From Beginning to Current times
A brief summary of my favorite young man who has been a welcome addition to my imagination and life.
About three years ago, I journeyed out to a little known place called The Battle Standard, a location I only heard of when I was researching D&D near me. I had never played dungeons and dragons before and didn't know a single person who did so, with a mix of heavy nerves and thrumming excitement... I joined my first game there.
Aldren Hensic Von Riona, a half-elf rogue based off of Vaxildan from Critical role was what came into fruition. A noble with a sordid past and a quest to find his long lost sister who had been kidnapped by fey. I played him for the first time a few months before covid-19 hit and fell in love with the character. Even though he would be seen as a lone wolf, the way I played him held a bit more of a softer side, a mischievousness to his quietness.
Right from the get go, he was an interesting character. In his intro session he tried to steal from a corpse since, well, the guy wasn't using his stuff anyways and got caught by the resident good guy paladin. He was able to play it off as simply helping get the corpse off the wall and carrying it out of the place where they had fought giant spiders. Chaotic Neutral was and still is his alignment and it shows as he did actually help with the transportation and burial of the bodies.
But the story I remember most from before Covid was when he was journeying to find information on a star dragon with his teammates. He barely survived a fight with a rug of Smothering, which gave him an inherent fear of rugs, and rescued a teammate from certain death by taking a heavy blow that almost killed him when fighting the dragon.
It was around this time when I realized that he was not a dagger guy, he was an archer, quite different from Vax and, so... the character slowly started to drift away from the original design and became his own person.
Then... Covid Struck.
The Affects of Covid:
I was unable to play for over a year and it dragged at me. I wanted to bring out my character again and continue to explore his story. Soon, though, the store once more began to open up and I got a chance to rejoin. So... I did.
This second time was like a breath of fresh air. People I met before I got to see again and new people always seemed to pour in. However... soon enough I found a group of people that I came to see as close friends and, as a result, my character's story and there character's tale began to intertwine.
Aldren went from being a lone wolf to a companion and friend. He began to see those around him as siblings and, through him, I began to grow. I started to draw him more often and delved into his mind through RP and text. It was like I could become him and be a character I could never be in real life.
Aldren is fast and brave, a sniper with the skills of any ancient war general. He's a tactician with a heart of gold and has the ability to fly through the sky with wings of flying, a magical item he received after helping to clear a temple in one of the many lands that dwells within the march. One friend called him a mobile siege unit while another labeled him as the 'batman' of the group.
He is also the only high level character who isn't a magic user and, yet, he is on par with many of the powerful warriors that he see's as allies and who see him as one as well.
He's charismatic, has a silver tongue and is sharp as a whip. In a lot of ways, I envy who he is and, so, I always look forward to delving into his story and settling in as him to enjoy whatever game I'm in.
The Progress of my artwork thanks to him
With Aldren being such a pivotal character in my life, it's no surprise that I have done a lot of artwork of him over time. The progress is something that astounds me and I can't help but feel grateful that he helped me open up more as a person, but also as an artist. Strangely, for a character that doesn't exist, he feels like an inspiration to me. After all, in a strange way, he is part of me. I created him, after all.
He's come so far, from this young man who accidentally fell into a soul tree with his friend Elena:
To having the ability to change gender when necessary to hide from the very people who want him dead:
To allying with god's, rescuing his sister and affecting the very course of history:
And, yet... his journey is still ongoing and I can't wait to see where it ends up. What choices will he make? Which sides will he pick? How will his story end?
Dear reader, I am excited to see it and hope to share his story with you from here on out with anecdotes from the past... and future tales.
A powerful Inspiration
I am forever grateful that I took the leap of faith into the world of the Battle Standard and D&D as a whole. It's allowed me to meet some amazing people and learn more about myself. It gave me the courage to ask the questions I needed to ask and convinced me to keep going. Aldren will forever be my first and most precious character when it comes to dungeon's and dragon's... In a lot of ways, I hope to embody a lot of his good qualities, not just his bad one's.
If you want to hear more about his journey, or about my artwork and writing, don't forget to subscribe, and, if you like my art, pick up a printed piece either on my store, etsy page or artstation! Links below:
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/julieboglisch/prints
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