#benjamin larkwright

Next up on the list of aro OCs, one of my current DnD characters, Benjamin!

Benjamin Larkwright (he/him)

Genre: DnD/fantasy

Identity: aromantic asexual

Born as the eldest son of parents who were minor nobility, in a country that had been fighting a border war on and off for generations, it was expected of Benjamin that he'd join the military for a few years, do his duty and prove himself a capable leader, and then return home to take up his duties to his family. But Benjamin had no interest in marriage and children, and instead threw himself into the expected military career in the hope that at least in that regard he could satisfy his parents' expectations.

In the military, he discovered an aptitude for magic and was quickly tapped for a new, experimental unit of war wizards who would act as human artillery on the battlefield. Rising to captain of his unit, he served through two resurgences of the border war, until tragedy struck him repeatedly in quick succession. First, his beloved younger brother was killed when the fighting rolled over the town he was working in as a doctor, then the same fate befell his parents and the Larkwright family estate. And finally, in the last months after a successful siege that was supposed to bring the war to an end, nearly his whole unit was wiped out in an ambush.

Suspecting a betrayal but never able to prove it, Benjamin quit the military, burned his spellbook and put all of his inheritance and pension into supporting the families of his dead and injured comrades. He took a job as a lowly watchman in the capital city, somewhere he could still be of at least some use, and spent the next decade miserable and refusing to get close to anyone in case he lost them too.

Until, one day, he instinctively used magic to save the life of a nobleman he was guarding, and realised that what he really wanted to be doing was using those skills to genuinely help people rather than for destruction. And so he retrieved the wizard staff he'd never been able to bring himself to destroy from under his bed, and set about relearning how to do proper magic. Then, naturally, he quit his job, and took up as an adventurer.

Class-wise, Benjamin is a War Wizard, with a single Fighter level because I rolled dreadfully on hit points and he was terrifyingly squishy. Personality-wise, he's a serious, sharp-witted man with a subtle sarcastic streak, a take-charge sort of attitude, and an awkward but well-meaning way of caring about people, although he's never entirely been able to shake the irrational fear that he's going to get everyone around him killed. Being aro (and ace) had a huge impact on the shape of his life, and he's always had a stubborn pride in it despite the rift it created with his parents and the other problems that it's caused. But he'd be lying if he said it wasn't deeply important to him when he eventually finds aro friends and others with shared experiences.

Mini playlist, for extra vibes:

Third Eye - Florence + the Machine - You don't have to be a ghost / Here amongst the living / You are flesh and blood / And you deserve to be loved / And you deserve what you are given

Mars - Sleeping At Last - Though time is ruthless / It showed us kindness in the end / By slowing down enough / A second chance to make amends

It's Make A Terrible Comic Day! (Or was, ignore my timezone.) So here's one about something I've been having a lot of fun with in my DnD game, feat. my war wizard, Benjamin Larkwright.

My flatmate roped me into a DnD group and naturally I've ended up obsessed with my character, so meet Benjamin Larkwright, war wizard! I've been working on some outfit sketches and a design for his face, and I'm really enjoying what I've got so far.

(Yes, the Jedi vibes are entirely deliberate - I like to design characters by mashing together existing ones that I like and this guy was heavily inspired by Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as Thomas Nightingale from the Rivers of London books.)

My character, Benjamin Larkwright, is a war wizard who was a magically-trained soldier as a young man and then a watchman for about a decade before quitting to take up his magic again and become an adventurer, and playing a mystery adventure as an ex-cop who keeps forgetting about his magic and solving problems like a detective is Really fun. I'm getting to mess around with all the crime drama tropes that I love while Also being a wizard, it's Great.

A couple of stand-out moments from this last session included getting to do the Hot Fuzz fence jumping thing, where the loxodon paladin just walked through the garden wall and Benjamin, on principle, vaulted a bit of still-intact wall aaand managed to roll an 8, land badly on his bad ankle and nearly faceplant in the street. The other wizard who, despite being a nerd and unathletic, is also 17 and limber managed to get over the wall with no trouble and got waved off from helping him up with a cranky "I've got a bad ankle, it's fine, I'm old, leave me alone." (He's like 45ish.)

We'd also earlier been to talk to the local sheriff about the epidemic of missing people we'd been hired to investigate (by his sister, it turned out, who thought he wasn't doing enough about it), and I got to play Benjamin going from marching in all judgemental and dragging this guy's curtains open in the face of his dreadful hangover and pointedly shifting the bottles off his desk to put down the list of missings we got from his sister, to leaving with a gentle word about hangover cures and all his missing person files and a promise to deal with whatever hold the villain has over him that he couldn't tell us about but had clearly caused an extended breakdown and is preventing him from investigating properly himself. (Kidnapped wife and son, we later worked out, who are among the people going missing around this Highly Suspicious Casino that appeared in town six months ago.)

The best moment, though was when I finally got to catch the other wizard out on the gems she stole from a bag in the mail car when we were searching the train to the town for Weird Shit. She'd managed to do it while the rest of the party were all out on the platform tidying up the mess from our fight with a gargoyle that had also been sent in the post via the train, so none of us had any reason to even suspect she'd nicked them. But then we were investigating a weird magical effect outside the temple we were in, and Abigail goes and pulls out these gems right in front of Benjamin's nose to see if they react to the magical field. He recognises them from before, asks her where she got them from, and she lies to his face that they were something she inherited from his wizard grandfather. So, two sessions after the theft, I finally get to insight check her, with my +5 insight vs her +0 deception, and I roll a 21. Which, upon realising that there's nothing she can roll to beat that, causes me, out of character, delighted, to exclaim "ha! Get insighted, crime child!"

Which was apparently the highlight of the session to the DM and everyone else and got me an inspiration as the culmination of a bunch of good ex-policeman roleplaying, which was delightful. (Got a good grade in DnD, which is both normal to want and possible to achieve.) The player of the other wizard now desperately wants me to draw a very pleased-with-himself Benjamin looming over a cowering Abigail pointing and exclaiming "Get insighted, Crime Child!", he was that amused by it, and honestly I might later when I'm less busy.

In-universe, Benjamin just gave her The Look, though, and said "alright, I'll believe you", with them both knowing Full Well that he doesn't. It was then followed up by him dashing (so Detect Magic didn't run out) over to the temple down the street to check if the magic field effect was also unable to penetrate the inside of that temple, and passing Abigail who tried to follow him on the way back, much slower on her "weak nerd legs" and pestering her into jogging the whole way back again while Benjamin made it very clear without outright saying that the jogging was her penance for the petty crime. (He's not a watchman anymore and he's not her dad so he's just going to mess with the kid in the hope that it makes her think twice the next time she gets the urge to be sticky-fingered with potentially dangerous magical items. And also for his own amusement, tbh.)

It was all very funny, I'm having a great time being the (metaphorical, he's aroace) straight guy to the rest of the party's hijinks and also occasionally indulging in my own. We ended the session thoroughly convinced that all roads lead to the Suspect Casino, having tugged on every investigative thread to Benjamin's satisfaction (and everyone else's), and he snapped his suspiciously-police-looking notebook shut and said "On that, Droozh, we are in complete agreement." to the loxodon paladin's declaration that he thinks now is Definitely the time to march into the casino and demand to know what the hell is going on. And yes, Droozh has wanted to do that since we arrived in town and the place seemed a bit sus from the whole 'got sent a gargoyle in the post' thing, but now we can march in and start cracking skulls in an Informed and Well Considered manner, having a better idea of what we're up against.

🍁 - What is this oc’s favourite season?

I still need to decide on some worldbuilding stuff that would help answer this, but I think when he was younger it would be whichever season school started back up again in. He always appreciated the escape from his parents' direct attention.

In a post-Shadowfell situation, I think that changes to him being very fond of spring. Seeing life return to the world again after the winter would be comforting to him after all that darkness, and it's a very colourful time of year as well, something he really missed.

📓 - Do you associate any quotes or lyrics with this oc?

This one is a twofer for Benjamin and Phillip, but there's a verse from Radical Face's Always Gold that's very them, although the rest of the song doesn't quite fit:

We were opposites at birth, I was steady as a hammer And no one worried 'cause they knew just where I'd be And they said you were the crooked kind and that you'd never have no worth But you were always gold to me

Benjamin is the first one, Phillip is the second. Benjamin was the sensible, practical one who joined the military like his parents wanted, although in a lot of ways he also wasn't the son they wanted him to be and becoming a soldier was him playing along with the only part of their expectations that he could tolerate in the hope that that would be enough. (Being an aroace firstborn son in a family that expected their title to be passed down was Not a fun time for him.)

And then there's Phillip, who was a lot more of a free spirit and also deeply contrary by nature and was having none of this parental expectations nonsense. He wasn't going to be a soldier and then settle down and marry a woman and have heirs, he was going to be a doctor and unabashedly pursue relationships with men and if he got disowned for it, well, that was their choice.

Ooh, I'm going to go with my active DnD character, Benjamin, for these, and also George my detective guy since you did give me the option of guys, plural.

⚠️ - If this oc came with a warning sign, what would it be?

Benjamin - Warning: Not A Morning Person

(Which wasn't a character trait of his I anticipated, it just came about naturally when I realised he'd have spent the last decade frequently on the night shift, and also it made for funny interactions with the rest of the party. It's become a running joke that you really shouldn't try and talk to him for a good half hour after he gets up, and probably longer if he hasn't managed to find some sort of fried breakfast food.)

George - Warning: Risk of Sarcasm, and also maybe Parental Advisory: Explicit Content when he gets very angry

(George has a very sharp sense of humour and what you might call an acerbic wit, plus if you get him mad enough he's got an extremely foul mouth. Usually he's very polite, but when he's sufficiently pissed off, all the filters go away.)

🧠 - What is their stress response: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn?

Benjamin - typically fight, I think. Comes from being a soldier and then a watchman, it's been pretty well trained into him to stand his ground and hit back, and also his upbringing very much stressed facing your problems head-on. Also, if there's literally anyone else around who's in some sort of danger as well as him, he isn't going anywhere.

George - I think he's more inclined to flight than he'd like to admit. He's spent his whole life hiding parts of himself and keeping secrets, and sometimes the best way to keep doing that is to nope the fuck out of a situation. Plus, he really doesn't like showing weakness around other people and tends to self-isolate when he's stressed.

⚔️ - How does this oc handle conflict?

Benjamin is used to being an authority figure, so he tends to respond to conflict by trying to take charge of the situation. He'll leverage his age or experience if he can, and fall back on the fact that he's a pretty powerful wizard and/or someone with power via authority if he has to and straight up threaten to knock people's heads together. That makes him pretty good at getting third parties to stop fighting, and probably an extremely annoying man to get into a direct argument with. He doesn't let things fester either, he prefers to get them out in the open and dealt with quickly.

So, we've been investigating this casino with a plane-shifting gimmick (each time you walk through a door the room beyond might be located in one of the four elemental planes, the Feywild or the Shadowfell) because there's been a serious spate of missing persons in the town it's in, and last session we finally confirmed that the djinn who runs the place is allowing people to bet years off their lives for fantastic prizes because he's dying and consuming the life force that people lose is what's keeping him alive. And he doesn't care if people bet their entire lives, hence the missing people, who aren't just dead but have basically had their souls consumed to make magic batteries for him. So they're Dead dead, no chance of resurrection, and their corpses have been dumped in a mass grave in the Shadowfell which we've now got a map to the location of.

Understandably, the whole party is Very pissed off about this, because we were hired to investigate those missing people, so last session we headed into the Shadowfell in order to find these graves and mark the location so our new friend the artificer who created the plane-shifting machine (and didn't realise the nefarious purposes it was being put to because she was just so excited to have funding for her ideas) can build a portal to it later and the townspeople can recover what's left of their loved ones.

Unfortunately (for the characters, rather enjoyably for us the players), two things happened the second we set foot in the Shadowfell - two of our party failed the wisdom save against Shadowfell Despair, and we were set on by a trio of skeletal centaurs who weren't a very difficult fight but did manage to do a number on our paladin Droozh (a Loxodon) and his steed (a pygmy elephant called Florian). The party's half-orc barbarian, Bob (who has a much longer name with a dozen surnames but goes by Bob to save confusion), was one of the ones who failed the save, and he got hit by the apathy effect, so he didn't contribute to the fight at all because what's the point?

And the other person who failed the save, really quite badly, was my wizard, and this is where it gets Very fun for me.

See, my guy, Benjamin Larkwright, human war wizard, is the oldest member of our party at a very ancient 46ish. He was a soldier as a young man, which is where he learned his magic, but he lost basically everyone he cared about to the war he fought in, including his parents, his younger brother, and nearly his entire unit of war wizards. (He's halfway based on Obi-Wan Kenobi, can you tell.) He quit the army after that, spent about a decade being miserable and also a watchman just to have something to do, and only decided to take up adventuring in the past year or so after Various Events reminded him what it was like to care about people and to be able to actually help.

So missing people who turned out to be dead along, and were horribly taken advantage of? Something he is Extremely angry about in and of itself, and is also kind of hitting him where he lives because he never did find his little brother's body. Phillip Larkwright was a doctor, something he chose to do against the objections of their parents who wanted both their sons to join the military (and also not be queer and settle down and continue the family line after an appropriate period of military service, but that's a whole other Thing). He volunteered with a civilian medical organisation during the war, saving lives in the towns and villages along the border most affected by the war, and that's how he got killed. (Aged 29, Benjamin was 32ish.) At least, that's what Benjamin has managed to find out. All he knows is that one day his brother's letters stopped, and then he found out that the town he'd been working in was destroyed when the front line shifted, and he was eventually able to track down a colleague of Phillip's who said they'd last seen him helping patients during their attempted evacuation. So Phillip disappeared, and his most likely fate as far as Benjamin can determine was that he ended up in one of the mass graves left behind in that town. Killed by the war that Benjamin was fighting in elsewhere.

So you can see why this whole situation was already an enormous trigger for Benjamin! And then he failed that save, and now he's been hit with a Shadowfell Despair effect off the custom table I came up with for him, and is Utterly convinced that he just gets everyone he cares about killed, and it's going to happen to the party too, and it's all going to be his fault. (It Really doesn't help matters that one of them is 17, and only one of the rest isn't either in their 20s or the cultural equivalent thereof, so as far as he's concerned they're all children and thus his duty to protect.)

And now with all the context out of the way, we finally get to the problems I'm going to cause on purpose. Because Benjamin is having a Bad Time. He's been thinking about his brother all week (Morvath the djinn mentioned him, because one of the prizes he offers as enticement towards huge bets is the resurrection of loved ones), he's just watched these kids get attacked by monsters the second he led them into the Shadowfell, and now his mind is telling him that he's going to get everyone here killed. And Benjamin is the one with the location marking device, and the written directions to the grave site.

So he's going to run off on his own to complete the mission without putting anyone else at risk.

But he's not just going to do a runner, the DM is letting me use an inspiration point to affect the entire party (minus the half-elf rogue/bard, who's immune) with the Sleep spell first, as a distraction. So Benjamin is going to very quietly boil over into a full blown freak out, cast Sleep on the entire party, bark at Alyriia to "Get them to safety!" and then disappear into the fog.

And I have no idea what's going to happen next...

Well, except for one thing, which I'm Even More excited about. Which is that Phillip, the dead brother, is going to show up in Some Capacity. Is he going to be a hallucination? A ghost? A zombie? I have no idea, but the DM has been handed him as an NPC and I've been informed he is Definitely showing up. Which I am absolutely Bonkers about because any version of that is going to be Devastating, so I Cannot Wait to see what happens there.

So, here's many and various fun facts about Benjamin Larkwright, war wizard:

He started out as a combo of Thomas Nightingale and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and ended up with a decent dose of Sam Vimes in there as well which is very fun (weld Vimes' arc on to the end of Obi-Wan's story instead of him dying and you basically end up with Nightingale, which is something very fun I only noticed when I thought about all three of them at once)

He's aroace

He's a moustache guy, of the early 20th century soldier sort of vibe, and one of those folks with brown hair whose facial hair is noticeably more ginger

He's got. Nineteen (19) total hit points at 4th level, I rolled like Garbage, he's terrifying squishy

(But I took War Caster and Spell Sniper as feats so ideally he'll be raining death on his enemies from Very Far Away from all that melee nonsense)

His arcane focus is the engraved metal cap on the end of his quarterstaff, and he made it from scratch himself as part of his magic training

We started with extra gold since we're starting at level 4, and he's ended up being the 'Pack Full of Random Useful Items' Guy (also the only one with land vehicles proficiency, so he'll end up being the Designated Driver, and why do I always end up playing the Party Dad Friend...)

Highlights from The Pack of Everything include a crowbar, a scroll case, a bullseye lantern (with oil flasks for fuel and also throwing with the spell Catapult, an option I'm very excited about), a shovel, a bag of caltrops and one of ball bearings, manacles, and a grappling hook

He learned his magic in the army as a young man, but quit after his specialist unit of wizards was almost entirely wiped out. His whole military pension and his entire inheritance goes towards supporting the families of his dead comrades and paying the medical bills of the survivors

He's also the last surviving member of his family (wiped out by the war he fought in) and technically he has a title that he inherited from his father, but he Never uses it

The man's got So Much survivor's guilt, poor chap

He took a job with the City Watch so he could afford to eat, and then spent about a decade in a holding pattern not really looking after himself and not doing any magic and just generally being Pretty Miserable and trying to pretend to himself that he wasn't (see: Vimes, pre-Guards! Guards!; Obi-Wan between trilogies; and Nightingale pre-Rivers of London, and you see what I mean about their stories overlapping?)

Until one day he got dragged into Shenanigans by a nobleman he was guarding who turned out to be a gentleman spy, and he ended up using his magic for the first time in years in order to save the day

And it turned out picking magic back up again and using it to help people was the purpose he'd been trying to pretend he didn't need in his life

So he dug his staff out of the back of a cupboard, cleaned the cobwebs off it, set about relearning all the magic that he gave up when he destroyed his old spellbook back in the day, and quit the Watch to become an adventurer

Personality-wise, he's Obi-Wan but stiffer and with significantly less people skills, and Nightingale at his most brisk and soldierly. The Vimes influence is more in his backstory than personality, but he's got shades of the temper and the Strong Opinions as well. He's polite, respectful (unless someone proves they don't deserve it, in which case he is Very obvious with his disapproval), formal, got a bit of a temper but also nerves of steel, stubborn as all hell, likes to solve his problems head-on, got a strong sense of duty and obligation, and got a surprisingly sly sense of humour.

And he's got a moustache. I've mentioned that already but it greatly entertains me so I'm pointing it out again.