bard ideas that aren’t just “horny twink with a lute”:
union organizer whose bardic art is his inspiring speeches & who gives bardic inspiration by leading his party in rousing renditions of american protest folk classics
politician (played as if he’s on the west wing)
politician (played as if she’s on veep)
standup comedian (either shitty or actually good)
lore bard whose bardic art is her b.a. thesis on etymology, and who’s obsessed with the power of the spoken word
eloquence bard who’s a grammy-winning rapper (make him fight another bard for vicious mockery rap battles)
grizzled old soldier valor bard who started as a grunt in the army and managed to make it all the way to the top because he’s second to none when it comes to inspiring his men
satire bard who’s a cartoonist on the model of eli valley, skewering the powerful and corrupt on her pen
glamour bard who’s literally just a stage magician— the twist is that his magic is real
swords bard whose bardic art is actually his martial craft; his partner is also a bard, and their duels are works of art in themselves, more like dancing than fighting
the other day I was talking to a friend and I said something like “the dream quest of unknown kadath, much like other epic fantasy of its type, honestly reads like someone’s rpg campaign that just went completely off the rails.” this is true.* because I have absolutely nothing better to do in quarantine, i have gone through the entire novel and empirically determined what rpg class randolph carter would be (sheet included). you’re welcome.
*inb4 “but el there’s only one protagonist”: I’ve played one-on-one d&d before and it can ABSOLUTELY work and be completely delightful, so hush.
GROUND RULES
I’m using 5th edition d&d, because it’s the system I’m most familiar with. stay tuned for the sequel, where I do this all over again but with pathfinder.
I’m also using UA stuff + some of the new things from explorer’s guide to wildemount, because dunamancy is very thematically lovecraftian.
carter is very clearly a seasoned adventurer in this story. textually, he’s only the fourth human to ever venture to unknown Kadath; additionally, “being old in the land of dream he counted on many useful memories and devices to aid him.” with such qualifications in mind, let’s go ahead and make him level 20. this is, after all, the sort of nonsense high-level PCs get up to— challenging gods and the like.
RACE: human, obviously. let’s go variant human, both to reflect his oddball nature & to pick up a 1st level feat.
BACKGROUND: this one’s a bit trickier. according to Lovecraft he’s a resident of Beacon Hill in the waking world, the most upper-class neighborhood of Boston, so let’s say he’s got the noble background.
ALIGNMENT: an interesting question! carter isn’t exactly your standard fantasy hero, and he’s not really out for anyone but himself. he demonstrates a clear willingness to allow other people to come to harm in pursuit of his goals, though he himself never actually harms anyone for any reason other than self defense. but he’s interpersonally kind, and clearly doesn’t actually want anyone to get hurt. let’s say true neutral.
ABILITY SCORES
strength: not his best ability score, though he does seem to be fairly athletic when it’s absolutely needed. let’s make this a 10.
dexterity: carter is fast on his feet, nimble, and clearly good at feats of escape, which he pulls off several times in the text. let’s make this his highest score, at a 20.
constitution: he’s not especially tough. another 10.
intelligence: carter speaks several languages and knows a great deal about the history and culture of the Dreamlands. when he can’t talk his way out of trouble, he tends to reason his way out. let’s make this pretty high, though not as high as his charisma— a 16.
wisdom: this one’s a bit tricky. while he’s relatively perceptive and skilled at things that depend on wisdom, he doesn’t seem to have a ton in the way of common sense, and (as demonstrated by his encounter with the merchant in dylath-leen) his insight is absolutely abysmal. let’s make this a 12.
charisma: carter’s pretty sociable with just about every creature he encounters on his travels; people seem to like him, and he has friends all over. additionally, he’s an excellent liar, and quite persuasive, when simple likeability doesn’t get him where he needs to go. let’s make this an 18.
SKILLS
survival: carter clearly knows his way around the natural world.
“Carter detoured at the proper place, and heard behind him the frightened fluttering of some of the more timid zoogs. He had known they would follow him, so he was not disturbed; for one grows accustomed to the anomalies of these prying creatures. It was twilight when he came to the edge of the wood, and the strengthening glow told him it was the twilight of morning.”
deception: when carter can’t get his way through persuasion, he’s more than happy to lie, and quite skilled at it too.
“Then Carter did a wicked thing, offering his guileless host so many draughts of the moon-wine which the zoogs had given him that the old man became irresponsibly talkative.”
“For a week the strange seamen lingered in the taverns and traded in the bazaars of Celephaïs, and before they sailed Carter had taken passage on their dark ship, telling them that he was an old onyx-miner and wishful to work in their quarries.”
religion: carter displays an impressive knowledge of the workings of both the gods of the dreamlands and the outer gods (though the latter might actually be better classified as an arcana skill, now that i think about it).
“Now the use of all this in finding the gods became at once apparent to Carter. It is known that in disguise the younger among the Great Ones often espouse the daughters of men, so that around the borders of the cold waste wherein stands Kadath the peasants must all bear their blood. This being so, the way to find that waste must be to see the stone face on Ngranek and mark the features; then, having noted them with care, to search for such features among living men. Where they are plainest and thickest, there must the gods dwell nearest; and whatever stony waste lies back of the villages in that place must be that wherein stands Kadath.”
“He knew, however, that no beings as nearly human as these would dare approach the ultimate nighted throne of the daemon Azathoth in the formless central void.”
“[...] for he knew from old tales that the Great Ones’ castle atop unknown Kadath is of onyx.”
“And they sang many songs and told many tales, shewing such strange knowledge of the olden days and the habits of gods that Carter could see they held many latent memories of their sires the Great Ones.”
“Carter surmised from old tales that he was indeed come to that most dreadful and legendary of all places, the remote and prehistoric monastery wherein dwells uncompanioned the high-priest not to be described, which wears a yellow silken mask over its face and prays to the Other Gods and their crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.”
investigation: in the taverns of dylath-leen and elsewhere, carter shows a remarkable facility for collecting useful information.
“Meanwhile he did not fail to seek through the haunts of far travellers for any tales they might have concerning Kadath in the cold waste or a marvellous city of marble walls and silver fountains seen below terraces in the sunset.”
history: same principle as arcana, really; a huge chunk of the information we get about the dreamlands comes with the mention that carter himself knows all this.
"[Carter] recognised the templed terraces of Zar, abode of forgotten dreams; the spires of infamous Thalarion, that daemon-city of a thousand wonders where the eidolon Lathi reigns; the charnal gardens of Xura, land of pleasures unattained, and the twin headlands of crystal, meeting above in a resplendent arch, which guard the harbour of Sona-Nyl, blessed land of fancy.”
“The dead temples on the mountains were so placed that they could have glorified no wholesome or suitable gods, and in the symmetries of the broken columns there seemed to lurk some dark and inner meaning which did not invite solution. And what the structure and proportions of the olden worshippers could have been, Carter steadily refused to conjecture.”
“At last far below him he saw faint lines of grey and ominous pinnacles which he knew must be the fabled Peaks of Thok.”
“And Carter knew right well what they must be, for legend tells of only one such twain. They were the changeless guardians of the Great Abyss, and these dark ruins were in truth primordial Sarkomand.“
perception: despite his consistent failure to notice when people are lying to or tricking him, carter’s fairly observant of everything else.
“He noticed that these cottages [on the moon] had no windows, and thought that their shape suggested the huts of [the Inuit].*”
nature: concordant with his apparent skill in surviving in the world, carter is quite good at recognizing different natural phenomena.
“As the coast drew nearer, and the hideous stench of that city grew stronger, he saw upon the jagged hills many forests, some of whose trees he recognised as akin to that solitary moon-tree in the enchanted wood of earth, from whose sap the small brown zoogs ferment their peculiar wine.”
“They were not any birds or bats known elsewhere on earth or in dreamland, for they were larger than elephants and had heads like a horse’s. Carter knew that they must be the shantak-birds of ill rumour, and wondered no more what evil guardians and nameless sentinels made men avoid the boreal rock desert.”
persuasion: people tend to like carter quite a lot, and he excels at getting his way without resorting to violence.
“The captain, after landing, made Carter a guest in his own small house on the shore of Yath where the rear of the town slopes down to it; and his wife and servants brought strange toothsome foods for the traveller’s delight.”
“After much persuasion the ghoul consented to guide his guest inside the great wall of the gugs’ kingdom.”
“And all through that second day he made progress in knowing the men of the ship, getting them little by little to talk of their cold twilight land, of their exquisite onyx city, and of their fear of the high and impassable peaks beyond which Leng was said to be.”
“The ghoul that was Pickman glibbered gravely with its fellows, and in the end Carter was offered far more than he had at most expected.“
athletics: despite his apparently mediocre strength score, carter’s rather good at feats of athleticism (running long distances, climbing, etc)
“But there was a way, and he saw it in due season. Only a very expert dreamer could have used those imperceptible foot-holds, yet to Carter they were sufficient.”
“For hours he climbed with aching arms and blistered hands, seeing again the grey death-fire and Thok’s uncomfortable pinnacles. At last he discerned above him the projecting edge of the great crag of the ghouls, whose vertical side he could not glimpse; and hours later he saw a curious face peering over it as a gargoyle peers over a parapet of Notre Dame.”
“Once he thought he heard the hoofbeats of the frightened beast, and doubled his speed from this encouragement. He was covering miles, and little by little the way was broadening in front till he knew he must soon emerge on the cold and dreaded desert to the north.”
acrobatics: the multiple times over the course of the story carter falls from great distances, he manages to land on his feet. additionally, he’s apparently an accomplished climber, so make of that what you will.
stealth: as one might expect from a character who’s so used to going at problems slantwise, carter is very good at sneakery.
“There was one chance that Carter might be able to steal through that twilight realm of circular stone towers at an hour when the giants would be all gorged and snoring indoors, and reach the central tower with the sign of Koth upon it, which has the stairs leading up to that stone trap-door in the enchanted wood.”
“Carter allowed his curiosity to conquer his fear, and crept forward again instead of retreating. Once in crossing an open street he wriggled worm-like on his stomach, and in another place he had to rise to his feet to avoid making a noise among heaps of fallen marble. But always he succeeded in avoiding discovery, so that in a short time he had found a spot behind a titan pillar whence he could watch the whole green-litten scene of action. “
FEATS
lucky: what it says on the tin; carter’s luck is extraordinary. multiple times during the novel, he’s saved from certain doom by a stroke of happy chance.
observant: a huge part of the text’s travelogue sense comes from carter noticing specific and responding to specific elements of his surroundings.
mobile: again, carter’s very quick and hard to pin down. sort of an extension of the idea behind giving him athletics proficiency, & one of his class features.
LANGUAGES
goblin: “Carter, however, had no fear; for he was an old dreamer and had learnt [the Zoogs’] fluttering language and made many a treaty with them.” small carnivorous pack-hunting creatures with a primitive society and language of their own sound pretty goblin-like to me.
celestial: when he reads them, carter is "disappointed by [...] the meagre help to be found in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan.” since these texts all concern the gods of the Dreamlands, we can safely assume they’re written in celestial.
undercommon: “A man he had known in Boston—a painter of strange pictures with a secret studio in an ancient and unhallowed alley near a graveyard—had actually made friends with the ghouls and had taught him to understand the simpler part of their disgusting meeping and glibbering.” honestly, what is the vale of pnath if not the underdark? it’s got cities and everything!
MISC. PROFICIENCIES
vehicles (water): “The sea party, commanded by Carter, boarded the anchored galley and rowed out to meet the undermanned galley of the newcomers.” not sure where he learned to sail— the miskatonic crew team, maybe, or summers on the cape?
thieves’ tools: never shows up in canon, but come on, obviously he’s got some trap-disarming/lock-picking ability!
CLASS
BARD 11 / COLLEGE OF LORE
we know from the paratext of his narrative that carter is an artist— he’s a novelist, and a talented one at that. even here, though, his relevance and abilities are in large part due to his creative capabilities as a dreamer. it’s not exactly traditional barding, but I’d argue that what is a bard if not someone whose creativity reshapes the world? whether that takes place through the medium of music or just through the raw power of imagination is more a question of internal distinction than anything.
the college of lore is all about the seeking after of knowledge and beauty, forbidden or not. these bards are absolutely focused on the pursuit of truth at any and all costs, sometimes to their own demise. if there’s a better college for a doomed dreamer on a quixotic quest after something fleeting and beautiful, I don’t know it. here are some of the places in the text carter acts particularly college of lore-y:
“Carter felt that the lore of so far a traveller must not be overlooked.”
“At last, having gained all the information he was likely to gain in the taverns and public places of Baharna...”
“It was from these children of the exiled hill-people that Carter had heard the best tales about Ngranek when searching through Baharna’s ancient taverns.“
“And as that music grew, the shantak raised its ears and plunged ahead, and Carter likewise bent to catch each lovely strain. It was a song, but not the song of any voice. Night and the spheres sang it, and it was old when space and Nyarlathotep and the Other Gods were born. [...]
Faster flew the shantak, and lower bent the rider, drunk with the marvels of strange gulfs, and whirling in the crystal coils of outer magic. Then came too late the warning of the evil one, the sardonic caution of the daemon legate who had bidden the seeker beware the madness of that song.“
ROGUE 9 / SCOUT
we mentioned above carter’s clear facility with the natural world, but more than that, his way of confronting (or not) the various sticky situations in which he finds himself is decidedly roguish. he sneaks about rather than plunge into a fight he knows he can’t win; he enlists other people to fight for him; he’s profoundly strategic about what conflicts does and doesn’t engage with, martial or otherwise. rogues are all about fighting smart, not hard; scouts in particular are all about self-sufficiency and solitary capability. I was actually torn between scout or inquisitive for his roguish archetype, considering as inquisitives are very much focused on detection, perception, and investigation— but ultimately inquisitives are far, far better at reading people than carter is, to the extent that one of their core class features relies on it. so, scout it is!
SPELLS
and here we get into somewhat trickier territory, because our dear protagonist is not himself especially magical. I’m taking a little bit of liberty here for the sake of plausibility as a player character. we know from the text that carter is able to manipulate the world around him, if only subconsciously, because he’s a gifted dreamer. I tried to reflect that idea in his spell list, giving him a mix of enchantment and transmutation spells, with a few psychic damage and divination tricks thrown in. an important note: I can’t imagine carter casting spells like a regular bard, playing music or reciting poetry or giving a speech; instead, I imagine it would look a lot more like how your average sorcerer does things, re-writing reality through sheer force of will.
cantrips: minor illusion, mind sliver, mage hand, prestidigitation
and there we have it! randolph carter the true neutral human 11th level bard/9th level rogue. I took the liberty of writing up his finished sheet (art credit @sator-the-wanderess), which you can find viewable below as well. if anyone wants to actually play this version of carter (or a leveled down version) or use him in their game, please do, and please let me know!
audrey @brightbluedot, writing a handsome, distinguished, terminally condescending high level half-orc wizard as a foil to my bard (a heterosexual middle-aged married father of four):
so yesterday my little sister came to me and asked if i’d run d&d for her, our other sister, and the two neighbor girls (we’re functionally one household quarantined together). of course i agreed, and i helped my sister (17 year old soon to be college athlete & not into Nerd Shit in the slightest) roll up a character. she came up with azriel the chaotic neutral fallen aasimar outlander ranger who hunts dragons and plays a lyre made of human bones— and i did not quite understand the levels of mary sue people will make their first PCs, but I Get It Now
a thing i've noticed lately: being a queer woman and a DM is really wonderful thing, because i get to experience the tangible benefits of creating a game that's inclusive of me and my players. almost all of us are women, some of us are gay, some of us are people of color, and some of us are trans, and i have the power to make sure that the world i build is populated with those who are like us, represented as full human (or elven, or dwarven, or halfling— you get the picture) beings. when you're into science fiction and fantasy like all of us are, finding yourself in your favorite works can be a tall order. to me it feels like a tremendous act of love, for them and for myself, to create space for each one of us at the table, a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected whole.
also: ran call of cthulhu last night for one of my tabletop groups, which was super fun, but our main campaign is 5e and the player who usually plays a v stereotypical (but fun and interesting still!) -1 int barbarian was playing a german medical doctor who...somehow ended up with...precisely the same mannerisms as said barbarian. it was absolutely perfect
so em and i made characters for a oneshot independently of each other, and somehow managed to replicate exactly the april/andy dynamic from parks and rec. left is chione the ice sorcerer (em’s), right is poetry the heroism paladin (mine)
