I went and sponsored a soccer team. It’s a pub league team with several friends I met through Sounders soccer. Rather than advertise my soccer blog they all know about already I put the logo for Full Moon Storytelling on their kits. And then I offered to make any of them an Adventurer’s League legal character that represents some of their favorite soccer players and themselves.

First up is Davy Jones. Why Davy? Because that persona is on the reveal graphic.

A character sheet in Dungeons & Dragons is a story told in short hand.

Here’s the story I was trying to tell with Davy Jones — the name on the back of one of the players’ shirts. I didn’t look up the real players to build these. I did use their soccer-name as inspiration.

The soccer players provided in the prompt questions were Fredy Montero, DeAndre Yedlin, Zlatan. In some of the prompts there were references to Jessica Jones and Ljósálfar.

D&D is an imperfect way to represent these things. My attempts here are to capture the vibes of a potent showperson, a striker from distance and a stout defender. An Aasimar is more similar to the light elves of Nordic legend than the current version of D&D, plus that helps add more magic to Davy Jones — Zlatan has to have magic, so does Fredy “Golden God” Montero.

It was Fredy that helped the lean towards Paladin, as well as the Jessica Jones mention. Jones helped the decision towards Oath of Vengeance. Having Compelled Duel was another touch point towards Zlatan.

With DeAndre Yedlin still to be incorporated the Background choice was obvious — Folk Hero. Yedlin was the first MLS Sounder to rise from the Academy, the first to play in the World Cup because of their performance as a Sounder and the first to be sold to Europe. He’s a legend in his home town, and so is Davy Jones.

Each skill, weapon, spell is chosen to emphasize the combination of mystical striker, bewitching technique and the willingness to be a stout defender.

That’s Davy Jones.

Character graphics are made using ReRoll app. All eight players who submitted their favorite players and idealized playing styles to be imagined as D&D characters can be seen on DnDBeyond.