Construction Werk: Character Themes

Combining different species, classes, and backgrounds with proficiency and feat selection allows most people to make characters close to their original vision. But, sometimes, a character concept is original, or complex, and requires a unique look at character options to build it. There are often many ways to build characters with similar abilities, and finding the best option(s) to choose can be challenging, but challenging can be fun and rewarding. In the Construction Werk feature we will look at various tips and recommendations on the early phases of creating a character versus builds into even the early levels. This is about creating a solid foundation for your character.

This time we will look at how to build characters by using a theme or motif for the character and making selections based on that.

When creating a character, there are a lot of options, so many options (like the wizard spell list) it can seem overwhelming. One way to focus your character development is by giving them a theme or motif. This can be as simple as an archer (like our previous post) or swordsman, a healer, or using the damage type of a specific element. Subclasses themselves provide a theme, a focus for your character, but they don’t come until 3rd level and they may have divisions. Adding a sub theme, or expansion of a theme, can make your character more interesting. Druids control nature, but focus on either plant or animal, not both; or one element.

Besides how they fight or the powers they wield, it could also be why they fight: a purpose or philosophy such as patriotism, protecting the weak, hunting monsters, or the age-old vanquishing evil. An exorcist is a concept that isn’t tied to a specific class but can help you choose the spells you select.

One way to look at creating a theme is to think of your character like a superhero. After all by later levels they can be as powerful in a fantasy setting as superheroes are in modern settings. Superheroes are often good at one, or a few, thing(s). They are strong, fast, or durable’ they wield fire, or cold, or psychic power.

While it can help direct choices, a theme doesn’t have to force you into only doing one thing. For example a fire-damage based spellcaster can and will have spots to pick more spells than just their element or damage type, or a swordsman can carry other weapons. Diversity is good as well in case your chosen type is resisted (although there are ways to bypass that). But the theme will help you make good choices on things like Feats (a swordsman will want Slasher versus Crusher or Piercer).

Combining two themes or motifs can get you far in defining a character that is interesting and fun to play. Think of different, out of the box, combinations. Instead of speed with the obvious air or wind, combine it with fire, or thunder (the speed of sound). Combine both light and darkness for someone born during an eclipse, or to represent dawn or dusk. Some previous examples:
Ylithe is a radiant damage melee weapon wielder
Anija is a cold damage unarmed melee caster
Vey is an avian, corvid (crown and raven) themed rogue
Skulgesh is an unarmed bouncer, a controller

Finally, a way to weave your theme into your character is by adding flavor to existing abilities, traits, and spells. As long as you don’y change the damage type, your DM should be good with, even encourage, you adding your own spin to the description. Change the color (green-flame blade doesn’t have to be green), or reverse it and when selecting more fire spells describe them all as green. For example, the character Vey listed above is bird-themed. She could take spells like Sword Burst and Cloud of Daggers and say that the ‘blades’ are a flock of birds instead and Gust could be from the swarm or her wings creating a gust of air.

Kylbi: A Fiery Archfey Warlock

Warlocks are a class whose subclasses, by way of features and spell list, already provide a theme. Each of the 2024 (and other resource book) subclass patrons are unique in flair and flavor. Archfey patrons are, well, fey giving qualities of the feywild such as fluidity and enchantment; Celestial provides radiant damage and healing; the Fiend is fire and resilience; and a Great Old One patron grants eldritch psychic powers. But with a variety of patrons within each type and the character’s own background and personality, you can further focus or expand their theme. In this example, we will look at how to add more flavor to an Archfey Warlock.

Meet Kylbi, an urchin (our setting’s smalfolk) who swore himself to the spirit of a sacred tree that was destroyed in a forest fire in return for the power to hunt down those who started it. I have been playing for 40 years and Kybli was one of my first and longest played characters. He is the seed from which the land of Taluma sprouted. Kylbi has always been a defender of nature who used a combination of offensive and support abilities. Through the various editions and character options, he started out as an elf druid and then a half-elf mage/priest of nature which gave him a broader pool of powers than druid did while still staying focus on nature. His spell selection for primal spells focused on vegetation versus animals. Once Warlock was introduced he finally took on that class. While Warlock may not seem to embody nature much, especially with the Archfey patron you will see that—with a little creative flavor added to abilities—he will embody my vision.

While most urchins live in cities, some do live in rural or even wild areas and Kylbi was born and grew up in a small town near Gaithewaite, the largest city in the area. His father was a messenger who had pigeons to deliver most but sometimes would deliver them himself, this included messages to the elves of the Ebonwald forest to the north. When Kylbi was old enough he would join his father, and developed a fondness for the elves—and they for him. Through events (to be told later) he joined the elven stand and was allowed to study and worship with the grove there, centered on the aspen tree-spirit Salicia. The stand was attacked by wicked humans who started the woods on fire. Many elves died, some survived but were forced to flee. Kylbi tried to help his community save the sacred tree, but they failed. Before her tree was fully destroyed and she was banished back to the Feywild, Salicia reached out to Kylbi and imparted some of her fey power in him so he could take vengeance on the perpetrators and seek to restore Salicia and her elven grove. Before the fires consumed her, Salicia turned the raging fire around them and within her into a fiery vengeance within Kylbi.

The Build

Kylbi’s theme will be fey traits combined with a focus on fire-like powers. Instead of redefining spells like Green-flame Blade and Hellish Rebuke which are described as green, since his power is fey all his flames will be the green-tinged eldritch fire granted by the enraged Archfey Salicia. He still retains some nature magic, but being fey-touched it becomes more spectral.

Species
Kylbi is an urchin, our Homebrew smalfolk who replace the gnomes and halflings of other lands. He is size Small and has some other species traits you can read on their page, but aren’t hugely important to Kybli’s character other than he can speak with animals which ties in with his link to nature. He gets proficiency in Insight, Performance or Stealth and I pick Insight.

Origin Background/Feat
Guide. As someone who traveled the lands around Gaithewaite with his father, and who had connections with the elves, this give him traits that make sense. He gets proficiency in Stealth and Survival and Cartographer’s Tools. He gets Magic Initiate (Druid) which obviously works well. Since he will be a Warlock with Charisma as his spellcasting ability I choose that for these spells and select the cantrips: Druidcraft and Magic Stone (urchins are known to use slings). If he wouldn’t have access to them later I would pick Shillelagh and Thorn Whip. For his 1st-level spell I select Healing Word to have a little healing that Warlock’s (other than Celestial ones) don’t normally get. Guide does not give Charisma as an option for ability scores, so I go with the +2/+1 option to Wisdom and Dexterity.

Class:
Level 1: Warlock 1
Proficiencies: Nature and Investigation.
Eldritch Invocation: Pact of the Tome. This gives him more spells beyond the Warlock ones. More cantrips—especially for a Warlock—is always good and getting two rituals adds more utility. For cantrips I take: Shillelagh and Thorn Whip for more druidic flair and Sorcerous Burst which he will normally use fire as the damage type (which of course will be green) to start to build out his fire-related spells that Salicia grants him. Remember that these count as Warlock spells and can benefit from class features, which is why I took them here instead of from his Magic Initiate feat.
Pact Magic: He gets two cantrips and two 1st-Level spells. I select Green-Flame Blade (natch) Infestation (which could even be tiny fey he summons, or just pests); and Arms of Hadar (which will be described as spectral vines) and Hellish Rebuke (perfectly aligned with the green-flamed vengeance.)

Ability Scores
I use our house rule Array of 16/14/13/12/10/8.
STR 8, DEX 13 (+1 Background), CON 10 , INT 12, WIS 14 (+2 Background), CHA 16
for these final scores
STR 8, DEX 14, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 16

This really already builds Kylbi with our description. While he maxed out at 16 for Charisma, most players can only get 17 which is the same +3 bonus and he has a Wisdom of 16 in case maybe we wanted to explore Druid multi-classing but just goes well with his background. He has three spells that manifest his fiery fey green-flames and others that—with flair—represent the spectral fey vines he can summon. We will finish building him to 3rd-level when he gets his subclass and can fully manifest the power of his Archfey patron.

Level 2: Warlock 2
Eldritch Invocations: He gets two more. I select Agonizing Blast:Sorcerous Burst (remember the note above about Pact of the Tome spells counting as Warlock spells) for extra damage (Green-Flame Blade is also an option to use with Shillelagh to really stack damage if you will be in melee often) and Devil’s Sight which gives him 120’ Darkvision even in magical darkness which seems like a very fey quality and would allow him to attack a creature at the full distance of his Sorcerous Burst in darkness without penalty.
Magical Cunning: He can recover one of his limited 2 spell slots once per Long Rest.
Level 3: Warlock 3
He gets his sub-class of which we are obviously choosing the Archfey Patron, his sacred tree spirit Salicia. This gives him more spell selections (Calm Emotions, Faerie Fire, Misty Step, Phantasmal Force, and Sleep) with Faerie Fire (in green of course) aligning with his theme. He also gets to Misty Step without expending a spell slot 3 times (his CHA modifier) per Long Rest and when he does so can heal or taunt.
All his spell-slots are now 2nd-level and he gets 2nd level spells. He now has added: Cloud of Daggers (which we describe as a stronger Infestation of tiny fey or pests) and Enthrall which is a very fey-type spell.

At 3rd Level he has AC 14 (Studded Leather + DEX) and 18 HP.
In combat he would use these options.

• Cast Sorcerous Burst from up to 120’ way, even in darkness, at +5 to Attack and do d8+3 fire damage which can increase. If he rolls an 8 he can roll another d8 and add it.

• If he gets stuck in, or just wants to melee, he can use a combination of Shillelagh (BA)+Green-Flame Blade to attack with +5 and do 1d8+3 force damage from the staff and 3 fire to another opponent within 5’.

• He has two 2nd-level spell slots to cast higher damage spells than his cantrips or to use for utility. Arms of Hadar can do 3d6 necrotic and block reactions or Cloud of Daggers for some AOE. He can control with Calm Emotions, Enthrall, and Sleep. Faerie Fire can help him and his allies hit with attacks. And he can move around the battlefield with multiple uses of Misty Step.

• He can even provide some healing with Healing Word and the refreshing version of his Misty Step.

Summary

With a combination of his Origin Feat and Pact of the Tome, I was able to give Kylbi themed spells that fit his background beyond the typical Warlock spell list. He has plenty of options for the fey vengeance green colored fire, his elf and druid-like nature connection and some support/control from a fey-touched spirit.

Level 4+

At 1st-level we already had Kylbi built within the framework of his theme, and by 3rd-level he has fully manifested those abilities. The Kylbi I played made it up to high tiers of play, and it would be interesting to play him now to reach those levels again. I will just project where I might take him to 5th-level which is a major milestone starting into the 2nd-tier of play.

At 4th-level, Kylbi gets a Feat and there are three options: Increase his Charisma by 2 to get it to 18 and a +4; take a Feat which will increase his Charisma by 1 to get it to 18 by level 8; or multi-class. As great as it would be to get to the next modifier bonus with Charisma, its boring. Multi-classing to druid (he has a WIS of 16) is an option to get more of those abilities, but he already has the druid cantrips I want and we’d need to probably go to level 3 to get more benefit. Unless we were going to consider Warlock a ‘dip’ and go fully druid which is an option. If we stick out Warlock to level 5 we get 2 more invocations and all of his spell slots become third level. So, let’s continue with Warlock.
At 4th level Kylbi gets his first feat and there are three options I would look at: Fey-touched (because he has a fey patron), Spell-Sniper, and War Caster. Fey-touched gives him an extra Misty Step casting and another spell. He doesn’t really need the range from Spell-Sniper and with his Misty Step he can get away from melee. War Caster would allow him to use spells for attacks of opportunities and get Advantage on concentration checks. I am going to go with Fey-touched and select Hunter’s Mark for his extra spell with one free casting to get more damage. Hex would be similar but doing necrotic damage just doesn’t feel right as an Archfey warlock versus say a Fiend or Great Old One. He gets one more Cantrip and one more Prepared Spell and I choose Create Create Bonfire (green flames of course) and Charm Person (which isn’t a concentration spell).

At 5th level, he gets two more Invocations and I would select Fiendish Vigor for more survivability and Lessons of the First Ones to get another Origin Feat and take Lucky which seems very fey. His cantrips increase in power so his Sorcerous Burst does 2d8+3 his Shillelagh becomes d10 with Green-Flame Blade doing 1d8 to his target and 1d8+3 to the second one. All his warlock spell slots are now 3rd-level, and he automatically gets Blink and Plant Growth from his Archfey patron. He gets one more Prepared Spell with 3rd-level options available and I would choose Summon Fey (which is kind of oddly not an Archfey granted spell).