Isolde Character Sketch

I’ve mentioned before about how just to get to know a character I play or just write about on my own time, I’ll dig out this character sketch. This is one I did forever ago, putting together my Aasimar bard in our Planeshift campaign. I had great intentions for really fleshing this out, but then ran out of time and just jumped right into the new campaign instead. Inconsequential, but possibly fun stream of consciousness-style look into Isolde Satrinava. Enjoy!

For reference.

Isolde Satrinava. Her childhood nickname is Izzy but hates it and won’t respond to it from anyone but her parents.

Her hair color is silvery white, and she has gold eyes. Unlike some Aasimar, she does have visible pupils.

She has alabaster white skin with a smattering of freckles. Prior to the beginning of the campaign, she was bit by a viper in an assassination attempt. She was healed in time, but the poison left black veins running up the left side of her face, from her jaw to her cheekbone.

She does not have a birthmark and no scars—she has been stabbed several times but is vain and will always spend money to be healed perfectly. She has callouses on her fingers from her lyre and viol.

She has a living mother and father that are the equivalent of middle class. She sends gifts from her travels home regularly. She makes friends wherever she goes but doesn’t get really close to anyone. She is diplomatic but can be bitingly sarcastic and when she is critical she does not hold back. She was close to Queen Asylla and was devastated by her murder.

She was born on some land right outside a city. Not a huge city, but it had more opportunities than a small town. She felt at home for the first time in Asylla’s court in the capitol and was sad to leave it behind. She’s content with traveling around and seeing and experiencing new things, but does feel a little more adrift than she’d like. At the same time, she’s pretty good with people, and isn’t worried about things like living arrangements and finances—money follows her wherever she goes, as a world-class musician.

When she’s angry, she will give it a few quiet moments. The first is for you to explain yourself, which usually ends in acknowledging you were wrong, and she won’t rub it in your face too much, unless it was really egregious. Alternatively, she will just give a long, silent moment, tell you what she really thinks, and rip into you and then leaves. She is not tied to anything or anyone, and has no problem with just leaving.

She is a perfectionist and she always thought her biggest fear is failure. That came true when she failed to protect Queen Asylla and nearly died herself. If that wasn’t bad enough, she is without a connection to her deva anymore and feels truly alone, and she is terrified and shaken to the core of her being.

She doesn’t have a secret, but she keeps others secrets. Or doesn’t keep them… depending.

She actually does have a good sense of humor and laughs easily.

If she had a refrigerator, she would have a leftover cheese danish, fruit, and chilled white wine in it—its her favorite wine, but she loves a good flagon of ale or mead from a tavern that probably has a B rating at most.

There’s nothing on her bedroom floor. She’s very tidy. She has lots of clothes and likes nice things, but has a very organized bag of holding.

On her nightstand are a bunch of different books—philosophy, history, and more than one tawdry romance novel, which she reads unashamedly.

She wears exceedingly nice, knee-length traveling boots. She has a kit for cleaning them every day. She wears fine silk stockings with them, but when alone in her room she has super thick, comfy slippers in loud patterns.

The smells she would associate her childhood with are the scents of grass after the rain and floral tea. She liked rainy days, inside with hot tea the best when she was young. Those were quiet, peaceful moments before life started getting busy, taking lessons, getting an education, doing the tasks her deva set before her.

In spring cleaning, she finds it pretty easy to part with a lot of her clothes—she’ll just buy some more, or be gifted with more, but she does have a few pieces she really loves that she’ll keep forever. She finds it difficult to part with some well-loved books even if they are nothing special. She will never part with a hair pin that Asylla gave her.

Saturday at noon, she’s probably having a light lunch and reading, while listening in to other peoples conversations around her. Probably directly after this though, she’ll be found performing in a tavern or in a town square, raking in the money. Right now her life is pretty much eat when she needs to, drink lots, perform, and just hanging out in the popular spots in town, making friends and enjoying conversation. She rarely has to pay for lodging if she performs at the establishment. She has a lyre and a viol, but usually plays the lyre. She can read a room, and will sometimes play soothing melodies and background music, but more often plays the lyre while singing bawdy poetry. Sure, she’s a classy lady, but she still has a wicked sense of humor. She does particularly like interrupting a calm, quiet mood with such songs. She thrives on the disapproving scowls and loves it when people join in from a completely different mood.

One memory that has stuck with her began as a dream with her deva when she was very young. This wasn’t her first meeting, but on this occasion, they came to her and presented her with a lyre in her dream and told her that

Beware… behir!

So in our Storm King’s Thunder campaign, we happened upon a mysterious clock that led us on a crazy quest to a lost temple of Gond, god of smiths and craftswork–but the trek there was perilous. Our obstacles included deep canyons, mysteriously full of storms… that turned out to be behirs!

A cross between a crocodile and a centipede, behirs were created long, long ago by storm giants as a weapon against their enemy, dragons. The serpentine creature still harbors a natural hatred of dragons, never settling its lair near dragons. Should a dragon move in nearby, it is obligated to either kill or drive off the dragons, or move on itself.

But you may not be here for a history lesson. You may be here to know the whole point of a behir is its LIGHTNING BREATH. The Monsters Manual tells us that “its lightning breath can incinerate most creatures, even as more powerful foes are constricted in its coils and eaten alive.”

Metal.

They are kind of defensive creatures, choosing to make their lairs where it would be extremely difficult for intruders to access, favoring “deep pits, high caves in cliffs walls, and caverns reached only by narrow, twisting tunnels.”

Read after its stats to see how we took care of the two behirs that ambushed us!

For quite a while it appeared that our efforts were futile. Then, as our fighter and barbarian advanced on it, my druid, Faelinthara, used Transmute Rock on the rock pillar it was standing on, trapping it in mud, leaving it vulnerable.

The boys finished it off while the warlock and I took care of the second behir. I ultimately used Polymorph to turn it into a sloth. I really like to use sloths for Polymorph, as they are small and slow, and a little less likely to get into trouble and turn back into its monstrous form before its hour is up. Then I took the sloth and gently placed it in the mud I had created, and we were on our way!

I like to harvest creatures to sell their poisons sacs or skin or fangs or what have you to sell to a certain vendor in Mirabar, but unfortunately we didn’t have time for me to work on the dead behir. Its skin probably would have made for excellent lightning resistant armor!

Have you ever encountered a behir?

Have you ever encountered a behir?

Bulettes

I recognized bulettes the first time I encountered one in our Princes of the Apocalypse campaign, immediately, as one of the most feared monsters in cinema history.

The fearsome graboid, from the Kevin Bacon classic, Tremors. All right, they’re like a graboid with claws, which is worse than the ass-blasters, even!

Thought to be the result of an experiment crossing snapping turtles and armadillos with an infusion of demon ichor, they burst out from the ground, grabbing everything within reach in their powerful jaws. They don’t have lairs, but do have a hunting ground of thirty miles, where they live until food sources dry up, and then they move on, or until they are killed. And while they are terrifying, with an armor class of 17, they can indeed be killed, as “they attack with no regard for superior numbers or strength.”

Bulette from the Monster Manual

They’ll feed on anything they come across, any animals or humanoids, though it prefers halfling to dwarves and elves.

Bulettes are, naturally, loners, though horrifyingly enough, they “come together only to mate, resulting in a bloody act of claws and teeth that usually ends with the male’s death and consumption.” Eeeeesh.

Bulette by the-murdellilicious on deviantart

 

Facing Fears–the Ettercap

I hate bugs. All bugs, harmless ones, butterflies even, gross. So spiders are out of the question. But today I’m spending some quality time with the ettercap–“humanoid spiders that tend, feed, and watch over spiders the way a shepherd oversees a flock of sheep.” GROSS.

Ettercap from the Monsters Manual

Ettercaps live deep in dark forests, where they use their silk to trap and kill their victims. While it has a -2 Intelligence, it is smart enough to create snares and nets around its forest lair. While some travelers and adventurers meet their ends in such a trap, “others, the ettercap garrotes with strands of web or envenoms with its poisonous bite.” Horrifying, right?!

As a neutral evil creature, while they live in forests, that “have no desire to live in harmony with nature.” They’ll litter their areas with their webs and traps, creating a perfect environment for giant spiders, giant insects, and other sinister predators. If that wasn’t awful enough, the Monsters Manual points out that “creatures that wander too far into such a wood are soon lost in a maze of webs that dangle with the bones and lost treasures of the ettercaps’ victims.”

Ettercap by Wayne Reynolds

But what is most interesting to me is that they are natural enemies of fey creatures, setting traps specifically to capture sprites, pixies, or even dryads.

Check out their stats:

From D&D Beyond

Well, I know what I’ll be seeing in my nightmares tonight…

For more spidery fun, check out Jorphdan’s video here on driders!

Water Weirds!

Learning about water weirds today. My only experience with them comes from Princes of the Apocalypse, I believe in the Temple of the Crashing Wave.

From the Monsters Manual

They’re water elemental guardian of a body of water, such as a pool or fountain. Elementals are, by their nature, neutral, with no concept of good or evil… just nature. However, they tend to take on the nature of the water they guard. So if they’re guarding a sacred fountain, they may be neutral good. Or if their water gets befouled, they could be neutral evil. This will dictate how they act towards interlopers; if they’ll just warn them away from their sacred spot, or if they’ll try to kill. The Monsters Manual says that “a water weird loses its evil alignment if its waters are cleansed with a purify food and drink spell.”

Art by Christopher Burdett

As for appearance, they are actually invisible under the waters, but when they rise to attack they appear as a serpentine water spout, “using its coils to crush any creature other than its summoner and those its summoner declares as off limits.” When an adventuring party defeats a water weird, it turns into an inanimate pool of water.

Have you ever encountered a water weird? Or maybe you put it in a campaign to excellent effect? Let me know! Find me on instagram at dungeons_and_doodles_!

Amazing Owlbears!

We play D&D on roll20, so we often have the benefit of visual aids and artwork for our games. One day we stumbled upon a creature I wasn’t familiar with–an owlbear and its cubs–and even without artwork, I knew exactly what it would look like.

From the Monsters Manual

I rolled a 19 on my Animal Handling check, and then was well over 20 by the time I added my modifiers–as a Beastermaster Ranger, it was nothing to sneeze at. It was nearly docile and allowed us to complete our task in the area. I didn’t know much about their nature at the time, but the other party members urged me to kill it immediately. As an animal lover, and as the weird kid growing up who owned magical bestiary books, I’m always hesitant to kill something that I could leave in peace, so we let it live and it let us leave, to the relief of the party.

Knowing what I know now–YIKES. We got lucky.

The prevailing theory is that a wizard crossed a giant owl with a bear; however, some elves claim that they’ve existed for thousands of years in the Feywilds.

Their “reputation for ferocity, aggression, stubbornness, and sheer ill temper makes it one of the most feared predators of the wild.” Even creatures much larger than they are will avoid them, because a hungry owlbear knows no fear and “attacks without provocation”. They live in caves or ruins, surrounded by the bones of their kills and half-eaten carcasses, a putrid smell rising from their homes, possibly attracting their next meal.

“Owlbears hunt alone or in mated pairs. If quarry is plentiful, a family of owlbears might remain together for longer than is required to rear offspring. Otherwise, they part ways as soon as the young as ready to hunt.”

Art possibly by Rio Sabda?

It is possible–the Monster Manual says “with enough time, food, and luck”–to train an owlbear. Not tame exactly, but they can recognize you as master, and serve as a guard or even a mount. The Monster Manual recounts tales of owlbear races in rural areas, but just as bets were taken to see who would win, bets were taken on which owlbear would eat its handler first.

I’ll always remember my friend the owlbear, and my friend and fellow party member will always roll his eyes.

Stats!

Art by Ben Wootten

Have you ever encountered an owlbear? Tell me about it! Find me on instagram at lyndsi_skwerl or dungeons_and_doodles_!

Back to Basics–Dwarves!

Back to writing! It’s been a while but I’m ready to keep studying one of my favorite subjects, Dungeons and Dragons!

I didn’t know where to jump back in, so I just opened to the first real entry in the Player’s Handbook–and found dwarves!

Everyone knows what a dwarf is. Who hasn’t seen Lord of the Rings, and gotten to know Gimli? Or maybe you’ve played one in a campaign before, or had a party member play one. We have a dwarf in our party, yet I feel like my education is lacking. So this may be super basic for some of you, but enlightening for me!

“Bold and hardy, dwarves are known as skilled warriors, miners, and workers of stone and metal.” Of course, we all know them for their diminutive yet stout physique, and “though they stand well under 5 feet tall, dwarves are so broad and compact that they can weigh as much as a human standing nearly two feel taller.”

 

westlylafleur.deviantart.com

And of course–their beards are such a part of their identity. So much so that equipping the Belt of Dwarven Kind (which to be honest I only know about from Critical Role, and this may not be RAW) will make you grow a beard as well.

They are a long-lived people, and can live to be more than 400 years old, which, as the PHB points out, gives them a different perspective on the world than races like humans or halflings.

“Dwarves are solid and enduring like the mountains they love, weathering the passage of centuries with stoic endurance and little change. They respect the traditions of their clans, tracing their ancestry back to the founding of their most ancient strongholds in the youth of the world, and don’t abandon those traditions lightly.” There are the honored traditions of the forge, or the passing down of secrets of craftsmanship (such as brewmasters or masons). There’s also a tradition to their names. A dwarf’s name is granted by a clan elder, and “every proper dwarven name has been used and reused down through the generations. A dwarf’s name belongs to the clan, not the individual. A dwarf who misuses or brings shame to a clan name is stripped of the name and forbidden by law to use any dwarven name in its place.” In short, dwarves live and die by tradition. Also deeply important to a dwarf is their clan, and even if adventure takes a dwarf far from their ancestral home, they will still “cherish their clan identifies and affiliations, [and] recognize related dwarves…. To be clanless is the worst fate that can befall a dwarf.”

Art by wildweasel339

Outside of their clan, individual dwarves are honorable (or not, depending on the player I suppose!), living by the virtues of loyalty, justice, and determination, as the PHB points out, “sometimes to the point of stubbornness.” As far as justice goes, “a wrong done to one dwarf is a wrong done to the dwarf’s entire clan, so what begins as one dwarf’s hunt for vengeance can become a full-blown clan feud.”

If you’ve come into this knowing anything about dwarves besides their stature, you probably know of their deep appreciation for gems, precious metals, fine jewelry. In fact, some adventuring dwarves go out into the world in search of treasure, to bring back to their dwarven kingdoms deep beneath the mountains. The desire–sometimes to the point of avarice–for such things has led dwarves to trade with other races, and “trustworthy members of other races are welcome in dwarf settlements.” It will come as no surprise that dwarves will often be artisans, “especially weaponsmiths, armorers, and jewelers.” They are dedicated to their craft.

A famous hobbit among a treasure hoard contested between a dragon and dwarves.

Outside of a search for treasure, dwarves may be called to adventure by a revered deity, or perhaps they “might seek to restore a clan’s lost honor, avenge an ancient wrong the clan suffered, or earn a new place within the clan after having been exiled. Or a dwarf might search for the axe wielded by a mighty ancestor, lost on the field of battle centuries ago.”

The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide offers some more information on dwarves; of interest to me is that “thousands of years of settlement and separation divided the dwarves into distinct subraces: the shield dwarves, most common in the North and the Sword Coast; the gold dwarves of the southern lands; and the gray dwarves, or duergar, of the Underdark.” They each have distinct traditions and characteristics, and if you’re interested, I encourage you to check out the SCAG!

Fun story, I was once cursed after drinking some fancy magical beer, so that every time I cast a spell, a profanity would appear on my skin in Dethek, the dwarven alphabet. We got too busy to get the curse taken care of and by the time it was removed, there were curse words all up and down my arms. Fun times.

All this is interesting, but what does this mean for a player in an actual D&D game, should they choose to play as a dwarf? A higher constitution score, as they are hardy folk, and advantage on saving throws against poison, and resistance against poison damage. You may choose from a wide range of age, but it’s important to note that “they’re considered young until they reach the age of 50.” It will also come as little surprise that, in all their clan traditions and justice, they are often lawful–of course, from what I understand, alignment can be a little weird. Dwarves have darkvision, as they often live under mountain ranges. You’d have proficiency with a battleaxe, handaxe, light hammer, and warhammer, as well as an artisan’s tools of your choice: smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools. Stonecunning means that “whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to the origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check.” Your languages are Common and Dethek.

Art by Ilia Ellion

The two types of dwarves that I see here in the PHB are the hill dwarf and the mountain dwarf. If you choose to be a hill dwarf, your Wisdom score increases by 2, as does your hit point maximum, which will also increase by 1 again with every level you gain. A mountain dwarf’s Strength score increases by 1, and you have proficiency in light and medium armor.

This really makes me want to play a dwarf! I’m really glad I’ve taken some time to get to know the basics of the game. It gives me a whole new appreciation.

What’s your favorite story of a dwarf in your game, either your own character or a companion’s?

And what else would you like to see on this blog?! I’m having a lot of fun getting to know the game better.