Time to Shine - Favorite Character(s) of all time

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Thought up the idea of asking the fine folks of EnWorld who their favorite character(s) of all time were. This isn't edition, system, or game specific just table-top RPGs.

1. Who was/were your favorite character/s that you've either ever played or ever DM'd for and why?
2. Race/Class (if applicable)
3. How did the character(s) end in the game you were playing? TPK, Solo Death, Retirement, Godhood, other (maybe still playing it)?

Add any additional information that you'd like including some of the best highlights that you can remember which you think would be fun to share. I just wanted a fun "time to shine" bragging thread about our favorites which could in turn give us some more ideas for new types of characters to try out.

For me:

As a player - I'll never forget my very first character Sarlin Silverlock (cheesy I know) who was a half-elven ranger. He reached level 12 (back in 2E D&D), he actually died a few times, but since it was my very first character in a solo adventure my DM took it easy on me and found ways of bringing him back to life, with NPCs helping me out along the way and having to do quests for them to repay them or through divine favor. His final death was epic. He was fighting a white dragon in aerial combat upon his Pegasus, the dragon killed the mount during combat and Sarlin ended up falling and fighting the dragon at the same time from a great height. He had a vorpal sword and my DM allowed called shots, I rolled a 20 and called the shot to lop off the dragon's head. It happened! The dragon died and Sarlin fell to his own death shortly after. It was an epic conclusion to a character I dearly loved and really made me want to keep playing the game and here it is over a decade later and I'm still going strong.

As a DM - I DM'd for my best friend who got me into the hobby in a solo campaign. He had two characters he played, one a Human Necromancer named Exodus Adere and the other a Human Barbarian named Tor (no last name). The campaign spanned a full 20 levels (2E again), in which the characters achieved demi-god status (Exodus) and kingship/retirement (Tor). I took his characters through numerous settings: Dragonlance, FR, Ravenloft, Midkemia, and quite a few others. Was probably my best campaign I've ever run to date and a lot of fond memories. This experience got me hooked on DM'ing and world-building as well.

So what are yours? Again feel free to pick multiple characters and give as much or as little information as you'd like. I'll read them all and enjoy what you have to share.

Thanks,
Trav

 

[Stormonu]

I mostly DM, so I very rarely get to sit on the player side of the screen. My favorite character that I've played over the years is:

Kalli Bloodblade: Kalli is 5’ 1” with curled, long red hair and brown eyes that seem to have reddish streaks in them when she is angered. She has a womanish figure, but seems much younger than her apparent age of 18. Kalli is fond of wearing the color of her order, red, especially in low-cut dresses that allow her to show much of her lily-white skin. She prefers to bear a staff in each hand, even if one is non-magical.

Notable Items:
Ring of Water Walking, Cloak of Protection, Bracers of Armor, Magical Dirk, Staff of Thunder and Lightning, Rod of Splendor (with a single use remaining), Wand of Frost, Ring of Wizardry, Rod of Cancellation, Dagger of undead slaying (name Bane of Orcus), Jeweled Staff of Answers, Necklace of Spell Multiplication (doubles available magical spells), Papyrus of Spell Research, Scroll of Protection from Possession, Potion of Gaseous Form

Typical Adventuring Spell List
While Kalli has a large repitoire of necromatic spells that she excels at, she tends to use a lot of flashy, energy-based attack spells and illusionary spells meant to confuse and confound opponents.

Special Combat Notes:
Kalli prefers to avoid physical entanglements whenever possible. However, she seems quite quick to engage a foe with distance attack spells. She prefers to burn or electrocute foes, leaving nothing behind to be raised or resurrected. She will not animate fallen foes, and any undead accompanying here will be intelligent skeletons from her personal ship, Lady Payne. There are a total of 30 of these skeletons. Kalli does have a familiar, a black cat that is capable of transforming into a spotted lion. Kalli generally does not have the cat attack, though she may use it to scare a foe or catch them off-guard. She is protected by magic that renders physical attacks incapable of harming her, and has several other protective spells that physically lash out against anyone who attempts her harm. Kalli is friends with Telsar, and he will be nearby if she is encountered.

History:
Though Kalli is a witch of the Randese (Saracen) people, she is obviously not one of their own. She knows that she is an orphan, but was too young to remember her parents. The “Red Witches” or Wa-Atari raised her, where she was treated with great respect for her lily-white skin and red hair (considered a mark of power by her order). Her teachers pushed her harder than any of the others, forcing her through rituals and magic tests that would have killed the other students. When she was thirteen, she surprised the entire school by summoning up a magic spirit. In truth, she had learned to hate her teachers, and was seeking to destroy them. But the spirit was stronger, and invaded her, aging her body and wracking her mind with its cruel tortures. Kalli survived, but the spirit had permanently changed her, and occasionally wracks her mind, forcing her into short-termed insanity.

During the night, Kalli fled the school, heading west and south until she came to the Ksiki Colonies. There she learned of Plague Isle, a powerful island seething with the power of the god of disease, Lepornunse, and boiling with the power of Necromancy from the many deaths. However, her trip was short-lived when wary peasants captured her and threatened to kill her. If it had not been for the aid of a third party, she and several others would have been killed. In return for their freedom, Kalli and the others were required to gather strange and powerful magic items that had been hidden in the many lost islands of the Ksiki Colonies. These items had been lost during ancient quests during the elven golden age, and were the root of power of several evil Magistrates of Ksiki, who used their power to fuel their magical control.

The group eventually recovered enough of the items to overthrow the Magistrates. When the islands were thus freed, Kalli and the others were free of their life-debt. Most deigned to stay in the islands, but Kalli decided to head north, since Plague isle had been freed of the god Lepornunse’s diseases during the quest.

Eventually, Kalli found herself in the Silkna Kingdom, far to the north. She had traveled there as it was a mecca to powerful mages and a cosmopolitan world that would not fear her spirit-bound magic or strange ways. However, she found herself in battle against a powerful wizard intent on stealing her unique spells, when Telsar saved her. For Kalli, it was love at first sight. Since that time, Kalli has remained in Telsar’s stronghold in the city of Sinka. Occasionally, the two have been reported scouring the countryside, seeking out evil wizards and plots, and stopping them.

------
The campaign I played ended when we had defeated the Magistrates of Ksiki, and Kalli was retired from play. We started with the U1-U3 adventures and moved on to custom adventures after we played out that series. Our characters were somewhat buccaneers, led by a human fighter who'd assumed the identity of the feared pirate Black Hand (after he accidentally killed the real Black Hand in a drunken brawl at a tavern). It's hard to remember exactly any specific events from that time (it was literally 20 years ago), but I do remember enjoying it immensely.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Very cool character, sounds like it was a ton of fun to play and that you really immersed yourself in her.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Because I've run FAR more games than I've played in, I'm going to have to go with my very first character - Stumblewyk Telemin, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist. Stumblewyk came to life during the 2e days, when I was first taught how to play the game by a couple high school friends.

He was...schizophrenic. As a cleric of Gaerdal Ironhand, Gnomish god of Combat, Stumblewyk had himself a (gnome-sized) two-handed sword, and Gauntlets of Ogre Power. As an Illusionist, he slapped around spells with a (gnome-sized) fury.

Looking back on him, I realize my group didn't have the foggiest ideas how to actually play D&D, and I honestly can't remember Stumblewyk every doing anything particularly "cleric-y", other than Turning Undead once. I don't even remember healing anyone. I do remember him "dying" however...he picked up some trapped artifact deep in a dungeon, and failed his save...he was polymorphed into a rabbit that the party's Ranger carried around in his pocked for a while without ever changing him back.

I stayed friends with those guys, but by then I had started teaching another group of friends how to play (incorrectly, I might add) and I was running games for them.

Now, with that out of the way...one of my very first D&D buddies is going to be running a Pathfinder game shortly, and every single player has agreed to make a circus/traveling show-themed character. I honestly believe, if everything goes the way I see it going, my upcoming Human Beastmaster Ranger is going to far surpass Stumblewyk in my personal PC Hall of Fame. His name is Günter "Gray Bull" Willhelms, and he is the circus' resident lion tamer (see what I did there?). He fights with a scorpion whip, and a wooden chair shield. And...when he get his animal companion, he's getting himself a circus elephant. Which he will ride into combat.

It's going to be glorious.

 

[d2OKC]

My favorite character ever was in our DM's homebrew setting. His name was Rel and he was a Dorokti barbarian king - essentially a half-man/half-ram kind of hybrid who spoke softly and carried a huge lightning-infused greatax.

What was great about him was our game at the time was very much non-RAW. We kind of came up with character concepts using D&D 3.5 and then just made a fun story from there. He even custom made prestige classes for us to use, that were basically gifts from the gods of his world.

The gift I was given was basically invulnerability. What that meant was, when I was in a rage I couldn't be knocked unconscious until after the rage was over. Which also meant I had pretty incredible durability during battle. My final gift was a one-hit kill kind of thing, where the DM would choose a number on a percentage die, and if I rolled above it the enemy was dead. My favorite battle was when I faced off against a trio of Balors alone, killing one of them on a d100 roll of 98 and lasting long enough to kill the other two before my rage ended. By the end of the combat, I was at something like -300 HP.

The ax he carried was, as I said, a shocking ax that he called the Interrogator, because he used it to "ax people questions".

Basically, the game was all about the "rule of awesome", and I had a ton of fun playing this character. I wish I still had the character sheet, but this was many years ago now...

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Sounds like a pretty powerful character d20KC and sounds like he was a lot of fun to play in that setting. Did he die when his rage ran out at -300 hps or did you somehow get saved?

 

[d2OKC]

Sounds like a pretty powerful character d20KC and sounds like he was a lot of fun to play in that setting. Did he die when his rage ran out at -300 hps or did you somehow get saved?

Yeah, the campaign was all about powerful characters doing powerful things. It was a lot of fun.

He did die after the rage. But, we had some high level clerics by then, plus a character whose gift was a ring of like, 10 wishes or something. Like I said, it was a stupid high power campaign, but it really was a lot of fun to play in.

 

[Wycen]

1. Who was/were your favorite character/s that you've either ever played or ever DM'd for and why?
2. Race/Class (if applicable)
3. How did the character(s) end in the game you were playing? TPK, Solo Death, Retirement, Godhood, other (maybe still playing it)?

The username I chose for much of my internet gaming/browsing is in fact that character's name. Or at least the short version since Wycen was arrogant/confident/blustering enough to attach words such as "Primarch" and Warlock to his name. I could probably remember the whole thing...

Wycen was a half-elf, but storywise, his father was a drow and his mother was a nymph. Oh yeah, I forgot the part where we were playing a mash-up 1E/2E/Arduin system so that at character generation you got to roll on the Arduin chart for a special power. My roll was pretty ego-maniac, so I had an Ego score (Wisdom that only counted for psionics) of 25. So, this guy was a multi-class psionicist/thief.

We unfortunately just stopped playing. People moved, one friend died, and real life happened. We had been adventuring through "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" when the DM got bored, (he'd been DM'ing for 2 years) and so I took over while he finally got to play. For maybe 1 or 2 sessions. We just couldn't keep the schedule regular anymore. So, we just hand waved things and most of the character lived happily ever after. Godhood, perhaps it was inevitable at that point, since Wycen had a cult plus dozens of henchmen and followers. Perhaps not.

When the 3E Book of Templates came out I thought about converting him to 3E with the half-nymph template, but since I knew we'd never play an epic level game, (double digits in both classes) I never bothered.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Seems like a pretty fun character to play, especially being an egomaniac. Sorry to hear the game didn't go as long as you wanted, but I guess that happens to most of us at some point or another where the group/game just dissolves from RL stuff happening. Hopefully you are in a good/fun group now and doing what you love!

 

[Pilgrim]

AD&D 1E
Lhogan Kael
Human
5th Level Ranger

He wore leather armor and fought with either a spear and shield, or two hand/throwing axes. When first getting into a fight, he would count coup with a coup stick, before pulling weapons. As part of his enmity towards an enemy, he would always take a trophy.

If the enemy was human or especially a tribe of humanoids like orcs, hobgobs, kobolds, etc, he would take a scalp and affix it to the front of his shield for others to see during combat.

Once during a raid on a tribe of orcs who had taken up residence in an abandoned elven citadel, he drug off two orc corpses, skinned them in a way that he could wear it, so as to walk into the camp at night to get intel about what was going on inside without being noticed.

Over several sessions, the party had been dealing with slavers, who where raiding local coastal villages. At one point the party discovered that a well known, well respected and noble mage from the nearby city was behind with slavers. The slave ships, lead by the mage eventually attacked a town that the PCs had been staying in locally. During the battle the slave leader and the mage managed to escape, with some of the villagers in tow.

The PCs followed the ships to the nearest city where they witnessed the selling of the slaves at the market. Lhogan bought two of the the slaves, people from the village they just came from and paid for passage back home.

Later, the PCs sneaked into the noble quarters where they found the mage's home and sneaked their way inside.

The party was discovered and attacked by the mage and his guards. Through careful strategy, the party managed to kill the guards but the servants fled the house and alerted the city watch. The mage was begging for his life as the party heard the watch storming into the first floor of the house.

Lhogan shouted for the other members to flee to a hidden room in the house, which had been discovered earlier, in an attempt to avoid the watch. Lhogan stayed behind to finish off the mage, counting coup with his spear tip, a gash here and cut there, all the while speaking a name of a village person that he knew who had been killed or taken by the slavers. In the end, Lhogan drove the spear through the mage's chest killing him, then turning around and dropping his weapons as the watch entered the second floor and arrested him.

He was taken before the lords of the city, where he was sentenced to death in the dungeons. He was led to a pit and pushed in, he slid down a shaft, landing in a dark room below. The room was a long unlit corridor except for a very faint light coming down where the chute entering the pit.

It was quiet at first, then he began to hear strange voices, repetitive almost mesmerizing voices in the dark. As the voices got closer, he realized something wasn't right and turned to run in the opposite direction, just as something was hurled nearby striking the wall in a flash of light. In the flash, Lhogan caught sight of an amorphous blob peppered with what looked like a multitude of eyes and mouths of varying shapes. He managed to dodge the creature for a few rounds before succumbing to some of it's abilities and that is where he perished.