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Half-Orc

Summary:

Dustin helps Steve make a DnD character while he paints his new mini figure.

Notes:

These Stranger Things fics are making me do so much research on AD&D 1e

I've only played 5th edition so it's cool to see what's different in one of the first editions from the 80s, especially since I play primarily half-orcs and bards (I play a half-orc bard, but that's not possible in AD&D 1e lol)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Dustin finally convinced Steve to make a DnD character with him. While Steve filled out the character sheet, asking Dustin questions about each thing, even if he just answered the same exact thing two minutes ago, Dustin was painting a new mini figure he got.

He finally got a Half-Orc mini figure. Although he always plays the bard, almost always as a half-ling, he wants one of each race for his collection. Dustin was focused on painting the tiny belts going across the half-orc’s torso that holds up the axe strapped to its back while Steve filled in the languages his character could speak.

Steve waited for him to bring the brush away from the tiny half-orc so he didn’t startle him before speaking. “Hey, Dustin,” he said. Dustin looked up. “What language can I speak?”

“What race and class are you?”

Steve checks his paper and Dustin looks at him like he’s stupid for forgetting his own character’s race. “Half-Orc,” he answered.

“You can speak Common and Orcish,” Dustin answered, dipping his tiny paintbrush in water to clean it before it dries on the bristles. “If you want, you can learn two more languages, but you shouldn’t do that before we start the game just in case we find something in a language that none of us can read, that way you can decipher it for us and add it to your languages list.”

While he spoke, Steve took notes and entered his languages onto the character sheet. He looked up at the Half-Orc figure standing upright on the table.

“Why doesn’t it fall over?” Steve asked, gesturing to it with his pencil eraser.

Dustin tapped the base of the figure. “It has a bottom to keep it balanced.”

“It just looks really top heavy,” he noted. “It doesn’t look like it should be able to stand on its own.”

The kid thought about it and shrugged. “It’s Dungeons and Dragons, it’s probably magic,” he joked, smiling wide.

Steve smiled at him. “Do I get one of those for my character?”

“You can use this one,” Dustin offered, going back to painting. Steve went back to working on his character sheet.

Notes:

Everyone thank google for the AD&D 1e players handbook pdf I found. I made this as accurate as I could

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