Ed'varay Fiero, a Restless Ranger - Tributes and Transcendentalism with Beardic Inspiration (System Agnostic)

You know, D& D had become sort of the band aid of the RPG market, where it was the brand that was associated with all brands, and in my opinion, that needs to come to an end. She's always looking for snakes, and, you know, spiders, and, you know, things like that, and I'm always looking up and all around because I will never not keep an eye out for moose or bear. When I come up with the backstory for them, I make a Good, honest effort to always give them a reason to need a party. Hello friends. Welcome to characters without stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm star. This episode, I'm joined by Nate, who goes by Beardic Inspiration on TikTok. Nate grew up in the small town of Seward, Alaska, as a theater kid who grew up working on boats. He's now a boat captain, living in California, who fell in love with TTRBGs and is now working to get more into that space professionally, through storytelling and character creation. Hi star, thanks for having me. Of course, so happy to have you. I will give you a chance to plug your projects at the end, but is there anything you'd like to tell people about yourself? Uh, sure. I'm, I'm just a guy who started posting on TikTok, and, uh, generally in the TTRPG space, starting with Dungeons Dragons, I, I love storytelling. I love, I kind of have an anti Tolkien approach to stories. I love to pick them apart. Tolkien said we shouldn't look at the bones in the soup. I But I am one who loves to look at the bones in the soup and, uh, in, in all sorts of stories, whether it's written or TV or, or spoken word. And then I always, uh, tend to find a way to my favorite parts of those stories over into, uh, the gameplay that I, that I run in the stories that I tell. And the TikTok thing has been going well, it's been a lot of fun, been getting to meet a lot of really great content creators out there, and it's something that, uh, you know, I still have a lot left in the tank, and it's Been such a fun time that I, I hope to continue doing that. I don't think I've ever met and definitely have never interviewed a boat captain. How do you get into that? I grew up in a very small town, Seward, and it was just sort of the common thing that when you were old enough to get a job, that job was typically out on the boats, whether you were in charter fishing, commercial fishing, uh, tourism. And I, I went the route of tourism. I worked on tour boats as my summer job growing up and continued to do that for the area I lived in. The, the money was pretty good for a, a summer job as a high school kid. And when I. Finished with college, I did what so many of my peers did, and that is, I started bouncing back and forth between Alaska and Hawaii, working on boats, and as you are doing that, you are generating sea time, and I've always viewed that as a currency, and after a certain point, you have enough sea time To get your captain's license. And it would be almost a waste of that currency not to do that. So became a boat captain, started driving in Hawaii, doing these whale watch tours, seeing, I've been very fortunate. I don't, you know, I acknowledge how fortunate I am growing up between Alaska and Hawaii. I've seen some incredible things ultimately moved to California. Now I work here on a, uh, small auto ferry in Newport Beach, but I'm loving that too. And yeah, the, the boat captain life. That sounds amazing. So tell me, Nate, who are you bringing to the table today? So today I'm, I'm going to bring one of the characters that I've created on my TikTok channel, and that is the fire genasi Ed'varay Fiero. So you mentioned in your submission that you created Ed'varay as a memorial. Can you tell me more about that? Sure. So part of what I do on my channel is these character creation videos where I roll this very kind of odd collection of dice that I've accumulated that bring in different factors like height, eye color, age, Um, you know, the standard D&D class things such as, um, alignment and class and race, things like that as well. And I try and roll these out at random, kind of paint a picture. And I had done about 60 of these videos and was gaining some traction. And I always do one of these videos off of a comment on TikTok. So someone will make a request, and I will make that video off of that request. Kind of for that person, although I like to think anyone in the community can use that character. And I had on one of those videos something I had never had happen before. And that is, uh, one of my followers asked me if I could make a character for his father who had passed away. And that was, that was kind of a sobering request out of all the comments. I had gotten nothing ever like that. And I wanted to handle that the right way. Uh, very honored that he would ask me to do something like that. And so I, I reached out to that follower, said I, you know, I saw your comment. Absolutely. Willing to do this for you and we started a little communication because I I didn't want to turn his father into a D&D character But I wanted to get a little information about his father to kind of influence that character creation Mm hmm. What kind of information did you have to work with? You know, we talked about I kind of wanted, um, so I'm, I'm a boat captain. I'm also a manager and I interview people and I, I know what kind of a question is to say to someone, tell me a little bit about yourself and just letting them fall into that question as much as they want to. So I just said, tell me a little bit about your father to, to start with anyway, because I, I really wanted this individual to not censor themselves and tell me the most important things that were on their mind about their father. And they were telling me how much they loved their family, of course, very social and committed to his family, and also talked about how he was very much into woodworking and crafting, and that was a big part of his life as well. So, and that did end up making it into the, the character's backstory and description. And then after he gave me that initial description, I went on to ask him a few other things, like, is there anything about his, his physical description that you would like to tell me? that I can kind of use to influence and things like that. It was a nice conversation. Did this person's father play, uh, D& D or TTRPGs? You know, I, boy, I don't want to give you an answer. I don't know the answer to, um, I, I don't believe so. I don't believe so. You know, that was not part of our conversation, but I did, um, yeah, no, that's, that's a, that is an interesting thing to bring up. I would imagine that Dungeons & Dragons Plays a role with their family because they, they did mention in some of our later conversations, they brought the character description to their grandmother and the, the grandmother was, um, moved by that. She, she appreciated that as well. So. There might be some of that in their family that they play together. I think even if there wasn't, my idea of paying tribute to someone you've lost is that it's more about you than it is about them. And that even if you're trying to honor them in some way by bringing in some aspect of their personality or something you love, that's through your lens, right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, and, and his name, his name was Ed also, I'll, I'll tell you that in our, in our conversations. I did want to include that, that his name was Edward, so I did let that, that influence the character. I've done a few of these now, these memorial characters, and they don't always have the exact name of the person they're honoring, but, uh, in this case, that was something I kind of made part of it. You talked about how you're doing this randomly, but then you're also using a prompt given to you by someone, in this case, a very, very kind of specific prompt, a prompt that has a lot of meaning for this person. How do you reconcile this kind of random process? With a very specific prompt? You know, whether I have a prompt or not. Usually I look at the dice and I see them as a bunch of puzzle pieces that I have to fit together, even though they're not necessarily designed to fit together. And the, the storytelling and flavor that I add to it is kind of the glue. That fits in those gaps. And I think in this case, and in a few other cases where people have had more specific requests for their characters, it's just the, the glue that I'm bringing to the project has a little more specificity. To that. I used all the dice on this one and it was a good character I don't know how I could have spun it if it was a chaotic evil character Yeah, I I don't know fortunately that that didn't happen the dice were on my side But you know sometimes I roll the dice and I have to stare at them for a while And I really have to come up with something sometimes I roll the dice And the story is just there, plain as day, and they've done all the work for me. And I want to say, fortunately, in this case, that was pretty close to the point. For some reason, once I found out his name was Edward, the name Dread Ed kind of got stuck in my head. So looking into all these, he's a ranger, he's someone who travels. I got the impression of, you know, there are those guys. And I think I'm one of those guys, and that's how I was a little bit influenced on this. My wife is always worried about me in public spaces because I'm a big guy with a beard. People like to make assumptions sometimes that we're all just a bunch of tough and rough around the edges guys and some of us like to have fun with that and some people like to Have fun with that. So I just envisioned this this character who really does have a heart of gold but he you know, he looks like a big tough adventuring hero and I can just see the village folk the NPCs who absolutely adore this guy seeing a new traveler coming into town And just hazing them ever, ever so slightly. Oh, you better, you're gonna need to go talk to Dread Ed, but be careful, don't, you know, don't look him directly in the eye, and then of course they're gonna go in all nervous and find out what a, what a teddy bear he is, or, you know, a solid, good, good guy he is. Yeah, like I said, I like to think that if there is a prompt going into it, it just kind of alters that glue that fills in the gaps. You mentioned that you had some identification with this character, you know, this kind of public persona of being gruff, you know, having that kind of adventurer fighter kind of stereotype. And then being a teddy bear, it sounds like you're bringing a little bit of yourself into this character as well. I, I probably did. Going back, I, I've had a beard since I was probably about 16, 17 years old. And my theater teacher growing up in Alaska, after I had been in some of her productions in, in her classes for a couple years, became family friends with them. At one point, she confessed to me, you know, before I met you, I always saw you and I thought you'd be the biggest jerk, but you're not like I said, my wife is, you know, I love her to death. She's always concerned that if we're in a public setting and, you know, someone she's worried someone's going to try and pick a fight with me because I look like a big tough guy and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a big tough guy. I'm a big guy who has a beard. I have a beard because if I didn't have a beard. I look like I was 12, and this is the side of the coin that I've chosen. I'd say I put that part of myself into it. I also put a lot into this character that I grew up with, kind of adjacent to me. And, you know, Ed'varay Fiero, I decided that he was sort of someone who came from an aristocracy. This is how I resolved the the ranger class die for this character. And I want to say there's an economic die that said he, he probably had some money. So in my mind, he came from a upper class, but I, I wanted to, you know, how do we get him from being upper class to a ranger? And I just love this idea of him going out to survey his family's land, a large area of land that would have, you know, villages and towns in a wilderness setting. And once he got out there, I really love the idea of sort of a baptism of wilderness and how that can change people once they get in that environment. And I, I grew up with so much of that, uh, working on the boats and even just interacting with people who would come to Seward in the summer, people were getting up there to experience something greater and wilder than themselves and sort of kind of identify and change in the presence of that that greater thing. And there's also, you know, I love motif, I love picking apart stories, there's also kind of a social baptism and I keep saying baptism and I'm not particularly saying that from a specifically Christian point of view. I'm just saying that sort of a transition, changing a person, and I think there's a social one too, because in his backstory, I talk about how it was the people, it wasn't only the wilderness, but it was the people he met that made him want to stay and roam these lands and protect these people as a ranger. And I see so many of these motifs in the children's movies that my daughter watches, and I can only think of, uh, of Klaus, that Netflix original movie, where you have this rich, spoiled individual who has grown up living Off the benefits of his affluent family being forced into a, a much different situation, but it's, it's the people who change them into a better person. And I, I see that a little bit in this story as well, besides the, the wilderness factor. Yeah, the wilderness thing, it makes me think of Thoreau. This kind of transcendental experience in nature. Absolutely. There, there was a famous artist by the name of Rockwell Kent. Who came up to Seward specifically to get away from it all and it was a very Thoreau experience for him as he was living out in this little tiny island off of my hometown out in Resurrection Bay, you know, Alaska is a dramatic place and we like to name things in a dramatic fashion So, you know there there was a Russian ship named the Phoenix that was in that area so I lived right near Phoenix Avenue and Right there in Resurrection Bay, and a lot of, uh, rebirth symbolism there right in my hometown. So backing up a little bit, let's talk about your process for creating characters. You said that you have a lot of unusual dice? Yes, yes, it, and it's, it's, it's been a fun process. And, you know, I started doing TikTok, TNT, TTRPG, TikTok specifically, and I was doing, you know, some funny stuff, or what I thought was funny anyway. Um, some tips, some, you know, broad topic videos. And then I got these character creation dice from Citadel Black, and it's just the class, the race, and the alignment. And I showed those off in a video just to highlight the product, and someone commented, Roll me up a character. And so I did that as my first one. That video got more comments, and it snowballed, and I started getting new dice. I have dice that look at, like I said, your economic background, sort of your, your background for the character. I use one die from a larger set to figure out which body part has a distinguishing feature. I have a location dice that I use to get a general idea of where this character is coming from, where they started out. A die that will list one special item that they have on them, and one of my favorite die, what their quest is, what they're looking for. Is it power? Is it redemption? Is it status? Is it family? And then, you know, I've accumulated these sets. There are some dice that I typically don't use. One of the sets does have a gender die. But I do try and, unless I'm getting a commission, where I'm having one person specifically ask me to make a character for them, I, I try and make them as much of a blank slate and gender neutral character as possible, so, you know, as many people can enjoy them and identify with that character as possible. And I'm always, I'm always picking up new dice and seeing how I can, I can bring them into play. I started off using the TikTok D& D filter to get the stats for the characters, but I've recently started to use the rapid stat dice from Deck and Dice Games. I can roll out all the stats in one roll, and they're averaged out, the numbers on them, to do that in one fell swoop. It's pretty cool. But again, I, I really enjoy looking at these pile of dice. And thinking, what am I supposed to do with it? Because my, I play 5e, I run 5e games, but where I really got my start in TTRPGs was Call of Cthulhu. Have you played that one at all? Oh yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. I haven't played it in a while, but I still love that game. And I don't remember if it was a personal challenge to myself or how my keeper at the time would, would run the game, but you would roll your dice for each stat. and that was what that stat was. There wasn't rolling six sets of numbers and then shuffling them around and putting them where you think were best. You really can't mid max a character in Call of Cthulhu. So I just, character creation in that game was really something I looked forward to, not because I had this idea in my head already of the character that I wanted to play, but I really, I just, I loved looking at those numbers and saying, how do I resolve this into a character? This guy has, you know, no charm, but he's really strong. What is their story? Because I'm sure it's fascinating, and I certainly bring that into this with me. You come from a theater background. I did theater in high school. I did something called comedy sports, which I, you know, may or may not be familiar with, but it's a kind of a competitive improv game. And it kind of makes me think of these kind of improv prompts. The dice are kind of like the person in the audience saying like, you're in a restaurant, you're an angry customer, right? You know, you're getting, you're getting these kind of random prompts thrown at you and getting to weave it into something and make something out of it is the fun for you. Absolutely. No, that's, that's, I didn't even think of it like that. But it's, it's very similar to that. And, uh, I was in a improv troupe. I didn't do comedy sports, but the group I was in, some of them did comedy sports and we, we would get together with their teams from time to time. And lots of fun, a lot of fond memories of doing that. And, you know, now that I think back to that time, we would do the funny sticky stuff, but Boy, there were some moments where we were able to do a 40 minute scene, which I know there's some people listening to this and like a 40 minute improv scene. Oh, my God, we were able to, you know, get in sync with one another and tell this story with one another. And it was it's it's like a form of magic. When you can sit down and, and stand up in the improv sense and work with a group of people like that. And I, I think that is kind of the magic that I strive for or when I think back of my fondest memories at the table, whether I'm running a game or, or playing in it, is that unity with everyone else at the table. And, you know, one thing I didn't mention in my character creation process, partly because Ed'varay Fiero is this, you know, kind of special category character where his, his backstory is a little bit different. And all of the characters that I'm making that aren't NPCs, that someone is hoping to use these characters to play with, I don't do this every time, I try, and sometimes I forget, but when I come up with the backstory for them, I make a good, honest effort to always give them a reason to need a party. There is something that has happened to them, it's part of their backstory quest to overcome this thing, or solve this thing, or fix this thing. But it also has to be insurmountable for them to do on their own. So, they have to find a group of people that they can rely on. And I think, I think that mentality will often solve a lot of problems at the table. When you have a player going, well that's what my character would do. And it brings in sort of a conflict point. It's like, Well, is it something your character would do if it would negatively alter their relationship with their party members? When they really need their party members to accomplish x, y, z, right? It's something you kind of have to build in from the beginning. I've played in games with people who have, who have come to the table with a character who is, is kind of a lone wolf who doesn't really have a reason to work with people. And those characters have often. Just gone by the wayside, they have been written out of the game or the, the player has killed them off because it just doesn't work. It's, it's definitely tricky and, and there needs to be some session zero talk or, you know. with those players, I think it's, it's best, you know, you never want to single someone out in front of the group, but is, is the DM set them aside, say, you know, a, what are you looking to accomplish with this character? What, what is it that makes you excited about this character that you went in this direction? And not necessarily judge them by that, but if, you know, once they get down to brass tacks and tell you the reason they chose this path, it might be there are other ways to highlight those choices that are a little more social to the rest of the table. Or you say, look, totally get it just so you know. We're going to need to work together here because I get that your character is a lone wolf but the story that we're telling together in this particular situation, the lone wolf has got to work with these people. And it's okay if that's not in their nature, but that can be part of what makes this interesting. Right, there has to be some change or growth for that kind of character to integrate with other people. Yeah, absolutely. Tell me what the dice told you about Ed'varay. Well, he was, he was a good character. Like I said, I was, I was happy to see that because I, I was concerned if, uh, if he was gonna be, gonna be evil. He was the first Genasi I ever rolled. The race die that I have has 12 different races on them, never rolled a genasi. I just happen to have a little board game that's based on rolling dice that are inspired by the elements. So I broke one of those out and I got a fire genasi. And so, that kind of inspired the name, uh, Fiero. In part, this is that, that fiery heat. I saw this as a very passionate character. But I also wanted to make that part of the tribute to their, their son because Fiero also means exceptional pride or, or joy in regards to something and it was a note in there that I could tell very much by what this individual had told me about this person was he was very proud to be this, this man's son. And again, there was the wealth factor that got me into the mindset of kind of a background in aristocracy. Which we had to resolve with the ranger die. I want to say he had a distinguishing mark on his chest, and I'd have to go back to the video to find the rest out. But I did bring in, I wanted him to be a ranger, but I wanted him to be someone who stopped in town from time to time. And someone who, the, the individual talked about their father being a crafty person, a handyman, and I, I wanted him to be someone who would go out, who would scout, who would protect communities, bring information back and forth, but also someone who would also make little wood carvings, little toys to give to the children. So I, I wanted this, when Gandalf comes into town, all the children run up because they know he's got fireworks. I wanted Dread Ed to come into town. And all these little children run up exciting because you know he's been spending his down time carving little wooden horses and little wooden sheep. And he'll pass those out to the children as well. It was definitely a very hearty mix of the dice but also the information this person had given me for their backstory. And I started a location just based on this first character alone. In my world building, I have this location. It's called the Black Star Plains. And, in this particular setting, world trees are interesting, but I thought about what happens to a world tree when it dies. So it's called the Black Star Canyon Plains because as you're traveling towards it, there's this giant black star that is above the, the horizon, and what is it? It's actually this root ball of this massive world tree. That's fallen over. And in my hometown, the way the sun moves around, uh, in the summertime in Alaska, the mountain ranges were done in such a way that there'd be this area between some of the mountains where, as the sun, I don't want to say set, but passed behind the mountains, there would be this one little area of the town. that got the last little bit of light and I wanted to include that so as the sun sets in the Black Star Plains on the root ball of this fallen world tree called Morrovan, the light pierces this one little section between some of those roots and it falls on this town called Last Light. And that is the area that the majority of these memorial characters reside in, sort of their, their safe place that they will always be. Unless you're like Ed'varay, who's kind of always roaming around. But when he does stop, he's usually putting his feet up in last light. Mm. Interesting. It sounds like your characters are shaped by their environments in very particular ways. Shaped, like you said, shaped by nature. And you have a very, very specific and evocative idea of this place as well. Uh, yeah, yeah, no, it's, it was, it was a special request and it just, It needed a little bit more than a character. I wanted to make sure there was a, a place for them and, and well, like I said, the, the location's very important going back to that, that baptism of the wilderness. It, uh, like I said, that was just something I was used to seeing quite a lot growing up is these people going up north to kind of get away from something or to in, you know, get lost in this big wilderness or to, you know, again, re, re identify. change themselves. Is that something that you feel personally you identify with this, this idea of being shaped by the physical aspects of the world around you? I think it does play a major role. I mean, I'm, I'm definitely the way I am because of the areas that I grew up. I mean, just sort of from a physical point of view. My, my wife and I always laugh about this. If we're going on a hike, if we're going on a walk together, she's always walking, looking at the ground because she's looking, because we live in California, she's always looking for snakes and, you know. Spiders and you know, things like that. And I'm always looking up and all around me because I will never not keep an eye out for moose or bear wherever I'm at, just because, you know, that's, that's how I was grown up. And yeah, I, I think it does shape you because there are a lot of different physical dangers that you grow up with that you get warned with because of your environment. I was taught at a very early age. You never walked up on a glacier. You never just went climbing around on one of those things. I was taught at a, a very early age, you know, you never get between, I, I, you know, I walked home from school every day, but I never got between a moose and a cow and a calf. And there were some times where, you know, I only lived a quarter of a mile away from school, but there were certain days where I would have to call to get a ride. Because the cow was on one side of the road and the calf was on the other, and there was just no way that I would, uh, I would cross that line. We would whistle when we hiked, because we didn't want to surprise bears, so. There, there are things that, that shape the way you grow up, and, uh, but that's not exclusive to nature. There are plenty of ways that, uh, shape you growing up in, in a more urban environment. There are areas that you don't go into, there are places that you, you make a point of going this way, um, Yeah, no, as you bring it up, environment plays a major factor. This character you created, it sounds like a D& D character, you're using a D& D class, it sounds like you've created a lot of D& D characters, and And by the way, I think in D& D rangers get a bad rap. I personally am a huge fan of rangers. Uh, my first character was a ranger. So they have a special place in my heart, but, you know, this sounds like a D& D character, but you kind of mentioned that this, you're talking about this more as like a system agnostic and you're talking about exploring other games, uh, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Sure. Yeah. No, I, just because I kind of started with those class die, that's kind of been the, the root of how these, these roles work. But if you want to get really technical, you could use the stat roles that are, um, that I roll. You could use those for Pathfinder. You could also use those for Black Flag. Tales of the Valiant, I think is what they finally called it now. But these characters are absolutely system agnostic. One of the last characters I rolled up with, I really enjoyed. As their special item, I rolled a shield and it ended up being a piece of a crashed spell jammer. I love me a little genre mashing. You can have a crashed spaceship in any fantasy sci fi setting and use that. It's all, and I don't say this negatively, it's all fantasy make believe. I make it for you, I make it for the people who watch the video. Once I'm done, it's only half finished, it's yours to take and run with it after that, so use it, you put in an old school slash and hack or dungeon crawl classics. It was kind of a dark start to the year for the, the RPG community, with the whole mess with Wizards of the Coast and the OGL. And I, I want to say it was great how the community sort of banded together. and made it very clear to Wizards of the Coast that what had happened was unacceptable. I was personally very upset by the silence that came out of Wizards in that first week or so after their plans kind of leaked out. In that first week there were, you know, I was seeing these updates Kickstarter saying, you know, we don't know if we're going to be able to publish this module that we were going to do, and even if we can get it to you, Once it's completed, we don't know if we're ever going to be able to sell it, you know, there are decisions that are made well in advance about when projects are going to be done and how they're going to be done and that week of silence hurt a lot of people. And as things were developing, people were saying they got to keep the original OGL. They got to stick with the original OGL. And I was like, I think the, the cat's out of the bag. I don't think there's any going back, but shockingly that, that is what happened. They did keep the original OGL and then they put it in creative commons, which I would have, if you were taking bets on things to happen during this, I would have never ever taken that bet. Now I'm not saying that absolves Wizards for what happened. I think those were correct moves to make. Again, I'm still very upset about their silence. But there were some interesting things that happened in the community during this time span. The unity was awesome, and I, I believe a lot of us realized that, you know, D& D had become sort of the Band Aid of the RPG market. Where it was, it was the brand that was associated with all brands. And in my opinion, that, that needs to change. To kind of, it needs to come to an end. Uh, that doesn't mean get rid of D& D, but it needs to be under the umbrella. It can't be the umbrella anymore. That's not right. And not as a punishment for what happened. It's just, there's, there's too much out there besides them now and making them that umbrella kind of shines light off of some of those other smaller projects, but as things progressed, that unity kind of, there was almost a schism. Especially as Wizards did start to make corrective actions. There were people who were saying, you know, you shouldn't buy any new Wizards of the Coast products, you should get rid of all of your Wizards of the Coast books, and you know, some people were saying, you know, you already bought them, you have them, it's fine. But there was a bit of a movement Where people were starting to say, you know, you shouldn't even be playing D& D in your own home. And, uh, you know, shame on you for doing that because you're increasing Wizards of the Coast's social economy just by playing it on your own at home. And I feel like this is such a wonderful community. We shouldn't system shame and we shouldn't push anyone out from underneath that umbrella. And the, the reason I bring all this up is So, Ed'varay Fiero, first time I did a character like this, I didn't know what kind of reaction the video was going to get, but there was such a outpouring of support for the individual the character was made for, and people coming together who had, you know, shared similar stories of loss with this individual, and people who wanted to, you know, use Ed'varay Fiero in their own games. Which the, you know, original person who approached me was very comfortable giving people permission for. It was so heartwarming to see how this community can come together when we're not angry about a publishing company. And I think that's something that needs to be nurtured and not, uh, I just don't want to see it go away. Because there's a beautiful thing there. Like I said, what I love about the game is how it can bring people together at the table. But it also brings a community together. And that, that should be recognized and we need to, you know, like I said, not system shame, let somebody do them. There are plenty of ways to continue to play D& D 5th edition and expand your library without giving Wizards of the Coast any money. I do a segment on Saturdays, I try and do a supporting Saturday video where I highlight at least one particular creator, whether they're on Instagram or TikTok. You know, sometimes I do dice makers, sometimes I do, you know, crafters, but I really try and highlight, if I can, a creator in the space who makes their own 5e content and someone who has a Patreon that they can support monthly or get individual things from. Because there, there's a, there's a middle ground. There's a middle ground. People can still play 5e. And if they really love something that Wizards puts out, you know, go ahead, go ahead and you do you, but if you love this system, and there are other awesome systems out there too, and I'm happy to talk about, share, spread the word on those, but if you love this system, I love that for you, and I'm gonna help you find all these awesome, great people who can support that system that you love. Yeah, there's definitely, there's a lot of third party creators out there that, I need her support still, and I think that it's a personal choice, and if you have made the personal choice not to play D& D anymore, I am fully in support of that. Personally, I have gone down from, I think I was playing three days of D& D a week, um, and I am now playing two, and plan to limit that even less once my campaign is over. I have spent the last, gosh, even from, you know, because before the OGL, there was the Hadozee and that's a whole separate thing. Um, Wizards of the Coast has not done a lot to maintain anyone's trust in the company because you also have. You know, Hasbro and, and, you know, Wizards of the Coast and the whole Pinkerton thing. So they're not. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh wow. Obviously not. Of all the headlines. Yeah. You know, the funny thing to me about that was that I got to tell people about the Pinkertons and suddenly, like, labor history. Was something that gamers were talking about and I can't even say how much I love that. Yes. Oh, that's fantastic I never looked at it like that, but you're absolutely right So I don't blame anybody for not trusting or wanting to support Wizards of the Coast. I think that, you know, one of the things for me, you know, in terms of like the community coming together and, you know, kind of banding together to tell Wizards of the Coast that they had messed up and that, you know, they needed to do something about it, for me, was canceling D& D Beyond Subscriptions. Mhm. Because I think, you know, when it comes to boycotting, yeah, throwing away books you already have. If that makes you feel better, that's great, but it's not going to, The wallet is what makes a difference. Right. Right. So it's like if you get, God, I can't even remember how many subscriptions were canceled, but it was a lot. I personally canceled mine as well. Yeah. But I mean, I feel like that really tilted the needle and making them kind of change their decision. I think it was a very sobering event for them. Well, you know, we're in a funny space, kind of technologically speaking. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I want you to support small creators. But, you know, I am running a 5e game with some family friends. And I'm, I'm just not ready to switch them out of that system yet, because part of the half a year playing with them was teaching it to them. You know, we've, we've just gotten here. So again, I'm going to keep in 5e for a bit, but I am actually about to start running them through The Chained Coffin by Dungeon Crawl Classics. Are you familiar with that title at all? I'm not with that title. I know about Dungeon Crawl Classics, but I have not played it. So the Chained Coffin is a, a module, obviously, for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but it's purposely trying to take a different approach to a fantasy setting, and it's not a European fantasy, uh, high fantasy environment. It's actually based on American Appalachia, and it's, it is so unique and interesting, and, and respectful as well. I gotta say, you know, it'd be very easy to play on a lot of cliche tropes, um, if you were gonna go for a setting like that, but, but it, it doesn't. But obviously, I'm, I saw this, I heard about it, got the book, read it, loved it, I wanna play this with my players. Well, there are ways to convert all these fantastic monsters from Dungeon Crawl Classics into 5e monsters, but I, I'm not the guy with that kind of time to do that. There, there are options, again, to bring things into your 5e game that is not giving wizards any of that financial support. Yeah, definitely. Looking at Ed'varay as a system agnostic character gives us a little bit more, um, of a broad brush when we're talking about things like stats. So coming at it more from, from kind of an overview rather than a nitty gritty, what is Ed'varay good at? From a broad view, I think he is, if I wasn't using specific D and D terms, I would say he has a lot of social value and a lot of survival skills. I've always envisioned him as one of those people who would do very well on the TV show Alone. Does, you know, not, not, not only have they taken to the wilderness, but they, they're, they're out in it a lot. They have developed a, a real sense of nature, but I see him, I can't remember what my age die gave me on the role. But I see him as, um, probably late middle age, early old age. But at the point in his life, you know there are those people who, they've seen it all, or they've seen most of it. To the point where something that might send someone into a spiral of anxiety. They're able to remain calm because they have been through this before and they can kind of be your reassuring rock in that Tight situation if that makes sense. He has composure. Mm hmm. Yes. Yes, and I you know, it's it's not kind of on the forefront of my my thought of him But he does have that aristocratic background I see that as more of his youth, but I'd like to think he has still hung on to that. So if, you know, he was in a village and someone of a high status came to town and either needed to communicate something to the locals or even trying to cause trouble, he might be able to kind of communicate out of that situation if need be. Right. I mean, I imagine growing up in an aristocratic family that there are certain Skills and traits that were cultivated in him from a young age. Yes. Yeah, I'm sure he still knows how to address people Especially respecting the pecking order the social order I don't think he worries about what fork is where on the table setting anymore I think like things like that have gone away And I like to think that he's probably good at knowing, you know in the sort of political dialogues that people have A lot of it is somewhat more performative than really necessary for the conversation and I think he's probably very good at recognizing that rhetoric and telling someone let's, let's just cut through the B. S. here and talk about what we need to talk about. Yeah, he can use his background to, you know, kind of get what he wants from that class of people. I would think so. And he probably, he probably knows multiple tactics. He probably knows the people to bribe if bribing is an option if he was in one of those situations as well. You said that he had this transcendental experience, went off into the wilderness, forsook his title, I imagine, by doing that. What's his relationship like with his family? In the way that I've envisioned it, it was almost a clean break and I, I think there are some stories where, and a lot of those have lived those stories, where the family you start with doesn't necessarily equate to the family you end up with. That from, from the very get go of me starting to tell the backstory of this character, very prominent in my thoughts that it was the, the people he met along the way that shaped who he would ultimately become. That he fell in love with the land, but he stayed for the people because he, he learned that. He could probably help them as much as they had helped him. Does he have anybody who is very important to him in his life? It sounds like he's quite the wanderer. Has he formed any strong, stable relationships? You know, in my mindset, most certainly, this is someone else's character, so I don't know the, the direction that they would take him in, but the way, if, if I were to continue their story, I, I don't want to be too specific, but I don't know if you or any of your listeners have read Bone by Jeff Smith, fantastic comic book, there's this This bartender, he's this big hulking man named Lucius, and he, he does what he needs to do for the town. He has the appearance of being a big, rough guy, and I think he leans, he leans into that. He's very much sweet on old grandma Ben who owns the farm outside of town and for the majority of the story there's nothing of him outwardly communicating that but he sees her, his demeanor changes, he goes over how are you Rosie, obviously just from his body language and communication there are feelings there so I feel like as someone who travels Like myself, who, you know, traveled a lot between Alaska and Hawaii, you get used to the flux, you get used to the constant change, and that almost in itself becomes the normal. But then there are the, the anchors that you look forward to when you arrive at each, each location, knowing you're going to stay for a while, you know. For me, going back to Alaska, that was always my family, my family's still up there. But, you know, Hawaii, California. There were these incredibly strong friendships that I had made with these most wonderful people that I just couldn't wait to see again. So, you know, bringing myself into the character a little bit, I would say absolutely that, uh, that there are those he looks for. And looks forward to seeing in my own little world building storytelling, I think he has back in Last Light, he has a sweetheart that he, he can't wait to see when he comes into town and he's probably carved a much more intricate and beautiful little statuette for her. That's sweet. So why doesn't he stay with her then? Why does he keep traveling? The easy answer to that is because the die rolled a ranger, and that's, that's what rangers do. But, uh, but, but to, to add more nuance to that is, again, to draw from my, myself. Actually, I'm going to draw less from myself and more from the people that I grew up with. There are these people who, and it's up to you whether they are blessed or burdened with it, but have this, this wanderlust, and they are like, I want to compare them to completionists in video games, and, and, and in TTRPGs. I'm one of those people. You put me in a, you know, give me a map to a dungeon, and I'm not going to be able to leave until I've seen every nook and cranny, because there could be a chest. And that last little cavern, so I'm gonna go look, but, but I, I can speak from my heart that I, I have known these people. They haven't, they haven't seen it all. And it's not that they don't have love or even strong love for these people, and, and again, connecting Ed'varay Fiero to his sweetheart, I'm sure that it is someone that they deeply care about, but they just haven't seen it all yet. And there are other people who need him out there. He delivers messages from one village to the other, keeps the bandits at bay. I feel that there are some people who retire, and that's the end of it for them. And then there are some people who just can't retire. And I feel like, I don't think he's necessarily, at a very old age, in my mind's eye of him, but I see him as a character who would never put their boots up, because that's, that's just not who they are. And again, it's not that they're not caring, it's, they, they have this, this adventurous spirit that makes it impossible for them to be static. At least for too long. What would you say Edvari's flaws are? I think there are I'm trying not to Michael Scott this. My strengths are my weaknesses. I think there are, when you want to help and be there for people, you can sometimes stretch yourself too thin and it's difficult to prioritize. So I could see it. Ed'varay Fiero being quested to take an urgent message to the next town over, but as he's leaving town, there's a little girl who has lost her cat. And he knows he's gotta get this message to the other town, but he's gonna stop and help her find that cat. And it's gonna take the time it takes, whether that's a good thing or not. It's, it's what he has to do. And he's not the only character that I've kind of written this into based on the die rolls, but generosity to the point of maybe not putting themselves first in any way, and that could go into why they continue to be on the move as well. You know, that wanderlust is absolutely, in my mind, the, the driving point, but if you're foraging and you're always giving away the majority of what you're foraging and you've only left enough for you for the next week or so, you need to continue foraging. So I, I would put those both on, on his, his plate. If you're asking me about flaws and, and possibly, and possibly he might be, be quick to give someone the benefit of the doubt a little too soon. I don't think I can let you off the hook for those. Because those are all very much, you know, like you said, my strengths are my flaws. I can imagine, uh, in a memorial character, especially it would be, it could be a little hard. That makes it a little more tough. Yeah. Yeah. I've done other characters before where they repeat themselves. They talk too much. They are just plain unlucky, but, uh, with, with the memorial characters, it's a little tricky. Mm hmm. Yeah, so you shared with me some art and it sounds like you regularly do art commissions along with these character creations that you do. Yeah, this was, so the way things are now, you can visit my, my Kofi and commission a character from me and add on to that art from my, my good friend, Scott, who did the art for Ed'varay Fiero. This was at a stage though, before we had kind of started that venture. I just called him up and said, you know, always been a big fan of your work. This is what has happened. This is what I've been asked. Can we do a little something extra special for this person? And Scott really delivered. So, because, uh, you know, podcasting is an audio and not a visual medium. I, I will be sharing, um, on YouTube the picture, but can you describe what Ed'varay looks like? So, he's got sort of a, a darker skin that is reminiscent of, hmm, it almost has a purple hue to it, ever so slightly. It's more of a gray, but there's a little purple to that, which I, I think goes well with the fire genasi. And he has a short but well kept beard with fiery red highlights and a very well kept mustache. Has a pair of glasses that he keeps on him, as well as several amulets that he wears around his neck. And on his chest, there's a tattoo of some sort. That's not, that's more of Scott's story to tell, but there is some sort of, uh, serpent tattoo on his chest, and he wears a nice brown coat. In my, in my vision, this is sort of the outfit that he would wear that he, he keeps in town, something that he keeps in last light when he knows he's going to be staying for a while, but adorned shirt with very nice trim to it, and yes, very, very kind eyes. In your mind, does Edvare have a particular voice? You know, this character I have not given a voice to, because I, I viewed him as being someone else's character. Do you usually do voices when you do characters? When you get the chance to play? Usually, yeah, no, um, I'm, I'm usually more behind the screen, but Right Most, most of my characters have some variation. What I try and do is I have a little recorder with me, and my players know I do this, but I try and get at least one sample of a character voice I do, especially if I'm improvising it, so I can try and replicate it the next time. That's the hardest thing. I can never remember my character voices as a DM. Ed'varay, are you more likely to use your fists or your words in an argument? Most certainly my words, but it's nice to know that the fists are there if my words don't work the first time. Do you find that you often have to resort to using your fists? Fortunately, no. No. Many a time, a hot temper has been brought down with a cool word, and I say this as someone who had hot blood himself once and listened to his elders and was cooled down. That usually works best, but there have been moments where the fists have come out. And some of those moments are so well spoken of, only the mention of fists are necessary to quell a hot temper if words don't work. Thank you, Nate, for coming on the podcast and for sharing Ed'varay with me and my listeners. Thanks for having me. This has been great. I'm so happy to have you. I would like to give you the chance now to tell listeners if there's anything you'd like to share. Like, subscribe, follow me on TikTok. Please follow me on YouTube in case there is no TikTok someday. And check out what I have over on Kofi if people are requesting characters all the time. I have about 6, 000 requests and I'm kind of doing them in a random pool. But if you have a character, people will ask me. I have a game next Sunday and I would really love a character. If you're on a tight time frame and you're willing to do commission, we can do that for you. And the option for Scott's art is there. His stuff is amazing. The other things I offer on my Kofi are, are smart character sheets. Which, it's a kind of custom template of a character sheet with art that you can provide me or art by Scott. And I have two wax seals that go on the character sheet. And I've embedded NFC tags. in those wax seals. And what that means is when you tap your phone on one wax seal, it will take you to the TikTok video of me making that character for you. And if you tap your phone on the other wax seal, it will take you to your digital character sheet. And then the new product that I've come out with is Smart Bases. Where I've taken that same NFC technology and put it into minifigure bases, so you can have on your table a mini of an octopus. And if you're the DM, and you've been planning a game, and you're really excited about this fight your players are going to have with a giant octopus, but oh no, it's game night and you forgot your stat block, you don't have to spend time looking it up online, you don't have to dig through papers, you just tap your phone, and it instantly brings up a stat block of a giant octopus. Or, you can program these bases so, let's say your characters kill a gnoll, and they want to loot it, well you can tell them to tap their phone to the base, And a loot list pops up on their phone and they get to see it right there in front of them. So a lot of cool tricks you can use them for. You may have noticed that the cover art for my podcast has changed. I want to give a special shout out to The Curiographer for providing me with this beautiful artwork called Cloud Chaser. You can find them on Instagram at The Curiographer. Please go check them out, buy their stuff, they're amazing. You can find me on TikTok at starmamac, or on Threads, BlueSky, Instagram, or Facebook as Characters Without Stories and CharactersWithoutStories.com. I'm on both Threads and BlueSky at the moment, we'll see how long that lasts, tell me which one you like better, and maybe I'll spend more time there. You can also listen on YouTube at CharactersWithoutStories, or follow the link in the description. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners and your recommendations help me immensely. And if you can drop a review on Spotify or Apple podcast, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you to all of my listeners spreading the word. I'm so grateful. I'm currently accepting submissions, particularly for non D& D characters, so if you'd like to share your character, you can go to the submission form at characterswithoutstories.com. Click submit in the top navigation menu. Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories.