#ok the bg was white but that was cursed and i remember why i use grey BGs

[ping-ski]

silly clip in the void, what will he do :3c

[niftybottle]

Hey @tulipsandsake, I’m your @bering-and-wells-exchange person. I saw you reblog D&D and Critical Role stuff, so I thought I’d do designs for Myka and Helena as D&D characters. Helena is a half-Drow multiclass Bard (College of Glamour)/Artificer (Battle Smith), while Myka is an old-school (2e/AD&D/Baldur’s Gate era) human dual Kensai->Mage. (I don’t have races/subclasses for everyone, but Artie is a college of lore bard, Claudia is an Artificer, Pete is a fighter, and I’m not sure what Leena is). Helena is very much a “seduce anything that moves” ~D&D Bard~, while Artie is very much not - he leans hard into the collection of lore/jack of all trades angle, and while he can play music very well he borders on anti-social. This is the source of some of the tension between them, with his distrust for her Drow parentage occupying most of the rest.

At this point I’m going interrupt to give a blanket apology if I explain something you already know - it’s hard to judge knowledge levels with a gift exchange without ruining the surprise, so I’m going to err on the side of explaining things just in case.

Helena is a bard to capture the importance of her novels, but novel-writing isn't the most practical in a fight or as a live performance, so I gave her an instrument. I chose the hurdy-gurdy, which is a (real) instrument with a very silly name. I picked it because it is very complex and mechanical, like something she might have invented or cobbled together. It’s kind of like an automatic violin or fiddle - rather than being plucked or bowed, a crank on the side is rotated, which moves a wheel across the strings. Rather than frets there are keys which hold the strings at certain points when pressed. There are also “drone” strings, which play a given note (that can be adjusted using a tuning peg) whenever the wheel is turned. You can technically “play” a drone string by holding a sting as if a guitar string as the wheel turns, but that isn’t traditional. Both drone and melody strings can be adjusted using tuning pegs, and apparently you can adjust the exact note the keys play. Some hurdy-gurdys (but not Helena's) also have additional strings not played by the wheel that can be played like a guitar. Hurdy-gurdys do not have much standardization, and the number/presence of all the different kinds of strings can vary.

Helena's bard college I went back and forth with - the college of glamour is about charming, as in the magic, which does suit her, but the college of lore would also be good. Ultimately I decided that college of lore would be better for Artie. Battle Smith, her artificer specialization, I kind of chose to make the character a little more practical to play - artillerist might have suited her character a touch more, but not too much more, and the battle smith's ability to use intelligence for (magic) weapon attacks/damage reduces the important stats to two (int and cha) rather than three (adding str or dex for weapon rolls). Helena's Steel Defender is Dickens the Mechanical Cat, and he can turn the crank for the hurdy-gurdy, letting her play it with one hand.

I don't have her backstory completely pinned down; I feel like her Drow parent escaped to the surface rather than being a functioning member of Drow society, if only to reduce the sketchiness of the alternative method of conception. Christina is definitely a valid "reason for adventuring", but Endless Wonder or fleeing the consequences of a lab accident or charm spell wearing off are also possibilities.

In terms of the illustration itself, I tried to balance bard flamboyance, artificer practicality with a touch of mad science, and Helena's canonical slightly Victorian elegance. I definitely needed the fancy bard hat, because I am of the firm belief that every bard needs a fancy hat. She's wearing a cute pair of overalls (and I now have "stylish overalls" in my google search history), but they got covered by Dickens :( . With the more muted browns inspired by the artificer half as well as her canon style, she was looking a little drab for a bard, so I added a little cape. In terms of skin/hair/eyes and being half-Drow my thoughts were kind of: leaning in to the purplish/blue/lavender skin thing some illustrations of Drow have, because between the inherent problems of the evil elves having black skin and wanting to stay fifty feet away from anything that might come close to being a race-bend I wasn't going to deal with having her skin be darker. I think it turned out OK? For some reason Helena's eye color is significant to me, so they stayed brown rather than Drow purple or something, though they wound up a bit brighter thanks to my attempts to add a little purple. Jaime Murray's hair is iconic, but more for its smoothness and luster than its color, so I was fine making it white as long as I kept the style. The hurdy-gurdy was a bit of a nightmare (twice over, since I had to ink it), which isn't surprising - I kind of cursed myself with that instrument choice, but it was so perfect ;_; . In general, and especially in comparison with Myka, Helena's illustration fought me the whole way down. If you watch the time-lapse, you can see some of the references I used, but far from all - I streamed so much hurdy-gurdy playing youtube is still confused, and the pose went through some shenanigans.

Now, to Myka. Thinking of her pre-med before pre-law before secret service vaguely remembered quote, I thought of the old Baldur's Gate fighter(kensai)->mage cheese build, and thought it might be a good way to capture that simultaneous indecision and discipline/intelligence.

Going very briefly into Baldur's Gate/2e: Kensai, in BG, is a Fighter kit. Kits, in BG and 2e both, are a little like specializations in 5e, in that they are a kind of further customization beyond the class itself. The difference is, not every character has a kit - there is a base class (fighter) and a kit is a set of trade-offs, taking away base class features in exchange for various benefits. So fighter, the base kit, is pretty similar to the fighter in other editions - good at using weapons and armor and attacking a lot. Can equip the best stuff, and use it well, but doesn't get a lot of bonuses apart from that of equipment. Kensai (in BG), on the other hand, trades the ability to wear armor (and use non-thrown ranged weapons) for scaling bonuses to to-hit and damage (abstracting some things for you), and a minor one-time bonus to natural armor, as well as the Kai ability, which temporarily maxes out damage on successful attacks, usable a few times a day, depending on class level. In short, they trade off the armor portions of the Fighter class for additional weapon bonuses.

In Baldur's Gate, if you want to build a dual fighter/wizard, kensai is a great pick for kit, since wizards can't cast in armor anyway, but they can cast spells to boost their AC, mitigating some of the disadvantage of the kit. Mage is a base class and basically what would be called a wizard in later editions. Mage kits, with the exception of wild mage (in BG), which is a whole thing I won't get into, are pretty much picking a school to specialize in - they get bonuses to spells of that school, but there is an "opposing" school which they can't use at all. I wouldn't be terribly interested in those specializations even if I could use them for Myka, but I couldn't, because of how dual-classing works.

Dual-classing in BG and 2e is one of two methods to have more than one class on a character. Which one you can do depends on your race (as does a lot of things in 2e). If you're human, you dual-class; if you're not, you multi-class. Multi-class characters are more what you'd expect from multi-classing in other editions - you have two classes, you gain levels in both. There are differences (exp is divided evenly between classes, rather than choosing what to level, class and combination restrictions), but most relevantly, you can't use any kits with multi-class characters. So, we want to dual-class, not multi-class, so that Myka can use the Kensai (BG) kit, which makes her human, which is fine.

Dual-classing, compared to multi-classing, is weird. Basically, you start off in one class, with a kit if you like, and level normally in that class/kit until you decide to switch, at which point you are done with the first class and can't level in it anymore. Then you *start over* in your new class (which cannot have a kit), as if you were a level one character in that class, without (effectively) the ability to use anything from the previous class (except hp). This continues until the number of levels in the second class exceeds that of the levels in the first class, at which point the character regains all the qualities and abilities of their first class. Dual classes can wind up quite powerful, but they require both planning and a willingness to be weaker for a time to be more powerful later (which I feel suit Myka well - she's a planner and has the patience and discipline to accept temporary weakness to be stronger later). So, given that we want to use the Kensai (BG) kit, Myka needs to start with it, and then switch to mage later, since the second class can't have a kit.

At this point I want to clarify why I keep specifying Baldur's Gate and/or D&D 2e for things. Turns out, Baldur's Gate does use D&D 2e as a base, but makes some modifications. One of the changes it makes, which I didn't know when I started this, is the Kensai kit itself. Kensai is not officially a 2e kit, and technically isn't in 2e at all. There is a (fighter-ish) class in the "Oriental Adventures" book for first edition, but it isn't quite the same, more it's own class that happens to share some tables with fighter. Since the end goal is character design, not creating a legal 2e character, I won't go too far into it, but I did create both a (cheated to level up) Baldur's Gate kensai -> mage and a (1e-ish)Kensai->(2e)Mage, using the rules from 2e for most things not directly in the Kensai class description (and ignoring the stat requirements for dual-classing since I didn't roll any 17s); screenshots of both should be in the supplemental reblog, in addition to a link to Helena's dndbeyond character sheet.

Fortunately for me and my lack of foresight, both BG Kensai and 1/2e Kensai have similar flavor: a heavily "eastern" inspired warrior with even more discipline and asceticism than standard fighters, focused on their weapons and unable to wear armor, with a restriction to either lawful (1/2e) or at least not chaotic (BG) alignments (if this sounds a little monk-ish WotC agrees - kensai is a monk specialization in 5e, being a monk that can use a not-monk weapon). Also fortunately for me, mage is wizard is mage, regardless of edition. Magic from book learning/intelligence. Not too complicated.

In terms of character narrative, in canon, I feel like coming to the Warehouse was a significant breakpoint in Myka's life and worldview. Not being a writer, this small essay notwithstanding, I'm going to sum it up as a break from tradition and from seeking the approval of her father. Where joining the Warehouse crew was for canon Myka, I want dualing from Kensai to Mage to be for DnD Myka, with reaching the point where she can use Kensai features again representing the peace with her past she eventually reaches at the warehouse in canon. What I'm picturing is: Myka is from an isolated and very traditional mountain village where the kensai tradition (and 2e mechanics) has been preserved. Myka is trained in this tradition, and has both the mental discipline and physical capabilities to excel. The people of this village are purists and don't believe in using magic, especially in conjunction with being a kensai. Somehow (at this point my having thought this through starts to fail) Myka gets ahold of some spellbooks, and with her love of books and curiosity, begins to read and reread them, until one day she casts some magic. This is against the rules, and she's kicked out of the village for "corrupting" their traditions, and now she has to make her way through the world with only her fledgling mage talent to rely on.

Talking about the illustration/design itself: given the heavily eastern vibe, I'm trying for a samurai/ronin style based on my recollections from my weeb phase. I wanted in particular with the robe/kimono to make something that would be in between the plain practicality of Myka's kensai kimono and the flashiness of wizard robes (if you watch the timelapse, you may spot the part where I accidentally took a left turn into fallout's vault boy coloration before tweaking it a bit). I also wanted to have her using magic, and I think the magic effect turned out well. Really, this illustration just came out really easy. I was just … drawing hands. If you watch the timelapse, I even saved a third hand for a while because it was so nice (but at the wrong angle). I don't know what happened. Really the only snags were the aforementioned Vault Boy Moment and coloring Myka's hair (although I did decide to leave her face as a sketch rather than try to ink it).

I think maybe I've babbled enough for now. I'll reblog this in a moment (since tumblr hates links) with character sheets, timelapses of the drawings, and a bonus doodle that came to me reading the artificer specializations.