This week's post will be a trip down memory lane for me.
Let's go back to November 2021. The world was doing its best to come out of the pandemic which had dramatically changed the way we see and value things for many of us. Many people approached the world of TTRPGs during the lockdown, as a way to escape the boredom and keep our sanity, but I didn't; instead, I started after I was finally able to go back to work.
As I explained in
my first entry in this blog, I had started watching D&D related shows but had not pull the trigger yet. But my birthday was approaching, I had no ideas on what to ask as a gift, and I found the D&D 5e Essential Kit, which promised to be a good entry point, for quite cheap on Amazon, so...why not give it a try?
I'd like to point out that at that point I had no one to play with; I did start with a friend who was interested in trying it out as a player with me DMing, but I asked him only after ordering my gift.
Fast forward a few weeks, my birthday arrives, I receive my gift and can't wait to try this new hobby. He had the idea for his character, a dragonborn wizard, but there we stopped: yes, the rulebook included the option of creating sidekicks, but by being the only player he'd miss out on all the banter that makes this hobby fun! (That was our point of view at the time)
Moreover, a wizard is quite of a squishy character, especially at level 1, and even a cleric sidekick can only do so much...and also, I wanted to experience the thrill of creating my own character too!
Without knowing it, I was creating my first DMPC.
Now, what character would I make? My experience was quite limited at the time, plus I was going to also be in charge of the world, so I wanted something simple. A fighter would complement well my friend's wizard.
And for the race? I saw that Mountain Dwarves got a boost to both Strength and Constitution, and it seemed like a good match, so that was picked.
Next, I needed a name. At the time I was listening a lot to the Finnish metal band Beast in Black (I still do) and they have a song, in their first album, called "Zodd the Immortal". Sounded like a Dwarvish name to me. For the last name, instead, I went to the father of fantasy (Tolkien) and picked the name the Dwarves use for themselves. Thus, Zodd Khazad was born.
Now I needed a backstory. Something simple, as my character would never be in the spotlight (I was very clear on this with my friend and like to think that I managed to do it over the course of that campaign), but I still wanted something to have an idea of how to roleplay him during dialogues between characters.
Another reason I wanted to avoid a complex backstory was to show my friend how to do it, since I told him "Remember, your character is only level 1 and with a future of adventuring in front of him, don't go too crazy" and he came up with "My character is the son of a god, the only survivor after his village was destroyed and his parents killed"; you know the type.
What I came up with was a former guard in a Dwarven city, who left his old job after an event he never wants to talk about: him mistakenly killing a young Dwarf who he thought - because he was told by his captain - was a dangerous criminal, but turned out to be just someone stealing some bread to feed themself. This left him so scarred that he couldn't bear himself to even wield a sword anymore (a fear he had to pass through Wisdom saves once the party got ahold of a Dragonslayer sword during their quest in defeating the White Dragon of the Icespire Peak campaign included in the Essential Kit). Something that motivates him, but not so much as to steal the spotlight from the player (or players, as eventually we had a second one join the campaign).
We were so excited about our first characters that we even ordered miniatures of them! We got them already painted by the seller, as at the time I had not restarted my old hobby of mini painting, but they did a really good job following my instructions. Here's mine:
Sadly, I never got to finish that campaign (we finished the Icespire Peak part, but I added parts between those quests and after that added more to make a bigger campaign tailored on my character's backstories - yes, even the "son of a god" part, even though I had a twist in mind for that to make it more viable), but I am still attached to Zodd, if anything because it was the first time I created a TTRPG character.
What about you? Do you still remember your first TTRPG character? Have you finished the campaign you created them in, or at least got some closure about them? Or maybe they perished, giving a different kind of closure. I'd like to hear about them!
This is all for this week, see you next Sunday for my next post!
May your dice never betray you,
Kirhon
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