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The art came first before any concept of anything. It was a giant black aarakocra that looked vaguely like a raven, had a glaive and various tribal imagery on the body and my jokey dumbfuck ass went "Nevermore!" which made my DM roll his eyes. All in Voice Chat. Not as hard as when he asked where he was from and I said "The Colony" and he started to spell it that way before I said "No no. Like the CAWWW-lony!" It really wasn't anymore than that on the planning. When asked why he was a barbarian it was because his husband had died. I had so little connection to anything in the game because I was there for the inception but a meta-gaming asshole frustrated me enough that I left instead of causing shit. When the DM kicked the metagamer out he asked me back because he figured out why I had left. So I started playing this Nevermore guy instead but felt out of place with everyone.

After a few months of playing together and travelling, his behavior was wildly inconsistent and it felt weird so I sat down with the DM and we cleaned up his backstory. Added in far more stuff but expanding on the jokey shit. A lot of the gags that he had made or random comments were solidified and expanded far further upon. Also retuned him from full barbarian to echo knight fighter/storm barbarian. So much so that when Nevermore briefly left the party for a couple of months and I was playing a character called T'vok T'kuvma (shut up), the party went into a bizarre emotional free fall for a little bit. T'vok was built as a therapist character so the timing felt appropriate but still. I was actually retiring Nevermore but after a while some random thought occurred to me how I could get him back and I got so fucking excited. Started talking to another player in the game and he said ask the DM and I did. He loved it too.

Blind siding nearly everyone, Nevermore came back a couple months later with an entirely new setup. Now he had a new class with his other classes shifted around. Now he's a Vengeance Paladin, Echo Knight Fighter and Barbarian and fuck me is he scary. He's not wearing any armor and has a 22 AC. Luckily, my DM ain't a bitch and routinely throws things into the game that will toss Nev around like its nothing. Boy saw a challenge and made for a fucking excellent game. He's not on lemmy, I know he'll never see this, but he's genuinely the best DM I've ever had the pleasure to play for. I love the man so much. He's a great friend who has allowed me to play with some other great friends for a very, very long period of time. So long that I even got art commissioned for. Refining the look of the original aarakocra into what he is now. Sorry this ended up being longer than I expected but I love Nevermore... he has been a consistent thing throughout a long period of turmoil and confusion. I rely on him. Maybe one day I'll get some more art done of him, maybe of the group too. But as it stands I've only ever been in a position where I was able to afford it once. If you're curious, here's the original art that the concept was based off of and the art I had commissioned.

Long live Nevermore <3 Long live The Firestarters. PS... Nevermore speaks with a weird blend of a Bostonian and Brooklyn accent because what better suits a barbarian?

Note: The commission, second image, was done by Useless Elf! Want to give her a shoutout and some credit for doing a great job.