Dramatis Personae: Alek Greycastle

This post is about my character: Alek Greycastle, a human cleric of Tempus, the Forgotten Realms god of war.

First, a bit of genealogy. The character began life back in the misty darkness of the early 90s, when cells phones required bags, the Internet was a new thing, the consoles were Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis, and D&D was in second edition. I built the character as a human fighter based loosely off of the vampire-hunting protagonists of Castlevania, the Belmonts. Their signature weapon, a ball and chain, was best represented by a flail. The characters' motivation boiled down to: vampires killed my family, and I wanted revenge. The character had a third edition reincarnation for a Ravenloft campaign I played in. After picking up the 5th edition core rules, I built new versions of characters that had been in the same "pack" as the original Alek when I first created him. I ended up having him fill the cleric role in that party. (This is oddly appropriate, considering that according to David Ewalt's excellent book, Of Dice and Men, the cleric began life as an "anti-vampire" character.)

Now some character creation. I used the default stat array: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. I assigned the status thusly: Str 14, Dex 8, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 15, and Cha 12. In 5th, humans get +1 to every stat. This made the final stats: Str 14, Dex 9, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 16, and Cha 13. Clerics get a domain. That version of Alek was a follower of Helm, the Realms god of duty and protection, in order to tie him to another character. Clerics are customized in 5th by selecting a domain. I chose the Life domain, a heal-spec domain that gives clerics proficiency in heavy armor. But that left a background to choose.

What are backgrounds? They're an additional element of character creation for 5th edition that allow you to further define and specialize your character.  The add skills, languages, and tools to your list of starting proficiencies and add a background feature.  The default background for a cleric is Acolyte, someone raised in a temple. That was a bit predictable for my tastes. I ended up picking the Soldier background for Alek, inspired by the cleric in the starter box. The character thus served in the military as a healer. His unit was decimated by vampires, he he's gone adventuring to get some vengeance. Bam! New version of the character.

When I joined the encounters party, the healer serving a military unit conjured up images of Croaker, the erudite and cynical chronicler and chief surgeon of the titular Black Company from Glenn Cook's novel series of the same name. This prompted some changes. Originally, Alek served in a city guard. I decided instead that he served in a mercenary unit, and the instead he followed Tempus. This prompted a change in Domain to War, granting proficiency with martial weapons in addition to heavy armor. War domain is more speced to allow the cleric to off-tank, a role the party needed, as we only had a the single melee fighter and the rogue.

I've continued to evolve the character's back story and game options selections. After our next long rest (which will coincide with the start of the next session), I should have him finalized. Although, encounters allows player to adjust characters for long rests or between episodes until they reach 4th level.

When I return, I'll have more on the final version of Alek, and he'll be levelling up.