So I have been playing for some time and i decided to post something besides a horror story or complaint. My attempt to make an edgelord that went wrong in a perfect way.
I’d played with several people who all mastered the art of the edgelord. And when Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes came out, I thought I would try it for myself. Couldn’t be too hard, right?
So after some little time I came up with my edgy creation. A Shadar-Kai elf Rogue named Pel’Reena. Pel is Sindarin Elvish for “edge” and Reena is translated from Tel’Quessir from the word “edge”. So his name was “sharpness of the edge of the blade” or “edgy edge”. So undead elf from a realm of misery named Edge. Perfect, right?
Describing Pel, he isn’t very tall, his hair is long and black. He has a tattoo of the Raven Queen’s symbol on his right cheek and his eyes are completely black, his skin deathly pale. He wears a modified kenku skull over the top of his face. He is also asexual, interested only in serving his Lady. (This came into play a lot when a guest player kept hitting on him… hard)
In creation I realized I gave him no purpose. And that ended up defining him. A devoted follower of the Raven Queen, she sent him to the Material Plane. He then realized he had no idea what his mission was and wandered in constant anxiety about it.
This caused him to want to die, as when he died, if it was in battle or in service to his Lady, he would go back to the Shadowfell and then he could ask her about his mission. Thus Pel was now suicidal.
He also started with a trinket, a small notebook that erased itself every morning. Pel misunderstood the item and thought he was sending these notes to his goddess, that they erased when she received them. This notebook ended up being very useful, surprisingly, as Pel wrote down everything.
He met the party in a tavern (yes, cliche) when the others were all given a mission. Pel failed a stealth check and thus was very noticeably eavesdropping and trying to be sneaky.
Adventures ensued and Pel became fond of his companions. There was Latham the Human Ancients Paladin, who we all called a “child killer” when we were attacked by possessed children and he moved to simply push a kid away from him… with a Nat 20. The DM said he pushed the child and it died, which caused Latham’s player to beg the DM not to.
There was Cotton Gin, a Goliath Fighter raised by halflings and the sweetest soul you could ever meet. He immediately took a shine to Pel and protected him, despite Pel’s wishes.
There were other players that came and went, but these two became Pel’s trusted friends. And Pel got an awkward party reputation for lots of Nats. Nat 1s on things to look cool and Nat 20 when it came to stupid stuff or death saves. (Rolling in public for all to see)
Thus Pel was a comedic element of the group, failing in ways that never hindered the party but provided laughs. He fell face first into snow, fell off roofs, failed to intimidate or even talk to people (-1 Charisma), developed a deep fear of his own reflection and succeeded at never dying despite wanting it so bad.
The three ended up owning a bar together, which we called Ever Eastward, a joke between the party and DM about how we always went East. Cotton Gin brought his halfling parents, who cooked. Cottin Gin himself did the paperwork and management. Latham cleaned up messes and maintained the place and Pel was the bouncer. The real MVP ended up being Pel’s familiar, Charon.
Charon was a raven familiar that the party dressed in a tiny tuxedo vest. He could do simple mockery, allowing him to repeat drink and food orders. He also said “hidee-ho” like Mister Henky after the party had defeated a maze filled with exploding popcorn monsters that only said that phrase. Basically we had a well dressed bird waiter. And the DM let Pel (Arcane Trickster) cast Mage Hand through the bird so he could carry drink orders. This made the bar pretty popular for novelty reasons.
That winter, the party discovered a conspiracy to replace all the town meat with human flesh. At one point, the party found an old man who offered the party soup. After Pel made an Insight check, he realized the soup was poisoned. So, hopeful, Pel drank it, but Nat 20d his Con Save, my DM ruling that Pel took no damage.
The party however saw the rogue drink the soup and be fine, so they all drank. Almost killed them all… The old man wasn’t hard to defeat and the antidote easy to find. We discovered who he was working for and set off.
Investigating this led to the discovery of a mind flayer. Pel almost died. Almost. Teamwork and perseverance saved the party.
Pel developed a phobia of mind flayers, as he realized that his Goddess valued memories and if a mind flayer ate his brain, the memories would go to the mind flayer, not his goddess. Thus definitely failing whatever his mission was.
The party each got Guild Invites after slaying the Mind Flayer. Latham joined the Emerald Enclave, as he worshipped Sylvanus and loved nature. Cotton Gin joined Force Grey, who were devoted to protecting Waterdeep.Pel ended up joining the Zhentarhim, keeping this a secret from the party.
They were looking into a series of definitely Zhentarhim murders (Pel actually knew they weren’t actually Zhent murders and was investigating this as a frame job) when Latham’s player couldn’t make the session. When he came back for the next session he joined the investigation. Unbeknownst to us, he and the DM had secretly had Latham kidnapped in the missing session, this was a simulacrum created by the enemy.
“Latham” turned and nearly killed the party. It was Pel who managed to fatally wound the fake, telling him that he didn’t mind dying, but to actually succeed please.
The simulacrum with its dying breath, gave instruction on where to meet to regain the hostage in exchange for a quest item we had obtained from the mind flayer.
In our downtime Pel had been secretly working up the ranks in the Zhentarhim and called in every favor, gaining sneaky backup for the exchange. Thanks to that, we got Latham back, as the BBEG lost his backup. The final battle was remarkably short unfortunately.
After that, Pel took his crossbow and shot Latham in the foot. Latham cried out and asked why angrily. To which Pel replied “Making sure its you” and then hugged his friend.
Pel, Latham and Cotton Gin went on more adventures and became Epic level heroes but truly Ever Eastward was their home. And legend says they can still be found there to this very day. And Pel still wants to die but has yet to succeed in doing so.
[zombify_post]
What did you use for the elven translations?