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What character to use in the Merger RP: A World Divided; Looking for some feedback!
Topic Started: July 10, 2012, 11:06 pm (363 Views)
NTNP
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Who should I use in the Merger RP: A World Divided?: The Goodie Goodie Necromancer, the Snarky Wizard in Training, the friendly Thief who stumbled upon the main plot or the Warrior with a sword as his stalker?

In the paragraphs below, I will offer up my four ‘final’ picks to use in the RP. Each of these characters should fit into the narrative well enough and help better the plot. They are also pretty interesting and probably something I can play around with to present in a fairly unique, entertaining way for everyone involved. Under each name I will offer a quick synopsis about that character and then a quick outline of their personal side quest that they will go through during the plot. I’m not really sure WHO I want to use so I’ll leave it up to you. I’d love some feedback on these people and a vote in the poll. While I won’t promise to obey the poll, it will probably influence my decision considerably. So yeah, read them and then offer some feedback on what you think would be the most interesting.

Simon: the Nicest Necromancer in town
A necromancer is one that causes those who have died to rise again, enslaved to their master’s whims. They bind the soul of the dead, corrupting their essence to create foul abominations or hideous enchantments that profane the natural order. The unlife that they offer is one of enslavement and damnation. In most societies, the act of necromancy is outlawed and only those truly hideous and evil would ever condone it, let alone make use of the dark art. These are the bane of spellweavers everywhere and the reason why magic is considered an act of the devil. Yet Simon is probably the nicest of these horrible defamers of the natural order that you have ever seen.

He is a genuinely nice guy. There is no dark secret, no hidden evil. He’s just a nice guy whose profession happens to include making the recently killed come back from the dead to harm their former allies or bind their souls to make enchantments out of them. He is soft spoken, apologizes often, can usually be found healing the sick in town or hanging out in some other non-creepy place like the town like the gallery or in a library in his down time. Of course, just like in any other community, the person that defames the dead is usually not a much liked person for obvious reasons. So Simon tends to keep to himself and stay on the road a lot, trying his best not to get into too much trouble or else he knows where he’ll likely end up if either the authorities OR the grieving survivors of his most recent ‘revival’ happen to come upon him looking for revenge. His goal is simple, if ambitious, Simon wishes to find a way to truly ‘revive’ the dead… to let them live again as mortals. So he seeks out the dead and the dying, often following the wars of the world and the conflicts that sprout up looking for those to experiment on… should they live, then they would be the legends. And if they die and come back, well it’s not like they lose anything really. The dead will return to rest eventually what is a few days difference if it means bringing an end to the tyranny that is death and fate?

Simon’s Tragic Quest: To conquer death and let us all live forever!
Spoiler: click to toggle


David, the Sage in Training
“To be a true Sage, you must master all of the major elements: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Light, Dark and Energy and be capable of drawing out their power, bending them to your will and commanding all that exists within the world to your whims. Within these primary elements, all others can be created. Fire combined with earth creates lava. Wind and fire gives birth to lightning. Water and light bears healing. Darkness and earth, brings forth foul poisons. And far more can be done, but that is beyond you! Yet you dare suggest that you are ready!? Pathetic! David you are incapable of true mastery, incapable of being my apprentice! When you came to me as a pathetic child you swore to do whatever I demanded to gain power! But look at you now! What is a dulled tool! What use is a broken blade!?! You, a mere Apprentice dare tell me MY businesses! All you can do is desperately to a mere few incantations (Fire, Water, Wind, Earth) and incapable of even truly bringing out their strength! Out of my sight! Leave my villa! Leave my city! I will not see you belittle my teachings with your incessant complaints any longer! Be gone! If I, or any that serve me catch sight of you again I will see your head brought to me on a silver platter!”

That was the last time that David spoke to his master, three months ago. He was literally thrown out of town, lifted into the sky by a raging tornado and then dumped into a lake nearby which of course froze mere seconds later and then started boiling, just to make sure that he got exactly out classed that he had been. Since then, our young Sage in Training has done exactly as his master commanded… nothing. He has stayed the hell away from his hometown, stayed out of his master’s affairs, which given his penchants for destruction and mayhem makes him somewhat hard to avoid and has done the one thing that he can do, try his best to survive and find something, anything to get back into his master’s good graces. So he set off on a journey, looking for three things. First a chance to better his magic, to unlock it’s power through risking his life… as his master always demanded of him while still in service. Second to try and find something worthy as a bribe, something so worthwhile that it would make his master reconsider his usefulness so he can start his training anew and finally, someone strong enough to protect him should his master’s decree be true. While dying is obviously NOT on his list of things to do, being brought back as a head to his master… that might not necessarily mean that he remains dead for the duration of his head being there, is much worse than it sounds.

David’s Ambition: To Become a Sage
Spoiler: click to toggle


Alba, the Cowardly Thief
Sometimes, you just gotta have fun and enjoy the lot in life you were given. That is Alba’s point of view at least. Born to a family with less than most bugs, forced to live in the crappiest hole in the ground and given free rein to himself since 7 years old this rather unique young man tends to accept things how they are and look for a way to make it better on himself in the process. While perhaps not the nicest term, he is a thief. A rogue might sound more impressive and dashing, but usually his ‘go to’ reaction to an event isn’t to come rushing in to save the girl but to sneak out the back, bust in a window and rob the place blind while someone else does the heavy lifting. Now that’s not to say that he ‘wont’ help if doing so won’t negative effect his chances of success or survival. After all, he’s not a prick or anything. It’s just between him, you and getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar that you are pretty far down on the list. As of now, Alba is living pretty after a particularly nice heist where he acted as a servant at some noble’s place for almost three months and then robbed the bastard blind. But while he was there he ran across something interesting… a treasure map of sorts. Not the whole, ‘map with an X on it’ kind of thing but a journal telling all about this mysterious source of wealth that like half the nobles in the country are tapping for themselves! Seriously they think that they can keep something like that for themselves and leave us out? Who do they think that they are? So our brave hero Alba has taken it on himself to track down this source of power and take it for the little guys! Especially one particular little guy that happens to be holding the golden ticket in his hands right now! HAhahahaha! Oh but, chances are it’ll be harder to get than not. And there might be fighting, so it would probably be better if he had some ‘friends’ along to deal with that. After all, he’s more of a smooth talker, illusion making, occasionally dropping a bomb or stabbing you in the back with a poison knife sort of a guy than the whole stand up and fight sort so he’ll probably need some help. So what do you say? I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine? I’ll split it with you guys, 50/50 even! I’ll keep 50% of it for myself and we’ll split the other 50 percent between all of you. Now we just need some start up capitol… it looks like I’m a little short. Could anyone spare me a little?

Alba’s Master Plan: The Mother Load!
Spoiler: click to toggle


Vahn: A story of a young man, an ancestral sword and saving the World! Err maybe…
Have you ever noticed how sometimes life doesn’t work out the way that you anticipated? One day, your sitting in your house and a letter comes. Your uncle has passed away… its sad, sure but given that he’s a soldier you had to see it coming. But he has left you all his possessions, including his house! You haven’t seen Uncle Marvin in 3 years! Suddenly things are looking up! 19, not really much prospects and a new house in a new town it sounds like it’s time to give your adult life big upgrade! So you move you of your parents’ house, into this nice two story building with a built in basement, attic and all the amenities! It has seventeen acres of land around it in a little grove outside of town! As you walk inside, the entire place looks absolutely daunting… it’s like a museum to your family’s warrior accomplishments! Dozens of paintings showing back 10 generations, hundreds of articles and books about your family’s esteemed accomplishments. While they all sorta look like you (the bright blue eyes and black, almost bluish looking hair tend to make you stand out), there is a single thing that always unites these images… a giant two handed sword. It looks almost ancient in design, who knows when it was actually made. But it is in every single picture, every single story of your family’s exploits. After a week or so of unpacking and exploring, you finally bother to check out the basement. It had a bunch of locks on it, but it was nothing a few good whacks of a hammer and a full year of apprenticing at the locksmiths a while back couldn’t handle. Walking inside you finally see it, after so many pictures and stories there it is right above your head… the Azure Blue! The metal in the sword is every bit as blue as the ocean and the edge has the same color as the sky. There are a bunch of little stones in it, gems from the look of it. Something seems off though, there weren’t this many in some of the earlier pictures. Maybe they were added to show that the sword has been reforged? It would make sense. Unable to contain yourself, you reach up and grab the claymore. It feels so light in your hands but it couldn’t, I mean it’s like 15lbs or something but it feels like a feather! This is awesome!

Now you’re no warrior, but you can’t help but want to swing it around. Whirling around like the sapphire wind! Jumping off the table and then smashing down toward the ground like the Wild Blue! You even do that stupid flourish that your uncle used to do when he finished showing you all these stupid moves as a boy. By the end there is a smile so big that your cheeks hurt. Content with playing your game, you put back the Azure Blue back onto its mantle and head to bed for the night. You are plagued with dreams, creepy as ones showing some creature that seems almost formless with creepy red eyes and a blazing red sword… In the morning you wake up with a pounding headache and your joints are killing you. As you wander into the bathroom and look into the mirror, two things catch your eye. First your hair seems different. Longer maybe? But as the light hits it, then you know! IT’S FREAKING BLUE! NOT KINDA BLUE, BUT BRIGHT FREAKING BLUE! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!?! Of course, once that kicks in the real impressive part happens. You look down at your wrist and notice something is wrong. It’s swollen something horrible. Rolling back your sleeve, there is a blue gem growing out of it! Oh god, oh god! Then it glows, which I’ll be honest made you pee yourself in fear. Then the freaking bathroom wall exploded as the blue tinted claymore from downstairs appeared in your hand with the majority of it still embedded in the dry wall. Just like any other normal person, you scream again and run away. But it freaking follows you! Every time you stop, it appears! And not like on the ground, but in your hands! No matter where your hands are, resulting in a couple of walls and a really nice looking couch with a few swords stabbed into it. It has got to be a dream right? Right? You desperately grab the blue stone in your wrist and try to pull it out and it starts glowing brighter now! Oh shit! What’s gonna happen next? Then nothing… for like four seconds. Then the sword seems to float up, and smack the hell out of you from behind sending you sprawling forward and cowering behind the couch! Then you hear it, a voice. “Hey is everything alight in there?” Slowly you open your eyes, your back in bed… but as you look down the sword is still there… the damage in the house is still there… and now someone is coming inside… sometimes life just sucks.

Vahn’s Legacy: Figuring out wtf is up with the possessed sword stalking Vahn, the strange dreams of the red sword and trying to survive finding out all these new powers!
Spoiler: click to toggle


So what do you guys think? What do you like? What do you dislike? Is there anything you want to learn more about?
Edited by NTNP, July 10, 2012, 11:23 pm.
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Tercera Espada Yarott
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Just a pretty cool guy
Simon is an interesting character. But Necromancy is more than just soiling the deceased. Life and Death are opposing forces of nature. A common Necromancer would monger death, so mixing life on death would be kind of against nature. That being the case, it goes way above social standing the practice if Necromancy.

Souls are the fuel of a Necromancer's power. How an Ex-cleric will find his answer to truly uncorrupt revival through those dark arts is really unfathomable. Well, not really. You see, Necromancy forces life on death, which breaks the soul, leading to the corruption, which could or couldn't be caused on purpose. However, practicing revival without force is more complcated than how it already sounds. And since consuming souls is part of the practice is part of the field, it gets worse the more you thread toward that path.

I don't know how Simon will stay "goody goody" as a Necromancer. And that's why I voted for him! Maybe my rambling can help with your character, or not.
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NTNP
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Tercera Espada Yarott
July 10, 2012, 11:39 pm
Simon is an interesting character. But Necromancy is more than just soiling the deceased. Life and Death are opposing forces of nature. A common Necromancer would monger death, so mixing life on death would be kind of against nature. That being the case, it goes way above social standing the practice if Necromancy.

Souls are the fuel of a Necromancer's power. How an Ex-cleric will find his answer to truly uncorrupt revival through those dark arts is really unfathomable. Well, not really. You see, Necromancy forces life on death, which breaks the soul, leading to the corruption, which could or couldn't be caused on purpose. However, practicing revival without force is more complcated than how it already sounds. And since consuming souls is part of the practice is part of the field, it gets worse the more you thread toward that path.

I don't know how Simon will stay "goody goody" as a Necromancer. And that's why I voted for him! Maybe my rambling can help with your character, or not.
A lot of it relies on a simple question: Can a person do horrible things (like breaking souls, manipulating the dead and dying) will still remaining true to a positive goal (making revival spells possible and affordable)? I do like your 'rambling' because it brings up a lot of the interesting aspects of this character. Simon is a healer who loves life and wants to give it to others. He also has accepted his calling as a necromancer, who relishes in death. The fact that 'life and death' are opposing, yet also eternally bound together is what makes him think that HE is the only one capable of making the revival spell work. Its not a matter of "life" or "death" but both being combined. But the question is HOW and HOW FAR would you have to go in order to find out? With something as complex as ever lasting life, there wont be any simple answers so it could take hundreds if not thousands of tries to get it to work. That means making yourself the most hated necromancer in the world probably... but it might be worth it.

Plus I think it will be interesting seeing how the characters react to Simon. They might originally meet the man (nice, kind, well learned and friendly) and then later learn the legend (horrible blood stained caves, dozens of bodies of former comrades and family members that were experimented on and used on 'adventurers' that tried to stop him) and then finally meeting the Simon, the Necromancer who is both utterly evil in his actions but utterly good in character seeking a noble goal. Even if he resists corruption to the point of becoming a cartoon villain (that would be a cop out in my opinion), I think it will be the way that the characters interact with him that will really sell it. For example, he's not just some mad scientist in your employ, but a genuinelt nice guy. While on paper he comes off more like a sinister guy who is willing to help your party, heal your wounded but also requests that any of the 'partially alive' or 'recently dead' enemies are brought to him so he can suck out their souls, enslave their bodies and use them for blood curdling experiments he really is more like this small, blond haired man in a gray shirt and pants that wanders around camp playing with woodland animals, healing the wounded (on any side when possible) and you'll probably find him holed up in the mess hall listening to gossip as he tries to ship two of the characters together rather than hiding in his lair, laughing like a psychopath.

It's that natural break in alignments that gets me: Simon as a person is Good, his class is Evil. So where does that put him? Can he still be Good even though what he does is Evil? Is he automatically just Neutral? Does being 'likeable and not a prick' really outweigh doing hideous things to people on a daily basis? Hell can he even work with a generally "good" cast? All of those questions are hard to answer and in my opinion what makes this such a cool concept to tackle.
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Tercera Espada Yarott
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Just a pretty cool guy
Naturally, a truly nice person who practices the universally evil profession would fit in the Neutral Alignment. So, that is the official way if putting it. Simon is sacrificing a lot for that spell. Meaning, even the end result wouldn't make him socially accepted, let alone all that were successfully revived. "The heretic has revived the pope? How dare he soil the name of the holy one?!" or something like that would come to mind in an instant. How will he make everyone change their views of him? That is, of course, without mind manipulation of any sort!

See? There you go! Potential character development right there!
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NTNP
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Well between LS and EoA I have a bit of a laugh: Simon, the Nicest Necromancer has gotten only a single vote (but the only detailed feedback). As Burnt put it, Alba the Dickass Thief has gotten 3 votes mostly for his ability to make Matt's character look like a jerk and from what I assume is mooning Onime's pirate captain from before. Vahn and his possessed sword stalker has gotten 3 votes as well, which I will assume means people either really think it's a cool idea OR think it'll be great seeing my character being chased around and bullied by a sentient weapon. Lastly, everyone hates David the Sage in Training.

So as of now, its 3 Alba to 3 Vahn to 1 Simon. Interesting how that turned out...
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Perascamin
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A Legendary Ocean
You should use Simon
In War; Victory. In Peace; Vigilance. In Death; Sacrifice.

Dawn Eros (hot mama):
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