Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Gambit of Truth

A few months ago, I was invited to play in a somewhat different Dungeons & Dragons campaign.  All I was told in the beginning was to forget my preconceived notions of how things like race and gender worked with a typical D&D fantasy world.  I would not be creating a character from the onset.  Instead, I was assured that all those details would be provided.  I tentatively agreed, not knowing what I may have gotten myself into.

The setting had a vaguely Roman feel.  The character awoke in a strange place, surrounded by signs that indicating that they had been involved in a mysterious ritual.  Nobody could remember anything about who they had been or any relevant facts about the world.  From the initial confusion, I discovered that I was a master of air magic, specializing in lightning.  My character, as of yet unnamed, was a Storm Sorcerer.  He could wield the power of lightning to destroy his foes.  The rest of the group was a motley crew of strange folk, most of whom were made even stranger by the lack of context regarding race and gender.

It took a number of sessions, maybe three or four, for me to even name this rather strange character I had discovered.  At that time, the newly named Quintus also underwent a transformation, becoming the newly released Air Elementalist instead of a Storm Sorcerer.  The Elementalist was new and I was interested in giving it a crack.  Besides, I felt like the Storm Sorcerer was not quite my class.  From that, Quintus the Air Mage was finally born.

I am the Master of Wind and Lightning is my servant!
The Elementalist: Simple yet Effective.
Quintus is another of my personal D&D character cards.  He is level 4, although I did not check Inherent Bonuses as we do not play with them in this campaign.  Two of his abilities, Air Bending and Elemental Feedback, are actually item powers.  However, as the current 4E rules do not bind item power usage per "milestone" anymore, I thought it would be more interesting to represent those powers as his own innate abilities instead of item abilities.

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