NPC Concept: Pirate Lords

Overview:

If there's one thing that I, as a DM, love to include in my campaigns, it's pirates and piracy. There's something so incredibly fascinating to me about pirates, and something that really screams "Adventure!"

In my Tri-Panthonic War Campaign, the pirates in the world are actually organized under a system of Pirate Lords. Today, I want to talk about those Pirate Lords and how I went about creating them so you can get some ideas for your own games.

Function and Motivations:

There are ten Pirate Lords and seven seas in the world of Roglovar. Three of the largest seas - the North, Xanden, and Erog seas - are divided in half to create ten territories. Each territory is ruled by a Pirate Lord, who commands a fleet of ships. These ships collect "tolls" from any ship they encounter that is not part of the fleet. Any ship that doesn't pay is destroyed.

The Pirate Lords, in that campaign, serve a mostly antagonistic role. Some of them are willing to make temporary alliances with the PCs while others would actively seek them out and destroy them for one reason or other. In my campaign setting, they're an obstacle to overcome but not necessarily enemies to kill, especially given the fact that they're very powerful.

No regular old sailor with a ship can go toe-to-toe with krakens and top-of-the-line naval ships from rich kingdoms. Personally, I give my Pirate Lords classes (usually two classes) and make them powerful PC-esque NPCs. They can be fought, but when the players first encounter them, it wouldn't be wise to do so.

Each Lord's motivation varies. Some wish to do their business and be left alone. Some wish to be rich. Some want power beyond mortal comprehension from some being or other. Some have mini wars with each other, and that can cause problems, especially when the party comes over asking to make an alliance. That, in my opinion, is what makes the Pirate Lords so interesting. The players have to navigate a political environment, which they've done before in this campaign, but this political environment is ten times different. It's frequently violent, and they don't use back-handed passive-aggressive insults to get their way. They use knives and guns. These Pirate Lords are essentially a board of executives for the country that is the Seas of Roglovar, and they all have problems working with each other. This is something that the players are going to have to help them overcome for the greater good. And anyone who disagrees... maybe the players will be in a position where they can actually dispose of the Pirate Lords who do.

Why Should I Include This?

There's something about the lawlessness of piracy that's exciting, sure. But piracy that also has its own codes and laws can be vastly interesting too.

Players are used to governments with lords but not Pirate Lords. They might expect them to work in similar ways. Maybe in your world, they do! In Roglovar... not so much. There's an air of mystery about them. How does their political system work? How are they able to get so much power? Why does almost every country in the world pay their tolls instead of launching a massive assault on them? These are all avenues worth exploring.

Good Pirate Lords can lead to engaging sea encounters, where players meet the Pirate Lords and even go on side quests for some of them. Others they'll pay their toll to and sail away before they outstay their welcome. They'll learn that some seas are better off going around just in case. Sure, it might take longer, but for whatever reason, the captain of the players' chartered ship "won't go messin' with Pirate Lord Daphici. She's a dangerous woman and holds a hell of a grudge..."

PC Concept: "My Nation Is Gone... I Seek To Rebuild It."

Overview:

This is my first PC Concepts post. As I mentioned in my "About Me" page, I am on a personal quest to create concepts for every subclass, including some Unearthed Arcana that I like and homebrew content.

For these concepts, I want to focus on creating a character either based on another pre-existing character, or based on a specific backstory, aesthetic, or premise. In this case, I want to look at the latter.

The concept that I'm focusing on today is that of a government official from a kingdom where the regime was recently overthrown. Obviously, when building on general ideas like this, there are so many different possibilities. Anyone could make a character with this idea and it could be so vastly different from how I interpreted it. However, today I'm going to share how I would go about making this character.

Race, Class, Stats, and Background:

The background that came into my head first was Noble, for obvious reasons, being that this idea refers to a "government official." Although it works, I think that I want to choose a different route for this build. I'm going to pick the Courtier background (Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide) because I really like the idea of this character actively serving a monarch in some way rather than just being a vassal. Courtiers also don't have to be born into their diplomatic or bureaucratic position; they can earn it. That fact will be really important when it comes to the class that I've chosen.

For this build, race can vary. The concept is so general that anything really works here. I'm going to choose a tiefling (Player's Handbook) because they get a +2 to their Charisma. That will really help sell the idea that this character is a diplomat. If you're playing with tiefling subraces from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, I suggest taking the Bloodline of Zariel for +1 to strength.

The +1 to strength will be really useful for me because I intend on making this character into a Fighter, specifically of the Samurai Archetype. At 7th level, this character would be able to add their Wisdom modifier to Persuasion checks (which they would be proficient in already from their background) and become an even better diplomat. Maybe this type of "government official" was a captain of the guard. Maybe it was expected of courtiers to be excellent fighters in the culture of this kingdom or empire. That's honestly a cultural and interpretive choice that can be made by the player and DM. For stats, I'd put my highest in Strength, followed by Charisma. This character is the type who's able to fight or talk their way out of a bad situation.

Roleplay Potential:

The two biggest outlets for roleplay with this character, in my opinion, are what type of samurai they really are and the situation going on in their country.

Samurai are typically viewed as these fighters that prioritize law, order, and loyalty (usually to a lord or nation.) This is a perfectly valid option, and personally, it's the direction that I would take. It would be this character's motivation for adventuring: to find someone who would help them restore their king or nation. However, maybe they've always secretly hated their nation, or maybe they've secretly wanted to leave, and now that they have, they've found something they perceive to be better. It could provide some interesting inner conflict.

That point also leads into the culture of their nation, and the government that they were part of. Was it tyrannical? Did it deserve to be overthrown? Was the country invaded, or was it a coup by the people? What state is the country in now? These are all interesting questions that could be explored in-game, and they're questions I would really want to discuss with my DM if I was playing this character. Maybe, for their whole life, they've been serving this king that they thought was good. But then, when they go back and try to restore everything, they see that their country is better off with the newer regime. How does that make them feel? Maybe the royals were good, and now everything has gone to hell and needs to be made right again. There's so much potential in that kind of arc alone that I think it would make playing this character totally worth it.

Within the party, there's also the potential for this character to be some kind of leader or protector. Maybe, after some time, the party becomes this samurai's new "nation" - the thing that they have sworn to protect.

My PC: Conah Dullane

Who's This?

Conah Dullane holds a very special place in my heart. He was the third character I ever created and played in a D&D campaign, and this campaign was also the second (and longest running) campaign I'd ever finished. This game was run by a close personal friend of mine. We started in October of 2019 and finished the game in August of 2020. There were (consistently) four players, with a fifth joining whenever he could.

Our PCs 

1. Conah Dullane: Scourge Aasimar of Aphrodite, Way of the Four Elements Monk 

1.5. *Xanword Fallone: Half-Elf, Brute Fighter

 *Xanword was another PC of mine that I switched Conah out with for a short time for the purposes of character development. He's still wonderful though, and definitely worth talking about in another post.

2. Lyre: Half Drow, Light Domain Cleric of Aphrodite 

2.5. **Echo: Vampire, College of Whispers Bard

**Echo is Lyre's husband, also played by the same player. He and Lyre frequently switched in and out of the party to take turns taking care of their adopted daughter. 

3. Kaz: Water Genasi, Life Domain Cleric of Apollo 

4. Ike: Changeling, Path of the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 

5. Kayne: Half-Elf, Hexblade Warlock, Pact of the Blade

The campaign took place in a medieval / Ancient Greece spliced fantasy setting, hence the reference to gods like Aphrodite and Apollo. Conah served Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, and sex. As a result, he had bright pink skin and eyes that were blue like the sea. For most of the campaign, his hair was short and tightly curled. Before that, it had been set in locks. 

Conah was also a particularly unique character for me because he was deaf. He'd been born that way, and his deafness was incurable by magical means. He communicated with the party by signing (to those that knew sign language), writing, or by trying his best to speak orally (which, to be fair, he got better and better at as the campaign went on.)

When the campaign began, Conah was 18 years old.

Backstory

This backstory was one of the most involved that I had (and have) ever written. I'm going to give the short version here.

Conah is the oldest of three siblings, all of whom are aasimar of Aphrodite. At the start of the campaign, when Conah was 18, his brother Gadriel was 14 and his sister Coretha was 9. Their father, Aedimus, was also an aasimar of Aphrodite who served Aphrodite by helping sad and lonely women feel loved. Aedimus fell in love with one woman in particular: Mara Dullane. Conah and his siblings were the result, and Conah was the only one born deaf.

At age 5, Conah received a strange dream of the Monastic Temple of the Elements outside of his hometown of Redwater. His father was sure the dream had come from Aphrodite, and that this was how Conah was meant to serve her. So, Aedimus took him there, and he began training as a monk.

When Conah was 11, Aedimus left his three children in the care of their mother and never returned. He had to move on to the next woman; his goddess ordered it, and he had to comply. Mara went completely off the deep end after that, having lost the man she loved and listening to the small town gossip surrounding her and her three children had out of wedlock. She turned violent very quickly. Conah did his best to protect and take care of his younger siblings.

After two years of living this way, it seemed as though Mara had finally snapped. She sold her three aasimar children into slavery to make quick coin. Conah fought, but he wasn't strong enough. All three of them ended up in the city of Dis, in the second layer of the Nine Hells. Somehow, despite being transferred from devil to devil in three auctions, the three of them managed to stay together. Conah received awful, ugly scars on his back from his time in the Hells.

Five years of living in misery ticked by, until Conah and his siblings were rescued by a group of high-level adventurers. They were brought back to the material plane, outside the capital city, Theanus, on their home continent of Eushora. Conah brought his siblings to the Aphrodite temple, hoping to find shelter, warmth, food, and the first real safety they'd had since their enslavement.

That was where the campaign began.

Character Development

I decided that I wanted Conah's character arc to be centered around him moving past his trauma from being enslaved, abused, and abandoned by both of his parents thus forcing him to basically become the parent to his younger siblings.

Conah told his adventuring party about what happened to him fairly early on. It wasn't a secret and the basic story wasn't difficult for him to tell. The details were always the hardest, so he didn't go into them. 

During the campaign, there was an 11 year period (for our characters, anyway) during which we were trapped in a demiplane of darkness created by Nyx, the goddess of night and the BBEG of the campaign. Conah's siblings had "blipped" too, but only for 9 years. The Dullane Siblings' age gaps also changed: Conah was still 18, but Gadriel was 16 and Coretha was 11 now. Conah's father Aedimus made a reappearance, found, and took care of Gadriel and Coretha while Conah was in the demiplane and later while he was adventuring. Aedimus was the first person Conah went really into detail with, and later, Kaz would also get the same story.

Why Kaz? He was something of a substitute father-figure for Conah; a dad before Aedimus was around, and a dad when Aedimus couldn't be there. Conah and Kaz's relationship was really rewarding for me. They were very close, but I think that if there's one regret I have from this game, it's that we weren't closer. I feel like there could have been more, but I'm not sure what. Regardless, what was there was very strong, so of course, he would have been the first party member to get that full story.

As I mentioned, I swapped Conah out of the campaign for a short time for character development. That decision occurred after the party went to a city that was overrun by cultists who worshiped Nyx and who were also enslaving the children of the town. Obviously, this struck a huge well of trauma for Conah and he left the party very suddenly and very mentally unwell. The only person who went with him was Lex, a Drow NPC who was travelling with us. She was also a Draconic Bloodline Sorceress, Lyre's half sister, and (at this point in the campaign) Conah's significant other. She was the third person to receive Conah's full story after those events. The DM and I worked out what happened with Conah while he was gone: the support he'd received, the time he spent with his family, etc. I think that time was just really good for him, and when he came back, he was met with a very warm welcome.

Getting over what happened to him, I think, came when, at the end of the campaign, he killed the man who'd first enslaved him and his siblings - someone who'd caused him a lot of pain. Additionally, the party traveled through the Nine Hells very late in the game. Much of that arc was spent with Conah reassuring himself and being reassured by his party that no one would come to hurt him again. They wouldn't let them. Much of it was also plagued by dreams of futures that could be, and nightmares that Conah wasn't sure were real or fake due to Hypnos, the god of sleep, messing with his mind. He had to rely on other people to help him through all of it. He learned that he didn't have to take care of his party right now; they needed to take care of him, and that was okay. He made it through.

His parental abandonment was an interesting point. Conah came around to Aedimus fairly quickly, but part of the reason why was because Conah understood why he left, and Gadriel and Coretha had already made their peace with him. Mara was harder. Aedimus killed Mara after Gadriel and Coretha told him the bare bones of what happened to them. Conah met her again in the Underworld, in the Fields of Punishment (where she belonged.) She confessed that she married, that Conah had a half-brother, and that his stepfather was... not so kind. The party accompanied Conah as he went back to his childhood home and rescued Ronan: a four-year-old, blind tiefling boy. A deaf angel and a blind devil. What a pair, am I right?

The last piece of Conah's development came when Lex found out that she was pregnant with Conah's child while they were travelling in the Underworld. Lex left the Underworld so that she'd be safe. Once the party left the Underworld, Conah had to become a father - a real father, of his own child and not his siblings. He struggled but realized that... he already had the basics down, really. Gadriel and Coretha assured him of that and insisted that he'd been an excellent brother. Aedimus had done the same. It was a really touching moment, and although it didn't make Conah not-nervous, it made him less nervous. Lex gave birth to a healthy half-elven girl: Avarielle. They nicknamed her "Ava."

Post-Campaign:

When Nyx was defeated, Conah had the opportunity to cure his deafness, which he did along with Ronan's blindness.

Conah married Lex just after Ava was born. They'd have three more kids together: Roseia and Meira (twin half-elven girls), and Callan (a deaf aasimar boy.) They lived peacefully for the rest of their days. Conah frequently visits the rest of his party, and they remain great friends.

Aphrodite gave Conah the opportunity to ascend to godhood and become Eros, the god of love and sex. He agreed, but only as long as it occurred after his mortal life ended.

So, in the end, everything turned out wonderfully, I think! Honestly, I don't think I could've asked for a better ending. I loved this game, and I think that a huge reason why was because I loved this character. I loved his relationship with his family and the others that he loved. I enjoyed the emotional turmoil that came with playing him, and the interactions he had with the other party members. All in all, I think his arc wrapped up very nicely.

Campaign Concept: Dragons' Claw

What Are We Making?

This post relates partially to my original sestina-esque poem "Dragons' Claw" which is also published on this blog. If you haven't read it yet, I'd highly suggest it. It was a joy to write, and also super fun to create little fantastical vignettes about dragons.

What I'm looking to do in this post is take those vignettes, and make some kind of campaign concept surrounding them. Let's see what we can do!

The Setting

For this idea, we definitely want a high fantasy setting. I also want the poem itself to be "canon" in the world; I want it to be part of the world's lore. This is a poem or song of some kind about something that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago. It's a series of stories that most people would know, or if they didn't know the stories, they'd know that they exist. 

There are six dragons - blue, green, white, black, red, and gold - mentioned in the poem. Bear in mind that these dragons do not have to have the same traits or characteristics as their counterparts in the Monster Manuel. This game is all about creativity. Can these dragons be played that way? Of course, but they can also be played in an entirely different one. 

Let's make six kingdoms, all on one continent, and that will be where our campaign takes place: across those six kingdoms. Are there other kingdoms and continents? There could be, but they're not necessarily relevant to this particular story unless the DM wants to mention them in passing or create a larger world to be used later on. I'm going to name each of the kingdoms, loosely based on the color of the dragon that the kingdoms are associated with.

- Alabaster: The northern-most kingdom, where the story about the white dragon takes place. An elven mage and advisor to the king brought his liege and a small party on a hunting trip to try and kill the dragon. The elf made a deal with the dragon, who killed the king and his hunting party. The elf became king and now feeds the dragon every day to make sure his kingdom isn't destroyed.

- Carmine: The kingdom in which the red dragon resided and destroyed several cities. One city was destroyed at the behest of a gnomish man, who wished for the dragon to kill a local tyrant. The dragon warned him that "he traded tyrant for tyrant" but the gnome insisted.

- Ebony: This kingdom was destroyed by a female black dragon after her mate was killed. She left one survivor: the kingdom's princess, who had been "held captive" by the male black dragon.

- Gilden: The gold dragon that resided in this area was approached by a prince who wanted the dragon's scales. The dragon swapped bodies with the prince, and went on to rule in the prince's stead. He sent a knight to kill the prince, still in the body of a dragon. However, the prince returned to his kingdom as a dragon and killed the dragon king to reclaim his crown.

- Verdant: This kingdom is probably the most "magic-based" and definitely has a portal to the Feywild in it. A knight of the Summer Fey Court slayed a green dragon and stole ancient arcane tomes from its hoard. She brought them to the Fey King, who went mad with power and became a tyrant. She killed him, and then herself. 

- Azure: This is the southern-most kingdom. The "half-devil" hero here is probably a tiefling. He was sent to kill a blue dragon and bring the large horn on the nose back to his king. Instead, the dragon came to the king with the tiefling's horns in its claws after the tiefling tried and failed to swipe some gold from the dragon.

The Plot

At large, the plot can be almost anything that requires the party to travel to each of the six kingdoms. My first thought was that maybe a researcher from another continent wants relics that they've heard about from the infamous historical poem "Dragons' Claw." They want to know if the poem is true and if it is, if there are any relics left over. Maybe there are other texts that they've read that have some accounts about interesting weapons that the heroes or kings had in their possession. The party is hired to travel around and locate as much information and as many relics as possible.

There's a social and intellectual aspect to this game; the party will have to research what really happened in each kingdom they go to. Obviously, Alabaster is going to know more about the relationship between the elven king and the white dragon than Gilden or Carmine would. Go to libraries. Talk to townspeople. Find out what was important to the larger story. Try to find multiple perspectives. The poem itself is rather vague, isn't it? Doesn't it leave a couple questions unanswered? Like:

- What did the blue dragon do once it gave the tiefling's horns back to the king? Did it destroy the city? Did it just go home? Did it strike a deal with the king?

- Where did the green dragon's arcane tomes end up? Who has them? Are they being used at the moment?

- Elves live for a long time. Is the elven king of Alabaster still feeding that dragon? Are his children? Was he overthrown when the poem came to light, and was Alabaster destroyed shortly thereafter, only to be rebuilt later?

- What happened to the princess after Ebony was destroyed? Why was she "kidnapped" in the first place? Is this Stockholm Syndrome? What happened to the kingdom? Who rebuilt it? Has it fully recovered yet, or not? If not, why not?

- Is the red dragon in Carmine still a problem? Does it still destroy cities and live in their ruins? Do the people know it does and choose to ignore it?

- How did the golden dragon perform that body swap? Did the prince get his body back, or was he stuck as a dragon forever?

Questions like these allow for DMs to play with different plot ideas and hooks. If it were me, I'd have my players start in Azure, and work their way north. They'd look for relics for this researcher.

- Azure has the players hunting for the tiefling's horns, or maybe something that he had and left in the dragon's hoard when he died.

- In Verdant, they're looking for the tomes, or maybe for the sword used to kill the Fey King. Hell, they could even look for the Crown of the Fey King (cool magic item right there.)

- Gilden is a little hard to say, just because the ending is ambiguous in terms of who's a dragon and who's not anymore. I'd say a crown or even some golden scales would suffice here.

- The swamps of Ebony hide the princess's diary, where she recorded everything that happened with the black dragon she allegedly loved and/or cared for in some capacity. She is also described as a "warrior princess" so maybe a weapon of hers could be recovered.

- Carmine has the players searching for the red dragon's hoard, or even for something from the tyrant(s) it has killed.

- Alabaster is interesting because it can, like Gilden, also be interpreted many ways. Maybe the elven king is only just now dying, and the party needs to parlay with a white dragon. Maybe they need to convince the new king to keep up with the feeding schedule. They could get the elf's spellbook, (he was a mage, remember) his crown, something from the late king, or even something from the king's hunting party.

Once they have all the relics, have the researcher be the BBEG! He's actually gathering all these things in an effort to harness the power of dragons from history. Why? If you really want to tie in the theme of greed from the poem, the researcher's motivation could be that he's hungry for power. He wants to be as strong as the dragons of old.

To really tie this in, have magic be able to imbue itself into items of great historical significance. This is a homebrew world, so anything is possible. In their mini research quests, this could be something the players discover about magic. Maybe that makes them suspicious of their patron. At the end, they fight him and save the continent from being totally wiped out by the might of the dragons' claws.  If the players were kind to the other remaining dragons, maybe those dragons can come to help them fight! If the players, too, were greedy, then maybe this fight will be harder or maybe the dragons won't help.

I think that there are a lot of possibilities here, and a lot of potential. Feel free to use this concept - or build upon it - in your next campaign!

Poem: Dragons' Claw

Come one and all, and hear the tale of six 

heroes and kings who rose to greatness. Just as they rise, 

they must also fall, and here they fall to dragons’ claw.

A blue dragon sleeps soundly in his desert horde, as a hero, a half-devil, slinks in.

The king said to him, “Bring me the horn, hero --

the great horn that sits on the dragon’s nose!”

But the gold gnawed at the gut of the half-devil, an insatiable and inherent greed

and the hero (cursing his own nature) reached for the gold.

The king received the horns of the half-devil, delivered in the dragon’s claw.

A green dragon studies magic, strives for knowledge to feed its own power, but 

he was slain by a knight of the Summer Fey Court.

She brought the spellbooks to her king - an Archfey, and her love.

Although, fey are often greedier than dragons. With newfound power, the king 

turned tyrant. The knight -- his queen now -- drove her blade through his chest.

Then, through her own. Death of a kingdom at a dead dragon’s claw.

A white dragon scours the glaciers in the north, with hunger insatiable and 

a love of the hunt. The king loved the hunt, and with him he brought a small party.

One was an elven mage who’d seen the dragon, who could lead them to his lair.

“White dragon!” the mage cries. “Here I bring you your next meal! Feast,

and make me king!” The dragon devoured the company, and the mage (now king)

feeds the dragon daily, so not to be torn asunder by the dragon’s claw.

A black dragon lies in wait in a swamp, a princess of war in his clutches.

The king comes to negotiate, and it is he who slays the dragon without thought.

The princess wept, for she’d lost her greatest friend that day. 

The king and people scorned and shunned her -- who could love a dragon? 

But when the dragon’s mate came and melted the city under her breath of acid,

only the princess was spared from the dragon’s claw.

A red dragon lurked in the ruins of some great city when the hero approached him.

He was a gnomish archer, so small and meek, he said, “Great dragon, my king

is a cruel tyrant, and I seek your aid in his death.” And the dragon sneered,

“Little gnome, you trade tyrant for tyrant. Is that what you want?” But the gnome said,

“No tyrant is worse than ours.” So the dragon created more ruins of some great city,

and the gnome, the only survivor, said, “Better to be ruled under dragon’s claw.”

A golden dragon sat on a mountain, where a prince climbed alone

to ask his sage advice. “Dragon, I long for gold, like your scales, I long for riches

more than those in my dreams.” And the dragon chuckled at the prince. “You long for

my golden scales… so take them from me.” The prince became a dragon, and the dragon

became the prince, and later the king. He sent a knight to kill the dragon prince, but

the dragon returned and reclaimed the crown that he lost to the dragon’s claw.

Kings and heroes, beware, for greed shall be your undoing.

Kings and heroes, beware, for these beasts are frequently kind, but always very tricky.

Kings and heroes, always beware the dragons’ claw.