NOTE: This entry continues the character level-up posts and follows Umur Pearlhammer. Best to start with that one if you haven’t read it yet. 

I started my character level-ups with the most obvious class decision, making Umur a Dwarf. But ho, you may have said at the time, is Ethys Haffoot not also a demihuman? Isn’t the choice for her just as obvious?

Not for me. One of the funny quirks of my original dozen Level-0 characters was that I rolled two halfling mariners, and both had ultra-low Agility scores. I felt quite proud of myself when I decided to explain that statistical improbability by making them a brother-sister duo with a familial trait of a club foot (my son was born with club feet, which is probably why it occurred to me). I thought for sure that both would die during the Funnel, if I’m honest, and am surprised that little Ethys and her 2 hp made it to Level 1.

Halflings in DCC are Bilbo Baggins-type characters who move stealthily and are preternaturally lucky. Ethys, however, has a 6 Agility and no Luck bonus. It’s one thing to make Umur a melee fighter when he has no bonuses to his most important Attributes, but do I really want to make a Halfling who is bad at her chosen class? As a result, when I first finished Portal Under the Stars, I was planning for Ethys to be the party’s Wizard, especially since I couldn’t initially picture any of the other PCs as Wizards (and there’s no point playing DCC without one, given how fun arcane magic is).

As I consume various DCC podcasts and forums, many people speak enthusiastically about Halflings and how much their Luck abilities help a party. Eventually I decided, okay… Erin or Hilda could be the Wizard, but no one can be a Halfling except Ethys.

Here is Ethys’ Level 0 character sheet:

Ethys Haffoot. Level 0 Halfling Mariner. STR 11, AGL 6, STA 12, PER 9, INT 15, LCK 12. Init -1; Atk knife +0 melee (1d4); AC 10; HP 2; MV 20′; Act 1d20; SV Fort +0, Ref -1, Will +0; LNG Common, Halfling, Elven; AL Lawful; Equipment: 10′ pole, sailcloth, 36cp. Infravision.

In my Portal playthrough, I basically forgot her 10’ pole (which is ridiculous to think of a halfling dragging through a dungeon anyway). She grabbed one of the four spears from the first room and, like her three companions, had a good amount of wealth after her adventure to allow me to handwave whatever starting equipment she has at Level 1.

Let’s crack open the core rulebook and see what happens when Ethys Haffoot becomes my first Halfling character…

Hit Points: Halflings are not a hardy bunch and only receive a d6 of hit points each level. As a reminder, I min out at half, so let’s roll… 4! Great. Adding that to her 2 original hp, and Ethys starts at 6 hit point.

Two-Weapon Fighting: Halflings fight with two weapons, and check this out from the book: “Normally, two-weapon fighting depends on the character’s Agility to be effective. A halfling is always considered to have a minimum Agility of 16 when fighting with two weapons. This means they roll at -1 die for their first attack and second.” Cool! So her measly 6 Agility doesn’t hamper her as badly as I feared, though this benefit only applies to two-weapon fighting (any ranged attacks, for example, will still use her crappy Agility). She’ll roll a d16 for both attacks, critically hitting on a 16 with either. In addition, she’ll only fumble when rolling a 1 on both attacks, which is great.

Good Luck Charm: Something I haven’t explored yet is spending Luck. Any character can burn Luck to give a one-time bonus to a roll, but the Luck score is “permanently” (meaning, very difficult to recover) reduced when doing so. Not so for a Halfling, who recovers 1 (her level) lost Luck each night. Moreover, a Halfling doubles the Luck bonus, so spending 1 Luck grants a +2 to a roll, and Ethys will be able to expend Luck to help an ally, not just herself, something exclusive to Halflings. From everything I’ve listened to and read, these benefits are the primary reasons to be excited about this class. I’m sold!

Weapons and Armor: Ethys won’t keep any of her original equipment, instead trading or storing it to make room for more suitable adventuring gear. When it’s time to go out in the scary world beyond Graymoor, she will have two short swords (one of which is Mythey’s), a sling, and leather armor. This last one was a tough call, because padded armor would prevent any additional penalties to things like scaling walls or moving silently. Because of her low Agility, though, I think Ethys is better off eschewing this slight downside for more protection (as it is, she’ll only have an 11 AC). As a bonus: Kinda pirate-y for my ex-mariner!

Other Abilities: Like her dwarven companion, Ethys will have Infravision and be slower than humans. Unlike Umur, her small size will allow her access to spaces other races can’t go, and she gets a whopping +3 to Sneak and Hide checks (which, because of her Agility & Armor penalties, nets out at a +1). She receives a bonus language, and rolling on a table gets me Kobold, which will be something I have to figure out how to explain. Finally, all her saves go up by 1.

Title: Halfling titles in the core rulebook are simple and without a lot of options. It suggests Wanderer for Level 1. I originally thought that Ethys would follow the same logic as I used with Umur, taking the honorific that folks in Graymoor would give her naturally. In my mind, then, I was going to call her Mariner or Skipper. The more I sat with it, though, the more I liked Wanderer, and I think Ethys may even adopt it as part of her name, calling herself Haffoot the Wanderer once she leaves town.

Like Umur, I’ll leave the other equipment until she knows what adventure she’s undertaking. For now, then, here is Ethys’ character sheet:

I have a sinking (ha! mariner joke) feeling that Ethys will be the first to die from this party. She fights with two weapons up close but only has 6 hit points and an 11 AC, and can’t often escape by sneaking or hiding? Sounds like a bad recipe. Maybe I’m underestimating her lucky halfling nature, though. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, so here’s hoping that Ethys keeps her cool in the dangerous wilds.

Let’s dip into a quick look at Ethys post-Portal…

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By dawn’s light, Ethys Haffoot walked to the small, rickety plank that Graymoor called a dock. Her right foot curved like a crescent moon and caused her to swing her hip, a distinct and uneven gait characteristic of her entire family. Not that Ethys had any family left, really. She sighed at the thought.

Her little skiff sat gently bobbing in the Teawood River, empty. In days gone by, her brother Giliam would already be there, tying down their gear to the flat bottom, making as much room as possible for the crates of tea leaves that they’d pick up from Teatown far upriver. She knew well that everyone considered Ethys the brains of their hauling business, but Giliam had been the heart of it, always awake before the sun and working until he collapsed at night. The vivid image of her brother’s face, covered in sweat and smiling, caused her to stagger and stop a moment. For the thousandth time in the past month, an unexpected sob tore at her throat and vanished as quickly as it had arrived. She wiped her eye of the single tear that gathered there.

“I– I can’t do this,” she growled to herself. “Dammit all but I can’t.”

Thanks to the portal beneath the Empty Star, Ethys did not need the coins from hauling tea. Her handful of glowing jewels would get her anything the village could offer, never mind the goodwill of grateful and pitying neighbors who were all too eager to provide her free food, drink, and shelter, the only price another story from that fateful night.

Even if she’d wanted to continue her excursions, though, she could not have done the job alone. She needed Giliam, or someone else who could provide his small stature, tireless labor, and good humor. Ethys could almost—almost—imagine posting something in Teatown and finding a halfling who might have interest in experiencing the human world downriver. Every time she thought of it, though, a deep wave of fatigue filled her body, sometimes so strong that she would yawn and find a place to nap. No, there was no joy in continuing the life she had led here. Her normal life had died with Giliam, by fire from the outstretched finger of an alien warlord.

What, then, was her life? She couldn’t stay in Graymoor, but the thought of returning to Teatown to live out the small life it offered, with halflings who’d never been beyond the town’s borders, made her want to scream. Neither place held her future, whatever new life lay beyond Giliam’s death.

Ethys wiped away a second tear and straightened the bandana on her brow. For perhaps the twentieth time since returning to Graymoor, she had approached her skiff and failed to make it aboard. Yet this time, at least, she had made a decision. No more hauling for her. She would find someone to buy the boat, or perhaps even give it away. Then she would set about leaving Graymoor, to where she did not yet know. Perhaps Umur could teach her to competently use a blade before she left. Yes.

Nodding once, she turned her back on Graymoor’s dock. With a small spark of intention sitting atop the dry kindling of despair, she sought out the dwarf’s stone home.

DCC Character Level 1: Erin Wywood