Carl

Carl

Carl is the bosun aboard Captain LaRustah's longship, and — since Session 51 — the occasional, visibly perspiring escort of Deez Nuts. As of Session 52 he is a conscripted member of the company's travelling party, and — at long last — a killer. As of Session 53 he is also the party's artillerist, and level 7.

Description

A Luskan sailor of no remarkable appearance and entirely remarkable persistence. Carl sweats when given dangerous assignments, accepts them anyway ("Aye aye, Capt'n"), and stays at his post long after any sensible person would have remembered urgent business elsewhere. The table's simultaneous verdict, both statements true at once: "Carl is sweating" and "Carl is very excited to be with us."

Keyleth's standing theory: "Carl looks so concerned… He's an empath. He feels their pain." And, more charitably: "His luck'll start getting better, he's just had a bad run." She was right.

The Bow

Carl owns an enchanted bow, and by all recorded evidence should not. During the voyage home across the Sea of Moving Ice his running gag was missing every single shot with it and hurling it to the deck in disgust. The party's institutional memory of this is total: when Captain LaRustah assigned Carl to accompany them ashore, Baelgrum's welcome was, verbatim, "Maybe just leave your bow on the boat, buddy."

The gag paid off in Session 52. In the turnip-wagon ambush Carl was revealed to be an Arcane Archer, carrying a stock of special arrows — including shadow arrows (2d6, with a Wisdom save rider). He fights at range and knows it: the DM, on his tactics, "He doesn't want to be that close. He's still going to shoot. He's, you know. He's gonna do the right thing. He's just gonna do it from further back."

Then he put a shadow arrow through Garrick and dropped him. The DM: "I think this is the first time you've seen him hit something." The table came apart — Baelgrum: "Carl! First blood!" · Shade: "Carl did a murder." · Karma: "I knew you could do it, Carl." · Gootcha: "One of us, one of us." · Baelgrum, twice, once at the kill and again at session's end: "We're getting him drunk tonight."

Carl is now, unambiguously, party-adjacent family.

The Catapult — the Redemption of Carl

When the Cult of the Dragon hit Nuts Deep, Carl ran straight for the catapult, checked it over ("It's in good condition — I think it'll fire!"), cranked, aimed, loaded one of the strange mucus-wrapped burst-stones, and fired: the stone split apart in the air into a rain of projectiles across a wide area — 30 damage, Dex save — wiping out the northern zombies and a skeleton archer in a single shot. The table, in chorus: "Let's go, Carl." / "The Redemption of Carl."

He wasn't done. When the necromancer hatched five skeletons at the foot of his tower and two archers climbed to shove his backup off it, Carl two-shot one archer, Action Surged, and killed the second — revealing Fighter levels nobody had confirmed. He took 10 damage from an arrow, was patched up by Squire V's Cure Wounds (11), and held the position to the end, "very relieved" when Baelgrum's spirits mopped up the skeletons around him.

He is now level 7, and paranoid enough that he voluntarily stands lookout on the catapult platform.

Role in Campaign

Carl crewed Captain LaRustah's longship through the entire Sea of Moving Ice expedition — the voyage north, the shipboard battles against the ice spider queen, the Hydra, and the Dragon Turtle, and the passage home .

In Session 51, with Luskan gripped by the red-coin paranoia, LaRustah lent Carl to the party as a local guide — "someone from Luskan that can help you out if you need it." He earned his keep quietly and immediately: leaning in at the Kurth bridge to explain that Ship Kurth runs the district, the docks, and the smuggling, that passage means greasing the wheels, and that the going rate is normally about a silver per person (the corrupted guards were demanding a gold). He stayed at the party's elbow through the entire coin investigation — the shops, the heists, the forge — without once deserting, and the party covered his bridge tolls throughout.

In Session 52 he was ordered to go with them out of Luskan entirely. The DM, to the party: "You're free to say no. Uh, Carl, you're not free to say no. Um… you're ordered by the City of Luskan to do everything in your power to ensure that the Deez Nuts are successful." And then, immediately: "you hear him under his breath just sort of say, God damn it."

He marched south with them, drank at the Bronze Blades' outpost, killed a man on the road to Elturel — and now serves as gunner and lookout at Nuts Deep.

Relationships

• Captain LaRustah — his captain, whose orders he follows even when they visibly terrify him; she has now formally seconded him to Deez Nuts
• Deez Nuts — assigned escort turned comrade; they are extremely proud of him
• Luskan — his home port; knows how the city actually works, including the parts that don't appear on any ledger
• Diana and V (Squires of Deez Nuts) — his self-appointed backup during the Battle of Nuts Deep

Appearances

• Session 50 - Reforged in Hell, the Voyage Home (2026-06-14) (bosun on the voyage; the bow)
• Session 51 - The Red Gold Reckoning (2026-06-28) (escort and guide through cursed Luskan)
• Session 52 - Nuts Deep and the Turnip Wagon Ambush (2026-07-12) (conscripted escort; Arcane Archer; first kill)
• Session 53 - The Battle of Nuts Deep (2026-08-09) (catapult gunner; Action Surge double kill; level 7)