I am, in the near future, going to be playing in a DnD campaign, conducted 1 on 1 over the internet. A friend of mine, whom I've mentioned a couple of times now, will be DMing, and he's managed to come up with a fairly interesting idea for the campaign.
The campaign is going to be named “Call of the Filigree Angel.” For those of you who were around during the Alara Block, Filigree Angel is a Magic: The Gathering card, and a halfway decent one at that.
Now, personally, EJ is a huge fan of the art on this card, and it is pretty breathtaking. I'm actually very tempted to make it my background for the next while. However, what strikes me even more potently is the flavor text:
“I craved enlightenment, and Crucius's etherium opened my eyes. I would share my sight with you, but first you must believe.”
EJ has explained to me that this DnD campaign will take place within the world of Magic: The Gathering. Instead of playing as a planeswalker, however, I will be a creature within the world – fighting against the players of the game. As a bard, my calling is to travel the world, explaining to the people of the various tribes that the endless summoning and brutal murders brought upon the people of the various planes by these tyrannical planeswalkers has got to go.
EJ explained that, while this campaign was designed with multiple players in mind, he was having trouble getting a full group together, so he wanted to do a dry run with me, to see how it played out, and I'm only too happy – since my only tabletop RPG outlet at the moment is running a Friday-nights group in the Dresden Files RPG. (Which is great! See all the Mastering the Game posts).
However, this is no vanilla DnD character creation. The original idea for this campaign was to pick a Magic card, and then roughly stat it out. I don't know how closely we're going to follow along with that, but nontheless, I was instructed to choose a race that exists on the cards in some form or another.
My first reaction was Elf. I've played an Elf deck since time immemorial (and may very well make a Green Elf deck for the current Type-2 scene. Depends if I can muster up the cards for it.) However, the more I think about it, the more hesitant I am about the idea. I'd almost prefer to play something on the white end of the color wheel. Perhaps the Kor, though they don't have much of a bardic tradition, and I have NO idea what they would translate into in DnD terms.
I'm going to ask EJ what the specifics are going to be regarding the Filigree Angel, because I feel like playing as an angel itself (not a particularily powerful one. Perhaps a human from a race descended from angels? Descended from refugees of Serra's Realm or something? I don't know. This will certainly be an interesting campaign to play around in – and hopefully, by the end of the week, I'll have a fully fleshed out character ready to topple the oppressive reign of the planeswalkers altogether.
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After talking with EJ for a bit, I've decided to play a Human. Specifically, one from Bant. That flows alongside the whole angelic angle that I wanted, without being game-brokenly awesome. Because of the specifically Bant flavoring, I feel like the bardic tradition wouldn't really fit as much, and so I reevaluated it and decided to go with a straight paladin. After consulting with my DM, we dropped Turn Evil from my list (why would a Bant Paladin ever learn to do this? There's no black mana!) and picked up Preform (Oration) to my class skills list.
From here, I could pretty much take off on my own. We've gotten most of the mechanical problems out of the character, and we can shoot straight into backstory, personality, and description – the real meat of the character.
For his description, I wanted him to be fairly attractive, but nondescript. As a paladin, I was fairly certain the 18 that was in my stats would be in Charisma, for obvious reasons, but I didn't want to build a meathead. Poorly played paladins are a blight on civilization everywhere, so I knew that I was going to be valuing mental stats higher than I normally would for a min-max character. (Plus, this character does need to be able to handle all the situations for a party, and being able to think enough to solve them is always appreciated. Metagaming sucks.)
Following that, I dropped Dex into the lowest spot, a 12. I didn't picture this guy being quick on his feet at all. For that matter, I didn't picture him being very strong either – so strength went into the next lowest at 14. That left wisdom, int, and constitution. The end result was that I decided that this character was a guardian and defender at heart – putting wisdom and constitution both at 16, and leaving inteligence at a 14.
In my head, this character was already shaping up. He was smarter than he was strong, and probably knew it. That said, he can hold his own in most fights. He's not ripped, but probably fairly big – I arbitrarily decide on 5'9” and 180 lbs. Given the pictures of characters from Bant that I've seen, I decide on black hair and dark eyes, with very fair skin. I'm picturing him in heavy armor – given his low dexterity – and most likely wielding a sword and shield.
After double checking with EJ, since I don't know his plans for this, I started crafting my backstory. I wasn't planning on writing a novel about him, but I at least wanted some details. I ended up deciding on one scene that would be pivotal to the character. When he was younger – not terribly long ago, but probably a year or two – he would be summoned to battle by a planeswalker. In the battle, most of his comrades would be killed by a surge of red mana, and his master would have been killed – despite his best efforts. With the planeswalker's death, he would have been dismissed from service and returned to his normal life, but the profound wrongness of the summoning-system should already be present to him.
Finally, I needed a name. I usually either choose a name first or last. Either the name inspires the character, or vice versa. In this case, I didn't take long at all. First one I wrote down was Seth Helphien. However, after looking at it, I didn't like the way that the last name looked. I switched it to Seth Helfien, and I'm pretty much satisfied with it.
At this point, all I've determined are race, class, and ability scores. I've still got loads to do on skill points, feats, spells, and magic items (since I'm starting at level 10, in accordance with EJ's wishes). Honestly though, at this point, it feels like I've done all the heavy lifting for this one. I'll finish up the sheet tomorrow, and the campaign should start soon afterwards.
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