The launch of Wyrd Street’s Indie Go Go campaign is now just a few days away, and I’m continuing my look at the game’s Iconic Characters. Today, we’ll be doing a deep-dive on Lo Karlsson, the Drifter.

The elder brother of Ji Wensdottir, Lo has a cocky attitude that can make him seem a bit childish, but the reality is he had to grow up fast. With an ailing father, an overworked mother, and a young sister he feels he must protect, Lo sees it as his responsibility to always put on a brave face — or, in his case, a confident smirk.

When it comes to the adventuring life, Lo has taken up the ways of the Drifter.

Along with Street Preacher, Drifter is one of the very first class concepts I had for Wyrd Street. The original concept for Wyrd Street’s classes was for each to be a run-down version of traditional RPG classes, and Drifters are the rangers of the setting.

As a long-time city-dweller and lover of the natural world, I’ve never agreed with the idea of cities as an opposition to or interruption of nature. There’s still lots of nature in the city; it’s just a bit different. Drifters understand this; they are the rangers of the urban jungle. They know the secret paths through alleyways and across rooftops, and they find allies in the stray animals and so-called “vermin” of the slums.

Mechanically, Drifters are primarily a damage class, but as you’d expect from a ranger, they have a lot of versatility. They’re equally adept with both melee and ranged weapons, and they can even get bonuses for using both in equal measure. And while they’re not well suited to being a primary tank or healer, they do have access to a decent set of tools to bolster their survivability or that of their teammates.

One of my favourite examples is their ability to acquire Back Alley Cures, “healing potions” of questionable provenance and uncertain results. Every time you drink one, you must roll a die to determine its results and hope for the best.

Drifters are also Wyrd Street’s premier pet class. While the options have been shored up a bit in recent years, when I first started work on Wyrd Street I was very frustrated by the lack of good pet class options in Fifth Edition, so I worked hard to make it a robust option in Wyrd Street.

To that end, Drifters have access to combat pets that are both powerful and plentiful. They can befriend resilient stray hounds or clever raccoons to aid them in battle. As they level, they can continue adding more allies and become master of a pack of as many as three three creatures.

Don’t worry, though — there’s also an option to play without pets if you don’t enjoy that playstyle.

Self-reliant and capable, the Drifter is the class that best represents Lo Karlsson. However, his backstory doesn’t strongly tie him to a specific playstyle, so he’s one of the easier characters to convert to a variety of other classes: Brawler, Scoundrel, Vigilante… I could even see his ready charm and cocky attitude fitting well with the Fortune Teller class.

Lo is the last character I commissioned artwork for prior to the launch of our crowdfunding campaign. I’m now ready to publicly reveal his artwork for the first time. Looks like he even brought a few friends:

Wyrd Street launches on Indie Go Go this Tuesday, March 29th. Keep following Superior Realities for more updates.

As the launch of Wyrd Street’s IndieGoGo rapidly approaches, I continue my look at some of the Iconic Characters with the Iconic Dreamer, Five Snow Blossom.

Five is one of the Bala, a race who trace their lineage back to the sylvan powers of the forest. The Bala are each named after the day of their birth in the Bala calendar, but since Five was abandoned as a baby, her name is taken from the day she was found and taken in by an orphanage: the fifth day of the month of Snow, in the year of Blossom.

Despite her lonely origin, Five has grown into a cheerful, optimistic teenager who tries to see the best in everyone. Though she never had a true family, the tightly knit community of Morhold’s Bala Enclave ensured she was safe and fed.

Now that she is beginning to find her own way in the world, she’s discovered a kind of surrogate family in the Wyrd Street community. Doctor Zuberi Mbogo (himself a playable Iconic Character) has taken her in as a kind of protege, and Five has developed a budding romance with his daughter, Subira.

Five is a Dreamer, a class that draws its inspiration from both druid and bard archetypes. Dreamers are those who escaped the struggles of poverty through tales of far off times and places, and their imagination burns so brightly that they can alter reality around them, to a limited degree.

Dreamer was one of the most fun classes to design. Their abilities are drawn from legends and myth, so it allowed me to flesh out the cultures of the setting in a very unique way. For example, Lash of the Cloud Shepherd, a lightning whip ability drawn from a Plainsfolk myth about a cosmic shepherd who guides the clouds across the sky.

Mechanically, Dreamers are primarily a support class. However, they have a very unique take on the role.

In most games, support tends to be a very reactive role. Someone gets hurt, and you heal them. In contrast to that, Dreamers have almost no capacity to directly heal allies. Instead, they must proactively use abilities to buff, protect, and restore their friends.

A prominent example of this playstyle comes at level one, with the Blossom of Life ability. Drawn from a Holder fairy-tale, Blossom of Life grows a spectral flower on the battlefield. Your allies can then touch the flower to receive a small amount of immediate healing and the Renewal Boon, a long-term heal over time effect.

Blossom of Life has the potential to heal a tremendous amount of damage across your party for a very low cost, but it requires forethought and team coordination to use effectively.

If you’re the sort of player who enjoys planning ahead and coordinating with the rest of your party, a support Dreamer is right up your ally.

But if you don’t feel like playing support, Dreamers do have another option. Like many nature-themed classes in RPGs, Dreamers have the ability to shapeshift… but because they live in the inner city, with little contact with actual wildlife, they can do so only imperfectly.

At level one, they gain access to the Chimera Form ability, which allows them to gain some animalistic traits and enhance their aptitude for melee combat. As they level up, they have access to many upgrades to Chimera Form, allowing them to transform from fragile ranged supports into exceptionally resilient melee brawlers.

Since Wyrd Street largely lacks distinct subclasses, you don’t need to fully commit one way or the other, either. You can dabble with Chimera Form to gain a bit more resilience while still offering support to your allies, or vice versa.

Optimistic and unflinching, the Dreamer is the ideal class for the eternally positive Five Snow Blossom, but if you’d like to play a more traditional support, her backstory could also fit Street Preacher well, or perhaps she could learn some tricks from Dr. Mbogo and adventure as a Quack. If you want to eschew support entirely, her keen mind and eye toward the future could even justify her as a Fortune Teller, one of the game’s must destructive damage classes.

Five is one of the first characters I commissioned art for. If you’ve already clicked on our pre-launch IndieGoGo page, you’ve caught a glimpse of her, but if not, here she is again:

Wyrd Street’s crowdfunding begins March 29th. Sign up on IndieGoGo to be notified by email when the campaign goes live.