u/JC_VanHelsing

Yup, time for more PC art of the Nightreign Crusaders, this time around we got the local expired twink and certified team mom, Forbes McDougall.

• Ancestry: Changeling
• Background: Innkeeper (homebrew)
• Class: Sorcerer - Tomb Scion (homebrew)

Most people in a certain small town of the Moonshae Isles believe the man known as Forbes McDougall is nothing more than an aged, humble human innkeeper, whose only eccentricity is that his wife is a faun, who he met while acquiring special wine from the local Fey...that's because, while he is a changeling, Forbes is not keen on using his shapechanging powers due to past trauma, and even less keen on letting anyone but his closest family that he is one.

A Vistani foundling, Forbes was scarred by two events in his life, the first when he was a young teen and shapechanged for the first time, accidentally frightening some children in a town his clan had stopped by to trade, the incident also resulted in his adoptive parents telling him of how they found him as a baby, dead but then miraculously reanimating.

The second, when the people of that village, driven to crime by desperation, raided his camp and abducted him, forcing him to use his shapechanging for their schemes, until the necrotic sorcery in his blood awoke and he used it to escape.

Forbes was able to build himself a new life, building his tavern and starting a family, and lived relatively content...until the day his tavern caught fire, and when he rushed into the flames and smoke to save his family, he was swallowed by the mists.

What Forbes does not suspect is that his sorceous origin is bound to a terrible secret regarding his bloodline...

...the flaming skull is the shape his Fire Bolt cantrip takes, the red vortex is one of his subclass features, Unholy Flesh-Eater, which allows him to siphon the life force of dying creatures to either heal himself or regain Sorcery Points.

Third PC for the Nightreign Crusaders, the unofficial name of my players' party in our campaign, this time we got the real edgelord among them all, Alexander Whittmann and his Patron Ange.

• Ancestry: Faun (basically Satyr)
• Background: Haunted One
• Class: Warlock - Undead Patron, Pact of the Ichor (Homebrew)

As far as the other players know, Alexander Whittmann is a renowned barista and courtier in the fancy districts of Waterdeep, and with his outgoing personality he has claimed the role of party diplomat.

Alexander is actually from Cormyr, and grew up in the streets as an orphan, and pretty much anything he has, he claimed it for himself with charms and ruthlessness, but despite how high he has managed to climb, he is still tormented by the horrible scars of his past.

Even as he hides them behind pearly smiles and impeccable manners, even as he tells himself that the horror within him is to be embraced, and yet it was when he was trying to do the right thing, for a person that is dearest to him, that the Mists swallowed him.

In a nutshell, Alexander is a wolf in sheep's clothing, struggling to stay afloat while a shark circles closer.

The entity that Alexander made a pact with is some kind of death spirit strongly associated with water, and in the case of him she blessed him with the gift of Ichor, replacing his blood with magical dark waters that empower his physical and magical prowess.

Fun Fact: Alexander's antlers are steel prosthetics, as a nasty skull injury in his early teens left him unable to properly grow them. One of his spell focuses is a misericorde dagger with a handle crafted from his first and last pair.

Any similarities to a certain character from a certain adult animated comedy about edgy Hot Topic demons is purely intentional on the player's part.

So, back to the artwork for the PCs of my Cos campaign, this time with their tormented, brawling manlet (he's around 5'5"), Nivar Sirthos.

• Ancestry: Dhampyr (formerly Human)
• Background: Bounty Hunter (homebrew)
• Class: Monk, Sun Soul

Nivar was originally an ordinary human, the adopted scion of a wealthy merchant family in Chessenta, until the night he was attacked by a vampire, who drained him within an inch of his life but didn't kill him, thus he survived but slowly manifested vampiric traits.

Horrified by the realization he had become some kind of living vampire, and unable to bear his parents squandering their wealth as they desperately sought a cure, Nivar eventually decided to leave his home and live for several decades as a nomad, hunting animals and slaking the thirst(an abhorrent experience, since their blood tasted awful and the act itself felt degrading and wrong)...until he met a mysterious hermit from Kara-Tur, who taught him how to harness his Ki and master his altered mind and body.

After this training, Nivar moved to Waterdeep, where he used his skills and powers to hunt criminals as a bounty hunter, and occasionally fed on the most despicable...until the day he capture a fugitive lady, accused of several brutal murders, and then found evidence of her being innocent AND knowing the true identity of the killer, and he rushed back...just as the mists swallowed him.

>!Me and the player haven't decided if the vampire who preyed on him has an identity or not, but I'm considering the idea of that being Jander Sunstar, in case the PCs need an extra hand he may communicate with Nivar through the vampiric bond.!<

The light rings are a reference to the Hamon/Ripple from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Also ignore Ireena's DM

Been trying this style with the portraits of my campaign's PCs, let's start with the tank, Rutilia Wulber (Rita for friends).

• Ancestry: Lightfoot Halfling
• Background: Buckaroo (homebrew)
• Class: Barbarian - Silent Fury (homebrew)

Rita is a young drifter from a rural town in the Purple Hills, she grew up in the family farm and participating to the town's winemaking business, but she was always kind of a social outcast due to spending more and more time in the wilderness, learning the secrets of survival from beasts and fey.

The traumatic incident, and the time she unlocked her Rage, happened after a local winemaker brought back some saplings, purporting they'd bear fruits that would brew into amazing wine...he was right, but the gulthias saplings also sprouted a horde of blights, who decimated the town to water the trees with their blood and rot their corpses into fertilizer, Rita was able to kill the blighted winemaker and flee, ending up in the Cloakwoods.

After several years of living isolated, she slowly found new friends among the creatures of the woods and the nearby communities, working as a herder...until the blight of Gulthias manifested in those woods as well, but just as she rushed to bring a blessed tonic to heal the elder trees, she was swallowed by the Mists.

With her INT of 12, Rita is the most knowledgeable member of the party.

Also she is the one who adopted Pimpus.

Some other scribbles I did in my attempt to design my own version of Ireena.

On the right, how she typically looks, on the left when her aasimar powers manifest (another character will have similar halo and eyes...) and in the center her travel outfit.

I come back with a new artwork for my DMing of Curse of Strahd, this time with a portrait of my version of Ireena.

Her name is Irenya Kolyanova, and she is a nerdy tomboy with a passion for reading (she purchased dozens of books from Vistani merchants) and swordplay, her life was fairly uneventful beyond the occasional nightmares (due to remnants of her past lives) until she was visited by the Devil Strahd.

Unlike regular Ireena, Irenya is an aasimar rather than a human, her celestial heritage awakened when she was bitten by Strahd the second time, and manifests in creepy omens like her hair flapping like wings, a halo of bloody runes behind her head, and extra eyes sprouting on her face.

Statblock-wise, her highest stats are Strength and Intelligence, due to the PCs lacking either (two of them have STR 8, and the Barbarian is the one with the highest INT) and aside from fighting defensively she can cast a few simple support spells.

Hello everyone, I got an idea for a homebrew class and I'd like to ask for feedback.

The class in question is the Jester.

• Domains: Bone & Grace (the Jester is an agile trickster)
• Starting Evasion: 12
• Starting HP: 6
• Class Item: A deck of cards or a pair of hand puppets

The Jester is a Bone/Grace support class, whose features revolve around Stress.

On one side, the Jester would fill a niche of the Stress Healer, clearing Stress from allies, and on the other, the Jester would stress adversaries out, so they can’t use their features.

I know that the Bard is the current class with Stress-clearing features, but the Jester has two main differences:

• It is a more physical class, instead of casting big magic it focuses on mobility thanks to the Bone domain, prancing around the battlefield to assist allies and annoy adversaries, especially in the case of the Harlequin subclass, that makes the Jester even more nimble;
• Its abilities may not be as powerful as the Bard’s, but that’s because they are supposed to be used more often, instead of doing a big thing once and then needing a mimir, I’m not much a fan of how most of the Bard’s features are once-per-rest.

Furthermore, the Jester would interact with failed rolls, as part of its support role, by compensating for bad luck, and thematic coherence, for a fumble can be at least amusing.

The Jester’s Hope Feature is somewhere between the Seraph’s Life Support and the Assassin’s Grim Resolve.

• Light-Hearted: Spend 3 Hopes to clear 2 Stress from an ally within Close Range.

The Jester’s main Class Feature is its main tool to clear and mark Stress.

• Comedy of Errors: When either you or a creature within Close range fail a roll, mark a Stress to crack an especially funny joke about it (player is encouraged to actually come up with one). Either an ally of your choice clears Stress, or an adversary of your choice marks Stress, equal to half your Tier, rounded up.

As of now, the Jester would have two subclasses:

• The Harlequin takes inspiration from acrobatic court jesters and the Arlecchino mask of Commedia dell’Arte; this subclass it emphasizes the Bone domain, becoming harder to hit, bound over obstacles and dance around the battlefield, furthermore the Harlequin has a focus on clearing Stress from allies and let them spam features;
• The Scaramouche takes inspiration from the Capitano, Scaramuccia, and other ‘cowardly braggart’ masks of Commedia dell’Arte; this subclass emphasizes the Grace domain, basically a front-line bullsh*tter that disrupts adversaries, for the Scaramouche’s focus is marking their stress and prevent them from using their features.

Furthermore, I have some extra fluff:

Inventory

• TAKE: a torch, 50 feet of rope, basic supplies, and a handful of gold
• THEN CHOOSE BETWEEN: a Minor Health Potion OR a Minor Stamina Potion
• AND EITHER: a half-smiling, half-frowning mask OR your mentor’s canovaccio

Character Description

• Clothes that are: colorful, tacky, obscuring, patched-together, mismatched, skimpy, tingly
• Eyes like: carnations, earth, endless ocean, fi re, ivy, lilacs, night, seafoam, winter
• Body that’s: broad, carved, curvy, lanky, rotund, short, stocky, tall, thin, tiny, toned
• Skin the color of: ashes, clover, falling snow, fi ne sand, obsidian, rose, sapphire, wisteria
• Attitude like: a public menace, a trickster, an ingenue, a chicken, a comedian

Background Questions:

• What grand experience has inspired you to leave your old life behind and walk the path of the travelling entertainer?
• There is a tragic event in your past, that you choose to conceal behind the mask of comedy. What is it, and how it still haunts you?
• Your antics may be irriverently undignified, but there is a subject you would never joke about. Which subject, and why?

Connections:

• Did you enjoy my performances, before we got to know each other proper?
• What is the one joke between us, that cracks the both of us up every time?
• You’re still salty at me over a past prank at your expense. What did I do?

What do you think?