This is an older pic that has been kicking around for a couple years that I finally decided to post. This is a picture of an old DnD/pathfinder character named Rowan, who was a shapeshifting rouge artificer. It shows her progression from the beginning of the game to when I left the game at the conclusion of her story.

All three characters represent Rowan, starting from when a young mousey Shifter boy with a mysterious and possibly abusive past, joined an adventuring party as their scout and item crafter. Later on, after taking a nearly mortal wound during a savage fight with pirates, 'he' lost control and was revealed to be a slightly older and quite female changeling shapeshifter much to the suprise of the other party members. The story culminated in a journey of self discovery where she came to terms with her nature and her past to live as herself: A composite being of what she was born as, who she was raised as, and who she see's herself to be.

Oh, she also ended up marrying the primary quest giver Lavinia, who is featured in the picture on the wall. Also who Rowan got her last name from :3

This character was an important one for me, not only because she was fun to play, but in hindsight, she represented some of my attempts to deal with my own issues about identity and nature, and living to be the person others want you to be rather then living as yourself. She also kick started some fun in-jokes with my circle of friends that persist to this day about my penchant for playing characters with traumatizing pasts.

All in all, even though that game kind of fell apart towards the end, and Rowan herself was by no means a perfect character, it was the first time I had played in a campaign where a characters full story was told to completion. We explored issues of childhood trauma and abuse, identity, gender, personhood, humanity, finding yourself, coming of age, friendship and family, and finally, a rather awkward but adorably sweet romance that finished with a happy ending. To that end Rowan as a character will always have a special place in my heart.

This was done in 2010 on printer paper with mechanical pencils.