#kyssarda

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Maybe it’s weird to write meta about the dnd campaign you actively play in but I’m thinking about the session tonight and I’m my own dnd party’s fandom so:

Torus’s decision to kill the abashai has such interesting implications thematically speaking.

Because he didn’t know that Kyssarda offered that deal, desperate to get her friend back. And Torus’s (in one way or another) decision was made in the same kind of desperate manner. But HIS decision probably ends up saving her, even if it momentarily dooms Palasar.

She thinks her offer was made in a desperate grab for a last shred of hope given by the conversation they’d overheard, but really it’s Torus’s decision (metanarratively) to throw that knife that it a choice made in hope.

Hope that maybe there can be lines drawn in the sacrifices we make, and maybe we can win without continuing to lose one another in the process (because that was almost certainly a losing deal for Kyssarda, one way or another).

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Oooo, which two of your DnD characters would get along best? Get along the worst? Have the most to talk about? Could conceivably be each other's nemeses?

I admittedly don't think any of my characters would be nemeses. Kyssarda (current character and also the one who gives me the BIGGEST feels) would probably have reservations about Tali, who doesn't draw as clear distinctions between life and death and the veil between. And Wren would probably initially be put off by the fact that Kyssarda is friends and allies with so much royalty (one of her party is literally king of a kingdom, and Wren has a whole thing about authority and the upper class, so....)

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no but like. 

my dnd character’s parents APPARENTLY lily-and-james’d for her and her brother and she only learned this last session because she unlocked a memory that she didn’t know she had and 

im still emotional about it

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Please gush about your D&D campaign! and tell me your favorite moment so far between Dorian and Orym?

THURIIIII hi

Task: Wiped down kitchen counters and started dinner.

I'm gonna ramble forever about my dnd campaign but my favorite Dorym moment is probably a three-way tie between "there are no debts between us", "you have something in your hair", and Orym with the sending stone when Dorian came back. T.T

Now, for MY campaign... (I get in my feels a bit woops)

Right now, we're a party of three with my half-elf monk (Kyssarda), a tiefling paladin/warlock, and a triton bard. We just spent like, a month in the Underdark which was BRUTAL, but had fantastic character development for all of us I think. The path to get to the Underdark (which we went to with the intention of rescuing a friend) involved going to this country we hadn't been to before.

I've been using Kyssarda to sort of explore internalized issues in some ways, mostly internalized homophobia (saying this as a queer woman) by putting some emotional emphasis on her coming to understand that she is the direct result of a love (between her parents) that at least parts of society deemed taboo and bad (because her father's lineage would not have approved of him marrying a human). She also feels like she can't share this aspect of her identity freely with the party, because the party member she felt closest to (the elven rogue) has been super prejudiced against the country her father is from (because of backstory.... it's a tangled web).

BUT ANYWAY we come out of the Underdark after like, a month. Kyssarda lost an arm and gained a scar. Our paladin/warlock changed alignments and then changed back after what has been probably my fave RP I've ever done. Other trauma was had that I won't get into. It's been a rough time for everybody. And we emerge and suddenly.... the country her father is from got overthrown, and the tyrranical rule is no longer in effect.

Which leads to her having a lot of mixed but very strong emotions. Because on one hand, that's great! If only her father could see it now! But also.... if only her father could see it, period, and she still carries the sort of trauma of knowing her father's love for her mother was seen as this terrible, dirty thing for so long, and she is a proud product of that.

So overwhelmed and needing someone to talk to, she DID tell her secret to the paladin and it was such a good moment. Oof. But she made him promise not to tell the rogue who we are currently about to meet up with (played by the player as the triton bard). Paladin promised, but also encouraged her to tell him. I don't think it's going to happen soon, but it's bound to happen eventually.

I'm really excited though because of what I explained above and also other trauma-related things that I haven't gotten to explain fully (or this would be a novel probably haha), Kyssarda's going to multiclass into barbarian soon. She's a character that hasn't gotten to acknowledge the pain and anger that is justified in her backstory and throughout the campaign, and I'm excited to explore the ways anger can be a catharsis and good even. That it doesn't have to be something buried and forgotten, like she has been doing for so long. I think my party knows its coming, because I've been planting seeds of outbursts of anger slowly but surely, and they keep making jokes/comments about her multiclassing.

Thank you for the chance to ramble!

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You can ramble about her any time and also I'd die for her

Please don’t. Also, she’d die for you first. (Random side tangent that as much as I absolutely love this character... thanks to homebrew rules, I have a scroll of life transference that I have the ability to cast. We decided that if using it would drop me below 0 hit points, the recipient of it would heal the amount that I roll, but Kyssarda would be dead-dead. No saving throws, no nothing. And if there ever comes a point where one of the party falls and she either a) is out of uses of a healer’s kit or b) cannot get to them with movement and step of the wind (but CAN get within range), she’s gonna use it. Hope that day never comes, but that’s her Hail Mary plan.) 

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Please tell me everything about your monk Kyssarda right now

Y’all are too much T.T Thank you for letting me gush, okay here we go:

Kyssarda is a (currently) 7th level, neutral-good, half-elf Way of Shadows monk

She’s got abandonment issues, fam. Lost her family in a fire, a brother who left her on the doorsteps of the temple and vanished in the night, and never had a consistent face in her life since.

Lowkey she grew up in a library. Or at least, spent most of her life in the monastery’s library. 

She’s the empathetic one of the group, and according to her party members “has the braincell” 

She died once but was brought back because thanks revivify and the NPC cleric with us at the time!

She’s pretty sure she’s about to lose one of the party members that also secretly reminds her of her brother that abandoned her so YAY FOR EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE 

Also, side-tangent that she had to give him a fake name in the last session and panicked and gave him her brother’s name but none of the party knows that’s her brother’s name. And on the off chance that they keep calling him that after they are out of the situation, it’s gonna mess her up a bit. <.<

She’s kinda got minor beef with the tiefling in our party, but it’s mostly just in the background and honestly, idk if it’ll turn into anything that blows up or if she’ll just let it go eventually. Your guess is as good as mine.

She’s a monk for a deity that deals with death, but is kind of secretly afraid of death (because she doesn’t want to be alone), so there’s that

She has the healer’s feat! :D If she survives to the next leveling up, I’m hoping to take a second feat and get the Tough Feat. 

She’s fiercely protective and has very little in the way of self-preservation so quite honestly, I don’t know if she’ll survive to higher levels or not 

She wrote “in case I die” letters to the party that nobody but the DM knows about... woops

She has tattoos on her left shoulder and her left hand

Her highest stat is DEX at 16 and her lowest is a tie between CON and STR, both at 12. 

She’s a woodcarver! But lowkey. 

Thanks for letting me ramble! Kyssarda occupies a solid 70% of my brainspace at any given moment. <3

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Me to myself: Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I really think that [insert introspective emotional/psychological detail about an OC]

My brain: Reading too much into it?? THEY’RE YOUR OC! YOU DECIDE WHAT’S CANON!

Me: [surprised pikachu face]

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Ive been listening to a D&D podcast obsessively ngl. Do you mind talking about you character btw? -Prince

sklfjksdj I will literally talk anyone’s ear off about Kyssarda if anyone shows the slightest interest so HERE WE GO

Kyssarda is a Neutral Good Half-Elf Monk whose monastic tradition is Way of Shadow, but it’s really not the “secret assassin” vibe that 5e suggests? Because yay Homebrew. She’s at Level 7 currently. Generally a ray of sunshine. She likes hugs. 

She has a bit of a sad backstory, but I’ll try to give ya the condensed version. Her father was an elf, her mother was human, and she had an older brother. When she was like, 4 her house caught fire in the middle of the night. Her brother carried her out, and she passed out in the process. Next thing she knows, she woke up outside a Temple of Sehanine, with no sign of her parents or brother. The monks basically raised her (tho they weren’t really equipped to so there was some emotional distance there), and she spent a lot of time working in the library. She’s in her early 20s now, and decided to strike out on her own with the blessing of the monks because forging your own path/finding your own destiny are part of core teachings of Sehanine. She ended up joining the current party partially out of convenience, and mostly out of a desire for friendship/fear of being alone.

Kyssarda’s got abandonment issues big time given her past with being abandoned by her brother (because is he dead? Did he leave her for other reasons? WHO KNOWS not me and not kyssarda I’m leaving that in the hands of the DM if he even wants to make that into something. Kyssarda has mostly convinced herself that her brother went back to get their parents and died in the fire too). This causes her to do everything she possibly can to make herself useful to the people around her (aka the party). Not to the detriment of her morals exactly, but still. The people she is with are important to her, and she is intensely afraid of being left behind. (Which has been interesting recently, because one PC had his soul sucked into a book and is MIA, woops). Although I’ll also say that the whole “making herself useful” is also informed by her being raised by the monks, who in our homebrew campaign placed an emphasis on helping those in need. So while its informed by her trauma, it’s also been instilled in her through her upbringing too. 

More recent trauma includes her dying. Like, fully dead (took damage while unconcious, and then rolled a nat1). An NPC traveling with us was a cleric who luckily had revivify, but Kyssarda’s left hand was withered past the point of being usable there for a while even after she was brought back. We just got back to a city, and she got to a temple of Tyr who had a cleric willing to help. So last session, she got full use of her hand back (and promptly got it tattoo’d). But yeah, my girl straight up died and it’s left a bit of a mark on her psyche, though a nice talk with a beloved NPC has helped her process it a bit. And the whole thing lead to some cool/heartfelt RP between Kyssarda and one of the other party members, so she feels closer to him now too. 

So ye! Kyssarda’s my home-skillet but doesn’t have great self-preservation instincts (that whole “be useful to others” kinda translates to “protect others as much as possible in combat even at detriment to your own health/safety”) so I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if she straight up dies again. I hope not! But I also know it might happen. Heh. Such is the way with DnD.