The time has come to share with the world my first DND character for my first DND campaign, worth 3 months of work! I and my DM are extremely excited to see how my character and her secrets will play out during the campaign. Everyone, meet Muse!
Primary Alias: Aria Daffodil, human female
Class: Bard (College of Eloquence)
Core Motivation: Combating systemic injustice and government corruption.
Core Flaw: Severe fear of abandonment and rejection, leading her to hide her true identity from everyone, including her allies.
Secondary Flaws: She has trouble accepting help because she's survived alone for so long; She lies even when she doesn't need to because it is easier/safer than being vulnerable; She always assumes authority figures are corrupt because of her skewed perspective and awful childhood.
Signature Equipment: A lute featuring a long, thin hidden compartment in the neck of the instrument
Muse was born in the Patchwork Agricultural estates to two changeling parents. At age 4, the people discovered their changeling identities, leading them to form a mob. Her parents resisted the townspeople to allow Muse to escape and were killed in front of her. Muse fled to the lower city of Calimport and began living on the streets, adopting the human persona “Zuzu Featherflight” and hiding her changeling identity to survive. “Zuzu” was a nickname her parents had given her.
Living as an urchin, she joined a group of human street children who accepted her under the assumption that she was human. (More details to be added about their names, backstories, and future relevance to the campaign, if any). At age 9, the group discovered she was a changeling and cast her out. She subsequently adopted a new human persona, "Aria Daffodil.” She chose the name Aria due to her love for music. In the months that she was alone, she gained possession of her special lute, which she used to aid her in stealing food.
Alone and in danger on the streets, she was very nearly kidnapped by a group of slavers. However, she was rescued by a 14-year-old human boy, a young rogue orphan named Sedrick whom she came to see as an older brother figure. He became the one of the only people she has ever truly trusted. Expecting immediate rejection, Muse immediately confessed her changeling identity to him, pushing the boundaries to see how far she could go before he left her too. The boy accepted her regardless and took care of her. While Sedrick genuinely accepted her and acted with her best intentions at heart, he continuously emphasized that she must strictly hide her true identity from the rest of the world to stay safe. Though intended as protective advice, this warning reinforced her traumatic past experiences, deeply feeding her insecurities and solidifying her belief that her true self is inherently dangerous and must always be concealed.
Their separation was sudden and traumatic. Sedrick was arrested for stealing, taking full credit for the crime specifically to ensure that Muse walked free. He was imprisoned at age 17, when Muse was 12, leaving him in a high-danger situation (being a child in a jail) that Muse was entirely powerless to prevent. This event deeply reinforced her belief that anyone she loves or connects with will ultimately be taken away from her. She spent the next few years on her own, using her changeling powers and her music to do whatever it takes to survive, and refusing to let anyone else become close to her.
At age 15, motivated by the systemic injustices she witnessed, Muse began using her changeling abilities to strike back against corrupt political structures. She uses her hidden lute compartment to assist in her operations, storing tools, contraband, or stolen paperwork. Rather than infiltrating systems gradually, Muse executes high-risk, single-day operations. She steals the identity of a politician or world leader for exactly one day, uses their authority to pass a few immediate laws, steals critical documents, and thoroughly disrupts their operations before abandoning the guise. She limits these takeovers to a single day to prevent her cover from being blown. This chaotic, fast-paced method of hit-and-run political sabotage is what has earned her a widespread reputation as an anonymous, anti-hero vigilante. People are blind to her true age, gender, identity, species, etc, and so know her only as The Shooting Star, a folk hero and urban legend.
At age 18, she joined the Adventurer's Guild where she met and began dating her girlfriend, Seraphina Goldenrose. (Seraphina is a player character, not an npc) Seraphina is a Tiefling, and the two of them bonded over their shared issues with identity and rejection. They gradually earned each other's trust as they grew closer, leading the two of them to eventually reveal their secrets to each other. The two of them continue to date for about a year, when at 19, they are both assigned to a mission with the campaign's adventuring party by the Adventurer's Guild. Muse maintains her "Aria Daffodil" persona, keeping her true changeling identity, Sedrick's imprisonment, and her vigilante background a strict secret from the group due to her deeply ingrained fear of rejection and her belief that total concealment is her only protection. At some point during the campaign, she hopes she may be able to embark on a side quest to free Sedrick (once she opens up to the party about her secrets).
Here is the curated identity for "Aria Daffodil" that the party is privy to, composed half-truths and white lies. It is basically a condensed version of Muse's real backstory with a few key details removed and a few supplementary lies added in.
Class: Bard (College of Eloquence)
Core Motivation: Proving herself in a world that has never believed in her; Proving that despite being just a human orphan, she is intelligent and capable.
Core Flaw: Feeling like an outcast, leading to self-alienation, which thereby leads to feeling like even more of an outcast; Being unwilling to open up to and trust others.
Signature Equipment: A lute featuring a hidden compartment.
Aria was abandoned at an orphanage in the lower city of Calimport as an infant child, leaving her with no memory of her birth parents. Her name was unknown, but people called her “Aria” because she was always singing, even before she could talk. She chose the last name “Daffodil” when she was 4 because they were the only flower that grew in the yard of the orphanage. At age 6 she ran away from the overcrowded orphanage and bad conditions, leaving her to the streets. (Anything was better than that.) She was a loner. She bounced between groups, but never truly found a place where she belonged. As she got older, her instincts sharpened, and she learned to rely on no one but herself. She felt determined to prove herself strong, despite her outward appearance of simply a scrawny and scrappy human girl. By 9 years old, she got her hands on a lute, and taught herself the instrument, writing her own songs. She sang and stole to survive, accompanying herself in performances. She wandered between cities, never truly belonging anywhere and never actually wanting to. At age 18, she joined the Adventurer's Guild where she met and started dating her girlfriend, Seraphina Goldenrose. Finally, at age 19, she was assigned to a mission with the adventuring party.
Muse Character Design in Changeling Form
Aria Daffodil Character Design (Human persona/disguise)
Here are a few other sketches I drew of Muse in her 2 main physical forms:
Close ups of the individual sketches:
gracieabrams
germansingergirl
amandla
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
