20 replies to this topic

[Chewzter]

Inspired by the economics Thread, I wanted to start something else:

 

What is your best (or maybe worst) character you have ever made? It can be in terms of backstory, mechanics, complexity, roleplaying or whatever else you liked/hated I'd also like to hear of other characters at your table that come to mind!

[ross]

i love them all, thare like my childeran :-)

[Daniel]

Just because you love them like a child, Ross, doesn't mean some of them might be a little...unique...

[Pencil-Monkey]

Will always be quite fond of the sapient computer-bowler-hat-wearing, cigar-smoking teddy bear character from a homebrewed sci-fi campaign. The world was similar to Rifts or, perhaps a better analogy, S.L.I.D.E.Ways. Dimensional portals opened to other worlds at irregular intervals, providing people with an excuse to play pretty much anything they wanted. (The GM smoked a lot of medicinal marijuana, which may have influenced the game somewhat, although he was always prompt to put a disclaimer in front of any game session: "Hey, I've been lighting up today, sooo... caveat emptor, a'ight?")

The best part about rolling up a teddy bear was at the start of the game, when the GM asked us to introduce our characters, and everyone just grew an increasingly odd look on their faces as they heard the description of the 'Guwok Bear'*. Apparently, the GM had told everyone that they should roll up powergamer min-maxed Munchkin characters, and everyone had done so... except for, umm, one player who'd managed to miss that part of the game intro.

As one of the other players described it, "So we've got Robocop, Terminator, Raistlin Majere, and a Pokemon?"

It worked out okay, though. We later ran into a friendly bear shaman who became fast friends with the teddy bear, and then we went and visited Dracula's castle. The shaman got a nightly visit from Dracula's shmexy brides, and we managed to rescue him before they finished draining him of his plentiful supply of bodily fluid - at which point they'd probably have started sucking his blood. Ooh, and Dracula tore the literal stuffing out of the teddy bear in the ensuing battle**, but luckily, the shaman staked the vampire with a broken bed post, and part of the loot we found was a Nipple Ring of Regeneration, which saved the teddy bear's life. Phew!


*He was a member of a race of living teddy bears, who were a cross between Gummi Bears (the Disney kind, not the edible ones) and Star Wars ewoks.

**Yes, Dracula vs. a teddy bear. Yes, it was a fairly one-sided battle, even with laser guns and grenade launchers.
 

[Telemergion]

Best:

I have a lot of characters I love, some of whom I return to again and again like Oddric, but by far the best character I have ever played is the one whom I shall never play again. His name was Thaddeus Black and he single handedly shaped the one and only Deadlands campaign I have played in.

 

The short version of his backstory is he was raised a wealthy minister's son but he was afflicted by curious and bad luck that caused a number of strange occurrences and the townsfolk, a highly violent and superstitious lot, accuse him of practicing black magic and formed a lynch mob. His father sacrificed himself to the mob and Thaddeus fled. Later he met a man who gave him a book that promised power if one was willing to gamble and Thaddeus became a huxter. In a cruel twist, the evil spirit he formed a connection with, the creature trying to steal his soul and take over his body, was the tormented and twisted soul of his own father. 

 

Thaddeus was built to be incredibly uneducated, mediocre at anything involving combat, and weak as a kitten. His only gifts were a cunning mind sharper than the throwing knife he could barely use, an iron will that could shake off any shock or horror, and a superhuman (literally, according to the book) amount of charm. He was the archetypal charming bastard. And boy was he a bastard.

 

In his first session he convinced a young man who had watched his brother die to dress in drag (badly) and strap dynamite to his chest in order to seal away an ancient evil while Thaddeus and his companion bravely rode out of town in the opposite direction. In his second session he stole one inventor's sleeping potion, fed it to another, and tried to pass the internal combustion engine off as his own design. In his third session he hired another PC to be his muscle for a fraction of what the quest reward would pay, then later when the GM sent hired killers into his room he woke up and convinced them they had the wrong guys and went back to sleep. In his fourth session the GM sent a powerful assassin, a character designed to kill one or more of the party, after him but he wrote a song on the fly that caused her to attack him on his terms, somehow evaded all of her attacks, and seduced her so powerfully she became his companion for the rest of the adventure.

 

The poor GM kept trying to build intricate plots for us to navigate but each time we would (gleefully, I'll admit) circumvent his designs, often when our amoral characters simply declared that whatever badness was going on they wanted no part of and would just ride out of town. Because of this whole cities were destroyed through our inaction and we had no idea why or what the actual metaplot of the campaign was. We were too busy killing a man because he'd made a perfect utopian town but had pissed us off because we couldn't loot any of his illusory wealth. Or getting in a fight with Russian cyborg men and Thaddeus once again convincing one of them to join the team by breaking the poor man's mind with charm and "logic". Or fornicating in the remains of a man I exploded. Or taking over Boise and turning it into our own version of paradise complete with taco stands and a giant golden statue of the man whose name they bore (not me, that would have been Don Diego del Taco.)

 

At one point in our attempt to claim Boise as our own we got in a heated firefight and Alvira suffered a serious wound and went into a coma. The man who did it... did not die well. Thaddeus was beside himself. He sought out the best doctor he could find who, luckily, was mystically inclined and said her soul was trapped. Giving cryptic orders not to be disturbed Thaddeus locked himself in his room and laid beside his beloved. He followed her soul to the Chinese heavens where a Thunder God was claiming her as his new thrall. Thaddeus challenged the mighty god to a duel, calling him a coward if he did not accept but then agruing it would be no fair contest for a god to fight his puny mortal form so he should be allowed a champion. When the god accepted Thaddeus called upon the one spiritual being he could, his father, and he said the words that hungering spirit had been waiting years to hear: "Take my soul."

 

Soulless Thaddeus managed to outwit his father and keep his mind his own but he took a darker turn. He attempted to orchestrate the death of one of the PCs which only failed because that character had actuially been planning to betray Thaddeus for some time. But later Thaddeus went through a spirit journey, facing his own demons and trials, and he regained his soul, now purifed. Suddenly he was a much nicer person, though wracked with guilt and horror over the deeds he had committed.

 

He sought to make the world a better place, even seeking to make amends with his former enemy. They met at a presidential ball but only Thaddeus and his companions were unaware this would be the pivotal moment in history when the third party, the organization we'd basically pissed off and run from the entire campaign, would make their move. Amidst huge plot reveals, dopplegangers, zombie (anal rapist) Abraham Lincoln, and a full on ritualistic massacre Thaddeus and his companions fought to save the world by destroying a nearly immortal clone of the most important man in history. That was when Alvira was shot in the head. Thaddeus held her as she died and when his next turn came I quietly explained each methodical action. He stood up from behind his cover and walked into the clear. The enemies fired round after round of bullets into him as he cast his last spell and fired a mystic bolt - and here the dice blessed me by rolling insanely high damage - not into the doppleganger but into the man we'd sworn to protect. As he fell back, arms out in a Christ-like pose and cards streaming from his hands like falling leaves, the GM sat in silent shock. Even his endgame had counted on the man living. With that man dead the world would end. But that was what Thaddeus wanted. His world had ended with Alvira's death and he would be damned if he didn't get one last say in the matter to end the game on his terms.

 

Never did I expect to play through such an emotional and powerful character arc that fit so perfectly with where and how I wanted a charcater to go. Never again will I ever play Thaddeus, the man whose sardonic southern drawl I still hear in my head to this day and would dearly like to let out once more, because nothing will ever live up to that perfect story. 

 

Worst:

My worst character would not have been so bad had he not been brother in arms and faith to two other members of the party. No need for the long story on this one. Basically we accidentally formed a party dynamic where the frontline muscle characters always stuck together and bullied the others into doing what we wanted. I do maintain the DM made some mistakes in how he dealt with the problem but myself and the other two were the initial problem and for that I still feel bad for making the game less fun for others. The character's name is lost to time but I do remember he was a Shifter battle-cleric in the early days of 4E.

 

Honourable Mentions:

I've already mention Oddric, the orkish rogue who I have rolled in every tabletop system and computer game that'll let me do it, Tgudd Grizzleyback, the bear-riding dwarf is fantastic in concept though he's had only one actual play session. Legerdemain, master of magical fire and whose likeness is my avatar, is basically my Mary-sue character and proved a decent PC but a much better archvillian for a campaign I ran. Lastly comes Biskik who is technically a DMPC but who is a ton of fun to play and well beloved by my players.

[Pencil-Monkey]

The short version of his backstory is he was raised a wealthy minister's son [...] In his fourth session the GM sent a powerful assassin, a character designed to kill one or more of the party, after him but he wrote a song on the fly that caused her to attack him on his terms, somehow evaded all of her attacks, and seduced her so powerfully she became his companion for the rest of the adventure.

Was it a Dusty Springfield song?


 

Or fornicating in the remains of a man I exploded.

With the Russian cyberman?!
 

Amidst huge plot reveals, dopplegangers, zombie (anal rapist) Abraham Lincoln, and a full on ritualistic massacre [...]

Or as the Deadlands setting refers to it: "Tuesday".

[Miran]

Oh. Joy. This is going to be fun. Which of my older characters should I pull out, I wonder. Hmm... I know, I ought to pull out Rhianne Adele Isolde, a.k.a. Darth Kyrine. Just a short bit of background: This character was built for a roleplay roughly four thousand years before the battle of Yavin, about fifty years after the events in the Knights of the Old Republic games and comics. The idea was to have a somewhat more political campaign with darker plots and quiet-but-devastating conflicts to reshape the events of the Republic. Now that I look over it, I never did manage to finish her backstory, despite playing her for nearly a year. I'll have to finish that when I get the chance. In the meantime, here's the history for the first 30 odd years of her life:
 
"An elegant weapon, for a more civilized time." We have all heard these words, and tho they describe a lightsaber in a time when the jedi were all but extinct, these words ring just as true when applied to Rhianne. For that's what she is. A soldier. A weapon.
 
Before the cult of Vahl presided over the Vahla, they were largely ruled and governed by a royal house. This royal house had a contingent of guards, knights who swore to protect their monarchs at any cost, even death.  Most of this house was destroyed when the jedi attacked, but, in a last-ditch effort to save what remained of his society, the King ordered a group of knights to take his daughter and flee. The knight second and eleven others fled their post with their charge and her husband, and escaped the carnage on the royal yaught. 
 
It had been nearly fourteen hundred years since that day, when a daughter was born to the Knight Commander currently presiding over the Knight's royal charge. She was named Rhianne, after the princess who was rescued those many years ago. Adele was the name of her mother, as well as the name of their lost homeworld. As was tradition, her father swore her fealty to the crown before she was yet an hour old, and that oath has burned in her blood for many, many years. 
 
Her childhood would make any mandalorian proud; her earliest memory is of dueling with a child-sized and blunted rapier. Every day she trained, she fought, she learned. Her education was the same given to the royal house, as there was no room aboard their vessel for a separate school. It did not much matter, however; everyone on the Strahl was of noble blood. Her days were filled with learning and fighting until there was little left for her to learn from the Strahl's archives. 
 
The ancient training of the knights had her master Shii Cho by the time she was twelve years of age, without ever hefting a lightsaber. After her mastery of Shii Cho, she was given her first lightfoil. It was a simple, standardized affair intended for her to learn, not to live with all her life, and with it she immediately began schooling in Makashi, the noble's form. Her force training also began in earnest then, slowing her progression with the blade. She enjoyed her force training more than the constant fencing. She was already gleaning information from those around her with her telepathy and, not-long after the training began in earnest, her skill in telepathy had increased ten fold. 
 
She soon learned most of everything her instructors knew, despite her inability to practise or apply much of it. By the time she was twenty three she had mastered Makashi well enough to duel with the masters on board on an almost equal footing, which was mildly above average, but not stunningly so. This achievement, as per the custom, gave her the right to wear the armor of a Royal Knight. To this day, she wears this armor proudly. She was also taught how to create her own lightfoil, and was expected to do so. Her first foil was of moderate quality, sufficient for her needs at the time, but otherwise unremarkable. In addition, this achievement allowed her to train in one of the forbidden arts that the Knights had kept quiet from their lesser-qualified students: Trakata. She took to this new tactic readily, experimenting and testing it's limits as often as she was able.
 
After her official knighthood when she mastered Makashi, her skill in telepathy truely started to stand out from the background ability most of the crew possessed. She could spend but a minute searching a crowd and pick the thoughts of anyone she looked at; often, this was done right past their mental shielding as if it wasn't even there. Her knowledge of tactics continued to grow, as did her understanding of telepathy; more and more she was called to the bridge of their frigate to help the Knight Commander to understand the enemy. When she was twenty five, she was on a first name basis with most of the bridge staff, and her monarch knew her by sight among the two thousand other souls on board. For a time, she was content and almost assured of her father's position. Meanwhile she had taken to teaching students in the force, and how to understand an opponent before you fought them, in addition to her other duties. Her world could not have looked better, but, as the saying goes: all good things must come to an end. 
 
She was twenty six, still fairly young and idealistic, when her world was turned upside down. From what she was able to piece together later, her king had become disquieted with the leadership that the Chosen of Vahl were displaying. Condoning minor theft and piracy was one thing, but even entertaining the thought of committing their entire race to helping the sith empire before the vahla people's immediate needs were addressed was not only foolish, it would lead to their destruction. His mistake was to voice this wise opinion, and for that wisdom to be recognized by a large portion of the Vahla. The Chosen did not entertain potential threats to their power.
 
A flotilla of ships ambushed the Strahl in orbit of an unnamed planet far from their original homeworld. Much later, this planet would be named Abbaji and colonized by the Huk, but this was still many years away. Try as they might, their frigate was hopelessly out-numbered and caught unawares. Rhianne was sound asleep when the klacksons sounded, drawing the crew to battle. With the precision born of a life-in-space, she was awake, dressed in her full armor, and on station in the bridge two minutes and eight seconds later. She had even chastised herself for being slow, as she hadn't needed to buckle her vambraces in her quarters, she could have done that on her way to command. Even then, she was fifty two seconds ahead of deadline, and already done reading the status displays when her leige walked in about twenty seconds after her. "Seventeen vessels, Sir. Eight cruisers, four frigates, and five destroyers." The Strahl shook as weapon's fire impacted on their port bow. "Shields are holding steady at 79%." came the call from the ops station. The ship shook again as another volley impacted, "74%" Was the almost immediate update. "Hyperspace?" The king asked queitly, but he was already beginning to guess the situation from the tactical displays. "We are too deep in the planet's gravity well. Eleven minutes twenty three seconds at maximum acceleration until we would be clear." 
 
Another round of fire impacted the ship; it was followed almost immediately by two more. "Shields at 47% on the port-side bow quarter. They're focusing their fire there." The Knight Commander looked up from his station. "Another two volleys and we'll have a hull breach. We won't make it to hyperspace at this rate. I recommend we abandon ship, sir. We can use the Strahl to fly cover for you to get away." The king frowned, considering for a few precious seconds. Another hit broke him of his reverie. "Rhianne. Find my wife and son. Get them to safety. You have 60 seconds before I tell the crew to abandon ship, make the best of it." She registered his command rapidly, saluted with her customary rigidity, and acknowledged with a crisp "Sir." before she took off down the corridor at a dead run. 
 
Rhianne knew her history, and knew how this was shaping up to turn out. She was less than encouraged to realize that this time their opponents would be expecting them to flee. Her task would be all the harder for it. If she were less disciplined, she might have time for her emotions. She might have time to mourn the loss of her king, her father, and her friends, for tho she knew they were not technically dead yet, it was a mere technicality. The crew would not abandon their stations, not while the Commander stood on the bridge, and so long as the king was alive, she knew her father would not back away from the fight. This flashed thru her mind rapidly while she ran, but it was simply logic to her now.
 
The door to the King's quarters was just ahead, and she gave another burst of speed to reach it. The call to abandon ship came thru just before she hit the button on the door-frame, forcing the door open. "Milady!" she cried into the open doorway, "We must go!" She found the queen still half-asleep, sitting on her bed in a silken nightgown. Damnit! She thought, as she entered the room. "Milady, we must hurry. The Strahl will not last long!" The vessel shook as more weapon's fire impacted on the hull, and it was definitely not the shields that took the hit.
 
This time she cursed aloud. "I cannot carry you, Milady, but I was ordered to get you to safety. If I have to drag your unconscious self to an escape pod, I will not hesitate to do so." She looked around the room, "Now where is the prince?" The queen finally started to stir, and she nodded towards the adjacent room. "His bed." She muttered, barely audible, but Rhianne did not wait long enough to hear. She was already in the next room, and picked up the half-asleep young prince. With him over her shoulder, she ran back to the queen's bedroom and pulled her towards the doorway. 
 
The queen was no small woman, and she was accustomed to the luxuries of her station. She protested loudly the entire time as Rhianne pulled her thru the hall to the nearest bank of escape pods, just ten meters from their rooms. The queen was just about to make some long speech, chastising Miran for her arrogance when she was bodily shoved into an escape pod and the air was forced from her lungs. Two knights, running towards the escape pods, filed in next to the queen, the prince, and Rhianne. The escape pod full, it was launched into the foray of the space battle towards the waiting planet below. Miran was too busy trying to pilot the pod to a safe landing area to notice the crippled Strahl begin it's fiery descent toward the planet that would be it's grave. 
 
When they landed a few minutes later, Rhianne was utterly silent as she tried to figure out what to do next. The queen was complaining loudly to anything and everything in sight, and her son was crying because of a broken arm. It didn't help her mood in the slightest. If it was not for her duty, she likely would have simply walked away right then and there. But she was honor bound to carry out the orders of her king, and she would carry them out as long as she was able. 
 
She turned around then and focused her hard, emotionless eyes on the queen's flustered face. "Milady." Her tone was ice cold, utterly devoid of emotion. "You have no idea of the situation here, do you?" Rhianne smiled a bitter, passionless smile and proceeded to inform the queen of the entirety of her situation, including the most-likely state of the entire world she had known to date. She let the air lie for a few moments while she considered their next course of action. But then, she had already known what that course of action would be, even as she debated with herself.
 
"Now that you're finished, Milady, let's get moving. We need to get to the Strahl's crash site. This planet is uninhabited and if there is any chance of us getting off this world we will need to salvage whatever we can." The two knights might not have agreed with her methods, but they agreed with the end results of her assessment. While they were all technically of equal rank, the other two respected her, and were otherwise bereft of leadership. The queen, bless her, had finally shut up, so they grabbed the escape pod's emergency supplies and started moving towards the crash site. It would be a hard few days of travel to get there.
 
The trip itself was not particularly interesting. A daily fifteen kilometer hike thru dense undergrowth while listening to an overweight woman huff and wheeze, with nothing but astoundingly long-winded speeches about how stupid and foolish the knights were to look forward to when they stopped to rest, amounted to far from pleasant conditions. Certainly not the conditions you would want to encounter for a solid nine and a half days. Luckily the Prince was doing better than his mother, even with his broken arm. One of the knights had set it and made a sling for the young prince, and he spent his days joyously keeping up with the group and dashing off into the wilderness, only to come running back when something scared him or one of the three knights called him back from straying too far. 
 
She wasn't sure what it was that saved her from the trap. Maybe it was the force, maybe it was sheer luck, to her it matters very little. She was acting as a rearguard, moving about thirty meters behind the party, when the claymore went off. it caught one of the knights and the prince in it's blast, as well as most of the queen's right leg. To Rhianne, they were there one moment, and they were gone in a cloud of bloody mist an instant later. The scene caught up with her when the bang echoed in her ears. Her lightfoil was in her hand, as it was with the knight on point. The queen was screaming gibberish in the shell-shock as the two knights tried to find the non-existent ambushers. There was no way that any enemies in the area would have missed that detonation. 
 
The two knights did as best as they could for the queen, going so far as to rig up a stretcher with a pair of branches and their Tabards, but she did not last very long, even with a tourniquet. She died of blood-loss. Her dying words were "I'm so sorry. It was my fault. It was all..." The other knight was almost worthless after that attack: he was too wrapped up in his grief; Rhianne forged on alone. 
 
There were seven other traps nestled about the area of the impossible-to-miss crash site, all on prominent game trails of the kind someone trying to make decent time in a jungle would follow. She disarmed them as she came across them, but their presence alone was somewhat surprising to her. She was unfamiliar with their make and model, and she knew every weapon and store on the Strahl forward and backwards. Which meant that someone not from the Strahl had been nearby.
 
She took her time exploring the area around the Strahl's final resting place. A glint of metal stood out from the surroundings, on the far side of the ship from the debris trail. She approached cautiously and spotted a troop transport. A good old-fashioned dropship with accomodations for fifty troopers. She recognized not only the model, but the symbol on it's prow as well. They were Vahla. 
 
It didn't take much work for her to dispose of the two guards and the rest of the ship's crew. She then spent a few minutes moving the ship a few kilometers further away from the crashed ship, she needed to prevent an easy escape for her opponents after all, before she marched her way back to the crash-site and prepared her assault. 
 
She felt the minds of her opponents, felt their thoughts and their emotions and their petty concerns, long before she saw them. There were forty? Maybe. She figured they would have left a full platoon of thirty two, judging by the vague impressions she was getting, along with support personnel. She stopped for a moment, studying the patterns their thoughts weaved. They were not crew members of the Strahl, but they were on board her ship. Anger filled her as she came to this realization, and she harnessed it. No longer was she simply stranded, but they had killed her charge. They had slaughtered her friends and family. They would pay for those transgressions. 
 
She had always felt the presence of something deeper, colder, and yet filled with a fiery passion that none of her teachings had presented her with. For the first time, she grasped at it; within it's dark embrace lay her vengeance. This was her first direct contact with the dark side and a part of her relished it. The majority of her was uncertain about this new source of power, but she kept on, ignoring the warning signs that popped up in her mind as she yearned to attack these men who defiled the Strahl, defiled the very memory of the people who had lived there. She was not disappointed.
 
The anger she was using as fuel focused her thoughts; her thoughts then became reminiscent of an ancient razor blade as they probed the ship in search of the people who were, inevitably, there. She located a total of thirty six different minds, most of whom were grouped together deep in the Strahl's cavernous belly. The other few were, apparently, on patrol. Her mind almost instinctively probed and hacked it's way into the minds of her wholly unprepared foes and for a moment she could literally see thru their eyes. One by one she cycled thru the perspectives of her opponents, getting an understanding of where they were and what they saw, comparing their perceptions with her own long history with the vessel. They were housed in the security headquarters in the very heart of the vessel. Presumably, they were there because of the internal sensor arrays, but they would surely be un-powered after such a crash.
 
If she wanted to make one of the men there do her bidding, it would be easy enough, but that would usually entail him to some sort of attempt at resistance. Normally, at least at her current skill level, her thoughts would have to literally meet and overpower the thoughts of her opponent for her to be able to take over their body, even for a short while; but as she considered how to get their most susceptible squad member to look around, an idea came to her. It was as if the very force itself had given her a boon, a means of adjusting how she might attack her opponent not directly, but indirectly, to trigger the various instincts that the person had built up that might normally make someone do the deed she desired. In this case, she was presented with three distinct ways of getting her opponent to look about him. The underlying core of the first was curiosity to gaze around without a specific purpose. The second was blatant suspicion, which would likely alert him to her presence. The last, and the one she implemented, was duty; he was a trained soldier after all, and soldiers, by their very nature, must know their surroundings and check them often. 
 
Her guess had been right. The Strahl's power plant had been completely disabled in the crash, possibly even before the impact event, it would be impossible to know which without a trained engineer, but that was relatively pointless to her. Instead, she noted that there were a trio of portable generators tied into the power grid, and while she was certain that the crash would have disabled or broken the power connections in large portions of the ship, the Strahl's design was such that it would undoubtedly leave her enemies with a noticeable advantage. Admittedly, her more-or-less unlimited access to their thoughts was practically cheating, but they had the advantage of numbers and the sensor's forewarning. She pondered the equation for all of ten minutes before she decided to spring the trap, for trap it certainly was. 
 
It didn't take the platoon long to spot her, combing thru the wreckage as if trying to find something. She felt their anticipation as the watchmen woke the sleepers and the whole troop made ready for a fight. She waited more-or-less passively while they prepared an ambush point, complete with a few mines of the same type she had seen in the forest; they weren't taking any chances. But then, military doctrine was never meant to encounter a telepathic foe. She knew precisely where the 'T' junction was where their ambush was being laid. She also knew their plans, what equipment they brought, where each member of the team was oriented, and everything else that was actively running thru their heads. She smiled coldly to herself. It really is like cheating. her smile turned hard, almost bitter, as she remembered their purpose in being her. It's time to get to work.
 
The skirmish, if it could even be called as much, was a very short affair. She had seen the claymore mines that her opponents were using in action, and knew enough about how they worked to know they used a small tripwire. The soldiers knew the sound of the mine, and they were actively waiting for it. It was child's play for her to make the group of soldiers think that it had gone off. Their commander, a cautious man, was the only one who survived the claymore's actual detonation in fighting order as everybody else in his squad ran forward. It was a small matter to use the force to shift the claymore with the force, so it directed most of it's blast directly down the corridor and into the incoming soldiers. A second claymore, which she had partially disarmed and carried with her from where it had been placed in the jungle, detonated into the side corridor and the squad that had been placed there. 
 
The commander, who was trailing three meters behind his soldiers, escaped only because he was a few marginal degrees outside the claymores' cone-shaped detonations. He was in awe as he literally watched most of his platoon get vaporized or at the least badly injured before his combat instincts kicked in, a mere second before Rhianne's decapitating strike would have killed him. As it was he would be scarred for the rest of his life as a good portion of his right jaw disolved in the immense heat of the lightfoil. The rest of his life, however, was measured in all of three seconds. Rhianne followed her first attack up with an eviscerating strike across his unshielded abdomin. She scanned the area quickly with her telepathy, spotting several more living targets nearby which she quickly assaulted. In her fury, she was unstoppable.
 
There were only five survivors out of the men who were hit in the blast of the claymore. They had been on the edge of the blast zone; they were mostly alive, bleeding profusely from the steel pellets that were largely still found in their bodies. She sneared at the mangled bodies and swiftly dispatched those who yet lived among them.
 
The slicers who were monitoring the sensors were even easier for her to dispatch. No small part of her relished the fear she had caused in the tech specialists; it relished the hunt, the animal-like ferocity and the almost palpable glee at spotting and chasing them down. One by one, they fell to her glowing blade. After a while, when all her foes were dead, she started to calm down and mourn. She didn't mourn her actions, in her mind they were the only resonable choices, but she mourned the loss of her entire world. 
 
It took her a long, long week to bury the crew members she could find. She found her father and their king on the bridge of the run-down vessel. She had wholly expected the soldiers to have dissected the king's body in some gruesome fashion, but she was actually surprised to see that his body had been left where it had died, run thru with a meter-long piece of transparisteel and a large, splintered branch from the local woods. Her father and most of the bridge crew, however, had not been so lucky. They had survived, for a time, only to be slaughtered by the ground troops dispatched from the orbiting vessels. She barely recognized her father, his body had been so badly marred by blaster fire; only the rank insignia, on the left pauldron, revealed who he was. She burried him with as much honor as she could give, along side the body of her king.
 
Sometime during the week, her companion joined her in the sad task of burying the dead. There had been nearly two thousand crew members on the Strahl, and most of those had still been aboard when the ship crashed. She estimated that eight hundred had died in the attack and subsequent crash; one thousand fifty of the corpses were marred by the unmistakable signs of an infantry battle. That left sixty-eight crew or passengers unaccounted for. Between the two of them, Rhianne and her fellow knight had dug twelve large graves for the dead crew members. Officers, Knights, and other notables among the crew had been placed in single graves in several short, neat rows. For her king and queen, she carefuly raised a cairn, using her lightfoil to weld the largest rocks into a loose lattice, which the remaining rocks were neatly fitted into. Neither of them felt the cairn a proper resting place for their king, but it was the best they could manage with the supplies they had on-hand.
 
Clearing the other bodies from the wreckage was a different story. There were no honors given them, nor were they buried. The rotting corpses of nearly five thousand Vahla and mercenary soldiers were dragged from the crippled Strahl and uncerimoniously piled in great mounds on the far side of the ship from the crew's resting place. They were given to the jungle to do with as it saw fit. 
 
Once the crew were cared for and such treasures as the once beautiful vessel had left to it's name were carefully inventoried and locked away, Rhianne left the crash site. She lazily followed the wide furrow the Strahl had carved into the landscape for as long as it lasted and just kept going. She did not know where she was going. She did not care. She simply wanted to get away. It was an hour or two after mid-day, a total of at least ten hours and eighteen kilometers away from the wreck, when she spoted an odd grove of trees. 
 
She had no idea why they stood out to her, nor why she was drawn towards their strange trunks, she simply reacted. Her hands slowly furled into tight fists as she entered the grove. It seemed as if the grove beckoned her, yet a large part of who she was, who these last terrible few weeks had forced her to become, was entirely unwelcome. The contrast annoyed her. The anger, the frustration at being powerless to help those whom she most cared about, her utter hatred of those responsible, all was laid bare in her mind. She did not know if it was the trees themselves that had done this, or if it was her reaction to the strangeness she saw around her, but ultimately she didn't care. Logic had no roots in her mind then. The kettle was boiling over. Her wrath and anger poured out of her. Time and time and time again she drew on the force, ceaselessly attacking the trees that seemed to lay bare her tortured soul and mockingly offer comfort, if only she turn away from the vengeance her heart and duty required of her. 
 
It was dark when she finally calmed down. She was utterly exhausted. She sat down, leaned against the trunk of one of the few trees she had yet to kill, and slept. She was not sure how long she slept, but her exhaustion was such that she did not dream. When she finally awoke, nearly twenty Coruscant Standard hours later, she was calm again. She felt strangely distant from her emotions. She still felt things, obviously, but the effect they had on her seemed far lessened. It's almost as if I were viewing my emotions thru a transparisteel viewport. she thought ironically to herself in a dreamy, half-imagined state. She slowly rose, stretching her stiff muscles, before she lay down again and fell again into a deep sleep.
 
This time, however, her sleep was troubled. She dreamed that she could see the Strahl, taking hit after viscious hit from the attacking flotilla. In her mind's eye,  every hit sent a jolt thru her mind. She shuddered in horror as the escape pods launched. An unseen frigate opened fire on the escape pods, slaughtering all inside. A second wave of escape pods was launched an instant later. These too were shot down in short order. Time and time again she shuddered, she shook, she sobbed; time and time again turbolasers splashed across the Strahl's failing shields. One by one, every wave of escape pods was utterly destroyed. A planet appeared out of nowhere, beckoning the crippled vessel. It fell.
 
She awoke with a start. The sun was high in the sky. She was uncertain what was going on, or how she should deal with it, but something around her had changed. Everything she had known was gone, destroyed by the ships and people that had sprung up out of nowhere, but she now knew she could survive it, she would survive it. Her anger, the fiery passions that had led her to victory over the invaders, had changed. Rather than burning bright, terrifying for all to see, it was cold, smouldering quietly, softly. She instinctively knew that this cold anger was far more potent than the explosive anger. This anger she could control; it didn't over-ride her logic. 
 
She sat there for several hours as she tried to comprehend this new weapon, but her goal was easy enough to understand. She would have vengeance, justice for the fallen. And she would survive whatever the consequences, because she knew, beyond any doubt, she could. She looked around at the devestation it had taken for her to awaken this far more potent anger and spotted a single sappling that had survived. It was, perhaps, three winters old. To remind her of this place, she uprooted it, careful to keep most of the roots intact, and carried it with her back to the Strahl's corpse. 
 
It took her an hour to summon up the will-power to leave, even with the cold-rage fueling her. By then it was already dark. She took shelter in the Strahl, packing up some gear and momentos precious to her. Then she slept on her bunk for the last time. 
 
The next morning she searched the remains of the Strahl, taking with her the iconic weapons and armor of the Knights, along with two small chests from the royal vault. One was filled with precious metals, the other with gems. The entire load, including the armor and weapons, weighed in at nearly a metric ton. She found a repulsor sled and over several trips managed to cart the entire load into the transport. When she was finished, she powered up the ship and took off, heading into the galaxy at large. She had seen no trace of the other knight since her episode with the groove of trees.
 
The people of the galaxy were very strange to Rhianne. The force, which she had taken entirely for granted, terrified the masses of people. Things she saw, understood, and performed with ease, were considered magic by most, along with all the connotations that went with it. She learned quickly to never reveal her abilities unless there was no other choice. She traded in the troop transport for a small yaught with a little help of her telepathic skill, and planted the tree in a small pot that is very securely mounted in her quarters. She suspected it would never grow past a meter high in that pot, but that suited her well enough. As time passed, she began to use the tree as a focal point in her meditations.

This character, once the campaign started, ended up being rather ideally suited to steering the campaign. The plot had more twists and turns than anybody in the group knew about (not even the GM could keep a lid on things) until the entire shamble fell apart when our group sparked, quite intentionally, a rift in the republic that pretty much shattered any sense of continuity. Needless to say, we spent a while trying to fight out the resulting war, but with the loss of the political aspect, we all lost interest and moved on to a different campaign. This character is still rather dear to me tho, and I don't think I'll ever forget being able to look my GM in the eye and tell him in no uncertain words: "Ha! Perhaps one day you will be privy to the full majesty of the one you address, Senator. Until then I suggest you do as you're told."

[Pencil-Monkey]

That didn't include much exposition at all, @Miran! For instance, what is Rhianne's theme song?
 

[Miran]

And yet the entire thing is exposition, according to the 2nd definition, as it explains and describes her background and personality . As for a specific theme song, I didn't have one. I did listen to a great deal of Sugarcult, along with some Tyr and Amon Amarth while writing her tho. The rough outline of her plot was influenced by Amon Amarth's Arson and the (admittedly brief) ship combat scenario was somewhat influenced by my knowledge of physics, my knowledge of the setting and it's equipment, and somewhat by The Lost Fleet series.

If, however, you're saying that this much exposition isn't enough for you, I can always point you toward a friend of mine. I should point out in advance, however, that some of his work tends toward the graphic side, and is potentially NSFW. One character in particular of his influenced Rhianne's abilities and focus, tho she tended to be more elegant and charming than he was. Try reading the 26k ish word bio (Link) and then we'll see how much you appreciate Rhianne's backstory

[TheGlen]

Jacques DuMont, an Amber character.  Seemingly utterly useless, the 2nd born of the lord of Obsidian was a complete bon vivant and hedonist who took no effort in the daily affairs or politics of his siblings.  Spent most of the game drunk or trying to get laid but had an enormous amount of good fortune (didn't spend all my points so my good stuff was through the roof).  Only real enemy was the daughter he abandoned in another shard years ago, Jacques played both sides of the civil war after his older sister died and openly supplied both sides with info knowing that no matter who won they owed it to the information he provided.  He showed no interest in the throne while his next youngest siblings destroyed each other fighting over it.  Jacques became king for a day after he was the only surviving heir because of the war.  His daughter showed up to challenge him for dumping her at an orphanage all those years ago.  His response was to promptly abdicate the throne since he knew he would be a terrible king and he left her there to become educated, her desire for revenge taught her how to fight, and her raising the army against him taught her leadership.  In short, she was the perfect monarch for the throne.  He justed wanted a coronation party for himself.  Other players didn't know whether this was the worst or best character I ever played.

[Slartibartfast]

That's either a very long con...

[Pencil-Monkey]

Somewhat related to this topic, here's the worst (and best) way of introducing a new character that @TheGlen has witnessed:

Worst way? DnD 3.0 new party member shows up, ambushes the party, nearly kills all of us, then takes the best magic items from us for himself and tells us he's the new party leader.

Best way? Teenagers from Outer Space we're taking roll call for the first time in class. Teacher calls out for a character named Johnny who we thought was this surfer dude sitting next to us. Only the surfer starts convulsing instead, until he falls over and a chestburster pops out, looks at the teacher and shouts "HERE'S JOHNNY!!!"

Thankfully Johnny didn't break out into Dixieland Jazz after that.

[Hafwit 2.0]

My most recent best/worst character:

 

Simeon Hound

He looks like all the skin which ought to cover his old bones went to his face, which reminds everyone of a bulldog with a grey goatee. He sounds like a bad Tom Waits impression. Simeon loves libation and adventure. He is surprisingly erudite, but not terribly useful. His parrot's name is Penelope.

 

Simeon practically met his death less than an hour into the session. Cutting into a giraffe-sized insect-beast's egg-sack left him violently infected with gross spawn. A dress-maker saved him with some expert field surgery and Simeon was sewn up with lovely pink thread.

 

Strength: 7
Dexterity: 7
Willpower: 11

Hit Points: 5

Machete (d6),
Pistol Brace (d8)
Talking Parrot
Never Sleeps

[Sênstaku]

Best and worst depends entirely on your point of view, and in my case my best character could also be called my worst character.

Xaion Wyrmkin, Half-Dragon Half-Elf dragonblood sorcerer; Played this in a super-powered pathfinder campaign that one of my GMs ran as an experiment, and he was fuuun. For me at least.

The spastic half-breed child of a Bronze dragon and an elven sorceress, Xaion was stowed away as his father's kind were hunted to near extinction - placed in an isolated wizard tower where they don't like people, and like sorcerers even less. He was raised amongst people who hated him for his gifts, and later on feared him when they discovered parts of him could turn dragon-like at will. He eventually left and wandered the world in search for his kin, Dragons.

He's a fire sorcerer who likes to burn things, and mechanically he basically gained a level in Dragon Disciple for every level in Sorcerer he had - up to the max of 10 for Disciple of course. By the time he was max level he enjoyed doing the following combination of spells and abilities; Time warp, shift to Adult Dragon form, Iron Body, and then Transformation (Pathfinder equivilent of Tenser's Transformation), turning him into a level 20 berserk fighter who also happened to be a dragon made entirely of metal and capable of breathing fire.

He did horrible things to enemies.

My party disliked him because his personality was so spastic. I loved him because his personality was so spastic.

[Telemergion]

mechanically he basically gained a level in Dragon Disciple for every level in Sorcerer he had - up to the max of 10 for Disciple of course

Of course. Any more than that would be completely broken.   

 

I'm curious as to the particulars of how that worked, and how you got away with it, but mostly, as I'm sure Pencil-Monkey will be along to ask, what his theme song was.

[Sênstaku]

Of course. Any more than that would be completely broken.   

 

I'm curious as to the particulars of how that worked, and how you got away with it, but mostly, as I'm sure Pencil-Monkey will be along to ask, what his theme song was.

So the entire campaign was super-powered, everybody had an "X-man" style power which was reflected in bonus status, bonus abilities, etc. etc. - Mine was being a half dragon

It was pretty fun, but according to the GM - looking back on it - it was incredibly difficult to balance, which made for sort of a feast-or-famine approach to our battles. 

 

As to his theme song;

https://www.youtube....h?v=L_jWHffIx5E

[Telemergion]

Good choice for that character

[Twyst]

I've had a lot of "bests" over the many years of gaming. As I've grown and possibly matured, what makes it a good character in my mind has changed. One of my first AD&D characters was a paladin with customized armor that made him essentially Iron Man with a +9 Holy Avenger that soloed Lolth in the Demonweb module. Yeah. DM let me do anything. And yet a few years ago, I tried to create a custom class gladiator character for a Pathfinder game and, probably because the DM let me do anything I wanted (I really did try to make it a balanced class but it didn't seem to matter when I presented it to the DM), I ended up not caring for him so much. 

 

Any more, I think what makes a character good, fun and memorable has nothing to do with the stats. Yeah, I try to make a character that works on paper, but I'm always sure to include a flaw because if there's no struggle or challenge or danger, then why play? And then there's what I like most about all my characters, including NPCs I make as a GM, - personality. I like to start with a cliche and twist it enough that it's my creation alone. I'll admit, sometimes this gets out of hand.

 

Anyone familiar with Ootak's Traveler series might remember Lord Byron. It's a character I created randomly stat-wise (Traveller character creation) but threw on an over-the-top hedonist personality. Then, the week we actually began play, I had to take a break from gaming for a while. My group, however, kept Byron on as a group-controlled (or uncontrolled) party member. His personality grew as everyone made suggestions about his behavior. Occasionally on game night, I'd send the GM a text, knowing nothing about what was going on in the adventure at that moment, about what Byron would do. "Byron looks around for something yellow to lick." "Byron hums to himself and practices a striptease." "Byron's gun is heavy with so much ammo. He fires off a few rounds in interesting directions. With the barrel now warmed, he sticks it back into his waistband and squirms a bit with pleasure." I think he's still the favorite character of mine according to everyone else in Ootak and I never played him. Maybe that should mean something to me?

Usually, though, my favorite character is the one I'm currently playing. When they stop being my favorite, I tend to start looking for another game to play. As far as worst character? That kind of thing is too easily forgotten.

[Pencil-Monkey]

(5E) Two gnomes in a coat who insist they're an orc barbarian.



Character Details
Name. Topper & Squish of the Murderdark Clan
Class & Level. Barbarian 1
Race. Gnome (forest)
Background. MURDERDARK
Alignment. Neutral Good

Ability Scores

Topper
Strength. 15 (+2)
Dexterity. 13 (+1)
Constitution. 14 (+2)
Intelligence. 10 (+0)
Wisdom. 8 (-1)
Charisma. 11 (+0)

Squish
Strength. 14 (+2)
Dexterity. 9 (-1)
Constitution. 10 (+0)
Intelligence. 15 (+2)
Wisdom. 8 (-1)
Charisma. 15 (+2)

Personalities
Personality Traits. For all intents and purposes, they will attempt their hardest to pass as an orc barbarian, performing ludicrous exaggerations of every stereotype.
Ideals. Preserve the natural order and protect the world. Bring honor to their clan. Become a great hero of legend.
Bonds. They owe their freedom and independence to a powerful orc mage who rescued them from goblins and raised them among her clan. They must deliver thank-you letters to her at least once a month.
Flaws. Everyone knows they're gnomes, but they choose instead to believe that nobody knows. They have to preserve the illusion.

Saving Throws
Strength, Constitution.
They both have proficiency, but must make all saving throws separately.

Skills
Topper is proficient in Intimidation to compensate for his inability to move around much, and because he's the "face" of the pair.
Squish is proficient in Athletics to compensate for the fact that he's gotta carry a dude around on his shoulders all the time.
They are both proficient in Acrobatics and Nature.
Skills are carried out by whichever of the two is most involved in completing that skill. Squish attempts to handle most checks, unless Topper is in a significantly better position to do so. Squish will often attempt (badly) to use ventriloquism to make it sound like Topper is talking when making a Charisma check.

Equipment

• Flail
• Handaxe x2
• Javelin x4
• Explorer's Pack
• Shield
• Robes
• Sack x4
• Disguise Kit

Proficiencies

• Light armor
• Medium armor
• Shields
• Simple weapons
• Martial weapons
• Land vehicles
• Artisan's Tools (metalworking)
• Languages: Common, Gnomish, Orc

Health

Topper
Hit Dice. 1d12 per barbarian level.
Hit Points at 1st Level. 14
Hit Points at Higher Levels. 1d12+2 (or 9) per barbarian level.

Squish
Hit Dice. Hit dice are shared with Topper.
Hit Points at 1st Level. 12
Hit Points at Higher Levels. Squish's health increases at half the rate of Topper's.

Defense
Armor Class. 15 (unarmored defense + shield)
Initiative. +1
Speed. 25 feet

Attacks
Flail. +4 to hit. 1d8+2 bludgeoning damage.
Handaxe. +4 to hit. 1d6+2 slashing damage. Range 20/60.
Javelin. +4 to hit. 1d6+2 piercing damage. Range 30/120.

Features
Darkvision. Can see in dim light 60 ft, or low light 30 ft in greyscale.
Small. Disadvantage when wielding heavy weapons.
Gnome Cunning. Advantage on Int, Wis, or Cha saving throws against magic.
Forest Gnome. Natural Illusionist & Speak with Small Beasts.
Natural Illusionist. Grants the minor illusion cantrip (Int; DC 12).
Speak with Small Beasts. Can communicate simple ideas with small animals (like squirrels).
On the Shoulders of Tiny Giants. Topper and Squish are two 3-foot gnomes in a coat pretending to be a single 6-foot orc barbarian. They have disadvantage on charisma checks that attempt to convince anyone of this fact. Seeing through their disguise requires a Wisdom (perception) check with a DC of 2, unless their disguise is magically enhanced. If Squish casts minor illusion to make Topper look like an orc, the DC to see through their disguise becomes 12. However, Squish almost always forgets to do this.
Astonishingly Knowledgeable. Despite not being able to pass for orcs, most orcs find their antics amusing and many are willing to humor them. In doing so, an orc will often be surprised at the depth and breadth of their knowledge about the customs and nuances of orc society. Topper and Squish are high-ranking members of the Murderdark Clan, a tribe both feared and respected among many orc communities.

Backstory
Topper and Squish were 3rd-generation slaves in a goblin cavern. One day, a tribe of orcs burst into the cave, slaughtered the goblins, and freed the slaves. The leader, Magda Murderdark, was impressed when Topper and Squish immediately joined in the fighting and personally ripped off the head of the goblin leader.
Magda was a half-orc mage who had united two warring clans, combining the strengths of the cunning Mur clan and the powerful Derdark clan. Under her leadership, Clan Murderdark rose to great prestige among orc society.
Topper and Squish assimilated into Murderdark and learned the ways of the barbarian. They dressed themselves up as orcs, believing that it was the only way they'd be accepted. After many years, they never realized all the other orcs were just playing along. Nobody knew know how to break the truth to them.
When Magda became plagued with visions of a terrible future for the realm, they immediately jumped on the opportunity to prove themselves. They told her they'd set off to personally defeat the evil and save the world. She said yes ... as long as they agreed to write home now and then.

 

[Twyst]

Monkey's favorite character is a necro.