Qurr the Birbarian - Building Better Backstories with Jay (D&D 5e)

Hello friends, welcome to characters without stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Celeste and you can call me 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. This episode, I'm joined by Jay. Jay and I met on Tiktok, where Jay goes by the username AllThatJaz22 which I'll let you spell at the end, because it's a little bit different.

It only has one z. Yeah. No hyphens and underscores.

Yeah, oh, it is a weird and wonderful thing that we are able to meet people from all over the world that share a love of TTRPG games, and I'm so excited to be talking to someone that I met on social media.

Oh, me, too. I mean, I remember the days when you know, if you didn't find that nerdy kid at school, who maybe was wearing a Dungeons and dragons t shirt or something like that, or Megadeth, or was talking about Monty Python, you felt you were completely alone. And now we can just like hashtag Monty Python, and the world will find you. Yeah,

That's so true. Jay is the creator of better backstories, which is a set of cards that help you build a player character. And I am going to give you a chance to plug your projects at the end. But if you wanted to start with telling us a little bit about yourself, okay,

well, my name is Jay. My real name is James. But I go by Jay, I identify as a transgender non binary femizenter, which means I have male and female parts, but I look I dress feminine all the time, even though my voice doesn't allow for it. But I have completed my transition and I'm happy with who I am now. I'm 47. I grew up in Alaska for 20 years, actually, North Pole, Alaska, a small town in the middle of the state. And yes, I know Santa Claus personally. Then I joined the Navy as a broadcast journalist for 20 years. I served overseas in Japan, Iceland, Spain, and aboard some ships. Then I retired in Maryland, and I worked as a teacher at the broadcast school for military where I learned and now I am a English teacher in inner city Baltimore.

Wow. Interesting. So tell me Jay, who are you bringing to the table today?

I am bringing Qurr the Birbarian. The best way to imagine her is she is a thick, Puffin based Aarakocra.

Oh, nice. I don't think I've seen a puffin.

I exactly. She was literally built off the idea. I'm being from Alaska, I've seen puffins and I was thinking oh, I want to do like a nice strong girl barbarian and puffins are kind of puffy. They're they're thick. And I said I gave the art to give the idea to an artist friend of mine blazbaros, look them up because he does most of my art and his stuff is fantastic. The shading is to die for. And I said female, thick Aarakocra Puffin based and he gave me some fantastic art with a nice massive belt and a huge axe and she's gorgeous. And I just I use better backstories to develop backstory from there, but she was originally based on a pun - birbarian. Barbarian, bird - birbarian.

Was the pun the spark was that the thing that first made you start this character?

and then I just put birb and barbarian together. And then I just said, Okay, well, who do I want to make? And I just thought, strong female bird character. And in d&d, you've got the aarakocra, which are bird people. And I just thought Puffin would be a good you don't see it. You know, you know, you don't really people, I think, I think aarakocra are typically based on like hawks and the Eagles but I mean, think of an ostrich aarakocra or a kiwi aarakocra or a sparrow aarakocra. You know, I think they could make the aarakocra race, small or even tiny, and get some really interesting songbirds or parrots.

What game system would you be playing Qurr in?

Qurr is based in d&d, I used to do a thing for better backstories called NPC of the week where I would take one of my existing characters and beef up their backstory and then actually create an actual, like d&d looking profile with a stat block saving throws, you know, attacks the whole schmeer and then a nice detailed backstory, including three potential adventure hooks, if anybody wanted to slip them into their story, and they're still out there on my Twitter feed.

I am sure that whatever DM you ever play this character with is going to appreciate that. Oh, yeah. Nice to have the hook.

Well, I mean, that's the best way to implement a character into a non existing campaign. And again, people are free to modify and adjust as necessary. I say that every d&d game, every role playing game out there is just a variant. It's an alternate reality of what are core reality there may or may not be?

Is this typical of your approach to character building? Are you starting with wordplay? Do you usually use your deck to build backstories?

Typically now yes, just because I took the brainstorming part of my brain and put it into this deck of 80 cards, but sometimes I'll have freeform ideas that will come to me. I had a character once, who I just wanted him to have a barnyard animal as his companion, you know, rather than something more traditional, and that morphed into an artificer with a pet rooster. Nice, but the cards I rely on the cards pretty heavily nowadays, it's really freeing not to have to okay, how am I gonna make this person so different from myself? Because I found that a lot of people when they're first creating characters, they just base it on themselves, or they base it off of something they saw. Oh, this guy was raised on a desert planet and given a magic sword. Oh, that sounds familiar. All right, which which is a fine way to start but I love brainstorming I love coming up with new ideas and taking characters in completely different directions and playing off tight like half orc wizard who's actually smart. Why do you think they became a wizard? Or vice versa a smart barbarian?

Why don't you give me kind of a physical description of Qurr.

Qurr is about six feet tall is very built young lady she has a mop of brown hair kind of her crest is kind of like this brown not quite dreadlocks but just kind of thick. She has black wings. Most of her body is black except for the white around her eyes and cheeks and then a strip of white down her chest. She's wearing leather armor and a metal pauldron on her left arm. She carries a massive battleaxe that has a long curved blade. She has specialized footing that wraps around her clawed feet so that her talons are still exposed.

So we already know that she is a barbarian or is she starting out at level one? Are you did you build a higher level of character?

I built her level one, I build most of my characters at level one as a as an NPC. I think I beefed her up a little bit, you know, but she's got the standard reckless attack. And as a bonus action, she can move her speed towards a hostile creature she can see so she's got a couple of little bonuses.

Would you say that she's straight? Would you say that she is lesbian? Do you have a sexuality that you've chosen?

Left to be decided? You know, that's kind of the thing with a lot of my characters is just you got to play them really figured that particular part out even as a non binary person myself, very few of my characters, and I have over 250 of them are either non binary or identify as queer most of my characters are either straight male or straight female.

Interesting. Why do you think that is?

I think it's just because it's where I came from. I lived 40 years as a straight white male. And you know, I've only been queer, transgender for the last five, six years. And I think it's just easier. I think that's that's why people identify as they identify because it's path of least resistance assigned male at birth, I guess I'll do this whole male thing. And that's, that's where I was for a really long time, even though I knew since I was in middle school that I wanted something different. It just took me many, many years and took a while for society to get to the point where I could live my truth because I couldn't live like this in the 90s I would have had to live in a commune in the middle of Kansas or something.

Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of younger people don't realize how much things have changed very recently.

Yeah, I mean, we've lived through it.

Does Qurr have a voice?

Again, because I never played her. I haven't really gotten into the voice. But I see her as kind of Brigitte Nielsen, a little bit deeper, but still sensuous. Or Grace Jones. Yeah. Classic 80s warrior women.

Yeah. I love how they're like tough but also so stylish and so charismatic,

Very much indeed.

Let's talk a little bit about her backstory or background.

Well, I actually already have it written up and I'll just read right through it here. Yeah, so Qurr grew up in her tribe in a sheltered

Sure. community among the mountains and glaciers of the North. Life was hard, and it was hard to find joy amid the grey wasteland. She was the first child her parents had born after several failed attempts. Her mother was devoutly religious and considered Qurr something of a miracle. Her parents made a decent living hunting for otters and walrus in order to make clothes blankets and tools. Our grandfather was the mayor of the ramshackle town, and though he did well to look after his people, he was quiet and reserved. Qurr's mother admittedly knew very little about where her father had come from and how he had been raised. He was always wary of strangers often asking others to gather details about the newcomers for Awesome. You mentioned the name of a god which I have not heard him before ever meeting them himself. another slice of joy entered her family. When Qurr's brother was born. She was very protective of him and did everything she could to help out her mother as he slowly began to grow. A couple of years later, when Qurr was eight years old, a six stranger entered the village. Initially clerics took care of the visitor, but soon they became Sick themselves. The plague spread rapidly and few recovered. Grandfather shut himself indoors as soon as word of the illness reached him. People eventually began abandoning the town but course family tried to close themselves off and prevent infection. However, her father became sick and passed away. So her mother decided that Qurr and her brother would try to escape the plague. Sadly, her brother got sick and died while they were traveling, leaving her with a lingering sense of anger and resentment. Later, both Qurr and her mother also got sick. Luckily, they both recovered but remained weak for nearly a year. Qurr exercised regularly to before. Tell me about Syranita. build up her strength and endurance in an effort to stave off any future infections or illness. Her mother found work She is from the Forgotten Realms. And she is the patron as an isolated hide tanner and dye specialist in a new city to deity of the aarakocra. Seen as a female aarakocra with silver the south. Seen as refugees and outsiders. They struggled for many years until the plague ended and Qurr's mother could find better work and make a name for herself as a local seamstress. At 15 Qurr entered seminary and devoted herself to Syranita her sensibilities lend themselves more towards combat than healing and she worked hard to enhance her strength and skill with a great axe. She learned of an aarakocra paladin named Ekek, and she imagined becoming a divine warrior herself. However, her rough personality and deep seated anger issues lead some to call her a barbarian term she does not quite appreciate recently, a word came to the abbey of an ancient relic of Syranita that had been stolen by bandits while being taken to an archive were sees this as her chance to prove her devotion. So she graciously volunteered to begin a pilgrimage track down the artifact and bring those responsible to justice. skin and pink gold feathers. She loves music and sometimes would appear in her avatar form just to listen to bards. You know, another question came up for me is that barbarians as a class are kind of defined by rage. And I know that some people take that a different direction and I fully support that but how does rage work for Qurr?

She kind of focuses on the memory of her brother she felt that she could have done more even though she was so young. I think she also has a little bit of resentment for her grandfather for not stepping up and doing more to repel the the plague causing their home to to fall into shambles. I think that she just kind of latches on to that. But through Syranita she's trying to use that rage for good to focus it in a direction where it's not destructive for destruction sake, but destructive for cause and like said she's using it to recover lost artifacts to port her pantheon and religion guided rage is better than wild rage.

Right? Right. I feel like a lot of times the story of a barbarian involves learning ways to channel that anger obviously too much anger is unhealthy. And a lot of characters are going to start off with some sort of emotional or personal problem that they need to overcome. And so I think that happens a lot with barbarians. Do you think that that's the arc that you see for Qurr?

I can see her probably multiclassing into paladin at some point and and really taking that more as a direction in her life because of her devotion to Ekek, the aarakocra paladin, so she's kind of like trying to follow in their footsteps so I think that would be character development you know so yeah, right now she's she's got this rage she she identifies as a barbarian. But her goal is to start doing something more positive with that rage through the teachings of Syranita and to try to be more of a holy vessel rather than just a engine of destruction.

So you haven't had a chance to play Qurr yet. Why are you excited to play them?

I'm excited to play all my characters, but for her, it feels like just her appearance is fun. The pun is fun. I make all my characters very believable. I think a lot of people don't bother with backstory they like for instance, they play barbarian just because they know they can rage and get the strength bonus. But again, like you said, Why are you raging? Where's that rage coming from? I have an idea of playing. I know I'm going off here, but I have an idea of playing a barbarian who is actually more of a used car salesman type of attitude. His rage comes off more as kind of a pompous incredulity, rather than it's like oh, well, you know, we're gonna have to you know, get the undercoat on that. And his rage comes off more as a cutting sarcasm than dark evil, you know, yelling and screaming. Right,

Right. Interesting.

But with her I just I'd love to see her story developed. I'd like to see a DM I always whenever I write my backstories I try to leave things very vague. Notice I didn't name the town she's from I didn't name the town they ended up in I didn't name her family members. Also, did her grandfather survived the plague or not. Right? Is he living as a hermit up in that town now? Or was he kicked out by somebody? So I'd like to see a DM, take what I given take the playdough and mold something for me and see where it goes. So I just be excited to see what somebody could do with her her backstory for my sake.

What kind of campaign do you think would be well suited for this character?

Well, I mean, she'd definitely do well in Icewind Dale, I think for sure, but I wouldn't mind seeing her doing a Waterdeep campaign, really bird out of her native environment, trying to make it in the city where she, you know, she barely understands the concept of doors.

Yeah, what do you think? Was her hometown predominantly aarakocra?

I think yes, predominantly aarakocra, a mix of other races, like dwarves and such as well. She's familiar with other races, because again, they did move south to another town, though she's she's familiar with other races.

I've always found it interesting to imagine how town built by aarakocra would be different. So you mentioned like doors, for example. How do you think that she would adjust to living in places that aren't predominantly aarakocra? Or how do you think she adjusted when they move south?

Well, I think that a typical aarakocra doorway would be wider than a regular doorway. So I think right away, she would have to get very used to tucking her feathers in a bit tighter, maybe even wearing some type of a binder, a quick release binder to kind of hold her feathers in so I could see it being kind of situation where her feathers are pinned back so tightly, they can't really tell she has been until she just flexes a certain way. out they come because she was having trouble tucking them in for the smaller doorways of typical races, I think that there would be a lot of perching instead of sitting in a chair, I think she would be much more like with her claws, like right on the edge of the chair, like in her knees up. Just little things like that, that I think would lean into her birdness but also her puffiness which they enjoy rock climbing and diverse social creatures. So I think she would try to form a very close knit group of friends and cuddle puddle.

Yeah, I love that. You built a level one character. So there's probably not a lot of special features at this point. But does your character have any unusual stats or build or anything like that?

Not really, just focused on survival, religion, insight and athletics, or dumps that is actually wisdom, average intelligence, high strength and dexterity and a decent charisma. But yeah, no, no, no specific, special abilities quite yet.

I yeah, I'm kind of curious. Some people take a very kind of mechanical approach when they're building a character. I think some people even start with wanting to exploit a particular mechanic like making the fastest character possible. Not my personal approach, I'm kind of curious how you approach building the actual mechanics of the character.

I go with just what feels right. I try not to min max. But if you're playing a barbarian, you're going to want to put your two highest abilities into I usually use the standard array, you want to drop into strength and dexterity. You don't make a cleric and then give them an eight wisdom. You know? Yeah, you could. That would be fun. I recently made a character. And we rolled for stats, and I ended up with a four as one of my stats, right? And it was like, Oh, my God, and I put it into his constitution. He was a I think I went with bard. Yeah, I did go with bard bagpipes. But I gave him a low constitution and asthma. And ironically, he's like, Wait a minute. He's got as nobody plays the bagpipes. And he's like, he's like a person who stutters who can still sing. Yeah, he has. He is trained. He knows how to use his breath control specifically for the bagpipes, but still has to use his inhaler, from time to time when dealing with talking to the mayor and trying to express himself.

Okay, I would like to ask you an in character question. If you could go back and change one decision you made in the past? What would you change?

If I could change one thing about my life, I'd go back and hold my brother much closer. I think I could have saved in the fight, taking him away sooner. If I hadn't trusted my father and my mother. I was just a child then but still, I miss him so much. And I do anything to have him back.

That's, that's sweet. I like that. Thank you so much for bringing Qurr to the table and sharing your methods and your approach to building character is really great to talk to you. I am going to now give you a chance to tell us about your deck better backstories and anything else you want to tell the listeners so that they can find you and follow you.

Well, thank you so much star. This is been wonderful. It's such a great concept that you've created here, you know, giving people the opportunity to talk about the characters that, you know, they may or may never get the opportunity to play. So thank you for that I am the creator of better backstories. Again, I make a lot of characters, and I wanted to make them all unique. And there are several books out there where they give you inspiration on backstory elements, but they're very cumbersome. It's like rolling on a chart, going to page six rolling on another chart going to page 23. And it was just too much. And I wanted something that was quick and portable. So I designed these cards at cards, they are just meant to inspire you and kickstart your imagination. I created the cards. I wanted to print them so I ran a Kickstarter, I asked for $3,000 and I made $25,000. 50 backers from all over the world, www.betterbackstories.com And that will link you to my Facebook, my Instagram and my Twitter accounts where I regularly post examples of better backstories videos on how I use better backstories which I also do on Twitter. On Twitter, I do a thing called ask me what's your backstory and if you go to one of my videos and you type in what's my backstory, I will create you a one minute backstory using five cards from the deck and posted on Tik Tok for you and anyone else to use as inspiration

And your TikTok handle once again.

My TikTok is allthatjaz22 And if you go there you can find various examples of better backstories and one minute backstories or even request one for yourself.

Cool great. If you are interested in sharing your character on the podcast go ahead and email me at characters without stories@gmail.com you can go to characters without stories.com and listen to previous episodes. I would really appreciate it if you can like this episode if you can subscribe to the podcast if you can review it if you're on Apple podcast, every little bit counts. Thank you so much for listening today and have a great day