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| “ | I'm a halfling. It's exactly what it sounds like! | ” |
Bobby Pancakes is a halfling rogue, eventual werewolf, and founding member of the Dragon Friends. Bobby is known for his sharp wit, nimble hands, good-natured attitude and loyalty to his friends. He is the only known member of House Pancake.
Bobby is an appreciator of art, music and magic, eventually becoming an arcane trickster. Fascinated by werewolves, Bobby went out of his way to become infected with lycanthropy early in his adventures. When he transforms, Bobby becomes Robert, a smooth-talking jazz lover over whom Bobby has a questionable measure of control.
Bobby seems to have an insatiable desire (possible fetish?) to smear most types of pastes on his person, be it vampire fruit-bat guano to unknown sticky goos.
Before the Dragon Friends
Bobby Pancakes grew up in Waterdeep and attended Waterdeep High. He befriended Tabitha from the strip tavern Wenches! Wenches! Wenches! He became a small-time criminal and member of the Waterdeep Guild of Thieves, Tricksters and Beggars and was in debt to Janos Meer, the Beggar King.
Unable to repay this debt, he went on the run and began to lay low in the small down of Daggerford. He began to hang out (and live) in the Dragonback Tavern alongside his friends Philge and Freezo.
Season One
Strapped for cash, the Dragon Friends look for work on a job board in Dragonback Tavern. They decide to audition for a role performing at the birthday revels of the Duke of Daggerford. Bobby is forced to think on his feet when Freezo summarily murders Leonard Swiftfeatures, one of the other auditioners. They are framed for the murder of the Duke of Daggerford and are forced on the run.
They end up back in Bobby's hometown of Waterdeep where Janos Meer began to pressure him to pay back his debts. He forced the Dragon Friends to help him take down the secret cult wreaking human-supremacist havoc across the city.
Season Two
Bobby begins season 2 by sending the rest of the known alive party members from season 1 letters bearing the seal of the House of Pancake, from his dwelling in the village of Barovia. They come to meet him in the Blood and Vine Tavern, kicking off an adventure to defeat the vampire Strahd von Zarovich.
Local hero Baston, who accompanies the Dragon Friends to help free his lost love, develops a sizeable crush on Freezo, who in a critical failure in perception thinks that Baston has a crush on Bobby. Bobby meanwhile spends the season taking every possible opportunity to turn into his alter ego, Robert the jazzy werewolf, and the Dragon Friends are forced to spend a night restraining him.
Soon after entering Castle Ravenloft, Freezo makes one too many ill-mannered betrayals, prompting Bobby and Philge to pin him to the wall. Bobby demands Freezo's co-operation, and insists he stop committing needless murder. Freezo agrees, but doesn't really follow through.
The Dragon Friends defeat Strahd after a real shitstorm and a whole lot of bats, and the three adventurers - now joined permanently by Baston - are hurled through a portal to a new technologically advanced world.
A Very Dragon Chrisfriends
At an unspecified time in their travels, Bobby is living in a house outside Daggerford with Freezo, Philge and Baston at Yulemas-time. When he realises Freezo has no Yulemas present for Philge - who has worked really hard on a present for Freezo - Bobby orders Freezo out of the house, telling him not to return without one.
Season Three
Tomb of Annihilation
A Merry Very Yulemas
Bobby goes Yulemas shopping with the other Dragon Friends on the floating market-city of New Bork. He and Baston leave on the gondola back to ground level, leaving behind Freezo - who is unable to leave due to a curse - and Philge, who got lost.
Season Four
When the Dragon Friends come to their senses in the City of Brass with no memory of how they got there, Bobby has seemingly been masquerading as someone named "Hyperion Max". They escape and are eventually returned to a crystalline ship, the Heart of Glass, which the Dragon Friends have apparently been flying between the nine known realms of the Cradle for six months, searching for a way to return to Faerun, but Freezo's interference prevents them from regaining their memories. The ship's artificial intelligence, LOGAN, mentions that Bobby holds the rank of Lieutenant, but not his actual role on the crew. (Philge is the captain.)
| “ | But you tried to kill yourself, and that is something that you are able to do, so congrats, I guess. | ” |
Eventually the Dragon Friends discover that they had been working to protect the Cradle with Hyperion Max, a legendary planeswalker hero. Freezo had secretly hatched a plan to become a god, but Bobby and Max discovered his secret and laid plans to stop him. Bobby told Philge and Baston and went with them to confront Freezo in his tower; when he refused to abandon his scheme, Bobby used a magical artefact to erase the Dragon Friends' memories and transport them to the Charcoal Bazaar in the City of Brass, buying Max enough time to carry out their ultimate plan to stop Freezo.
While trying to survive the Cradle without his memories, Bobby was imprisoned in the House Eternal with the other Dragon Friends for the murder of Hyperion Max. Freezo escapes by killing himself with a supposedly mundane knife, and having lost his memory that Freezo's plan to ascend to godhood had already made Freezo immortal, Bobby stabs himself fatally with the same knife.
The Dragon Friends take Bobby's corpse with them when they escape aboard The Flying Dutchman back to the Heart of Glass. They put his body inside his Hummingbird combat shuttle and send it on autopilot to Titania, the Queen of the Feywild who they had previously rescued, in the hope that she will find a way to resurrect him. His body is accompanied by a note reading: “I am dead. Please make un-dead.” While they are away exploring Freezo's tower in the Badlands, their clumsy wording prompts Titania to create a phylactery which can raise and command Bobby as a zombie. She gives it to Lady Casilda, who takes command of the Heart of Glass and forces the undead Bobby to fight his friends. They kill her and Jeremy Scaleson grabs the phylactery and commands zombie Bobby to stop.
Eventually the other Dragon Friends return to Freezo's tower and pass through his magical archway to what they believe is the Dweomerheart, home to Freezo's all-knowing goddess of magic, Mystra. In truth, Hyperion Max - who faked his death and has been in hiding all along - tampered with the portal so it would trap Freezo forever in a tiny pocket dimension. Luckily the bard Bassbass Wihouveberry, who had travelled with the Friends, was Mystra: Freezo had trapped her in mortal form as part of his plan. In return for letting her take Freezo to the real Dweomerheart and trying to undo the evil in his soul, Mystra resurrects Bobby - a feat impossible for anyone of lesser power than a god - and transports the Dragon Friends back to Daggerford.
Season Five
Bobby and the other Dragon Friends become the Dukes of Daggerford, and investigate a prophecy about the end of the world. His chest now has a ruby crystal structure covering his stab wound from The House Eternal. Thomas Smedley recognises Bobby has been touched by Carcosa, and he is able to view visions of the Herald with the aid of hallucinogenic paint and through dreams of his own. Bobby’s death and return have given him a new darkness, and he agrees with Bushu-D2 that they should kill one of the Hofferman Twins to stop the Brother's Gate from opening. He carries out this plan during the chaos of the performance of Who Is Stealing My Cabbages, killing Roman Hofferman. The Dark Lord Strahd notices Bobby's change and tells him he cannot walk from death easily; he offers Bobby a place at his right hand, but Bobby resists. Bobby helps Philge to delay a weakened Strahd, stopping him from bringing Carcosa back. But when the Dark Lord regains his throne, Bobby is exiled from the Sword Coast along with the other Dragon Friends.
Downtime
Bobby gets on the ship out of Waterdeep with the rest of the Dragon Friends, but dives over the side after it has left port in order to secretly travel to Barovia. He stays in the tavern writing jingles for merchants, becoming a bard. He uses the income to pay Esme, one of the Vistani, to set up a meeting for him with the wolfen, the werewolves of Barovia, but this is a costly and lengthy process. After some less successful jingle writing, and with his funds running dry, Bobby is confronted by the priest Braesley, who asks him to make amends for the Dragon Friends killing the previous priest and allowing their relic of Pelor to be destroyed (during season two). Bobby refuses, and is no longer welcome at the tavern. He makes a home for the Summer in the wilderness, using his Lunar sword to stave off the dreams of Carcosa. The Summer stretches into years...but he is eventually sent by Esme to the Maiden Stones in the woods, where he has a fateful meeting with the wolfen.
Season Six
Three years after leaving Waterdeep, Bobby, Gribbits and Baston have returned to the city and rescue Janos Meer from execution. They join the Resistance against Strahd and his allies.
Under the alias of "the Baby King", Bobby becomes the new figurehead of the Resistance in the absence of Greatheart Banknote. This is a title in name only, made to join the two fractured sides of the Resistance together by becoming the child of both their leaders.
Bobby joins the other Dragon Friends in tracking Strahd to Icewind Dale, where he has dug up a relic of the ancient Netherese Empire - a Lodestone. Unsure what it will do but sure it will be bad, Bobby and the other Friends assault the vampire, only to be confronted by Freezo, returned from his adventures in Heaven and Hell. In the ensuring battle, Lionshield Banknote and their ally Jacob Undercourt are badly wounded. When Philge destroys the Lodestone, the newly reunited Dragon Friends, along with Banknote and Undercourt, are transported a thousand years back in time to the height of Netheril’s power.
Season Seven
Stranded in the past at the height of the Empire of Netheril, Bobby struggles to find his place. When the Dragon Friends are aboard a Netherese flying ship, guests of the Arch-Mage Karsus the Kind, they are attacked by the rebel Freeborn and taken captive. Bobby uses his copy of the The Terrible and Lamentable History of the Noble House of Strahd to learn that the Freeborn are connected to Strahd’s father Paternius. He explains the book to the Freeborn leader, “the Tsar”, as proof they are from the future, and the Tsar takes them to meet Paternius. Paternius has been transformed into a magen, one of the mage’s magical servants - proof of the empire’s cruelty. Bobby sees a chance and murders Paternius, hoping to stop Strahd from ever being born, but it turns out the Tsar is Strahd. The Dragon Friends are sent back to the future, but Strahd has stolen the book and uses its information to create an alternate timeline where he has ruled for a thousand years.
When they return to the past, they pretend to be gods, Bobby claiming to be the god of lies and secrets. They retrace the steps of the previous visit and kill Strahd when he boards the flying ship. This time the future they return to is an eternal Netherese Empire, and underground religions have grown up around the legend of the Dragon Friends “gods”. Bobby is able to enlist his followers to the cause, and they defeat the future Netherese Empire and go back to the past once more, accompanied by an alternate version of Lionshield Banknote. Realising the young Strahd is not yet a villain, they team up with the Freeborn and overthrow Karsus, but Lionshield is killed.
Season Eight
The Dragon Friends join in the victory celebrations after Karsus is defeated, and the next morning Bobby and Philge wake up in bed together. They’re not sure what happened and decide not to talk about it. The Friends are still affected by time sickness, but can't use the Lodestone to return to the future. Instead they use a “cold cell engine” powered by the last of Netheril’s aether to sleep safely in suspended animation until they reach their own time.
The cold cell engine malfunctions multiple times, waking them before time. The first time, twenty-five years later, they meet Byron, Baston’s son from his one night with Merreline Vowell. While on a quest with Byron to retrieve a dragon egg for use as a power source, Bobby and Philge have an awkward moment alone. They again fail to talk about what did or didn’t happen at the victory party, which for them was only the night before. They also meet Strahd again, and this time warn him of his vampire future.
About one hundred years later, they are wakened again when engines of war disturb the cold cell engine. They find Barovia and Carcosa at war over the death of Patrina Velikovna, and are blackmailed into a mission to try and get her body returned to end the fighting. They are reunited with Byron, and Baston is grievously wounded, and they seek refuge with the mysterious Sonic Church, where Bobby agrees to be painted by the Lady Casador. They eventually work out that Strahd is somehow still alive and created the Sonic Church in order to create a new god willing to resurrect Patrina. In the meantime, Freezo and Philge murder a paladin of the Silver Chorus on a quest to secure food for the Church, and Freezo unleashes a demon to cover their escape. The Friends lose Baston’s body, but find Patrina’s, though in the process Bobby’s new friend, an aspiring magician named The Fred, is killed, causing him much grief. When Freezo escapes alone as the Silver Chorus come to wipe out Strahd’s blasphemous church, Bobby is ready to give up, and he and Philge surrender to the Silver Chorus in order to spare the lives of the Church’s members. But the Silver Chorus leader doesn’t care, and instead banishes them to another plane of existence with their new friend, Logan the Huge. They eventually reunite with Freezo and return Patrina’s body, ending the war, and re-enter the cold cell engines, now safely sealed inside the crypt of Castle Ravenloft.
They finally wake in the right time, but not the right place: the demon that Freezo unleashed grew more powerful and eventually became ruler of Dis, one of the cities of hell, and pulled the entire castle into hell to get at him. They’ve been joined by Logan, who was unable to find Baston’s body and so entered the engine to join them and fulfil his promise to reunite them with Baston.
Additional Reading
Character Sheet Gallery
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Level 5 Character Sheet -
Level 2 Character Sheet -
Level 1 Character Sheet
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