13th character: Valkyus, Grimwild

 It's already the 13th character! Shame it's not a Friday, I could have done a horror game for a laugh. Well, I guess there's nothing actually stopping me from doing that anyway, but I went with Oddity Press' Grimwild instead! It's a shame the creator dropped entirely from the map before delivering the printed copy, but at least the game is fully released and available as a PDF, with a decent amount of fan support still on Discord. I did Grimwild last year just has it was released actually, so why not return to it again. I like the idea of a more narrative game with the vibe of D&D 5e with the wilder playable species and the fairly iconic class, too often when a narrative game wants to get into that D&D flavor, it mostly means the early days with Fighting Men and Magic User and Thieves, with Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits if we're lucky. I know there are plenty of exception, but this one hits right! Speaking of wilder playable species, I decided to stat out Valkyus the Tiefling, a fuckboy of a character that hanged in the back of my head for a while now. I decided to make him a Fighter, specifically an Eldritch Knight!

Art by Aniikan on ych.commish.com

 I love Mystic Knight, specifically the take in Final Fantasy V where they're fighter who cast spells on their sword to modify their basic attack! Their sprite also had a cool look to them that I think his aesthetic fits rather well! Despite being based on D&D (or should I say inspired?), Grimwild doesn't have a set spell list, you instead roll 3 words on a table and pic two to create your spells, a fun creative exercise. You then get a freeform ability with those words as the limit, I imagine he mostly do a shadowy shield, lighting attacks and freezing his swords! Speaking of swords, I decided he fight one-handed, using a orichalcum khopesh he looted from a dead body. I decided to make him an ex-merchant for his first background and then a glittering Tiefling for the second.

 He's a fairly phlegmatic and unflappable presence, mostly being there and looking hot, but being rather crafty and underhanded when he wants something. He's mostly out for wealth as befit a merchant, but also knowledge, he's fairly well balanced. As we're supposed to create the character in a group, I made up that he's in a party with a few of my previously played D&D 5e characters and Gumei in her Artificer version. Mallet was a Tempest Cleric of Kord who swore like a sailor but is a determined party leader, someone Valkyus would respect the more he gets to know him. Silver was a mysterious half-drow hexblade with a snake motif, so they have a rivalry as fellow magical melee combatant, though she used a big old glaive. Hilda was a Plasmoid, but her backstory was that she used to be human before dying in her first adventure to a gelatinous cube, her soul fusing with it on death, so he'd be pretty curious about her whole deal. Then I think he's attracted to Gumei, but want to maintain a professional vibe with the party. I'm not doing a whole montage of their first adventure, but the group goal I've given them implies they may have been forced together by circumstance and are just trying to survive. I'm thinking some sort of Assault on Precinct 13th situation, they all stopped for the night in the same shelter that then came under attack by a mysterious force. Secretly, Valkyus is mostly hoping to get treasures out of the ordeal.