The Grief of Losing a PC

I just finished playing my first full level one to 20 campaign. For three years my player character, Aleera the dancing Bard, was the focus of the fantasy adventures we had. She was a second persona in an imaginary world but she was real for three years. While she isn’t dead, she is way beyond the range for a playable character. I will never really play her again, except maybe in a battle royale one shot.

At the end of the campaign, Aleera leaves the world of Toril to travel through all dimensions and universes. She left Faerun, and though she might be back, she will be gone for a while. As a Vistani, she has always roamed. She wanted to keep traveling forever that’s why it made sense that she would follow The Traveler. At the end she was granted the ability to travel with him forever.

Now that we have started a new campaign I am playing a new character. Her name is Brenna and she is the complete opposite from Aleera. Where my bard was fun, outspoken, and money hungry my paladin is quiet, uninterested in money and serious. I look forward to playing the survival game with Brenna but Aleera was my first fully fleshed out PC. I “raised” her from one to twenty.

It’s weird to say I miss her but it’s true. It’s like having a friend for three years and then she’d gone. Not dead just away. You can’t really communicate because they are off doing things and so are you and eventually they become just a memory. The bittersweet feelings are what makes Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop games so awesome. There is no other game that can say that.

We just had our session zero for the second campaign and we all had to try so hard to keep our names straight. We kept calling each other by our former character names. It was funny and sad but the session went really well and we are all super excited for the next one. It is the start of a new chapter but I will never forget Aleera and all the fun we had.