Some of y'all have written EPICS about characters you've created in ttrpgs. Let's make a megathread of as many as we can. So, 

tell me about your character. 

Psionic energy suffuses the bellows of the Underdark, but few have ever been able to harness its potent gifts save for those few beasts who lead the hulking quaggoth tribes; these leaders call themselves thonots. Deep within the cruel network of tunnels and caves under the earth, Nosk Shatterbone narrowly escapes his tribe's rage fueled howls as they give chase. The bloody mark of his kin's claws and teeth do not pain him as much as their disgust and hate. One day, before they knew his secret, he might have become thonot. Yet, he could not do was that which they demanded. Build a family. Take a wife. Breed children. Make war on other tribes and thonots. He refused. Now he must join with his male drow lover who also seeks to flee a society that rejects them and the role they are demanded to fulfill.

Okie-dokie.

I’ll limit myself to one - I’m playin’ in a 5Ed D&D game and I found a fantastic Sorcerer bloodline, and immediately had an idea.

Halifax is a man of two natures. Ascerbic, frustrated and generally short tempered; Halifax is a Hellfire Tiefling, Phoenix-blooded sorcerer. Feeling pinned between two natures - the Phoenix, symbol of hope, cleansing fire and rebirth, the renewal of good and eternal life... and Demonic blood (Yes, Demonic). Spite, chaos, destruction and hatred.

Angry at his parents for abandoning him as a freak of magic, angry at society that forced him to survive as a pickpocket, angry and how terrible things happen to people who did nothing wrong, Halifax is stuck... in Ravenloft. 

But, why would Halifax be worth playing? Why be such an angry man? What is there to experience in this frustrated and determined man in such a horrible place?

Well, my enjoyment is based around finding new lenses for the world. Halifax DOES learn to trust. He does not turn off, he does not accept shitty circumstances as a reason to stop trying. Halifax does not accept the foe-shipping that Wren (Warlock, party leader) does, but is slowly warming up to the idea of falling for the bitter, handsome priest...

Plus, we have a Dragonborn Paladin of Redemption who has a magical swear jar, and is downright adorable 10/10. Halifax and he are buddies, and it’s fucking awesome. I wrote a story (With many more editing passes than this post!) about Archie and Halifax: https://professorjimbles.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/horn-and-flame/

Gene is adapted from a character I played when me and my dad played a very simplified version of D&D 3.5 when I was a little kid.

Originally the character was a stock human fighter. At the age of 22, I'm invited to play with another group and I adapt the character to 5E. 

Tragic backstory: a peasant conscripted as a squire to a local aspiring warrior, helped found a guild and had the whole thing attacked and destroyed by an unknown force. Gene is left inexplicably as the only survivor, believes the viscount of the region did it, tries to assassinate him, captured and sold into slavery.

Escapes during a shipwreck, joins another guild and is exposed to a substance that unlocks latent magic abilities (so I could play Eldritch Knight), during a fight with the BBEG, a magic-wielding man wearing a plague mask called the Silver Masque. 

Whole series of misadventures, from accidentally burning down half of a village during an investigation (Not Gene's fault, but could've stopped it and didn't), traveling to the Elemental Plane of Air, adopting a baby water elemental. 

The group at this point devolves and stops playing. Four of the six players (yeah) were dating each other, and their relationships were so thoroughly toxic that they'd all begin arguing during the session, leaving me and the only other single person (and the DM, a former lover of one of the players) sitting awkwardly.

I join another group, none of whom are dating, so less arguments. Play Gene again, somehow transported across several thousand miles to another continent without knowing why, only to occur his last living relative, his cousin (another Eldritch Knight who uses ice magic as opposed to my fire magic). 

A lot of shit happens. Accidentally release a starspawn from its containment, somehow have my gender swapped, get massive burns on my face, develop gills that let me breathe underwater, have my eyeball possessed and torn out twice by said starspawn, have both my legs chopped off by a demonic entity, take on an apprentice destined by her goddesses to kill the starspawn..

That's what Gene has been up to most recently. A very tragic sort of life. One who has been changed and scarred and distorted in so many ways, missing an eye and both legs, sporting gills, no longer biologically either gender. A very tragic sort. 

An enby humanoid squirrel knight hospitaler on errantry.  They are a crack shot with a war bow.

‘Flying Dutchman’ Prominence (Username: 鼠哭雀嚎)
“Everyone here is a pilot." -looks down- "I’m like the only one who’s not a pilot.”
Attached To: Zeus Imperative Service (technically defunct)
Ship-Self: Scavenger-Scout Jatayu-Falls-To-The-Earth (‘Jatayu’ for short, it’s okay, honest)
Needs: Hydrogen, oxygen, organic fodder to turn into sustenance, sun light, salvage sites
Wants: To Break Free
A first generation operator assigned to clear the battlefields of salvage and debris in a ship-self designed to conduct self-repair, Prominence’s unsavory work earned him the status of a doom-portent; and his craft, the reputation of a ghost ship, to be avoided at every turn. Alienation made truth of the rumors, and now a gravity mutant and his ramshackle life support system must sail through space alone, and cannot make dock or else risk death.

(copied from my blog, which is way easier than just writing a new bio; my character for my fate core: camelot trigger game set after one of the endings in 'heaven will be mine'; not mentioned in the bio: extremely bi)

oh gosh, where to start. I have entirely too many characters to list in a single post here. Let's try to keep this manageable, and pick just a few, I guess? Focusing on the ones I play actively right now.

Asherah 'Ash' Corvo (7th Sea)
The child of an eclectic family made up of many aunts and even more cousins, Ash took to piracy early - the way anyone does, when they're born in the pirate haven of Aragosta in the Atabean Sea. Serving for several years as a deckhand and lookout aboard the Red Wraith - commanded by the indomitable captain Mala Wake - Ash now finds herself the newly minted captain of the Woe Betide, reluctantly commanding a crew made up of ragtag mainlanders, rebellious Atabeans, and a handful of ghosts.

She did not leave her old crew on good terms - she was cast away into the sea on purpose, marooned on a rocky island with four others, wasting away until she was the lone survivor. Desperate to live, she made a foolish deal with the Devil Jonah, clawing strips of skin from her arms and giving it to the sea in sacrifice, chipping away a piece of her soul to give him. In return, he gave her the means to walk away from that spit of rock alive. She may regret her deal, but the Devil's gifts are not so easily given back.

Driven now by anger, and a desperate need to know WHO it was that cast her away to die in the first place, she now searches desperately for her former crewmates.

Pharos Olana (D&D 5e)
Life in Thera - the vast valley surrounded by mountains where their ancestors were stranded a few centuries ago, after a planar mishap, the details of which have been lost to time - is one of exploration and discovery; a life Pharos has leapt into without thinking twice. He's a bright, friendly young tiefling*, and a newly minted member of the Guild of Seekers, whose job it is to map the lands, and discover what secrets it may still be hiding. He's only just begun, but between the giant construct and the strange artifacts he and his team mates just found, they're off to a good start!

*) Or, well. He's a tiefling, right? Everybody else in his family is a tiefling. His twin brother is a tiefling. His big sister is a tiefling. So are both of his parents. And tieflings are all a little different from each other - so what if he can't seem to get the hang of spitting hellfire the way his family can, and so what if the only thing he seems capable of making with Thaumaturgy is a bit of bright, glowing light? It's just that he's not very inclined towards magic. It's no big deal**.

**) Except that it is, actually: he's an aasimar. He just doesn't know it yet.

Rue Alder (Ryuutama)
A little deergirl born and raised in the little village of Zelkova, in a country covered in vast, ancient forests, Rue made a promise with her childhood friends - one day, they would all reunite under their Promise Tree, and tell each other stories of their adventures. Her friends left, one by one, to explore the world outside the forest - one went into the vast desert, one went to seek an education in magic at the finest university in the world; one went to Orbinium, the floating isles of ingenuity and invention - but Rue stayed closer to home. She explored the forest itself, and learned the craft of medicine and healing - and for a few years, she looked after the Promise Tree, waiting for her friends to return, missing them all terribly.

... and on the eve of the day that they all did, they found their Promise Tree stolen away right before their eyes by some unknown soldiers, clad in strange armour. Swept up in a quest to get their precious Tree back, Rue is discovering that the world outside her beloved forest is much larger - and much stranger - than she ever thought possible. And she is only just beginning to realise - with a bit of dread - that this quest might be much larger, and much more important, than just her and her friends and their lost Tree.

... not included on the roster of active characters: Ianeira, the sea nymph, trying to make her way out of Hades to reunite with her loved ones. Skipped over mostly bc I've only played one session as her so far.

Bereavement, a young hobgoblin man who was the runaway, adopted son of the Raven Queen. He was killed as a baby and the Raven Queen chose to adopt him and return him to life rather than send him on to the afterlife, and he was raised in her court. He was unhappy with the impartial nature of death and decided to run away from home so he could take death into his own hands. He stole a sword and ran off into the realm of the living, but his inexperience in anything but the Raven Queen's court led him to become lost very quickly. Though angry about his betrayal, the Raven Queen still thought of Bereavement as her son so she granted him powers that helped him stay alive on his adventures, and through this bond Bereavement became a warlock.

Eventually Bereavement found his way to the Yawning Portal in Waterdeep, but once he entered he discovered that he had been transported to another world, built to look like the Yawning Portal, and run by a powerful magic being disguised as Durnan, owner and bartender of the Yawning Portal. He and several other adventurers were forced by NotDurnan to go on a series of adventures for him with the promise that they would be returned to their lives if they completed these adventures. They were tasked with retrieving a series of magical artifacts which NotDurnan planned to use for unknown ends. Bereavement and a group of adventurers, including his new friend Twig, a Goliath ranger who constantly kept Bereavement out of trouble, explored the Sunless Citadel where they slew a dragon and befriended the kobold Meepo, though none of Bereavement's pleading would convince Meepo to join them on further adventures. Bereavement constantly attempted to befriend monstrous enemies because to the eyes of many, he was also a monster because he was a hobgoblin. This had mixed results. After retrieving the magic item there, they were sent on the next adventure to the Forge of Fury where they skipped the majority of the dungeon and were severely underleveled for the fight against a bigger dragon at the end of the dungeon. However, through sheer luck they managed to slay the dragon, but were double-crossed by the duergar that lived in the dungeon and because they were still wounded from the fight with the dragon, the entire party perished.

In death, Bereavement had a vision where he was confronted by his mother and forced to choose between saving his friends and becoming even more powerful. He chose to save his friends, and then awoke in the hut of an old woman with the rest of the party. She revealed herself to be NotDurnan's sister, and that NotDurnan was using the party to accomplish a dark task that would result in great destruction (which was not really surprising, we all knew NotDuran was shady). She wanted to prevent this, for both the good of the realm and because of her sibling rivalry with her brother. She told us that NotDurnan would become vulnerable once he possessed all of the artifacts he required, but only until he could finish using them in a ritual that would bring ruin to the entire Forgotten Realms. She gave us a choice: we could be brought back to life with her magic, retrieve the magic artifacts for NotDurnan, and then slay him as he prepares to use them, or we could pass on to the afterlife, knowing that NotDurnan would just get another group of adventurers to accomplish his goals and end the world. The entire party chose to return to life and fight NotDurnan. We were warned that if we died again, she would not be able to resurrect us, and then we were returned to life.

From there it was a simple series of adventures and hijinks, and Bereavement grew more powerful as he bonded with his friends and eventually the party collected the final artifact. When they returned, NotDurnan took the artifact and revealed himself to be a powerful fiend, and offered to let us live while he destroyed the world. We could not let that happen, so we fought him. The battle was tense, and while we did not deal the killing blow, we forced NotDurnan to rush his ritual, and he destroyed himself in the process.

At his death, a doorway appeared and the party passed through it. NotDurnan's sister appeared and revealed that she had lied through omission. Her power could only keep us alive for a while, and that our time was up now that we had fulfilled our purpose. We must pass on to the afterlife. Bereavement happily passed on to the next life, where he spent plenty of time with his friends and made up with his mom.

I'm only GMing at the moment. But in our current game, we have some awesome player characters:

A starship engineer, raised in a hyperdrive cult but now exiled for heresy. A cyborg sent into the universe as a living probe, never able to return home. A genetically engineered perfect human with a cyborg dog and a knack for finding things. An amoral archaeologist seeking g ancient technology. A colossal, laconic nonbinary individual who befriended a cybernetic snake monster.  And a mysterious stranger who can sing forgotten dirges to put people to sleep.

My Very First Warlock was a traveling inventor/armchair demonologist named Tannis Kind who made a pact with a demon when he was a teenager, taught himself how to make magitech, and became basically a traveling coffee machine salesman. He sort of stumbled into an adventuring group that ended up looking for magical artifacts that belonged to the gods, to return them to the gods that had left them lying around a long time ago. He had been betrothed to the Fae King for quite some time prior to the campaign, but left the Feywild and subsequently lost three years of memory because (at least in our campaign) if you leave the Feywild without proper protection against it, you get a memory wipe. Which made for a fun campaign arc when our party had to travel into the Feywild and Tannis was hailed as the king's fiancee and members of the court immediately started trying to either get on his good side or poison him, and he had no idea what was happening. Also one time he made a guy clip through the floor so hard that the guy died.

Currently I play (in 5e) Tannis's brother Peregrine, an anthropologist who accidentally picked up a cursed talking sword that is trying to make him into an evil jock, and (in Shadowrun) Foxtrot Donowitz, a Jewish orc MMA fighter.

Let me tell you about Xianna'fan!

She is a purple Twi'lek thief (it's a Star Wars Edge of the Empire game) who only ever wears a smuggler's trenchcoat that has pockets that defy all known physics. She was born on Ryloth shortly before the Seperatist Crisis/Clone Wars. Her father was captured during this time leaving her mother to raise her and her sister. Her mother was a mechanic and worked with the resistance and when Xianna was 15 the Empire arrested her mother. Xianna wanted to leave Ryloth and gathered enough money for her and her sister to buy passage on a ship, but her sister stayed behind last minute to join the resistance herself. 

9 years later and Xianna has made a living as a thief, mostly cat burglaries. She does too many party drugs and avoids her feelings at all costs. She's been arrested a handful of times, and even remembers a few! She once was arrested because during a job she got stuck in a doorway with her then girlfriend/partner who was a herglic (a big ol' whale species).  Recently she got in some trouble for seducing both partners in a marriage in order to gain access to their valuables. She's lost some toes in an airlock incident,  has been officially declared dead by the Empire, and has acquired a few definitely-not-Sith artifacts. 

She is a mess and trash and I love her. 

Hasran Basras is a refugee from a very problematic Ravenloft rpg. He was a young man's version of a character of the local guide who wants your money. But he became a complicated character who was perhaps the best character I ever played. He never let anyone forget no matter how bad things were in any other part of Ravenloft, there was his homeland where there literally is no food and everyone has to drink this magic water to survive and check your privilege. He visited Barovia and sure the werewolves sucked but there was arable land and a marketplace that could actually let objects be made and acquired that weren't relics of a millenia dead civilization. He was the voice that NPCs aren't yours to mess with and that they have lives and memories and we are going to try to remember that instead of just murder-hacking through the local citizenry when  we are trying to slave their vampire mayor. We're going to talk to them instead. We're not here to fight monsters, we're here to change lives. And he had a small bag full of the magical items they couldn't sell but no one wanted and he would just give them to random people who needed them.

He was a hustler and a merchant and a dealer and was only useful in combat because he had some trinket that could support the party but he was the man.

In my game NPVAC the main character is Npvac, who means "NPVA Clock". Yeah, it's a clock who jumps, shoots and resolve puzzles.

Name: Steyr Stonecutter (Brad)

Homeworld: Borealis

FACT: Colonel Darros is my mentor and my idol.

FACT: I would do anything to keep Matridian Belkas on Demeter safe.

FACT: I would trust Markella with any secret

FACT: My wealth is tied up in other peoples’ debts to me all over the cluster

Phase 1

Everyone is totally, perfectly free here. Free to starve, free to suffocate, free to get radiation sickness and die of cancer. So you’re really slave to the labour you need to do to not starve, suffocate, or slough off your aviolae. At 11 I thought it’d be smart to specialize in fixing things that people need and chose to apprentice under an air systems team. Keeping the near-surface pockets of the Borealis moon breathing. That meant frequent trips to the surface and near orbit to mine gases. And that meant frequently standing in an armoured suit staring up at Borealis proper — that fierce warm glowing giant world that dominates half the sky with swirling blue and gold. And that made me want to fly. 

Phase 2

It was Colonel Darros, an enormous Diver, who got me past orbit. He flew deep missions into Borealis to recover heavy gases and even suspended metal fogs. It was dangerous and exciting and it meant I had to learn to fly singleships from the surface of our Moon through complex orbital obstacles, and into the great storms. It was exacting, exciting, unforgiving work. But it wasn’t what I meant by flying. I wanted other stars. He had ideas along those lines as well. Dangerous ideas.

Phase 3

I fled with Markella in our stolen inspection ship and her crew (which we froze) to Demeter because I’d never seen free standing water under an uncovered sky. We ditched the ship — they were looking for it — in orbit and went our separate ways. A stranger in a place with rules and comfort and everywhere excess, I spent some time just trying to get by while at the same time dazzled by what a world should be. Matridian Belkas took me under her wing, got me work, hid me from the law, and got me papers. I had to run more than once and I had to kill once I’m sure of. My papers are no good any more but there is so much space to hide in on a real world.

Phase 4

I would eventually meet up with Markella again in an Antoinean prison. It wasn’t so bad. There was more air, food, water, and less radiation than I had at home on Borealis. In fact it was pretty cushy. But she wasn’t in jail — she was my lawyer and got me off on a technicality that probably cost her a lot of cachet in the system. And then I was stuck on Antoine which I hated until we both discovered one of the lesser worlds in the system, where there were more like-minded individuals. Some needed Markella’s legal help. Some needed a good pilot and a quick knife.