Introducing: Sir Reginald Valkyrie

Introduction

“Sir Reginald Valkyrie, at your service. Where I come from matters not, for I have always been on the move, until now. I seek knowledge, artifacts, and the comfort of a hot drink at the end of the day.

In combat I will be your shield, your strength, your bulwark. For weapons shall crack across my shell as if they were made of paper.

This guild seems a suitable place for me to make a temporary home in aid of my quest for items of powers. And who knows? I could make some great new friends along the way.”

Background

So, a good friend of mine has started running a server for the group I run with for D&D in the style of a guild, known as the Raven’s Flight Guild, where players can have a roster of characters that can take on a variety of missions, all run by the other players in the guild, giving everyone a chance to have a go at DMing.

In short; it is D&D for people without consistent schedules, or for those who need a more regular fix.

And when a workday went wrong leading to me not really having a workload that day, I decided to work on what I wanted my first guild character to be.

Building

Originally Sir Reginald Valkyrie was supposed to be my character for an upcoming second half of a campaign a friend is running, where he was initially a level 8 Tortle Samurai Fighter with a focus on great weapons and Magic Initiate as one of his feats. He quickly got sidelined by me being a dirty Dexterity main a character concept that spoke to me more on a creative level.

However, I still had my sights on getting a Tortle I could regularly play with, leading to the decision to transplant the name and original focus (Strength based melee with light casting) to my guild character, but now with a different class.

The rules for homebrew in the guild follow an approved content list, normally approved by one of the guild masters. Thankfully the group had been using Mage Hand Press (MHP) content for enough time to have the majority of MHP original classes be included with no problems.

And whilst the voice of the divine was strong, urging me to play my first Paladin, there was no doubt in my mind once I heard the Warden’s call.

Warden follows a lot of the same defensive lines as Paladin, but offers more options to allow for the Warden to control the tide of battle. From forcing creatures to stay near you unless they specifically use their action to disengage, to applying disadvantage on a single creature that chooses not to attack you. Combine this with abilities that allow for recovering status conditions and resisting piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing damage at low health, the Warden is very much a case of “You shall attack me, and only me, and I’m going to make it damn difficult for you to kill me”.

So, I had my Strength focused class, I had a high AC due to my natural armour, but what could I do to introduce the light casting element at level 3? This is where my choice of subclass came in: Loreseeker

Loreseeker is Eldritch Knight: Warden Edition, essentially. Limited spell pool from needing to primarily select from Evocation and Abjuration spells, lower number of total spell slots, and Intelligence as the casting stat.

But where Eldritch Knight focuses on using magic for offensive purposes, Loreseeker provides a mix of offense, defense, and the battlefield controlling nature of Warden.

Starting out, any creature I mark using my Warden’s Mark feature has to subtract 1d4 from any saving throw it makes to resist my spells. Following on from that, any creature I mark is teleported to within 5 feet of me (once per short or long rest), allowing me to bring weaker enemies to me for finishing off or give allies a breather from stronger enemies. I straight up get advantage on saving throws against spells at level 13, and my capstone feature at level 20… well, I will post it next to this paragraph and let you make your mind up on how amazing it is.

Backstory

Whilst I am normally one to launch into giving a character an interesting backstory and then expand on their character through the numerous stories that populate this website… I really wanted to have a character where I did not do that. Sir Reginald was originally supposed to be that for the full campaign he was playing in until my writer sense got the better of me the backstory I came up with for the other character worked pretty well.

Despite this, he does have a fairly brief backstory. In connection to his Loreseeker subclass, he is mainly on the hunt for various magic items. Some of these have been chosen as they would enhance his capabilities in combat, some of them are because he wishes to study the arcane craftsmanship within these items. 

To this end he was a nomad, not really staying long in one place, until he fell through a Wormhole of Plot Convenience^TM and ended up in the world of the Raven’s Flight Guild. Understandably still wanting to continue his quest but needing an anchor point in this strange new world, he applied to the guild as a way to find a place to stay, and maybe make some new friends too.

Characterisation

Sir Reginald Valkyrie is a stoic but friendly individual. He takes whatever mission he has accepted from the guild seriously and remains focused in any scenario involving combat to make sure his vigilant eye never strays from his teammates, ensuring their safety above all else.

I joked during the first session that I would be roleplaying him as a single dad, but, the more I think about it, the more I really like this path of development for him. He is fairly old for a Tortle, as much as he is dedicated to his quest there is a certain pleasure for him in lazing around all day with cups of tea, and any low rolls for skill checks I am playing them as “I’m getting too old for the shit”.

In addition to this, I like the idea that he views his fellow guildmates as a different sort of found family. Rather than seeing the rest of the guild as informal siblings, he is happy for the guild to see him as their informal father figure/uncle (with one character in the opening game asking if they could call him “Uncle Reggie”). So whilst the aspect of “I would protect these people with my life” is still present, it is definitely more as a protector than anything else.

Random Details

• He is not actually a knight, or any sort of noble. The “Sir” is very much an optional title that he uses to sound more fancy, and does not really care if anyone uses it
• Despite this, unless given express permission, you are not to call him “Reggie”. Reggie is reserved for people he wants to call him that.
• He is a Tortle for the sole reason of me discovering the race recently due to JoCat’s Crap Guide to D&D Races video and going “I need to play this now”
• The “Valkyrie” part of his name and the fact he wields a maul is a reference to RWBY’s Nora Valkyrie, though definitely calmer and not as attuned to lightning (though he does know Shocking Grasp)

Conclusion

That is a brief introduction to the character of Sir Reginald Valkyrie, who I hope to go on many adventures more with. Maybe at some point I will write a more detailed backstory for him, but at this moment in time, it does not really matter much to me. He is a big friendly turtle with a simple style of fighting: be strong, and hit stuff.