Free to a Good Home: One Slightly Used Cleric
So, after the grand total of one evening of roleplay and other D&D nerdity, I decided I just wasn’t feeling my young, naive druid cleric, and started researching other races to mess with. I really had an obnoxious impulse to play a ranger (archer), with whom I could roleplay more readily than my nice but boring little cleric. I decided upon a half-elf, simply because I thought it’d be fun to play a character who fit in with neither fictional human nor elven societies, a misfit with a talent for hunting with bow and arrow.
The DM told me that elves were not available in the area I was starting in, and so it was unlikely there’d be any half-elf hybrids in the area. Well, okay. She gave me a list of races I could choose from, and my ears were tweaked when she mentioned the hengeyokai. “Shapeshifters,” she explained, continuing her long list.
I interrupted her. “Can you tell me more about the.. shapeshifters?”
She shifted through her books and found the section on them. The D&D equivalent derives from Japanese legends regarding supernatural beings of all sorts and shapes. The hengeyokai were a type of being who could morph from human to animal, and chose more often than not to carry on life as an animal, a very intelligent animal. In D&D, they have three forms: human, some sort of common animal, and a wierd hybrid of the two that is described as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle type.
I was so intrigued by the section I was given to read, that I decided right then and there I’d be that race. I could choose the animal my character would morph into, and out of the list of mostly undesirables such as rats, alligators, and wolves, I chose the cat, and then asked the DM to clarify whether we were talking a big cat or a little cat. “Housecat,” I was told. Well then.
So, my new character, and the one I’m keeping no matter how the game goes (assuming the DM lets my character live for very long), is a female hengeyokai ranger who can shapeshift from a completely believable human, to a fluffy white Persian, the hybrid looking rather like Toodles Galore. The human sports very white, pink skin, and shockingly white hair, the cat will be your garden variety long-haired, smooshed-face Persian, and the hybrid will be covered in fine white fur.
Her name is Delia, as that was the name I’d decided on my hypothetical half-elf ranger. The name originates from the Greek island of Delos, the birthplace of Artemis and Apollo, among others. Artemis is a Greek goddess of the hunt, the forest, fertility, and mildly, abstinence, and is often depicted with a bow and arrow. The name still fits. The animal has no fighting skill, but the hybrid will be able to use a cat’s senses, and still be able to communicate with both other cats and other humans. It will make her an even more effective hunter and tracker.
I decided to play a chaotic good character this time, a female model of Robin Hood. It should be rather fun. The DM gave her a random, epic-level item as well to start out with, an armor with +4 defense, along with other niceties that then banned me from getting another uber item–everyone else, save the barbarian elf, was given two uber items, the elf getting a similar epic armor thingie.
I’m looking forward to the first time I can play her. Last week was a no-go with everyone’s schedules running amok. This week isn’t looking much better, but we’ll probably try to put something together. The druid might not be able to play every session with us with his wonky schedule, but ah well.
