COVID Character: Sarth Hen'Hannar

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.

Sarth Hen'Hannar

Aliases: None
Pronouns: He/him
Character Concept: The Grey Mouser
Character Stats: 5th level Dual-Classed Human CN (3 Swashbuckler/2 Bloodrager)
Campaign: Rise of the Runelords
System: Pathfinder 1e
Campaign Status: Ongoing

 

This guy is weird, okay.

 

The concept for Sarth has been floating around in my brain ever since I read the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories back in the day. Sarth is an obvious nod to the Mouser, and I have written a few short stories of him that never went anywhere. I also played him in a LARP years ago, which never went anywhere, either.

We were starting up Rise of the Runelords, and I didn't have an idea for a character, so I decided to take Sarth out of his box, dust him off, and play him. I started out as a Fighter, because Pathfinder was and is nearly impenetrable to me, especially at higher levels. 

Things went off the rails pretty quickly after that.

Sarth loves fighting, so much so that when he is badly injured or when he faces a (to him) challenging opponent, he starts cackling like a madman out of the sheer joy of it. This caused at least one player to remark that Sarth was a barbarian, actually. I had never considered that (barbarians in D&D and D&D adjacent games always default to shirtless, buff, angry people with axes, and not small, slight, laughing people with rapiers). I liked it, though, so I dual-classed into barbarian as soon as I was able to. 

Somewhere down the line, when I was slightly more comfortable with the system, I asked the GM if I could switch from fighter/unchained barbarian to swashbuckler/bloodrager. These were, in effect, much more complicated versions of the same thing that fit his character pretty well. The GM let me do so, and now I have a lot more interesting things to do in combat...provided I remember to parry, occasionally.

Sarth is also Chaotic Neutral. This is a new thing for me, because alignments are a) silly and b) hard, and Chaotic Neutral seems doubly so, at least for me. Previous iterations of CN I have seen portrayed tend to be wacky/insane/obnoxious, and I tried not to go that route.

 

As a result, Sarth is a man with a lot of problems. I think he suffers from some kind of mental regulation disorder and is an adrenaline junkie. When he's on an adventure, he's somewhat more focused and practical, because he's riding an emotional high. When he's not on adventures, he drinks too much, acts a little strangely, and engages in self-destructive behavior in a desperate attempt to stay "up". 

He does, however, have something of a moral code that he tries to stick to. He made himself the personal minder of the one actual Evil character in the party, sticking by him to limit the damage that person caused and to kill them if they ever crossed the line. He refuses to fight fleeing or helpless enemies, though that's mostly because they're not a challenge. If you're on an adventure with him, he will do right by you, even if he really, really, really hates you, because that's what you have to do to survive.

Sarth also--and I honestly don't know where this came from--has a thing for monster girls. That lady that's turning herself into a demon? Yes! That ghost lady in the cursed manor? Yup! The lamia that we haven't met yet, but that I've heard is coming up? I'm already putting on my cologne, bay-beh!

Like I said, he's a bit of a weirdo.