Name: Cid Viscous
Campaign: The Great Tower of Oldechi
Yes, it’s a pun. There are a lot of puns in my character list. Mostly from one guy.
I think Cid was the heaviest reskinning I’ve ever seen from a player. On paper he was a shardmind (psychic crystal person) druid with a staff that let him teleport. But during play he was a man made of slime. He wasn’t a telepathic crystal; he attached slime tethers to your head and spoke through vibrations. He wasn’t changing into a goat; he was switching between “slime form”, where his uncontrolled lashing devastated nearby enemies, and “slightly less slime form”, where he maintained enough control to look vaguely human and manipulate his body more delicately and at greater range. He didn’t teleport; he contorted his body, warping it in ways impossible to predict or stop. He left portions of himself around instead of summoning swarms, he became the floor and moved enemies instead of pushing them, and he forcibly supported your internal organs instead of healing you with primal magic. He had a disgusting, intolerable, phenomenally creative build.
His personality was similarly interesting, in that he had an actual, honest-to-goodness growth arc. He started as an insufferable lone wolf, willing and able to leave the party in the dust while he solved problems and accomplished things without the party’s knowledge or consent. Over time he grew to accept his role the group, right around the time he became a campaign villain (take a drink) and the party tried to kill him. From then on he was merely obnoxious. (Get it? Noxious? Slime? I’ll see myself out.)
Cid was the final nail in the coffin for the “I run off on my own and do things while the rest of the party watches” character concept. Players aren’t allowed to do that in my campaigns any more, and it’s a large part of why I loathe the vigilante class in Pathfinder. But at the same time, he’s the example I give players whenever I explain how powerful and fun reskinning is (along with everybody in the One Piece campaign). Cid got away with things I wouldn’t have let any other character do by virtue of his design, like using an Acrobatics check to get through a solid wall by extruding himself through a monomolecular hole. Initially I was worried about this, but I changed my mind when I saw how much everybody enjoyed it, even if he was explicitly working against the party at the time. When people applaud your efforts to thwart them, you’re doing something right.
At this point I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say I think less of a character with no reskinning at all. I don’t know if that’s necessarily good, but Cid’s definitely part of it.
Cid was part of the final party in the Great Tower, so he ascended to godhood and he’s now part of every campaign I run. He changed his name to Velius, for in-character reasons I’m sure have nothing to do with how I refused to have a character with a pun name in my pantheon.