D&D Spotlight: Calonyction Ipomoea

In which I accidentally invented a whole cult.

I don’t know what it was about this character that made me be so extra. I don’t know if it was because she was my second campaign character, I don’t know if it’s because I had decided to take on the cleric role, something I initially wasn’t super jazzed about, and wanted to make it fun for myself, or what. But when it came to making my character for the Waterdeep campaign I was going to play, I went all out with my backstory. For one thing, I knew as a cleric I would have to tie in some religious aspects to her, but as someone with a complicated history with religion, I didn’t just want to play out my own religious trauma through her, I wanted something new. And when I decided to try the then-new Twilight Cleric subclass, I decided to take the moon theme and run with it. Thus, my moon elf twilight cleric of Selûne (the moon goddess) was born.

I wanted someone naive to the world, but not childlike, and the best way I could think to do that was have her grow up in a sheltered but mature situation. Somehow, one thing lead to another, and I had a commune on my hands. As I built up how sheltered she was, and why she would leave that shelter for this adventure, I realized actually probably it was just a cult, and she was out on her moon cult rumspringa.

Her name is Calonyction Ipomoea, which is taken from the scientific name of the moon flower, and she does love to introduce herself with her full name because of the looks it gets, but she tells people they can just call her Nyx. (I know Callie would have been a more obvious nickname, but I was playing this game with my friend Callie, and also I couldn’t resist using yet another night-themed term for my girl.)

I wrote too much backstory for Nyx, and even went so far as to write an academic excerpt of the cult, because Nyx didn’t know she was in a cult, so I needed an outsider perspective when writing about the cult for my DM. Could it have been from my, Valerie Anne’s, perspective? Yes. But as I mentioned, I am extra. I did also write some of her backstory from my own perspective. And some from Nyx’s. It’s a lot. She’s a character I’ve considered revisiting for a longer form story to write, but she’s like third in line after other D&D characters I’ve played.

Playing Nyx was great, because she didn’t understand social norms, was hopelessly optimistic, and was desperately ill-prepared for the real world. The first night she stayed in the manor with her party, she walked around naked. Her go-to phrase was “I see no down side,” which got her into plenty of trouble. Including the one time she literally died. (She got better.) She didn’t have a shield for an alarming amount of time, and she only used buff and healing spells for the first few fights, making two of our rogue and barbarian (in-game and hilariously, not out of game) wonder if Nyx was even cut out for this life. With the help of her new friends, she learned how to harness her magic for the scraps they got themselves into. The mace strapped to her back was purely ceremonial (I think she would have taken damage if she tried to use her noodle arms to wield a weapon) but she did shape her Spiritual Weapon after it and feigned pulling it off her back with every casting. She even learned how to feel her negative feelings, something that was frowned upon where she grew up.

Though easily my favorite parts of playing Nyx was when we were investigating some nobles and realized they might be in some kind of demon cult. There are two RP moments I wish I had video recordings of, because my party’s faces were priceless. The first is when Nyx asked, “What’s a cult?” and the second was during a different discussion of said nobles and whether or not they were intending to cause the harm they were doing, when Nyx said, “Well surely they would know if they were in a cult.” And somehow those sweet angels never told her she was raised in a cult, and never told her what she had to decide when they asked whether or not she would go back at the end of her Voyage.

This is a long-winded intro for a long-winded backstory, so let’s get into it. Please enjoy the absolute absurdity of Calonyction Ipomoea.

PS. I’m running out of fictional writing to share with you all during these first Friday of the month newsletters! All I have left are Laissez and Althea, who I plan to turn into real fiction stories someday, so I don’t want to share yet. In fact, Althea’s story is my current WIP, which I’m not sure is in sharing stages yet. I’m trying to think of fun new verticals for you, but let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like to see in this special paid space. TV recaps, old journal entries, just more of the same stuff from the Tuesday newsletters, the world is our oyster!

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