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I’m currently playing in a Curse of Strahd campaign in which every single player, independently, decided: “you know what would be amazing is if I brought a really stupid character for this horror campaign,” and that’s how we ended up with a party of absolute idiots. It kind of makes things worse when stuff goes south…
Nips is just a big, sweet, dumb boy who speaks with a strong Southern Belle accent. He’s very polite and friendly and just wants everyone to get along. His backstory is that he was mostly raised by his gramma, Betty–inspired by my own grandmother as a way to memorialize her.
Betty’s daughter (Nips’ mother) was a bit of a rebel and ended up becoming a mistress of the duke of their province, a tyrant named Duke Gerard. She fell pregnant with Nips and died in childbirth with him. The duke tried to take Nips from Betty, but she absolutely refused and visited the ducal palace every single day. Nips was such a handful and so stubborn with every nursemaid except for Betty that the duke finally gave up and allowed her to raise Nips as long as he lived in the palace the majority of the time.
The ducal family had a legitimate son after a few years, though, and Nips was ignored in many ways because of this. He spent his childhood running away to his gramma’s house and baking bread and peach jam with her. When his younger brother reached inheriting age, however, the duke sent Nips away. He became a bit of a hero in a quiet fishing village for saving their waters from an overpopulation of gar, thus his assumed surname “Garhunter.” “Nips” isn’t what he was called growing up either–his grandmother called him “Leon.”
He’s worried about his grandmother and tries to sneak back to see her whenever he can.
In my current campaign, he’s stuck in Barovia and wants nothing more than to get back to his gramma. I’m playing him as a paladin with a homebrew oath–the Oath of Family. His “spells” often involve him whipping up homecooked meals and his “holy symbol” is the sun hat his gramma gave him.
It’s been a pretty rough campaign, though. Nips is very homesick.
He has grown to VERY MUCH dislike Strahd for both personal and general reasons–all I’ll say is that our party adopted Vasili as our favorite NPC and brought him everywhere with us. Sooo when the party was invited to dinner at Strahd’s mansion, Nips showed up in his full ducal regalia in order to try and show Strahd that he refuses to be cowed.
That patch on his chest is the Gerard family’s symbol, a spear in an open field. The family specializes in spearfighting; thus Nips’ proficiency with the spear for fishing.
It’s been hard for Nips to face Strahd because Strahd reminds him of his own father; a tyrant. In a way, living in the fishing village gave Nips a way to avoid facing the damage his father has done and avoiding the responsibility ingrained in him since birth of protecting the people of the dukedom. The moral quandaries in Curse of Strahd are difficult for him. It’s distressing to him when he can’t help everyone. A part of his spirit is becoming bitter and hard.
Not to mention that our time at Strahd’s castle didn’t go well…
He actually has a playlist as well, if you would like to listen to it on Spotify 💚 >>HERE<<
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Also check out @birdlimes and @izuris and of course the DM ruining all our lives, @rookdaw, for more art from the campaign B)
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