Gabriazar: the great

Let me tell you about my character 😛

Like many a gaming geek I’ve got tales galore of imaginary friends and the adventures I shared with them. There are a few however that strike some chord and make their way into various video games, RPG adventures and my general consciousness.

Gabriazar’s origin is as a throwaway line in an adventure module I wrote. Gabriazar the Eternal Bard of Hell as he was called there was mentioned only as the author of the chronicles of an ancient Lich who’s tomb the characters found themselves in. The name was meant to sound exotic and foreign.

His first appearance in a D&D game was as a bard who worked as a petty con man and thief jailed for sleeping with the barons daughter but later released for a suicide mission around which the adventure was based. While his intentions were nearly always selfish yet he somehow always ended up looking like a hero when all was said and done. Most of his schemes to get rich would fail, but when he was simply acting the part of the hero for show, he would inadvertently become one.

Gabriazar was one of my few evil characters, but with a lighter touch and generally one that got along decently with his more altruistic party members. In another game he bragged he was Gabriazar the Great in order to try and get some free room and board. The DM cleverly decided there was someone called The Great Gabriazar who actually was a famous hero and everyone started confusing me with him. Good fun though you knew the hammer would come down sooner or later!

Eventually I invented a backstory for him about his father being a woodsman who found and rescued an elf maid in the forest. Of course they fell in love but the maid soon realized what a boor human woodsmen were and abandoned father and child shortly after poor Gabby was born. Shunned by many for his heritage but popular with the ladies of the village he was eventually driven out of the town, though not before befouling the town well.

Gabriazar became one of my early Dungeons and Dragons Online characters and made a name for himself among the roleplaying community in the game. He won multiple “battle of the bard” competitions with his parody songs such as “Like a newbie” (a parody of Like a Virgin) and his sext drow “Gabby Girl” dancers. He won so enough times he had to retire and become a judge for the competition.

I’ve always liked the name and its rather unique, though his epithet has changed with nearly every incarnation. In DDO he was Gabriazar the Infernal Voice. Googling Gabriazar one day I found someone had had joke business cards printed for their brother under this name as he’d seen it while his brother was playing DDO and thought the name so absurd it symbolized all that was geeky and goofy about RPGs. Needless to say I was touched!

If you should meet Gabby in your travels, buy him a beer, compliment his fine clothing, keep an eye on your purse and two on your lady friend. He’s trying to enjoy life to the fullest now for apparently some day its his fate to be writing ballads in hell.