Homeric Epithets

Soooo today we're going over the fascinating topic of epithets.

This was inspired by the fact that we're holding the last quest in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that has lasted almost two years, and my character has developed a lot. When she started the quest, she was a 19-year-old bard.  Now she's a 22-year-old bard/ sorcerer/ fire elemental with a raven familiar named Casca and... well...
When she first introduced herself, she basically said, "I'm Ana of Danger Fief." Her full name is technically Rowan Anaïs.
Now, if I want to refer to her full name and title, it would be Rowan Anaïs of Danger Fief, Queen of the Dead Kingdom, Single Half-Sybaran, Daughter of the Avatar of Chaos and Evil.

How does this relate to Homeric epithets?
Well, Homer does a little of that as well, depending on how many beats he has left in a line and whether he wants to start a new statement in the middle of it. Because of this, Achilles is called swift-footed even when sitting down; Circe and Calypso both have well-braided hair; Odysseus is ever-seeking or cunning; Athena is grey-eyed or wise; there are a bunch of others.

It's kind of interesting to think about what Homer would call Anaïs. Anaïs of the Fire-Hair? The One Born of Darkness? Singer of Tales? The One Doomed to Darkness? The Girl Who Is Really On Fire and Not Metaphorically On Fire Like Katniss Everdeen? 

What would you call your favorite character?

On Character Building

I know I've talked about Dungeons and Dragons characters before, but the character-building aspect of it has come to my attention again. I'm doing a new campaign (which is a smaller and less regular campaign than the one I've been in for the last year and a half), and I'm trying out a new character class: one that is fighting-based, not magic-based. It's a rather large campaign, and we're all rather low-level characters; this makes it easier for the less-experienced people in the group.

My favorite part of the character building in D&D is that you have to have a weakness: you're not allowed to just re-roll your skill points until you get 18 for all six skills (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma). The way the classes are structured will show which skills are favored and which are you dump stats. For example, bards need a good Charisma and Intelligence score; the way the class is structured makes the bard less inclined towards Strength and Constitution. Certain kinds of armor interfere with their magic as well. As a result, Bards are a good choice if you're on an information-seeking RPG quest, and are complete shit if you're on a combat-based kill-the-bad-guys quest. (I speak from experience).

On the other hand, a class like a Fighter or a Barbarian is the Bard's opposite. These classes, obviously, are combat-based; my Strength and Constitution scores are my highest scores for this character. I haven't fully fleshed her out yet, because it takes a really long time, but it's important to remember at least one way that Hollywood tends to lie to us: if a character is a fighter-type, their Charisma is often their dump stat (attractiveness falls under Charisma), and their armor is generally functional, not showy.  Sure, they may be attractive because they've spent years training to have a solid 18 in Strength and a 17 in Constitution, but that probably means that their Intelligence is more like a 12.

This is something I need to remember when drawing up my non-D&D characters. I can't have someone be smart (at least, not necessarily book-smart) and still have them train 8 hours a day in combat skills.  For most characters in the D&D universe, it's better to have an 18 and a 16 mixed in with a few tens and elevens, as opposed to having a character who has a 13 in every box.
Why?
If you have a good strength score, you can attack better. The higher your constitution, the more you can get hit before dying. If your dexterity is good, you'll be able to go earlier in battle and react more quickly. If you're more intelligent or wise, you'll succeed as a mage. If you're more charismatic, you can work crowds, intimidate people, and talk to people better because they'll think you're attractive.  Often you can be charming and gather information about how to defeat an enemy because you know what sort of questions to ask, and that can be your contribution to the actual battle, because all you can do during the fight is poke people with a rapier and sing songs to support people (protip: rapiers don't work).  Alternatively, it's probably unlikely that someone who has perfected their fighting skills also has good people skills. That's why groups are important.

Character Stuff!

So, over the course of Winter Break, my character sheet for the Dungeons and Dragons campaign that I'm doing at school went missing.  This is rather irritating - not only do I have to re-invent my character from memory, I also lose valuable points (we started at a high level, and I had really good bonuses for my basic stats, which I lost).

This is also an opportunity, however, to reinvent my character.  I have learned through the course of the first episode of the campaign that Bards can be useless in fights and easy to hit (and one of the irritating things is that, in the course of re-doing my character's stats, I lost some Hit Points, so she's easier to hit).  Saturday's session was the last of this episode (think Star Wars), and our DM has said that the characters will have three years between the end of this episode and the start of the next one (the characters will do their own thing for three years; the actual group is going to meet up again in a few weeks).

In that time, we'll have the chance to level up our characters and give them any items we want.  We'll also have the chance to budge around our classes and feats if we want to - this means that my character, Anaïs, is going to get a new job, essentially, in addition to being a Bard, and will learn how to do a lot of cool things.

I used to hate character building, because it's a very tedious process (involving, among other things, a crap-ton of dice rolls and adding those rolls together, and that's just the beginning).  Maybe it's gotten easier because I'm not working from scratch on Anaïs, but it's a lot more fun now that I know a bit more about what I'm doing.

There are several books you can use for character building, but those normally just cover the basic classes, skills, feats, armor, and equipment that you can use.  The Player's Handbook is designed for the new kids who don't know how to set up a character.

Once you start getting the hang of what number gets what bonus on what, you can actually start looking into the cool things on the DnD wiki page, which is actually a lot of fun.

For example, now that I have the ability to cross-class my Bard with something, I decided that I was going to give her a few levels in Fighter - a warrior that's not as stupid as a Barbarian, but will still let me use more weapons and get cooler feats and class skills.  Then, however, I found out that the important stats to a Fighter were the stats that the Bards tended to do without.  Bards rely a lot on Charisma and Intelligence, and can do without Strength and Constitution; Fighters tend to rely more on Strength and Constitution than Charisma.

After looking on the DnD Wiki, I found a homebrew class that I really liked (homebrew means that Wizards of the Coast didn't invent it, but it's developed to work in a DnD-type campaign and available for public use).  It's called a Songblade, and it's a tactician/ fighter; it gives me the weapon usage I need while still using my good stat.

I'm starting to like character work. :)

Character Building

So some of you might not know, but I play Dungeons and Dragons. A new campaign is starting at my school, and I was working on building my character today. It really helped my perspective on character building on a whole - I mean, I'm going to be stuck with this chick for a while, so I might as well like her, and build her as well as I can, in both ranks and her story.  Since I'm playing a human bard, there are things that I have to work with - the bard can do magic, but only a certain amount and in certain ways and stuff, and the human has a lot of adaptability, but isn't perfect.  There are certain languages she can't speak because she's a human, but she might be able to learn them because she's a bard, and she travels a lot.
So, how does DnD character building relate to the character building of normal building, including non-fantasy genres?

Though it may be really annoying, you could look up the character sheets for DnD and just look them over.  Though a human bard is not going to be built the same as someone from "The Devil Wears Prada," both of them need to be built well.  DnD has Skill lists that certain classes can do - look those over, modify them to fit your genre, and think about it.  You don't have to roll for Charisma, Intelligence, and Strength, but think about what alignment they might be if they lived in the DnD world.  If you aren't familiar with the alignments, look up alignment memes in any image search engine, and you'll be able to find one that has various characters for each - there's one where Superman is Lawful Good and the Joker is Chaotic Evil.  Additionally, tvtropes.org has a good explanation of them (just be wary: that website is very like Facebook: it can suck you in.  The difference is, you'll figure out different archetypal things, whereas on Facebook you're just watching other people's drama unfold).
Anyhow, that's all I have for today.
Have fun!