Looks like these are the last of my Destiny art that I have, they were drawn a good while ago. Definitely 2020 if not 2019. They were just early concepts but regardless even today they still apply to Nova, Azazel, and Adam-17.
Warlock: Initially called Duskblade (now Willstealer), this Darkness subclass commands the power of the Taken. The Super acts like a dark version of Daybreak, with the ability to fire out slashes from the sword, but also allows the ability to fire Axion Bolts from the free hand an even slam into the ground to deal heavy damage.
Hunter: Initially called Venomstrafer (now Venomstalker, or Wraith), this Darkness subclass harnesses the power of Hive soulfire and its toxic effects. The Super involves wielding corrosive blades that can be thrown and will boomerang back to you, or can be used to slash away at combatants, spreading noxious poison through the enemy.
Titan: Lazily initially called SIVA (now more appropriately renamed to Replicator), this Darkness subclass combines the power of SIVA with Guardians' paracausality. The Super involves wielding a nanite-forged battle axe, which can then be used to spread more nanites across the field to aid you in battle.
I have since refined the 3 subclasses (and even added 2 more SIVA-based subclasses for the Warlock & Hunter, + a Nightmare subclass for Titan), but I'll show those off whenever I get around to them :)
The nighttime chorus of insects grows louder as the foliage parts. A suit of black plate mail comes into sudden view as a swarm of fireflies flocks around it, lighting the empty visor of its helmet-- and the dangerous edge on its sword.
Shade is a decommissioned weapon. An undying machine, he's dedicated himself to protecting the short, fleeting lives of mortal creatures in an effort to atone for the lives he once ended. [expanded backstory under the cut]
Background: Hermit
Traits:
I'm in no rush. I've seen decades pass by without much thought, and tend to speak slowly, or pause for a long time while considering my actions.
I will often stop to point out plants or animals I find pretty-- though my notion of beauty doesn't always match up with common definitions.
Bonds: I will stop the villains threatening my forest. While I would rather avoid killing, if their lives must to end so the forest can live-- so be it.
Ideals: Life. While death is inevitable, even a mayfly's life is precious in its time. I will protect that light in the world.
Flaws: I struggle to differentiate between different types of life. To me, a humanoid's life is equally as worthy as an ant's.
Skill Proficiencies: Medicine, Religion, Animal Handling, Nature, Survival, Perception
Stat Spread (Highest to Lowest): STR, WIS, CON, DEX, INT, CHA
Build Notes: I'd lean completely into being a clanky tank for Shade's build-- the idea of a big loud hulking obvious robot being a Wise Nature Lover is thematically pretty fun IMO. Defence as his fighting style, multiclass into fighter* for heavy armour proficiency and the 'Protection' fighting style (suits his 'protect life' shtick). Heavy armour plus the +1 from defence, +1 from warforged and +2 from a shield would make him a complete AC wall guaranteed to make your DM cuss you out (and then hit you with breath weapons which your horrible DEX could not protect you from).
*You could also multiclass into Oath Of Redemption paladin for a bunch of levels. Same heavy armour and fighting style, but with Extra Pacifism Points; really fun for flavour, but the reliance on CHA for spellcasting would be a huge issue.
Expanded Backstory: Shade was created as a weapon of war, and for the first years of his life he did as he was made to do. Part of a small unit of warforged soldiers, Shade would venture deep behind enemy lines; without the need for sleep, food, or water, his team made the perfect strike force.
Shade and his companions would destroy enemy supply lines, would wipe out stragglers or advance scouts. Ruthless and efficient, the warforged team were widely feared; even their own army was wary of them.
Shade didn't mind his negative reputation, nor the bloody work he was doing. He didn't think about much of anything; in those early days of his existence, he hadn't yet woken to thought and feeling.
Without goals or thoughts of his own, when Shade returned to report on a finished mission, and found his commander's tent- and the entire outpost that had surrounded it- destroyed, he had no idea what to do next. So he did nothing; only stood- and eventually sat- motionless, waiting for his next orders.
Decades passed, and then centuries. A forest grew up around Shade. He waited. Slowly, awareness grew in his mind. He began to think, and feel, and the waiting became a conscious choice.
He had no other goals in mind but to watch the seasons change, and came to love the forest; he watched litters of fox kits born, and watched those kits grow up, and have litters of their own, and die of old age. He watched trees sprout and grow and fall and rot, and learned to value life; undying, and already generations old, it all seemed fleeting to him, and the hours-long lifespan of a mayfly seemed not much shorter than the handful of years a stag got. Rather than making their lives seem trivial, it all seemed valuable and beautiful to him, no matter how small.
A dim guilt began to haunt him; though death, he knew, was the inevitable end for every creature, the unnecessary and untimely deaths he had caused started to bother him. When [campaign appropriate villain] came to threaten his forest, Shade- for the first time in decades- rose to fight, and defend the place he loved.
The insects who had begun to nest in his body came with him; together, they made a powerful fighting force, and Shade was able to chase off his enemies for a time. He was outnumbered, though, and the victory was narrow-- he would need allies if he wanted to protect his forest properly.
So he set out into the wider world, bringing a small piece of his forest with him in the form of his Swarm. He hopes to find a more permanent way to stop those threatening his forest and- in the back of his mind- harbours thoughts of doing some greater good, and atoning for the violence of his past.
Long ago, a young witch was executed in the peat bogs outside a small town. In her dying moments, she attempted to save her life with magic, but only partially succeeded, becoming one of the undead.
Centuries later, a community of lizardfolk unearthed her mummy, bringing her back to the village to consult for arcane and historical knowledge. Tillya Tannin had a particularly close bond with the witch, acting as the go-between for her and the rest of the village, wielding her strange magic for the good of his fellows.
An older man, Tillya would have happily stayed as a simple witch's conduit for the rest of his days-- had the witch not discovered a group of newcomers in the swamp. They were, she claimed, the descendants of those villagers who had slain her long ago. And the witch wanted revenge.
Wanting the best for his undead friend- and wanting to protect his village from her anger- Tillya reluctantly agreed to undertake this mission, and set out from home for the first time in order to track down these strangers, and set the peat witch's mind at ease.
Background: Far Traveller
Traits:
I'm very practical (and, having befriended a bog mummy, not very squeamish). I have no qualms about getting messy, including when it comes to looting bodies or butchering monsters. Waste not, want not!
I'm used to my role as a leader back home, and am quick to offer help or advice to others-- whether they ask or not.
Bonds: I will sate my witch friend's thirst for vengeance with as little fuss as possible, and then return to the swamp.
Ideals: Protective. I take care of those younger, weaker, and less wise than me.
Flaws: I care far more for the happiness of me and mine than for any greater concepts of morality.
Stat Spread (Highest to Lowest): CHA, WIS, INT, CON, STR, DEX
[This spread isn't optimized at all; you'd want CON way higher, and you'd probably want DEX higher, too, to best take advantage of that nice natural armour feature]
Expanded Backstory:
Centuries ago, a hedge witch and her apprentice were executed for their magic outside of a small town. They were buried in the swamp, where their bodies wouldn't pollute the hallowed grounds of the church.
In an effort to save herself, the young apprentice witch cast every spell in her arsenal- including some she hadn't mastered yet. Though she failed to save herself, the spells had some effect, and her body- preserved in the peat bog- remained animated, her soul still tied to it even as the mud buried her, and the years passed.
Centuries later, a community of lizardfolk moved into the swamp, and discovered the young witch's body- still very much undead. A pragmatic people, the lizardfolk realized they could use the hedge witch's knowledge and excavated her, moving her to their village to consult her on matters of the arcane.
The Witch had been made very strange by the centuries of isolation, and her short life had been lived in an age long, long before the lizardfolk's time; though the witch was friendly, and happy for company, she was hard to relate to, and an entire position emerged in the village dedicated only to consulting and understanding the witch of the peat.
Tillya Tannin was the latest of these; a conduit between the witch's wisdom and the rest of the village. Granted strange powers by the witch of the peat, he used her wisdom- and his magic- to aid his fellow lizardfolk, helping ease their often difficult lives.
Tillya came to be viewed as a wise, respected figure by his fellow lizardfolk, and was content with his life; connected with his swamp, his fellows, and even the witch of the peat. Even though she had lingered on the material plane for so long, the witch was a very young soul, and Tillya grew protective of the her, doing his best to guide her even as her arcane knowledge guided the lizardfolk.
But one day, strangers came to the swamp. The lizardfolk did as they usually would; hid, and watched, and hoped the strangers would leave without bringing trouble- or worse, adventurers- down on their community.
The witch had other ideas. These strangers, she claimed, were descended from the very people who had killed her and her mentor in ages past, and she wanted revenge. A childish creature, the witch had a temper, and was sometimes hard to reason with. She demanded that the lizardfolk help her, and refused to help them with magical matters until they did.
Concerned for his people- and the witch- Tillya reluctantly agreed to set out on this quest, tracking down the people who had killed (well, most of the way killed) his mummy. He only hopes he doesn't bring trouble down on his village in the process.
Deirdre "Dee" Rae, Satyr Paladin (Oath of Ancients)
Backstory Summary [expanded version under cut]:
Ejected from the feywild as a young child, Dee was raised by goatherds on the material plane. Though her parents were loving, she struggled without anyone to guide her as a Fey, and ended up leaving home for the big city, hoping to find belonging there.
She ended up falling into bad habits, making money gambling (and mostly cheating) in taverns. Stumbling drunk one night into a temple, she blearily accepted the offering of Sanctuary inside, and woke up to find she had, in the process, inadvertently agreed to serve the god of that temple; an unworshipped and forgotten deity of stray animals.
This worked out just fine for Dee, who made the switch from lousy card shark to decent snake-oil salesman, passing herself off as a proper paladin and using a combination of slight of hand and actual magic to grift people out of their money.
Moving from town to town whenever she got into too much trouble, Dee's closest companion was her god, who she developed a somewhat contentious relationship with. The god- afraid to lose its only worshipper- encouraged Dee's bad habits to keep her dependant on it, and Dee refused to spread its faith, so it had to keep her- its only acolyte- around even when she broke its tenants.
Perhaps because neither Dee nor her deity are really following the tenants of their faith, the god's magic begin to act up one day, becoming weaker and less reliable. Unwilling to lose the powers that make her life possible, Dee sets out to find the reason for her god's decline, intending to set things back to normal as soon as she can.
Background: Charlatan
Traits:
I slip back and forth between my Paladin register and my regular mannerisms as easily as changing clothes.
I never say no to a good time. If someone invites me to have a drink, or play a round of poker, I'll be there.
Bonds: I will figure out what's troubling my god so I can get back to the life I want to be leading.
Ideals:
Pleasure. We're here for a good time, not a long time. I intend to make it a really good time.
I protect strays like me.
Flaws: I don't tolerate hardship very well; when the going gets tough, I get going.
Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Sleight of Hand, Insight, Persuasion, Performance, Religion
Stat Spread (Highest to Lowest): CHA, STR, CON, WIS, DEX, INT
[you could always put DEX over STR if you wanted, too. Dex-based paldins are kinda odd, but rapiers & the like are an option if you want to take advantage of that racial bonus]
Looks: Tall and broad (for a satyr, anyway), Dee is battered from her years of bad decisions; notably missing a horn (from cracking her head in a bar fight) and a finger (from a game of 5-finger-filet gone wrong), with a notch in one ear. In her shining paladin's armour, these scars give Dee the look of a seasoned warrior; an impression she's more than happy to go along with.
Expanded Backstory:
Dee Risen was raised by human goatherds in a tiny farming community. Her parents found her huddled in with their flock one frigid winters night, and neither they nor Dee have any idea how she ended up there. Although, as a satyr, she had presumably been born in the feywilds, Dee doesn't remember anything before the material plane.
Dee's parents did their best by her but, as human peasants, were not well equipped to deal with a Fey child, and Dee grew discontented with life as a goatherd. Severed from her connection to the feywild, she often felt something was missing, and was prone to bursts of fey magic and strange behaviour that often set her at odds with the other villagers. Once she reached her teenage years, she set off for the big city, hoping to find it more suited to her tastes. Though her parents were sad to see her go, they parted on good terms.
Once in the city, Dee began to rapidly self-destruct; as a Satyr, it was in her nature to revel, but raised outside of Satyr society she hadn't properly learned that indulging every whim today can make tomorrow worse. She made her coin gambling- and fleecing travellers- but wasn't very good at it, and often ended up in fights with patrons who caught her cheating. After a year of gambling, bar brawls, and otherwise making a mess of things, Dee was thrown out of a tavern, and got lost trying to find her way home.
She stumbled down a side-street, and through the open doors of a church that she had never seen before; a strange being there offered her Sanctuary, and she readily agreed, stretching out on a pew to sleep off the night's drinking. She awoke to find that- in agreeing to take shelter- she had also agreed to serve the god of that church; a nameless and largely forgotten deity of stray and feral animals.
Imbued with holy magic, Dee switched gears from mediocre card shark to decent snake-oil salesman, playing up her nature magic and fey origins to seem like a holy warrior of The Spirits Of The Wild, and grifting people out of their money by upselling her healing magic (and occasionally convincing people they were sick when they weren't, and charging them to cure their imaginary ailments, too).
The only thing wrong- in Dee's mind- with this new way of life was that Dee's god wanted her to spread its faith. Dee was reluctant to recruit followers, however, not wanting to be replaced by 'better' candidates. The god- equally afraid to lose its only follower- in turn encouraged Dee's every vice, afraid if she wised up enough, she would leave it. Locked in a sort of unhealthy, co-dependant relationship, the two carry on this way for years, slowly spiralling into worse behaviour, each unwilling to help the other improve for fear of being left behind.
This status quo is rocked when, one day, Dee attempts to heal one of her customers-- and the god's powers don't come. For some reason, the god's power has begun to wane. Now united behind a common cause, Dee and the god set out trying to find out what's causing the god's decline, and what they can do to stop it.
Moira Demorran, Hill Dwarf Druid (Circle of Spores)
An eerie blue light fills the cavern. A Dwarven woman, on the brink of death, coughs, and clouds of glowing spores spill out of her mouth. The kobolds that had been swarming her fall back, choking on the air. Something in the back of the woman's head- a feeling, more than any word- says: "No. We aren't finished yet."
A dwarven scout, Moira was hired by the king's army into a strange, ancient cavern, and witnessed them slay a bizarre colony of fungal creatures dwelling there; the last of whom infected Moira with its spores, as it died. The knights apparently wanted no witnesses, and would have slain Moira, too, if the parasite- not wanting its host destroyed- hadn't intervened, granting her strange powers. In fear for her life, Moira escaped and fled for the surface, the parasite still growing in her body: Watching. Judging. Waiting. Aware.
Background: Archaeologist
Traits:
I'd never been in the outside world until my escape, and can't help commenting on it's strangeness sometimes; I'm still caught off guard by the weather.
Sometimes I swear I can hear the fungus talking to me, and zone out trying to make out what it's saying.
Bonds: I will find out what happened to my fellow scouts, and learn the secrets of the cave where I was infected.
Ideals: Loyalty. The only thing worth fighting for in this world is the people who will fight for you.
Flaws: I can be awkward with strangers to the point of rudeness; for most of my life, I didn't talk to anyone outside of the other scouts, and I'm not always sure how to act with people I don't know.
Skill and Tool Proficiencies: Survival, Perception, History, Medicine, Cartographer's Tools
Stat Spread (Highest to Lowest): WIS, CON, DEX, STR, INT, CHA
Expanded Backstory: Moira was part of an "Advance Mining Team" known as the Canaries; a group of workers considered expendable, sent in to newly-discovered caves to do the dangerous preliminary scouting before the other mining and caving teams were sent in. Moira was born into the work, and she considered the tight-knit team essentially an extended family.
On the Canaries' latest job, Moira was part of a scouting mission into a strange cave crawling with bizarre mushrooms. The king's own army had ordered the Canaries to personally show them through the cave; an unprecedented request, and to top it off the Canaries were sworn to complete secrecy about the mission- though they were hardly told enough details to share, in any case.
Weeks of travel into the cave-system, strange fungal creatures emerged from the depths, and the king's army launched an immediate attack. The Canaries- adept at fleeing danger- scattered, and Moira lost track of them in the confusion.
The fungal creatures seemed at an obvious disadvantage; the knights had brought mages and magical weapons with them, as though expecting this fight, and- while taking losses- were steadily wiping out the creatures.
One- fleeing from the chaos- ran into Moira, and as a dying act released a cloud of spores into the air. Moira felt immediately woozy, and fell unconscious. When she woke, she was being carted off with the dead, and the king's advisors were speaking- quite openly- of their plans for the dig site, which included some secrets [I would leave these to the GM's discretion] Moira was quite certain she wasn't supposed to hear.
Already considered fairly expendable- or she wouldn't be a Canary- she didn't like her odds if the king's people discovered she was alive to hear their secrets, so she tried to slip away- and the knights immediately drew on her.
Outnumbered Moira ten to one, the knights could have cut her down in seconds; but the spores she had inhaled had other plans. The last living trace of the fungal creatures the knights had wiped out, the dying creature had infected Moira intending for its species to survive. These budding spores, with no instinct except that for survival, granted Moira strange new abilities, allowing her to escape. An active fugitive, Moira was forced to flee to the surface world in search of safety-- and allies.
While she fears the king's retribution, she wants to return one day to find out what happened to the other Canaries, and discover the extent of the king's plans for the strange cave she had helped him explore.
As for her strange, fungal passenger-- it seems to have plans of its own. Still a young creature, it's growing in her, all the time; learning. Watching. Moira doesn't know what it wants- or how alive it even is. But there's an itch at the back of her mind, sometimes; a voice in her head that doesn't seem quite her own. At least the parasite seems to be invested in her survival. For now.
