Panartias

A fantastic artpiece of my RPG-character Panartias.

Thank you so much dear Cupric!

JuliaMersmann tagged me for this OC-Meme and since it's about time you get to know something more about my DnD character Panartias I'm glad to take the chance.

-RULES-

1. Post These rules.

2. Post 8 facts about your Character.

3. Tag 3 other people along with the characters you want them to write about (which leads to rule 4)

4. Post their avatars and write the character names next to them.

5. NO TAG BACK! (Noooo, feel free to tag back! o.o Really, I don't mind.)

1.) The origin of his name:

First of all, Panartias was meant to be the characters professional stage-name. “Pan” means “all” – I determined, that it means also “blade” in the fantasy-gypsy-tongue. “Art” is obviously short for “artist” and the ending “ias” is just to round it as in “Mathias”. When I was wracking my brain for his stage- name I was inspired a bit by “Fantomas” – some of you might still know the sequel. But for those interested in numerology “Panartias” is a nice 9-letter name. So the great Panartias (a nod to the great Zampano and the great Gatsby) was borne. Pan’s given name is John or Johnny after his father, the earl of “Ziwapziki”. Ziwapziki is a Balkan-style land and the name is composed from foodstuff: “Zaziki” (the sauce made from yoghurt, garlic and cucumbers) and “cevapcici” (strongly spiced meat-rolls made from minced meat). Finally the E. J. in his name stands for the names given to Pan in the orphanage of Tyr in Stonebridge, Tidar: Ephraim Joshua.

Together Pan’s names and titles would be John Ephraim Joshua, Lord of Ziwapziki, the great Panartias. Of course, Pan is rather superstitious, when it comes to the power of full, true names. So he might kill to protect it…

2.) Influences on Pan’s character:

Panartias was influenced by a lot of fictional characters – most notably 007, James Bond, the Three Musketeers and some other characters from good old “Cloak and Sword” movies. Pan’s size and weight (1,83m, 75kg aka 6’, 165 pounds) are that of the British Secret Service agent. He also shares the original Bond’s specialties like boxing and knife throwing. Obviously the Walter PPK was swapped out for a rapier (or rather a long sword that had the same stats back in the day).

Another influence was a character I played on a convention (some homebrew-system), who was also very outgoing and was named the great Zampano. (The name of Pan’s grandfather is a nod to this character).

3.) Pan’s character concept:

Pan’s character concept was a “Jack of All Trades”. We had a multi-classed elf named Ödel-Rana in the group, who was a fighter-mage-thief; all at the same time. In AD&D 2nd edition only demi-humans could be such characters. Humans couldn’t be multi-classed-characters; instead they could change their profession and become dual-class-characters. For this, they needed a minimum stat of 15 in the main attribute of their first profession and a minimum stat of 17 in the main attribute of their new profession. Not a small feat. And what was more, I wanted to create a triple-class-character. That was unheard of before. The downside was, you weren’t allowed to use the abilities of your old class until your new class was of a higher level than the old one. But you weren’t necessarily a glass-cannon like most multi-classed-characters and you could use specific class bonuses like weapon specialization and so on…

...so meeting a character like Pan was really unusual and surprising.

Pan says about his professions:

“Once, I was a fighter -

to conquer the heart of a beautiful lady.

Then I became a thief -

to steal myself a kiss from her lips.

And finally, I became a mage -

to enchant her face with a smile.”

4.) His personality traits:

Unsurprising, given the characters that influenced him, Panartias is a Ladies man. But other than that he is no daredevil – rather a coward and far from a tough cookie. He is also quite lazy and weak willed. All this was to reflect his (initially) low wisdom of 7 (his absolute dump-stat).

A friend called Pan once the most cowardly fighter and the bravest thief of the Realms. The same friend laughed when “Captain Jack Sparrow” made his first appearance in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and called out: “Panartias has come to life!”

To overcome his fear and his antipathy for disgusting things, Pan often drinks, till he is tipsy. The GM allowed me for every penalty (-1 up to -4) on to hit an equally high bonus on fear-checks.

Pan is quite the money grubber, but he is not tight – rather he spends his wealth generously on women and wine…

As mentioned before, Pan is superstitious – but in a world of magic that is rather a plus. And because of his backstory he suffers from mild paranoia. Since he is part gypsy, Panartias suffers from “Wanderlust” as well – everything, be it a place or a person becomes bland after some time and he needs to move on. (That doesn’t mean he won’t return after some time – he just needs his freedom. But he will never settle down in one place).

In his time in the orphanage as a troublemaker and trickster he learned to resist the “Detect Lies” spell by circumventing and embellishing the truth instead.

Pan is fun to play, because he is a very outgoing, extroverted character.

5.) The backstory of Panartias:

As Pan was an early character of me, I liked to borrow heavily from fairytales and tropes - Snow white and the huntsman in his case. Pan is the illegitimate son of the Earl of Ziwapziki and the gypsy-girl Leila. The lords wife – Pans evil stepmother- murders his mum with a poisoned needle and tries to kill little baby Pan as well – only Leila had send him away to her clan, a travelling circus, since she had foreseen the future. She also uses her dying breath to curse the lord’s wife – an evil necromancer- that her son will be her downfall.

Pan grows up with his mum’s family in the travelling circus and soon becomes one of the main attractions of the show – the great Panartias. But he is always hunted by the agents of his stepmother.

When Pan is 8, he and his grandfather Zampano try to rob the temple of Tyr in Stonebridge, the capital of Tidar. They are caught by the magical alarm. This results in Pan being forced in the temples orphanage and the gypsies being banned from Tidar.

But Pan comes to know Mary (Marianne von Rittersblut) while he is there and joins her gang. (I had rolled Mary’s stats immediately before Pan’s stats so I reasoned there would be a 50% chance that the two would know each other – the dices agreed).

6.) Magical influences:

In Pan’s first adventure “Temple of Elemental Evil” the group found, among other things, an (in)famous magical item: “The Deck of Many Things”. The group did challenge destiny and drew cards. Most of the characters messed up, but Pan drew “the Comet” and gained enough experience to catapult him to level 6, almost 7.

So Pan’s next adventure was with another group with a higher average level. It turned out to be on Ravenloft – an evil, sentient, demi-plane. Here Panartias passed a power-check, meaning he gained the attention of the evil domain. So he got the ability to see in normal or magical darkness like in broad daylight. The price for this ability was, that his brown eyes now show a hint of red (and glow red at night). (At first, the price was six fingers per hand, but that got changed later in time travel adventure. And I think it’s a much better fit.)

7.) Pan’s sidekick Glip:

Glip (sometimes Glib or Clip) is a very young “Dust Dragon” that insists to be ridden by Pan. Her name comes from her one-word-vocabulary that can mean “yes”, “no” or “perhaps” depending on how it is stressed and pronounced. (It helps that the GM is a dedicated hobby actor as well). He took heavy inspiration from Robert Asprin’s “Myth” sequel and from the “Shannara Chronicles”. As a dust dragon, Glip’s breath weapon is a superheated cloud of desert sand. So the victims are fried and sanded at the same time.

Panartias acquired Glip about 8 years ago on an international bazaar (So international in fact that the merchant dealing in young dragons was a devil). Anyways, Glip helped herself to a piece of Pan’s sleeve (apparently she likes to eat bits of clothing) and was imprinted on Panartias after that. So she was worthless for the merchant and he made Pan a good price to get rid of the dragon.

Glip was even more impressed by Pan, when he used his performance-abilities to eat and spit fire. Glip is usually a bit shy and often hides behind Pan – this has become more difficult since she has grown a bit over the years. But she is far from useless: two “Displacer-Beasts” that were a bit of a difficulty for the group were just a second breakfast for her.

8.) Miscellaneous informations:

Pan’s birthday is the 6th June (Kythorn), so his sign is Gemini – also called the Lovers or the Janus-face.

His alignment is true neutral (with good and chaotic tendencies). He started out as neutral good (he is close to a bard in his abilities and bards had to have a neutral alignment component to be able to pursue their profession). Later he was repulsed by the deeds and behavior of so called “good” characters like paladins and so he shifted slowly towards true neutral.

Panartias is an AD&D 2nd edition character – to date a Swashbuckler-Fighter level 9, Thief level 13 and Mage (of the red robes) level 10.

Now I have to tag three persons:

JuliaMersmann --- (Tag back, I know) I'd like Drows mother Vassaja ! I already did see a picture but I would love to have some details. :-)

LeilaAscariz --- Since she made her appearance in the last chapter of RoW, I'm curious about Kiani the Blue. Tell me about her (or her crew)!

ArkaEdri --- I would love to have some details about your dragon persona Arka of course!

Have fun! Or not... I mean... I won't be mad at you if you don't find the time to write something, I promise. But I did give you a heads up...

Curious about the backstory of my DnD character Panartias?!

I entrusted Hollowpages with my notes and he did fantastic work in developing Pan's story: