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.
