Hello All Welcome to Freestyle Friday. Today I am going to do something I will do every once in a while and create a “Character of the Week” This is, by rolling on personally-created tables, I develop my own idea for a character on the spot and explain how this character might fit into the world.
First, I will roll on a random number generator for Gender.
1=male
2=female
Well, the number came up 1, so we’ve got a guy hero this time.
Because there are certain subclasses that require certain races, we roll class first. To keep it simple, we’ll roll assuming the base 12 classes that exist now from the Player’s handbook. I allow Unearthed Arcana stuff in my games and may draw on them here, but for the main classes, I do not allow platest stuff to serve that large a purpose in my game. The order is simply alphabetical.
We got a 1 again; this brings up the first class in the line: Barbarian
Now, with the Unearthed Arcana stuff that exists now from the Dungeons and Dragons team that I accept, there are 6 types of Barbarian available.
- Berserker
- Totem warrior
- Battlerager (Sword Coast Adventurer’s guide)
- Path of the Ancestor (UA)
- Path of the Storm (UA)
- Zealot (UA)
Okay, I rolled a 3. Battleragers are Dwarf only, so that decides race for me. But I still must decide sub-race
- Mountain Dwarf
- Hill Dwarf
- Duergar
I rolled a 1, so this fellow is a mountain dwarf.
To add an extra bit of challenge, I’ll roll randomly to see what campaign he is in.
- Forgotten Realms
- Dark Sun
- Points of Light (4th edition default setting)
- Realms
- Gothic Horror campaign similar to Ravenloft
- Realms
4 so he’s from the realms
For his background: there are 26 current official backgrounds, 13 in the Player’s Handbook, 12 in Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, and 1 in Curse of Strahd. In another online game I play called Storium, I am known for being able to make any circumstance fit any character I create. I will roll a digital 26-sided die and choose a background based on the number rolled and the order it appeared in publication date or position among others in the book.
I rolled a 14, which actually makes him a city watch.
Now I have to roll for his traits from that background, or rather roll and modify what there is from soldier, which the City watch background directs the player to.
For my two traits I got
Haunted by War
Can stare down a Hell Hound without flinching.
For my ideal I got:
Live and Let Live: ideals aren’t worth fighting over
This is meant for neutral alignments, so I have half of what my dwarven Battleragers alignment is. For the other half, I’m going to roll a d6. I like complete randomness in my characters but I also don’t like different for the sake of difference and I feel most characters ought to have some commonality with their race as a whole in outlook. Therefore, since dwarves tend towards lawful good, I already have neutral but I still can lean lawful and in the logic of the worlds, probably do. Therefore on my roll a 1-3 indicates lawful, 4-5 indicates neutral, and 6 = chaotic.
I got a 1, so the Dwarf is going to be lawful Neutral.
Bond: I rolled a 6 on this one so I got a sort of defend the weak outlook for my character.
As for my flaw: I got “Made a mistake in battle that cost many their lives.” Normally, this might not fit a city watch character, but it will for him.
And here is what I put together from all that.
Dagund Ambrigol
One of the guardians of Sundabar, Dagund was a captain of the local city watch when the orcs, with their drow Instigators descended upon the city, slaughtering all those on the surface and reducing the city to rubble. Dagund did what he could to defend evacuating humans and dwarves, but he was not to extend his reach over a certain boundary. He obeyed these orders in his efforts to defend the city and for the most part, he did well, but however as the last defenses were falling, his strict adherence to orders led a mass of fleeing citizens, many of them women and children into an oncoming swath of Orcish raiders.
Now, in the aftermath of the city’s destruction, Dagund has retreated into himself, though he often seems to see signs of orcs wherever he goes. He does not fear them, and in his spiked armor, he still is ready to step in for the little guy when it counts. But for the most part, he is tired of fighting and thinks that alliances of military support do far more harm than good. He sticks to his traditions as a Dwarven warrior and skilled battlerager, but any high-minded, world-spanning political ideals are a waste of time as he sees them. He does what he can for individuals where he sees them, and he’s no coward, but the old ways are a piece of wood he clings to in the flooded waste his life has become since Sundabar’s fall.
I hope you like this sort of feature, and if you want to see me do more, please let me know.
About the Author:
Zachary Is a fan of classic Lit, Bad sci-fi and horror flicks, and all things D&D. He loves coming up with characters like Dagund, though he fears one of them might decide they want to take over one day.
