Character and Connections

Will Caites

Finally! It’s time to actually build out my character, Will.

Step one is to forge the character concept, which I’ve more or less done already.

Character Concept

William Caites is in his early 20s, blond, honey-eyed, and in love with the idea of adventure. He grew up in Port Fiora, the largest city in the colony of a far-away empire. His father is a diplomat, always on one ship or another, bound for distant shores. His mother, a tutor serving primarily at the estates of the gentry.

Growing up in a city literally carved from the ruins of an ancient magical society filled Will’s daydreams with discoveries of secrets and rare artifacts. His father’s stories about all the wild and wonderful things he’d seen on his travels only threw fuel on the fires of Will’s imagination.

A year or so ago, his mother took a position with a small society of naturalists hoping to establish a university in the city. Her connections to the Empire, tenuous as they are, might prove useful in getting a grant proposal before the right set of eyes. When his mother introduced him to a senior field researcher in need of an assistant, Will jumped at the chance to leave his job as a court scribe and enter a profession that might set him one step closer to his dreams of charting a course into the unknown.

If only he had realized just how soon that opportunity would present itself.

Obviously, I don’t think I need to roll on any of the character backstory tables at this point.

Paths

So, next up is to choose two paths! This is the thing I’m most excited to figure out.

I’m pretty happy with these! I do wish there was something a little more “plucky adventurer” coded, but I think these get pretty close to what I imagine for Will. I really like the empath asset, so it’s possible that I might try to introduce a reason for Will to end up with those powers later on.

Background Vow

Next, I need to figure out my background vow. This is something that should take the entire campaign to complete, so it needs to be pretty integral to who Will is as a person, and also not be too nebulous as to be hard to figure out. Let’s see…

Maybe I could find a way to phrase this better, but Will wants to be a Phileas Fogg type. There should be a heroic character like this, half-man, half-myth, that Will idolized growing up. I’m realizing this character is a mix between Jim from Treasure Planet and Sora from Kingdom Hearts, lol. So I’ll make marks on the track when he makes discoveries or solves problems or does anything else that will make word of his deeds spread a little farther.

Stats

Stats time!

You know his number one stat has to be heart. Basically my entire initial concept for the character was just–high-heart-guy.

Next is the ship setup, but Will isn’t starting with a ship so we’ll skip that. He’s gotta get one at some point. That’ll be a big milestone, but not yet.

Final Asset

Last thing to do is to pick my final asset.

Snitch the parrot! I wasn’t expecting to pick a companion, but this asset seems like a lot of fun, honestly. And then I came up with this whole backstory about how the parrot is actually called Princess or something, but when Will was a kid and he’d get up to no good–climbing onto the roof or stealing food past suppertime–and the damn bird was always around to tell on him. She was originally his mother’s, but she and he spent so much time together as he was growing up that she’s his problem now (he loves her very much). She won’t be around all the time because I do find keeping track of animals in scenes kind of tiring, but she’ll be a fun addition, I think. Also I just love the in-the-fiction nature of the oracle roll coming through the parrot. It’s so silly and clever at the same time.

Add a Local Connection

What is the connection’s role?

I want this to be the senior researcher that Will is working for, who has disappeared in the jungle along with an expedition of naturalists and a retinue of militia. Let me roll up some of their details…

Well. Um. I think I might have given myself some good fodder for what’s going on with this person currently, but they we definitely a normal human when they left the city.

Ok, great. Let’s give them a name and some pronouns.

I didn’t realize there wasn’t a pronoun oracle, but I guess we can roll a small chance to see if they’re non-binary and then 50/50 otherwise, with yes for male.

Ok, well. This is fucking cool. I’m more intrigued by this character than I expected to be.

Dex Yarrow is in his late 40s. He has a commanding presence, so let’s say he’s quite tall and distinguished, with dark hair with silver streaks at the temples and a thick beard. He’s going on this expedition so his disability can’t affect his ability to travel over uneven terrain. I think he’s missing his left arm just below the elbow. He’s curious and cautious, so maybe he was having reservations about going on this trip, but his need to see it for himself won out. I suspect Will has a kind of embarrassing crush on the guy.

What is the connection’s role?

This is for the sake of rolling when I make a move with his support. The book suggests not being too vague or too specific.

Dex is a naturalist.

What is their rank?

This is for establishing how important he is to the story/how difficult it will be for Will to advance his relationship with Dex. I originally wasn’t planning on making this guy a fixture, but based on all the pieces I’ve put together about him, I’m tempted to make him more central. Let’s go with formidable.

What drives them?

I actually didn’t roll on the character goals table for him, but the book recommends it, so let’s see.

Alriiiighty. This is all tying together into something very interesting. This clearly has to do with the Tree and the hive and whatever the fuck is going on out in the jungle.

The book says to name them and decide if they’re linked to a faction, but we’ve already done that. It also wants me to put him on the map somewhere, but currently we don’t know where that is. I mean, I presume it’s near the sentinel tree, but I gotta play to find out.