Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
what shaped your character?
Kyrton
California
I think I have a "rough" idea of the kind of the type of roleplay that would be interesting for my character and that won't be so extreme or intrusive as to be annoying, but I don't think you can quite know how your character will be shaped by the world around it. So what situations helped shaped your character? Were there any defining moments in interaction with another player, an influence of your organization, or a world wide event that really gave you a sense of who he/she was? Or were there any moments that made you realize your character was suddenly going in a new direction that you did not expect? What helped shape those changes?
From yellow to blue to white the dots on the wave form the image. Shape and texture juxtaposed with the sensation they create on the eye and the sentiment it stirs within. Thus the ambiguity of "to feel."
0
Comments
I think the initial thing that really, really set who Melodie was in my mind was two main things.
One, during a very large world-wide event (known as the Eternal Night Saga), that cemented her love and affection for Cyrene. Despite no longer being Cyrenian, I don't think she could, or would, be able to turn on the city (not to mention other factors here).
The other major thing was Archprelate Rho and his actions while he was within the Church, which was an org associated with the now-deceased Shallam. This was a defining moment that not only further cemented who Melodie became (a devoted Cyrenian priestess), but it also set the tone of suspicion and weariness from where her devotion flowed from. That particular feeling lasted a very long time, and was melted during a series of events involving Melodie becoming the leader of the Lumeni (Cyrenian devotionists clan that is now defunct), many events tied in with that. Then her eventual excommunication changed... everything and now it's kind of a confusing knot of feelings.
Those were what I would call "major" events though. There are, of course, many other things that can and will define you. A House's philosophy, for instance, will often stick with you when you base so much of your character around them, or stick around long enough. Your family, too, can often play a startlingly big role if you allow them to. And lastly, Gods/Orders tend to define a character's personal faith, which is a huge part of how you'll end up playing.
There's really so much more than this, but like @Greys said, a lot of this is found out better in-game, especially in relation to actual personal events. What I described above was just a really shallow overview of Melodie, which goes to show (I believe) that characters can have an amazing amount of depth. But it's so much more interesting (and helps your character out, too!) when you discover it through the course of actual, live roleplay.
Questions are good - I noticed you have a lot of them - but sometimes you just have to hop into the game and experience it for yourself.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
As for Houses, making the change from a Shaman in the Congregation and switching to a serpent in the Naga definitely helped to shape my character as well. Previously I found Alcinae without much of a direction but nowadays I find myself playing more of a librarian-ish role due to it. But ultimately its the people you talk to that count, I guess.
I think that Alcinae previously was without purpose because I never took the time to talk and RP with others besides a select few, and never really opened up my horizons until then. Like the above, this is definitely better found in game. Gotta experience it!
discord: aciidwire#5240
Please check out my new art page!
Stories by Jurixe and Stories by Jurixe 2
Interested in joining a Discord about Achaean RP? Want to comment on RP topics or have RP questions? Check the Achaean RP Resource out here: https://discord.gg/Vbb9Zfs
Most of the stuff was completely unplanned. The possession thing was planned, but it sent him in a directions I never expected. Point is...without the tons of people caoi has met over the years and the places he has been and the things he has learned. He wouldnt be who he is today. Honestly..he was just supposed to be this white knight kind of character. My best friend said that with what i had at first. He could have been a Shallamese knight. Heh
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
After I'd been playing 50 IC years (yes, it took me at least that long to figure out what Achaea was all about and what roleplaying was), the timing was perfect for me to start Bluef's life over and give it a real, informed whirl:
The Occultists were anti-Babelonian back then (it was before He had truly emerged as a roleplayed divine character). There was great animity between those of Eris and Indrani in that organization as well. Twilight, who had been another shaping influence for many players of my Achaean generation, had recently gone dormant. Ourania's second (or third?) incarnation was still pretty new and emerging.
Flair and I set out to join her Order, Hashan, and the Spirit Walkers, and the rest, as they say, is history. But it's a history that wouldn't have happened without Flair's early influence in my character's life or the timing of all things being what they once were.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Whether or not it was like that...certain characters are still effected icly by what you/your character remembers. And through that more that one person was effected. Which just goes to show how decent rp can make the characters have a life of their own. And really what makes achaea so fun to play. At least for me.
From yellow to blue to white the dots on the wave form the image. Shape and texture juxtaposed with the sensation they create on the eye and the sentiment it stirs within. Thus the ambiguity of "to feel."
Nim died like two or three times getting her sword after someone gave her a copy of a house scroll of where to find the ingredients. That taught her not to really fear death, and set her along a path of eventually seeing it as something to conquer, master, or just in general joke about.
Seeing @Iocun pull a serpent out of phase during a lecture to said serpent's death by the nearby guards impressed her quite a bit. She thought the naga were kind of cool, that they could (and were willing to) spy on philosophy lectures, but she also thought @Iocun was that much cooler for being able to counter their attempts. It gave her a major crush on him that ended up causing really big things - and it all happened because a random naga happened to stick around.
The fact that the naga apparently had comments on the lecture, and the fact the lecturer was willing to share them, also impressed on her that even enemies might have things of value to say, diluting her sense of friend vs enemy.
Her early day spars with... wow, I forget the name of the blademaster that was her first rival for all about an IRL week, but with that guy, as well as other random novices at the time, and a hundred times especially @Nellaundra, all probably formed her into ever getting into combat. Newbie combat is pretty freaking amazing, folks - in a harsh "oh, you forgot restoration? Looks like you've lost!" kind of way. Try fighting a magi without caloric or even a tree tattoo! Good thing alleviate works on freeze.
Joining the Mojushai and learning their ideals, both through lectures, discussions with Iocun, preparing her own lectures, and a lot of meditation, all lead to her getting a pretty strong philosophical view on life.
Being pulled into Pandora's order has given her a sharp purpose in life, for which Cyrene suffers her ire at every turn for being so far from an ideal setting to achieve that purpose - but, by this stage in life, Nim has decided to be (as @Aerek calls it) hardcore. Even if someone bought her all the artefacts, she'd be unlikely to use them. Still, it's made her kind of grumpy.
@Iocun going dormant a lot has also made her grumpy, and has given her a somewhat sadistic opinion toward him. She likes him, but they're not quite around at the same time often enough to develop those feelings any further than that. She also hates him a lot. Probably, the only thing keeping her from killing him is the fact that @Iocun is just so absurdly good at this combat thing compared to me. :c I'm afraid of what would happen if the two ever split up!
Becoming a minister of war hasn't quite affected her yet, since she's still not completely sure how to handle it. For some reason, Cyrenian politics scare her in ways that death and war never, ever could. She's not merely afraid that she's not ready for the position - she's utterly certain of it, and I'm doing her no favors by being busy with work. :c
She's evolved quite a bit from me being bored one night and deciding to make a character on a pure whim with the concept of "I'll let her choose her class/house/city/life" - and boy has she chosen things!
Probably the biggest influence on both me and Aerek, though, was @Arcani, which is ironic, because all he did was leave. Arcani was a Warden Priest (like me), I'd been inducted into Vashnar Lumeni (Arcani's Devotion clan), and I'd just become one of his Pages (which I was pretty thrilled about). I never really knew Arcani as a person, but from my midbie perspective, he was like a picture of everything I wanted to be; tough-as-nails Priest, Knight of the Spire, and a community leader. So when he switched to Occultist and left for Ashtan on a whim, like a week later, I was pretty devastated. Both IC and OOC, I decided that I never wanted to disappoint anyone like that, myself, and I think that's colored my mentality ever since. Everything I accomplished in the first 100 years or so of my life--attaining Knighthood, leading the Lumeni, and my aversion to class or faction changes--all came from my desire to become what I wanted Arcani to be. (If you ever read this, Arcani, I promise I don't think you're a bad person!)
Once I'd actually been Knighted, I cut my teeth as a leader under @Metzger and his "No bullshit, just results" style of leadership, and that had a pretty big impact on me as I made the transition from someone had fun playing Achaea for my own enjoyment, to someone who has fun playing Achaea fun for others' enjoyment. (Which is how I define Achaean leadership.) I always say the Metzger years were a golden age for the Wardens, in part because of the all-around great group of Knights we had at the time, and in part because Metz just didn't tolerate anything that got in the way of forward progress. He was a pretty progressive kind of leader and presented a great icon of the consummate, Knightly badass, and I feel my own progressive tendencies and slow shift from "wise old Priest" to "hardened drill sergeant" come from emulating his style.
Recently, my line of RP in relation to the evolution of the Holy Church, to the Citadel, to Targossas finally came to a climax. As an objective player, I've always thought Good would benefit from an effective shift to a more militarized, zealous state, and supported those efforts however I could. However, I personally have very little interest in religious zealot RP; I get bored with it quickly and vastly prefer dwelling in the moral grey areas that I find more accurately portray real life. As Shallam did start moving to the right, my inherent desire for character consistency and aversion to class change clashed with my distaste for homogenized religious RP, and sometimes it was hard to find reasonable compromises between the two. In the end, the rise of Targossas and @Melodie's 2nd excommunication (The first one was legit and cool) kinda convinced me that perhaps the day had come that there just wasn't any more room in Devotion for a moderate like me, and it was time to seek greener pastures. I'm still Paladin at the moment, and while I'm having some fun with excommunication, my change to Runewarden is essentially inevitable, and the whole story arc has been a huge paradigm shift for the character.
This is probably already longer than anyone wants to read, so I'll stop there, except to mention that I wasn't nearly as cantankerous until @Melodie and Aerek became a couple. She's so nice, likeable, and helpful that I find it necessary and terribly amusing to provide an ironic contrast to balance us out.
What I mean to say is, while Rho was the "bad" side of what pushed Melodie into her role as a priestess, @Aerek was the inspiration to the good part of it, and helped shape my character long, long before we really knew each other beyond a professional interest in helping each other. That it all came to a head later was pretty unpredictable and quite fun, and it was partly thanks to him that Melodie was able to begin letting go at all.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
When I returned from two RL years or so of non-playing, I realized that my younger self shifted Ruth to the Black Lotus in Hashan after autoclass was introduced. More mature now, I made the conscious decision to play Ruth with a little conflict of her old values: by dropping the Paladin class for pursuing membership to Apollyon's Order. To be fair, I didn't have a clue still then that Apollyon was one of the exclusive Evil gods but the way my application (even though I was Hashani) was considered seriously made all the difference to me. I still consider the interview for entrance to the pre-order as one of the best interactions that has influenced Ruth's religious fervor. It scared the bejeebus out of her to know that her suitability for the pre-order was assessed by people in power in Mhaldor, some of whom (after she became Adikoi) did not think her a worthy candidate, further spurred her desire to prove them wrong.
During my stint in Hashani office, I feel that the most significant individuals who helped to shape Ruth's leadership style would mainly be @Twilight, @Sabiru and Apollyon, as well as @Bleak and @Laytron. Be it good or bad, I think Ruth learnt a lot from the guidances each provided, not just what it means to lead, but also of subterfuge, of Evil, faith and also what it means to do everything and anything for a cause.
This ultimately led to Ruth's decision to abandon everything in Hashan for a life in Mhaldor, which to date, still remains as one of the most life-changing event to happen to her. It might be arrogant, but Ruth often looks back at the path that took her to where she is now, and considers herself as one of the best living proof, especially to converts, that unwavering service and loyalty to Evil has its rewards.
To sum up my general thoughts though, I find that it gets easier to shape your character if you involve yourself more with other people, even those outside your organizations. Some decisions you must make can be hard, but if you make one, remember that you made your bed, so you must lie in it. It's not so easy to go back on a decision and more importantly, don't let yourself be pressured to make a decision that goes against your own. In my opinion, it'll destroy what efforts you've made to establish or bring credibility to your character. Otherwise, be bold and never be afraid to start conflicts or make yourself heard.
- Limb Counter - Fracture Relapsing -
"Honestly, I just love that it counts limbs." - Mizik Corten