*Knock knock*
A small burst of flame puffed out of Finn’s nostrils in annoyance. The dragon had originally been expecting six players for his DnD session and now, two hours late, the knocking on the basement door announced that Adam had finally arrived – last and late, both as usual.
“He better have one hell of a character sheet ready to go,” Finn thought to himself as the dragon plodded up the basement stairs.
As he arrived at the door, Finn extended a red scaled hand towards the handle, briefly pausing to admire his new body. He hadn’t been a dragon for long, but he was already appreciating the strength and power of his new form. Plus, his old, dull fox fur was nothing compared to the deep crimson scales now adorning his body.
Finn wanted to continue to admire his own draconic visage, but another knock on the door reminded him of the pest waiting on the other side. Adam had clearly heard the thumb of Finn’s thick feet as they stomped up the stairs and was growing impatient at the inconvenience of being kept waiting at the door.
Opening it, Finn was greeted with a loud, “Sorry I’m late!”
“Here,” Adam said as he handed over a piece of paper, “my character sheet.”
At least he came prepared, Finn thought for the briefest of moments, only to find himself filled with disappointment as he glanced down at the paper in his hand.
It was blank. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Under race was written “Riding Lizard” and under backstory “A tame, intelligent riding lizard that serves as the party’s well trained mount”. But everything else – name, gender, age, physical description, language, even ability scores – were all blank.
“You couldn’t even fill out the ability scores?” Finn asked with a snarl.
“Ok so, hear me out real quick,” Adam replied, “I’m bored of playing generic power builds, I’d really like to RP this game, so I figured I’d do a really non-conventional character.”
“I was hoping to try an intelligent riding lizard, so I’m not really like a front line fighter but I’ll make a good spy or lookout since everyone will just think I’m a dumb animal. Plus, no one will expect when I do suddenly attack them.” Adam continued, “and I didn’t do the ability scores since I wasn’t sure how you wanted to handle that.”
Hmm, Finn thought to himself. He wasn’t about to excuse Adam for being so late, but that was at least a good explanation for why the character sheet was essentially blank.
“Well, this is kind of an interesting situation,” Finn said, “how about I give you 15 stat points that you can just add to that race’s base stats, and you can spend them however you want?”
“That works for me!” Adam said as pulled out a character builder on his phone, before taking back the character sheet and writing down some numbers in the ability score boxes.
As Adam handed it back, Finn saw his new scores: 14 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 5 INT, 19 WIS, and 9 CHA. It was an unmodified physical stat line for a riding lizard, with all 15 of his points having been invested in mental stats.
“That’s a lot of wisdom,” Finn asked, “what does a mount need that for?”
“Well, like I said, I want to play an unconventional character,” Adam paused before continuing.
“I’m going to pretend to be a dumb animal outside of the party, but the high wisdom will let me perceive things that no one else can. I balanced it with the low intellect. Like, I’m smart for an animal but not too smart – I’m good at gathering intel but not figuring out what to do with it.”
“You could still do that with a bit less wisdom and a bit more intellect. Given the issues you’re going to have anyways, I’m willing to let you make it a bit unbalanced. You might find such a low intelligence to be overly… limiting,” Finn replied.
“Even if you want to tough it out with 5 int, you should probably fill in some of these other boxes.” Finn tapped a claw against the table, “give yourself a better backstory, maybe? I’m planning on this campaign lasting for a least a few in-universe years, maybe longer depending on how things play out. You might be stuck like this for a long time…”
“Hah, nah,” Adam laughed, “I’m planning on being more of a side character and besides, none of that stuff is really important for an animal, I doubt it will be an issue.”
“Plus,” Adam continued, “as cool as this could be to RP, I’ll bet it kind of ends up as a dumb gimmick that I just abandon after this session. Who knows, I have a lot of charisma for a lizard, I’ll bet we can find a mount breeder who would pay a lot for me. If this ends up being too lame, we can just have the party sell me off and I’ll make something else.”
Finn narrowed his eyes as he attempted to convey the seriousness of the situation, “You’re absolutely sure about this? I’m not big on letting people remake mid-campaign, and riding lizards can live for hundreds of years…”
“Ya, don’t worry about it,” Adam snorted.
“Well, I tried.” Finn shrugged his wings, “Despite the fact that you were two hours late. I hope being a side character is everything you want it to be.”
Then, as if on cue, Finn opened his phone and began entering Adam’s stats into the DM character sheet.
“And I’m sure the rest of the party will be cool with me remaking…” Adam drifted off, “say, weren’t they supposed to be here hours ago?”