Character Creation (Info in 1st Post)

[Ruach]

Sounds like a really cool concept I would like to read stories about!

I am thinking in this medium there might be some concern on Story Teller bandwidth in supporting a PC being able to make predictions of the future of plot and such. I won't speak for the Story Teller.

General principals for this medium seem to be chargen that emphasizes socially available characters who will initiate interaction. Anything that enhances that is good. Anything that would tend to shift the initiative to other PC's to initiate is not so good.

[Hades_Roses]

Ok so just to clarify- it says two contract slots have to be devoted to your seeming/court. That means that I could have two contracts for my court and none for my seeming, correct?

[girlwonder]

It's two contract dots and it is for affinity contracts, which means any combination of seeming and/or court affinity contracts.

[Hades_Roses]

Right right. dots. Alright, that clears it up. Danke!

[BunniRabbi]

First attempt at a character concept for Edge of Darkness. Looking for feedback.


Legal Name: Exegesis Agarwal
Concept: Eloquent Nonbinary Artist
Seeming: Fairest Kith: Gandharva Court: Spring


Stolen Life
Born Aditi Agarwal, to particularly strict but loving parents, Aditi was a dutiful child with a placid, if academically rigorous, upbringing. The family was well-to-do and stable, and Aditi was accustomed to solid, thoughtful guidance from her parents. Though her parents had immigrated to the US and were strong proponents of assimilation, she encouraged them to lead her in who to date to the point that she very nearly had an arranged marriage. They encouraged her toward an educated, polite and well-bred young man who, unfortunately, was also a privateer.



The Shining One
Looking back, Exegesis can't be entirely sure they ever actually saw their Keeper. They remember their would-be husband leading them across the skybridges to the summit of the mountain, calling it Meru, Olympus, Olaf and half a dozen other names. They remember him fixing glass chains to their wrists. They remember years of booming voices and varied silhouettes half-glimpsed through blinding light, but it was never clear to them if this was The Shining One or another rung of it's servants.

Exegesis's was always clear on their role though. Each night The Laws would be described to them, a mangled jumble of poetry and instruction, inscrutable and exacting, and every dawn they would ride the clouds down into the valley to deliver The Laws to the people below.

It was a trial to recall the cryptic pronouncements, much less make sense of them, and the people would visit their reprisal on Exegesis when The Laws were less than workable. They were never workable. In truth the people knew this, but The Shining One would always punish the disobedient, sending It's angels, orishas and storms. The Shining One could not be hurt, could not be questioned. Truly, The Shining One could not be found and The Shining One did not explain.

Exegesis tried to explain, when they could, when a semblance of sense could be wrangled from the ramblings of their mad god. It never helped the people avoid reprisal, but if it could give them the temporary illusion that they could, then at least Exegesis could avoid the reprisal of the people. And so Exegesis lived for a time, learning to coat words with honey, dodging vengeance for doing their job and dodging vengeance for not doing it.



Chainbreaking
They can't remember what exactly the child said. They remember the child pointing to their chains, and asking something. They remember replying, handing the child some stock-answer devoid of content. After the child left they had thought to question the answer they gave. Had they come up with it? Was it repeated from someone else? They recall looking at the chains while ascending on the nimbus, and, somehow, noticing the chain break.

Terror, at first. The Shining One would notice. The Shining One would punish. Mind-numbing fear threatened to swallow them as they frantically sought to reconnect the glass chain. But...it was glass, and it kept breaking as they tried to fix it. What was it even attached to? The nimbus had nowhere to attach it. Had it even really restrained them at all?

As the nimbus rose toward the skybridge clouds seem to part from Exegesis's mind. Fear of discovery mixed strangely with a kind of intensely embarrassed indignation, a realization that even if the chain had bound them to the nimbus it did nothing to stop them from directing it back along the bridge. Nothing had restricted them. Nothing had barred the way back home. At all. For years.

The weight of unbelievable realization, waning fear and vast self-recrimination ripped through their mind as they hurtled the nimbus across the bridges, past groves of nascent nightmares and morbid mirabilia, eventually shredding the nimbus in the thorns of The Hedge to emerge, bloody and screaming, in the real world.

And, incidentally, with the precise timing and placement necessary to scare the living fuck out of their fetch.




The Aditi-Fetch
In a way, it seemed to make a kind of sense to Exegesis that Aditi was still there, in the real world. It seemed natural, in the same way that screaming at Aditi seemed natural. And chasing her. And burning things she valued. All very natural. It seemed to reaffirm the reality of the situation.

In many ways Aditi was the perfect daughter. The one that fitted the mold her parents wanted. Her parents. Not theirs. Terrifying Aditi was a relief, for a time, but eventually Exegesis had to admit this wasn't a healthy hobby. There were other things to address, like finding means of support. Exegesis wondered for a time, but kept running into Aditi. It became a pattern. They would try to avoid her, they would run into her, emotionally abuse her for a while, and wonder away again. Often Exegesis would crash on Aditi's bed, who was gracious enough to allow them to do so while locking herself in the bathroom.

It was Aditi who politely suggested a way out of this scenario. Exegesis couldn't get work or a place to live without a legal identity, so they needed to get documentation. They pretended to be siblings, and claimed that their parents would not acknowledge Exegesis's existence due to their being non-binary. The ruse worked, and it led to a more emotionally stable place for both of them.

The fetch that is now Aditi still doesn't know what she is, and thinks Exegesis is a nightmare she dreamed up. Oddly, every time one of the two of them relocates, so does the other one, to a nearby location, without any attempt to synchronize. Aditi considers this confirmation of her nightmare-theory.




Today
Exegesis blames their own willingness to take what was given to them both for her capture and for allowing her Durance to stretch on as long as it did. They now try to question everything they are told, every standard they are given. This and a kind of pugnacious distrust has led them to be basically unemployable, and caused them to develop a desire for self-employment through varied art forms. They've failed, financially speaking, several times at managing this kind of stability, and are looking to see if a change of venue can fix the problem. The current art form they're trying out is making traditional leather masks.

[Ruach]

Wow, BunniRabbi that sounds great to me! The chargen form only allows/needs a short bio, like a couple sentences, so all this rich background would probably come out in play or glimpse posts (which are kind like IC journal entries, basically solo scenes to reveal stuff like this through flashbacks, etc.)

[BunniRabbi]

I was a bit worried I might be overdoing it.

[Ruach]

Not at all! I did the same thing, coming up with way more detail in an extensive background then is required (or allowed) to be typed into the chargen form.

I personallly find it helpful, in that I know my character's background in detail, and that tends to come out in play, whether I actually share it or not, the confidence in the 'voice' of the character that comes from knowing and understanding their previous experiences in life makes interacting with other characters all the more fun. At least for me.

And the BOTTOM LINE is that any character's primary function on this site is to interact with other player characters in a way that is fun for me and the other players.

I was a bit worried I might be overdoing it.

[BunniRabbi]

So, if you have a non-binary character with a dead name, would you usually consider that not to be their True Name for pledge purposes? Would the new name would be considered 'True'? I am thinking I would like to have that be the case for my character, but I wanted to hear some opinions about that.