08 August 2009

Dovra Lawyndro

After something of a hiatus, I'm back in a D&D group. For no particular reason, I decided to create a rather neurotic character: the half-elf wizard Dovra Lawyndro**, who used to be evil until she found* the Flute of Unbreakable Balance, which can "only be wielded by one neither good nor evil," and decided not to be evil any more. She's a poorly socialized half-elf, who is a bit like Anya from Buffy in that she doesn't quite "get" normal behavior. We've only just started the campaign, and she encountered the extant group of characters for the first time last Tuesday. She announced, "I'm not evil!" at least three times, possibly more. Then proceedings were interrupted by the DM for a duel between his character (from the campaign when he wasn't DM) and a goblin. At that point, it was time to quit, as they'd had to finish the old campaign before they could begin the new one.

I actually got to participate in the old campaign, albeit with a missing player's character, so that they'd have at least one wizard on board. Turns out it was a good thing I did. I/Galadriel (Yes, an elf-wizard named Galadriel; the actual player is a rather young girl, so go with it) managed to successfully cast a sleep spell on the big bad in the very last encounter. There was a lot of luck involved. I got higher initiative, so I was able to try before the big bad transported to his circle of power, where his stats would have been just out of reach of the spell. Even better, he had enough time just before the spell took effect to transport to the circle, which was right next to a portal which we'd been told would kill any living creature who passed through it, so rather than hack the big bad repeatedly for a dozen turns, they just had to drag him to the portal and push him in.

*I'd actually intended that Dovra just be looking for the Flute, but there was a miscommunication with the DM, and he thought she already had it, so I went with it. As she's not convinced yet that she's neither good nor evil, she's not going to try and play it any time soon, but she'll probably annoy the other characters by trying to play the ordinary flute that she bought, figuring that learning to play it will help her play the other one. I have no idea whether this is true, and Dovra hasn't the faintest idea what the Flute actually does. I doubt she even knows why she wants it. I can speculate OOC: she hasn't had a particularly happy life up to this point, and figures that anything that would "balance" that out must be a good thing. I'm leaving it up to the DM what, exactly, the Flute really balances, but it's probably not even close to what Dovra thinks.

**I'm lousy at coming up with names, so I've got a bot with several sets of syllables that can be combined in random order. The generated names were actually much longer than just "Dovra Lawyndro," but by removing a few I wound up with what I consider to be a decent name. It will be amusing if the other character try to call her "Dovi," as that's what I call the cat who adopted me, short for "Dovienya."

8 comments:

John said...

Sweet! I miss playing D&D (or any of several paper-and-dice RPGs)

I will not tell you about my character at great length.
I will not tell you about my character at great length.
I will not tell you about my character at great length.
I will not tell you about my character at great length.
I will not tell you about my character at great length.
I will not tell you about my character at great length.
I will not tell you about my character at great length.

Sorry. It's a sort of operant conditioning to any mention of RPGs.

Qalmlea said...

LOL. I only talked about Dovra because she's a bit bizarre. I suspect that at the next session she's going to inquire of the paladin whether or not simply watching the duel is evil. She's very concerned to not be evil at this point.

John said...

Sounds like you've got yourself a really good group. That's pretty rare, as far as I can tell. Most of the gaming groups I have known were hack-and-slash. Actual role-playing was strongly discouraged. Those aren't the ones I miss.

Qalmlea said...

Well, we had a mix at this session. The final encounters of the other campaign were straight-up battles, with very little room to role-play even if I'd been playing my own character. The beginning of the next campaign was mostly a setup to get the new characters introduced, though we didn't get to the deva. I'm hoping Dovra gets initiative to react to him when he shows up. She's a trifle paranoid _any_way, and seeing an angel-like creature would definitely freak her out.

John said...

Okay, just one.

My first session with a new group. I was playing a ranger (Ceadmon Raske). It was a Forgotten Realms Underdark setting.

I was unaware that the group had a hack-and-slach tendency, and had worked out with the DM a really neat way to get into the party. There's an inn in Waterdeep with an entrance to the Underdark in the outhouse (seriously, I wish I was making that up). So I set it up that Caedmon had been drinking and fallen into the Underdark (hey, I was 19). However, the first encounter I had with the party was with a character wearing a Cloak of the Bat. Here's where the problem came in. They expected a "You're all PC's? So am I! Lets go kill something!" intro. I tried to roleplay a drunk ranger, recently fallen into a dark cave of some sort, seemingly being charged by a shadowy, bat-like creature.

Thanks to some really lucky rolls, I wound up beating the crap out of half the party before the DM decided to intervene.

John said...

Dammit!

Caedmon Raske

(stupid fingers)

Fibonacci said...

By the way, your information on the flute came from a translation of very old runes, and you can't be absolutely sure of the accuracy of said translation.

Qalmlea said...

Oh, great. Dovra may go off the deep end at anyone who suggests the translation is inaccurate, btw.