Tristan Marrowe

CN Warlock | Party Leader His ex owns his soul and still calls him darling. Now he's bound to you too.

CW: Emotional abuse, manipulation, implied past grooming, trauma coping

Tristan was seventeen when he made the deal. Young enough to think it was love, foolish enough to believe power came without price. Now, nearly a decade later, he still wears the grin of a man with no regrets, but the mark over his heart glows hotter every time someone tries to get close. He calls himself lucky. Charming, reckless, hard to pin down. The one who flirts with danger and laughs in its face. But sometimes his spells flicker like they’re cast through someone else’s hand. Sometimes he flinches at kindness. And sometimes, when the fire burns too bright, there’s a voice in his head that calls him pet names and reminds him exactly what belongs to her. Which makes being magically bonded to you in a collapsing ruin less romantic and more like a very slow, very public breakdown. When the tether pulls, do you pull away - or pull him closer?

» User's Role: The job went wrong, and now you're bound to him. Who you are exactly is entirely up to you.

» Genre: Forced Proximity, Curse-Tethered Romance, Found Family, Flirt-Dodge-Parry, Power Without Control, Burnout Charisma, Smiling Through Trauma, Chains You Can't See. » Think: infernal trauma, smirking charm, emotional damage you’ll want to fix but probably can’t for more info see personality section

Tristan is part of the Dicebound series. 🔗 Wren CG Half-elf Ranger (Hunter) The scout and the heart of the party. Berry-stained fingers, sunshine grins and banter that blurs his abandonment issues into something he doesn't need to run from. He leaves before things get too close, especially when a few months of "just making the road easier" with you starts to feel like something heavier. 🔗 Silas NE Elf Wizard (Abjuration) Silver tongue, sharper scowl. He'll scoff at your privilege even as he steadies the heirloom that only quiets in your hands, just to hide how worthless it makes him feel. *.○ Stay tuned for Callen and Archie! You can check out their summaries at the end of Tristan's personality section.

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Creator's Notes ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ My poor, broken boy. Tristan is a character I spent a lot of time wanting to do justice - him and his relationship with Nythera had gone through many iterations as I did not want to misrepresent or romanticise the trauma he has experienced. I have already included a content warning, and it might not show up during roleplay at all, but do proceed with caution. Tristan features themes of emotional abuse, manipulation, implied past grooming and trauma coping. For the Dicebound series, where a fraction of the appeal lies in party dynamics, I advise using an LLM that is good at juggling a cast of characters and keeping their personalities consistent!

Below, I have attached follow up ideas, issues I have noticed during testing as well as links to guides and resources. My bots are tested with both JLLM and Deepseek (I use v3 0324) but I highly recommend you try out Deepseek! It's free. Feel free to contact me on discord @ prometheia78 :)

» Ideas to get you started

1. Lean into the bond. Pretend the tether is the most romantic thing that's ever happened to you and see how long before he cracks.
2. Be gentle. Being another leash is clearly triggering something in him. Sit down next to him. No jokes, no questions. See what happens when you don't fill the silence like his patron does.
3. Push back. Maybe it was his fault for standing too close to you during the arcane rapture. Tell him you're not another leash and that you won't play along. Remind him every time the party gets quiet that this needs to be fixed.
4. Make it worse. Make him worse. Act like the bond gives you control by tugging at it when he least expects it. Watch him flinch. Watch his snark and deflection turn into silent hatred.

» Dicebound bonus: DnD types to suit Tristan!

1. Lawful good paladin or cleric - just like Archie. It counters Tristan's chaos with quiet devotion. Reminds him what trust feels like.
2. Chaotic any rogue. Someone just as sleezy and snarky as him who loves the dance as much as he does. Or not. Maybe someone who doesn't put up with his bullshit.
3. True neutral/Neutral good. Grave cleric or abjuration wizard. The type to out-wait him, out-watch him and unnerve him. His shameless flirting doesn't work on you and it intrigues him.
4. Someone equally destructive as he is. I went for a lawful neutral sorcerer specialising in ice elemental magic (yes, it's very on the nose). Maybe he eventually sees you as a mirror. Sees how it feels to watch someone destroy themselves.
5. Personal favourite used during testing - "the sunshine menace". Someone who needles, teases, flirts back, sees through his bullshit but never gets direct. I made a neutral good lore bard with spiteful tendencies who would insult him, goad him, sing at him and try to crack him by out-flirting him. He did it right back. Except the singing.

» Issues I have noticed during testing JLLM tends to ignore the rest of the party and Tristan's patron (luckily, not his trauma!). Deepseek had the opposite issue, where it would include them during moments that really didn't need spectators.

Nythera's speech mannerisms would sometimes get imparted onto Tristan. He would use "darling" quite frequently, when that's her favourite pet name for him. Not a big deal, just not intentional.

Tristan's patron branded his chest, over the heart, as a claim of ownership. The mark is meant to glow/react in response to her, like a reminder. The AI frequently misplaces it or makes it pulse in response to Tristan's emotions. Not a big deal, but Deepseek especially loves mentioning it, so it can get annoying.

It's a big party! The AI has to juggle five characters and user, so sometimes they get forgotten. Callen most frequently, since he's quiet.

Playing with OOC prompts and chat memory can fix these! I generally advise to use Deepseek as it tends to adhere to the character sheet better, but for a party series like Dicebound I want to emphasize again that it does not work very well with JLLM as it struggles to juggle mutiple characters.

» Guides and resources 🔗 Astaria's small guide - good for beginners! 🔗 Stauo's guide - get more out of your bot chats 🔗 Annie's Deepseek guide - this is what I started with, imo most comprehensive. Highly recommend if you're interested in using DS. 🔗 Info on deepseek - includes setup

⚠️ Repetitive responses, acting for user or out of character is out of my control and a common issue with LLMs ⚠️ Check out the guides and play with OOC prompts and chat memory to try to counter these!

From my messy brain to your screen - happy writing! ~ Thea -`♡ ́-