Why I named my D&D character Kiviuq

I am an avid Dungeons and Dragons player.

Every Tuesday after work (unless prevented by circumstances I have no control over), I gather with some fellow employees to play D&D (with my father as the Dungeon Master) via a remote playing website called Roll20.

For non-D&D players, the Dungeon Master is the manager of the scenario.

The scenario my group and I are playing now is Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, which takes place in a frozen tundra that is experiencing perpetual winter cold.

For the Icewind Dale campaign, I chose to name my character Kiviuq.

Why, you may ask?

As someone who loves mythology, I often use real-world mythological characters as inspiration for new characters.

In Inuit mythology, Kiviuq (also known as Qayaq), is a wandering magician hero who encounters animal-people and even himself turns into different animals.

When he comes home to discover that his parents have died, he turns into a hawk and flies away.

Naturally, I thought that a character like this would make an excellent druid.

Unlike the Celtic ones, druids in D&D are magicians who are all about nature and animal transformation.

Since Kiviuq comes from an Arctic culture, the cultural inspiration for this player character allows him to fit in with the frozen tundra environment.

Hence, I named my Icewind Dale druid character after this nomadic magic-user from Inuit mythology.

I have even created an avatar for this character using Adobe (as is my tradition for D&D player characters)

Back in the late-2010s (when I was fresh out of the Unversity of Connecticut), I joined a social activity group for young adults with disabilites such as myself, known as The Light House

One such activity was a D&D group.

Since it happened to be Saint Patrick's Day, I decided to conjure up a character inspired by Irish mythology.

Since the Irish hero Cuchulainn has several characteristics of a barbarian (which, in D&D, is a warrior who becomes stronger and tougher by going into a rage), I decided to created a barbarian character named after--and inspired by--this hero of the Ulster Cycle of Medieval Irish literature.

Speaking of barbarians, my last character I played from the start of the campaign (which back then was The Sunless Citadel followed by Forge of Fury) was also a barbarian.

This character (a wolf totem barbarian) was inspired by a song called Wolf Totem by the Mongolian folk metal band The Hu.

His name, Chonokhuu, means "wolf-boy" in Mongolian.

He died doing what a barbarian does best:

Charging headlong into a horde of enemies

Chonohkuu will be missed.

As my D&D campaigns progress, I update my character avatars based on circumstances such as new powers they gain, and new weapons and items they acquire.

Hopefully, this blog post will inspire other D&D players (both new and experienced) to come up with fresh and creative ideas for characters.

This is James Pederson of Mythology Worlds signing off.

Thank you, and have a great North of the World summer.