Bats, Bees, and DnDs

Fae is a dnd character I’ve been playing for a little over a year now in a game called Overlooks and Owlbears. We meet bi-weekly on Fridays, and most of the weeks we don’t play I’m still thinking about him. I fully initially considered him a more ‘gimmicky’ type of character, mostly built to be easy to slip into during roleplay with not *that* much going on. His concept was pretty simple: I wanted to play an evil character, and I wanted to play an old character. That was it. Everything else came directly from ‘evil old man’ and spun out of control into the man he is today.

Fae is largely inspired by some of my favorite Latino characters from popular media, as well as my own family. When I play him he has what’s functionally a more masculine, lightly hispanic accented version of my own voice, but in my head he sounds like this

Art Gallery / Vibes Playlist / Backstory Playlist / Pinterest Board

At a Glance:

System: D&D 5e (2014)

Race: Half-Elf

Class: Rogue (Swashbuckler subclass)

Alignment: neutral evil

Sexuality: Bi with a strong preference for men

Age: 100ish

Pronouns: He/him

Personality: Sarcastic, mocking, I would go so far as to say ‘mean’. Calculating in social situations, impulsive in combat. Thinks of himself as more fun-loving than he really is. He strives to come off as devil-may-care and some of that may be genuine but deep down he is very task-oriented and will take control the moment it seems like things might even kind of go off the rails.

General Backstory:

Faedril “Fae” Silvarin is the son of two heads of separate crime families - the elven Kaemarises, and the mostly-human Silvarins. Fae’s mother, Camila Silvarin, was prepared to raise him without involvement from his father, but Llewel Kaemaris surprised pretty much everyone in both families when he decided to claim Fae as his own, and gave him responsibilities and authority within the elven side of his family as well. Not all the elves were super thrilled about this, but Fae was able to uncover a coup against Llewel and leveraged that to build himself a small group of loyalists and gain respect on that side of the family. On the Silvarin side, his authority is innate, and he’s never really struggled with it… which is part of the problem.

Fae is a half-elf, so he ages slower than the human side of his family, and faster than the Elven side. At about 100 years old at time of the game’s start, Fae had seen a lot, and he was kind of tired of it. Without exactly knowing his own motivations to do so, Fae dipped out on his life of crime and leisure and decided to try his hand at adventuring on his own. All he knew was that he was tired of his reputation and wanted to start over, as just ‘some guy’ out in the world. This has had mixed results.

Fae’s Family:

Faedril/Fae Silvarin: Our man in question (he/him)

Llewel Kaemaris: Fae’s dad, an elf, head of the Kaemaris crime family (he/they)

Camila Silvarin: Fae’s human mother, former head of the Silvarin crime camily (deceased) (she/her)

The Party:

Celosia Poincaré: Fire genasi artificer. Shares Fae’s mommy issues. Has a sick gun, Fae wants her to make him a sick gun. Member of the party he’s closest with. He understands her the best, though he doesn’t know how to express it. He knows they were both raised by people who ignored their autonomy. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he’s attached to her and wants to help her turn out better than he did. (She/her)

Laurence of Abury: Human fighter. Complete good-aligned teddy bear from a family of criminals who want him to take up the family business. Dating Celosia. Fae initially thought of him as ‘muscle’ that he could order around but now he admires the guy’s carefree mindset and slight naïveté (He/him)

Scrip: Kobold cleric of a god of mercantile. Do NOT leave him and Fae in a room together they will start a pyramid scheme. Has saved Fae’s ass in combat MANY times. (He/him)

NPCs:

Goggles: a deep gnome who recruited the party to help as body guards for diplomatic missions. Still alive, despite several failures to protect him on our part (he/him)

Drow/Drider Assassin: I think it’s fair to call this guy Fae’s rival. Fae has killed him multiple times and he keeps getting resurrected. Wants to kill the party real bad.

Madame/Priestess Bitch: a drow priestess, formally the Drider’s partner who now has turned on him and become the party’s ally.

The Sphinx: A sphinx librarian that, as of now, has stuck his neck out for the party on more than one occasion. Has a personal library that includes multiverses, as well as access to an infinite library

Fae’s Parents:

Camila had Fae fairly young, shortly after becoming the matriarch of the Silvarin family rather unexpectedly when her own father passed away. She had turned to Llewel Kaemaris for advice on how to command respect the way that he did — but obviously, that relationship developed into something more. After Fae was born, Camila often wondered if Llewel’s affection for her was genuine, or motivated by power. That never fully became clear one way or another. Though he both claimed Fae as his own son and engaged with Camila in discussions about potentially merging the two families she was never really sure if those were signs of respect and love towards her, or shrewd chess moves towards absorbing the Silvarins into the already-powerful Kaemaris family.

Before the Game:

Fae grew up mostly-loved by his parents, though Llewel did put him through some trial by fire to help him find his footing within the Kaemaris family without falling victim to the label of ‘nepo baby’. He was always closer with his mother, though. Fae really loved his mom, total Mama’s boy — he was her right hand man, and the two brought the Silvarin family into something of a golden age. He always knew he’d outlive her, with plenty of time to spare, but he had determined to make the most of the little time he had. That’s why it was especially shocking and hurtful when she died when he was still very young.

At the time Camila died, Fae and everyone else thought it had been an unknown health issue, but over time he became increasingly convinced that it was foul play. Specifically, he decided she had been poisoned. But by who? Camila was a crime lord with a lot of enemies. After a decade of trying to investigate, Fae let the trail go cold, though his interest in poisons remained. His thoughts on the matter are complicated — it’s been around 70 years since she died. If the person who did it was human, they’re long dead, and finding out who they are would do little for Fae except open old wounds. If they aren’t dead… he’s not ready to think about what that means.

In fact, he’d more or less thought that his anger over her death had died out completely — that it was a mystery he’d never solve, even though his old habits refused to die and he continued to test poisons to see if, just maybe, he’d be able to use their effects to determine at the very least the method of her murder.

After Fae’s mother died, most looked towards Fae to lead the Silvarin family, but he refused. He gently guided them towards another human leader and chose to take a more subdued role. this is a move he doesn’t regret in the slightest. No part of him ever desired to be in charge of an organization like that. In fact the longer that he worked as muscle for his dad and advisor for the Silvarins, the more his enthusiasm for organized crime in general seemed to wane until it all but completely vanished.

Fae was sick of diplomacy, sick of the way the Elves treated him like a weird elderly child on the brink of death, and the humans treated him like some legend beyond their limited mortal scope. It was a frustrating line to walk. Above all, he didn’t feel like a real person to either group. He finally gave up on changing that when he decided to leave without warning either side of the family, disappearing overnight to become an adventurer.

During the Game:

Fae met the rest of the party when an inn they were all staying in was attacked by monsters that escaped couriers of the wizard’s guild, an organization responsible for both experimenting on monsters and also transporting those monsters from place to place. After successfully assisting in keeping the in from being *completely* destroyed, Fae and the rest of the party agreed to hunt down the remaining couriers who had failed at their job, and were now legally required to be killed for their failure. After following the couriers to a cave full of more imprisoned monsters, the party did their job and also found an entrance to the Underdark via territory owned by a Drow organization/family that had some… less-than-friendly history.

The party wisely decided against going down that route.

We also, during this initial adventure, found out about an element called Delirium that has powerful magical qualities, and can be fashioned into weapons (we did acquire some here)

After a few more adventures, the party was approached by a Deep Gnome who goes by Goggles or Mr. Red. Goggles asked the party to escort him into the Underdark to where his nomadic people were settled at the time, emphasizing that there were some Drow who might be after him due to a long-standing blood feud between the two races. The party agreed, and off we went.

On our way to the Underdark, we stopped at a transition town still in the Overworld. In this town there was a library owned by a sphinx, where we discovered books from the real world (namely, Romeo and Juliet, and later I wrote a fic that retroactively brought in Call of the Wild and used it to frame Fae’s feelings about his role within his family). Fae also picked up some knives that had poison chambers in them, and then we were off to the Underdark.

On our way into the Underdark we were ambushed by a drow assassin and a drow priestess, who kicked our asses a little bit but we ultimately won! We left their corpses behind us, sure we would never see them again.

We managed to get Goggles to his people underground, and they contracted us for a little more work in return for refining the raw delirium we had acquired. During our work we found a Skinweaver (who made Fae some sick armor out of hook horror leather) and a cult of Kobolds worshipping a dragon that slumbers on veins of adamantine. While investigating the Kobolds, who the fuck should we find but THE REVIVIFIED ASSASSIN AND PRIESTESS who we killed a second time, and Celosia and Fae reached the conclusion that to keep them dead, we’d probably have to remove a body part. We settled on their jaws, which Fae collected.

Our last task the deep gnomes hired us for was to transport Goggles to the Duergar capital to ask them to ally with the gnomes. On the boat journey over, Fae recognized a member of his dad’s organization. Though he tried to play it off at first, he did eventually seek the man out — only for the man to be murdered seconds later. As the party scrambled to find out who had murdered the guy, they were approached by none other than Llewel Fucking Kaemaris, who said he’d come to the Underdark to try and form a partnership with the Drow (who, you may remember, don’t really like us all that much). Fae told his dad that uhhhh the drow don’t like us very much rn, and Llewel was less than thrilled. He also tried to pick Fae’s brain on one other mystery — why Fae had left the family in the first place.

Fae answered as honestly as he could. He said he didn’t know.

Fae and his dad’s relationship is complicated. No parent should have to outlive their kid but it’s even worse when you also have to watch them age and get elderly at a rate you can hardly imagine happening to yourself. Because of that, Llewel can’t possibly understand Fae completely. Fae knows that — doesn’t mean he doesn’t still resent the guy a little.

We managed to solve the mystery — it was that fucking Drow assassin and priestess who we had killed TWICE already at this point. Because we stole their jaws this time they’d been reincarnated which was why we didn’t recognize them. When we foiled their plan this time they managed to escape, unable to kill Fae’s dad (or him) like they’d wanted to. But they kept their jaws this time!

Upon reaching the Duergar capital we learned the man who had invited us, the prince, had disappeared while looking for a mythical library made of chalk. Using the delirium we’d acquired we were able to dig him out — but, this is where shit got unfortunately real for Fae.

In this library there was a cluster of Flumphs, psyonically powerful creatures with tentacles. And in the center of this cluster of Flumphs was a glowing red crystal.

We’d seen crystals like that before, and the party had been able to calm aggravated enemies by removing the crystal from their presence, so Fae thought it would be a good idea to just. Grab the crystal.

It was not a good idea.

Upon touching the crystal Fae was overcome by pure rage, got smacked with the mental image of his dad bleeding out, and was barely able to pull himself back together with the help of the cleric, Scrip. Even now the rage bubbles just under the surface but he’s doing his best to cope with it.

After the rage had simmered the party did as much research as they could in that library, and found that this particular gemstone houses a very, very angry dragon — one of three who have all been hidden away from the world for the world’s safety, though it’s said that one was hidden against its will.

Now attuned to the dragon in the gem, Fae has hung onto it since. He’s not the biggest fan of myth, fate, magic and dragons, so initially he wasn’t super thrilled about the situation, and he was determined to find a way to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Having rescued the lost prince and secured an allyship for the Duergar and the Deep Gnomes, we headed back the way we came. On the boat again, Goggles disappeared. We found a ransome note telling us to come to the front of the ship at 2am. When we did, we saw Goggles bound in spiderwebs, and Fae was surprised by a NAT 20 ATTACK from the SAME GODDAM ASSASSIN AS BEFORE, who was now a Drider, having asked Lolth for the power to fuck Fae up. “This time, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

He did not kill me. But damn! He got close!!! Fae was pretty much consistently at 1 health for the entire fight until he finally went down. But Fae lived, and he stole the guy’s jaw again, I’m sure that’ll be the last we see of him.

It wasn’t the last we’ll see of Priestess Bitch, though, who showed up and told us that she was tired of fighting with us and had decided to help us, informing that there are other drow on the gnome’s side, and telling us how to find them.

That night, Fae had a dream.

He dreamed that he was someone else, trapped inside a person, a person who was slowly dying. A person who he was KILLING. In the dream, whatever he was snapped and became enraged. Putting two and two together, Fae realized that in the dream he was the angry dragon — and the person who he’d been killing was his own mom, unaware of what was happening to her, or how to stop it.

As he woke up, Fae managed to get one last thing from the dream, and that was a clue to who had killed his mother: the symbol of the wizard guild.

Now with a personal attachment to the rage within the draconic gem, Fae’s priorities have shifted. He’s not sure exactly how everything connects — he had given up on finding his mom’s killers and now he has a serious lead. While he continues to help the party and the gnomes with their goals, his own thoughts lie heavily on the dragon and what it means for his past and his future.

AND NOW WE’RE ALL CAUGHT UP TO THE PRESENT!

He’s afraid of bugs

He doesn’t like fish

His full name is Androbal Marques Faedril Silvarin. Yes I have practiced saying that out loud in his voice repeatedly, it’s actually very fun to say when you get the hang of it.

His backstory wasn’t initially based on Hamlet but at some point I realized what was going on and decided to lean into it.

People have compared Fae to a lot of other characters and people, notably Pedro Pascal, ‘Lesbian Waluigi’, and Dorian Pavus

It’s rly funny that one of his inspos is a character from Sons of Anarchy, a Hamlet adaptation, but the inspo character is NOT the Hamlet analog

I run 5e game on Wednesdays called Illusa, and Fae is an NPC in that world! His backstory is a little bit different to adjust for a world I have full control over - he has a full-elf half brother named Lysander, who is the rightful heir to the Kaemaris empire. He also has Dove, a silent masked elf who is by his sides at most times. Besides that, what else… oh yeah I killed his dad! His dad got poisoned during a political event and now the party is investigating Llewel’s death. I can’t wait to see how that plays out for them ehehe

In Illusa, in addition to common, Fae speaks a fantasy version of Spanish I call ‘Queño’! I’ve actually built a whole hispanic culture within that world that he’s a part of, and I had a lot of fun fleshing out that side of him since I had the ability to build the world around him in this one.

The Illusa version of Fae has a slightly different personality, too. I’d say probably less prone to redemption than O&O Fae, but honestly it’s still pretty early to make that prediction. Again, can’t wait to see what my players do to influence his life and the world he lives in!