COVID Character: Gwynn Delgado

Since the start of the pandemic, I have played more role-playing games than I ever have before. I thought I'd use my space to introduce you to my characters, and give you a little background about the system they're in, what they're like, and what they're doing.

Gwynn Delgado

Aliases: The Korvosan Drifter
Pronouns: She/her
Character Concept: Living out my best Dark Tower life!
Character Stats: 1st level LE Half-Elf (Drow) Gunslinger
Campaign: Curse of the Crimson Throne
System: Pathfinder 1e
Campaign Status: Abandoned

 

I love Stephen King's Dark Tower series, so if a game lets me play a gunslinger, well sir, I'm going to be playing that gunslinger. Thanks, Paizo!

Gwynn shares more than just her profession with Roland Deschain. Like him, she is uncompromising in her decisions and wholly focused on her end goal. She believes in law and order (and, conveniently, sees herself as the just and proper arbiter of both), but she will absolutely walk right over you if you are bleeding to death between her and your goal.

Gwynn was one of a triad of characters I made to challenge myself. I wanted to play "evil" characters that could still work and play well with others. I subscribe to the belief that alignment in D&D (and adjacent games) is pretty silly, but also that there's a big difference between player character evil and Big Evil Bad Guy Evil. Like, yes, I'm a bastard. You all know I'm a bastard. But that guy over there wants to nuke the moon, and I will work with you to stop him. Because I have my own selfish reasons for not wanting the moon to be nuked. 

I also thought that Gwynn could have a bit of a narrative arc--similar to Roland's--where she went from jaded, single-minded loner to someone who was ever so slightly more optimistic and able to rely on her friends. And also to have friends. 

Alas, the campaign ended shortly after the first chapter. Which is too bad, because I had just introduced the core conflict of my character and I was waiting to see whether they would keep letting me tag along or whether they'd knife me in the back.

The inciting incident for the conflict could not have been better set up if it had been intentional. Here's what happened.

In chapter one, the players are brought together by their mutual hatred of Gaedren Lamm, who is a small-time crime boss who had wronged them in some way. Our plan was to track him down and kill his ass dead. 

The GM decided to expand upon this introduction a bit. Apparently, in the actual game, you go immediately to Lamm's house, kick in his door, and fill him full of stabs. In our game, we went from place to place tracking down a person who knew a person who knew a person who knew where Lamm lived. 

We finally get to the dockside, split-level shanty where Lamm is holed up and we prepare to go in for the kill. I commandeer a rowboat and start ferrying people over to the lower entrance of the shanty, at which point we are attacked by Lamm's pet alligator! 

 

The battle doesn't go great. We win, but our cleric is down, our sorcerer is out of spells, and everyone else is pretty beat up. I managed to get through the battle unscathed and also stabilized the cleric. Naturally, I stepped out of the boat and announced that I was going to go put N bullets in Lamm (N = as many as it takes for my rage to subside).

The other players inform me of our plight, and I calmly tell them that I had gotten all the way here, and I wasn't leaving without gunning Lamm down. I also point out that if we leave and come back, Lamm will have moved operations and we'll have to find him all over again.

The sorcerer makes a very persuasive argument, and I agree to withdraw. We, of course, lose Lamm, but we stumble into the second chapter of the adventure in which we find out the king has died. We also get hired on as mercenaries for the new queen. 

At some point, the cleric wakes up, and finds out that I was willing to leave them behind to kill Lamm. An argument ensues! 

What happens after that? We'll never know!