Magnus Burnsides

Magnus Hyphen Terry "The Hammer" Burnsides is a player character in The Balance Arc campaign who is puppetted by Travis McElroy. He is a human fighter who was trained in rogue skills by Carey Fangbattle during the third Lunar Interlude. He has a lawful good alignment with a history of carpentry. He once made a pretty awesome chair, impressing the entire town and becoming a folk hero. Helping with this are his roots as "common folk" and his rustic charm. Magnus is a "man of action" who believes that "thinking is for other people."

Magnus had, as of episode 56, been reduced to the body of a humanoid Mannequin, as his original body had been destroyed fully. Good thing there was a fresh new one sitting in the back room of the Fantasy Costco.

Early Life
Magnus's introduction to being a 'protector' was defending a mongrel dog from three bullies and got beaten up to protect the dog and allow it to escape. This solidified his need to defend those that are weaker than him.

The Stolen Century
When going through his past memories with June, he encounters a long stretch of static in his memories. This is the time period of Magnus being part of the Red Robes.

Raven's Roost
Five years before his adventure with Merle and Taako began, Magnus lead a revolt against Mad Governor Kalen. When the city of Raven's Roost had been founded, people stood behind Kalen, but Kalen saw his power as endless and become corrupt. In retaliation, Magnus gathered people together and defeated Kalen and his soldiers in battle. Unfortunately, Kalen managed to escape, and was subsequently forgotten about in the months to pass.

After the rebellion, Magnus worked in Hammer and Tongs, the pride of the Craftsman Corridor in Raven's Roost. His mentor and blacksmith/general craftsman, Steven Waxmen, had taken Magnus in after a promising apprenticeship. Magnus worked on a black oak rocking chair with a lavender polish imbued into it, that he would submit to the Continental Craftsmen Showcase that took place in Neverwinter, a ten days drive from Raven's Roost. Julia, Steven's daughter and Magnus's new bride, entered the shop, talked as they usually did, and brought Magnus out to the cart that she had prepared for him. Magnus left with his rocking chair for the showcase, after shaking Steven's hand and kissing Julia and telling her he loved her.

Two days into his travel to Neverwinter, Kalen returned to Raven's Roost, with a "If I can't have this city, no one can" mentality, and bombed the support column for the Craftsmen Corridor. 76 people were killed, including Julia and Steven. Hammer and Tong was destroyed and in the time is took Magnus to return to Raven's Roost, the town had evacuated, due to fear of a repeat attack.

As a result of his past he has no fear of death and looks forward to meeting Julia again in the afterlife.

Here There Be Gerblins
After Taako is knocked out by Magic Brian during a magical wizard duel in Wave Echo Cave, Magnus saves Taako's life with a healing potion, and in the process unknowingly imparts upon Taako the knowledge of the word "cheese."

Powers and Abilities

 * Rustic Hospitality: Magnus is beloved by the common people, who will shield him from his enemies and give him food and shelter when needed.
 * Master Carpenter: His test to become a Master Carpenter involved building a really good chair, which he named SitBoy 1 (unless his numbering system began prior to becoming a Master Carpenter).
 * Protection Fighter: While wielding a shield, can impose disadvantage on attack rolls against characters within 5 feet.
 * Vehicle Proficiency
 * Animal Proficiency
 * Ambidexterity
 * Lever proficiency
 * Severing arms proficiency

Known Physical Traits
Disclaimer: The McElroys do not consider their versions of their characters any more "canon" than anyone else's - there is no obligation to stick to these in fanart, so please do not be rude to people for ignoring these traits.

Official Outfits
Usually, Magnus is dressed as a typical human fighter.

Death Count
Magnus has died a total of 32 times.
 * 1) While traveling through other planes as a Red Robe, Magnus died 19 times without crossing over to the Astral Plane:
 * 2) Killed on The Animal Kingdom by The Hunger.
 * 3) Killed on The Mushroom Kingdom by deadly spores.
 * 4) Magnus died a total of 11 times during the events of The Eleventh Hour.
 * 5) Magnus temporarily had his soul knocked out of his body by the Animus Bell during the events of The Suffering Game. He got better.
 * 6) Magnus was killed in his Mannequin body by The Hunger in Ep. 59. He got better from that too.

Items
Items both currently owned and lost by Magnus throughout the show.

Current Items
These are items currently within Magnus's possession as of the most recent episode.

Former Items
These are items which were lost or given away.

(Magnus takes care of his things.)

Trivia

 * The posters Magnus hangs in his room in the Bureau of Balance are "a Jess the Beheader poster and a tour poster for Fantasy Dave Matthews Band."
 * Magnus carries with him a knife once owned by a relative. He was once pretty confident it would come back into play in his life, but he probably doesn't remember he has it packed in his things.
 * Magnus is an only child. He is glad to have found Merle and Taako, and considers Angus to be a little brother.
 * Magnus does not have anxiety.
 * Magnus is afraid of spiders, has "no" weaknesses, and is allergic to sulfa-based medications.
 * Magnus is not asexual, but "events in his backstory have left him completely uninterested in romance."
 * Magnus' favorite candy is Turkish Delights.
 * Magnus has 8 homemade "Big Dog" tee shirts.
 * Magnus is a mead guy.
 * Beauty and the Beast is the Disney movie that made Magnus cry the most. Fantasy Seinfeld is his favorite sitcom. He would love everything HGTV, including Property Brothers. He would probably be a big Green Lantern fan. His favorite podcast would be Can I Pet Your Dog.
 * He would see getting bitten by a fantasy werewolf as a net positive. Magnus thinks the Gelatinous Cube is cute and "so squishy."
 * Magnus would take a fantasy bullet for Taako or Merle "in a heartbeat."
 * Magnus is 1000% #TeamBigDog
 * Magnus can lift 3 other members of the Bureau of Balance on a good day. Despite this, he doesn't really train, he's a naturally burly boy. That said, if Magnus were in the Olympics, he'd be best at "shotput, javelin, [and] weightlifting."
 * Magnus names all the chairs he makes like so: "SitBoy 1, SitBoy 2, SitBoy 3," etc.
 * Magnus took a potion so he would never have to maintain his facial hair. It tasted like licorice.
 * Magnus gets jealous of Merle and Taako's magic "ALL THE TIME," but he's able to channel his anger into flexing, which calms him down. If he could steal a magical spell, it would probably be something that would let him fly.
 * Response to question "Magnus fuck, marry, kill between Taako, Merle, and Upsy?": "He'd Marry Taako and Merle. He'd kill Upsy. He wouldn't 'F' anyone. Not his style."
 * Magnus would never get rid of Rail Splitter.
 * Magnus doesn't have tattoos, just scars.
 * If Magnus had a theme song, it would be this.
 * Magnus does not comfortably give up merchandising.
 * According to himself, Magnus has a "beautiful, large-dicked body." On the contrary, Clint McElroy claimed that "it looks like I've [Magnus had] been swimming" while the Trés Horny Boys had their bodies switched. Travis stated that claims that Magnus has a small penis are "uncanonical."
 * In a Periscope livestream on 2/11/17, Travis stated that Magnus has taken baking lessons from Taako.
 * Magnus has phantasthma, or "fantasy asthma".

- Ep. 20, after some vines allegedly ate Magnus's penis off