Dwarf Bards Rock

One of the first initiatives we had as a ministry to get people playing games together was to go to the forums at Paizo and create a play-by-post game in the Pathinder RPG system. If you listen to our podcast, you may have heard me talk about the character I’ve played in that game. I’ll save you Drogan Anvilsong’s character story by saying he’s a storyteller whose magical skills focus on ways to protect his friends or embarrass his enemies. He’s a wanderer who is always up for good food and folks around the bar. And while he’d much rather talk his way around a fight, he’ll never run away from one when it happens. After playing him for almost two years now, he’s grown to become my favorite character I have ever created for a role playing game across my entire menagerie of alter-egos. However, there were those who would tell me that he should have never even existed.

I had never played Pathfinder before we started. While I know my way around an RPG book, there is a lot of math and a pile of little rules that make the machine of Pathfinder function. As such, I decided that I’d need help putting my character together. It didn’t take me long to establish that I wanted to play a bard. If I was going to ‘kick the tires’ on this system, I might as well go with something that gave me a lot of options. Bards, after all, are a jack-of-all-trades sort of lot.  I also knew that I’d want to play a dwarf – because I pretty much ALWAYS want to play a dwarf (see our D&D 5e series).

I scoured the internet for advice on what I should do to make my dwarven bard the best he could be. My search unearthed a source book that broke down the class based on style, racial benefits, and spell options. I tore through the opening pages, trying to learn all that I could as I skimmed the opening pages. My target, though, was the chapter on racial options. The book’s author took great care to give nuance to each variation of bard. Elves were lyrical and mysterious, humans maximized the flexibility of the class, and halflings were tricksters and pranksters. It was at the end of the list that I finally found the description of dwarf bards, and I was confused. The other options contained tables and charts that broke down the best skills and spells to take to maximize their effectiveness, but the entry for dwarf bards barely even had a paragraph of text. It simply said, “There is absolutely no benefit to playing a dwarf bard.”

I scoffed at the author’s shortsightedness. Clearly he had just not found the combination of skills and stats to make an interesting character. My search continued to other sources, but the outcome was not much better. The advice remained consistent. “Don’t. Just don’t play a dwarf bard. The benefit is not worth the penalties.” Several of the guides I found did not even bother to mention dwarf as an option, as if the sheer thought of such a thing were preposterous. It was looking less and less appealing to travel down the road I’d chosen, but I’ve never been one for “min/maxing.” Story is what drives me, and there was definitely a story there. I just needed to find it.

I stopped looking at guides and started asking Drogan what he wanted his story to be. What questions did have? What struggles did he deal with? It’s a common practice in writing and storytelling. Keep asking the character questions until you begin to define their worldview – their perspective on life. I kept asking questions, but the answers often came through the filter of the guide books I’d read beforehand. I swatted away ‘That’ll never work’ and ‘he’ll never be able to pull that off well’ like flies buzzing around my face. And there it was. It was as if Drogan looked up at me from the character sheet and spoke to me.

“D’ye know what iss like te not have a home? D’ye know what it feels like when everyone is expectin’ ye te fail before ye’ve even started? I do. It sucks. So ye start down the road ’til ye find someone that doesn’t see ye that way. You walk with them fer a bit. Bleed with ’em. And when they’ve become the family ye never thought you’d have again – you do everything ye can te keep ’em.”

Drogan’s story became a search for home and family. He became the defiant soul refusing to believe that he was worthless and had no place. He would defend the downtrodden and make foolish those who smugly looked down on them. He would sooner die than see anyone else feel the pain and dishonor that he had in his misspent youth. He deflected pain with sarcasm and bad jokes, but the scars still hurt sometimes. His backstory was fleshed out, but I wasn’t done asking him questions. As months went by and the game played itself out across the forum, I kept asking him questions.

“Drogan, you and Karl seem to be getting along well together. What do you like most about him?”
“Drogan, what did it feel like when you phased out of time and talked to Cayden Cailean?”
“Drogan, you can’t shake that grave-digger’s whistle out of your head can you?”

I always enjoy the characters I play in games. This isn’t even the first article I’ve written reflecting on a past character. However, Drogan is something different. He’s the first character I’ve ever created that I’ve made available across multiple systems, recreating his character sheet for what he’d be like in Dungeons & Dragons instead of Pathfinder. I even went to heroforge and designed a custom miniature for him that I may actually bite the bullet and click the order button for some day. Drogan has become something special to me, and I think it is because he refused to let anybody call him sub-optimal.

He fits in the Pathfinder world. He isn’t house-ruled. I didn’t cheat any of the stat pools. It’s true that there are times when I wish he had some more pluses in some places and not so many minuses in others. But it doesn’t stop him from having excellent moments. He took a hit to charisma for being a dwarf, but that didn’t stop him from convincing a contingent of town guards that he was a doctor treating a case of plague they needed to avoid lest they catch it themselves. He might not be as smart as some or skilled in magic, but his dwarven waraxe has saved his companions more times than I can count.

When I go to conventions, I have a button that is displayed proudly on my bag. It simply says “Dwarf Bards Rock!” It’s become a personal catch phrase. A motto declaring that I’m not afraid to celebrate what I am – even when it’s not considered the most efficient. In the course of time, I’ll grow, I’ll change, I’ll develop, but I’ll always be telling the story that only I can tell. My will is being conformed to Christ – not an optimal character build – and that will define what I chose to do or not do. If that means I don’t fit inside a mold, then so be it.

If you are dealing with obnoxiously buzzing voices telling you that you aren’t doing it the best way, let this be your guide. Seek God honestly – in a way that is unafraid of changes you might have to make. If you have to take a stat-penalty to follow after Him, it’s worth it. If you do that, and the option to move forward is still there in front of you … take it. You’re a Dwarf bard. Dwarf bards don’t let anyone call them sub-optimal. Dwarf bards rock.