Let’s Play D&D With Studio Ghibli
Keep an eye out for forest spirits, this week we’re jumping into the worlds of Studio Ghibli and inviting a few of our favorite protagonists to play D&D.
Studio Ghibli is known for gorgeous scenery, meaningful plots, food good enough to eat off of the screen, and protagonists who are usually young women. There is almost always a world of magic and wonder where friendship is one of the most important things you can have and growing is rewarded… Which sounds a lot like D&D to me. But how could we add Ghibli inspired characters to our next session?
Kiki
Kiki is a young girl and a witch in training so I wanted to keep her level low, but I wasn’t sure exactly what class to make her. There’s a fair amount of crossover between Wizard and Sorcerer but Wizards are more intelligence based while Sorcerer’s use their charisma – which was one point in favor of Sorcerer Kiki. That said, she is in training which implies to me some sort of organized educational system, which is a little more Wizard-esque. For a moment I thought about multiclassing but that didn’t feel right either. In the end I went with Sorcerer because her loss of faith in herself meant a temporary loss of her powers, which felt more charisma adjacent to me personally. In reality, I don’t think there’s a wrong way to make a “witch” as long as you’re playing a magic user whichever way you’ll have the most fun.
She’s fairly straight forward since early classes are a little hard to get super interesting with, but I wanted to make sure she had her trusty broom and cat, Jiji. At this level Kiki doesn’t have any flying spells, but her magic broom is a pretty big part of her story and job. Her spells were the spells that I thought she would actually use in the movie.
Would Kiki be an effective D&D character? Honestly, probably not. She’s perhaps too sweet, she doesn’t have armor or want to get into fights and her magic use would be more based in what’s useful and would allow her to make friends than combat.
But there is a Ghibli protagonist who would make a fearsome D&D character…
San
San is a character you could get into a fight with. She is literally raised by wolves so I immediately opted for a Beast Master Ranger. This gave me the ability to give her a wolf animal companion slash mother, Moro, as well as a few key animal based spells. With weapons and more strength she is more likely to do some damage in a battle, but at the end of the day, San is a squishy human in the world of wild beasts and gods. Her constitution and hit points are not that high and she’ll have to rely on her dexterity to keep her one step ahead of any damage.
Because of her class, she also has preferred foes and terrains. Terrains were easy with forests and mountains being the places where she spends all of her time, but are a little more difficult. She hates humans, despite being one, because they have been destroying her home and family, but there is also the black wormy sickness that has been infecting the land. There isn’t an option for “that weird wormy sickness from the movie,” so I improvised a little with oozes. In a game of your own, improvise differently for better results.
Which Ghibli protagonist would you base a D&D character after? Would you prefer a cheerful peaceful character like Kiki, or a competent damage doer like San? What other movies, shows, or games would you like to see sheets from next? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
