Lengthy "Tell Me About Your Character" Alert...
Last week's piece about my early RPG characters got me thinking about my most successful and enduring Dungeons & Dragons character: Staghind Starlight Aramioc-Blacksword The First.
By mid-1979, the club side of The Dark Tower had outgrown the rooms above the shop and relocated to a community hall a short distance away in a more suburban area of Tunbridge Wells.
As well as all the normal campaigns being run, one Dungeon Master (I don't recall his name) was running a "competition" dungeon, known as The Crypte Of The Courageous. He told me to create a third level character, so I turned for advice to the best source of reliable information I knew... the counter monkey at The Dark Tower.
His immediate suggestion was a half-elf magic-user/fighter/cleric (I had embraced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons by this time)... and so was born Staghind.
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| Staghind's first character sheet - from her run through The Crypte Of The Courageous |
Not only did she (and her fellow adventurer whose name has faded into obscurity) become the first team to conquer The Crypte Of The Courageous in July 1979, but she would eventually become my longest surviving and, beyond a shadow of a doubt, favourite Dungeons & Dragons character.
Among her other achievements in her illustrious career - before settling down as Queen Of Norll, Jalla and Elfland - she rescued a fellow party member from boiling mud in White Plume Mountain (admittedly she'd knocked him in there first); liberated the Simarils from Morgoth; gained storm giant strength for 10 years from a raid on a giant's lair; and - most impressively - was taught martial arts by a duck master of Quack Fu!
Oh yes, she also met the legendary White Dwarf and her own god, Niffle. Apparently his mission is to seek out those who are worthy enough to worship him (he doesn't actively court worshippers). As it says on her character sheet below she has only ever actually met one other Nifflite - the high-priest of the faith, a gentleman by the name of Thor.
She was married twice; first to Gublin's main character Egghead Aramioc and then to Guy Huckle's Glorfindel Blacksword. She had seven children and adopted one (a duck by the name of Quincy).
Her eldest daughter, Elean, made an appearance in the first few sessions of the first campaign I ran for the Tuesday Knights as a pirate leader (Staghind herself was masquerading as queen of the Amazonian island of Zenn).
I had always had a very definite idea of what Staghind looked like, but it wasn't until issue 24 of White Dwarf came out that I actually had a visual representation of my vision (see picture above).
However, in recent years I've begun to reimagine her as resembling Sandahl Bergman's Valeria from the 1980's Conan The Barbarian movie.
The final page of Staghind's "retirement" character sheet (immediately above) details her subterranean 'castle' (the former Halls Of The Elf King; a dungeon she took over), her fleet of ships, her magic horse and her small orc army.
Ahh, those were the days!
There was no set game world when we played, Staghind moved from campaign to campaign, Dungeon Master to Dungeon Master and no one questioned her ever-increasing wealth or powers. This goes a long way towards explaining the bizarre diversity of her travels and treasures - from obvious Tolkienesque material to Howard The Duck-inspired martial arts skills.
I'd like to point out that at some stage I deducted the "bonus experience points" she was gifted to start at 3rd level, so the experience points you see on her sheet were all earned by her own sweat and blood.
I certainly wouldn't be adverse, one day, to bringing her out of retirement, but - on the other hand - I'm quite content to leave her, safe and sound, on her throne, surrounded by all her wonderful acquisitions and memories.
Most likely though is I'll use either the map of her castle or of The Crypte Of The Courageous as a dungeon in a future campaign, with Staghind's numerous magic items and plentiful finances as the treasure.
Afterall, who could resist the chance to own the delightfully-named "vorpal sword of everlasting flame of disintegration"?
That is fantastic and a joy to hear the exploits of such a noble heroine as Staghind!
ReplyDeleteI've realised that after my first few years of gaming, I didn't actually play much D&D with my core group of gamer buddies - it was more Traveller, V&V, and Top Secret. Don't get me wrong, I loved it all, but in retrospect I wish I'd also continued playing carefree D&D campaigns as I had at the beginning of my journey. This is why Staghind is so important to me - she's a solid reminder of those rollickin' early years.
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