People, who's cast has been replaced with Elminster, Mordenkainen, Rary, Iggwilv, Tenser and the other "iconic" archmages doing the line up for YMCA?
Help!
*snort, giggle... then falls out of chair**
Lol. These are GOOD mental images!
Who dresses up like the indian chief? They can perform at "Leomund's Tiny Discotec"
Rary, because he deserves to be dressed up in feathers. Don't forget the tar, though...;-)
"Goin' to the WHY EM SEE AY! Sing it with me, Rary! Igg! Goin' to the WHYYYYYY EM SEE AY!"
God, now I can't get it out of my head...
God, now I can't get it out of my head...
Heh... and at the risk of completely derailing the thread, I now have an unshakeable image of modrons floating around beeping and blooping the tetris theme.
Posting for the first time, the fact that my nick name originates from my first character ever played suggests this thread.
It was in the summer of 98 when I got ill and forced to stay at home all the sunny time. I had to quit playing basketball and was desperately searching for an alternative to TV. A friend of mine came up with the idea playing D&D, and our group grew with each budy coming back again from vacation. The only setting available to us had been the Realms, so we started in guess Shadowdale.
Aureus was or is an elf. Better say a sun elf living near Shadowdale. He is a fighter/mage, as the wizard was called back in 2nd edition. Aureus is a strategist (I hope the translation is correct, because we used to play in German our mother tongue.), living on a tree house with his wife Lena. He carried the Sword of the Dales for a while which was really awesome to me.
In the retrospective our game was a bit naive but real fun.
Well, if my avatar is any indication, then I would be a wise, pipe smoking cat man ...
One of my earliest characters was also one of my faves. Back in the early 80's (First Edition) I had a Half-Elf named Naeleck Farshot. He was a Fighter/Thief speacialized in the bow and I played him like an archer / scout character.
I also remember he had really long wavy hair and a very high charisma and comliness score (anyone else remember the short lived comliness optional rule???) so Nealeck was something of a fun loving ladies man, which was fun to play.
Thinking back, I recall one of the last things that happened to Naeleck was that he aquired a powerful magical black bow (can't remember how) that he was VERY fond of. The problem was that Nealeck slowly began to learn that the bow was also cursed and starting whispering nasy things into his Half-Elven ears and attempted to slowly take him over. The DM handled it very well (the fun loving, rougish ladies man Half Elf slowly developing this odd dark side ...) and it was great fun to play out...
I miss Nealeck - he's out there somewhere though. I just hope he got rid of that black bow ...
The Koga's first D&D character was a spell-less ranger archer varaint that did not cast spells, he was a Robin Hood knockoff and got on everybody's nerves cause he was obnoxious and lied all the time but sucked at lieing.
He especialy got on the nerves of a female paladin party member who happend to be a guy in real-life. Needless to say, The Koga did not hold back delivering anguish to this she-man.. Just because it's D&D, doesn't mean we want to know your most intimate fantasies!
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I think that my most memorable character was my first in AD&D, though I had Rped somewhat in other systems before it. I joined the campaign a bit late, and so I already had about half a dozen levels under my belt when I made him, and he was a gnomish illusionist thief.
At the time of the character creation the DM had us roll on a random personality 'quirk' table and being the lucky person I am I managed the 1% chance of full on dementia. I had to grin and have wicked thoughts come into my head before asking if the DM wanted a reroll. He said I could go with it if I thought I could pull it off and not be a detriment to the group.
And thus was born Phobos, a gnomish illusionist who fully believed that he was the god of fear. He got quite in a huff when people pointed out otherwise too. I remember how fully I got into that roll too, he would dress the part completely wearing head to toe black(wasting a spell each day to make his cloak billow around him), his only weapon skill was with a scythe and his only friend was a ferret familiar.
That reminds me about the ferret, during character creation the DM rolled for possible magical treasure(I think it was like 5% chance per level and then rolling to see what chart it was off of or something) and he just rolled amazing for me and I was supposed to get like +3 full plate at 5th level. I had no interest in that so I had to ask if I could get it as barding for my ferret instead.
I don't think a dragon could have hit that ferret.
Ha My first character was a dwarf, so I do not lean to a particular class but rather the bearded folk.
One of my earliest character also had a familiar that made him memorable much to the detriment of the rest of the party. It was a rock. Being a magic user he was osterecized by most dwarves and became a hermit living in a cave. Thus his best friend and companion was a pet rock. He thought it was a dragon, and talked to it, carried it and loved it. He would avoid taking his rock/dragon into danger. My dwarf would often scout ahead using his stonewalk ability and once found a huge cavern of deadly ghouls.
Not wanting to leave the ghouls unwatched, but wanting to warn the party of the danger, he says:
"Sam go warn them not to open the door they are trying to break right now." Sam wandered off (in his mind). The party (brave non-metagamers that they were) never saw the rock and hence wandered into the ghouls...
Hmm most people have chimed in about their first character which makes most of this tread much like the thread that is titled something like "how far back is your D&D memory; which most people chimed in about their first character, you may wish to check it out as there are some good stories there from the community; please add to it if you wish.
the favorite character that you identify with or had the most fun with; wonder why this didnt get any hits as it sounds great.
My favorite character in all my decades of playing; was in 1st/2nd ed where I played a cambion named Thorzon Bogg that followed the old bard path where you are a fighter; then a thief; then a druid. The game was really great; this character had massive moral issues and intense family problems; was very political and was on everyone side and against everyone at the same time (being neutral). This game was great; had about 8 good players not counting the gm; and lots of good interplay between characters. This character is the one I most love and beg the gm to start up this game again; he just responds; Dave (another friend and player)killed my world; its broke. Anyone out there got a + mega world fixer I can borrow for my friend?
My first character I made when the 1st ed players guide came out. It was a female dwarf(bearded!)named Belinda. She had max strenght(18/100%) and a girdle of dwarven kind. I lost her and didnt revive her when I went 2nd ed.
My favorite character is Azazel, son of Iuz and a preistess of Pholtus( a Tiefling). I made him when Planescape came out. He is Chaotic Neutral. His classes have changed as the rules to reflect my original vision of him. He's now a 6th level Warlock. He has an intense hatred of his father who would love to see Azazel to turn evil or die.
My first character I made when the 1st ed players guide came out. It was a female dwarf(bearded!)named Belinda. She had max strenght(18/100%) and a girdle of dwarven kind. I lost her and didnt revive her when I went 2nd ed.
My favorite character is Azazel, son of Iuz and a preistess of Pholtus( a Tiefling). I made him when Planescape came out. He is Chaotic Neutral. His classes have changed as the rules to reflect my original vision of him. He's now a 6th level Warlock. He has an intense hatred of his father who would love to see Azazel to turn evil or die.
Wow I didnt see this when I posted. Great minds think alike huh? ;)
My most memorable character was in 2nd ed. He was Maladras, a high elf necromancer. Maladras couldn't get the idea out of his head that he was going to die one day, and he decided since he was blessed with such a long lifespan compared to humans etc he was going to use it to become immortal. He was exiled from his community for having unnatural aspirations and grave robbing for experiments.
He was totally amoral and cared only about (and respected only)power. Maladras was weak (con 6, str 7) and was known for treacherous attacks. He helped the other party members when they asked him, but in his own way. The most memorable thing he ever did was animate the dead party cleric, nail a note to his forehead suggesting he be raised, then order the zombie to go to a temple the PC's had passed on the way. The other PC's could not prevent this as they were all seriously injured, and Maladras happened to be uninjured and with a few potent death spells left.
He was vengeful and always willing to test his power, so the other PC's had no problem getting him to fight the bad guys.
He died on a bridge over a vat of boiling blood in the Abyss, when his dispel failed against a demon's 20 dice fireball; poor old maladras had 17 hit points at level 12.
I have a pair of most memorable characters. When I first DM'd (2001, 3.0) my player encountered a medium sized monstrous spider. After a swift and dangerous battle, he freed the victim trapped in the spider's web. The victim was a small anthorpomorphic frog (OA spirit centipede) named Centripides. He was a spear using ranger with an intense hatred of all vermin, particularly Spiders. Centripides saved my player a few times before that game crumbled. He makes guest appearances in campaigns ever since.
The first character I ever played (2002 3.0 Gestalt), was a fighter/rogue named Jim "The Mad Monkey", a pirate without a boat to sail on. Jim was very fun to play and he discovered a magical pistol named Hocus, the campaign ended before he could find his ship, or Pocus for that matter. Such is life. His finest achievement:
A guarded hallway, Jim leaps forward throwing alchemist's fire, ducks and rolls quickdrawing his pistol. Blasts the next guard, drops his gun draws his rapier and runs the third one through. Hooray for surprise rounds and Gestalt!
My very first character was a human fighter named Krym. He was short stocky and had red hair and a red beard. Everyone thought he was a dwarf but he wa sjust a very short human and he hated beign called short. He used a very big bastard sword, almost too big for him to wield. His best friend(played by friend steve) was a gnome wizard named Geau (GO) who was an inventor responsible for the company Geau's Gadgets which required the command word "Go!" for example "Go Geau Gadget extendable sap!" We also had in our party a barbarian and a druid. We often caused just as much as trouble as we stopped, but it was our first campaign and man was it ever fun.
The character who will always mean the most to me though is Ardrik Veit, a dwarven fighter monk. I had this prestige class that made me an amazing defensive machine. Ardrik had alot of self esteem issues and basically felt he was doing the most good when taking the hits for other people. in fact he was so good at taking hits that our party survived alot of things we shouldnn't have. His best friend (played by my friend gabe) was a stuffy cleric of wee jas named Saethorn, he was a clean freak and never let ardrik in his house, and didn't really like ardrik, but ardrik thought of saethorn as his closest and best friend.
wow goodthread, thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I think of Helacious Huni, the worst thief ever conceived in the history of man, and or Ithilid. He wore a dirty bandana to hold his hair back and mostly beggars clothes. The humble attire was as he put it, 'To fool the normals." Really, it was all he could afford.
You see, Huni never actually successfully stole anything. He accidently time traveled (twice), fought an owl bear in the nude, made an impromptu club out of a screaming, writhing four year old village boy, and accidently let loose the 27 demon thieves of Lamascus Gate- but NEVER stole a thing. He was a Thief people!
I still have a place for him in my heart. I love him. He never did die (good DMing...I take that back, GREAT DMing) so maybe I'll take up the mantle once again. Maybe Helacious Huni has one more adventure left in him (for pete's sake, he's only 22).
When I actually started playing D&D, my DM asked if I would be a cleric because "we're desperatly going to need a healer" so I agreed, even though I wanted to be a monk. I stared at the blank line above the word name for a few minutes before recalling the name I would use on zelda game files and the one my brother would use on the early final fantasy games. I remembered it was from a commercial to a movie that came out in 1995 called Arabian Knight. I never saw it, but there was this one part where this wierd blue dude hands the princess a tack and says "My name is Tack". But I decided to leave out the C for extra coolness.
I glanced over the gods, under the suggestion that I be non-evil, and decided Pelor sounded kinda interesting (this was before we bought the FR campaign setting) and we set off onto the sunless citadel. After a few weeks I began to wonder as to a last name, so I jumbled some words around that matched his personality, and I mixed courage around to Urgeoca and it seemed to not sound too retarded. I tailored him to be a postive energy beacon, and now that he's 21st level and currently on Bastion of Broken Souls, he's 11th level cleric, 10th lever Radiant Servant of Pelor, with a few feats from Exalted Deeds, and I took Permanent Emanation, the feat from the epic handbook, and chose Brilliant Radiance of Awesomeness or something like that, so now he sheds light up to 2,200 hundred feet in a circle and evil creatures are blinded, no save.
His personality is basically an extenstion of mine in most ways, but he's also good natured, polite, and caring. I thought of being a zealot and going around saying "praise my god" but I didn't want him to die by the off chance he ran into an avatar of Vecna or something nasty like that. So instead he usually just gives people a "Pelor loves you" before he leaves the general store, etc. But the thing that always stuck out most was his armor.. Full sectioned armor from the Planar handbook covered in runes in celestial and whatnot. God, I sound like such a dweeb.
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Wow! I love reading these stories! You guys would be great to roleplay with. My husband and I just started playing DnD (v3.5) a few months ago, after we fell in love with Morrowind and his officemate said, "gosh, you'd like DnD - wanna play?". And we said, hmm, isn't that the creepy "demonic" game we were warned about as children??...Why not?! And then we added 3 more complete newbies to our crew, including 2 Lithuanians who had never heard of the game, bought ONE set of dice to share (DM has his own), and ONE Players Handbook.
Anyway, I came up with Elora, a young human bard with long black hair with silvery highlights, and deep green eyes. She has three thin scars on the back of her shoulder which she tries to keep hidden, and always wears a necklace with a small object wrapped with thick cloth. She has *gasp* a mysterious family history involving The Raven Throne (long-dead dynasty, remembered only by a few...some who have sworn to keep the prophecy from coming to pass in which the dark Raven kingdom is reborn, some who wish to use the prophecy to their own ends, all watching for the last descendants to kill or aid them). However, she also has Lillend ancestry, the source of her inborn bardic music. Elora learned the bits and pieces known about her history from her grandfather on his deathbed, and later left her family and town to protect them when she was marked by a part of the prophecy -- a raven, "Dochas", scarred her and then would not leave her. (This is how I convinced our DM to let a bard have a raven familiar :-). Then she spent a few years wandering the land, quietly seeking information about the Ravens and learning how to protect herself. Currently, she is traveling with a gnome cleric loyal to Kord, a dwarf ranger, a human sorceress, and a half-elf fighter.
I hope to play for years to come, and have several interesting character ideas I want to pursue, but I think Elora will always be my "iconic" character. I can't wait to see who she becomes.
Wow! I love reading these stories! You guys would be great to roleplay with. My husband and I just started playing DnD (v3.5) a few months ago, after we fell in love with Morrowind and his officemate said, "gosh, you'd like DnD - wanna play?". And we said, hmm, isn't that the creepy "demonic" game we were warned about as children??...Why not?! And then we added 3 more complete newbies to our crew, including 2 Lithuanians who had never heard of the game, bought ONE set of dice to share (DM has his own), and ONE Players Handbook.
Welcome to the fold and may many more gaming sessions come your way! Thank you for looking past the "demonic" associations and find out for yourself what the game was all about.
Game on!
There is an interesting bit of trivia for you: From what I understand, Morrowind and the entire Elder Scrolls series was based off of a guy's homebrew D&D campaign. I was reading through the "history" book in the collector's edition of Oblivion and found a few parallels that I found intriguing.
Arakam, male human thief (AD&D 1e)is the character I have the fondest memories of.
In d&d I have three that would have some place in my memory:
Sti Ling, an ad&d half-elf bard who never went too far, but was fun to play. He was not the heroic kind of guy, but had a heart of gold. Was a player, never missing the chance to meet ladies, even when they were the sheriff´s wife (that was a fun story...). He never wanted the coins of the treasure, just the gems, that he would eventually give to ladies, thus being always the poorest guy on the group.
Rorack, an ad&d minotaur fighter, with the barbarian kit. He didn´t liked humans... or elves... or dwarves... or anyone who wasn´t a minotaur. He had the dream of uniting the tribes in a kingdom and rule the minotaurs to be a force in the world. Eventually he got tired of the group, beat the hell off the human paladin (who for some weird reason thought he was his friend) and left them to fullfill his dream.
The last was recent, in d&d 3rd edition, William Tuck III, a human mage who started as the group´s eventual 6th member, but them unite with them and found profound bounds of friendship. He was an adventurer by heart, but his wife was not crazy about it. He used teleports to go home, have dinner and... you know... and then teleport back to the group´s camp in the mourning. He had four children, but one of them died as a baby, sacrificed to the better good and to have his (the baby`s) soul purified, cause after Will got cursed by an ancient god, the baby was going to be kind of an anticrist. Ouch! That was traummatizing!
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I started playing a little over a year ago; I joined a "beginners" campaign that two guys were starting up at my college for people who were interested in playing, but didn't really know how. My GM was absolutely D&D crazy, so he knew almost every class and race in the game, so when I told him that I was interested in something that was somewhere between complete caster and complete fighter, he knew which classes would work best.
My name was Ena and I was a Shifter, Psychic Warrior. With the help of the GM, I created a backstory that I don't really remember because I still don't know much about Eberron (where the campaign was based). I do know that I grew up without a father and had a short temper, a lack of trust in others, and a huge ego about my own abilities. The last one didn't last too long, because, in the first fight, I almost got killed and the character that Ena had decided to hate (dubbed "Farmer" due to his straw hat) ended up saving her life. Anyway, I enjoyed my Longtooth shifting ability and my Halberd, both of which worked wonders when I used my Enlarge Person (not sure I got the name right), which was my favorite power.
Toward the end of the year, the GM decided to recreate an old D&D adventure (2nd ed I think), and let us level our characters up if we wanted to keep the same one. At this point, I was effectively "Wounding Ena of Doom." In conjunction with my Enlarge Person, I had a Wounding Halberd, a psionic feat that allowed be to do wounding damage with my first attack, and I had also taken the shifter feat that allowed me to do Wound damage with my bite. With three attacks with the Halberd and one with my teeth, I was able to do 5 points of Con damage a round (4 after I'd expended my psionic focus). I also had the ability to take damage from my allies and to force damage onto my enemies.
I've played in several campaigns since that one and I have to keep forcing myself not to play the Longtooth Shifter Psychic Warrior again. I'm not sure whether I loved her so much because she was my first character or because she was exactly what I wanted in any character. I do know that, once I've played enough other races and classes to consider myself somewhat wellrounded, I may just have to play Ena again.
My most Iconic character was/is: Calistan "Greycloak" Orythian. He was my third character ever in AD&D and the longest played character I've ever had. I began with him in the Unearthed Arcana days of 1st edition, which pretty soon (after about 1 year of play) transitioned over into Forgotten Realms.
Originally he was: Grey Elf Male N[evil tendencies] Magic User of 9th level by time of the transition.
Once the FR transition happened and the campaign continued for another 5 years, he finally ended up as the only survivor of the original party. His survival was partially due to his complete willingness to sacrifice other party members for his own survival. He was the first Mage I had ever played and my first semi-evil (later, quite a bit more self-centered) character and the first I ever really developed a personality and goals for. He was a battle-mage by trade and spells and focused chiefly on Lightning, Acidic and Prismatic spells. He was also the first character I ever drafted custom spells for (meticulously balanced and discussed with my DM).
By the end of things he finally ended out as
Gold Elf Male NE Mage [High Mage Kit] 26.
(according to my old DM he also achieved two steps of godhood, but by that time we were all ready to try some new characters for a while... 6 years.. x_x ).
Once converted to 3.5 FR he was reestablished as...
Male Elf NE Wizard 12/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7/Archmage 5/Elven High Mage 3.
Obviously, long after he had been retired from play, he has always been around doing things whenever I DM a game, whether doing things totally off-screen or directly involved in a campaign or plots.
He's also never died (though he has been at negatives) and never had to be resurrected.
Most Iconic I gotten to play was my very first D&D 3.5 character Silent Man. The very first time I played him was with another DM besides Cap'n Monkamuck. Sadly that game lasted only one session as our DM was very fixated on stories set in stone with no chance of deviation, not very versitale.
Afterwards after getting invited by the captain I was able to resurrect Silent Man and actually get to play him. And now even though I have played in multiple 3.5 games including a fighter in blackmoor AP, and a cleric in a homebrew both of which I have had some great times with, Silent Man still stands out and probrably will for quite some time.
He's lasted since the begining of this campaign and looks to keep going despite nearly coming to death 4 or 5 times now. he has gone into the negatives 4 times (and nearly lost all of his STR/CON)but thanks to features of the game that the Cap'n has implented he always managed to stay on his feet and survive for another encounter.
Not only are the combat situation great, but with the great role-playing going on in the game I've really managed to build a great fleshed out character in a game that has lasted more than a month.
My iconic character from wich my internet nickname come from a old shadowrun game while I was in college. We were fan of of Spawn and every Character had a name based on the series. So Jason Wynn a.k.a Mordomus the spellcaster was a human mage who went through goblinization (around the time 3rd edition came out) and became a troll. While the others had name like Chapel (a street sammy) the Clown (a decker whos avatar was named the Violator) I looked into McFarlane's toy to find my etheral form name. And I found a demon from medieval spawn named Mordomus the spellcaster. Our group was quite a disfunctional one as our driver was the Clown who bought himself the most expensive car available and only having a drive skill of one, hence getting us into a lots of accident... our sammy was total retard who once even forgot the name for the reservation at the restaurant and we missed the mission... my character was in some way the tactician of the lot and developped an expertise into improved invisibility (affecting the mind and the mechanical device) but was quite short tempered, so one time we infiltrate a building covered by invisibility and reach into the office of the target to extract, but the guy was on the phone... we waited for some times and after half and hour of waiting, my character ripped off the phone from his hand (remember we are invisible...) I missed the sustain check and we all reapeared in his office. The guy broke down and raised the alarm (he somewhat had forgotten of his extraction, I don't know why :D ) So we end up killing everybody on the way out.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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Egads! Trying to remember my first character is tough... I've been DMing so long. I mean I can count the number of PC's I can remember on 2 hands!
My Iconic Character has always been a Gandalf-like behind the scenes meddler. However as I primarily DM they've always been just that... NPC's.
So I believe the oldest D&D character I can remember was the Blue Herald, a human wizard based loosely off Schmendrick (the Last Unicorn), Ergo the Magnificent (Krull), and Presto (the D&D cartoon)! I remember a colored pencil sketch of him that's a dead ringer for Weird Al Yankovic!
--Vrock of Ages
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Nothing really counts as 'iconic' for me. I have an affliction that in online games is referred to as 'alt-itis.' I like to play *lots* of characters, rather than develop one for any great length of time.
Favorite character depends on the game system.
My favorite Villains & Vigilantes character was a humanoid dragon named Firedrake who could turn into a human (investment banker by day!) who was basically Superman (good strength, bulletproof scales, winged flight, fiery breath, awesome senses), but would in no way be mistaken for a 'Superman-clone' like Gladiator, Sentry, Supreme, Hyperion, etc, etc.
My favorite AD&D (2E) character was a 1/2 Aquatic Elven Druid / Wizard named Sammae Deepsong, who worshipped some elven magic goddess I found in an issue of Dragon magazine (Kirith Sotheril) and who researched a 'Continual Warmth' spell, which she would cast, along with Continual Light, on coins that bore the image of her goddess, which she would hand out willy-nilly to people in her travels 'spreading magic as she went.' Her last bit of spell research was a spell that would allow her to forever more avoid the 'do we kill the prisoners' dilemna, by permanantly polymorphing willing or helpless subjects en masse into fey creatures, sylvan creatures, natural animals or young elves. She was invited to get the hell out of elven society after that one, since she would turn orcish women and children into elves, rather than kill them. Not exactly something that the mainstream elvish community was thrilled with...
Favorite Vampire the Masquerade character was Max Caldwell, Nosferatu 'cleopatra' and Harpy. Hideously ugly, with a crocodilian maw and twisted limbs, Max used his powers to appear as he did in life, a Matt McConaughey-looking southern schmuck whose love 'em and leave 'em attitude earned him a gruesome death in the first place.
On rare occasions, I like a base character so much that I recycle them from game to game, adapting the 'core' of the person to fit the new genre / setting. Max Caldwell has been a Nosferatu, a GURPS Superhero and a Call of Cthulhu 'rugged adventurer,' but always an upper-class pretty-boy with delusions of adequacy. Donnacht MacClear has been a mechwarrior, a Trinity Psion (telekinetic Legionnaire) and a GURPS werewolf for a Horror game, but always a mercenary, troublemaker and sleazebag.
For Xendrik Expeditions / Eberron, it was Piet, a Daelkyr Half-Blood Warlock, who was once referred to as 'exponentially creepy' as all of his warlock invocations are colored by his far realms-esque heritage, so that when he summons swarm to get 'bats,' he instead conjures up creatures that function mechanically as bats, but appear as floating starfish that spin lazily through the air to slash at targets with their displacer-beast-like toothed tentacles, and his eldritch blasts make a wet, ripping sound as they pulse from his palms, striking like gouts of violet and amber fluid with the force of hammers, leaving behind colorful bruises as they seem to pour *into* the target, leaving behind only an oily residue and pain to mark their brief existence in the material world.
Favorite Golarion character so far has been Mordecai, my Human Cleric of Urgathoa, who spent his early years in Geb serving as a 'chalice' (companion / walking buffet) for a vampire aristocrat / sorceress, before being discarded when she decided that she liked the taste of her new Vudran pleasure slave better.
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When it comes to the character I'll remember most, it has to be Ignatius Highhill, my halfling druid who liked fire spells and flew around on his dire bat named Freefall. He took on a red dragon alone and lived, though his bat got fried, and later tried to get revenge by flying above the dragon and and wildshaping into an elephant. Later on, in the Runeforge, he put his hand in a pool of pure magic(allowing him to see the future), turned into a Trex and tried to eat the crazy women of Wrath. He died fighting his double after looking in a mirror of opposition.
Then there was Stregoni Benefici or Aluka to those she didn't trust(which was the entire group). The DM wouldn't let me play anything that wasn't Core, so I used the alpha bbn and undead bloodline sorc with some Eldritch Knight levels to create a 'vampire'. She is memorable to me because she worshipped Lamashtu and was reincarnated into a gnoll.
My namesake has nothing to do with any characters I have played, rather, I decided on it because I like the dragonborn race and I was named after my dad who was named after his dad, thus 'Dragonborn3'
Shadeloke Nac’noram
This was a character I started in a Planescape group, a shadow Genasi (I am probably spelling that wrong) thief with the bounty hunter kit in AD&D. We played for almost a year getting to about 7th level before we folded into another group. With the first group he accumulated a small wealth of magical items all were sold to pay for his gambling addiction (Something I played with to give him a bit of a back story), everything that is but his favorite dagger, “The Lepers Touch”, when someone was cut by the dagger even a mere scratch they were infected with a rotting disease that caused a painful death in less than 6 days.
When we folded into the other group there was a difference in levels that was fairly large, they were all around 13th or 14th level, so we quickly gained enough XP to equal out the levels, and thanks to the Thief chart I was soon the highest level character in the group. I was getting a little bored with playing, not the game or anything; it was just the mechanics of the fighting. So I decided to become an apprentice to the mage in the party, fortunately for me he was a shadow mage (Bonus out the butt for being in shadows or darkness). So I took on the roll or mage’s assistant for a long time (Almost a year in real time) before Shade got tired of being the treated like a student when he deserved more.
So I let the GM know it and mentioned that at the end of the next battle when all of the other mages stoneskins are gone I am going to backstab him. When the Gm smiled I knew he liked the plan.
Our next battle was a major one, with enough experience for all to gain at least one or two levels and at the end of it with everyone bloodied, worn out and almost all spells expended, Shade slid over to his “Master” and stabbed him once.
Critical Hit, check the chart. Oh my, that’s triple damage. God the look on everyone’s face when I did that was just great ranging from anger to laughter.
Best character ever!