my current dnd pc. originally a human fighter she's multiclassed into a rather nasty homebrew class called the mutophage. (check it out, it's by sebastian mccoy. be warned; body horror abound.) she's got an insatiable desire for a "perfect" immortality - ageless, invincible, unkillable - but gee that's not been easy to come by

her solution for a while was replacing bits of herself with others. when this proved futile (and work-intensive), she drank an unmarked potion in a lich's lab which has now granted her some flesh-warping abilities.

she's kind of a cunt

some meta details

• to me, characters always have a purpose or some ‘theme’ to adhere to. addie encompasses many given she’s stuck in my brain for so long now, but these are the key tenants i always come back to when making decisions.
• she will always struggle with her own mortality and sense of what’s “fair”/out of her control. she may grow to no longer act on these feelings in an extreme way, but as her core fear, she will never fully come to accept inevitability.
• Freakishness is integral (both physically AND mentally). it limits the connections she makes with others, but she refuses to dull herself or conform. her individuality matters far more to her than social judgment
• love, compassion, and kindness do not come naturally to her — they are things she has to work to learn. her core desire is to be capable of anything she desires, which previously was a very self-focused task. working with others has revealed she’s currently incapable of holding onto meaningful relationships, and this lack of competency frustrates her.

history (abbreviated, because dnd characters have some fuckin Backstory dude)

Valaeria

• i never gave much thought to her birth parents, but frankly neither does she. She holds no angst over being “unwanted” or “abandoned”, and if you asked her why, she’d shrug and tell you most people have better things to do than raise children
• Orphanage years she was a quiet menace. Never an outright and loud troublemaker — more the type to collect a pile of rotting mice in the basement that only becomes a problem when 10,000 flies start swarming the building. addie at her most “natural” had little empathy for others and was quick to follow personal interests at the expense of more “important” things, like sharing or getting adopted.
• She had no legal or official name during this period of time, and enjoyed seeing people flail to refer to her at all
• Stole a lot of library books. The fee remains unpaid, given the above detail
• Addie’s a trans woman, but she never had an identity as anything but female. There was no “transition”, she just insisted everyone else had it wrong.
• She’d pass by bud’s a lot prior to being adopted, drawn to the nature of his work and with a desire to learn more. They officially met after she busted one of his windows and “fixed” a collection of metal fingers. (she cited the joints and movement were all wrong. She got the movement correct, but having zero knowledge of metalworking, fixed them with twine, loose screws and some glow in the dark glue.)
• Bud is responsible for her name, though they did come into some disagreements. She outright refused Bronzbunnz; Throck Morton being a distant relative of Bud’s and a suitable alternative. She also refused any dwarven first names
• The altercation with a powerful family that paralyzed Bud and forced them to move is a bit fuzzy in her memory, but it was her first time responding to a medical emergency. She’s still unsure if she could’ve curbed his paralysis had she known more at the time

• Rebellious teenage years did not involve sneaking out or “borrowing” the car or getting tattoos — her rebellion was pursuing her own line of study into anatomy readjustment (which Bud found pretty abhorrent and wanted to shut down quickly). She did, however, steal cigarettes and medication when left easily accessible, later swiping small items from stores as well
• Had one single year of public school when she was 14. Excelled in every class except history and art (the former was too boring, and the latter prompted arguments with the teacher over what counts for the assignment).
• Also the most socially harrowing year of her adolescence. Was very quickly pinned as a homeschool weirdo and did not make any friends. Unhelped by her growing obsession with her own research
• Bud became her best friend. Their relationship looks thorny, defined by constant intellectual disagreements, competition, and vulgar insults in dwarvish; at its core there is not an ounce of hatred from either party and their spiny attitudes are all play.
• The only thing they would ever get truly heated about is Adelaide’s behavior. Bud’s concern about her wellbeing was not misplaced (he would later be proven right in two capacities after his absence), but addie takes very poorly to being told what not to do.
• Having worn down Bud into an agreement to trade left eyes, they went through multiple rounds of paperwork to plan and log everything. His stipulation was that she had to be 100% certain it would work, so she spent three years ensuring it could.

• Punted into adulthood, addie spent a lot of these years jumping month to month hoping the next she could “figure it out”. Decided to get out of the city to avoid whatever presence confronted bud and started traveling, unsure where she was going or what to do. Odd jobs became one source of income, but much more lucrative were petty theft and gambling (while cheating)
• Fell very easily into seedier circles, eventually leading her towards seeking out a rumored Dark Web. Made some connections and knew who to ask for shelter or where to swipe a quick meal and traded whatever she had access to for help. Introduced to croak by one of those connections, but decided it was a bit much for her.

• While valaeria and ironheim would be more technical answers to where she’s from, neither felt like “home”. Lolthia suited her immediately, and to the present day she still considers it the closest to home.
• Given freedom and resources, the following years at the were initially very lucrative, and she was able to perfect her own process/“art” until hitting a wall in her search. Her momentum halted, her anxiety over incapability and time ballooned into chronic depression, unhelped by having exactly zero social obligations or connections. Drug abuse (remembering the numbing effects from years prior) followed, starting as a means to continue working while healing from her own operations, but continued as a habit and distraction to her dissatisfaction.
• Croak use was ritualistic and metered toward the start, having some concerns over her own safety and common sense. Caution waned over time, dreading sobriety. As a result she is familiar with the drug’s many effects, and has preferences.
• Hates the paranoia, numbness, and forced stillness that can accompany a croak trip. Later discovered paranoia can be countered by taking other medications simultaneously, dulling the effects somewhat, but making her completely useless for hours at a time.
• The feeling of invincibility is generally what she’s after, though this resulted in two instances of auto-surgery she regrets. Age regression was another preference, especially given that on occasion, it meant seeing or hearing from Bud, until years crawled forward and he began to appear less in her hallucinations.
• Pre-campaign, she has attempted sobriety twice. The first instance was leaving for the Plats (when she met Trinket), though she only cut herself off from croak. The second instance was shortly before the campaign, and she stopped both drug and alcohol abuse. This was broken around the time they visited the stone giants.
• She deeply regrets her first relapse and blames much of her strained relationship with Trinket on not being able to stay clean.
• Multiple surgeries continued to alienate her from others and the loneliness set in, oxymoronically amplified somewhat by Trinket’s presence.
• Shortly before Trinket’s moving in, Addie hired a sex worker once to be less of a virgin, but she chickened out and just had tea with her instead.

Other shit

• Long-term smoking habits have resulted in the following: She’s a little raspy, and has smoker’s cough; Yellowish tint to her teeth; Early aging; gray hairs & some wrinkles, particularly around the mouth and eyes; Fidgety behavior — having nothing in her mouth or hands at any particular time results in biting pens and picking at her fingers
• She is always testing the limits of her mutations ‘off-screen’. Her time alone nowadays is spent trying new compositions, seeing what she might find applicable later. Much of this experimentation is kept away from her companions, knowing neither of them favor such transformations, and she can admit the sight and sound of it isn’t for everyone.
• Addie delights in pushing herself to a physical limit. While her appearance doesn’t lend her to it, she’s competently athletic and loves being active.
• She can’t sit in a chair right (and couldn’t even before her current legs). Her ankles aren’t where they used to be, so trying to pull her knees up doesn’t work quite the same anymore.
• Has difficulty making eye contact in conversations, preferring to look at literally anything else. It makes her look standoffish, but she is still listening to you even if she is looking very intently at that pebble on the ground.
• Touch is a big deal to her, unless in a professional capacity. She is perfectly comfortable touching others for the sake of her job, but is really terrible in the opposite situation. She does not hate physical contact (craves it, actually), but does not like being the subject of attention or being viewed as weaker/dependent on it. Same goes for nudity — couldn’t care less about a flasher or a patient, but will flip out if asked to strip for any reason (or walked in on while bathing, @ Trinket).
• Prefers people who are really passionate about something, no matter how strange. People who have no apparent desires or interests really freak her out.