Name: Thrae Ssissth Vorel
Campaign: Unnamed Monster Campaign
If you’re tired of reading this month and you’d rather hear this entry in audio format with three times as much snark, you can listen to us discuss this character at I Podcast Magic Missile. The section on Thrae begins at 18:40 and I suggest skipping to it if you don’t want spoilers for Tuesday.
The epithets I’ve been using in the post names are ones I’ve made up for this month, except Egan and this one. “Pretentious Ruler of the Skies” was Thrae’s in-campaign epithet. It was the initial high concept and the character grew from there. According to D&D rulebooks, even his name is Draconic for “pretty air thief”. If you want to stop reading now because you fully understand this character and his player, I understand.
At the point at which Thrae joined the campaign the party needed three things: arcane blasting power, levity, and transportation. His character design steps were something like “come up with an idea that fits all three, then make it hilarious, then make it make sense.” He was a drunk cat-person airship pirate sorcerer. If you want to stop reading now, I also understand.
I remember him most for his equipment: an airship, which was eventually destroyed when a castle flew into it and no I didn’t get that mixed up; a belt of inebriation, a custom magic item that was largely a Batman utility belt filled with forty different kinds of liquor; and boots of perching, another item that gave him a bonus to Charisma checks whenever he stood in a Captain Morgan pose (“Do you believe me?” [lifts leg] “How about now?”). His race came up not at all, and his class only mattered in combat and when it was funny. His favorite strategy was to quietly cast fly on himself, shout “Ahh! Abandon ship!”, leap off the side of the boat, fly under it and back up the other side while the rest of the party panicked, and calmly land and continue steering like nothing had happened.
Thrae could have been incredibly disruptive if run by a player who wanted to hog the spotlight or troll the rest of the table, but he wasn’t. Instead he provided an off-the-wall comedy that accentuated the more down-to-earth comedy of our pathologically-lying murder golem and our half-naked dragon orc (“down-to-earth” here is, of course, relative). He was only in the group for the last sixth of the campaign and he knew it, so he never expected to get a significant growth arc. He was a great casual character, demonstrating that not everybody needs a dark backstory and personal demons to overcome.
I think after participating in the final battle and saving the world but condemning the party to infamy, Thrae went off in search of a new airship. He was nothing if not consistent.