(Interest Check) Small Adventures in the Big City [D&D 5e]

[Chulanowa]

Small Adventurers In A Big City

Waterdeep! The City of Splendors is the largest city on the Sword Coast, if not the whole of Faerûn. Whether intrigues among the city's masked Lords, gangs fighting in the streets, monsters plotting in the dungeons of Undermountain, or just the baker's guild dealing with rats in the basement, there's always something for adventuresome sorts to get involved in. You and your company happen to be such adventuresome sorts. In the tradition of such famed groups as the Buckleswashers or the Grinning Ponies, you're a group of shorter-than-average sorts banded together for common cause. Whether for gold, glory, pride, or power, you've recently taken up the mantle of "freelancer" (as the City Watch calls adventurers) and are ready to see what the city has in store for you!


So here's my fast pitch;
• Dungeons and Dragons, 5th edition
• Forgotten Realms, specifically starting in Waterdeep, on the North Sword Coast of Faerûn
• Exploration & Adventure, in a sandbox with dangling plothooks (some yours, some mine)
• Also you're all fun-sized.

With me so far? Hope so!

The goal is to have a series of adventures rather than one prolonged follow-the-narrative "campaign arc." The focus will be on the characters, what they do, where they go, who they stab in the face knees. While you'll be starting out in Waterdeep, your adventures and whims might take you far afield. or you might stay in the city, or even the same single war of the city the whole time, I don't know, again, it's up to the characters.

before I get into the gristle of this idea, let me just lay out some standards.

• Players: This game is LGBTQ+ friendly, and I have no preference on gender for my players. I expect everyone to respect each others' offs and avoid drama between each other (this includes griping at me about each other, plzkthx)
• Sexual Content: My main focus is on adventurers adventuring. Sometimes this might mean getting under someone's skirt (you'll all be short enough, for sure.) I am not planning on running a "smut game," but let's be honest, the Forgotten Realms can be a pretty licentious place. If you want to hop into the hay with a character (PC or NPC) then that's certainly an option. I will be posting the game in NC: Exotic just to cover potentialities.
• Posting: I would like a minimum of at least two posts a week, if possible - more is better (again, if possible) but not mandatory
• Game Knowledge: Some familiarity with the basics of D&D (any edition) is preferred, but I don't need anyone to be an expert, either in mechanics or hte setting of Forgotten Realms / Waterdeep (it might help, but it also might not - GM's prerogative to alter the setting and all that!)

Characters
I do not need character sheets or pitches right now. This is just an interest check. I'm just putting this up so you can know what tou might be getting into. We will work out specifics after recruiting is open!

All characters are going to be small races. Why? Because I like the idea of small heroes making their way in a world made for creatures twice their size (or larger). Specifically, the following races are acceptable:
• Halflings (Lightfoot, Stout, Ghostwise)
• Gnomes (Rock, Forest, Deep)
• Goblins
• Kobolds
• Harengon (Small only)
• Dwarves (Mountain/Shield, Hill/Gold) - they're not small but they are short, so I'll allow it.
Of course this isn't the full list of half-pint D&D races or subraces, but it's the one I'll go with.

Level: You'll all be starting at level one; you're new to this adventuring thing - maybe you just literally signed up yesterday!
Backgrounds: Nothing from the Ravnica, Strixhaven, or Spelljammer books; other than that any background is allowed.
Stats: I'm going to go with a 27-point buy. Racial stat bonuses are +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 for every race.
Etc.: I will be using experience leveling. Hit points are rolled on level-up. Block initiatives. Silvery Barbs doesn't exist.

Who Are You?: For character history, all I really need is a blurb; a paragraph or so, whatever you're good with. What I need are some hooks - does your character have any enemies? Are they fleeing a cult? Do they have ambitions and goals all their own? The sort of stuff that I could hang some encounters or details off of!

As characters will be part of an adventuring company together, they will know each other - that doesn't need to be done right now but keep it in mind. Also this means PC s should be willing and able to work with others, even if they might not see perfectly eye to eye with them.


I plan to have a sort of "Adventurers Guide To Waterdeep" post up in the near future to help with lore, deities, events, that would be of interest to adventurer-types.

Well, rat's my pitch. Anyone interested?

[AndyZ]

I don’t often play small characters but I don’t have anything against them.  I’ll have to ponder what to play.

[FoxgirlJay]

Got a goblin shortstack warlock all ready for this one

[Muse]

  You have awakened my inner gnome! 

  Full introduction will arive as soon as she reveals herself to me!  (Probably hexblade.) 

[c0i9z]

Yes! Absolutely! I'm thinking a goblin sorcerer, mage, maybe an artificer. I even could do goblin paladin... Really, just love to play goblins.

[Muse]

Camarilla "Cammy" Whitefire
42 yo Gnome Female Wizard (Evoker)
Future girlfriend to a certain paladin who has been cursed to live the life of a goblin girl. 

  "We gnomes love jewels, you know.  My father is a gem cutter in Waterdeep.  We have a chandelier at my house with triangular crystals called prisms.  They scatter the sunlight through the windows into rainbows all around the floor.

  "That's what I want to do with my life--take energy apart to see what it's made out of.  See what you can do with it.  I'm a wizard--an evoker.  I create and control energy--it's great for blasting your enemies.  Blasting your enemies is fun, but that's not the allure.

  "I'm an alchemist, but I don't transmute lead into gold.  I transmute fire into ice.  I transmute lighting into thunder.  I transmute light into rainbows." 

[c0i9z]

Kieri

Kipp was a man who was cursed... or blessed... or something else entirely. As a neophyte paladin, his order was attacked by monsters. They were outnumbered and would surely have fallen, if it wasn't that Kipp went to the forbidden chambers to pray upon a secret artifact. His prayers were answered in the form of giving him a shape that was suited to the task, that was easily able to slip past enemy ranks unnoticed and seek reinforcements. Except even once his task was done, he remained as he now was and no amount of prayer seemed able to return. He went to the only person who he could trust still, Camarilla, his childhood friend, who was, perhaps, a bit too happy about the fact that he was now a goblin girl.

Since then, Kieri, as she now calls herself, has, thanks to Camarilla, learned to accept her new form, though she still doesn't understand why her goddess chose to keep her this way. She still seeks to turn back, but with Camarilla always pushing her to accept her new self more and more and to embrace her new goblin urges, will she even still want to turn back if she finds it?

[Hexed]

The smalls are always fun. And a full party of them could be hilarious.

[FoxgirlJay]

If were all gunna post ideas...

Ans, since I didn't really get to play her the last time I used this character... goblin warlock returns!

Sarkat, Verdan Warlock of The Fathomless
Character Sheet

Age: 23

Growing up a goblon in a big city is a strange thing. No connection to a tribe, no history to speak of and little ties to their own culture. They've only recently started living in cities and as such, they have very little stories of their own, and Sarkat felt like there was something missing, only hearing of the great deeds of Men and Elves and Dwarves along the Sword Coast. This strange feeling turned to motivation and an urge to record the stories of heroic "civilized" goblin people, so that they can start recording their own history. Trouble being, finding a goblin adventurer or hero was hard enough. Sarkat took another step further, and tried to break in to that career and lifestyle. Her first foray in to heroics nearly ended in disaster, saved only by a desperate plea being heard by an errant eldritch force that just happened to be listening.

The Fathomless power saved her from the marauding bandit gang, torn apart by spectral tentacles of some disembodied sea creature. Saved, and now further tied to this Entities power. The power was mighty and saw her career kick off properly from this point, but now, she was at the beck and call of some unknowable Thing. Thus far, it hasn't hindered her adventuring career or hobby as a story-telling entertainer, but whose to say what is in the mind of such things?

[Ershin]

You had me at small.
Adore small races, rarely get to play 'em and now I have a sudden urge to look up Huffslove and Forest box's work for inspiration. How long do we have to draft up an entry for pint-sized terrors saviours of the city?

[Guancyto]

Mad because smol.

Definitely going gobbo too, for what it's worth.

[Chulanowa]

Alright then! There definitely seems to be interest. I'm going to get a discord up and share it with those who've expressed such, soon

[Armphid]

I would love to be a part of this.  My dance card is awful full...but I have wanted to play a small character against larger characters (especially sexually if playing a female) for a while now.  Soo...here are some thoughts.  I also get it if you'd rather I stayed out given what I said about having a lot. 

Concept 1 - Garroth Kneebreaker (Garth Barleybrew) - Halfling Barbarian
- Found by a tribe of Uthgardt barbarians, the extremely small child found wandering alone was taken in by a couple whose child had just died of illness and raised by them as their own son.  Garroth, or Gar for short, never grew that large as his new tribe soon figured out he was not a small human but a halfling.  Often mocked and teased, he grew up strong and tough, determined to be the strongest of all those in his tribe.  He was shockingly strong and touch, especially for his size, and soon became a skilled warrior and hunter.  However, his stature still earned disrespect and he often brawled with other men of the tribe.  When the old chief died, his son declared that Garroth should be cast out.  Instead Garroth challenged his leadership and the two fought with being chieftain on the line.  It was a fight Garroth won and after claiming his station, and bedding his rival's woman (did you know the male halfling is nature's tripod?  Why do you think halfling women are so happy all the time?), he was prepared to rule.  However, the rest of the tribe were embarrassed with having a halfling chief and begged the shaman to intervene.  The shaman prayed for a full day and the tribe's totem spirit answered and carried Garroth away as wind while he slept, only to awaken at dawn in the Field Ward of Waterdeep. 

Little does he know, but Gar's real name is Garth Barleybrew.  His parents were secretly part of a cult of Bane that was infiltrating worshippers of Yondalla until they were found out and fled, becoming separated from their son in the process.  Gar is the spitting image of his father (though a lot more muscular) and is likely to be recognized by either the Bane cult or those who pursued his family for their betrayed all those years ago.  His birth family may also be out there somewhere. 

Concept 2 - Ragna Ironpounder - Dwarf Sorcerer (Aberrant Mind)
Ragna would probably have lived a normal life as a weathly merchant's daughter, eventually marrying for the family's benefit, save for a sequence of fateful events.  She joined one of the trade caravans that traveled underground through caves and even part of the Underdark, the caravan being attacked by a band of slaves of a Mind Flayer colony.  One of those captured in the brief raid, Ragna was enslaved by the Illithid and used by them for many tasks.  Eventually, it was decided that she would be implanted with a tadpole and become a Mind Flayer herself.  As it was happening, the colony was attacked by a large, well armed, and well organized band of adventurers.  In the fighting, something happened and with the psychic energy and magic flying about, Ragna somehow absorbed the Mind Flayer tadpole into her mind and gained magic powers she never had before.  Freed by the adventurers, Ragna was taken by them back to their base of operations in Waterdeep and left her confused about her path forward.  Should she try to make enough money to see if she can travel back to Mithril Hall?  Should she start her life over here? 

Concept 3 - Hyacinth Riverford - Halfling Cleric of Sune (not sure which Domain I'd pick)
Halflings usually follow halfling gods, but the Riverfords began worshipping Sune as well as Yondalla after a traveling cleric assisted in the troubled birth of their fourth child, a daughter that would be named Hyacinth.  Without the cleric's intervention, both mother and child would have been lost.  Hyacinth grew up normally but kept having dreams a beautiful human woman with red hair that beckoned to her and said words that she could not remember when she awoke.  The family went to Waterdeep proper for a market day to sell their produce and it was at the market that Hyacinth saw the woman from her dreams.  She young halfling approached her in awe and learned that this was the very cleric that had delivered her and saved her and her mother's lives.  Her name was Regin Turner and she was a cleric and priest that was high in the hierarchy at the temple of Sune in the city.  On impulse, Hyacinth pledged herself to Sune and begged to be taken into the god's service.  Her parents were not enthusiastic about their daughter's newfound religion but relented in the end due to the debt that they felt they owed.  Hyacinth took to her study and duties, serving eventually as one of the temple of Sune's "companions" (holy prostitute) before she was chosen by the goddess to receive magic and become a cleric. 

I could probably come up with more, but that's plenty.  Any thoughts?

[Elven Sex Goddess]

Name:  Marvelle Sunrise
Race: Halfling, Lightfoot
Class: Rogue (Treasure Hunter)
Background: Investigator
Alignment: Neutral Good
STR 12 +1 DEX 16 +3 CON 12 +1 INT 10 +0 WIS 14 +2 CHR 12 +1
Bio:  Marvelle comes from a long line of halfling lightfoot druids.   That however was not his direction.   The sense of adventure,  the curious nature of his people is strong in his makeup.   Because of this he did not take to becoming a druid as his father, mother,  grandfather and great grandfather before him had.    Instead he took to learning the profession of investigator.  Gaining employment in his village to working with the town constable.

It is the case of Marabelle locket.   It came up missing,  travelers had stopped over.  Marabelle a serving girl in the inn.   Had lost or misplaced or it had been stolen.    Through he was not suppose to, being only clerical staff of the constable.  You know write out reports.   The stuff the constable was not to be bothered with while he did the detective work.   Marvelle took it upon himself, soon discovered that the thief had been one of the guests.   A half elf,  as he found the clues and followed the traveling pair to Waterdeep.   Where Marvelle would prove to have licentious skills and take back the locket from the half elf.   

Marvelle was set to take back the locket and himself back to his village.    But he met a group of other small race types including other halflings in the city of waterdeep.   He  immediately found his chance to adventure.   He would mail back the locket instead and join with this group.   

[Chulanowa]

Unfortunately, at eight players making two groups, I'm afraid I'm full-up at the moment, ESG. if you like I'll drop you a line if someone drops?