D&D: Characters We Build in the Shadows
Vampires? Vampire hunters? Conspicuous costumes, silly side stories, and endless goofs? It’s either What We Do in the Shadows or D&D. Or both.
What We Do in the Shadows is about to come back for season five and I cannot wait. I’ve been a massive fan ever since the movie and will send GIFs about my dark bidding (on the internet) forever. This is a show that has no right to be as consistently funny as it is. But if you haven’t seen it yet, please go watch the movie and then the first four seasons right now. It’s so worth your time.
You’re catching up now? Great.
When it comes to incorporating these characters into D&D though and making up a character sheet or two, I came to an interesting problem. Almost all of the characters are vampires. Which are already built in the Monster Manual and Curse of Strahd. Sure, your character can be turned into a vampire (and I’ve played in a party where that very thing happened). But in the case of What We Do in the Shadows, we’re looking at classic vampires to the point of caricature.
I took a look at the Monster Manual’s breakdown for vampires and…
I love the show’s characters, but the intelligence and charisma need to be dialed back a bit. They’re delightful goofballs who most people find at least somewhat off-putting and odd. They walk directly into obvious traps, don’t notice assassins, and constantly forget each other’s and sometimes their own histories. If only there was some sort of less good vampire…
That’s better.
It’s not perfect, but if you were going to add a couple of very familiar feeling vampires, I’d start here and make a few adjustments. For example, bat transformations and their personal quirks. However you’d like to describe Colin Robinson’s energy drain is a whole other issue, but I think we have that covered, too.
I wanted to make a real character sheet with a playable character, and I think the perfect pick is everyone’s favorite familiar-slash-vampire hunter, Gizmo. Or Guillermo Buillermo. Or Something. This week we’re playing D&D with…
Guillermo De la Cruz
Guillermo’s a pretty interesting character in a show about interesting characters. He both wants to be a vampire and is destined to and very good at, killing vampires. Also, he’s a genuinely nice person and the only human the rest of the cast interacts with on a regular basis and this season he really had a chance to shine. Or at least for now. The end of Season Four implies that he may finally be vamping soon.
I tried to make this sheet feel a little like a juxtaposition of what he’s good at and what he wants to do. Blood Hunter feels very “natural born killer” and monster hunter-esque to me. Order of the Profane Soul’s description of “making pacts with lesser evils to better combat the greater” combined with a fiend patron reflects the job he took on in protecting his master. Or in a game perhaps using his patron’s power and resources to take on greater evils.
His weapons and armor are as basic as they come because he’s not especially fussy about his tools. Though he absolutely needed a crossbow of some kind. He just sort of uses whatever makeshift steak he has close by in the show, and he would in-game too. His dex is almost comically high because he more-or-less falls into the right places as if it’s more instinct than choice. And for Guillermo, it probably is.
Guillermo is probably one of the most playable characters I’ll pull from popular media. Not just because Blood Hunter is a fun class to play, but his constantly warring desires between protecting and destroying make for somebody who would be complex and fun to play in a game or slowly let a DM unravel while having an overriding concept that’s just open enough to be customize-able for a different world. Not to mention, the characters’ never-ending goofs and jabs at each other’s expense are always at home in most campaigns.
Who’s your favorite character in What We Do in the Shadows? And Do you prefer the movie or the show? How would you have written Guillermo for D&D? Who should I build next? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
