“Nothing bad ever happens to the Kennedys Everfells!”
And something bad immediately happens to The Everfells.
—
As of late, I have been interested in having a sort of recurring character or family within my tabletop roleplaying games. It’s hard to put a finger on it at first, but now that I’ve had a number of months to think about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that the concept of an individual or individuals partaking in a shared narrative would be cool. To elaborate on that, I would say that it’s “cool” because it offers more to the world at large – this world exists and is more than simply what happens session to session. Other individuals and organizations also make their marks on the world at large, and I feel that this can be difficult or even fruitless to attempt to illustrate, given that in the TTRPGs I play, the focal point tends to be the Player Characters and the things they get up to.
To that end, I came up with The Everfell – a loosely organized group that exists across multiverses (unless a DM doesn’t want them to, I suppose). Their ideals revolve around exploration, adventurer, bravery and courage – which would apply to most, if not every single adventurer. However, admission into The Everfell is arbitrarily given. Any member of The Everfell can bestow the name “Everfell” upon another, and it is up to the individual as to whether they wish to go around with that name.
The Everfell offers no special perks to joining. In fact, the group is best described as a family consisting solely of distant relatives and cousins, though one need not be related to an individual by the water of the womb, of course. A member of The Everfell may, upon meeting another Everfell, offer them free lodging and food – much like a person would do for a relative in need of assistance. They may even go so far as to team up on a quest or adventure for a period of time. But The Everfell tend to be loners by nature – a group usually forms around them for a set period of time before dissolving for one reason or another – this is typically due to The Everfell departing without notice or warning.
This, unfortunately, leads to the unspoken curse of The Everfells – it is not uncommon for an Everfell to die alone, usually in the middle of a quest or adventure. Whether it is truly a curse or an overestimation of their ability is not easy to say – among The Everfell, the former is believed. But among those who have heard, or otherwise traveled with an Everfell, they would claim it is the latter. After all, the mantra of The Everfell is as such:
“Nothing bad ever happens to the Everfell.”
—
I was recently invited to play Curse of Strahd, a game module for Dungeons and Dungeon’s Fifth Edition, and the DM encouraged one of us to play as either a Paladin or a Cleric. I have no issues with flexing into a role as necessary – I enjoy the chance to roleplay more so than I do necessarily playing a particular class, but at first I was thinking of playing either an Artificer (think of a Wizard who’s really good with technology), a Ranger (think Aragorn from Lord of the Rings) or a Paladin (these types are so iconic I couldn’t tell you who best to think of). But after about a day or two, and after listening to a song called 24 Hour Cinderella, I quickly arrived at the idea of playing a Cleric who functioned more as a cheerleader. And thus was Era Everfell born. The particulars of the character have not quite been worked out, but maybe writing this piece will help me do so.
Starting at level 1 essentially means that, as an individual, Era Everfell would not have that much experience as an adventurer. Early levels, particularly level 1, tend to be dangerous – your health points tend to not be very high at level 1, and as such, many things in the world tend to be extremely deadly, even if you’re a well-armored individual. I would liken it to an average person suddenly being placed into a jungle, somewhere far from home. You may know a few tips and tricks to stay alive, but there’s no way it won’t be a challenging experience.
My first question is, then, how does Era gain the name Everfell? The criteria for The Everfell that I mentioned earlier says that their ideals revolve around “exploration, adventurer, bravery and courage”. But I also said that membership was arbitrarily given, and that’s more than likely what is going to occur in this case. The next important step is choosing a background for Era Everfell – this will likely inform however I choose to decide that they gained The Everfell name.
I eventually arrived at the Entertainer background, which is probably suitable for a cheerleader of sorts. My idea is that Era is just a bundle of positivity, and this is reflected in their background – singing, dancing and playing the lute is sure to supercharge the audience … as long as they perform correctly, anyway.
—
It was here that they met Allace Everfell, a mysterious woman who joined Era on stage as they performed. Era sang, Allace danced, and their performance stretched on, going late into the night as they received encore after encore, and it was the first time that Era had received such an overwhelming amount of tips – their share was easily added up to more than 3 gold pieces by the time they finally finished their performance. Era couldn’t quite put their finger on it, however – they knew that they were okay at their craft, and Allace was mesmerizing, sure – but they had never seen the audience so completely enthralled.
Their eyes met for a moment, and Era would have swore she read their mind – performing with another person was almost a magical experience. Yet all Allace did was offer them a gentle smile, before motioning towards the cup of water that the innkeeper provided for Era, with Allace’s cup already in hand. And it wasn’t long after that that Allace would offer Era the name Everfell. Of course, Era misunderstood this at first and refused, but when they came to realise what Allace truly meant, they saw no harm in accepting. After all, if it meant meeting individuals like herself, the opportunity was too good to pass up on.
—
Because I am both lazy and uncreative, I’ll be using some of the suggested ideals and such for the Entertainer to flesh out Era some more. The first personality trait I’ll take is: “Nobody stays angry at me or around me for long, since I can defuse any amount of tension.” How I plan to have this manifest is for Era to be saccharine-sweet – they don’t antagonise people and they come off as childishly naive. They believe in, if not working together, then at least not pressing people’s buttons unnecessarily – particularly the group they travel with.
The next trait, which is an ideal, would be “People. I like seeing the smiles on people’s faces when I perform. That’s all that matters.” This ties in well to the cheerleading aspect, I feel – they’re all about making people feel good, because it makes them feel good. I like to think that Era is simple at heart. And that makes me worried, particularly if they prove to not be very resilient.
Their bond, which is “I idolize a hero of the old tales and measure my deeds against that person’s.”, speak to me. I haven’t quite thought of who yet would be this hero of the old tales, but I’m thinking they might simply be a legendary performer of sorts. That would keep in line with Era seeking to be the best cheerleader they can be, and matching their deeds to that, rather than heroic deeds on the battlefield.
And the flaw is perhaps the most interesting one of them all – “I have trouble keeping my true feelings hidden. My sharp tongue lands me in trouble.” Era is not the type to intentionally cause trouble, however I wouldn’t put it past them to accidentally cause trouble – I think they’re innocent at heart, and as such, may accidentally speak out of line because they feel so strongly about a particular thing.
For all intents and purposes, we’re done here. Creating a character, in my opinion, has more to do about their behaviours and intricacies rather than every single piece of information that goes onto a character sheet or not. Knowing how a person would react in a particular situation is more important than how good they are at beating someone over the head (unless that’s relevant to their character. But I’m on a roll here, so I’ll dive a bit further into the Cleric class and which subclass they’ll (more than likely) be.
—
As a cheerleader, it would make sense if they were a Life Domain Cleric, right? Inspiring their allies and restoring so much health that they don’t know what to do with sounds like a solid chance, no? Well, if you know me, I like to create unnecessary work for myself for no reason at all, so rather than going to Life Domain, I think Era would fit well as a Twilight Domain Cleric. Their whole deal with the Twilight Domain is that those who serve the Twilight Deities bring comfort and seek to protect those from the dangers of the night by making sure it’s safe, often at their own expense. And, as the ultimate cheerleader, that is a burden I feel that Era would happily bear, so that when the sun rises the next day, there are enough smiles out there in the world to brighten their own day – to let them know it was all worth it.
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