Welcome to Essential Builds, also known as How To Build Your Pop Culture Essence20 Player Characters.
Inspired by the live action remake currently in theatres, and by Rob’s review of Warrenguard yesterday,I decided to build the most popular dragon rider of the last 15 years. Of course, that means also building his dragon.
Who Are Hiccup and Toothless?
Like all Berkians of the Hooligan tribe, Hiccup (full name Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III) is a descendent of the finest dragon fighters from everywhere Vikings ever traveled. He just happens to be the scrawniest, meekest, and the son of his tribe’s chief. His father’s high hopes for Hiccup clashed with the rest of the tribe’s expectations, Hiccup’s included. A lifetime of underachievement and questioning tradition left the littlest Hooligan an outcast within the tribe he was destined to lead.
Toothless is a Night Fury, a mysterious black dragon species that defied classification. The dragon showed a greater understanding of humans when he attacked Berk, targeting the Hooligans weapons instead of trying to snatch up resources. Hiccup shot him down to defend his village, mangling the Night Fury’s tail fin in the process. The young Hooligan tracked down his injured opponent to finish him off, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He related to the wounded creature.
What started as fire and fury became friendship. Toothless didn’t just become Hiccup’s friend. He became the friend who gave him his purpose.
Building Essence20 Hiccup and Toothless
The big draw of this build is creating a dragon as a mount in Essence20, but I don’t want Toothless to overshadow Hiccup here. He’s an interesting character in his own right. A little too interesting.
Building main characters is always a challenge. Hiccup is a dragon trainer, a clever inventor, and eventually an expert fighter and battle-hardened leader. Giving him a bit of everything he’s great at in the films will give us a character that can’t reliably do anything. So we’re going to focus on HTTYD 1, act 2 Hiccup and Toothless.
Hiccup Origin
Curious (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)
I knew I wanted a Restricted Pet at level 1, so I needed an Origin that grants a General Perk. I considered Oddball from Power Rangers Core, but that’s more about being wacky. Hiccup may be an outcast, but he’s also the most grounded person on Berk. It’s the Hooligans who are wacky.
What makes Hiccup an outcast is that he asks questions no one else is brave enough to consider, and approaches situations with his brain instead of his biceps. That sounds Curious to me. Surprisingly, this is the Curious Origin’s first Essential Builds appearance.
In case it wasn’t obvious, we’re using our General Perk to gain Animal Pet.
Hiccup Role
Ranger (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)
I mulled over a lot of Roles before settling on Ranger. I knew I wanted the Beastmaster Focus, but thanks to the Advanced Crossover Rules in the Field Guide to Action & Adventure, we could have swapped that Focus to another Role.
Since Hiccup is an inventor, I looked over the Blue and Aquamarine Ranger Roles from Power Rangers, and Scientist from Transformers. The problem is that those Roles represent being technologically ahead of our modern world. Hiccup is decades, maybe even centuries ahead of the Middle Age era technology we see in How To Train Your Dragon, but the technology and abilities those options would grant him would make him feel more like a wizard than an Iron Age cutting edge inventor.
Fortunately, Ranger is a diverse enough Role that it gets us a few options related to invention (the Forage Role Perk, and the Dirty Trick and Kitbasher Exposures), while also giving us a lot of options that relate to the warrior chief Hiccup would become.
Focus
Beastmaster (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)
If you just want a pet, you need the Animal Pet General Perk. But if you want to be the best at having a pet, you need Beastmaster.
This Focus not only gets you a level 1 Limited Pet, but if you take the Animal Pet General Perk too (which we have), you can instead get a Restricted Pet at level 1, which is the only availability that lets you take a Large pet.
The rest of the Focus builds up the bond between PC and pet. I’d go into them, but I still have a dragon to build! Just trust me, OK, this is the best Focus for this build.
Hiccup Influences
1st Inventor (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)
2nd Animal Whisperer (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)
3rd Life Interrupted (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Beneath The Helmet)
Well doesn’t “Inventor, Animal Whisperer, Life Interrupted” just sum up Hiccup’s character arc?
Normally I’m not a fan of Inventor. My philosophy is that an option’s applicability should directly relate to the word’s definition. Inventors invent, therefore an option called Inventor should be about inventing. The Inventor Influence skips past making you good at inventing and instead makes you better at using things you’ve invented. That feels more like the Influence should be called Applied Engineering.
That gripe aside, the whole Hiccup/Toothless relationship started because Hiccup built and used an anti-dragon cannon, so Inventor’s name and mechanics both work.
Animal Whisperer lets us communicate with animals as though we share a language. Even as the other Hooligans of Hiccup’s generation learn to ride dragons, none of them chat with their mounts with the familiarity of Hiccup and Toothless.
The last Influence, from what’s quickly becoming Essential Builds’ favourite Power Rangers sourcebook, packs in a lot of flavour that fits Hiccup’s stuttered journey to chiefdom. He was born with his life planned out, only for it to be derailed by everything he is. It’s not until he embraces who he is that he gets himself to his destined destination, albeit by a totally different path. Mechanically, we get a bonus for being methodical, and a penalty for being impulsive, both of which we see Hiccup experience throughout the films and tie-in series.
Hiccup Essence Scores and Skills
Strength 2: Might +d4
Speed 2: Targeting +d4
Smarts 6: Culture +d2, Survival +d4, Technology +d6
Social 6: Animal Handling (Dragon) +d10*
Obviously the highest priority was Animal Handling. Because the Ranger’s Social Essence Score Boosts progresses the slowest of the four, I needed as much Animal Handling as I could get out of the gate. OK, technically I could have gone one step further, but I didn’t want Hiccup to just be the prerequisite for Toothless. +d10 Specialized is absolutely enough to do everything we need with our dragon, and leaves a little wiggle room to train him a little more.
Our other top starting Essence Score is Smarts, with a wider swath of Skills. Rangers get a lot of Smarts, so these will all go up at a reliable pace.
After that, I rounded Hiccup out with some combat basics. It’s justifiable, I think. He may be the scrawniest Hooligan, but like Hiccup says about Berk, “Any food that grows here is tough and tasteless. The people that grow here are even more so.” We know he can hit a moving target with a bola, and he’s strong enough to swing a sword.
Toothless
Toothless may be the most elaborate part of this build, but he was easy to put together.
As a reminder, pets come in three availabilities: Standard, Limited, and Restricted. The Curiosity Origin gave us a General Perk, which we used to take Animal Pet and thereby got a Standard Pet. The Beastmaster Focus gave us a Limited Pet, and said if we gained an animal pet from another source, we could either have multiple pets or we could combine them into a Restricted Pet.
Now that we are allowed a pet, how do we make it? Those rules are outlined in G.I JOE Core and the new Welcome to Night Vale Citizen’s Guide (as well as a simplified rules in My Little Pony Core, but we’re not using that version). Because this is the first time a pet was essential to an Essential Build, I’ll go through each step.
- Pick a form. Originally this just meant a land, sea, or air form, but Cobra Codex added climbing as a new form.
All forms are accessible regardless of availability, but the rarer the availability, the better the movement you gain from your form. For Toothless, we’re going with an air form. - Pick a size. Standard, Limited, and Restricted pets can all be Small or Common sized, but only a Restricted pet can be Large.
Your pet’s size determines its bonus to a Defense. Again, the rarer the better. In theory, at least. As written, Large pets only get a +1 bonus to Toughness, the same benefit as a Common Standard pet. I do not know why I went in that direction and have suggested changing it to +4 in Renegade’s internal errata documents. - Pick a function. Choose either Attack, Utility, or, as of Cobra Codex, Sacrificial (which is really a bodyguard function with evil flavour).
A pet’s function sets its starting Essence scores and which kind of command the master can give as a Move action instead of a Standard action. As a Restricted pet, we gain higher Essence Scores. Even though Toothless is very smart for a dragon, he’s the fighter of the pair. We’re giving him the Attack function. - Pick acute senses. Pets gain the Acute Senses General Perk 1-3 times, depending on availability.
According to the How To Train Your Dragon wiki’s Toothless page, he has incredible hearing and sense of smell. For the third sense, we could be boring and go with sight, or lean into Toothless’ love of food and go with taste. - Pick an attack. All pets get a natural attack, represented by a weapon in the Equipment chapter, the rarer the pet, the better the weapon.
We get to choose between a Sharp or Blunt weapon, or a Venomous weapon thanks to Cobra Codex. That gets us Toothless’ teeth (Hiccup named the Night Fury before realizing his gummy maw hid retractable fangs), but doesn’t give us a good option for his plasma blasts. Sadly, Animal Perks don’t solve this problem. I can’t even break the blog’s rules against reflavouring options to give him a directed energy rifle in his mouth. Sorry all. Hopefully I’ll have an opportunity to include some expanded pet options in the future. - Advance your pet. A pet gains a number of Essence Score increases and Animal Perks equal to its master’s Ranks in Animal Handling.
That gives us an Essence Score total of 16, conveniently the same as a level 1 PC!
Toothless Essence Scores and Skills
Strength 4: Brawn +d2, Might +d6
Speed 8: Acrobatics +d6, Infiltration +d6, Initiative +d4
Smarts 3: Alertness +d6
Social 1: Persuasion +d2
Appropriately, Toothless is strong where Hiccup is weak, and vice versa. In fact, the only Skill they both have Ranks in is Might. What a complimentary pair!
Toothless Animal Perks
For Perks, ooh! I found a way to get Toothless’ breath weapon. But it’s a stretch and takes four General Perks. But we have six, so…
If we take Altered Pet from Cobra Codex, we gain a Standard Alteration. This ties into the lore, since Toothless has a prosthetic tail (although we do emphasize that if your prosthetic only serves to repeat an organic function you don’t need to take an option for that, but this gives us an excuse). Altered Pet also gives us the option to treat the General Perks that grant Alterations as Animal Perks. So if we take Cybernetic Part and Enhanced Part (though I’d even argue that Altered Pet can substitute Cybernetic Part for Enhanced Part’s prerequisite), we qualify for Optimized Part. That nets us two Standard, one Limited, and one Restricted Alteration.
The Restricted Alteration can be used to gain an integrated Limited weapon. Boom, directed energy rifle plasma breath at level 1. We just have to ignore that our build treats a Night Fury natural weapon as a cybernetic enhancement.
We can use our Limited Alteration for Utility Adjustment, which gives us a Standard Kit. That could be used for our tail fin to give us a bump to Acrobatics.
Our two Standard Alterations can be used to give Toothless a tail slap and claws.
That leaves us with two Animal Perks that we can use for Agreeable and another Favorite Command.
If I had access to Welcome to Night Vale, I’d love to read over the new Animal Perks it introduces. If you have the Citizen’s Guide, let me know what Animal Perks you’d give Toothless.
Conclusion
I did it!
In case it’s not obvious, I start writing these without my build fully planned out. I have that much faith that Essence20’s options can handle any character I aim to build. But this is an accomplishment.
I only realized the depth and complexity of Hiccup as a character while researching this build. Even without a dragon, it’s an interesting build with a collection of options I would never think to combine. And the fact that I also gave him a dragon? I am patting myself on the back here.
That’s how you train a dragon!
Resources
Field Guide to Action & Adventure
G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex
My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Beneath The Helmet
Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
Ryan Costello is one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, he’s written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.
