D&D 5E Give me your craziest, most GONZO PC concepts!

[Lanefan]

I've wanted to make a dwarven bard named Dio Rockmaker. He would naturally play traditional dwarven metal music.

Different name, but a long time ago I actually rolled up and played this guy!

His instruments were drums, voice and "guitar" (lute with some distortion-generating enhancements), and everything was played/sung at an ear-splitting volume...much to the dismay of the party's stealthies. The voice *was* based on Dio; the guitar on Blackmore.

A write-up I just found about him:

If Bards ever had an equivalent to the band Spinal Tap, Bofur was it. His undeclared mission in life was to noisily destroy as many eardrums as he possibly could; some less-than-kind critics on hearing his music suggested he had started with his own. His Bardic songs echoed through the dungeon halls (and constantly threatened to bring the roof down); that said, he always sounded great from about ¼ mile away! His main claim to fame, other than his booming voice, magically-amplified lute, and ever-present drum kit, was that he managed to finish his first adventure at a time when other recruits were dropping like flies.

His act wore thin pretty quick and I retired him after his first adventure...but oh, what fun while it lasted!

Lan-"ah, Bofur, we hardly knew ye"-efan

 

[Wednesday Boy]

My new-to-roleplaying friend in college wanted to try his hand at GMing D&D 3.x. I guess the thrill of being the GM went to his head because he forewarned us that he would kill at least one character each session. Our characters' short life expectancy sapped our investment in serious characters so my friend and I made a goofy duo. He made your standard knight in shining armor and I made a dwarven monk who carried him around as his steed. The dwarven monk actually gelled pretty well. Dwarves are slower than a horse but the monk speed increases would make up for that. Dwarves don't suffer speed penalties from carrying heavy loads. And as a monk the dwarf could still make unarmed attacks while carrying the knight. We joked about how the dwarf's beard could be braided into reins and since the knight had Mounted Combat, he could make the dwarf dodge attacks with a Ride check. Unfortunately the GM lost his interest in the game so we never actually got to see those two in action.

In a WEG Star Wars game I jokingly made a columi seductress because their stats are perfect for one. But the GM wouldn't hear of it, even as a joke.

 

[Beleriphon]

I still like Corman the Librarian. Basically a single class barbarian, but with a moderate intelligence and the Sage background. Basically he's a guy that loves books, and hulks out when people assume that because he's physically active that he must be stupid. His favourite thing to shout is "I'm a librarian, not a barbarian dammit!"

 

[Ganymede81]

When will the winner be announced?

 

[Fractal Rabbit]

Well, I wasn't originally going to anoint a winner. But if you were to ask me which one I'm most tempted to roll up for the next campaign, I'd have to say it's a tie between:

-The Dwarf Heavy Metal Bard: I'd name him Ben Danzig!

And

-The Pterodactyl Riding Halfling: I'd name him Otto Von Brickoven!

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

The most gonzo?

The Devil Toaster of Milwaukee.

Remember that experiment from the Ghostbusters movies, where they made a toaster dance by pouring that slime in it and playing music? The party tried it with ectoplasm in a toaster in a GURPS game. As soon as they plugged it in and pulled down on the plunger, the magic happened. The ectoplasm merged with the toaster and brought it to life.

The player characters figured out there was something odd when the toaster started emitting dubstep. The players figured out they screwed up when they failed their save against the charm effect. The player characters caught up with the players when the toaster started launching fireballs from the toast slots (basically, burning slices of toast that exploded).

One city fire and a lot of terse negotiation later and the toaster joined the party.

I played a haunted toaster bard who specialized in dubstep and fire magic that burned down Milwaukee.

 

[Ancalagon]

This was for a HERO game (similar to Gurps), of the "urban arcana" type.

The character was someone who used to work for some kind of "keeping the crazy cultists down" semi secret semi gov agency. He knew a few basic spells and was fairly knowledgeable about dimensional portals; but his shtick was an old revolver with magic dispelling bullets, very useful to pierce magical defenses. So he and a few others of the agency go against a mad sorcerer opening a portal to the Far Realm (tentacles etc) in abandoned tunnels under London. Things go horribly wrong - most of the team gets killed, and his arms gets chopped off. *But* he does nail the sorcerer with his gun, killing him.

Loosing a lot of blood and in shock, he uses the shrinking *portal* to staunch the bleeding. This saves his life, BUT his blood seals the portal slightly open!

Meanwhile, in the Far Realm, a tentacular Entity of middling power had poked its tentacles through the portal (as they are wont to do), but yanked them back as the portal started collapsing... but too slowly. Had the portal collapsed fully it would have loss a few tentacles (they grow back) but now its stuck!

The character runs screaming into the tunnels, tentacles flailing, sticking out of his right shoulder.

After a few years of madness eating rats in the tunnels, the character slowly returned to a semblance of sanity as his psyche and that of the Entity made peace with each other. They share senses and their minds partially entwine.

The character forges a hollow arm of enchanted brass to replace his loss arm and hide his portal-bearing shoulder. The tentacles hide inside the arm and operate it. He returns to his agency, and becomes infamous: the brass-armed, mad-eyed mage hunter, with the rune-covered Webley that breaks spells and far too much knowledge of the Far Realms. Sometimes he grows distracted (The Entity sometimes has to attend meetings of the Retroactive Committee to Adjust the Value of Pi or some other mind blasting endeavors), but the agency knows it can count on him to laugh at any eldritch threat and put it down.

 

[MarkB]

My new-to-roleplaying friend in college wanted to try his hand at GMing D&D 3.x. I guess the thrill of being the GM went to his head because he forewarned us that he would kill at least one character each session. Our characters' short life expectancy sapped our investment in serious characters so my friend and I made a goofy duo. He made your standard knight in shining armor and I made a dwarven monk who carried him around as his steed. The dwarven monk actually gelled pretty well. Dwarves are slower than a horse but the monk would make up for that. Dwarves don't suffer speed penalties from carrying heavy loads. And as a monk the dwarf could still make unarmed attacks while carrying the knight. We joked about how the dwarf's beard could be braided into reins and since the knight had Mounted Combat, he could make the dwarf dodge attacks with a Ride check. Unfortunately the GM lost his interest in the game so we never actually got to see those two in action.

Please tell me that coconut halves were involved.

 

[Fractal Rabbit]

This was for a HERO game (similar to Gurps), of the "urban arcana" type.

The character was someone who used to work for some kind of "keeping the crazy cultists down" semi secret semi gov agency. He knew a few basic spells and was fairly knowledgeable about dimensional portals; but his shtick was an old revolver with magic dispelling bullets, very useful to pierce magical defenses. So he and a few others of the agency go against a mad sorcerer opening a portal to the Far Realm (tentacles etc) in abandoned tunnels under London. Things go horribly wrong - most of the team gets killed, and his arms gets chopped off. *But* he does nail the sorcerer with his gun, killing him.

Loosing a lot of blood and in shock, he uses the shrinking *portal* to staunch the bleeding. This saves his life, BUT his blood seals the portal slightly open!

Meanwhile, in the Far Realm, a tentacular Entity of middling power had poked its tentacles through the portal (as they are wont to do), but yanked them back as the portal started collapsing... but too slowly. Had the portal collapsed fully it would have loss a few tentacles (they grow back) but now its stuck!

The character runs screaming into the tunnels, tentacles flailing, sticking out of his right shoulder.

After a few years of madness eating rats in the tunnels, the character slowly returned to a semblance of sanity as his psyche and that of the Entity made peace with each other. They share senses and their minds partially entwine.

The character forges a hollow arm of enchanted brass to replace his loss arm and hide his portal-bearing shoulder. The tentacles hide inside the arm and operate it. He returns to his agency, and becomes infamous: the brass-armed, mad-eyed mage hunter, with the rune-covered Webley that breaks spells and far too much knowledge of the Far Realms. Sometimes he grows distracted (The Entity sometimes has to attend meetings of the Retroactive Committee to Adjust the Value of Pi or some other mind blasting endeavors), but the agency knows it can count on him to laugh at any eldritch threat and put it down.

That's just awesomeness. I love those kind of Character Arcs.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My introduction into gonzo characters came in 2E.

I played a PC who was the consciousness of an artificially intelligent entertainment robot from a LARPing amusement park trapped in the body of a drow fighter thief.

I never clarified whether this was in fact true or if she was merely insane.