New Year, New Me – Day 1

Back in November I saw this 31 Day Character challenge posted on Facebook – the idea is that you create a character that you would like to play each day in a month. Several people decided that they were going to attempt the challenge in December, but given that the holidays are a busy, stressful time anyway coupled with the fact that we were operating on a skeleton crew at my second job… well I decided not to add any unnecessary stress to my plate.

However, I really liked the idea of the challenge and wanted to take a stab at it. Given that the new year is often a time of reinvention for many, I decided to take this challenge in the month of January – New Year, New Me.

Instead of providing full character sheets, I’ll be providing more of a “capsule overview” of these characters including their name, what system they’re built for and any relevant build information (such as race and ancestry for something like Dungeons and Dragons), and a brief background as far as it’s relevant to playing the character.

Falnor – Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – Half-Elf Bard (College of Glamour)/Warlock (Archfey Patron)

Falnor was a struggling performer. Born into a life of poverty, he tried his whole life to rise above it, but his ability was… mediocre at best. Desperately in debt, he was always one failed performance or bad payment away from losing everything. One night after a particularly bad show where no one showed up, he was attempted to drown his sorrows in cheap whiskey, spending his last coppers attempting to escape reality. A woman asked him what he was drinking – he didn’t remember her walking in and sitting down next to him, but there she was. She was very well dressed and stunningly beautiful. Falnor stammered out whiskey and the woman ordered two glasses of the bar’s finest. As the drinks were poured, she turned to look at Falnor. She was intoxicating – her perfume of jasmine and lilac put his head deeper into the fog that the whiskey started. She spoke of many things, but the only thing that Falnor remembered was “Take my hand, and I will help you attain what you want.”

He awoke the next morning in his apartment. She wasn’t there, but the jasmine and lilac scent clung heavily to the bedsheets. As he stirred, he heard her voice, spoken directly into his mind. “The contract is signed with your seed. Enjoy these gifts… my husband.” Falnor felt a new power swell within him, like a previously empty reservoir filling with liquid.

The woman was in fact a Fey Lady, and when Falnor “took her hand” at the bar, he also took her hand in marriage. But the power of the fey was now his to use to escape his life. He commanded an unearthly presence which he could use to enrapture his audience, and he quickly began to grow in fame. The coin started to come in from bigger and bigger performances and his debts began to be paid down. He has not seen his lady wife since that day and she has made no further demands of him, but every so often he catches the scent of jasmine and lilac and senses that she is near, watching him, and so does his absolute best to remain faithful to the idea of a marriage lest he anger his patroness and lose everything again. Of course, he has no idea what that could mean to the fey. Time will tell if he’s correct or if there’s more to his fate.

This multi-class combination might not be the most potent, but the synergy between the College of Glamour Bard and the Archfey Warlock is simply too much fun to pass up. I saw the basic idea mentioned by a friend as a “Robert Johnson”-esque performer who sold his soul to the devil for musical ability and twisted the concept as I zeroed in on these two archetypes.