Main Menu

Wacky and Interesting non-CD characters

Started by Yaldabaoth, Jun 03, 2015, 01:52 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Yaldabaoth

Here is a place to talk about your interesting characters from other servers, tabletop RPGs, MUDs, chatroom/forum RPs, etc.  I'll get the ball rolling.

My most recent character is in a friend's Gamma World game.  His name is Andrei-C9 (Soyuz 9), a Soviet built android from before the war that destroyed much of the known world.  With the war, he was rendered non-functional for centuries, until he was unearthed from the wastes by a mechanic named Leonard.  Leonard was unable to restore most of Andrei's memories, however, so the android's memories are very patchwork.  Andrei recalls that a core piece of his programming was to pass off as an American, and being in a world with only dim memories of the America that was, has gone very over the top in expressing his 'American-ness' from the scraps that he can find.  Currently, he is hunkered down in what used to be an office space rented out by Rand Paul campaigners, and the surviving literature has lead Andrei to believe that Rand Paul must have been a major American hero in ages past.  Finding bits and pieces that reference the Tea Party, he has chosen to carry around a teacup, which he fills with various liquids of unknown provenance, as "all real Americans are in a tea party".  

This is the picture I used for him.  

suddenperihelion

For a World of Darkness (Hunters) game, courtesy of my friend Banite:

Howell doesn't speak much of his past – apparently
still concerned that his new line of work
might come to haunt his kin; The reptilians
have spies everywhere, after all.

Yes, the reptilians; You've heard of them, the
quiet masters of our world, ruling us, feed-
-ing off us, keeing good men and women too
poor, too entertained, to stop them. The last
three american presidents? Reptilians. The
Queen? Reptilian. Everyone knows Diana was
actually murdered because she learned the
-real- secret of the royal family, God have
mercy on her soul. Howell was enlightened
to the presence of these soul sucking dinobeasts years ago, after a brief stint in the
army, followed up by three years of operat-
-ing his own still, he caught a late night
show documentary discussing the world-wide
conspiracy – he was hooked. What? Of course
he used to test his own product, in the hill
country, thats called quality control.

Truth is, at points, Howell might have felt
some doubt, he wouldn't admit it now, besides
it was probably just something the reptiles
stuck in the water supply to keep the mass
of humanity docile, but all that doubt had
vanished in an instant when he was taking
a piss, drunk, outside his favorite pub and
he saw an out-of-towner, well dressed, with
an accent that screamed big city, big trust
fund, groping one of the local girls in the
same alley – he wasn't her first date of the
night, probably not her last, so he paid no
mind; At least until he saw the blood dripp-
-ing from her throat, saw the 'man's' fangs
glint in the light of the moon, then, then
the voice "IT FEARS THE LIGHT" echoed in his
head – the mystery of the voice, was pushed
aside as Howell looked about him in a desp-
-eration, finding no flashlight he revealed
another weakness of the reptilians in the
dark of that night. Apparently, a brick to
the back of the head hurts them too.

While the creature hissed and fled into the
shadows, Howell knew his war had just star-
-ted; Days spent online, frantically search-
-ing for any more information on reptilian
attacks, scouring chatrooms for those aware
of the threat, revealed nothing. At least, so
he thought until a pair of gentlemen from
the 'Society of Leopold' met him at his shack
in the wilds – Vampires, wolfmen, and ghosts
all existed, were all threats to man, so the
men said, our ancestors had even tried war-
-ning us through their myths; Fucking mad,
thought Howell, but he can play along – any
allies in the war against reptilians might
be needed.

FLAWS

Tic/Twitch – Rating 1
Mumbler
When deep in thought, when distracted, when frustr-
-ated, sometimes even while sleeping, Howell has the
habit of talking to himself quietly.

Vengeful – Rating 2
Shotgun Solution
Theres no middle ground with the Reptilians, for all
their crimes against mankind, they've got to go. And
Howell's more than happy to usher them into the aft-
-erlife, personally. To the chagrin of vampires, Howell
thinks they, in particular, are the Reptilians in cunning
disguise.

Unconvinced - Rating 1
Vampires? Ghosts? Are you Retarded?
Howell might work with the Society, and the Society
may tolerate him, a trading of talents in fighting the
shared enemies of mankind; However, both recognize
the supernatural threat as entirely different things, a
matter that causes any number of horrifying miscom-
-munications between the two.

ladybug

I've only been gaming a short while, so I've really only got one, but...

Let me tell you about a little bundle of crazy called Elegy. The following statements are entirely true and none of them intentional:

Divine caster who doesn't worship her patron
Social juggernaut with little to no interpersonal skills
Lawful Good mad scientist
Quasi-immortal queen of a country with no political background or training
Hates politics, prefers calculus
Oh, and she broke magic entirely.


Elegy is an oracle of the Queen of the Winter Court despite being a lifelong devotee of the setting's resident God of Knowledge. Hell, she never even wanted to be a priest at all - she wanted to be a wizard. Didn't work out. She ends up on an expedition to colonize the wilds because of her minor nobility - the nobility made it a legitimate venture, and the minor meant the group was expendable just in case. Being a combat-untrained-barely-past-being-a-kid, not so big on fighting. Rolled diplomacy on everything. No, seriously, everything - the party hired a worg at one point. Very quickly discovered that she was better at playing to a crowd than an individual because of an utter lack of actual interaction with normal people.

Gets killed at one point to spite her patron who decides "Yeah let's not do this again, Imma rig your reincarnate to get the longest-lived mortal race on the setting's chart, see you in a millennia or two." Is now  the ruler of a colonycountry (almost forgot about "Roll diplomacy since you just freaking asked for indepen...how did you roll that high") and has to be frequently pulled out of her lab for her actual job because she somehow got it in her head that people thought the fey source of her powers might be taking a toll on her mental health..."See, a crazy person wouldn't have the focus to build an army of constructs!" "Uhhh you keep thinking that, hon." She is completely immune to antimagic fields, disjunction, and dispels due to flavor choices in class abilities intersecting horribly well with mechanics introduced about midway through the campaign.
SDM Sto Helit

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. - C. S. Lewis

Edge

Let Me Tell You About Kingmaker.

I'm the GM for Lady's game; the other players are Bella, her husband, and three players (one who has since dropped from the game) not on these forums.

I'll leave Bella to talk about Lilith and Takeshi if she likes, but I'll go into short detail on the rest of the party.

Errol is the party's resident arcanist, a Chaotic Evil Warmage. He's a pyromaniac, a sociopath, and utterly otherwise apathetic about anything that doesn't involve magic, scholarship, knowledge, or burning things he doesn't like... except his beloved wife (herself a Lawful Neutral Witch, with a bit of a bizarre curse effect on her that causes her to see potential futures over people she encounters) and his newborn daughter, who he absolutely adores. The party regularly laments that despite his murderous behavior and moral disaster of a behavior pattern, Errol is in many ways the most "normal" of the party - he has a steady job outside adventuring and his part in running the kingdom (in addition to being Magister, he is a teacher at several magical academies in the country) and has the most stable home and family life. Errol started the game as an amnesiac half-elf (later learned that he traded his memories for his weapon and escape from being trapped in the fey realm) but was later reincarnated into a low-ranking fey race. He possesses an intelligent sword named Red Right Hand who shares his Chaotic Evil alignment, was created by the Summer Court of the fey for the purposes of destroying a certain other weapon, and has a bloodlust that even sometimes makes Errol hesitate.

Jaekah the True Neutral Cavalier was the former member of the party who has now stepped down from PC-dom, as his player has left the game and ICly he's left the adventuring business to focus fully on his duties as kingdom General. Born a runty Centaur, Jaekah was the first PC to die and play the reincarnate roulette that my campaign seemed to run on in the middle levels; he got an extremely, extremely lucky roll and came back as a juvenile Magma Dragon. By extension, he's also gotten mixed up with Eranex, a Silver Dragon who is an ally of the party acquired for the purposes of dealing with something called the Long Game - a continent-scale game of chess between the various elder dragons residing in the wilderness north and west of the colonial kingdoms the campaign is centered around. Eranex has been teaching him the basics of being a dragon as well as how to play the Long Game in between his General duties now that he's no longer regularly traveling with the party.

Lastly is Derrick, the newest character to join the party, brought by a new player who joined a little after Jaekah's player left. Derrick is a quasi-immortal Lawful Neutral Fetchling Warder (a class from the Path of War book, a Pathfinder rebirth of the concepts found in 3.5's Book of Nine Swords) who is still in the "What the hell are you people on" phase of getting used to Iomrall's weirdness. Derrick has some bad blood with an Infernal organization he used to be a member of; his last mission, the one that was supposed to be his ticket out, ended up being a suicide operation where he was sent singlehandedly to deal with an ancient mythic vampire sorcerer, a task he only completed successfully due to meeting up with and joining forces with Elegy, Lilith, and Takeshi, who were there to deal with said vampire for their own reasons (long story that Bella can tell if she wants). He's since joined the party, has been hired by the kingdom as an apprentice Treasurer, and is still somewhat boggled at the antics the team gets themselves into, especially with the fey courts. (He got himself heavily indebted to Puck very quickly after joining the game due to not understanding how fey work.) Might be a bit on the gullible side. Has recently heard of the local Long Game terror, an ancient blue dragon, and wants nothing more than to go fight the thing, much to the worry of the rest of the party. He's also the only teammate who hasn't played reincarnate roulette... yet.
Kestal | Eden | Azalaïs "Edge" | Bernadette | Tonya | Lenora | Vaszayne | Koravia | Alastriona | Piritya | Rauvaliir | Natascha | Emari | Urilias-Zhjaeve | Tatya | Dioufn | Aida | Cyrillia | Megan | etc.
DM Tiamat | Szuriel | Maedhbh | Cassilda


Atomic Twinkie

Let me tell you about my thing


So, I DM a tabletop campaign (which Jackal is part of) and let me tell you, it is just a barrel of laughs and me going "wh- n- stop that!". Let's start with characters!

The Elf:
She has no idea what's going on 80% of the time, she's a bard and most of what she does is play music when she's frightened, make money, play music when she's not frigthened, and have no idea about anything that goes on because 1) the player has little knowledge, and 2) the character doesn't have the skills to do anything but lute hardcore and do interpretive dance. She's supposed to be a serious character, but it's rather amusing when she just goes "I just don't get it" and then decides to go with the party, acting as a walking talking pew pew machine. The player has made quite the good DM, though, so kudos to her for that.

Tiefling 1:
He's a Noble, and a Fighter. These are his two main features. Also, he's a kleptomaniac (essentially). So this guy comes from a family of tieflings that have managed to make a name for themselves and become rich enough to be able to have some standing, they're not exactly high standing nobles, but they have some standing and the money and killing ability to back it up. They are all back-stabbing, and trying to get at each other's money and rights, but they also don't want to get caught because they don't want to lose their status as nobles. Then there's this guy. He goes out to adventure, first 'quest' they embark on is pretty simple, go into a crypty crypt, see what's going on, fight some basic skellingtons. He decides to rob every crypt he can, despite the Gold Dragonborn Paladin that's Right there. His primary actions are stealing and "I hit it with my greatsword".

Tiefling 2:
A monk that follows a sect of monks that are essentially ninja. They do stuff, have little moral qualms, they're kind of awesome like that - I won't go into too much detail about that since it's sort of a secret (DAN). Her primary actions seem to consist of "I'm gonna go take a nap", "I'm gonna walk around for a bit" and "I'm gonna hit that guy". Oh, also, she likes to hug things. Anything. I shit you not she went up to a Naga and just hugged it, just stood there for a while and hugged the damn thing - this is before they knew the Naga wasn't trying to terribly eat their faces. She gave not a single fuck, and never does. I'm not sure whether it's confusion or lack of caring any more. Oh, also, she decided after fighting a displacer beast that she wanted to fuck with her enemies by cutting off it's tentacles and using them as whips, after which she hid the tentacles and befriended a displacer beast by offering to free it and let it hunt and play with her enemies, and the enemies of the party. They just kind of let it go, and let it do it's thing. I'm not yet sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It has started eating people though.

Dragonborn 1: This one's a Paladin
So, this is a Gold Dragonborn Paladin that hates the fact that she has to be somewhat honourable, and that she has to put up with a bunch of peple that don't give a fuck about what she needs to do, just wants to live her life but because of her vows she's not allowed to, and it's making her tired and she doesn't want to do it any more - also, she'll hit you in the face. There's nothing dishonourable about punching someone in the face, as long as it's not a sucker punch, right? After all, they're armed with hands! And she has knocked the party out before, at least a few of them, the main redeeming feature being when the only human in the party died and she gave him a proper burial (after the others in the party looted his corpse without her knowledge).

The human: He's dead. Spoiler.
The one and only human in the party. The vanilla in a sea of manilla, or something like that. He was really good (at being awful). He was literally robbed by a bird, because it told a barkeeper that he wanted a ton of booze, which was used for things. That comes later. He was bumbling, annoyed, and tended to be always in the wrong place at a time, whether it's the wrong or right time is up for debate. Also, he tried to build a flamethrower that was powered by alcohol, he managed to make it not explode the first time he used it, but it did kind of just click - oh and it's original purpose was to burn down a forest. It tried to be used on a druid to burn her alive. He's meant to be chaotic good. He died because he said Shar's name. I let the session end before he got dead. Jackal played this character.

The bird: Please god, no. It knows everything.
So, this was never meant to be a character. I said the player could have it just so that they could participate, but then I had an idea and I couldn't help myself and now it's a crow that's a sorceror that was made one by Wild Magic and has become awakened. It speaks Illuskan and Animal. There was -one- person who could speak Illuskan and he's dead now, so the bird has started communicating like the Dabus does, by projecting images that are meant to be interpreted by the party. Because of how Wild Magic casting functions, it managed to accidentally turn herself, or himself, blue. Since it's also been imbued with magic, it has blue runes that glow. It's a lot of blue right now, and will remain that way until a remove curse is cast on it. It managed to steal from the deceased man, by telling a barkeep that he ordered it, and being that it's all glowy it was put down to "Weird fucking adventurers" and the booze was ordered. This booze was used to set hte forest on fire. Oh, also, it gets bored if there's not a lot of killing and/or robbing. It once spent literal -days- cleaning blood out of a large patch of soil, one cube at a time. Oh, also, she stole from the human when he died. Oh, did I forget to mention, the bird almost always gets a nat 20 on checks involving knowing things?

Dragonborn 2:
Also a fighter, but she's far less present than a lot of the others. She's actually pretty smart, all things considered, bought a pony - gave it a ridiculous name. Does a lot of hitting but is otherwise actually pretty normal, gets into a lot of fights and is generally alright. There's little to say here really, but nobody knows why the hell she puts up with this party, I think it's because they make money and get shit done - even if it does involved burning down forests, shacks, pretty much anything. She has a lot of arguements over what's the smart thing to do and usually ends up with "Fine, fuck it, let's just do it your way then" and putting herself in a position where it'll have less blowback on her. A lot more rounded than the player's other character. Dear god, is it ever. But that's a different campaign.

The wizard: of unremembered race.
The character Jackal rolled up to replace the dead human. He's very new, hasn't done a whole lot except complain. He does complain a lot, and also call people idiots, and struggle to explain things to peasant minded foolish fools. He was found chained up and has something that could potentially end the world. It's all very thrilling stuff.

There's a ton of stuff to be said for the actual campaign... and then the other campaign I'm in. I'll save that for another time, maybe.

valiea987

Some funny characters I've run into... Sadly, I can't remember the names, and it is possible some of these are based off of stories, but I've seen someone play each of these myself:

A True Neutral Necromancer in an all evil game. As the party set about destroying itself, as evil campaigns often do without some cohesiveness to keep it together other than the scheming of evil characters, the True Neutral Necromancer remained on the sidelines, letting everyone do their thing. Once everyone had fought, the Necromancer raised the remains of the others to kill the last. He looted all their bodies, and then moved far out into the countryside. There, he bought a large plot of land. He set up Do Not Trespass signs all around his land, and set about farming. Skeletons would do the field work, and the packaging, while zombies who have flesh that could fall off, were only allowed to handle already sealed foods to load them into caravans. Anyone who trespassed onto his land was killed, and turned into more labor. He became a lich, and spent the rest of his days in a top hat, nice black and white suit, sipping tea around a table as he provided food to thousands, became rich, and killed literally anyone who trespassed on his land.

The "Components" Necromancer. Relatively simple character. This necromancer views every person as nothing more than their components. The fighter is up in combat, and the necromancer is in the back by the cleric. "Look, sure, you could heal him... But why? Think of how much stronger he would be if he was undead. Just let him die, I'll bring him back, and we'll have someone so much better. Plus, you wont be using your god's power recklessly. Everyone wins!"

The Business Savvy Cleric. Another fun little character idea: A cleric who has an eye for business sense. "Oh, you needed a heal? Sorry, material components cost something. I'm going to need about 10 gold to cast that spell on you. No? Well, okay. That's a shame." This cleric would not heal anyone unless paid. If someone wanted to be healed now and paid later, the cleric would disappear to go do a background search for a credit check.

Deleted

Never kiss the Trickster.

So.  I'll introduce Lilith, whose story ended up far more complex than initially planned.  Lilith began the campaign as a dhampir hunter (Pathfinder 3rd party class that combined rogue/ranger into a sniper).  Midway through one of the chapters, the party met Puck.  Yes, THE PUCK.  Puck offered them all one wish/favor in exchange for the amusement and aid they had provided him.  Lilith, who hated her sire/father who she had served for 100-ish years, made the silent wish for her sire and bloodline to have no more hold on her.

Puck kissed her.

Two days later, she's the first of a new fey race (Leanaí-dubh, a tree/fey hybrid race) and pissed that the Trickster stole her first kiss.  A few days after that, she starts dropping seeds everywhere and they figure out that she's about to become a mom in a big way.  (At current point in the campain, she has 70 or so kids.)

Lilith single-handedly has demoralized TWO invading armies, effectively taking them out of the picture and nullifying their plans.  The first army came from the then-colony's patron, under the misguided belief that the original founders were all dead and replaced with imposters.  Lilith gathered up her own small army of tiny fey pranksters, intercepted the army, and told them "Have fun."  They infiltrated the camp, and then set about making sure that this army (and any who heard the story) would understand that invading Iomrall would be more trouble than it was worth.  Food went bad.  Weapons rusted, or became pitted and useless.  Tents collapsed.  Random campfires started catching bedrolls/tents/everything in reach on fire.  Latrines ... uhm... became the least safe place to be.  As the poor, haggard, frazzled army marched toward the first fort/outpost, the tiny fey and Lilith set tripwires and other such traps along the way.  They fell like dominoes.

Nobody's mentioned invading Iomrall since.

Lilith turned a skyscraper-sized owlbear into a gigantic tree, which she then claimed as her demesne, using an Improbability Elixer (think rod of wonder on steroids).

She eliminated a mythic epic vampire lord in two shots.  (DM was silly and gave her an undead-killing artifact bow.)  Did I mention she REALLY didn't like her sire?

Lilith is learning fey court customs (as she's now a fey firstborn/noble) from all three courts (Summer, Winter, and Wild).  She negotiated to keep her children wild, while swearing fealty to Titania NOT the Summer Court.  She's earned the respect of Titania, Mab, and Cernunnos (aka Lord of the Wild).

Oh, and she recently agreed to be courted by the Trickster that started the whole mess.  So far, the courtship isn't going well... he inadvertently subjected her to wild magic that forced her to relive one of her worst fears (burning alive).

thorien

Alright... I'll need to brainstorm with few friends to get some details, but for now:
Post apocalyptic (Neuroshima setting)
Charlie: Short (5 feet plus boonie hat), old asian man, with huge backpack and even larger case (Almost as tall as himself). Salty, polite and quiet man, who was the scout sniper of the party (They were hunting down rogue robots). His case would contain Barrett M82 rifle ( For ones who have no idea, it's huge, badass sniper rifle that weights over 30 lbs and can be used to take down choppers and light armored vehicles.), his only true love. The thing is, he never missed. Never. Literally. It was the first time in my life, when on d10 I saw... 87 (rolling 10 gives you reroll, and adds 10 to the score, it will work again and again untill you will roll something that's not 10). So, little man with huge rifle saved the party in virtually any combat, when others got their guns jammed, clubs broken etc. The funniest thing was, that the character was created by using random tables and then randomly assigned.

Cpt. Angelina "The Fear" - Actually a neat char, but the nickname itself was a pun - she had her hearing badly damaged. 

Kangaroo: Well... Kangaroo... He was Gork's character. Typical caucasian male, typical height and weight... Waaait... He was just right there... And... What the hell is this dune doing in the middle of the highway?

Kangaroo was a master of camouflage. He wore a cloak with dozens of small and large pouches, pockets, bags inside. Total packmule, who'd take -all- he found to "use it later". He was also a nice cook... As long as you had no problem with eating anything he found in his pockets, or... One of your former companions. He was seemingly peaceful and most of the time he spent slumbering, covered with his cloak. Well, one of the party members annoyed him eventually, trying to "steal" one of the Kangaroo's belongings (Some kind of cog or other technical component). The last thing he saw was the barrel of sawn off grenade launcher loaded with buckshot, exserting from the "dune". Fancy.

tarriel

I have a couple, but for everyone's sake I'll keep it to one for now:

Shas'Vre Tessen


Name: Tessen
Race: Tau (Vior'la)
Height: 6'2''
Weight: 190lbs

Stat Block:

Strength: 11
Agility (DEX basically): 15
Toughness (CON): 15
Intellect: 12
Logic (WIS): 10
Adaptability (Governs Stat, Skill gain and resistances): 13
Focus (Governs Aiming): 27 


Current Racial feats:
Standoff (Melee combat is considered primitive and savage by Tau, you have disadvantage on all Melee rolls)
Deadeye (once per day/rest, can reroll any ranged attack, the highest dice is taken)
The Greater Good (Advantage on all rolls in the presence of an Etherial)
Technical (Any equipment marked "Tau Empire" or "Simple" can be used, with proficiency bonus if applicable)


Future fun racial feats:
Level 8: Snap Shot (The Tau can make a ranged attack of opportunity against any target in range that is Reloading, Channeling, Casting or using the Disengage action [Limit once per turn])
Level 12: TacScan ([Must have minimum one piece of equipment with the "Scanner" type] Choose a single enemy target. You may ignore 5 points of the targets Armor Reduction (basically DR) on your next successful hit)
Level 15: Battlesuit Piloting (Can pilot any Tau Battlesuit, from the lowly XV25 stealth rig, to the titanic XV-104 Riptide Assault Battlesuit)
Level 18: Rail Shot (If the Tau lands a successful critical hit, he may repeat the critical hit against any valid enemy in range as a bonus action)
Level 20: Eliminator (The Tau can no longer miss his first ranged attack during a round. If a 1 is rolled, it is treated as a 20, 20's rolled this way do not activate Rail Shot and this feat can not be used in melee)


Tessen is an exiled Tau Fire Warrior, who awoke on a prison barge after a mercenary job went wrong. He awoke next to a Eldar Witch (Yraaanna), Ork (Captain Smashface), Human (Darius Dellit), Space Marine (Tyvos Thurne) and a Dark Eldar (Howt'Eec [or something like that]).

So far, the group have fought their way out of the brig, onto the bridge, crashed the prison barge into a prison planet (Not out.... brightest moment) and taken refuge in the slums around the Prison Complex. They've decided, to work together, so they can get as far away from each other as possible in future, (They are NOT friends) after they figure out who placed them onto the prison barge, and why.

Equipment: has, so far, been hilariously sparse. Tessen is using an ancient human Autorifle (basically an M16 but covered in "Blessings of the Machine God".... nutjobs), with half a pair of binoculars taped to it, as a rudimentary scope. 

Old Tau Armor: AC 5, AR 2, Agility bonus max 5. +1 to all ranged attack rolls. Tau only.
Autorifle: 2d6 Kinetic, 20 to crit, x3. Scope gives advantage on medium-long range shots. 20 Rounds to a magazine, 3 rounds per attack. .338 Aredin Pattern rounds.
Emergency Pistol: 1d4 Kinetic, 19-20 crit, x2. 8 rounds to a magaizne. 1 rounds per attack. .45 Gerys Pattern rounds.
Bonding Knife: 1d2 Physical, 19-29 crit, x3.

The Ork, however, has enough equipment to run an army. Why? Becuase he has an Ork racial feat called: "Coz it does." What does that mean? It means that when he rolls a salvage, repair, jury rig or craft attempt, he CAN NOT FAIL. He made a bomb from the contents of a janitor cupboard. I shit thee not. 

So far, he's turned out a fun, if grumpy character to play, and it's generally hilarious to watch the most dysfunctional group of characters get away with the most ridiculous ideas. 




Voice of Kerensky

Wacky character, you say?

I give you Baloo Balao, my pen and paper anthropomorphic baleen whale bard. (I swear this a real thing... Savage Species, guys. The sourcebook that quite literally jumped the shark).

Baloo sez, "Sup?"




He's named after Baloo (the sleepy bear from the Jungle Book) and the US Navy submarine class Balao. I thought both of them had a rather "whalish" sound to them, and the idea of combining a wise anthropomorphic bear with a submarine seemed to fit the character).

In a nutshell, the template is absolutely retarded, but I sold my DM on it for the hilarity factor. For 3 Monstrous HD (no ECL! Just 3 class levels sacrificed to hit die!), he gets +8 str, +4 dex, +4 con and +4 wis. He also gets +9 natural AC, can take 10 on all swim checks, and is large size. And the monstrous HD levels give full BAB and strong fort/ref, so they aren't horrible either.

We did stat buy, so the starting stats were:

STR 22
Dex 16
Con 18
Wis 12
Int 14
Cha 15

Baloo is something of a gentle giant, as I imagine most whales to be relatively docile, peaceful creatures (even if that isn't necessarily the case in nature). In fact, he's quite sharp--as reflected by his above average int, wis, and cha, he's got a strong personality that is charming and clever. He dresses quite sharply as well; his preferred clothing (when not in armor) is a fancy suit and a top hat.

There is a difficulty he has, however--while Baloo speaks aquan, gnomish (more on that in a moment), and draconic, he doesn't speak common at all. When Baloo first came to land, he found himself in gnomish lands, working with a gnomish mentor who became his friend. As such, the next language he picked up was gnomish. The gnome was a wizard, and possessing some natural magical talent himself, he easily became fluent in draconic.

Said gnome, a member of the party, is an inventor and travels constantly with Baloo. He typically rides Baloo's head, usually tucked away under his top hat, which has been magically modified by the gnome to house a comfortable little pocket plane to stay in while traveling. This adds an amusing factor to Baloo's battle tactics, as while foes certainly expect the large whale with a sword to charge at them and cause mayhem, few expect a gnomish wizard to pop out of his hat, flinging spells.

Baloo's "whale song" is certainly the stuff of legends. While he can somehow manage to make his songs sound inspirational and happy, his sad songs are truly sad, feeling the hearts of even the stoutest men with sorrow and regret. The song is said to carry for miles, and many miles more under the water. This has got him booted out of town on more than one occasion whilst tavern singing; the locals did not appreciate hearing whale song in the entire neighborhood in the wee hours of the night.

Truly, Baloo is a force to behold. I'm glad the DM allowed him; it was a very story-driven campaign and though some of the benefits of his ridiculous template did come into play at times, we made sure the situations were likely to inspire hilarity.

Favorite moments:

Obviously, we used cliches and whale jokes and references all the time. Some of the best:

At the beginning of a fight, a party member yells "Release the kraken!" After the gnome explains it and the whale charges ahead, the whale spends the entire fight lecturing his party members about how whales and krakens are members of entirely different species of different intelligence levels, and that saying "release the kraken" for him would be like releasing a wave of cockroaches when someone yells "release the hounds."

The gnome explained to the others that part of the reason he tolerates the rather oceanish smell of the whale is that he's convinced that at some point in the future, a large farspawn entity will invade Toril, ionizing the atmosphere, and that only whales will be able to communicate with it. Naturally, and as with most gnomes, he was viewed as a little "out there".