Mjalik, Pym, Oz Harlan and Cthallhister P. Ricard are some of the newest characters I've made. I only recently started to consider the pre-packaged campaign frames and their potential, rather than the frankly obscene amount of time I've devoted to designing my own world.

These four characters were not all designed with specific campaign frames in mind, but they've been adapted as such.

Mjalik

Mjalik wasn't initially designed for Five Banners Burning. (In fact, he wasn't initially designed at all. He's the result of an amalgam of several retired character concepts; darlings I killed to forge something relatively cooler.)

He's a seaborne orc martial artist brawler, who asks the absolutely essential question: what if Azog the Defiler was a surfer dude? With sick tats?

I'm in love with the brawler class. Three of my fourteen ready-made characters are brawlers. None are warriors or guardians, because I usually don't care at all for the classes with no spellcast trait. I like when magic go boom.

However, with a brawler, fists go incredibly boom.

My other two brawlers (including Zarra) are juggernauts, because I enjoy the raw power. But I wanted to make a martial artist, to explore the martial forms. Originally, I thought up a Yoda-like goblin character, but that idea fell by the wayside when I combined a largely uninteresting surfer dude archetype (posthumously named Surfer Dud) and a nebulous tattooed pale orc who needed to be just a little more interesting. The result was Mjalik, an outwardly chill beach bro with dozens of confirmed kills.

Narratively, Mjalik is a character that I want the rest of the party to find — specifically in a cell. He used to roll with Armada (one of the Banners Burning, in case you're unfamiliar) until Hilltop (another Banner Burning) locked him up because they were scared of him. The details of that, I'd leave to a GM who is hopefully better at politics than me.

Starting domain cards are Forceful Push and Bare Bones.

Other character influences include Santa Monica's Týr, Leverage's Eliot Spencer, and Krod.

Pym

Age of Umbra is interesting. It's an inherently inhospitable world, and thinking about the kinds of characters that can survive in such an inherently hospitable world, and how they can survive, is a fun exercise.

Pym survives by being useful, and is one of those characters who ties his whole worth to being useful.

He's a ridgeborne drakona wayfinder ranger, who is almost entirely inspired by that little wiggly scamper Hræzlyr does when he's up on the rocks. That's the sole reason he's ridgeborne. Pretty much every mechanical decision I made for Pym, I made with Hræzlyr in mind.

Narratively, the Age of Umbra has no shortage of ruins. Pym has made a life of exploring those ruins, and scavenging for potentially useful pieces of history. Magical things, like his staff, he often keeps for himself or sells at a serious premium.

I wanted a character whose business often takes him beyond the borders of settlements and the reach of Sacred Pyres; someone who's handy to have around if you're thinking of exploring the Umbra-touched wilds.

Of course, in Critical Role's miniseries, characters like that (namely Sam Riegel's and Liam O'Brien's) didn't make it to the end. But they almost did.

Starting domain cards are Deft Maneuvers and Gifted Tracker.

Oz Harlan

This character is made specifically for Colossus of the Drylands. Osgeldi "Oz" Harlan is a long-retired mercenary, getting back in the game to stop the increasingly invasive mining operations of his unscrupulous former employers.

Oz has lived his whole life in the Drylands, and is thus duneborne, and a primal origin sorcerer of mixed ancestry. He's half giant and half dwarf, and a very specific combination of phenotypes that makes him appear human.

Most people think that is the cause of his respiratory issues, but in reality, those are caused by the strain of his particular brand of sorcery on his body. He wields phenomenal power, but in the Drylands, all power comes at a price.

The spindly metal things dangling under his coat were originally part of a simple apparatus to help him walk. He's a tinkerer (or, to quote his actual Experience, a Multi Mechanist). However, as he (read: I) spent more time with them, they evolved into the Otto-Octavius-ass freak show that he hides under his jacket.

If he looks at all scary with that mask, that's by design. I wanted to create a character who was deeply established in the history of Wyllin's Gulch — a man who, during his bounty hunting days, was known as Wyllin's Wraith. A man whose surname I chose very deliberately; perhaps he's related to revolutionary Trace Harlan.

Starting domain cards are Unleash Chaos and Pick and Pull.

Character influences include Yondu Udonta, Saw Gerrera, and Davy Jones.

Cthallhister Philipii Ricard

Yet another Colossus of the Drylands character. This guy is a totally Legitimate Businessman. If his Experience says it, it must be true.

Cthallhister Philipii Ricard didn't used to look like he does here. He started out as a little blue ribbet, but then I played this humanoid version of him in D&D and ported him to Daggerheart because he was, truly, so much fun to play.

Here, he's a wanderborne aetheris syndicate rogue. I thought it was funny to have this descendant of literal angels be a greedy, largely unscrupulous rat bastard. He's one of those guys who must learn to find value beyond material wealth — especially here in the desolate Drylands.

(I will eventually play a ribbet, but If I'm going to to so, I decided, I'll be playing them totally straight. The contrast is important.)

Conceptually, Cthallhister is one of those quack salespeople who sells quack products. Except he doesn't actually sell quack products. The Nomadic Pack he carries as part of his wanderborne feature is full of doodads whose purposes, I imagine, are as nonsensical as possible until the proper situation arises. Once an item is used for whatever he needed it for, he can keep it and sell it.

Starting domain cards are Pick and Pull and Deft Deceiver. Somehow, those choices came super easy.

u/Enfireno — 8 days ago

▲ 28 r/daggerheart

I'm packaging these to prevent spamming the board. Sorry about that.

This works out kind of well, though, because it allows me to work out things that my builds have in common. Hopefully it's not too long.

These are character designs I came up with when I was first introduced to Daggerheart, back when it was still in open beta. At least three of them (and probably all four) are older than Critical Role's official playtest one-shot.

I had several other character concepts back then, but these four were the ones interesting enough to survive my culling when the actual core set came out. The other ten characters I have on standby were made with the core set.

Of course, I've tweaked them since them. Two of them use classes that didn't exist at the time, and we'll start with those.

Bauzarra "Zarra" Rakuppai I

Arguably the funniest of my concepts, once you get past him being played, theoretically, completely straight. If it's not immediately obvious, this character exists to see how long it takes a given party to figure out that I'm playing Bowser from Super Mario.

Bauzarra Rakuppai I is a highborne juggernaut brawler of mixed ancestry: a drakona-galapa hybrid with a shell and elemental breath.

Zarra, as his friends call him, is the current ruler of a small, out-of-the-way kingdom of yellow galapas. He is trying to earn his station in the shadow of an unambiguously disliked king, so his current project concerns maintaining diplomatic relations with other kingdoms. This involves a lot of travel, which makes an easy plot hook to get him to wherever the party happens to be going. His eight children (whose names are similarly bastardized from the Koopalings') are perfectly capable of running the kingdom in his stead.

He's designed for the more whimsical, fantastical, princesses-and-dragons side of high fantasy. Specifically so he can flirt with the princesses. One of his Experiences is Charming Rascal to this end. The other is Liberating Leader, which I envisioned at the time as his ability to convince people to do stuff by puffing them up, bardic-inspiration style. I'm realizing that Zarra is very bardic in his characterization. He's looking for love (which is perhaps a less-than-subtle ulterior motive to all his outreach). But it's important that he's a brawler, because it allows him the potential to do ludicrous amounts of damage unarmed.

Starting domain cards are Deft Maneuvers and Bare Bones, because Bare Bones is absolutely broken and I can't live without it.

Other character influences include Hoarah Loux and a smidgen of Nolan "Omni-Man" Grayson.

Kaiwynn Kaskarel

In a very similar vein to Zarra, Kaiwynn Kaskarel exists for me to see how long it takes the rest of a given party to figure out I'm playing a pop culture icon.

(Now, just because he has black armor and a glowing red crystal greatsword and flaming yellow eyes, just because he calls upon an ancient cosmic power instrumental to life itself, just because his name is an anagram for Anakin Skywalker, doesn't mean it's necessarily the icon you're thinking of.)

Mechanically, he's a highborne human/giant wrathful warlock. Highborne because it gives him advantage on rolls to leverage his reputation. Mixed ancestry because I wanted the extra Stress slot humans have and also wanted him to be Super Tall. Warlock because the Pact of the Wrathful subclass lets you Imbue your weapon and give it damage bonuses.

Narratively, he used to be part of an ancient order of war wizards, but then said wizards tried to overthrow the government, and he had to kill the rest of his order to defend the civilization he loved. (Is that a horribly disproportionate response? Is there more to this story? Who knows? Not the party, that's for sure!)

At least two of his former peers still live, and he hunts them constantly, leveraging his Experience Wizard Killer to perhaps get a leg up. All the while, he makes sacrifices to his patron, the powerful archmage Empress of his people. (That's not a typo. I think a party would get very bored of this guy if the analogue was 1:1.)

Starting domain cards are Blighting Strike and Voice of Dread.

Character influences (apart from the obvious) include James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, the Travelers from God of War, and the Witch-King of Angmar.

Henri Vulcane

This guy exists because I watched the Menagerie one-shot sequel the day it came out, and I heard Matt Mercer say the words "gorilla simiah" and then move on like that isn't the coolest thing we've ever Dagger-heard. Henri Vulcane was brought into the world not unlike Athena hatching from Zeus's skull, to alleviate the nagging creative pressure in my brain.

He's a loreborne simiah knowledge wizard. School of Knowledge because, that way, he gets two grimoires (Tyfar and Illiat, obviously), and Mending Touch. The extra Hit Point that comes with the School of War will never be as enticing to me as that.

Because I knew I was making a simiah, my primary character influence for this guy was, believe it or not, the X-Men's own Dr. Henry "Beast" McCoy. The Saint Germain aesthetic and hideous mustache came much, much later.

Narratively, this guy is a master wizard, who's been locked out of most of his power by a vindictive rival, and has to slowly pry off the armbands he's been shackled with to regain it. Coincidentally, he pries off a little more every time he levels up...

Unusually, I found the default wizard background questions to be very useful in crafting plot hooks for Henri. I think this is the most I've ever gotten out of them. It was thanks to them that I invented Mortimer, Henri's disgruntled ribbet rival, and fleshed out the relationship between the two. "Maybe I want to beat Mortimer Crawe so he can finally understand that he isn’t perfect," is a quote I wrote in Henri's voice, and he doesn't realize that, even though he's not wrong, he's also doing a fair bit of projecting.

I.S.A.A.C.

I.S.A.A.C. is, I believe, the very first Daggerheart character I ever made.

He's a loreborne clank elements druid, and because he's a clank, he gets a permanent bonus to one of his Experiences. His name stands for Inquiry into Self-Determining Autonomous Arcane Conduits, and because that is his purpose, that's also the name of the Experience with the ancestry bonus.

He was built by a university to prove that robots could cast spells autonomously, and once he proved that, he fulfilled his purpose. So now he travels the world in search of a new one. He's a druid because he feels most at home among wildlife.

(Mechanically, he's a druid because the Warden of the Elements subclass feature is much, much cooler than either of the sorcerer subclasses, Sage has better stuff than Midnight, and one spellcast trait is as good as any other.)

(It also gives him Beastform, which means he gets to rearrange his parts into animal shapes like one of those dinosaur Transformers.)

His other experience is Odds Oracle, because he can make complex probabilistic calculations in his head like C-3PO does.

Starting domain cards are Unleash Chaos and Gifted Tracker.

u/Enfireno — 9 days ago

▲ 0 r/daggerheart

Yggo was born when I saw that one DnD LEGO minifigure, the golden dragonborn with the mace. Which is why he's specifically a golden drakona with a mace.

More broadly, when I read how Blaze of Glory worked, I wanted to make a character likely to do that.

He's a hearthborne drakona winged sentinel seraph. Regular drakona don't have wings, but Yggo is a seraph of the god of dragonkind, and so uses the Winged Defender subclass feature to explosively conjure spectral wings a la Bayle the Dread.

(Elden Ring's DLC may or may not have left an impression.)

Yggo's one of those gruff jackasses with a heart of gold. He's also a candidate to ascend and become the new god of dragons (replacing the white one depicted on his shield). He has to pass trials in order to ascend, most of which are up to GM discretion, but the ultimate one — in both senses of the word — is an honorable death. Your soul can't ascend if it's still in its mushy lizard body.

Of the fourteen characters I have ready to go, five of them use the Valor domain. Of those five, Yggo is the only one who doesn't have Bare Bones, because he has a tower shield and chainmail armor, putting his Armor Score at a hefty 6. (This, of course, puts his Evasion at a pathetic 7, but what can you do.)

Starting domain cards are Bolt Beacon and I Am Your Shield.

Character influences include Trevor Belmont and Floyd "Deadshot" Lawton.

u/Enfireno — 10 days ago

▲ 2 r/daggerheart

I.S.A.A.C. is, I believe, the very first Daggerheart character I ever made. A loreborne clank elements druid, and because he's a clank, he gets a permanent bonus to one of his Experiences. His name stands for Inquiry into Self-Determining Autonomous Arcane Conduits, and because that is his purpose, that's also the name of the Experience with the ancestry bonus.

Mechanically, he's a druid because the Warden of the Elements subclass feature is much, much cooler than either of the sorcerer subclasses, Sage has better stuff than Midnight, and one spellcast trait is as good as any other.

His other experience is Odds Oracle, because he can make complex probabilistic calculations in his head like C-3PO does.

Starting domain cards are Unleash Chaos and Gifted Tracker.

u/Enfireno — 10 days ago

▲ 18 r/daggerheart

Bauzarra Rakuppai I is a highborne juggernaut brawler of mixed ancestry: a drakona-galapa hybrid with a shell and elemental breath.

If it's not immediately obvious, I made this character to see how long it takes a given party to realize I'm playing Bowser from Super Mario.

He's meant to be played completely straight, but once you get past that, he's arguably the funniest of my character concepts because of this.

Zarra, as his friends call him, is the current ruler of a small, out-of-the-way kingdom of yellow galapas. He's trying to earn his station in the shadow of an unambiguously disliked king. He's a bit older now and has established himself, so his current project concerns maintaining diplomatic relations with other kingdoms. This involves a lot of travel, which makes an easy plot hook to get him to wherever the party happens to be going. His eight children are perfectly capable of running the kingdom in his stead.

He's designed for the more whimsical, fantastical, princesses-and-dragons side of high fantasy. Specifically so he can flirt with the princesses. One of his Experiences is Charming Rascal to this end. The other is Liberating Leader, which I envisioned at the time as his ability to convince people to do stuff by puffing them up, bardic-inspiration style. Zarra is very bardic, I'm realizing. He's looking for love (which is perhaps a less-than-subtle ulterior motive to all his outreach). But it's important that he's a brawler, because it allows him to do ludicrous amounts of damage unarmed.

Starting domain cards are Deft Maneuvers and Bare Bones, because Bare Bones is absolutely broken. I always use it whenever I have access to Valor.

Other minor, tangential character influences include Nolan "Omni-Man" Grayson and Hoarah Loux.

u/Enfireno — 10 days ago