Ye Olde Character Sheet #5: Character Identity Panic

Once I moved on from high school to college - or university, as the European system is a bit different - I also expanded my playing group. Or actually, a best friend did by posting adverts. And the new players who reacted brought in their own new brand of hero.

One of them, one who also became a very best friend, had a very special taste. His heroes had to be... different. They had to combine different powers and identities of several heroes. One of his favorites combined werewolf Navarre from Ladyhawke, immortal Highlander McLeod, and Timothy Dalton's version of James Bond. Granted, the last one was not his idea, but that of a fellow player who played his character's lover. But I can assure you that combining the roles of immortal and werewolf is difficult enough. Even if you are the game master playing the hero as an NPC. Hero Cyrion was both lovable and his schizophrenic antics also drove us players mad.

The first hero he introduced however, was above character sheet's "Nature Master". He also thought up a whole class for this one. With a gemstone grafted in the forehead to give both magickal properties - controlling animals -, and to give some telepathic motivation and identity changes if necessary. The gemstone was probably meant as a way to balance the character and give the game master some control. To confuse matters further, he used an eightsided sword with multiple purpose poisoned darts shooting out. A sword which he technically should not use as his vows forebade him to maim or kill, usually. Or at least that's how I remember it.

In hindsight the character was way overpowered. But I guess I let it be played because the player was so enthused about his own design, provided with complex technical drawings. And he soon found out the character was pretty hard to play anyway. There was no real clear hero purpose or identity I could handle as a GM, and the character fit in the fantasy world as... well, as a druid in a concrete city.

The above sheet was not the first, I think, as we were in a system change during this time again. Another one of my home brews, which diverted further and further from mainstream AD&D. Soon my Nature Master friend branded the new system the "Jaap"-system (which is my name). And to my surprise he started to propagate it everywhere. Eventually, years later, we teamed up to do a rewrite of this "Jaap"-system, which became the first edition of Dark Dungeon.

Today is Nature Master friend's birthday. Happy Birthday, Rinze!