Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D for short) is a super fun tabletop roleplaying game that's been around since the 1970s but has recently gained a fair bit of popularity. I've been playing the game for around eight years at time of writing, and I strongly recommend you give it a try if you ever get the chance. It's really an absolute blast! D&D has always been one of my favorite hobbies, but within the last two years it's become an even bigger part of my life. Since I've been having so much fun with it recently, I decided it was finally time to try something I'd always wanted to do: turning the Disney Princesses into D&D characters.

Over the last year I've been slowly creating D&D characters based off of the DPs, and I spent so much time on them that I really wanted to share them here. I'll be posting a series of articles, one for each DP, in which I explain why I chose the classes, subclasses, etc. for each princess, and share the backstory I wrote for each. I'll also be crossposting these articles to the D&D club. All the characters will be level 3 to ensure that they all have a chosen subclass. Sourcebooks used to build these characters include the Player's Handbook, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

Since I expect many of you here don't play D&D or maybe even haven't heard of it, I'll begin with the backstory I wrote since you might find that the most interesting. Below the backstory you'll find the more nitty gritty stats of the characters. Anything written in italics is an author's note explaining my reasoning behind certain character choices.

Other Articles in This Series
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Moana

Human Warlock - The Fathomless / Background - Noble

I struggled a bit with what to make Moana. I nearly made her a druid, but I kept coming back to her line "The ocean chose me." And I don't know about you, but that sounds like a warlock patron to me. Luckily there was a perfect patron for that: The Fathomless, a thalassic entity that grants its warlocks powers drawn from the briny depths. I gave her the noble background because she is the daughter of the chief and in training to be the next leader of her island.

Backstory

Backstories have been created with a combination of the stories from the films and rolling randomly on the random tables in the "This Is Your Life" section of Xanathar's Guide to Everything, which is why some of these backstories have some wild things that really come out of left field lol.

I was born to Sina and Tui Waialiki on our island of Motunui. From a young age, my father never liked me to go near the ocean, always preferring to keep me away from the waves and focused on my duties as next in line for the chiefdom. But especially when I was younger I would sometimes slip away down to the shore. It felt like the ocean called me, and one day when I was very young it rose up above me and offered me a beautiful green stone. It was a strange event, and I lost the stone soon after, and so I chalked it up to be a dream.

It wasn't until years later when food on the island began to turn to ash that my grandmother returned the stone to me and revealed my destiny. I took a boat and sailed away against my father's wishes to restore the heart of Te Fiti and save our island. It was out in the open ocean where I completed the pact begun so many years ago with the fathoms themselves, granting me strange powers in the process.

I encountered the demigod Maui, and together we adventured across the seas and successfully completed my mission. When I returned, I taught my people how to sail, and we have begun to venture out to explore other islands and other areas of the ocean.

I have been placed in charge of exploration, so I have been sailing across the seas in search of adventure. Sometimes my patron acompanies me and sometimes I sail alone. Every time the capricious ocean interacts with me though is a surprise, whether pleasant or painful. It seems to enjoy playing harmless tricks on people.

I recently encountered a shipwreck in which I found a black pirate flag adorned with a dragon's skull and crossbones, and recent tracks indicating survivors. I'm searching to see if I can find them.

Kept this one basically the same. Did you notice the connection to Elsa's backstory? I happened to generate the same trinket for the two of them, so I thought I'd tie the two stories together. Moana is definitely going to stumble upon Elsa, Anna, and Shigeko, and they'll become an adventuring party!

Character Stats

Level 3

STR +1 (13) DEX 0 (11) CON +2 (15) INT -1 (9) WIS +2 (14) CHA +3 (16)

I used the standard array to generate stats. I tried to assign them in a way that would allow for a strong D&D character while still remaining mostly true to the attributes of the character in the film.

HP 24
AC 11
Initiative 0
Speed 30 ft. walk, 40 ft. swim

Saving throws: Con +4, Cha +5

Skills: History +1, Insight +4, Investigation +1, Persuasion +5 (For her class skills I gave her History and Investigation. She seems keen to learn the lore and history of her ancestors, so history makes sense, and that kind of goes hand in hand with investigation. Persuasion was granted by her background, and then I could choose one more. I gave her Insight, because she was very insightful to realize that Te Ka was actually Te Fiti.)

Languages: Celestial, Common, Primordial (I gave her Celestial because she's friends with Te Fiti who is a literal goddess, and I gave her Primordial because that's the language of elementals, and the way the ocean is portrayed in the film seems very similar to how an elemental might look. The Fathomless is likely an ancient water elemental.)

Tools: Dice Set

Features and Traits

Tentacle of the Deeps: You can magically summon a spectral tentacle that strikes at your foes.

Gift of the Sea: You gain a swimming speed of 40 feet, and you can breathe underwater.

Eldritch Invocations: You learn fragments of forbidden knowledge that imbue you with an abiding magical ability.
- Agonizing Blast: When you cast eldritch blast, add +3 to the damage it deals on a hit.
- Lance of Lethargy: Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can reduce that creature’s speed by 10 feet until the end of your next turn.

Pact Boon: Your otherworldly patron bestows a gift upon you for your loyal service.
- Pact of the Chain: You learn the find familiar spell, it doesn't count against your number of known spells, and you can cast it as a ritual. Your familiar can take on a more powerful form, and when you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your familiar to make one attack with its reaction. (I chose Pact of the Chain for her since she does have an animal companion with her for the entire movie. Heihei is her familiar and he usually takes the form of a rooster!)

Spells

Modifier: +3
Spell Attack: +5
Save DC: 13

Cantrips (at will): Eldritch Blast, Prestidigitation
2nd (2 slots): Armor of Agathys, Create or Destroy Water, Find Familiar, Misty Step, Silence

I tried to give her a good spread of different kinds of spells. Since Moana doesn't actually control the ocean or water in her movie I didn't necessarily focus on water spells.

Actions

Crossbow, Light: +2 to hit, 1d8 piercing damage

Dagger: +3 to hit, 1d4+1 piercing damage

Spear: +3 to hit, 1d6+1 piercing damage

Bonus Actions

Tentacle of the Deeps: Summon - As a bonus action, you create a 10-foot-long tentacle at a point you can see within 60 ft. of you. The tentacle lasts for 1 minute or until you use this feature to create another tentacle. When you create the tentacle, you can make a melee spell attack against one creature within 10 ft. of it.

Tentacle of the Deeps: Attack - When you create or move the tentacle, you can make a melee spell attack against one creature within 10 ft. of it. On a hit, the target takes 1d8 cold damage, and its speed is reduced by 10 ft. until the start of your next turn.

Tentacle of the Deeps: Move - As a bonus action on your turn, you can move the tentacle up to 30 feet and repeat the attack.

That's it for Moana! I hope you enjoyed reading. If you have any questions or opinions I'd love to hear them in the comments! See you tomorrow with another princess~ Only one more to go!