Editorial Newsflash – George, the player of the player-character formerly known as Grendowynn, made the decision between roll-up and play-test that he wants to change the name of his character. That’s why the character sheet has Grendowynn on it and not Glendowynn.
So meet Glendowynn, George’s character. I’ve transplanted her into the working v1.1.2 Hydra Character Sheet. You can see from how the sheet is laid out that the initial heading section is meant to give you an overview of the character background, origins, working background and so forth. We then move into the attribute descriptions which hopefully speak for themselves. So in Hydra you can literally read out your character description from the sheet, and therefore as a DM it’s easy to present DMC’s to your players. In the case of Glendowynn we can describe her as “A slim, beautiful, fairly strong woman, with decent physical stamina. Very beautiful, bright and charismatic”. No need to interpret the attribute numbers because for the PC version of the characters and for the DMC versions too, there are ready-made categorical descriptions. I think also that there is no problem with some rewording of the descriptions either, so long as the meaning is understood to be the same/similar enough. So we could just as well also say “A sleightly built comely well-toned and muscled youthful woman. Able to withstand hardship, sharp of mind and quick to lead others with her words and thoughts”. The latter being a bit more flowery perhaps.
It's that low-down sneaky seductress of a thief, Grendowynn.
The character rolling process aims to be a collaborative PC/DM/Rule experience. The DM guides the process, offers constructive suggestions for the player rolling the character, explicates the rules as needed. He also interprets the PC’s ideas and suggestions for character development, background plotting and so forth. As you roll up the character, as here with Glendowynn, so you start together to shape an idea of how the person is. What their possibilities are, and how to explain their nature and capabilities to yourself. Sometimes this may lead to getting a bit creative with the rules and bending a few – but if it leads to a sound character from which ideas for plots/stories are going to unfold – bend away. Hydra is by nature a flexible bit of kit and designed to be readily ‘bendable’. Most of the rule-set is under the control of the DM, and this makes it amenable to ready adjustment.
Lankhmar addicts will no doubt baulk perhaps at what the character presents. I’m no Lankhmar expert – and so sorry if this isn’t a great representation of a thief in Lankhmar or there are things about it that don’t exactly fit the Leiber mould. To you I’d say – hey – help me out with writing some source material! My e-mail address is on this site somewhere – drop me a line :) And also I’d say – lighten up this is a fantasy interpretation – not the reincarnation of the books in roleplaying form. Also, if you had this system you could readily tune it in to your own sensibilities – that’s your choice, these are ours. Anyway, enough evangelism.
George was enabled to make as many choices as he liked about this character. At times, he had random rolls to make that the dice afforded. For others he picked options based on what he fancied playing and how he wanted to build it/specialise it. Hence Glendowynn’s selection of skills makes her more of a pick-pocket/burglar type. Also it seemed to us that with her outstanding beauty (they were good rolls on appearence!) that she would probably use her feminine charms as part of her thieving repertoire. Added to this a penchant for using a bow, and I embellished George’s selection of martial arts as a skill by fleshing it out more into a specific Lankhmarian thieve’s style of fighting – short fist. So, more of a ‘Wing Chun’ style of combat. Short ranged combination of hand techniques, predominantly punching in the southern kung-fu style. Just seemed to me a nice way of tailoring it. All those who pick the martial arts skill are free to describe it to suit their character’s unarmed-combat style and cultural origins.
I also popped in the languages – and included ‘Thief’s signs’. This may not be true Leiber – dunno, anyone who does know please let me in on it (I’m slowly reading his stuff). I’ve always liked the idea of covert signals – and leaving signs for fellow thieves. So that’s what the Thief Signs is intended to be. Not much use for anyone other than a licensed thief sticking to the rules of his guild. Could prove of use in the game, we shall see.
So that’s a bit about Glendowynn. Next up will be Vincent’s charming character, and then Jordan’s. We have all the party for play-testing rolled up – I’m keeping it to three players so that I have a relatively small party to manage as I grapple with the new rules. Hope to be getting the game underway in the next week or so. At present I’m working on setting and scenarios, painting up figures for the game and getting materials together. All the PC’s are done and I have some further main DMC’s to generate. Looking forward to bringing it on!
