A Lyrander airship travelling from Stormreach to Sharn is blown off course and crashes on an uncharted island in the Thunder Sea. The ship is damaged beyond repair and her captain is killed in the crash. The passengers, all strangers, must work together to survive. It dosen’t take long for the surviving passengers to learn two important things: 1) the island itself seems to be alive, teeming with magic; and 2) they are not alone.
Imagine that the popular ABC television show Lost takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons world of Eberron. How might the established canon of the show remain intact while adapting it for 4e D&D? Below is the D&D re-imagining of three of the main characters from the show.
Jack “The Shepherd”
- Race: Human
- Class: Cleric
- Homeland: Breland
Jack is a healer who lived, and worked, among the healers of House Jorasco all of his life. His father, Christian, was a battlefield medic attached to a Jorasco unit during the war. Jack followed in his father’s footsteps, learning and working along side the best healers in Khorvaire.
Another thing Jack learned from his father was the love of drink. Christian began drinking during the war, sharing one last drink with soldiers he was unable to save. Jack also picked up this habit during his brief time in the war.
Although Jack possesses healing magic, he doesn’t believe it comes from a divine source. Rather he believes that his desire to heal the wounded and his keen intellect granted him the tools required to be a healer.
He recently manifested the Mark of Healing on his left shoulder and back. It has provided him with a new tool for healing the sick. The unprecedented manifestation of a Dragonmark normally exclusive to Halflings caused Jack to question his faith and re-examine his own importance as a healer.
Jack recently revealed to the scions of House Jorasco that Christian’s addiction was interfering with his ability to heal. The Halflings expelled Christian from their ranks. He fled to Xen’drik with the hope of redeeming himself. Jack travelled to Stormreach in search of his missing father only to learn upon his arrival that Christian drank himself to death. Jack claimed the body and booked passage for himself and his father’s corpse on the next Lyrander airship heading back to Sharn.
Sawyer
- Race: Changeling
- Class: Rogue
- Homeland: Aundair
Sawyer is a con man. After witnessing his parent’s deaths as a child, he grew up without the love or support of a family. He took to the streets and relied on his wits to survive. Although he can assume any form, he typically assumes the form of a physically attractive, physically fit Human or Elvin male. He generally targets lonely, wealthy women as his marks. He rarely keeps the spoils of his trade, preferring to spend it on a lavish lifestyle and anonymously help war orphans.
He continues to search for the man that killed his parents. His desire for revenge causes him to take unnecessary risks, but so far his luck has kept him from any permanent setbacks.
Thinking he’d finally tracked down his parents killer, he travelled to Stormreach to take his revenge. After killing the man he believed responsible for the crime, he learned that he’d been tricked into killing an innocent man. He quickly booked passage on the first airship leaving Xen’drik.
Locke
- Race: Half-elf
- Class: Ranger
- Homeland: Zilargo
Locke was raised by gnomes. He was told that his parents were killed during the war. He is remarkably intelligent and loves puzzles and games of strategy. He’s spent many hours studying in the Great Library of Korranberg.
During his adolescence he spent more time exercising his mind than his body, with complete approval from his foster parents. For years he’s worked with House Cannith, managing the shipping and receiving of parts required for airship construction.
An elf claiming to be Locke’s father entered his life recently. He took Locke under his wing and taught him all about nature and the outdoors, including hunting and survival. Eventually Locke’s father told him he needed his help performing a ritual in order to cure an ailment that was slowly killing him. Locke gladly and eagerly agreed to help. Upon the ritual’s completion, Locke’s father disappeared without explanation. Locke was left weakened from the ritual with no guarantee of full recovery. Feeling betrayed he tracked down his father and the two fought.
During the confrontation with his father, Locke was pushed from a cliffside. He survived the fall but couldn’t walk afterwards. He travelled to Xen’drik to join an adventuring company he’d corresponded with from Morgrave University. When they finally met face-to-face in Stormreach the company was unwilling to let a crippled ranger join their party. His self-esteem crushed, Locke booked passage on the next airship headed for Khorvaire. After the airship crashed on the island, Locke mysteriously regained full use of his legs.
View Comments (6)
Being a fan of the Lost TV Show, I had already thought that a Mega Dungeon loosely based on the Lost Island could be a fun campaign to play. Just imagine that everytime you go walking into the forest you can find polar (dire) bears or even a smoke paraelemental, and there's several ruined sites around the island to look for ways out of there. I like your version of the characters, but what about the island per se?
.-= Paper Dragon´s last blog ..The Queen of Stone =-.
I would have thought Locke to be a Warlord, not a Ranger. Otherwise, it all works great.
.-= Toldain´s last blog ..Playing MarioKart 64 From Browser =-.
@Paper Dragon
I agree that the show Lost is rich with ideas that DMs can easily adapt and use in their existing campaign (or use to begin a new one). I didn't want to cover too much in one post so I decided to only profile a few of the most important characters. If this article is well received by our readers (and so far it looks like it is) then I've get every intention to write additional articles exploring things like the island, the smoke monster, the others and of course more of the regular cast.
@Toldain
I agree that Locke's character does become a leader as the show progresses, and I think Warlord is a good choice. However, my initial impression is based on the first episode of the show and at the beginning I'd argue that Locke is still just a Ranger with no violent tendencies. It's only as the story progresses that he becomes more of a leader and more involved in the conflict on the island. Just my take on it.
I completely disagree about Locke becoming a leader. He's less a leader and more divinely driven. I'd argue that he's more of an Avenger than anything else. It's not an exact mechanical translation, but the mindset is almost identitcal. He believes beyond all reason that his vision/belief is correct and he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Very Avenger.
In fact, the times he's tried to lead he's made a real hash of things. Look at season four in Othertown, the way that Ben has continually been able to manipulate him (the end of season five notwithstanding, considering Locke is a changed man by that time), and his "take it or leave" attitude towards the needs of others.
No my friends, Locke is not a leader.
My other contention is that Sawyer is not a striker or a rogue. He's a leader. Sawyer, if he were a D&D character, probably needs to be a half-elf Bard focused on multi-classing.
That give him access to all the social skills the con-artist needs, diversifies his powers, and neatly fills the leadership role that Sawyer has grown into.
@Shades
This is the beauty about this kind of article; it creates discussion about how we see these characters fitting into D&D classes and roles.
So keeping in mind that I'm looking at these characters when they first arrived on the island, I agree that Locke could very well be an Avenger and in fact I was very torn between Ranger and Avenger. But the way I see it he really "found his faith" after he crashed on the island and regained the use of his legs.
As for Sawyer, I seriously considered making him a Bard partly for the multi-classing ability, partly for the access to social skills, and yes partly because he does eventually become a leader. But I think his initial role when the ship first crashes is more of a scoundrel and a sneak which I felt were best exemplified as a Rogue.
Thanks for your feedback. Writing this article gave me a chance to combine my interest for Lost with my passion for D&D. If you loved/hated this article, just wait until you see what I have in store for my re-imagining of the rest of the cast.
Just found this site recently so I'm still kinda reading old blog posts, but I thought I'd comment on this. I'm actually surprised that Jack was the only character that nobody commented on yet. Personally, I don't see him as a Cleric because he's the man of reason, not faith (which, granted, was mentioned in the post). Rather, I see him as more of an Artificer; still a leader, but has more of a "science" flavor to it.