Let’s Play D&D With Agatha Harkness
Was it Agatha all along or is it just this week where Agatha Harkness will be joining us to play some Dungeons and Dragons?
Sure, Wandavision was a brilliant piece of media that slowburned its way into all of our hearts and blew up our collective youtube channels with theories videos, but let’s talk about the real takeaway from the series: Agatha Freaking Harkness.
In the twist reveal that most of us saw coming and went bananas over anyway, Agatha cemented herself into internet infamy deserving of a place in any sarcasm riddle D&D adventure.
Usually when I make villains, I make them as monster sheets; it only makes sense. But I got halfway through making Agatha’s sheet before it had even occurred to me that she’s sort of a villain (Bad guy? Anti-anti-hero? Decidedly not a good guy?). Agatha is such a good antagonist that she’s the sort of Lawful Evil mess you want your own character to be. This is the level of snark that I aspire to with playable characters and Kathryn Hahn made it looks effortless. In short, play Agatha as the evil pseudo protagonist of your dreams.
There isn’t a specific playable class for “witch” in Dungeons and Dragons, and I’ve seen this issue handled a few ways in the past with double classing and creative homebrews. But I ultimately decided to keep it simple and chose Wizard. Warlock was a close second, but the MCU didn’t introduce a specific patron for her to follow – Maybe this will change in the future, who knows – and Sorcerer didn’t quite fit either because her magic comes from a place of intense study.
From there everything fell into place. She’s more or less a master of all sorts of magic, so choosing one school was difficult. In the end, I decided on Abjuration because while it didn’t quite fit with “stealing other people’s magic” it felt close-enough-ish and came with ample protection spells, something that she boasts almost immediately. But if you were making this character, you’d be pretty on-brand with any school depending on how you wanted to play D&D. She’s been practicing magic for a while, it makes sense she’s covered most of the bases. Instead of Ability Score boosts, I decided to take advantage of Feats, choosing Actor for one of them. Because come on, it’s both perfect and on the nose, and just funny enough to justify the joke. Plus, it’s a useful feat. I also chose Arcanist to take advantage of that double proficiency in Arcana.
From there it was a matter of spells, and with a couple of hundred years to collect, she had quite a few to add to her sheet. I tried to pick from powers similar to those I’d seen her use in the show (fly, geas, dimension door) along with ones that were strongly implied (find familiar for Señor Scratchy), and had to pare down before I knew it.
All in all, Agatha makes for a ridiculously fun character to build and I’m sure an even more fun character to play. She’s funny, wacky, the exact right amount of mean, and she seems like she would fit in just about any D&D adventure setting. If you changed the name even slightly and snuck her in, I bet nobody would even notice.
How would you play Agatha Harkness in Dungeons and Dragons? Do you still have her theme song stuck in your head or have you found a way to free yourself? What TV shows, movies, or games would you like to see me make sheets from next? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
