Communal Characters

F

Faceless Woman

Pet Nymeria. Now die.
Joined
Nov 13, 2006
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Bit of a lame thread, but what the hey. Any characters created here would be unusable anyway, this is more to get the creative juices flowing for anyone having trouble visualising a character.

The basic idea is to come up with parts of a character and add them to other people's ideas (note to self - buy thesaurus) to come up with a whole person. Like, one person says a name, another gives a description, we all pitch in to personal history and so on.

I'll start. Tall (6.3), muscular male. Olive skin, black hair and dark eyes. Birthmark shaped like a cresent on his left shoulder (but not a long lost heir).
 
An accident he was responsible for, and he has yet to forgive himself for it. Since he was alone at such a young age, his survival depended upon...
 
A gypsy caravan, and the barren high-ranking gypsy woman who adopted him. She raised him to be...

(yay! people are paying attention)
 
Our character thus far...:D
Tall (6.3), muscular male. Olive skin, black hair and dark eyes. Birthmark shaped like a cresent on his left shoulder (but not a long lost heir).
His name was Benicio Calderon...he is an orphan. His parents died when he was ten, killed by....
An accident he was responsible for, and he has yet to forgive himself for it. Since he was alone at such a young age, his survival depended upon...
A gypsy caravan, and the barren high-ranking gypsy woman who adopted him. She raised him to be...
Click to expand...

...a healer, for she was an expert in herbal (though some whspered magical) medicine.
 
Alurny said:
He desires for one to love however his past experiences have been..
Click to expand...

strangely confined to a reocurring and amazingly life like dream of a wonderously beautiful elf maiden who cries out to him for help. He has no idea who she is but once, in the background he thought he saw the citidal of his arch enemy the....
 
Quit with the cliches! Why would a healer have an arch enemy anyway? All in favour of ignoring Jackokent's last post, say 'Aye'. All those opposed, excluding Jackokent, say 'nay'.
 
Unfulfilling...He's been haunted by a recurring dream of a wonderously beautiful maiden who cries out to him. He has no idea who she is ....
Click to expand...

I suggest editing down Jack's comment, like I've done, rather than deleting it outright.
 
Ah. Much better. The elf bit wasn't too vomitingly Wizards of the Coast, but it is better without. Ok, from Hawkshaw.

... Or how to find her, but the vividness of the dreams (and his own intimacy issues) persuade him that she is real.

Favourite possession: a minaiture of his family, the only thing he has left of them.

(We can do some more history later. We need some other stuff now. Friends, habits, likes, dislikes...)
 
OK...an update of our character.....


Tall (6.3), muscular male. Olive skin, black hair and dark eyes. Birthmark shaped like a cresent on his left shoulder (but not a long lost heir).

His name was Benicio Calderon...he is an orphan. His parents died when he was ten, killed by....
An accident he was responsible for, and he has yet to forgive himself for it. Since he was alone at such a young age, his survival depended upon...
A gypsy caravan, and the barren high-ranking gypsy woman who adopted him. She raised him to be... ...a healer, for she was an expert in herbal (though some whspered magical) medicine.
He desires for one to love however his past experiences have been..
Unfulfilling...He's been haunted by a recurring dream of a wonderously beautiful maiden who cries out to him. He has no idea who she is .... ... Or how to find her, but the vividness of the dreams (and his own intimacy issues) persuade him that she is real.

Favourite possession: a minaiture of his family, the only thing he has left of them.
 
Passions....He loves the sea. Fishing, swimming, boating, or simply staring out across the Mediterranean.

#1 sidekick...a foul-mouthed juvenile delinquent named Duffy.
 
The rumours of magical knowledge (as we later find, not entirely unfounded) and Duffy's limited understanding of the concept of "Property," means that the two tend to be treated with some suspicion.
 
He has a fear of fire, especially candles, since the accident that killed his parents was started this way. Along with the maiden dream, he dreams of fires raging across the world, and often he sees that maiden engulfed in flame, screaming for him to save her. Duffy stole a strange fire-starter (lighter) from a wizard's trade-wagon before and often taunts Benicio with it.

-D
 
But the taunting did not last long after Benicio dunked his contemptuous companion head first in the sea!

The whole situation was very disagreeable for Duffy and later as the day passed and his mind settled down from the trauma he sat to quietly muse 'Still at least I did not lose my nice green hat, that is an upside I suppose.' and thus he became a rather cautious character where fire and his friend were concerned....
 
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A question, Faceless...
Did you have a genre or setting in mind for this exercise? When people create characters, they usually attach them to a particular time, place, or situation.

While some people are leaning toward fantasy (a la WOTC/D&D), others didn't. And also, if a genre or setting are imposed on a character, then haven't we jumped the border, into storytelling?

Back on topic...

Sidekick #2...Gunter Skorzeny, a master craftsman in all things metal. Chubby, grizzled, and charmingly grumpy. Lives among the gypsies.
 
Faceless Woman said:
Quit with the cliches! Why would a healer have an arch enemy anyway? All in favour of ignoring Jackokent's last post, say 'Aye'. All those opposed, excluding Jackokent, say 'nay'.
Click to expand...

Nay. You can't open a thread to all comers then suddenly revise someone's contribution 'cause you don't like. You should have specified stricter guidelines in the first post.
 
Culhwch said:
Nay. You can't open a thread to all comers then suddenly revise someone's contribution 'cause you don't like. You should have specified stricter guidelines in the first post.
Click to expand...

Aye to agreeing with Culhwch, was harshly handled aswell.
 
Guidelines are reasonable, Faceless. It's a good thread and premise, but needs parameters to follow
 
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