Farthing, the Accidental Pirate - Being a Badass with Mobility Aids with Wesley Magee-Saxton (D&D 5e)

Hello friends, welcome to characters without stories a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled I'm star. If you play tabletop role playing games, you probably have some back pocket characters, characters who are just waiting for the right story. Every episode i'll bring in a friend to tell me about their character and their approach to creating characters. In this episode, I'm joined by Wesley Magee Saxton. Wesley is disabled queer performance artist and disability advocate based in Tkaronto, Ontario, Canada, the co founder of forge ahead, a party to access which is actually how I discovered that you guys was through Facebook, because I was a fan of your Facebook page. So I'm really excited to talk to you about your character. Is there anything else you want to tell listeners about yourself?

I'm a recent graduate of theatre school. So I'm fairly fresh into the performing arts world and that kind of work, but I'm loving it so far. Another thing to add is, I'm a non binary person who uses they them pronouns. And that does factor into my character creation, even if my characters themselves are not non binary.

So tell me, Wesley, who are you bringing to the table today?

So I am bringing Farthing to the table today. He is a character who I've had in my back pocket for a long time.

You built Farthing for d&d 5e, correct?

Yes, I built Farthing, sort of with some homebrew shenanigans for d&d 5e. Yeah.

Why are they called Farthing?

That's a really interesting story. And that's, that's gonna require me to delve into something a little. So just bear with me.

Yeah, no problem.

The initial idea for the character that is Farthing himself actually emerged way back in 2020, when I was doing a bunch of research for a performance project that I was doing, I was really interested in doing a sort of almost a performance case study on perceptions of disability, right from the Roman Empire and surrounding cultures up until modernity, and I sort of was required to condense that into a 12 minute performance piece. And part of the research I did in terms of figuring that out was, I read a wonderful textbook on disability in the Middle Ages, and how perceptions were and that also encompassed, like, for those of us that use mobility devices, I'm an electric wheelchair user. Wheelchairs weren't quite a thing by the Middle Ages. They were first invented in the town of Bath in England, like late 1500s, beginning of 1600s. But before that, folks who could not stand up on crutches had to use hand blocks, or what's called hand trestles. So if you can imagine carved blocks of wood, that they would pull themselves along the ground using, so that piqued my interest a big time. And then, as part of that research, I encountered a ballad that was written in 1602, called the cripple of Cornwall, and it was all about this swashbuckling highwayman that was a double below the knee amputee, that during the day would pretend to be a beggar crawling around on the floor, and would scope out thievery targets and would come back at night and steal them or steal their money rather, and he did this for I think the ballad said something like seven years before he got caught. It goes into detail on what a skilled fighter he was even on crutches and how he mocked people for being unable to fight him and stuff like that. The second I read this ballad, I said, I need to make a character with this. So the inspiration for Farthing happened there. He kind of stayed in my back pocket for a long time. I eventually settled on the name Farthing just because of the name of the older British currency. And that just that just seemed like it fit for me. That's kind of where the genesis for Farthing started with this wonderful historical excursion that I went on. I encountered this ballad, and I said, Okay, I need to do my own version of this.

It's such an amazing story. This ballad, I love that you found this in your research. And I can see why it was inspiring because it sounds like an amazing story.

It was really something, and I'm so glad that I was able to use it in the performance project, it was super fun. This year, I had been really dealing with a lot of new realizations, given that I'm finished my university degree. And I'm trying to set up a support network, and eventually move out on my own out of my parents home, and recognizing a lot of anxiety that comes from instances where I am not in my wheelchair, and my mobility is more reduced. So having Farthing not be in a wheelchair, and be a user of these hand trestle things is really helping my mental health because I'm able to sort of place my own fears about not being as mobile in my wheelchair, or not in my wheelchair rather, and sort of investigate those feelings through this character, who is used to moving around without being tied to a wheelchair, in the same way that a lot of my other characters that I've created are, it was very, very important for me that Farthing still remained disabled. But I did not want Farthing to use a wheelchair. So my compromise for that was to have them use these hand trestles, which were crafted by our DM to sort of work almost like two immovable rods. So that also leads up to some wonderful, like magical shenanigans of sort of being able to hold yourself in place in the air if you have to.

You know, this started with a bit of research, and you brought your personal experience into it. And it sounds like you're kind of trying to work through some things personally, that you wanted to kind of explore that. Would that be correct?

Yeah. I mean, d&d has always been a vehicle for that for me. Not saying that I'm using groups as therapy, if you need therapy, definitely go to therapy, they're more important than d&d will ever be in some contexts. But the way I sort of find inspiration is, I personally view stories as alive and living beings with agency. So I definitely view the characters that I create as alive in and of their own right. And I'm just sort of working with them to help be a vehicle for them to come into existence. So my character creation process, and my backstory creation process is very much a two way street between myself and the character and the information behind them. And it is hugely about listening to listening to where the character wants to go. Just in terms of writing stories and writing characters. I, as an artist, I view them as all alive and requiring a partnership between the author of the stories in the story themselves to have this story come into full fruition.

That's a very beautiful way to put the process of creating a character. You've probably put a lot of thought into that being a theater school graduate, I imagine.

Well, let's just say that in my process for creating characters, I have a cheat sheet of like 25 questions I asked myself in character, as an actor, when I'm going to do a production that I also use as sort of base for creating characters. So I draw heavily on my training as an actor. For me, it's sort of taking some of that training and applying it to like a tabletop context. It's just drawing on some of that actor knowledge that had been given.

Yeah. Can you tell me kind of some basic information about your character for example, how old are they? What their sexuality be if you thought of that? You know, their race, etc.

Farthing is a high elf. They are 60 years old. They are a fighter rogue multiclass which is a lot of fun. And what I really, really like about our current group that I'm playing with, is, like 95% of us are disabled in some way, shape or form, whether that's physically or disabled by mental illness or otherwise. So, including, like elements of ableism into the campaign is something that the table is okay with. So it's wonderful to like encounter NPCs across the campaign, who expect elves to be like, you know, Tolkien's elves that are incredibly graceful, and like 1000 times more dexterous than humans, and then having elf be disabled for once, and still be like a full elf. Right. So that was really important for me, as I kind of wanted to flip the script on what you would expect of a high elf. And I definitely put that into his backstory, he was abandoned as a baby for his disability, and was adopted by a master enchanter that eventually created the hand trestles. For him.

I think it's really interesting that you're talking about your game and talking about who you're playing with. I think there's a lot of debate about how much of our contemporary bias we should be bringing into our d&d games. And I know that there's, there's a lot of nuance there. And it really depends on who you're playing with. But there are a lot of people who say, I, I'm black, I don't want to deal with racism in my games, whereas other people really want to explore that through gaming. Why is it that your table feels comfortable exploring that? Or why did you make that decision?

The reason why we came to the conclusion that we'd be comfortable exploring, you know, let Farthing might get some very odd looks, or very odd comments, or very unfortunate circumstances, because they're a disabled elf. We came to that conclusion, because we had talked about it as a table beforehand and kind of went through a checklist, or are we all okay with this happening? What are we not okay, with? Where are the lines that we draw? How much of this do we want to include? And it was big conversations around the table. And we just all acknowledged that this is something we're comfortable with. And as you said, a person of color might not want to deal with racism in d&d, and that's absolutely 100% Fine.

Are other characters also disabled characters?

One of the player characters is a Dragonborn that primarily communicates through common sign language.

If you're playing a disabled character, do you want your character to encounter mobility challenges and have to overcome them? Or do you want your world to feel accessible in a way that our contemporary world isn't?

I'm gonna say yes to both of those. yes to both, because in, in this case in Farthing being an idea of eventually having an opportunity to play a character that does not use a wheelchair. Lots of the disabled characters that I played, use an electric wheelchair or some form of equivalent, because, you know, I wanted to have an adventure that is based on my mobility and still able to kick ass. But in some instances, yeah, I want farthing to have some trouble getting around places, or get very fatigued if they have to do something incredibly strenuous. But also acknowledging that Farthing has been using hand trestles for his entire life. So he would probably be much more skilled and frankly, much more buff, even though his strength score is low. Then I would be outside of my wheelchair given that I'm, you know, in a wheelchair most that most of the time. But even though Farthing essentially has two immovable rods to move around with, I still want Farthing to have mobility problems.

So Farthing is a multi class character, correct?

Yeah, he's my first multi class this time.

And you're starting out Farthing at what level then in order to make the multi class work?

We're gonna start out at level three, so we were starting out with two levels in fighter and one level in Rogue and that will eventually become an arcane Archer fighter. And this wonderful homebrew rogue class that I found, called the fencer archetype for a rogue specialization, because within Farthing's hand trestles. He has two daggers hidden that he can draw in use, so I wanted to make Farthing have both long range and close range options, while capitalizing on the fact that his adopted father was an enchanter, so I wanted to not make him a ranger or a magical class per se, but the arcane Archer is the perfect blend of like, you know, a little little bit of sprinkling of magic in there somewhere.

I think it's poignant, that Farthing is incorporating that arcane ability into his fighting style. I think that I could I could almost see that being a nod to or an honoring of his father. Is that the way you see it?

Yeah, exactly right, because Farthing unfortunately lost his father when he was about the age equivalent of 13. Because within the game world that My partner is creating for us to play in the the Sun has gone out. The sun has stopped shining, something has happened. And the entire society has shifted around that problem and sort of re enveloped itself. People that have worshipped or still worship the sun are being persecuted because like what's the point of worshipping the sun if the sun has abandoned us, Farthing's father was discovered to be a continued sun worshiper, and was executed for that. And then Farthing being his son was branded a traitor and banished from the island, or banished from the main city rather, and had to live as an orphan for a while, which is where they got so good at playing the disability card to get their needs met. That's why their persuasion and deception is so high. That's why they steal from those that are very clearly well off and can afford it, because that's what they had to do to survive. And that's what a lot of people with disabilities historically had to do was they had to turn to begging and thievery to survive. So even even in d&d, the common language of thieves cant that a lot of rogues know, by default, if you choose that, that is based off of a language used by French beggars and thieves that was used to get around law enforcement in the Middle Ages. So I also wanted to incorporate the necessity for survival that way in Farthing's character, and in their backstory, they eventually sort of became the de facto caretaker of this small group of other disabled orphans. And one day, when they were searching for food, they went on to a ship that was in the docks at in the city they were in currently. And while they were stealing food from the ship, the ship set sail and they were stuck on the ship for a long time. And then that ship was eventually attacked by pirates. And the pirates almost killed Farthing. But Farthing realized that they were pirates that specifically, were searching for artifacts made by his father. So rather than kill him, they decided to take him on to their crew, because he offered to help them look for things made by his father.

So let's go a little bit into the backstory. We've already established that, you know, Farthing was abandoned, or they had an adopted father. And when that father was executed, you were basically an accidental stowaway who became an accidental pirate. Yeah. So what was your relationship like with your father? What was your father Name.

My father's name was Luthier, as in Luthier is the word for someone whose profession involves making instruments. And it also just sounded very Elvish. So I liked it. And that is how that happened. Finding his relationship with his father is very interesting because I was very, very aware of the trope, especially where rogues are concerned. There's like tragic backstory, my parents were killed, but I am aware that like, Farthing's father did die eventually, but I wanted to specify that far, they had an amazing relationship with his dad, everything that his father makes he emblazons. With this, like, really stylized L. So it's very easy to spot when his dad has made things and it's sort of a quest, but partially grieving for Farthing to try to accumulate as many artifacts that his dad has made as possible, just so he can like find little pieces of his dad.

That's really sweet. What does Farthing look like?

farthing has Sandy blonde hair is her typical, like very tall, sort of Tolkien esque elf, very high cheekbones. Their hair is very long, and very braided with all these like bits and baubles and trinkets that they've picked up from their pirate career, sort of braided into their hair. And the most important piece of which is a golden Crow, braided into their hair, because that marks them as a crew member of the ship, the golden Crow, they have blue eyes, they are typically wearing dark green adventurers garb that they've purposely left a little roughed in scratched up a bit. So they can really sell the island just a poor beggar look. They have the bow usually slung over their back, but it's hidden by a cloak. And then they have these hand trestles all practically always in their hands, honestly. And the really interesting thing about their the gear on their legs is they have special, like reinforced knee padding, so that he can drag himself along without stuffing up his knees and stuff like that.

Does Farthing have a particular voice?

I initially wanted for them to have sort of a bit of a received pronunciation. I very sort of posh British accent. But coincidentally, just in my own career work. Right now, I've been working heavily on the cockney English accent like working class London accent. So far, the accent is sort of morphing into a little bit of a blend of the two. I've decided to kind of leave that because what it sort of brings out is like, I think the sort of posh received pronunciation, like what you would expect a typical elf to sound like, as it were, was Farthing's initial accent as it began. But with their time with the orphans and the pirates crew, it sort of developed into a little bit of Cockney mix, so they can sort of shift between those two accents, depending on what serves them as the need arises. In terms of acting as a beggar and a thief. It might be more convincing. If they sound a little bit more cockney, as opposed to if they're trying to play up the fact that they're like, Hey, I, I'm gonna know how to do magical shit with my bow and I'm the son of an enchanter, they might focus a little bit more on bringing out their default accent as it were. And this character choice was, I will admit, facilitated by the fact that Wesley was getting the two of those accents mixed up. And when I was trying to, you know, figure out a voice for Farthing, but I sat back and I thought to myself, Okay, yes, there's a technical reason because I haven't worked on posh received pronunciation in a while, and I've been working on cockney more recently, but there can also be a narrative reason for this. Let's let's run with this

Hmm, we talked a little bit about the build. But is there anything within that character build that is of particular interest.

I am so very excited to potentially eventually have farthing hanging off of something and trying to shoot their bow. Like I'm very, very, very excited to navigate their different mobility in combat with the roguish features and the features of fighter and action surges and all that, like, I'm very excited, both mechanically for this character and how it will look narratively as well.

You mentioned these mobility aids, let's talk a little bit about that actual item, because that's a homebrew item, correct?

Yes, it is a homebrew. It essentially functions as to immovable rods. But there's also another feature of the item bar then can use a bonus action to sort of slap them together and push a button on each of them. And they will kind of expand into like a little shooting platform that lets Farthing shoot from a floor position with more accuracy. And that gives him advantage on his next arrow shot.

Oh, that's cool. I like that mechanic.

Yeah, that sort of incorporates shooting rests into Farthing's character, which is something a lot of individuals archers with disabilities, uses they will use bow stands or shooting platforms or something like that. So I wanted to include that for him.

Yeah, interesting. Farthing, do you think money can buy happiness?

Well, I mean, sort of, but really, like, money definitely would help with certain things. Food would be nice. Not having to scrounge for scraps, maybe. But at the same time, I have seen folks with quite a lot of money that looks like they have sticks up their asses. So honestly, give me enough to be comfortable and adventure, but I don't need a lot, I suppose.

Thank you so much, Wesley, for joining me and for sharing Farthing with us.

Thank you. This has been great.

Yeah, it's so much fun. How can people find you? And do you have any projects you'd like to talk about?

So for most of my d&d related shenanigans, you can find me as the co founder of forge ahead a party to access. We have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all under a party to access and we also have a website that you can find as well. And in terms of projects I wanted to bump coming up, we're starting a patron and we have first four goals listed. One of our first goals is to create a patron only Discord server that will be moderated by folks in the disability community. And we really want to have that as a space for folks to be able to come and share their characters with disabilities share ideas that they have for DMS that follow our pages. If something disability related comes up at game and you're not quite sure how to handle it, that could be a space to, you know, ask the community, get some responses, get help working through that. That's our first goal. And then our second goal is to release what we're calling access cards. Of I believe it's a first bundle of five characters that we've released on forge ahead. And the access cards that we're creating are based off of an invention by Matt Colville, which is a way for folks to bring NPC characters into their game or player characters into their game without having to you know, do a lot of character rolling and stuff for pick a lot of spells because a lot of the stuff we're creating at the forge is to help combat DM burnout, especially because for folks with disabilities like my co founder has ADHD. And sometimes reading books like The player's handbook or going through massive list of spells can be really challenging. The third goal that we have is this wonderful, wonderful idea that is mainly designed by my co founder who has a big sports background. We are planning on creating an accessible sport board game called Access Ball. We are sort of creating a hybrid between the core Tech system, and d&d Five E for that game. It could be an in game sports like an in campaign sport if you wanted to include like a tournament arc or something, or it can also just be a standalone game. And then the last big goal I wanted to mention is we have ideas for a project that we are calling the disability scene, want to invite folks with disabilities to come onto that project and play like a 20 minute 30 minute like, one on one or one on two, d&d five E or cortex adventure? There are certain elements of being a disabled character are highlighted. And like, if you were to come up against this puzzle, or this combat scenario, how would you handle it as a disabled character, we wanted to sort of give folks snapshots of how some of this stuff we're discussing, in theory would be put to practice. So that's our fourth big goal. And then if we can hit those four goals, we have much bigger projects in the works.

Yeah, it sounds like you have a lot of interesting projects. And I really hope for you guys that you are able to get the patronage you need to make all those happen. I think it would enrich the tabletop community.

Thank you so much. That's so kind of you.

You can find me on Tik Tok at starmamac, you can also listen on YouTube just search for characters without stories. Please like subscribe, rate, review and share with your friends every little bit helps. I'm currently accepting submissions, so if you'd like to share your character, email me at characters without stories@gmail.com Thanks for listening and may all your characters find their stories