The fact that Kat is a freelance adventurer rather than part of a guild is a handy narrative device for her to meet new groups of adventurers on a regular basis.
As it happens, the adventurers she’s meeting how are based on my three Baldur’s Gate 3 playthroughs: a Bard, a Monk, and a Sorcerer. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that the Monk is a Dark Elf and the Sorcerer is a Gnome, which don’t have counterparts in Realmgard — so I decided to just make the Sorcerer short and the Monk from outside Realmgard, which is probably the best I can do, at least given the amount of effort I’m comfortable putting into one of these exercises.
Also, a lot of the elements of how the Monk class is presented in Dungeons & Dragons make me a little uneasy — basically, boiling Eastern monasticism down to Kung Fu is way too Orientalist for my taste — so I’ve just made her a more generic martial artist.
As a freelancer, Kat gets the opportunity to meet and work with all sorts of adventurers. All things considered, she wouldn’t count most of the adventurers she’s met as her friends, but there are a few groups of other adventurers that she’s freelanced with that she likes working with.
She’s still making up her mind about the current group she’s working with: Anath, the Elven martial artist from the Wandering Coast; Melinda, the sorceress who is the shortest adult woman Kat has ever met; and Istvan, the bard from Foxbury-Burybury — meaning that Istvan is almost certainly not his real name.
But, then again, idiosyncrasy and flamboyance are par for the course when it comes to bards…
So far, it’s been a fairly easy, laidback job. Of course, Kat knows how these things work. That just means things are bound to go bad sooner than later. There’s no such thing as an easy job that stays easy.
“Hey, you!” a voice calls as the group makes their way through Hornsburg’s market square.
“Keep walking,” Istvan instructs him companions. “Pretend you don’t recognise him.”
Melinda groans. “What did you do this time?” she asks.
“I may or may not have cheated him at dice,” Istvan mutters. “Repeatedly…”
“Hey, you!” the voice calls again. “You, with the guitar! You owe me money!”
“It’s not a guitar, you uncultured dolt!” he answers. It’s a lute!”
The bard winces, catching himself too late.
“Oh, bother.”
“That’s him — the no good cheater!” the voice says. “I’d recognise that stupid moustache of his anywhere!”
Kat glances over her shoulder. The man with the grudge against Istvan, is big, rough and covered in scars. Typical thug in Kat’s assessment.
He also has a group of friends advancing on Kat, Anath, Melinda, and Istvan.
And there it is, Kat realises. The universe is finally acting to balance itself out. Adventurers are never allowed to have too much luck.
“Well,” Anath offers, glancing at Kat, “at least know you’ll have a chance to put the lessons I’ve been giving you into practice.”
The pay has been terrible, but the silver lining is that Anath has been training Kat in her fighting style. According to the Elf, Kat has an ongoing issue with lowering her centre of gravity…
“Remember,” the Elf tells her. “Keep you feet wide, and bend your knees more.”
“Or,” Melinda offers, “let me stand on your shoulders and huck fireballs at them.”
“Fret not, my friends,” Istvan declares. “I have a plan.”
He reaches for his lute and strides forward, relentlessly strumming his lute as he goes.
Kat watches in bemusement. She has to blink deliberately a few times to convince herself she’s actually seeing what she’s seeing.
“Is, uh,” she murmurs. “Is he just angrily playing his lute at them?”
Melinda nods. “He does that,” she answers. “On the plus side, while they’re distracted, Anath get the chance to do…”
“Falcon Punch!” the Elven martial artist cries, drawing back her fist as she leaps into battle.
“… that.”
Bards be like:
Whereas martial artists be like:
Image via Smash Wiki.
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