This party is a young bunch designed to go through another Solasta custom campaign – “The Purple Wolf”. They are just finishing their studies at an Adventuring Academy – a school for budding adventurers. The intent is to feel like a classic D&D adventuring party. Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Magic-User. Mostly human. Mortal stats.
Mechanics-wise, there will be a number of tweaks to the standard DND5 ruleset used in Solasta to make things feel more “old school” to me. Notably:
- No ASIs (stat gains) as we level, just feats. Makes the original stat layouts feel more meaningful, as well as being somewhat of a nerf
- Nobody has more than a 16 in anything. And nobody has more than one 16. These are not “the elite”.
- Everyone has an 8 in something. They each have a weakness.
Martin “Marty” “Tubby” Tubman
Race: Human
Age: 20
Class: Cleric/Law
Background: Philosopher
Skills: Religion, History, Persuasion, Insight, Medicine
Stats: S: 13, D: 8, C: 14, I:14, W:16, CH: 13
“painterly fantasy painting. head shot portrait on a blank black background. A polish cleric young man. He is age 19, with a redneck build. He has curly brown hair, clever eyes, a round puffy face, and stubble. He is wearing a white tabard and chainmail armor over brown vestments.”
Notes:
Marty’s build is very straightforward. A straight Cleric of Law – a “Lawful Cleric” from the olden days. He’s strong enough to wear his armor without penalty, but no stronger. Wise enough to be a good cleric, but not the wisest. Decent con. Smart. Good with people. And unfortunately a bit of a clutz. The one “new-D&D” concession is using “Bard Initiate” to gain access to the 2024 “True Strike” cantrip – which basically gives him a way to attack with his mace using Wisdom to-hit and with a bit of a radiant damage rider. Lets him be competent in melee without a strength belt or such – but doesn’t preclude switching to that if he gets one.
Personality:
If one were to describe Marty in one word, that word would be “fair”. Since he was a child he has always been passionately concerned with what is “fair”, “just”, and “right”. He became an novice initiate as soon as he was old enough *specifically* to join the Order of the Owl – an order of wandering clerics sworn to find the Unjust and make it Just. Marty enrolled at the Adventuring Academy for the simple reason that he felt he would be better able to “make things right” as a part of a team than on his own.
Marty can be a bit exasperating at times, as its simply not in his character to “let things go” when his sense of fair-play has been tweaked. Doesn’t matter if its friends cheating at cards or nobles cheating at taxes. Unfair is Unfair. But Marty is also loyal to a fault, caring, kind, and always looking for the best in people.
Marty is also clever, good at problem solving, and a total history nerd – both secular and religious. He hasn’t quite realised it yet, but he is also a natural leader – very perceptive at understanding people’s individual strengths and weaknesses and how to inspire the best in them.
History:
Marty spent some time teaming with various classmates, but never quite found a good fit. He had little trouble finding teams, but just never felt the connection he was looking for. Eventually he decided he was going about it all wrong. Instead of finding a team where he could fit in, he started watching his classmates. Observing. And paying particular attention to those who weren’t quite fitting in themselves.
He noticed Svetjana quickly – and was more than a little infatuated with her. But he also noticed how hard she worked – both at the athletics and combat training where she excelled and at the academics where she struggled. He offered to help her with the books if she helped him with the sparring. And an alliance quickly bloomed.
He got on well enough with Winny – sharing her love for class and books. But his church was known for its distrust of witchcraft – so it took some time for them to warm up to each other.
It was Hans that took the longest. Marty could see the way he operated, and it rubbed him the wrong way. Marty had dismissed him as a bad influence – until he heard about Hans helping Winny. Then he started watching more closely. He noticed that Hans had his own sense of fairness – he just had a very different way of balancing the scales.
At the next opportunity they entered a team competition. Objective – survive the longest in a free-for-all elimination. Thinking outside the box encouraged. Hans suggested the tactic of hiding in trash cans. Tournament rules said nothing about having to actually fight. Unfortunately the bins had recently been used to clean out the barn, and they were given away by sneezing. The inauspicious start earned them the team moniker “The Raccoons”. Also known as “trash pandas”. But they wore the name with pride, and soon developed into one of the highest performing teams at the Academy.
Svetjana “Yana” “Cheeks” Berg
Race: Human/Norse
Age: 20
Class: Fighter/Battlemaster
Background: Farmer
Skills: Athletics, Animal Handling, Survival, Perception
Stats: S: 16, D: 14, C: 14, I:8, W:13, CH: 10
“painterly fantasy painting. head shot portrait on a blank black background. A teenage swedish warrior girl. she is age 18, 6’3″, 180 lbs. braided short blonde hair. flashing blue eyes. muscular build with well-defined muscles. Wearing a long scale-mail shirt”
Notes:
Yana is also straightforward. Pure fighter. Battlemaster because that provides a number of tactical options without going overpowered. And Yana is not a Knight, Warlord, Commander, or any of the other variants. Yana is strong, but not Conan. Tough. Coordinated. She’s observant and with a good body of working knowledge, but she’s not very book-smart. She’s also a very straightforward, linear thinker.
Yana is a giant of a girl. 6’3″ and corded with muscle. She laughs hard, lives hard, and has had her eyes set on the prize of being an adventuring hero since listening to tales of battle on her father’s knee.
Yana grew up working on her father’s farm in the north. Hard work earned her a strong body and will. Her father was a former soldier – retired after losing a leg in a particularly brutal campaign. At first he discouraged her from following in his footsteps. He didn’t want her to suffer the same fate.
Her face was scarred when a 12 year old Yana, thinking her father too injured to defend himself, attempted to protect him from bandits. He drove them off with a crossbow, and then resolved to teach her how to fight properly. By the time she was old enough she had convinced him to allow her to attend the Academy.
Yana earned her nickname at the Academy early, as one of the rowdier boys tried calling her “sweet-cheeks” – mocking her scar. She promptly decked him so hard he was lifted off his feet. “There’s no sweets here for the likes of you!”. This earned her the simpler moniker “cheeks” – no sweet. And also earned her antagonizer the nickname “toothless”. She and “toothless” eventually became, if not friends, respectful rivals. She was never one to hold a grudge.
Hans “Whistler” Kefka
Race: Dwarf/Hill
Class: Rogue (Hoodlum)
Age: 19
Background: Troublemaker
Skills: Intimidate, Insight, Persuasion, Deception, Sleight of Hand, Athletics, Stealth, Locks
Stats: S: 14, D: 14, C: 14, I:12, W:8, CH: 14
“painterly fantasy painting. head shot portrait on a blank black background. A short dwarven rogue with a mocking smirk. he is age 19, fantasy dwarf. swedish. Short, stout, and stocky. wide shoulders. Strong, wide face, unkempt braided auburn hair, short beard, black studded leather armor”
Implementation:
Hoodlum rogue is both a decent rendition of an old school fighter/thief and a kit that specializes in using intimidation and dirty tricks. Hans isn’t so much about “intimidation” per-se as he is about trash talking and mind games. But that’s as good an approximation as any in game terms.
Hans has decent all-around stats. He’s most exceptional at manipulating people, and he’s very good at noticing details about them. He’s a bit impulsive however, with a bit of a contrarian streak. And he doesn’t always bother to think through long-term consequences.
Character:
Hans is a rogue in the classical sense of the term. Hans studies peoples. He talks with them. He watches them. And he is very good at figuring out *exactly* how they tick. This makes him a gifted sweet-talker and a charming friend when he likes you… and a notoriously infuriating trash talker when he does not.
He reads body language as well as faces and voices, making him good at taking advantage of weaknesses and openings in a fight. And he *will* take advantage. He is very much the pragmatist, and particularly fond of dirty tricks and sucker punches. Especially when he can set them up with clever insults. In his words, “If’n yer already fixin’ ta gut each other, what’s the point pretendin’ ta be polite about it?“
Most folks see Hans as a trouble-maker. Pranks, brawls – whenever there’s trouble you’re sure to find him. But dig a little and you might find that not all is as it seems. He is most fond of using his talents to goad people to whom he has taken a dislike into over-extending themselves. He’s not afraid of a scrap, but if he can get what he wants by manipulation he’ll try that first.
Hans is a devoted friend… if you can tolerate the ribbing. But with friends he always seems to know what sorts of teasing they can tolerate and what sorts they can’t. And he is respectful of what he sees as your “red lines”.
Hans is named for his habit of whistling to announce himself – or just before he *really* lets someone have it.
Winnifred “Winny” “Whisper” Baxter
Race: Human
Age: 18
Class: Witch
Background: Academic
Skills: Arcana,Nature, Insight,Medicine
Stats: S: 8, D: 13, C: 13, I:16, W:15, CH: 10
“painterly fantasy painting. head shot portrait on a blank black background. A teenage swedish woman looks sly. she is 18, 5’4″, 100 lbs. skinny. limp auburn hair. green eyes. She is wearing a simple black cloak over a long frumpy black dress, and a worn black witches hat..”
Implementation:
Winny is where I massage the rules the most. She’s a Witch – a nature-themed wizard offshoot. The closest fit in Solasta is the Greenmage subclass – which is basically a Wizard that gets some Druid and Ranger features. Including access to many L1-5 Druid spells. It is generally on the overpowered side. We’ll fix that.
First I’ll treat all those Druid spells as basically a ‘bonus school” – and pay for them by losing another school. Winny will not be allowed to cast Evocation spells at *all*. Fireballs and the like aren’t really her style anyway. And no cheating with wands or scrolls. Second, she won’t ever be using bows. So the Greenmage’s Archery fighting style and arrow tricks vanish. Finally, she’ll be strictly forbidden from wearing armor – so the light armor proficiency will be defunct. In exchange I’ll gift her a potion-making feat and either the “Druid Initiate” feat to fill in some Druid cantrips or the “Bard Initiate” feat so she can use the “Vicious Mockery” cantrip as a sort of minor witch curse. Presto-chang-o she’s a Witch.
History:
Winny is a hedge witch; trained by her grandmother. Witchcraft is a more subtle arcane tradition than Wizardry or Sorcery. She is well studied at herbology, poisons, potions, and medicine. She prefers to solve problems non-magically if possible. Magic should never be taken lightly. Do no harm if you don’t have to, and no more than necessary if you do.
She has a sparrow for a familiar named Fidget.
Winny attended the Academy because – despite her quiet nature – she has a burning desire to *fix* things. Whether that be bandits or bathtub-rings. And once she sets her mind to something she simply cannot be deterred. She hasn’t always gotten on with the other students. She is a bit of a know-it-all who won’t hesitate to speak up when someone is wrong – student or teacher. For a while this earned her a bullying problem. A few highborn apprentices didn’t appreciate being corrected in class and saw her as a prime target.
One day when they were teasing her they knocked her herb journal to the ground – scattering its carefully pressed contents. They played keep-away while she desperately tried to gather them back up, until a low-pitched whistle from behind drew their attention. “Ain’t you boys got better things to do than ganging up on a wee girl? Too chicken to take her one-on-one?” The leader spun around to object – only to fall flat on his face. Tripping over his own tied shoelaces in front of a smirking dwarf. “Be more sporting if I play too, hey?” The boys glared, sized him up for a moment, and then shuffled off cursing. Whistler quietly helped her gather her pressings, winked, and sauntered off. After that he made a habit of whistling whenever he caught them teasing her. It didn’t take them long to decide there were easier targets.
In turn, when Whistler bites off more than he can chew and takes a beating, Winny is the only one he trusts to patch him back up. And she is the *only* person who can tell him “that’s far enough” to whom he will actually listen. And he *always* brings treats for Fidget.
Personality:
Winny is smart and opinionated – but also quiet and with tendencies on the autistic spectrum. She likes things neat, orderly, and in their place, and doesn’t always *get* people.
She prefers to help from behind the scenes, and seldom looks for credit. She’ll put up with a lot in the way of teasing and mischief – not showing how much it irritates her. She doesn’t like to complain or push back. Up until the point that someone *else* is the target. At which point she may intervene *quite* forcefully – much to the surprise of those who may have already written her off as a mouse.
She considers Whistler a friend, although she doesn’t always understand him. She’s got a bit of a crush on Marty – but she’d never tell him that. Instead she makes a habit of emphatically pointing it out whenever he misses something. She knows that’s perhaps not the best way to show somebody you like them, but she is who she is. She’s jealous of Yana – both for Marty’s attention and for being largely immune to teasing. But Yana has never been anything but kind to her, and they share a love and understanding of animals. So she tries to avoid being a know-it-all with Yana.
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