Burninate!
Jan. 13th, 2005 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
revenaHaldis rocks.
I have had many characters over the years, since my super-awesome cousin Brian taught me to play D&D at the tender age of... well, so young that I don't really remember (though I do have a lingering pencil scar dating to that era, oddly enough). All of them have been cool in their own way.
Emerald, my first D&D char, was super-neat because she was an -elf- and her name was -Emerald- and she had a cool -sword- that was on -fire-. I rolled translucent pink dice, drew bad sketches, and had basically no roleplay to speak of.
But hey, I was a kid!
After Brian moved out and became a grown-up and stuff, and Erik and I kinda stopped playing D&D (for a while...) I took up MUDing. I had several different short-lived characters on many different MUDs. The one that survived was Revena of Mocker from Magrathea. Name look familiar? Yeah.
Revena was my first serious attempt at roleplay and, as a result, I consciously chose traits for her that were opposite to traits that I considered myself to have. For example, she's a complete coward. And she lies. A lot. She has basically no moral code. She's a thief. And an elf, rather than, say, human. And, more recently, she's become an immortal goddess, which is -definitely- something I'm not... She glows blue in the dark, as well.
Rev is such a totally awesome, complex, -old- character (I've been playing her for... Jesus. Over nine years now, I think.) that I could write pages and pages about her history and still have more to say. I think I -have- written pages and pages about her history, actually... And they're so out-of-date. I really ought to get off my butt and update the Player's Page.
Anyway, Rev became such a handful, story-wise, that I actually had to create an auxiliary character in order to help narration along. Gagiel, the stick-thin, elven pick-pocket became my next favorite character after Revena, and got some serious backstory all her own. Also, some truly bitchin' tattoos.
Then, Erik and some friends started playing D&D again. At first, I joined them with a cookie-cutter half-elven paladin (of Athena, of all things) whose full name I don't even remember. It shortened up to "Jade," though, thus keeping up the long tradition I've had of naming D&D characters after gemstones. Just a few sessions after starting to play with Jade, though, the group decided to convert to D&D 3.0, and I rolled up a new character.
Tourmaline. She was really the first character whose backstory, opinions and ideals were pretty much concrete from day one. With Revena, and with Gagiel, I had had a few ideas, and then sort of made things up as I went along. With Tourmaline, I planned everything out, and she was that much more real. So much so that when we decided to switch again, to 3.5, with new characters, I still thought about her, and about what she would have done with her life.
In order to write that story, which became my NaNovel this past November, I had to create still more characters, who were never actually used in an RPG and existed purely in fiction. Kelda, Latham and Mother Dyre all came to life in Microsoft Word, and remain pretty much unknown to anyone but me. Not for long, I hope.
But I digress... I was talking about RPG characters.
The next several after Tourmaline were created as NPCs, since I had taken over DMing for my gaming group full-time when we decided to start a new campaign. Ametrine, Brandekk, Emlyn, Valmai, Wynn, all are wonderful in their own ways. I even like Sondra, a little. They are so much fun to play, in part because they are such rich characters, and in part because I am, after all, the DM, and so I get to have the final word on what happens to any of them.
But nothing compares to the sheer joy that can be found in rolling a critical hit on a maximized empowered scorching ray, and completely wasting a CR 14 water drake.
Haldis is a mostly-human battle-sorcerer, and she can take down -anything-. Fireball, scorching ray, stone fist... her spells are freaking -awesome-, and she has the attack progression and armor proficiency to stand up in battle long enough to use them all. Well, she would, if it ever took that long to kill a monster.
I have so much fun playing her... I am a total munchkin.
Of course, half the fun is playing with my good friend Dan as DM, and Isaac, Jameson, JC and Sean. Isaac plays Haldis's brother, Darius, a rather more focused individual who has chosen a life of contemplation and bad-assery. A cleric, in other words. Jimmy is Dyreon, Haldis's husband, an elven diplomat approximately four times her age. I bet you can guess how well Darius and Dyreon get along... JC is a warforged with no name, who is loyal to Dyreon for no good reason, and likes to mutilate corpses. Good times. Sean, up until lately, when school started up again, was playing with us as a changeling bard who everyone thinks is an elf. Together, we kick serious monstrous ass. But mostly, Haldis kicks ass. And then, -she sets it on fire-.
Oh, how I love D&D.
I have had many characters over the years, since my super-awesome cousin Brian taught me to play D&D at the tender age of... well, so young that I don't really remember (though I do have a lingering pencil scar dating to that era, oddly enough). All of them have been cool in their own way.
Emerald, my first D&D char, was super-neat because she was an -elf- and her name was -Emerald- and she had a cool -sword- that was on -fire-. I rolled translucent pink dice, drew bad sketches, and had basically no roleplay to speak of.
But hey, I was a kid!
After Brian moved out and became a grown-up and stuff, and Erik and I kinda stopped playing D&D (for a while...) I took up MUDing. I had several different short-lived characters on many different MUDs. The one that survived was Revena of Mocker from Magrathea. Name look familiar? Yeah.
Revena was my first serious attempt at roleplay and, as a result, I consciously chose traits for her that were opposite to traits that I considered myself to have. For example, she's a complete coward. And she lies. A lot. She has basically no moral code. She's a thief. And an elf, rather than, say, human. And, more recently, she's become an immortal goddess, which is -definitely- something I'm not... She glows blue in the dark, as well.
Rev is such a totally awesome, complex, -old- character (I've been playing her for... Jesus. Over nine years now, I think.) that I could write pages and pages about her history and still have more to say. I think I -have- written pages and pages about her history, actually... And they're so out-of-date. I really ought to get off my butt and update the Player's Page.
Anyway, Rev became such a handful, story-wise, that I actually had to create an auxiliary character in order to help narration along. Gagiel, the stick-thin, elven pick-pocket became my next favorite character after Revena, and got some serious backstory all her own. Also, some truly bitchin' tattoos.
Then, Erik and some friends started playing D&D again. At first, I joined them with a cookie-cutter half-elven paladin (of Athena, of all things) whose full name I don't even remember. It shortened up to "Jade," though, thus keeping up the long tradition I've had of naming D&D characters after gemstones. Just a few sessions after starting to play with Jade, though, the group decided to convert to D&D 3.0, and I rolled up a new character.
Tourmaline. She was really the first character whose backstory, opinions and ideals were pretty much concrete from day one. With Revena, and with Gagiel, I had had a few ideas, and then sort of made things up as I went along. With Tourmaline, I planned everything out, and she was that much more real. So much so that when we decided to switch again, to 3.5, with new characters, I still thought about her, and about what she would have done with her life.
In order to write that story, which became my NaNovel this past November, I had to create still more characters, who were never actually used in an RPG and existed purely in fiction. Kelda, Latham and Mother Dyre all came to life in Microsoft Word, and remain pretty much unknown to anyone but me. Not for long, I hope.
But I digress... I was talking about RPG characters.
The next several after Tourmaline were created as NPCs, since I had taken over DMing for my gaming group full-time when we decided to start a new campaign. Ametrine, Brandekk, Emlyn, Valmai, Wynn, all are wonderful in their own ways. I even like Sondra, a little. They are so much fun to play, in part because they are such rich characters, and in part because I am, after all, the DM, and so I get to have the final word on what happens to any of them.
But nothing compares to the sheer joy that can be found in rolling a critical hit on a maximized empowered scorching ray, and completely wasting a CR 14 water drake.
Haldis is a mostly-human battle-sorcerer, and she can take down -anything-. Fireball, scorching ray, stone fist... her spells are freaking -awesome-, and she has the attack progression and armor proficiency to stand up in battle long enough to use them all. Well, she would, if it ever took that long to kill a monster.
I have so much fun playing her... I am a total munchkin.
Of course, half the fun is playing with my good friend Dan as DM, and Isaac, Jameson, JC and Sean. Isaac plays Haldis's brother, Darius, a rather more focused individual who has chosen a life of contemplation and bad-assery. A cleric, in other words. Jimmy is Dyreon, Haldis's husband, an elven diplomat approximately four times her age. I bet you can guess how well Darius and Dyreon get along... JC is a warforged with no name, who is loyal to Dyreon for no good reason, and likes to mutilate corpses. Good times. Sean, up until lately, when school started up again, was playing with us as a changeling bard who everyone thinks is an elf. Together, we kick serious monstrous ass. But mostly, Haldis kicks ass. And then, -she sets it on fire-.
Oh, how I love D&D.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 11:08 am (UTC)Oh yes, and Scorching Ray is just wrong. In a right sort of a way.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 06:56 pm (UTC)Scorching Ray... Mmm....
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 06:20 pm (UTC)Thank God for the dorks like us.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 06:57 pm (UTC)We have a class together! Wheeee!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-14 06:59 pm (UTC)I'm really liking the first book so far...granted, I'm only 50 pages in, but it seems good.