Geek in Review: The Birth of an Avenger

This month's Geek in Review is about creating Aeofel Elhromanë, the Eladrin Avenger I played for the most recent Penny Arcade D&D podcast.

While all D&D characters begin as a collection of numbers (on paper, my Eladrin Avenger is 14,12,14,14,16,12) those numbers don’t mean anything without a story to bring them to life. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, maybe it’s because I have an imagination that I’ve always had to actively keep under control, but as long as I’ve been gaming, creating backstories for my characters has been as much fun – in some cases, more fun – than actually plunging them into a dungeon.

Though Wizards provides a spiffy character creation tool for 4E players, the Avenger class comes from the unreleased Player's Handbook 2, so those tools weren't available to me when I was bringing him to life. Undeterred, I designed and created Aeofel the way I've been doing it since I opened up my red box basic D&D set in 1983: I sat on the floor with some dice, some notebook paper, a bunch of open books, and – most important of all – my imagination.

I could have simply minmaxed my character, but that's just not how I roll. I wanted Aeofel to be more than a collection of numbers on a sheet of paper. Even though I knew we were playing a dungeon crawl with minimal roleplaying, I wanted him to be an actual person, because, as the first line of the basic set (my introduction to D&D) says, "This is a game that is fun. It helps you imagine."

I let my imagination run wild, and as I got to know Aeofel, he told me a story that was much longer than the one of two paragraphs I'd intended to write…

Two days’ journey from Mithrendain, beneath a thick canopy of leaves in the Forest of Astranz, there is a school, where, for countless human centuries, Eladrin have lived and trained, under Melora’s watchful eye.

Aeofel Elhromanë lived in this school for his entire life, devoting each of his 142 years to the service of Melora. He trained beside monks and clerics, and though he never saw battle firsthand, many of his instructors were veterans of the war with the Drow. He never knew his parents, but his fellow students were his House.

Eight nights ago, during the Court of Stars, the school was attacked by Goblin and Kobold raiders, lead by a human warlord. The school’s alarm, which had been silent for a generation, shook Aeofel and his brothers from their daily trance, and they ran from their quarters, ready for battle.

Aeofel dashed across the training grounds, ready to push the invaders back, but all he found was a trail of bodies –– attacker and defender alike –– from the school’s entrance to its shrine. Near the gate, a few warlords skirmished with kobolds, and wild magic crackled in the field beyond, but the attackers had fled the grounds.

His master, the great Avenger Immafen, stood beside the shrine’s entrance. His sword was slick with Goblin’s blood, and he breathed heavily.

“Master,” Aeofel said, “what has happened? Why were we attacked?”

If you're interested, you can read the rest of the story, as well as some more insight into Aeofel's design, in The Birth of an Avenger at the SG Newswire.

Please note that, while the content of my column is SFW, the rest of the site is NSFW, so you should access it accordingly, and don't bitch me out if you get in trouble.

38 thoughts on “Geek in Review: The Birth of an Avenger”

  1. Heh. Listen to you. This is much how my characters started out. Now if only I could get it down as well as you do. Well, I’m still trying. It just takes time (and a lot of hard work.)

  2. If you’re like me and do most of your blog-reading at work (’cause clearly, that’s what they pay me for!), but don’t want your IT guys coming to yell at you and kick your puppies, you can do what I do: subscribe to the SG RSS feed in Google reader.
    The feed address is: http://suicidegirls.com/rss/news/
    This way, you can use the power of Google to filter all the smut intriguing content to you by proxy.
    Also, Wil? Your Eladrin’s backstory rocketh with a mighty rocking.

  4. It would be really cool if you could re-post these somewhere where my company’s filtering doesn’t set off alarm klaxons because I’m trying to go to Suicide Girls, and apparently that makes me a porn seeking pervert.

  7. PS-changed my username to jedivet from jackwabbit, if anyone cares. I have two very different online IDs (one for fandom and one for RL – though they are rapidly merging), but since I tweet as the jedi, and my tweets are mainly about this site, well…going to the tweet name! Been waffling on this for a while now…still not sure, as most fandom stuff knows me as the wabbit, but…it just makes sense here. Leave it to Wil to be the exception to the rule. ; )

  8. Backstories are awesome. What’s the point of role playng without one, unless you’re hackenslashen? I ended up writing a 17-page back story for my first (and only) Changeling character over the summer. Turns out the backstory was better than the game itself, sadly.

  9. Thanks…you are going to make me dig out my stuff and set up a game again. I see it, don’t deny the fact that you have masterminded all of this so some guy you have never met before would want to play Dungeons and Dragons once again. It has been over 2 years since the sound of battle dice have been heard within the walls of my home. Your posts have been like a necromancer’s spell. Listening to the D&D podcast and reading your twitter and blog messages have given life to my long dead desire to host a game. Summon the players! The time has come to return to the realms! (insert trumpets here)

  10. Thanks! Your backstory was pretty awesome. The problems start happening when you’ve died twice already and you bring in your equally as awesome 3rd character and no one wants to take the time to hear your backstory. I had a 3E Swashbuckler named Megan O’Malley who had a sick backstory of pirate intrigue, but basically she met up with the gang who were like “Oh, it’s good that you’re here because our last guy died. Can we get on with fighting these goblins now?” But I’m not bitter.

  11. I’ve replied on twitter (as @hanekomu), but with 215000+ followers it’s likely to get lost…
    So I’ve got a lot of old D&D, AD&D etc. rulebooks and modules and want to sell them since I need more space, and truth be told I’m not into RPG anymore. I’ve put up a crude list at http://sehbaer.cc.univie.ac.at/~gr/rpg.html – just in case you’re interested.

  12. Well, I never showed anyone my backstory until today. I told the DM a brief version of it, in case he wanted to incorporate any of it into the adventure, but I mostly wrote that story just for myself.

  14. I had a 1st ed monk that I spent about 2 days thinking up and writing up my backstory. Changing little details avery once in a while. Rolled my character and stapled it all together.
    15 minutes into the fresh new campaign he died…

  15. Just wait till PHB3 comes out and I get to make my Monk. Whee!
    Got the 4th podcast today, took it to the gym so I could listen to it while I ran. Only 25 minutes!?!? Had to listen to it twice to get a decent run in. 😉
    I cheered for your assist with the Cleric, which I’m sure startled a few of the others running with me. 🙂
    Already setting the clock for next Wed. 🙂 Countdown, begin.

  16. Thanks to these posts, I’m carrying around a d20 everywhere I go. Even went with me to Los Angeles. And it inspired a new line of thinking in a board game I’m designing, so it’s all good in the hood. Or it would be if I was wearing one.
    There’s two types of gamers, those who read the flavor text top to bottom, and those who just hit “next, next, next” until they get to the next fight. Not surprised to see you’re the former. 🙂

  17. It upset when I looked down at my media player and noticed it was almost over with only 20 minutes of play. I need to edit out Tyco’s warning at the begining of each podcast too so the tranition will be seamless.

  18. Mah, I don’t ever fully read stuff before I start clicking links. I didn’t notice where it was going till it started to take me there. 🙁 My fault I’m not an interweb rookie. I dislike RSS feeds because it just clutters up my Trash. I only like stuff in my inbox when its boring and work related.

  20. Good stuff for a beginning; I’m lucky enough to be married to my DM, who always crafts the adventure to keep roleplaying foremost. (The adventuring is great too, though. He writes really tough mysteries) I write pages and pages of backstory, and he uses it all. We’ve begun to adventure in a completely original environment, using our piecemeal version of 2nd Ed rules, each of us contributing content to flesh out the world. It’s drug-like for the story addict.

  21. Ugh, sorry about the second image. I just noticed it has one of my players being a goof and sticking their hand under the table to give me a 1-finger salute. Sorry about that. =[ *grumble*

  22. What an awesome story! I’m loving my husband’s current (and first as a DM) 4e campaign. He loves the Eberron setting, and even though Wizards hasn’t released any guidebooks with 4e rules (yet), I feel as though Hubby has done an excellent job of incorporating the current rules and “making it up” along the way. By the way, my Eladrin Cleric kicks ass, if I do say so myself. And, her name is Caelynna. Maybe she ran into your Avenger in the Feywilde before they both crossed over to the mortal plane? 😉

  24. Um, so why aren’t we reading this under the heading “Check out the opening pages of my new fiction work, which I hope to have completed within the next 6 months or so?”
    : D

  25. I always loved it when we played D&D in college, though I was the observer most of the time and kept the players feed and hydrated. After college my husband (at the time) kept up with his DM and they kept playing the same story line for probably 14/15 years now. Its been fun watching my son grow up and get interested in D&D, though since he doesn’t really like to read he didn’t get his first Players Book till he was 11/12.
    I loved D&D night since it was a night I didn’t have to cook and we ordered in Chinese. The DM is a great writer with a diabolical mind, he created the whole world they still play in. Now I actually miss those nights, but since I’m now dog sitting for one of the players I still order in Chinese for the kids and me.
    At the Indy GenCon 2 years ago we had to hit the mugs full of dice a few times. We also get those big D6 dice for our then 2 year old daughter.
    Living with gamers is interesting and fun, but it sure has burned me out on games. Well all but Sims2

  27. Wow, what an awesome background story! If the published books gig doesn’t pan out maybe you can stand on a corner with a cardboard sign that says “Will create character backgrounds for food!” 😛
    Also (having just listened to episode 3 of the podcast), thanks for filling in the details of what was going on. That 3d map sounded awesome!

  30. I’m loving the D&D podcasts, I’ve never laughed so much nor wanted so much to get my mates round the table and run a proper old fashioned dungeon crawl. Sadly though it’s not dispelled my fears about 4e being essentially ‘WoW on a tabletop’. If I want to recreate that dungeon crawl nostalgia I think I’ll go for something like the ‘Descent’ boardgame instead.

  31. I’ve gotten so tired of people who min/max their characters. It takes so much fun out of running a game. I’d been away from D&D and other roleplaying games for a while, which is awful, as I own a comic and gaming shop. I just recently restarted running games in January. Just cements my enjoyment of this blog, knowing you’re the kind of player I’d be honored to have at my table 🙂

  32. Oh Man, now you done it, I want to see how it all ends!
    I really loved the story, do you have any plans for a fantasy novel series? Something nice and simple – nothing more than 5 or 6 books 😉
    None of my friends played D&D when I was growing up, so I was never exposed to it, some of them played with Warhammer stuff but I never had the disposable income for those sorts of things. I’m looking forward to having my own kids so I can see if they’ll play with me!

  33. Great back story! That was always my favorite part of D&D, too, but something about 3.5 turned me into a real power gamer/min-maxer (which is a perfectly acceptable gaming choice, as well). I have finally found the perfect balance: 1) Create a story/ character seed, 2) minmax the stats and equipment, 3) flesh out the story, justifying those stats. I end up with interesting character ideas, who can still hold their own in combat, and come equipped with several pages of back story to inform my rping choices.

  34. I have been playing the same character every week for over seven years now and it NEVER gets old. I am not sure it ever will. I have already commented on which edition I prefer so I won’t get back into that. However I will get into the back story, which I think is important. That’s my favorite part of creating a character. I had a simple storyline for my character when I created him back in 2001. I don’t have the space or the need to share the whole world, but the long and short of it was, my characters father was the Head Stable Master for the king of our land. My father was a long time friend of the King, the king would on occasion ask my fathers advice (kind of like Boothby for Jean Luc Picard at Star Fleet, strange parallel there) and the Kings daughter was the same age as my character. We basically grew up together, played together and in our later years fell in love.
    In order for my character to be able to marry the Kings youngest daughter I had to be a nobleman. So it was simple, I had to venture out of the stables and become a nobleman. Have lands, have money and show the King I could support his daughter. It was a simple yet grand idea.
    Since then I have married her, she has died and I have found out I am half-elven. All of my children are grown up and I am now dealing with them along with adventuring with a new group of adventurers. It’s been a great journey and I hope it doesn’t end anytime soon.
    Great story Wil, it brought back a lot from the days of making new characters.
    Michael

  35. I think you’ve got it backwards, Mike. I’ve played both, and of the two, Descent is FAR more like WoW than 4E is. Descent has absolutely zero role playing, and whenever I’m done with a game, I wonder why I just spent 3 to 5 hours playing it, when I could have been playing D&D instead.
    As I wrote in my column about 4E, everyone I’ve heard complain about 4E being “WoW on a tabletop” hasn’t actually played it. I’d urge you to head out to your FLGS the next time there’s a D&D gameday and give it a try.

  36. That’s the most common arguement I’ve heard against not only 4e but 3.5e. I honestly don’t think it holds any water because the rules for combat are really just a framework to run your campaign in. I’ve know people that don’t use minis or maps for encounters. It happens in the theatre of the mind.
    A great example is the first podcast which was a great bunch of roleplaying by everyone at the table. You had some dwarf on dwarf action, Jim Darkmagic impressing everyone and Alf just doing his thing. Up until the guys took their first actions in combat at the tower that could have been the start of any adventure in any edition of the game.
    I’ve personally had game sessions that were 6-8 hours long where I rolled my d20 maybe twice. Its not about the edition or system you’re running its how creative everyone at the table wants to be. You do as little or as much roleplaying as you want.

  37. Mine don’t get so elaborate as to include conversations, but I hear you on the need to flesh the character out. And it does indeed provide motivations…
    In the Vampire: the Requiem campaign I’m in, my character, Ethan, started off as a hacker who was “recruited” by a Mekhet elder so she could use his skills in the Danse Macabre. Unfortunately, she had a very cute sense of humor; one of his early tasks was to drain a certain offshore account, and donate the funds (anonymously) to the local Catholic diocese. (Thus endeth this portion of the backstory.)
    Turned out the account belonged to the Prince of New Orleans, and he traced the action back to them. Ethan’s sire got a brief suntan; Ethan himself was staked, then awoke in a mansion outside the city, where he met a Ventrue gunbunny. The two of them were given instructions through IMs on a mysterious smartphone, and are currently undertaking a sort of mystical scavenger hunt across the US. Ethan’s reason for following all these bizarre instructions? Because he has been given to understand that if he fails to do so, his next stop will be standing before the Prince. Which means his benefactor is more powerful than the Prince of New Orleans…

  38. Damnit Wil, and I thought your non-fiction work was great — I wants more! Seriously, this is freakin awesome. It gives a good view of why you’re such an excellent actor as well, your character creation is ridiculously fun to read. Please tell me there’s more here — guess I have to start listening to the podcasts now. Wow that was way to gushy, let me balance that out — may be if you write something longer (like a novel) it would suck…but haha I have you by rule # whatever “Don’t be afraid to suck”; so now you have to write something longer.

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