D&D: Melf’s Classic Character Sheet
Yes – THAT Melf. Check out the original character sheet for one of the most famous characters in the annals of Dungeons & Dragons!
If you’ve ever wondered “who is this Melf of Melf’s Acid Arrow and Melf’s Minute Meteors fame” you’re in luck! Melf was actually the character of Luke Gygax, the son of Gary Gygax. When Gary Gygax ran his home game of D&D he played with his kids. The characters and adventures they had helped to inspire tons of things that popped-up within the game. And wouldn’t you know it, Luke STILL has his character sheet for Melf!
Born into the royal family of Celene, he assumed the simple name of Melf eschewing a life of comfort as a noble to study the arcane arts and train as a swordsman. He delved in the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk, the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and many other harrowing places honing his skills, knowledge and amassing powerful magic items. Melf sees himself as a weapon of weal hurtling toward the heart of the darkest evils in the realm. He is opinionated and has a touch of conceit that he is blissfully ignorant of possessing.
In case you’re wondering, yes that is Melf’s character sheet for all time ago. Codename Entertainment, creators of Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms reached out to Luke to bring Melf into their game.
CNE: Having the opportunity to bring Melf into Idle Champions was a real treat for us at Codename Entertainment. Not just because we were bringing a legendary character from Dungeons & Dragon’s past into the spotlight, but because we try to work directly with the creators of each character whenever possible. This time around, we got to work closely with Luke Gygax!
Luke was excited to hop on board and help us out, and he would regale us with tales of Melf, telling stories about playing Dungeons & Dragons as a child with his father as his Dungeon Master. To the rest of the world, Gary Gygax is the icon who helped to create the greatest role-playing game of all time. But to Luke? He was playing D&D with his Dad, who just happened to be ‘the’ Gary Gygax.
Over the course of our conversations and email exchanges Luke shared stories with us about how each of Melf’s items came to be in his possession, often in incredible detail despite the events having occurred during games in his childhood. Melf has been a character for a long time, and Luke still has all of his character sheets, some of them written completely out on lined paper decades ago. Wow!
Prince Brightflame is here and he’s got some pretty impressive stats. You can see them above but remember those are from old-school D&D and not 5th edition. Even his levels are old school as a Fighter/Magic-User and as a Lord (11) Wizard (11). Here’s an updated stat-block for 5th Editions you can use:
This is just a really cool piece of D&D history and a cool piece of lore. If you’d like to learn more about the character check out Codename Entertainment’s post about him. And if you’d like to give him a whirl, you can play Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms – it’s free with in game transactions (although you don’t need to pay/buy anything if you don’t want to).
So THAT’s Melf!
