The cast of One Piece is filled with characters who possess a number of over the top anime power-ups, many of which are hard to emulate in Dungeons & Dragons. One character who easily fits into a D&D campaign is S🗹oul King Brook of the Straw Hat Pirates, even though he might be the most outlandish member of the crew.
Brook joins the Straw Hat Pirates during the Thriller Bark arc, where he is trapped on an island, due to having his shadow stolen from him. He fights alongside the Straw Hat Pirates in their conflicts on Thriller Bark and is asked to join the crew once his shadow is returned to him. Since then, Brook has acted as the crew's musician, and his growing🌃 fame has helped his friends on a number of occasions. Brook started out🔴 as a human, but he was reborn as a skeleton, thanks to the effects of the Yomi Yomi no Mi fruit, which allowed his soul to return to his body after he died. Brook's undead form hasn't affected his disposition, as he remains the party animal that he was in life. The ability to unhinge his soul from his skeletal body also gives Brook access to abilities that his living crew member allies don't have.
Brook started out as a human and became undead due to the effects of a curse. We need to homebrew him a little bit for Dungeons & Dragons, but there isn't much work involved. Brook's stats can remain the same from when he was a human, but he has two major changes. Brook doesn't need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe in order to function, but the trade-off is that he's mistrusted for his appearance and could be attacked on sight, due to how most people are terrified of the undead (and with good reason) in the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse. As such, Brook would need to disguise his appearance in order to function in daily society, and even his class skills would be pushed to the limit in helping him win over strangers, once they see his true form for the first time. The people of the One Piece world have been far more accomodating to Brook than the citizens of Faerun or Oerth would be, wᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚhich is something that the DM and the player would have to keep in mind.
The version of Brook we have created uses material from the Player's Handbook, along with the homebrew race details mentioned above. Brook is a human skeleton bard, who takes on the College of Valor archetype at level three. Using the basic stat spread listed on page 13 of the Player's Handbook and t🌊aking his race into account, Brook's starting stats would be STR 9, DEX 15, CON 14, INT 12, WIS 11, CHA 16. Brook is incredibly agile, due to the fact that he w𝄹eighs a lot less than most standard characters, and he fights with a sword cane/finesse weapon in the manga, which suits his style as a mobile finesse weapon user.
Brook has made cryptic remarks about his life before becoming a pirate, but we know a lot about his time as part of the Rumba🏅r Pirates, so his background would be Sailor. His starting skills would be Athletics, Perception🐠, Performance, Deception, and Stealth. If the variant Feat rules are used, then Brook would benefit from Alert, Defensive Duelist, Mobile, Spell Sniper, and War Caster. In terms of alignment, Brook would be Chaotic Good. Like the other members of the Straw Hat Pirates, Brook is quick to help those in need, yet he fiercely opposes the law enforcement/ruling bodies of the world and has received a sizable bounty as a result.
Brook is a talented musician and the effects of his devil fruit allow him to transfer the power of his soul into his songs. In the manga, Brook has demonstrated the ability to knock out enemies with his song, create audio/visual illusions, disconnect his soul from his body, and adding elemental ice properties to his sword. All of these are easily accommodated by the bard spell list. Brook's spell list (boosted by choices from his Magical Secrets class feature) would include blade ward, dancing lights, friends, vicious mockery, true strike, charm person, cure wounds, heroism, dissonant whispers, calm emotions, enhance ability, enthrall, shatter, suggestion, bestow curse, clairvoyance, hypnotic pattern, compulsion, confusion, hallucinatory terrain, dominate person, hold monster, legend lore, mislead, modify memory, mass suggestion, Otto’s irresistible dance, programmed illusion, etherealness, mirage arcane, project image, dominate monster, feeblemind, glibness, power word heal, sleep, astral projection, elemental weapon, and antipathy/sympathy.
In terms of character, Brook doesn't let his undead form get in the way of his enjoyment. He's an eccentric character who loves to flirt with women, and often gets in trouble for making inappropriate jokes. Brook loves to party and play music, while also enjoying adventures on the high seas. In One Piece, Brook's undead form was caused by a magical fruit he ate, which is something that could easily be incorporated into a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, as there are many dangerous lifeforms that can be found in the wild. Brook's desire to return to Laboon might be too much of a backstory for a regular D&D game, as it's tied up in the setting of One Piece, so D&D Brook's journey could be about finding a cure for his undead cond🐷ition. The fact that Brook was once a pirate means that he could have encountered the dangerous c൩ursed fruit on the high seas, and is currently searching for more knowledge about the fruit and a way to break the curse. This could easily be tied into many homebrew or pre-made campaigns, as Brook could be following up on a rumor about the fruit that has led him to where the current adventure is taking place. The fact that Brook is a skeleton means that he'll have a hard time winning people over, and he may need to rely on disguises and illusions in order to be able to take care of business in towns, but even this itself is an interesting approach for a character, as the player will always have to be aware of their undead form when dealing with people who are unaware of their secret.