You may or may not know that in my spare(!) time I play Dungeons and Dragons. So when I decided I needed to flesh out my important characters’ fighting styles for The Storyteller, I realized that D&D held a wealth of information I could tap into. More specifically, I chose 4th Edition D&D because we (my gaming circle) see 4th Edition classes as little black boxes out of which attack come. It’s ripe for reskinning, and that is exactly what I wanted to do. So I told my husband the basic ideas I had for five of my characters, and he pitched classes at me until something intrigued me.
Bonus information: In The Storyteller, there are mythics, which leave remnants of themselves behind when killed. These items hold what magic the mythic had and can then be used for that magic in different ways.
I started, oddly enough, with a character that I’ve never mentioned before because he only became an important character when I realized I had to expand on a subplot and he and his partner became one of the main focuses of that subplot. His role is The Slayer. My inspiration was the Player’s Handbook 2 class, the Barbarian, and more specifically, the rages that they enter.
The Slayer can absorb a remnant it will give him two or three abilities from the type of mythic who dropped it. If he doesn’t stay properly focused on himself, he will slowly lose himself into the ‘rage’. When that happens, his partner has to snap him out of it or he will lash out randomly.
Right now the ‘rages’ he has are: Stone Ram, Feathered Serpent, and Red Dragon.
Next was Garrett. For him the inspiration was the Player’s Handbook 3 class, the Monk, and their vast array of attacks. During this process he lost the sword he had in lieu of a monk’s weaponless fighting style.
Garrett can switch among a number of absorbed remnants, using each for one power. Some are more rare, and others use up more magic. He can use more than one at once, but the rate at which they are drained of magic increases dramatically. When a remnant runs out of magic, it is gone.
A rough list of his remnants are (from common to rare): Giant’s Strength, Ram Horns, Arachne Silk, Cat Claws, Undine Scales, Thunderbird Wings, Basilisk Poison, and Living Flame.
Rose was next, and I pretty much knew what he would be right off the bat, I was just less sure how I was going to skin it. His inspiration was the Player’s Handbook 1 Wizard combined with Pathfinder’s Occult Adventures Occultist.
Unlike the first two, Rose does not use remnants directly, he creates artifacts (a feat in itself), which allows him to manipulate the spells he can get out of remnants. He also has to carry around the artifacts in order to use them. He doesn’t have a full list of artifacts yet, but it may or may not include gloves that create a necrotic web and a bell that makes an illusionary double.
The Slayer’s partner is The Archer. I put him off until later because I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do with him (Player’s Handbook 3, Seeker). Turns out I was wrong, and instead got my inspiration from the Martial Power 2’s Warlord, which was when they introduced the Skirmishing Warlord, who uses a bow.
The Archer uses normal arrows in order to be a distraction, position the mobs where he wants, and just straight up shoot things, but he also has a number of specialty artifact arrows made by Rose. Those include: Healing Arrows, Daze Arrows, Entangling Arrows, and Lightning Arrows.
Tabitha I left until last because she’s the only one of the important characters who doesn’t use magic in her fighting style the way the others do. I played around with a few options and finally decided on the Player’s Handbook 1 Paladin with all the healing and religion stripped out. She was raised riding a horse in full plate, knows her diplomacy, and charges headfirst into danger to protect people. Those are the traits a proper prince should have, after all.
I shared this, not because I have any illusions that what comes out in the published book will necessarily still look like what I have here, but just to show my process. Very few of my ideas strike me like a bolt of lightning. I take inspiration from everything I interact with on a daily basis. Using D&D was a new technique, but it really helped me to flesh out all of the characters by giving me a direction.
I was hoping that on reading The Storyteller over again, that I would be encouraged by how much I had done. Instead I find myself scared by how much I haven’t done. It’s much harder to make myself sit down and work on the story than it has been in the past.