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Sentry: A Post Mortem

Sentry was a character I played for over 2 years for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. He was truly my first long term fictional character of my own creation. I never really thought of myself as a writer (still don't really as you'll probably agree with me if you read this whole thing) or a creative of any type for the longest time, eventually I opened up myself more to the idea of creation and art in 2020 (a lot happened personally and globally then). I feel compelled to write SOMETHING about him instead of just keeping it all in my head, because... well... he finally died. Sentry's original concept was supposed to be something of a lone ranger/Goblin Slayer/Mandalorian/Kartos kind of a character. A bounty hunter whose purpose was lost to him but was being called to what we called the Etherium. Boring sure, not too much of a past beyond coming to the world without any sense of who he was and what to do and a past relationship with a character that my SO (the DM) came up with. Long story short, he became a bit less robotic (funny because he was a warforged) and starts getting a personality. He eventually finds out he is an ever reincarnating champion (he had even seen some of his previous lives albeit briefly) of the Raven Queen. I don't know too much about other Warlocks, but I think the stereotype is that they don't want to be in service of whoever they are with. Sentry was not like that at all. He was a Paladin wearing the mask of a Warlock. Once he knew of his relationship with the Raven Queen, he knew he was a weapon to be used for... something. He didn't care, he knew he was being sent to remove a problem, and his god was going to lead him down the path to get him to that problem. I really had to think about what Death meant to him, especially because he was champion of the Raven Queen. I had to make a choice for him. Either he would despair being trapped for eternity for a choice that essentially someone else made for him... or embrace it.

I chose to embrace it. For a few reasons. First, one of my favorite artists (Flying Lotus) did a song about death (Never Catch Me). There's a lot of different ways to interpret the song but I basically broke it down to something along the lines of embrace the moments you have, keep fighting, and don't let the fear or sadness of death keep you down. At one point we kind of jokingly had to pick a song that we thought represented our characters, this was the one I chose. Second, going on the whole Warlock stereotype, why not go against the grain and embrace that, yeah, in some ways he's being controlled, but he obviously so strongly wanted this in the past there must be some reason why he had chosen to do this. He needs to trust in his decisions and trust in himself. Third, I think it's just the kind of headspace I wanted to be in when it came to my thoughts about death. Really what kind of sparked me to introduce more creativity in my life was because of the passing of my dog the year before. When it had happened of course I mourned, but I knew that if I really wanted to get over it I would need to change the rhythm of my life that I had danced to before into something new and spontaneous.

Especially with the whole reincarnation deal and whatnot, I would start to play Sentry more like the Doctor (from Doctor Who). A person that to a lot of people see as entirely mad and doesn't take things seriously when perhaps they should. Sentry would talk way less to an enemy than the Doctor would... so maybe not like the Doctor at all considering that aspect! I have my own feelings about Doctor Who that I'm not gonna get into, but one thing that always stuck out to me was The Tenth Doctor's regeneration scene (David Tennant to Matt Smith). He is pained, knows the metaphorical train is coming, and can't stop it. "I don't want to go." It really, I think, encapsulates all the incarnations feelings about regeneration, they all want more time to some degree, but Tennant's desire to keep going just sticks out so much more in comparison to others that it just stuck with me. Combining all that I knew what would essentially be Sentry's last words. "I just wish I had had more time". Not to be said in an agonizing way or anything. No, he always knew the train was coming, he just didn't know when. To dwell on it, to be scared of it, run from it, it wouldn't make a difference. He of all people knew that, so why fight it? If it was meant for him, the only thing he would care about was that in his heart of hearts that he had done everything he could to try to prevent it. And that's basically the end he got. He lived his life how he wanted even if he was ultimately just there to serve a god. A madman who remembered way too much about who he had been, essentially relived a few different past lives in an instant and becoming not really one person but multiple versions of his past self all wrapped up into one being that was just trying to do what he thought was right to keep himself from truly breaking, and someone who just wanted to get the most out of his life. He died protecting those that were closest to him (and one person he didn't really care about because he didn't know them but hey good for them). Probably the closest of whatever Sentry truly was, is, and will ever be across all his reincarnations.

I just wish I had gotten more time to spend with him.

Just one final end fact about Sentry and his fate beyond death (he's a reincarnating champion after all). In the campaign we played at one point we get to see what everyone's soul looks like. It was kind of a throwaway for me but I had said his soul looked like a forest with an elk at the center of it. Towards the end (for this one shot that I knew would be canonically the end for him though I didn't know if he would die) I thought back to his soul, and came to the conclusion that his "true" self is a time dragon that entered into the service of the Raven Queen. I thought this would work for a multitude of reasons (his unexplained obsession with dragons for one, reincarnation after death another), but I found artwork that had a time dragon's horns sort of look like an elk's to me. His last time being with any of the characters (his son was the only one who got the privilege to see his true end) got to spend a moment of time with him in that forest before he was whisked away by his true self. I doubt anyone remembers that tidbit about seeing the character's souls but I thought it was a good way to close his chapter if anyone did. I only had to change things slightly to make it work! So why did the time dragon enter service of the Raven Queen? Not sure yet. Maybe it loved her, maybe it just knew it was meant to do this. Maybe there's some grand scheme the dragon has to do all this. Only time will tell, but that's for another time.

Also why didn't we ever call him a wereforged? He was a werebear warforged hybrid!

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Trailblazin' theme song

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