Giant Group Picture is Even More Giant

EDIT: Since first uploading this bad boy, I've had to update with some new characters. They're at the far right, so their details are at the end of the list! Go check them out.

As if it even needs to be said, please download for actual viewing!

It's finally done, after a month or so of doodling! This is a group picture of every single one of the characters I've ever played in a tabletop roleplaying game--including one shots. (Well, that's not quite true, I have completely forgotten who I played in a Savage Worlds one shot way back when. I remember playing that game, and I can even remember one of my friend's characters from it, but can't think of who I played of the premade characters we took. But still, I can forgive myself that much. It has been about 9 years now since that game happened.) The original drawings for this picture stretch out over five pages from my oversized sketchbook, now seamlessly smooshed together with the magic of scanners and computers. Now, for introductions! From the left:
Erii--female human monk from Barrakus, D&D 3.5. The first character from the first D&D game I ever played. I’ve had a love for monks since day one it seems. She was hardly well-made because she was my first character, though. Since that time, I’ve learned the most valuable monk lesson of all time: dex-based monks suck big time. I still had fun playing her, of course. She enjoyed tumbling, snatching arrows out of the air, and occasionally stunning an unsuspecting goblin or drow.
“Lucky” Lotus Blossom Barleywheel--female “halfling” (they weren’t called halflings, but that’s essentially what they were) archery rogue from Evernight, Savage Worlds. While Evernight turned out to be a badly railroaded change from our beloved sandbox Barrakus, Lucky was at times hilarious to play. She loved cake (and would often declare her love for it loudly) and had the delusion that she was actually an abandoned elf-child who had been raised by halflings. She was convinced it was all that halfling food that had stunted her growth. Also, she had the bad habit of “borrowing” things and never giving them back.
Joy Ulga--female half-orc barbarian/fighter from Barrakus, D&D 3.5. She’s who I brought in to replace Erii when one of our regulars had to quit the game and we needed to reshuffle group roles. Ulga was one of the most fun characters, what with her crush on “Little Buster” the elf ranger in the party, her bad gambling habit, and her ability to one-shot flesh golems in a single uber-buffed round. Ulga also liked to live in the moment, and occasionally stripped down to her half-orc undies to go swimming in pools we found in our dungeon crawling, making my prudish GM very uncomfortable.
Farvynce--male-ish changeling artificer from Eberron, D&D 3.5. I really had no idea how to play an artificer (and I’ll admit, I’m still not good at it) but wanted to try something a little different from straight DPR. While I loved being the party bitch (complete with his own pair of masterwork manacles) I couldn’t do more than throw a buff on everyone when combat began, and then pop the warforged fighter in the butt with my crossbow when I inevitably rolled a 1 on the first round of shooting.
Tax Sioned--male verrik champion of death from Arcana Unearthed. He wielded a giant scythe and was generally very fatalistic. It was a very short campaign (cut short because of one of our player’s girlfriend being a butt) but I remember having fun. One friend, who has since died, played another verrik, and we enjoyed riding in the back of the cart together and laughing at the “inferior” races.
Quierthalas, aka Queerbait--male wild elf ranger from Shackled City, D&D 3.5. Born into slavery, Quierthalas didn’t even really want to be freed. He belonged to Jade, the dwarf monk of our party, who’d inherited him from his master who’d won him from some less reputable types years ago. He didn’t get to keep his share of the loot, but always gave it to Jade, relying on his master to make sure that he had sufficient magic items to be useful. If Jade hadn’t been played by my prudish GM friend mentioned above, it might have worked out better. Also, the poor guy couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with his bow unless he was being mind controlled. He crit and almost killed our cleric. Oops.
Robert--male warforged artificer from Eberron, D&D 3.5. Robert was named so by his dwarf friend Oskar during Oskar’s feverish recovery from wounds after the war ended. The two formed an odd, unspoken best friendship, and even gathered an adventuring party together. He was guilty of having such great lines as “THE ONE WITH THE VAMPIRE ON IT!” when asked by the zeppelin captain which zeppelin we were supposed to be on. He dressed like Anubis for a fancy party, enjoyed (but wasn’t so great at) cooking, and loved fancy hats. Once he even rolled a natural 20 on a use rope check when he had no skill points in it, all to lasso a skiff and pull it closer to our crashing airship. Sadly, he died to a screaming banshee trap later on Xen’Drik.
Sfyn--male half-elf cleric from Red Hand of Doom, D&D 3.5. Sfyn was a serious ladies’ man. He and his half brother, Gryf, had an almost Spike-Angel relationship, but underneath the teasing bickering, they truly cared about each other. The campaign itself, while very well written, had some flaws from our GM who couldn’t understand that when Sfyn got shot by a sniper, we should be able to tell what side of the street the sniper was hiding on. That GM also couldn’t tell which direction stairs went, or how to rule on a chimera getting hit with blindness/deafness. On the other hand, Sfyn and Gryf were very enjoyable to play, and the rest of the party was fun, too. Especially the elf dragon shaman who wound up impressing the Tiri Kitor elves with his Lord of the Dance moves enough to get them to come to the city of Brindol’s aid.
Sennet--male shifter rogue from a friend’s homemade campaign world, D&D 3.5. We were air pirates, and Sennet was based loosely of Riddick. I enjoyed playing an actual evil character, since my gaming group tends to either not allow evil characters, or play them as evil-stupid. Sennet was definitely out for himself alone, but it was fun to be allowed to be vicious for once.
Sergaaras--male elf cleric from a 2nd edition adventure ramped up to D&D 4th edition rules. This little elf kid was made halfway as a joke and halfway as a hybrid between Gaara from Naruto and Azazel from Fallen. (Denzel Washington, great movie.) He was a little elf kid born with a demon, abandoned to die by his family who was afraid of him, and now stuck adventuring with adults who didn’t understand him. He did what he could to use his demon-granted powers for good and awesome, but with only limited success.
Raevelona “Raen” Rathenos--female elf wizard from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, D&D 3.5. Raen had lived through a vicious attack in her village, by a bunch of her jealous male classmates. Her bodyguard warforged, Broje, wasn’t there that day to protect her, and felt it was all his fault. Together, she and Broje left the village, though her family never understood, and went adventuring. Along the way, they got caught up in Ravenloft, and with the help of a deck of many things, Raen pulled two keeps out of another plane, plopped them down on either side of the road, and set up her own new kingdom. She died to Straad once, but was wished back to life by a plucky little gnome illusionist who found her diary and fell in love with her from afar. Raen herself, however, will only ever be in love with her bodyguard Broje.
Pookie--male halfling bard-barian from a gestalt game, D&D 3.5. Pookie and his companions didn’t do much more than fight kobolds, but it was our first experiment with gestalt characters. Surprisingly, bard and barbarian fit together pretty well, and I always always always wanted to play a halfling barbarian. One of the best things about him was the smokes he had to have after every time he raged. Suuuure, that’s tobacco . . .
Feng--male half-orc druid from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, D&D 3.5. When Raen died, I brought in Feng, the shamanistic druid who enjoyed switching from bird form to giant man-bear-pig form (which is what we called his fighty-animal form) in mid air and dropping 60 ft onto his enemies. He had the HP to support such behavior, and it was always a hoot. Feng was old for a half-orc, nearing the end of his adventuring days, and although younger than some of the party, enjoyed calling everyone else “puppy.”
Lion--male dwarf druid from City of the Spider Queen, D&D 3.5. Lion wasn’t his real name, of course, but this old dwarf man who had once been a traveling performer had gotten so deep “into character” that he’d actually forgotten his own name. He never even left dire lion form anymore. At times a little senile, Lion did enjoy his slippers of spider climb that let him walk on the ceiling and make charge attacks straight down onto unsuspecting drow. Also, I had to write myself out a flow chart for his bajillion attacks on a charge.
Ginger--male elf rogue/swashbuckler from a few unconnected one shots in D&D 3.5. We rolled stats the old fashioned way, even keeping them in the order we rolled, just to see what we could make. When I got dex/int with nothing else worth mentioning, I was a little stumped until someone suggested swashbuckler. Turns out Ginger was a pretty decent character, even if we did begin the game completely naked and with no magic items. He wound up being sexually ambiguous, too. Go go, fantasy characters getting abducted by aliens! We woke up in a coliseum and had to fight to the death with our bare hands for the amusement of a strange, grey-skinned, long limbed people, but never got to the part where we could actually fight our way to freedom.
Bastion, or Sebastian--male human monk/fighter/tattoed monk/kensai from Eberron, D&D 3.5. Bastion is my special monk who used to be a thug, but is now trying to make an honest go of it, all while hunting for enlightenment. Now that he’s got the ocean tattoo (doesn’t have to eat or sleep), he’s been fasting to prove how repentant he is for his previous sins. He found his way to a monastery while on the run from the law, and the monks agreed to give him sanctuary as long as he devoted his life to doing good. He agreed without really thinking he’d do it, and began training under Master Chen. When he heard some of the other monks talking about how Master Chen had glimpsed enlightenment, Bastion thought it was some kind of treasure and fought Master Chen for it. He wound up killing his master (though Master Chen really let him) and running from the monastery and back to his life of crime. When he discovered that Master Chen had instilled a conscience in him, Bastion gave up on being evil and truly did devote his life to doing good. While he’s a little slow on the uptake, he’s got a good heart. Also, he once punched a silver dragon to death. With his naked fists.
Drusilla--female elf rogue from some random one shot in D&D 3.5 from ages and ages ago. We knew it wasn’t going to be a long game, and just got together to play for fun one afternoon, so I made an enjoyably insane elf girl.
Za-Za--female halfling cleric/church inquisitor/radiant servant from Eberron, D&D 3.5. She’s the little leadership’d cleric companion to Bastion. While she may not have much to do in combat other than chucking around her favorite silenced stone, and might be little more than a healbot out of combat, I like to think that she and Bastion have long discussions and debates about religion, deities, enlightenment, and philosophy.
Zinnia, the King-Queen--female half-orc bard from a homemade Pathfinder adventure. She’s probably my favorite character aside from Vinny, if I’m being completely honest. The half-orc bard was a character I wanted to play for ages, and when I got the chance to make her in Pathfinder, I jumped on it. She was glib and carefree and fond of charms and mind control even as she ran from an angry ex-fiance. At the end of the campaign, she declared herself the “King-Queen” of the little city-state we were adventuring in. Also, she was terribly fond of telling crazy stories from her previous adventuring days, and singing little ditties I found on the internet.
Shiro--male eladrin fighter from round 2 of our first D&D 4th edition game. Shiro was a megalomaniac with a heart of black gold. He wanted to take over and rule the world someday, but at the same time he was self sacrificing and kind to the members of the party. He totally planned on using them all shamelessly later, but the juxtaposition of being both kind and an evil dictator was most interesting. Favorite moment with Shiro was when he used his once-per-encounter racial power to teleport INSIDE a force wall trap that was filling up with water just so he could keep a fellow adventuring companion from drowning--with no guarantee that they could break the trap.
DeVenin--male halfling warlock from round 1 of our first D&D 4th edition game. This little guy saved the entire party’s butts when it came to one tough encounter just by pushing the bad guy around on each of his turns, but other then that, there’s not much to say about him. I dropped him from the party in favor of Shiro because of shifting party dynamics.
Jo‘Quan--tiefling warlord of unknown gender from a 4th edition one shot. Jo’Quan is either a very pretty man or a very strong-boned woman, no one is quite sure. He/she wears enough bulky armor to hide whatever physical signs are there, and his/her voice is in that luscious but indefinable middle ground between the genders. Jo’Quan is a tactician, preferring to end fights quickly with good plans and quick thinking than with vapid words of praise.
Jude Venture--mad scientist doctor type from Rippers, Savage Worlds. When his family was killed by a werewolf while he was away at school becoming a surgeon, Jude went a little crazy for revenge. He hunted down the man who had killed them, discovered the man’s dark secret about being a werewolf, and then killed the man while he was still only a man--before he shifted back to werewolf form. Then Jude took one of the werewolf’s eyes, and replaced one of his own with it to give himself darkvision. Rippers is a setting of the classical English romantic horror novel, so we got to meet Sherlock Holmes, kill werewolves, and hunt Frankenstein monsters. Jude once dressed as a “bait” girl for a monster, keeping his punching daggers (we called them “strap-on Wolverines”) inside a pretty fur-lined muff until the monster showed up.
“Mad Max” Maximus--male human skin-turner (fighty druid) from Roma Arcana, GURPS. He was a runaway gladiator slave who had originally come from a central Asian Hun-like people group. He got sold off after throwing a match, even got married to another slave named Mitseria and had a son. Then he tried to get himself, his wife, and child to freedom by using a mild poison to make them all sick enough to be taken off their owner‘s property, only to be stopped by Mitseria herself when she saw what the poison did to Max. Max, finding himself out on his own and running from anyone who tried to catch him, hooked up with an adventuring party that included a young courtesan sorcerer girl, a retired military officer from Rome, and a swords master from the far east. He put every spare penny aside, saving up for the day when he could buy his son’s freedom.
Eloise “El“ Stafford--librarian-type widow from Call of Cthulhu. El was a young, educated widow who had traveled the world with her husband before he died (under somewhat mysterious circumstances). After the weird and strange arose in her normal life, she joined up with a fast talking journalist, an old professor with a sword-cane, and a bouncer from a downtown speakeasy in order to cast lurkers out of attics, get thrown out of second floor windows by possessed furniture, nearly eat rusted nails while mind controlled, and even burn a giant swamp beast up with gasoline. We played Cthulhu late at night by candlelight, and had a GM who could make us nearly pee our pants with the scary!
Absalom Davies--half mountain-person “dog” from Dogs in the Vineyard. One of the most unique games I ever got the chance to play! Set in a fanciful old west where the Mormon-ish church is the law in a nearly lawless society, we played “dogs,” agents of the church who went out from town to town mediating disagreements, settling conflicts, and putting people back on the path of the church. Absalom was the son of a devout farmer and his converted mountain-person (the native people of the region) wife. Absalom had a temper problem he tried very hard to keep in check, but he usually escalated the disagreements to fisticuffs sooner than necessary. He had a time trying to work together with Virtue who only saw things in black and white, Ezekiel who was a reformed city boy, and Gabriel who was better and winning with words than guns. Favorite moment with Absalom has to be when we were talking to an old mountain-person lady and I said I’d address her in our native tongue, and then said, “Bonjour!”
Quinn Moreaux--gay socialite in a wheelchair from Hunter the Reckoning. Quinn was the leader of the wealthy Moreaux family by the time he got imbued to see monsters for what they were. He did what he could to fight the zombies and werewolves and warlocks, and even got to shoot a lawyer in the face in the final battle! He did his best to protect and take care of Nina the college student, Jackson Jackson the drug dealing ex-soldier and his little girl, Rodney the good natured high school athlete, and Gilbert the quiet school principal--all of whom had their lives turned upside down when they started to fight monsters. Eventually, Quinn had to give up control of the Moreaux family money to a cousin because of all the strange behavior witnessed by those not imbued, and that turned him into a much more manipulative man. In the end he was willing to sacrifice himself and everyone he could control to take out the big bad evil in town.
Hunter--poor art student from Hunter the Reckoning. Yes, I’m original in naming people. He had a drunk abusive dad at home, had just recently been dumped by a long term girlfriend, and was struggling to keep his job cleaning up barf at a local bar, and make it to finals even while he fought a team of vampires and their zombie minions. He ended up in the hospital many times for “racoon” attacks after fighting the monsters. Highlight of playing Hunter? Probably when I took a deep breath, walked up to the lady I KNEW was a vampire in dominatrix getup and told her the LARPers usually met on the other side of town.
Chloe--gothic Jewish lesbian who worked at Yankee Candle Co. at the mall, also from Hunter the Reckoning. Chloe was me in a lot of ways, even if I’m not gothic, Jewish, or a lesbian. She was the steady one in an unhealthy relationship, struggled with her family and how they couldn’t understand her, and barely made car payments on an old junker. She was loads of fun to play, especially with the GM running Glory, her on-again-off-again girlfriend. Chloe is also the character who caused the word "hat" to become an adjective, but that's a whole other story.
Vincent Alexi--druggie, bisexual, sex crazed alien pilot from Traveler: Interstellar Wars, GURPS. What can I say about Vinny? He’s my favorite, and probably always will be. He was orphaned by the war, doomed to die a slow insane painful death because of his genetics, and is in a very codependent relationship with his ship captain and father figure, Mongoose. The crazy stunts we pulled in that game were off the epic charts. We pirated pirates. This was also the game where the phrase “fast talk is the new guns” was coined, and the Schroedinger cat experiment box thing was used in many, many examples. Also, Vinny licked blood off the sidewalk, spent an entire game session pantless, unconscious, and tied up, and at one point, won a combat by running over four or five pirates with a shuttle car inside their pirate ship’s cargo hold. His story is being immortalized (slowly) as I work on its 2nd draft and try to cut back on the nearly 400 pages of craziness.
Anhilde Runehilde--female dwarf warblade from a one shot done entirely so that I could begin to understand Book of Nine Swords, D&D 3.5. She was a spunky little gal, madly in love with Sir Chadwick Rapingwell (this GM has a rather sick sense of humor), a spurned member of her father’s mercenary troupe. Chadwick had been framed, of course, and Anhilde set off on her own to prove that he was a good elf man, deserving of her love. Glad to say that in the end, she did prove all the rumors about Chadwick were lies, and they lived happily ever after.
Sigmund Bryce--military spy from Mechwarrior, GURPS. Sigmund had been captured when he was new to the spy business, was tortured for three days, and eventually gave up the information the enemy wanted from him. No one ever found out that he’d broken, and he lived with that secret, always afraid someone would realize he wasn’t the hero everyone thought he was. During game play, Sigmund snuck into an enemy base camp and pretended to be one of them for two days, gathering info, sabotaging guns and tanks, and then as he was finally sneaking back to his friends under the cover of darkness, he failed a roll and got found out. Fortunately, he was able to use the explosions he’d set up under the tanks as a diversion and managed to get away clean.
Captain Adventure--Indiana Jones type archeologist from Supers. We did random rolling for our character types and super powers, and my dice were not on fire that night. However, I did get necrotic touch, water control, and flight from my ancient Egyptian alien power suit relic thing. Heh. He lived in a tower in the center of Citytownbergville with two fellow super heroes: Mungo, a hulking alien prom night dumpster baby, and Kikkocho, a samurai deep sea diving robot. Together, we took on an evil, robotic alien Hitler, and managed to defeat him before all our beautiful Citytownbergville got destroyed by his evil nazi drones.
Curtis--chivalrous fireman from All Flesh Must Be Eaten. Curtis was a sweet, kind of dumb guy who was all too easily lead around by the manipulative high school cheerleader character of that game. On the first day of the zombie apocalypse, Curtis ate some questionable stew made by some of the other survivors, contracted the zombie virus, and eventually succumbed to it. He ended the game by chasing down and trying to eat the other member of our group, a conspiracy theorist librarian lady. Fortunately, though, conspiracy librarian had put on her vest full of C-4 that morning and sent us both to kingdom come!
Cordelia--shameless floozy cheerleader from All Flesh Must Be Eaten. This particular game of AFMBE was played one afternoon as a going away party for one of my gaming friends. Cordy was a premade character from the AFMBE system, so I slapped the best cheerleader name on her and played up her uselessness. She did once kick a zombie in the face, but other than that I think she spent most of her time hitting on the buff military guys sent to save the survivors. The single brightest highlight of that game, though, was when my friend we called Big Matty J (who was built like a brick wall) selected the premade goth girl to play. Premade goth girl came with a camera and an Ann Rice novel. When the zombies first attacked us and started pulling us from our stopped cars on the highway, Matty’s goth girl watched her friend Jeremy get bitten. When asked what his character did, Matty responded, “I take a picture. Brutal.”

Aaahhh, so many good times . . .

And now also featuring:
The Grand Princess Eternity, aka Moofy--changeling beguiler from our group of level 20 one-shot adventures, D&D 3.5. She was just a servant who grew up in the palace, and happened to become best friends with the real Princess Eternity. Well, when Eternity and Moofy grew up, Eternity fell in love with a poor stable boy. Moofy, being a changeling, took the Princess's place for a few days and then declared she was going off adventuring. (Meanwhile the real Eternity ran off with her stable boy and they got married.) Now Moofy keeps up the guise only now and then to keep Eternity's father convinced his daughter ran away to be an adventurer rather than to marry the love of her life and raise eight fat children.
Aust--drider sorcerer from a monstrous D&D 3.5 adventure. In this game, all the monster races were enslaved to the standard player races, so we started out being owned by different people. After getting sold as arena fodder, breaking free and making a mad dash for the jungle outside the city, we settled in what we thought was an abandoned temple. Eventually we made a pact with an evil snake-deity-worshipping cult of naga to destroy our slave masters who were coming to get us.
Kluu*Kaah--halfling archer from Iron Heroes, Dark Sun setting. Halflings in Dark Sun are cannibalistic little buggers which is the whole reason I wanted to play a halfling in that setting. While I generally play Kluu a lot like Zim (egomaniac who constantly talks in the third person), he does have a weak spot for his adventuring companions. We juggle a secret adventuring career while winning great fame and wealth fighting in the arena. It took us two minutes to decide to dress like rock stars, but a month of games to come up with an arena group name. We settled on "New Under the Sun" before we realized what it acronymed to...
Monster--mul executioner from Iron Heroes, Dark Sun one shot. Mul are a half-dwarf race that turn out to be a lot like ligers. They don't breed true, but the combo of dwarf and human somehow suppresses their growth limitation. Being big and strong makes them greatly desired in the slave trade, but breeding to make mul is incredibly dangerous to the mother. Monster was conceived on purpose by his dwarf mother who had a witch doctor help her through the pregnancy. After Monster was born, she used him to further her hold on her mafia-esque cartel, until she eventually lost him gambling. Monster eventually wound up adventuring for a living. He prefers control to dealing damage, thus favoring the trident/net combo. He once leaped from a tall statue onto a giant flying bat and dragged it to the ground.
Nash Anderson--journalist from Call of Cthulhu one shot. Nash got invited to the creepy old museum owner's house for dinner, and wound up digging through Sir Nigel's dead wife's ashes, riding a dumb waiter into a cavern beneath Sir Nigel's mansion, and fighting off shadow people "Saw style" with the flash bulb of his camera. Highlight of Nash's short career was probably when he illuminated the evil butler at the top of the stairs with his flash so that the Doctor character could shoot him.

That's all for now, but I'm sure there will be more additions to this picture as time goes by!