For Theoline, I decided to let the dice decide everything. I haven’t yet had a chance to play Dragonbane, from the Free Publishing League, although I am dying to, so I figured I’d start with something random.

In this case, I came up with Theoline Foamborn, a young halfling mariner. His skills developed on storm-tossed ships serve him well in confrontations on land, as he shows off his nimbleness and quickness. And, despite being young in years, he has a knack for getting a good price on trade goods, having watched and learned from masters of the craft.

Dragonbane

Character creation was a bit of a challenge, mostly because the rules for creation were a bit spread out. For instance, Mariner lists a number of skills to choose from, but the book doesn’t cover skills (and the implications of character age) until much later. That means when I get to the skills section and I’ve identified the number of skills I get, I have to page back to the Mariner section to see my initial six selections.

That’s obviously not a showstopper and, once I get used to the rules, will likely become a non-issue. If I ever get a game going with Dragonbane, I’m likely to use an online platform, such as Foundry VTT, and that should also make things easier.

I admit I am really intrigued by class-less games like Dragonbane, although it looks like Background still is a defining factor (since it establishes a base set of skills and abilities) for your character. I also think the options of Mallard and Wolfkin are… interesting? Fun? I admit that I’m pretty averse to the majority of anthropomorphic animals in D&D, but for some reason these two don’t bother me in Dragonbane. Perhaps it’s because D&D has 50 years of baggage I can’t let go of.

If Dragonbane sounds interesting to you, be sure to grab a copy and support the publisher.