Open Legend RPG character build: Aetherficer Bunny

You might be familiar with our Open Legend game “Aether Skies – The Beginning of the End.” Doug, Professor Bill, Ty and Megan have already done character builds for the game, and those articles were fascinating reads, so now I’m finishing up the series by stepping back onto the website and showing what is behind the curtain with my character.

Open Legend RPG is an open source roleplaying game designed by Brian Feister, who sponsors our weekly live game that streams on Fridays at noon Eastern on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. The core rules for the game are available for free online here.

It feels weird writing an article again when I have not done so in so long. I might dive into stuff currently going on in the game or even stuff that has not been revealed yet so you have been warned.

Open Legend RPG character concept

Typically when I hear of an RPG that I need to make a character for I quickly grasp onto a concept that I like and run with it. There were several things that happened when we began discussing the ideas for our Open Legend Aether Skies game.

First and foremost I like the ideas of what some call monstrous races in an RPG. When Dave said that there were going to be kobolds or goblins as a primary race I immediately wanted to play one as my character.

When we discussed how the world works and the use of aether I wanted to use it in some way to make a character that would not be able to fit in any other standard game I was playing.

By latching on to a unique world concept I was able to distinguish this character from others that I was creating.

Now, handling raw aether as Dr. Lucy does was just too much of a risk for me so I decided on playing it safe and thus became an aetherficer – or to those more familiar with typical D&D terms he was an artificer.

Open Legend RPG mechanics

Having played Open Legend before I was lucky enough to know a little bit about the system, but had not made a character. This was still going to be a new experience.

Bunny the kobold aetherficer was going to be an interesting build. Open Legend RPG really needs a player and a DM to be on the same page with what a character is able to do as it is a very interpretative game.  The attributes are broken into several categories as some of my fellow players may have gone into: physical, mental, social, and extraordinary, each with its own sections. As kobolds are small I figured his might would not be very high and I assigned him a 1 from his time spent working hard. Agility was going to be high just due to the nimbleness of his race. For this I gave him a 4.  Lastly there is fortitude and I went above what a normal kobold would probably have and I gave him a 3 based on the abuse he suffered pre-story and managed to survive.

I skipped social altogether. I assumed that he had no graces besides being polite, because he was forced to. But there was no need to put any points here. As a kobold with a knack for engineering he had to be smart. He had to have something that made him stand out and be worth keeping around. Because of that I placed his logic of 4 and learning of 2. Without these he probably would have been done away with. Having points left over I bought will and perception of 1 each. Looking back I could have saved these meager points to use later for other stat upgrades but this was the first character I made in the Open Legend system and it seemed a waste to, well, waste points.

Lastly I moved to the extraordinary abilities. Bunny has the ability to make just about anything within reason when it comes to devices. I wanted to have his objects limited at the start of the game so he had some room to grow. I put 1 point into alteration for the concept of his tools and building/fusing things together. This was a bit of a throwaway ability but fits the overall character theme so I went with it. Again his tool kit is kitted out with this power. I put 1 point in movement to say he crafted a pair of aetherball boots that he wears all the time allowing him to move slightly faster than his legs should be able to allow. Typically movement in this game is designed for flight or teleport but that does not fit Bunny at all.

Lastly is his heritage and bread and butter. I went with energy and a level of 3.  It is cool and well to want to be able to make and fix stuff but sometimes you need to be able to just blow stuff up. Energy certainly allows for that. It is using the elemental forces. Bunny’s focus just happens to be on fire. Yeah he could make a device to do a freeze blast but that is not as much fun as setting it on fire. He has a backpack connected to a pistol that can fire a single ray or open as a cone like a flame thrower. He has also used this attribute in-game to make an explosive device that leveled a building.

When I got to feats it became a little tricky as many of them are designed to make a character better at combat, which I did not feel that Bunny should be. You only get 6 points to start with in Open Legend so I actually dumped most of them into his brains. I took Knowledge (Engineering) I and Craft Mundane Item I which ate up 4 points. This really gave him the feel that when it comes to engineering he really could take a piece of junk and turn it into something useful. Because he had the flame thrower I took Area Manipulation though it did not do what I thought it did when I selected it, but it has become useful. Lastly, having spent so much time climbing around junk piles under threat of whip and torture I gave him climbing. This allows him a climb speed, technically, but he is not Spider-Man. He needs to have something to actually grip for it to make sense.

Role play

As a character Bunny suffers from lack of confidence and is not used to people being nice to him. Regardless of what is on the character sheet he comes from a background where if he performed well he was simply not abused. So it is tricky to be in a situation where that is not the case. He dances on the edge waiting for the hammer to fall, literally, on him. I try whenever possible to address the other players and NPCs with terms of politeness and superiority. These make sense given his upbringing. He does not have any real pleasant memories prior to be rescued by Kryzikk. Only discovering his abilities could come close but even those were exploited.  I try to incorporate this into his style of behavior and speech.

Bunny does not really have any goals, though the construction of Mutt has allowed him the possible option of friendship. Perhaps the other party members may as well, though he is still feeling them out as well, waiting for the punishment when he messes up.

Secrets

As revealed in a more recent session, Bunny was a slave. No one – even Nerdarchist Dave as Game Master – knows his real name besides me. He was born by the name Creganar and from early on worked in the junk piles. His human master, only ever referred to as master or sir, liked to humiliate Creganar. One day in the piles, a beat-up stuffed toy rabbit was found by Creganar and he tried to keep it secret from his master and he was told he was not allowed to have his own things. His master cut it apart and made him wear the ears as punishment. It was then years later that always wearing it and only ever being called Bunny that it was just habit and he honestly does not know any better. He knows better than to correct anyone. Most feel it is an affectation because of the ears instead of being caused by them.

 

Over the years of slavery it became apparent that there was an untapped talent and it was nurtured, but through force rather than affection. Master profited greatly from the work of Bunny and beatings lessened. But when profits slipped or Bunny failed to perform to the new standard he was beaten. The tools that Bunny used were the first thing he was allowed to keep because they were necessary to actually make things and the boots only fit him and allowed him to move and work faster so those too were allowed. His flame thrower he made after Kryzikk saved him.

 

He really does not know much about what is going on with the Aethernati that he works for now but he does not have to work until he is exhausted and gets enough food so he continues to perform well. A small part of his intelligent brain wonders if this is all an elaborate plan of his original master to offer deeper levels of despair and torture.

Logically, how Bunny views things most often, it seems far fetched to go these lengths for that so he hopes each day that he might actually be free to do as he pleases. Until that time he potentially has friends in these new allies and Mutt, which came in the first few sessions being his constructed companion, with the feat Companion.

Thanks for reading about this Open Legend RPG character and remember – until next time, stay nerdy!

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