#arhyn

The long-overdue Draw The Squad: Voltron Edition, featuring the Bhaalspawn Storm Crew!

I JUST REALIZED I COULD PLAY ARHYN IN TYRIA AS AN ELEMENTALIST

8. Where and when do they seem most and least at ease? Why? How can you tell?

Most at ease: ok so @teutonic-titwillow has an excellent fanfic series about her favored soul of Shaundakul, and honestly you can blame that for Arhyn existing in the first place. The relevant bit is that she describes a bunch of Shaundakul’s motley followers hanging out at a “shrine” (which is really more of a rundown cabin) and. It’s that: Arhyn is most at ease sitting on the roof of a slightly hole-y shack calling dumb jokes down to her fellow vagabond clergypeople while they play cards around a table that’s propped up on a keg, a stump, and some books and discuss things like bandit activity and merchant caravans in the surrounding lands. Someone insults her good-naturedly, and she laughs raucously into the sky, and no one gives a damn that she’s a bhaalspawn, and one of the newer people might not even know, and she might help track down a bandit group with some of them tomorrow or she might head in an entirely different direction entirely, and it’s all up to where the wind decides to blow her.

She’s least at ease when she’s locked in somewhere. That could literally be in a prison/dungeon cell, or it could even just be like the transition from BG to SoD when the grand dukes have her in a palace and expect her to stay and be their city’s hero just because she tracked down and defeated her dumbass brother who happened to offend them personally as well. There’s a lot of pacing involved and potentially some short-tempered lashing out in more extreme cases. Like the end of Dragonspear. An Arhyn locked in a prison cell is the most likely Arhyn to promise to kill people or otherwise wreak destruction. Irenicus got exactly what he wanted, which is where he fucked up.

14. What do they care deeply about? What kind of loyalties, commitments, moral codes, life philosophies, passions, callings, or spirituality and faith do they have? How do these tend to be expressed?

She feels very strongly about personal freedom, and absolutely forms stronger bonds to people than to places. Her faith is like a promise to herself that she always can go out and leave a situation and find a better place, even if it takes a while to get there. She felt very locked away when she was growing up in Candlekeep, so Shaundakul represented the hope that someday she wouldn’t be. And then she wasn’t. And that was somewhat complicated by Gorion’s death, but on the whole she was genuinely happy to be exploring the wilderness and taking care of the bandit threat.

Her faith is also a lot more personal than evangelical. If she can free someone from a bad situation and take them on a road trip to their new life she will jump at the opportunity, but she’s not going to tell them that they need to form that new life around Shaundakul just because his influence happened to put her in a place to help. Unless they happen to express an interest in that, anyway. 

19. How do they behave within a group? What role(s) do they take? Does this differ if they know and trust the group, versus finding themselves in a group of strangers? Why?

♕ Saoirse sees no point in poetry. But she might manage to be poetic on accident sometimes.

Actually, I’m gonna say Ronen. The boy has a high charisma when he’s walking around in his adventuring gear, but then he takes it OFF and it’s like. That expectation vs. reality meme. Expectation: a charming and eloquent Champion of Torm. Reality: a somewhat irritated-looking half-elf who says “What the shit?” when you ask him if he knows any poetry. (He doesn’t.)

↱ Arhyn is either the worst or the best. Worst because she gets distracted by every single side street, or best because she’s actually got a flawless sense of direction and could straighten herself out at any time. If she wanted to.

OHOH NUKA. Nuka Worgchild is my tiefling druid from an iwd2 game. She probably gets lost every time she ends up in a city. Can track anything in nature, but wtf are streets

Urchin: Who had the most influence on Arhyn during her childhood? 

Gonna be predictable and say Gorion.  I mean, it’s his fault she got stuck in Candlekeep for over a decade and all. (I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about canon BG timelines and ToB’s depiction of your character’s mother and everything. so bhaalspawn childhoods need... some more fleshing out in general...)

Hermit: If Arizan were left alone on a deserted island with all his abilities but no supplies besides the clothes on his back, what measures would he take to leave the island? Or would he leave at all?

He would try to leave, yes. His immediate actions would depend on the circumstances? Like, is this a MotB case where he just. Wakes up on the island and has no idea how he got there? (in which case: Don’t move too far in case a Safiya is coming, but maybe set up a camp, find food, etc.) Or was there a shipwreck? (In which case: look for survivors, salvage, etc.)

His main plan for getting home is to cast Sending and tell Eladyna to come get him. Cause his holy symbol definitely counts as clothes. You’re not taking that away from him. (Less sure how spell components work, but after MotB I would THINK that’s one he’d just SEW INTO HIS HEMS or something) Anyway: Repeat Sending until his ex-pirate wizard friend has figured out where he is and how to get him, and then make a camp and live off local food/the Create Food and Water spell. 

...haha I went through the cleric spell list and found this thing so it SOUNDS like he would even be able to give Eladyna reverse-directions, provided he’s got some kind of divination thing in his spell components pocket. Which isn’t guaranteed. (Eladyna carries a set of runes everywhere. they waste several Sendings going “just divine the way to Neverwinter” “with WHAT” “Do you not carry divination tools with you everywhere WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL ARE YOU” “well EXCUSE ME why don’t YOU divine it if you’re so prepared” etc etc).

If all else fails he is an ABSURDLY POWERFUL CLERIC, and several absurdly powerful cleric spells need diamonds, so he could probably. just. Gate in a friendly celestial. He’s gotta know a few by New Neverwinter time. Or he could straight up Gate to the Feywild or the Shadowfell, and then Gate back to the Prime. I’m using Gate instead of Plane Shift because 1. he’s more likely to have a diamond in his pocket than a tuning fork and 2. he’s absurd and would probably immediately jump to the most powerful teleportation spell Kelemvor can give him.

But he’s not so absurd that his first thought isn’t still “I need a boat. I KNOW A WIZARD WHO KNOWS BOATS. Time to call her.”

...idek what pre MotB Arizan would do. Aside from make a sheltered camp and pray a lot. And eventually remember he can use Sending to call Sand, who does not know boats especially well, but still might have advice?

(pre nwn2 Arizan is. in trouble. and probably just ends up living on the island provided it has enough food and fresh water on it)

Charlatan: Who does your character wished to be, as opposed to who they are now?

Nah sorry he’s pretty much always wanted to be a cleric since he learned that clerics were a Thing. REALLY TINY Arizan probably wanted to grow up to be a Big Powerful Sorcerer like his mom, and was THRILLED the first time he managed to make sparks. But then shit happened and he got older and figured out that baby sorcerers are nearly useless against undead, while baby clerics can usually accomplish SOMETHING, and he devoted his time to making that happen.

Chances are he met Brother Merring before he met any Kelemvorites, so there might have been a phase of “I really hope I can figure out how to channel Lathander’s power without getting really bad headaches,” but he’s still where he wanted to be. And he likes Kelemvor better than Lathander anyway.

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