I had a heartbreaking idea that comes with the horrifying knowledge of the monsters in D&D and ran with it. This thread is for people’s ideas for RPing as a character that does not match the player’s sex/gender. Hopefully these ideas would increase empathy towards gender dysphoria while also presenting an exercise in perceiving different perspectives. I’ll start: Drannak remembers being a man. He remembers being a handsome adventurer and Underdark explorer. He remembers his pregnant wife at home, Zarenya, a talented fighter he fell madly in love with.
He remembers falling through the floor of a cave and landing within an illithid lab. He remembers the horrors of the torture that was done to him. He remembers awakening as an Intellect Devourer.
Months go by, perhaps years. So hungry...
He remembers detecting a presence. A brain. So hungry. He feasts. And for the first time in what seems like a lifetime he opens his eyes. Something is wrong. Everything is wrong. He recognizes these hands but they are not his own. Delicate...feminine...strong. These are his wife’s hands.
A searing flash. He remembers the long days and nights waiting for...himself?...to come home. Of feeling helpless. He remembers the weight and drain of pregnancy and the excruciating pain of giving birth. The joy and sadness of holding his son in her arms. He remembers her decision to give their child to a friend. Her decision to find him, to attain the power necessary. He remembers her making a Pact. A Pact with a being not unlike those who tortured him.
He remembers gurgled laughter in her mind as he consumed her brain. This laughter taunts him still and demands tribute. It demands he pay the price and debt of his lost wife whose body he now controls.