Multi-Genre Characters in Open Legend: High Fantasy
To learn more about this series, check out the inaugural article here.
Here are the character sheets I’ll be using for this series, one for the actual character and one for the Companion the character gains through the Companion II feat.
Main Character Sheet:
https://openlegend.heromuster.com/character?s=mainchara388
Companion Character Sheet:
https://openlegend.heromuster.com/character?s=companion759
High Fantasy
This is the genre many people think about when they think about tabletop RPGs. Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and many others have their “default” setting as something that I would consider to fall under the category of Fantasy. Lord of the Rings is often considered the most well-known High Fantasy adventure, for good reason, and there are thousands of books, movies, and games that delve into the magical world of High Fantasy.
Riordan Xiloscient, Half-Elf Wizard
Riordan is young, for a wizard anyways. Early on in life he discovered a deep fascination and talent for the Arcane arts. Even as a child, he spent all of his money, hard-earned from picking up extra chores around the village, to purchase magical crystals that were common in the lands bordering the Scar, as well as books on the study of the magical energies that suffused the crystals, and indeed all objects. He began to study and train himself in the magical arts in secret, and before long he had mastered even some Intermediate-level techniques.
Riordan uses his gifts of transmutative spellcasting (Alteration — Attribute) to reshape the world around him to his whims and his talent for fire and electricity spells (Energy — Attribute) to defend himself and power his fantastic ideas.
When he was a young man, about 16 years old, he came across a nobleman whose caravan was being assaulted by bandits. With a bit of quick thinking, Riordan put traced runes of power into the ground just out of sight of the bandits (Heightened Invocation — Feat) and released a powerful blast of fire that clung to the bandits’ clothes and hair (Persistent Damage — Bane). When they ran from the scene, the young nobleman swore a debt of gratitude to Riordan for his assistance (Ear of the Emperor — Perk) and even wrote him a letter of recommendation to the Wizards’ College in the capital city.
Riordan often found himself in fights with his noble-born classmates who made fun of his half-blooded heritage and poverty (Hot-Tempered — Flaw). He strived every day to prove them wrong and to best them in every way he could (Proud — Flaw), which, inevitably, led to further confrontations with his classmates.
Riordan, in an effort to prove himself, often sought spells and incantations that others claimed were beyond him. One day, while browsing through the ancient library of the Wizards’ College, Riordan discovered an ancient tome that called to him. Within he discovered a ritual that would allow him to summon a golem of magic and stone. Such a ritual was far beyond his years as a magus, but he persisted in learning the ritual to perfection. When finally he was ready to attempt the ritual, he took the book from the library and into the secluded tower practice hall. When the ritual was complete, the tome burst into flames in Riordan’s hands, but the golem rose from the stones of the practice hall to serve him (Companion II — Feat).
The golem turned to Riordan in the afterglow of the casting and spoke, much to Riordan’s surprise. “My name is Unkgruzh,” it said. “Are you the one who has summoned me here?”
Riordan prepared to defend himself and answered “Aye. ’Tis I that summoned you here. What is your purpose?”
“My purpose, now,” Unkgruzh began, stepping towards Riordan with a booming gait punctuated by the grinding of stone on stone, “is to protect you, who has freed me from my entombment.”
When the masters of the College discovered Unkgruzh and his origins, they sealed the creature away, and then tried to expel Riordan from the school for attempting magicks far beyond his years, but cooler heads saw the potential in the boy, now barely a man of 20 years compared to their several hundred, and allowed him to pursue his studies, provided he prove himself capable of controlling the golem.
The masters of the College then allowed Riordan to graduate from his Novitiate to his Journeyman studies, both to allow him to study more freely the skills he so clearly excelled in and also to keep a closer eye on his studies. Journeyman magi in the Wizards College were required to pursue an apprenticeship with a Master within the College to guide their studies.
Riordan found himself apprenticed to Balafos, a wizard who, by many folks’ estimations, was quite as much a genius as he was a loon, but who experimented himself with the creation of autonomous constructs and so would allow Unkgruzh to be present for Riordan’s lessons. Riordan learned early on that Balafos himself was over 200 years old, despite being a full-blooded human, and that the power of the crystals which powered the magics of Altreya also greatly improved the life-expectancy of those practitioners of the magical arts.
It has been many years since Riordan began that apprenticeship, and he has learned much from Balafos about magic and the world at large (Learning — Attribute). Unkgruzh, despite his normally dense mind for the intricacies of life among the softer races, is Riordan’s greatest friend, and often manages to recall simple, often unrelated facts, that Riordan himself has forgotten (Divine Insight — Perk).
Now, the two companions wander the land seeking lost knowledge to bring forth to the College that Riordan might prove himself worthy of the rank of Master. With Unkgruzh at his side, Riordan knows he can always trust his friend to defend him against the harshness of the world (Battlefield Reflexes — Feat) and to strongly dissuade those who would wish him harm (Brutal Intimidation — Feat).
Conclusion
The nice thing about High Fantasy (and, really, with any fantasy genre) is that you can quite easily use “magic” as a solution to all of your problems. Whether you are casting Summon Creature (Boon), Teleport (Boon), or Persistent Damage (Bane), there are a near-infinite number of ways you can say “because magic” to justify your claim.
Riordan, specifically, is one of the main characters in a High Fantasy/Aetherpunk campaign I am currently writing for a group of friends, who have all come up with some amazing ways to “flavor” their powers in a world where magic is powered by crystals spread throughout the land by the Cataclysm which scarred the planet of Altreya all across its face when the remains of a destroyed planet came in the path of Altreya’s orbit. This is where his story begins, as a level 1 adventurer, and you can bet he gets a lot more interesting (and powerful) by the time my players come across him.
