Sample PC Concepts

[DocBeard]

One bit of trouble I've found people have is concepts for Ravenloft heroes. It's easy to fall into the trap of feeling that your heroic concept isn't dark enough for Ravenloft, or whatever other hangup is holding you back. I thought it'd be fun to throw up a list of sample characters I made for all of the 4E classes, and see what folks thought. I'll throw up the Martial classes first, and the others a bit later, so it's not one huge pose.

Martial
Sample Fighter: Harald Liskivic, a human Nova Vassan, is the youngest son of the Liskivics, a cadet branch of the great Othmar family that have had a rough time being stuck between the more independent great houses who used to make up the majority of their income and their loyalty to their parent house. Harald saw it as his duty to reduce the strain on his parents, and thought a career abroad would provide one less mouth to feed at home, and the potential of fame reflecting well on the family. He's a bit of a thrill seeker, largely because he feels that the only way to really prove he deserves his name is to do something grand that will improve the fortunes of his family.

Sample Ranger: Tain Losha, a male elf Valchani, hailing from the plains loving Summer elves who migrated to Valchan from wet, dreary Sithicus, Tain is a talented hunter and marksman who wanted a chance to refine his skills and see more of the world without having to join up in the Black Panthers to do so. He often bites his tongue, hating bullies despite his growing up in a Domain where they are given the jackboot of authority, and dreams of one day seeing the legendary Wildlands, where the animals are said to be so clever it's like fighting another person.

Sample Rogue: Gus Shallot, a halfling Richmleuani, grew up in a family of sewerjacks and urban explorers who haunt the still-wild ruins of Richmleuant's mysterious cities. Gus is a little ashamed of his family's exuberance for their work, as he dreams of one day earning enough money to enter high society and be a proper gentleman; he will sometimes affect a 'better' accent or repress his natural drawl, and make up stories to make his relatives seem classier than they actually are.

Sample Warlord: Herr Schultz, a Lamordian warforged whom was originally created to serve as a butler and head of staff for a scientifically inclined nobleman who was obsessed with creating the perfect life for himself; free of the complications of relationships with real people. It is, perhaps, ironic that the constables believe that a servant is the one that killed the old master Schultz. His old butler has applied his knack for organization and strategy to the road, as he attempts to make a living, keep his status as a 'rogue construct' under wraps, and maybe, just maybe, find out who really killed the closest thing he had to a father.

[DocBeard]

Arcane Characters
Sample Bard: Antoni Graskovich, a male Vistani, was always a little...different. Maybe it was because his mother vanished when he was so young, or maybe the boy was just born wrong, but either way the young man had always shown an unhealthy interest in the past of his people, the true source of the patternina, and weather the ancient stories were true or not. One day, he simply left a letter of apology to his poor widower father, stole the family fiddle, and took off in search of the secrets of the universe. The old women of the caravan clucked their tongues...and secretly smiled, when the rest of the tribe wasn't looking, knowing that destiny cannot be denied.

Sample Sorcorer: Jania lu-Tseng, a dragonborn Velchorite, woke up one morning with a horrible curse: she could READ. And she saw words everywhere, words brimming with power-she even dared speak one, and managed to burn her modest home down in the process. Convinced(and rightfully so) that King Easan would have her taken away and experimented on once he realized that she somehow caused the fire, Jania slipped away from her friends and neighbors in the night. Now, traveling through the alien Core, Jania attempts to find a way to control her wild magic, wondering if this is how Easan felt before becoming a god...

Sample Swordmage: Iman bin Sudal, a Gensai Pharizan, comes from a long line of Gensai who have passed down the secret techniques of the swordmage from generation to generation. The Sudal family legends say that once a scion of the line's swordmagic technique has been refined enough, the scion will be able to make a single perfect cut, slicing through the material world and freeing the genie who founded their line in the first place. Iman wonders, as he quests to perfect his technique, what they are supposed to do AFTER Grandfather Bonfire is freed from his prison.

Sample Warlock: Grumio Haevestus, a human Darkonese who made the mistake of going down the wrong cave at the wrong time. A collapsed mine shaft nearly spelt his death, until something...something that sounded a little like his mother...spoke to him from the dark. It said it would save him, and all he had to do was listen for a while. So he did. And now he'll never be the same, the shadow woman's words and the secret ways to tap the power of the night burnt into his brain. Grumio's primary goal, besides survival, is to try and figure out just who the shadow woman was, and if there's any way to contact her again.

Sample Wizard: Matilda Manshere, a Sithican Eladrin noblewoman who was trained and tutored in the traditional manner of her class and people. A skilled arcanist, Matilda fell on hard times when a raid by Azrael and his brutal bandits left her family impoverished; she took to the road to avoid being ransomed off as marriage chattel, and is still reeling from the culture shock. The latest indignity has been putting on a Vistani headwrap and using her sacred grandmother of pearl orb to tell fortunes and impress farmers and peasants along the Indivian backroad in order to make ends meet.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Great stuff! Looking forward to the rest of them. I especially like Herr Schultz and Matilda Manshere (masquerading as a vistani in Invidia? boy has she got a rude awakening coming!)

One bit of trouble I've found people have is concepts for Ravenloft heroes. It's easy to fall into the trap of feeling that your heroic concept isn't dark enough for Ravenloft, or whatever other hangup is holding you back.

I've seen the opposite more often, actually. The player thinks his PC has to be the darkest antihero since Spawn, just because it's Ravenloft.

[DocBeard]

I've seen the opposite more often, actually. The player thinks his PC has to be the darkest antihero since Spawn, just because it's Ravenloft.

Two sides of the same problem, I think.

Divine
Sample Avenger: Nichole Hradvana, a female Tiefling Barovian, should have died as an infant when the first signs of devil's taint were found on her. But her father was unable to give up the child his wife died giving birth to, not entirely, and spirited the girl away to the local monastery. Begging the abbot's help, her father was promised that Nichole would be raised as though she were one of the monks's own. Now, as Nichole readies herself for a pilgrimage out into the world where she can work the Morninglord's vengeance on a wicked world, her father wonders if it was such a good idea to trust the girl to the monks after all.

Sample Cleric: Boris Flinttack, a male dwarf from Lamordia, took up adventuring because of a dream he had a year ago, where the ghostly spirit of his great-grandfather warned him that the dwarfs of the great iron road were risking damnation, and needed to hear the words of the ancestors. A devout priest of the dwarf-focused branch of the Eternal Order, Boris believes that his dream was commanding him to travel the rails, where he does good deeds and comforts the dead while looking for a clearer omen of the great doom that is hanging over his people.

Sample Invoker: Jovi Tassilia, a male human Borcian, has long been interested in the secret past of the church of Ezra. His research led to him using techniques and spiritual invocations that had not been practiced since before the modern church was founded; he's received scorn and mockery for his journey into the past, and seeks to adventure to prove that his theories have merit, and his strange techniques are a legitimate path of worshiping Ezra through sacred combat.

Sample Paladin: Fiona Dunn, a half-elf Tempestani, has struggled to surpass the curse the Fair Folk left on her since birth. Naturally charismatic and enchanting, Fiona believes that she must wield her otherworldly charms in the righteous cause of Belenus Morninglord. Her greatest fear is that without her cause, she will ultimately revert to being the creature of sin and temptation that she was intended to be. A lifetime of repression and fear has built up a great deal of tension in Fiona, and her adventuring companions are worried about what might happen if she does not find some way to unwind.

[DocBeard]

And finally, Primal
Sample Barbarian: Bhat, a Sebulan human, could handle the thirst and pain of the desert, the chill of night, and even the eternal fear of Ol'Scabby and his Jackal Men. But he couldn't handle falling in love with a girl who had no interest in him. Rather than try to force her to love him, Bhat took himself and his anger away from his tribe, traveling for days until he discovered one of the great ghosts of the desert. (Or a hallucination, eh?) The ghost taught Bhat how to channel his anger, and promised that he may be able to win his love's affection if he left the World Desert and achieved that most mysterious of goals: to become a man.

Sample Druid: Bridget McTavish, a Barovian Forfaran human, considers the honor of what's left of the McTavish clan to be less important than there being a McTavish clan a generation from now. Rather than spill her blood senselessly in the ever-war against the goblins of Forlorn, Bridget adventures to learn the secrets of other Primal spiritualists throughout the Domain of Dread, believing that what her family sees as selfishness today could be what saves them tomorrow.

Sample Shaman: Doctor Louis Yanville, a human Sourgani, a houngan from a long line of houngans, Doctor Louis had to leave home after saving someone's life in the swamp. Someone the Lord of the Dead had marked as one of his own. Quickly fleeing the wrathful Loa, Doctor Louis now struggles to understand the strange loa of the Core, hoping to one day find a bit of knowledge or some treasure to make things right with the Lord of the Dead, so he may go home and continue his family line.

Sample Warden: Anna Walks With Pride, a Goliath from Vorstovok's grim border mountains, learned the ways of the Warden from the tribe's previous chief defender. She had a rival, and the two dueled for the right to continue learning from the old man. Anna lost. While the old man insisted that both girls could learn, Anna's pride was bruised, and she swore she would learn on her own, taking her leave of the tribe and seeking her fortune in the wild world.

[DocBeard]

So is this helpful? Would something by race or by home Domain be more helpful?

[DocBeard]

They say there is no such thing as a typical adventuring company, the White Pine Company has, perhaps, a more diverse pool of inspiration than most. To be plain about it, the common denominators in this group are secrets and desires; everyone has a reason to explore the old ruins and impossibly dark forests shunned by the sane citizens of Kartakass. The group has gained a small measure of fame after saving a little girl from a vicious wereboar after the girl turned out to be a distant relative of Harkon Lukas himself, and the pressure this attention puts on their privacy may split it apart before the Company finds anything they're looking for.

After a few shots of bad whiskey Russiv Nacht, a male human Bard, claims to have come upon his knowledge of the secret signs and sigils of the world when he overheard Grandfather Wolf arguing with a great bat-winged devil. The two spoke in a strange, almost musical candace, calling on the sun, the moon, art and blood like a politician would use rhetoric and precedent to prove a legal argument. Before long, he realized that what they were arguing about, was what to do with a foolish little eavesdropper who couldn't mind his own business! Now he must travel all around the woods, searching for the one thing that can appease the hungry spirits, a song or a story that is completely new to them. While sober, Russiv ignores any questions about his story, though if he was soused enough to tell the whole thing he almost always leaves town that night. This evasiveness has started to brew conflict between the fiddler and his cohorts.

Losing her mother at a young age, Jenny Tarrif was always close to her father, one of the lumberjacks who daily waged war with the woods and the wild to bring heat to the people. Then, on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, he vanished without a trace. The townsfolk said he succumbed to the curse of his blood, running out to join in the carnage of the man-wolves of the wild, but Jenny knew Papa's enormous heart and gentle soul would never allow it. All grown up, Jenny still uses her skills as a female shifter Warden to try and discover just what happened to her father, while trying to stand up for the simple virtues the lion of a man instilled in her. She is the field leader of the group by virtue of being the one willing to speak in a crowd and having a knack with children.

Little Eric Timothy grew up on the river, raised on stories about his great uncle Nathan and how cousin Alfred, rest his soul, had lead the family name to infamy and ruin with his cavorting with the wolf-men and their savage god. Disturbed by this tendency towards murder in his veins, Eric learned the secrets of the river and its children from an old Forfarin who only called himself 'Pappy Oak'. A male human Druid with full benefits of training, Eric travels primarily to help the river spirits in their constant struggle against being completely dominated by the forest spirits, and because when he does some good in the world, those horribly vivid dreams about the bone white moon and the screaming of wolves are a little less disturbing.

Katya Juneberry, a female half-elf Ranger, enjoyed a unusually normal childhood, considering that her father was an escaped Hazlani slave and her mother a dryad who had originally intended to eat him until falling in love with the man's relentless optimism in the face of the impossibly tragic. She ran away from home after discovering a letter from her father's old master, demanding that the slave return 'the fascinating hybrid creature that remains my property by right of law', reasoning that if her father doesn't know where she is he cannot be forced to defy his old master and have his organs turned into beetles. The bright young woman views the entire thing as a great adventure, refusing to let her associates see just how much the sudden abandonment of her loving family has effected her.

[DocBeard]

Lucho Feugo are a band of adventurers based in the southeast part of Valachan, battling monsters and beasts of the jungle, pirates off of the coast, and they're even rumored to occasionally dress in disguise to protect a poor village or family from the greed of the Baron's tax collectors.

Carmen Rujo, a female human fighter, founded the Feugo with Alverra a few years ago, when her mother's love of gambling finally threatened to put her family in the poor house. Forced to give up her burgeoning career as an athlete in the bullfights, Carmen still uses the quick, taunting fighting style to lead on enemies in the battlefield, claiming that the rush she gets is about the same, even if the bulls were a bit smarter than the average brigand. Originally in it solely for the money, Carmen still keeps an eye on the group's finances, knowing that her partners's collective idealism sometimes gets the best of them.

Alverra Freefern, a male gnome invoker, learned the secrets of channeling Hala's grace from his father, as has been the case for as far back as the family can remember. When the Black Leopards set a thatch of the jungle on fire in order to smoke out a hydra that had been preying on the Don's property, much of the Freefern's home, hidden as dead old tree stumps and bits of scrub brush, was destroyed, including the majority of the library the coven had painstakingly collected over the years. Alverra considers it his duty to reconstruct as much of the old tomes as possible, and knows that the best way to test his research out is in the field, so to speak. He is the idealistic core of the Feugo, making sure that Carmen's practicality does not lead them down the path to becoming like the thugs who destroyed his home.

Nuevo Verdant, a male elf shaman, grew up as one of the elf tribes of the jungle, eking a living from the land and trying to avoid the bloody conflicts of the civilized folk to the north and west. Nuevo made the mistake of wandering away from his mother one evening, and found himself alone and lost. A week later, little Nuevo stumbled back into the elf village, amazingly alive and well; he claimed that a snow white jaguar led him home after he fed the beast a cake made from a potato and his blood. Now grown, the young shaman still sees visions of the spirit world, and adventures in order to better understand why he's the one the ghosts of the land talk to. He's got something of a crush on Yelina, though has not yet found the courage to try and pursue anything with her.

Yelina Gringarro, a female human warlock, cherished her visits to Tia Gringarro more than anything else in the world. Every other week, she'd pack them both a lunch, and sneak through the woods to give her grandmother a hot meal and some company. Tia would tell her stories and teach her tricks for survival in the jungle. It was only years later that Yelina realized that what Tia had been doing was teaching her magic; a massive wolf attacked her, and Yelina desperately tried one of the storybook charms she learned as a child, and was shocked to see that it worked, causing the wolf to knock itself out against a tree. That same day, her grandmother's hut vanished from the little clearing in the jungle, and Yelina began her career as an adventurer, furthering her skills with the magic secrets of fairyland and trying to find what happened to her Abuela. If only she knew how much she would regret the answers...

[The Arcanist]

Perhaps a good addition would be to adapt the less traditional races as well, as the half-orc became the caliban in 3.x...

So I propose:
The Spirit Listener (Deva) - This men and women are far and few in the lands of the core and slightly more common in Rokushima Taiyoo (sp?). The haunted spirit listeners were born as normal humans apparently, but within them laid the dormant (and destined to awake) ability to hear the voices and dreams of certain spirits from the gray realm. These spirits might be ancestors or unrelated to the spirit listener, benign or malefic, but sooner or later they'll reach to him.

The particular spirits (virtuous or vile) of each listener share their memories, council and wisdom with him, but the spirit listener must be always vigilant from the wicked spirits who may reach to him and slowly corrupt him to possess him take his place on this world.

Finally all spirit listeners realize one day after their death they'll be able to reach one or more spirit listeners, will they be a benevolent guide? or will they grasp this chance to live again?

Name Change
Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes -> Memory of the Spirits
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Dragonborn - A rare occurrence in the lands of mists, their origin traces back to an outlander dragonborn lost in the mists who found her way to Tepest. She was welcomed in a kobold clan where she soon became the matriarch, she helped defend this clan from the frequent raids from the inquisitors who made no distinction between fey and kobold, until one day the inquisitors were finally able to slay her.

But her presence had inspired the kobold sorcerers who experimented to gain warriors such as her. Years later their work bore fruits, by imbuing a human infant with the blood of a kobold with arcane power in a terrible ritual they were able to transform the child into an adult dragonborn. Sadly for the kobolds, the process wasn't completely safe, as most of the infants die during the transformation; nor completely reliable, as not all of the newly created dragonborn are loyal to their clan as they retain their previous memories and turn against the kobold clan. Dragonborn who reject their 'adoptive' clan or find themselves orphaned later are forced to find a place for themselves in a world who regards them as monsters.

Still, the possibility of gaining this powerful and mighty dragonborn warriors was tempting and the knowledge of their creation has spread beyond tepest into Falkovnia and Darkon, even if the process must be kept secret from the dragonborn as some have resented this unnatural creation further adding to the ranks of deserters. Kobold clan's attempts at capturing both male and female infants who can withstand the transformation and successfully join the clan to breed new dragonborn generations in a more traditional way have proven unsuccessful so far.
-------

Vismorgen (Tiefling) - As calibans are sometimes born to humans out of acts of depravity, a sign of the sins of their parents, a curse or any other reason, when such a thing happens to a Vistani the Vismorgen are born.

When the child is not put to death at birth (usually because this would only have dire repercussions as the curse being strengthened for example) the child is kept out of sight of anyone beyond the tribe, be it Giorgio or Vistani, and a few times even exposed as an attraction when the vismorgen is born to a <AFB, Insert name of tribe that does circus performances and other shows> tribe.

Still, vismorgen receive little acceptance from their tribe, not even being taught the Patterna language, so many try to escape from their families and find their fortunes on their own although their appearance usually makes this fortunes rather grim.

Name Change
Infernal Wrath -> Wrath of the Cursed
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I leave open to the forums a reimagining of other races such as the Goliath or Shifter

Edit: Format

[Hogan Van Monsterband]

These are the ones from my current (3.x) game. Most of them are defined more by the reason they're on the road than anything specific about them:


Thomas Elench's family are morticians. They're also devout Ezrans, so his dabbling in the black (well, grey) arts did not make him especially popular with them, and when he was ejected from Mordentshire University, he became a gentleman of the road. Unfortunately, as a Human Wizard, he doesn't really have the physique to be a highwayman.


Beatriz Grimaldi, a human rogue, is the last survivor of the massacre at Palasso Grimaldi. The rest of her family were wiped out when one of the family feuds that ravages Borca spilled over into actual violence, so now she's on the run. The transition from spoilt Borcan princess to wanted fugitive has not been kind to her, and she tends to go for the most expensive and luxurious option whenever she can.


Dane, an elven fighter, did some bad things in Darkon. He doesn't know what they were, because the earliest memory he has is of wandering through a forest in Richmeulot. He knows he opposed Azalin, and has been fighting the Kargatane wherever he finds them, but ultimately he doesn't know at whose behest he does so.


Hannah and Vostov are a brother and sister from Barovia. He's a cleric and she's a rogue, and they were the burgomaster's children (and thus, marginally more comfortable than the rest of their village), until Vostov got involved with the radical Church of the Morninglord. The fact that Hannah's a dead ringer for Strahd's dead wife didn't help matters, and so now they're on the run.

[DocBeard]

Hey, new classes are out, so I thought I'd give this a go.

Michelle Fillepe, a halfling Ardent, is that rarest of creatures, a Ghastrian with joy d'veve, a love of life and passion that was nearly palpable; her simple presence was enough to brighten a neighbor's otherwise all too gray day. You could almost say it was contagious. The young psychic had a premonition of what might happen if she stayed home, however, after one of the lean and hungry nobles started looking into the stories about her, and managed to catch a boat to the Core.

Mahogany Nirsen wanted to help provide for his impoverished tribe of goliaths. Joining up with the Northwest Rail Line, Mahogany's knack for the arts of the Battlemind made him something of a hero to the other workers; the humble goliath continues to patiently send three quarters of his wages back home, unaware of the jealousy and spite that has crept into the hearts of a few of his colleagues...

Anne Howard belonged to an impoverished branch of an old Mordent family; or at least that's what her folks always said. Hoping to give her sick old mother a decent end of her life, Anne apprenticed with the Mordentshire Parapsychology society-the only way she could afford to get the training she needed to be a real alienist. All of those things about awakening her inner Psion are just bunk, of course, even if she is starting to hear little whispers of what sound like people's thoughts...

Heliot Orchard is an initiate of the strange order of star gazers located in Darkon's Mistlands. The elf is a decent monk, but his real talent comes from ambition; he feels that the order cannot truly understand the auspices of heaven without a broader perspective on the night sky. This means expansion. But he'd need to earn mastery before the order would even start taking him seriously.

Fei Konbao's family came to the Core with a trickle of Cathi immigrants who decided to take their chances across the ocean instead of life as a second class citizen in Rokushuma or death at the mercies of the Queen of Witches. Through a combination of experimentation and memory, Fei's managed to teach himself the lost secrets of a Runepriest; the Celestial Alphabet was thought destroyed when the Emperor was killed at the Tower of Broken Promises. What started as a simple curiosity has exploded out of control, but Fei cannot bring himself to stop trying to recover the secret language of Heaven.

Goodman Jebidiah Watt should be the only half-orc landowner in Richemulot. His family have held their little manor in the swamp for generations, largely because of the lack of any interest in it by savvier Richemuloters; that was until Uncle Ziggy got tricked into betting the whole thing on a rigged game of diksha. Armed with a hand made rifle and the centuries old pacts his family made with the spirits of the land, the young Seeker is confident that he can make his fortune and get his family's land back. What could go wrong?