In my last post, Rolling Dice in a Real Tavern, I mentioned that I’d properly introduce the character I’ve been bringing with me to RPG Taverns — and it’s overdue to make good on that promise.

This is Tarin Nerweller: my first ever D&D 5E character, and the one through whom I’m rediscovering what it’s like to sit on the player side of the table again.

Tarin is currently in play at RPG Taverns, and while the venue may be convivial and welcoming, the character himself very much isn’t — at least, not at first glance.

The Basics

• Species: Tiefling
• Class: Sorcerer
• Level: 3
• Subclass: Draconic Sorcery
• Background: Wayfarer

Mechanically, Tarin is a relatively straightforward low-level sorcerer, intended to let me get to grips with 5E play without too much cognitive overhead. Narratively, though, he’s becoming more interesting the more I play with him and start to learn about and interact with the setting.

A Life in the Gutter

Tarin hails not from Tolrendor, but from Aeon, the shared world setting used by RPG Taverns.

He was born in the slums of Harford City, growing up amid the narrow alleys and refuse-choked lanes of the Restwater Estate. A tiefling child with no family name worth keeping, or indeed family once he was abandoned on the streets, he survived by begging, stealing, and learning when to disappear. The Wayfarer background isn’t an affectation — it’s a survival trait burned into him young.

The magic came early. Too early.

It began as accidents — heat blooming in his palms, sparks leaping when fear took him, shadows twitching when he was angry. On the streets, latent power without control is just another way to die. Tarin was already marked as an outcast by his horns and vestigial wings; random bursts of sorcery only made him more noticeable, more dangerous to keep around.

He might have become a rogue, had circumstances allowed. Or he might simply have been killed.

Instead, fate intervened in the form of a dragonborn sorcerer — a vagabond who recognised the signs because he had lived them. This mentor didn’t teach Tarin spells or theory. He taught restraint. How to breathe through the surge. How to listen to the magic instead of fighting it. When the dragonborn moved on, Tarin was left with the same power — but quieter now, coiled and waiting.

When the chance came, Tarin was urged to leave Harford City behind and make the journey to Noa’s Rest. Not just to escape his past, but to decide what kind of fire he intended to become.

A Crooked, Watchful Figure

Tarin cuts a striking but uncomfortable figure. He is unkempt and under-nourished, his frame lean to the point of brittleness. Small horns push through his dark hair, stunted rather than proud, while vestigial wing stubs hunch his shoulders and lend him a perpetually guarded posture. His skin is pale and wan, marred in places by faint draconic scaling — an almost embarrassing side effect of his sorcery that he keeps hidden where he can.

There’s something in his eyes that never quite rests. He watches first, speaks second, trusts last.

Personality Traits

• Quiet, observant, slow to volunteer opinions
• Keeps emotional distance until trust is earned

Ideals

• Control is survival
• Power should be used deliberately — or not at all

Bonds

• Owes his life, in some sense, to the dragonborn who taught him restraint
• Feels an unspoken obligation to protect others from uncontrolled magic

Flaws

• Reluctant to rely on others
• Carries deep-seated shame about his origins and his appearance

The Colour of His Magic

Tarin’s sorcery doesn’t manifest cleanly or heroically.

His magic leaks into the world as vapourous, glowing light, a sickly sewer-green hue that coils and hisses like steam escaping cracked stone. It smells faintly acrid, like wet ash and old copper — a reminder that this power was forged in gutters, not towers.

At the table, that flavour has already started to matter.

• Innate Sorcery: When Tarin draws on his bloodline, the air around him fogs with greenish vapour, scales along his arms faintly glowing as the magic pushes close to the surface.
• Fire Bolt: A snap of the fingers, and a lance of gutter-green flame spits forth, leaving scorch marks like chemical burns rather than clean fire.
• Chromatic Orb: The spell forms as a roiling, unstable sphere of sickly hue — its colour never quite settling until the moment it’s hurled.
• Scorching Ray: Multiple thin beams of acrid green fire tear free, like cracks in a furnace door briefly thrown open.
• Hellish Rebuke: Less a spell than a reflex — the magic erupts around the target in a spiteful, back-alley flash of heat and bile-green flame.

None of it looks safe. All of it feels earned.

More to come…

This won’t be the last time Tarin appears here.

I’m going to start an occasional column following his adventures — small vignettes and reflections drawn from actual play at RPG Taverns, exploring how the character grows session by session.

I also plan to rebuild Tarin using the Tales of the Valiant RPG, recreating him under the variant ruleset and talking through what changes, what doesn’t, and how the the two systems feel when applied the same character. Same gutter-born Sorcerer, different Fire!

That I suspect will tell us far more than a simple rules comparison would.