Character Creation -- Step 1, the Basics

[iago]

I'm going to take character creation slowly.  Step 1 is easy: imagine and describe your character. 

NOTE: This thread is for ideas and discussions.  I will ask each of you for a final draft of these questions in a week or two.

What do you like playing? 

Basics
I would like a name and gender.  This is important to your characters.

Alignment
This isn't from T&T, but I'm ripping it off anyway.  Chose one of the following:
- Good, Neutral, Evil
And one of these:
- Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic
This is important to me for character development and plot ideas.  I'd like the party to be reasonably consistant (like, if somebody has lawful/good, I don't want somebody else to have chaotic/evil).  Talk this out amongst yourselves, if you need to.

Character class
I am open to any character class you want.  I'll invent rules if I have to.  Think about D&D, or WoW, or Diablo II races.  I'll even rip spells from other games if you want to be like a Druid or something. 

Some ideas:
- Fighter (Warrior, Barbarion, Weapon master, ranger, palidan, berserker, ninja, etc.)
- Magic user (Priest, Mage, Druid, Necromancer, etc)
- Rogue (Adventurer, Rake, Thief, etc.)
- Miscellaneous (Tinkerer, technomancer, scout,

I am totally open to other suggestions. 

Race
There are many races, and you can pick one not from the game if you desire, I'll invent rules.  I'll list some suggestions from the original game, some that we made up, and some that I made up just now.  I'll also describe the weirder ones.  Base your race on how you picture your character, not on the bonuses that I'm not telling you here. 

Human -- The best overall, will have higher stats on average
Elf
Dwarf

Vaard -- Think barbarian, huge, animal skins, from the north, etc.
Hobbit -- Think Lord of the Rings, short, fat, sneaky, very quiet, very nimble
Leprechauns -- Small, can teleport themselves at will, have 3 wishes
Fairies -- Very quick and hard to hit, and are quite good with bows.
Ork -- Huge, smelly, and constantly have adventurers trying to kill them
Ghoul -- The walking dead.  Strong and tough, but slow.  They make ironic necromancers..

Wolfen -- Dog people.  Strong and fast.
Kzinti -- Cat-people.  Tend to have orange and black fur, are quite fierce and very tough
Saurien -- Lizard people.  Very strong, and tough, but are typically outcases

Loose ends...
In addition to this information, I also want a description of your character.  How he/she acts.  What he/she enjoys doing.  Why he/she wants to be an adventurer (lure of gold? experience? fame?).  Is your character young or old?  Fat or thin?  In shape?  Social or recluse?  Religious or no?  Does he give money to the poor?  Charity?  Get drunk?  Pick fights at bars for fun?  Any other characteristics?


Summary
In a week or two, I want your:
- Name
- Gender
- Alignment
- Class
- Race
- Description

This thread is for discussion and suggestions.  I will request your info at a later date. 

We will generate actual stats and skills later.  I am extremely open to suggestions not on this list.

[iago]

Oh, by the way, you guys really need:

At least one magic user
At least one ranged weapon user
At least a couple hand-to-hand

Having more than one person in a close-combat fight makes a significant difference. 

[Blaze]

1.) Maed
2.) Male
3.) Neutral
4.) Neutral
5.) Mage
6.) Gnome, thats kinda like a hobbit, just cooler.
7.)  ---


Maed is usually lurking in the shadows, waiting to trick oncoming adventuers.
He is purley in it for the Gold, and has learned very well over his many years.
He is small, thin, brilliant, and able to hide almost anywhere.  He tends to
keep kidding from society, and rarely shows himself, but when he does, its either
for the lure of money, or to help lost souls. His mind is in as good of shape as
his body is, and doesn't enter anything he can't win. He is a very powerful mage
and has ecomplished a lot, and owns quite a large plot of forest, where he lives
all alone waiting...

[iago]

Haha, Gnome!  Good call, but crappy Window Manager. 

Good work, though.  That's exactly what I wanted

[Newby]

Name: Merlin [size=0pt]Shut the fuck up, it's named after my dad's fiance's cat! He's so awesome. I miss him. :[[/size]
Sex: Male
Alignment: Neutral Good
Race: Kzinti
Class: Fighter
Description:

Merlin hails from the northern snowy plains. He was abandoned from his family when he was a little kzinti, but managed to learn to survive on his own with very little help. He has a mutual respect for authority and law, although he does find it rediculous at times, such as laws with sodomy. For the most part, he is good hearted, although at times he will stop at nothing to stick a knife in the face of an unsuspecting asshole.

[Sidoh]

Name -- Mirudraas

Alignment -- Neutral, Neutral

Class -- Dark Mage (Warlock -- shadow magic user), if that's possible.

Race -- Shanask (I'll explain this in a second)

Mirudraas is very dark and mysterious.  He doesn't speak through normal means, but by telecommunication.  He has a very ancient feel to him, like he contains a very in depth knowledge of lore.  However, you can tell that he is very slow and weak physically; he would have a hard time performing any action that required considerable amounts of agility or evasive maneuvers.  You can also see that he relies almost completely on the magics for combat.

A Shanask is a race invented by my boss for Metascape, I haven't seen it used anywhere else.  It's a very unique race, but I'd have no problem with you modifying, removing or adding any of the features that I'm suggesting they have:

 -- They are immortal.  They don't die through aging; only combat wounds will kill them
 -- They don't breath, smell, eat, drink or sleep.  They have no physical body as we know it.
 -- They are veiled in dark, black robes.  Touching their body (reaching into their robes) results in an immediate surge of fear.
 -- Their eyes consist of two red points
 -- They have a constant height: 6'6" and a constant weight: 250 lbs (~113.5 Kg)
 -- They cannot speak through sound waves.  Instead, they use telecommunication.
 -- They are a very ancient race, they are generally very informed on the history of the universe/world (in the game we're playing).
 -- When they die, they disintegrate.  They're gone forever.  No resurrection!  T_T
 -- They see in 90 degree angle monochrome vision.  No color or wide vision range.
 -- They are extremely quiet and mysterious; they often have a seemingly evil "feel" to them, though not all have evil intentions.

I think there are more points, but it's been a while since I've played Metascape.  If you approve (and/or want to change something), let me know, iago.  I've always played a Shanask, it's fun! 

[iago]

Newby -- good job, I like that

Sidoh -- Beautiful. 

The language you want is already in T&T, it's called "Wizard Speak".  It's normally only available if you roll 99 (on 1d100), but whatever

Funny enough, in the Discworld series, they have creatures like that.  Would you be opposed to changing the name of your race to "auditor"?  An auditor is almost exactly how you describe.  They come from another plane of existance to try to bring order and peace to the universe.  It's their job to make sure that the world runs smoothly, and that death and birth and everything is going according to plan.  In the book Hogfather, they wanted to get rid of Death (the personification) because he was becoming too human, but they were foiled. 

Here is the blurb on them from a Wikipedia article:

The Auditors of Reality are supernatural entities and celestial bureaucrats. They make sure that gravity works, file the appropriate paperwork for each chemical reaction, and so forth. The Auditors hate life, because it's messy and unpredictable, which makes them fall behind on their paperwork; they much prefer barren balls of rock orbiting stars in neat, easily predictable elliptical paths. They really hate humans and other sentient beings, who are much more messy and unpredictable than other living things.

The Auditors are not gods, at least not in the Discworld sense. Gods on the Disc derive their existence from human belief, something that the Auditors find inherently repulsive. Belief and imagination are the ultimate mess: They shape and reform the physical world in almost infinitely varied and complex ways. Where the Auditors see a fragment of carbonaceous chondrite heated by the friction of atmospheric entry, imagination sees a falling star. Where the Auditors see a random cleft in granite, imagination sees a dark cave haunted by monsters. To the Auditors, this is infuriating; after all, how can one catalogue or quantify a dragon, a basilisk, poetry or Justice? The Auditors existed long before humans and would be quite happy to exist without them.

Fortunately for humanity and every other living thing, the Auditors can't simply wipe out life, because that's against the Rules; the Auditors can't break the Rules because, in a certain sense, they are the Rules. Unfortunately, a loophole exists in the Rules which allows the Auditors to influence humans into doing what they cannot do directly; in several of the Discworld novels, the Auditors hire humans to perform tasks that will make the world less "messy", paying them with the gold they created out of thin air using their abilities to manipulate reality.

Being personifications of a concept, the Auditors have no fixed shape. When they manifest in the world, however, they almost always appear as empty grey cowled robes, an appearance which conveys drabness and dullness rather than danger.

The Auditors have no discerning characteristics among themselves and function as a collective; when one speaks, it speaks for all of them, and each Auditor works uniformly with countless numbers of other Auditors. When discussing matters and making choices they work in groups of three. One to agree, one to disagree and one to mediate the two, thus covering all angles of possible debate to find the best solution. In the rare cases when an Auditor appears to develop an individual personality (such as using a personal pronoun to refer to itself or experiencing an emotion) it spontaneously ceases to exist. This happens because, as far as the Auditors are concerned, to have a personality is to be a living being with a beginning and an end, the intervening time between which seems infinitely small to entities who have experienced eternity. This does not seem to have any impact on the rest of the Auditors except maybe as an example to be avoided, because another Auditor immediately takes the place of its vapourised colleague.

Interestingly, the primary opponent of the Auditors' plans for eliminating life is Death. Death does not see himself as the enemy of life, but rather an integral part of it, giving rest to the old and weary, and ensuring that the world doesn't become completely stuffed with life. He has also, over the millennia of performing his function, developed a certain fondness for the humans he ushers into the world beyond. This conflict is all the more fascinating because Pratchett has hinted (in The Discworld Companion) that Death and the Auditors may be related beings. The Auditors are the executive arm of the Old High Ones, the eight beings who create and shape the universe. Death ultimately answers to the eighth of the Old High Ones; Azrael, the death of universes.

In Reaper Man, The Auditors are shown not to always be acting in The Old High Ones' best interests and appear to have a large degree of autonomy.

The animosity between Death and the Auditors is possibly a reference to Benjamin Franklin's famous maxim, "In life, only two things are certian, death and taxes."

The Auditors of Reality have appeared in the Discworld novels Reaper Man, Hogfather, Thief of Time and The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch

Of course, I don't intend to base your character entirely on them, but I think that it would be similar. 

<edit> reading it over, they don't seem as cool as when I read about them in the book.  But no worries, we'll figure you out a race no problemo.  But I want to call it Auditor

[Sidoh]

Newby -- good job, I like that

Sidoh -- Beautiful. 

The language you want is already in T&T, it's called "Wizard Speak".  It's normally only available if you roll 99 (on 1d100), but whatever

Funny enough, in the Discworld series, they have creatures like that.  Would you be opposed to changing the name of your race to "auditor"?  An auditor is almost exactly how you describe.  They come from another plane of existance to try to bring order and peace to the universe.  It's their job to make sure that the world runs smoothly, and that death and birth and everything is going according to plan.  In the book Hogfather, they wanted to get rid of Death (the personification) because he was becoming too human, but they were foiled. 

Here is the blurb on them from a Wikipedia article:

The Auditors of Reality are supernatural entities and celestial bureaucrats. They make sure that gravity works, file the appropriate paperwork for each chemical reaction, and so forth. The Auditors hate life, because it's messy and unpredictable, which makes them fall behind on their paperwork; they much prefer barren balls of rock orbiting stars in neat, easily predictable elliptical paths. They really hate humans and other sentient beings, who are much more messy and unpredictable than other living things.

The Auditors are not gods, at least not in the Discworld sense. Gods on the Disc derive their existence from human belief, something that the Auditors find inherently repulsive. Belief and imagination are the ultimate mess: They shape and reform the physical world in almost infinitely varied and complex ways. Where the Auditors see a fragment of carbonaceous chondrite heated by the friction of atmospheric entry, imagination sees a falling star. Where the Auditors see a random cleft in granite, imagination sees a dark cave haunted by monsters. To the Auditors, this is infuriating; after all, how can one catalogue or quantify a dragon, a basilisk, poetry or Justice? The Auditors existed long before humans and would be quite happy to exist without them.

Fortunately for humanity and every other living thing, the Auditors can't simply wipe out life, because that's against the Rules; the Auditors can't break the Rules because, in a certain sense, they are the Rules. Unfortunately, a loophole exists in the Rules which allows the Auditors to influence humans into doing what they cannot do directly; in several of the Discworld novels, the Auditors hire humans to perform tasks that will make the world less "messy", paying them with the gold they created out of thin air using their abilities to manipulate reality.

Being personifications of a concept, the Auditors have no fixed shape. When they manifest in the world, however, they almost always appear as empty grey cowled robes, an appearance which conveys drabness and dullness rather than danger.

The Auditors have no discerning characteristics among themselves and function as a collective; when one speaks, it speaks for all of them, and each Auditor works uniformly with countless numbers of other Auditors. When discussing matters and making choices they work in groups of three. One to agree, one to disagree and one to mediate the two, thus covering all angles of possible debate to find the best solution. In the rare cases when an Auditor appears to develop an individual personality (such as using a personal pronoun to refer to itself or experiencing an emotion) it spontaneously ceases to exist. This happens because, as far as the Auditors are concerned, to have a personality is to be a living being with a beginning and an end, the intervening time between which seems infinitely small to entities who have experienced eternity. This does not seem to have any impact on the rest of the Auditors except maybe as an example to be avoided, because another Auditor immediately takes the place of its vapourised colleague.

Interestingly, the primary opponent of the Auditors' plans for eliminating life is Death. Death does not see himself as the enemy of life, but rather an integral part of it, giving rest to the old and weary, and ensuring that the world doesn't become completely stuffed with life. He has also, over the millennia of performing his function, developed a certain fondness for the humans he ushers into the world beyond. This conflict is all the more fascinating because Pratchett has hinted (in The Discworld Companion) that Death and the Auditors may be related beings. The Auditors are the executive arm of the Old High Ones, the eight beings who create and shape the universe. Death ultimately answers to the eighth of the Old High Ones; Azrael, the death of universes.

In Reaper Man, The Auditors are shown not to always be acting in The Old High Ones' best interests and appear to have a large degree of autonomy.

The animosity between Death and the Auditors is possibly a reference to Benjamin Franklin's famous maxim, "In life, only two things are certian, death and taxes."

The Auditors of Reality have appeared in the Discworld novels Reaper Man, Hogfather, Thief of Time and The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch

Of course, I don't intend to base your character entirely on them, but I think that it would be similar. 

<edit> reading it over, they don't seem as cool as when I read about them in the book.  But no worries, we'll figure you out a race no problemo.  But I want to call it Auditor

That's fine with me, call it whatever you want.

[Hitmen]

My guy rules.

Name: Count Grishnackh
Sex: Male
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Race/Class: Human Necromancer
Description:
Count Grishnackh is a tall, frail, agile, slender, pale scandinavian man. The Count has a fascination with the dead and spends many nights trying to perfect his talent for raising the corpses of fallen foes. He does not waste time and does not like to toil around doing nothing when he could be improving his skills. The Count does not respect authority and does not take orders well. He is unpredictable, though is a decent person and will not incite violence without provocation. Count Grishnackh's main allure is fame, hoping to get his name out there in any way possible. When he's not questing, the Count enjoys movies, music, and long walks on the beach.

[iago]

Great! 

We need a ranged guy/fighter, guys

Also, here are some more races that I forgot about:

    * Trolls -- Made of rock, very strong, very dumb
    * Golems -- Animated pottery.  Very fragile, but nasty and strong.  They don't think for themselves, so maybe that wouldn't make a good character..
    * Gnomes -- Little troublemakers
    * Undead -- If you want ones that aren't ghouls, that's fine too
    * Werewolves -- Would make a great fighter
    * The Nac Mac Feegle -- Look it up .  They can't really talk, so they wouldn't make a good character.

[Blaze]

* Gnomes -- Little troublemakers

* Blaze chants "1, 2, 3, GNOMES! *

and by the way, Gnomes are brilliant!

[iago]

* Gnomes -- Little troublemakers

* Blaze chants "1, 2, 3, GNOMES! *

and by the way, Gnomes are brilliant!

By the way, would you consider having a Gnome ranger or thief instead?  A Gnome would be amazing at ranged combat, and would also be really good at picking locks, setting/disarming traps, etc. 

You don't have to, but we really need some non-magic characters besides Newby, and it seems like it would fit your discription :-)

[Blaze]

Theif ehh?  Sounds promising.

[Towelie]

ok, well I've been wanting to be a spellcaster sinse I heard about this... I dont know how this will work out with 3 mages, but I want to know if we will all be able to be them or who gets to be a mage before I choose everything

[iago]

Theif ehh?  Sounds promising.

:-)

You can even use poison!!

ok, well I've been wanting to be a spellcaster sinse I heard about this... I dont know how this will work out with 3 mages, but I want to know if we will all be able to be them or who gets to be a mage before I choose everything

I'm not going to force anybody to take anything. 

I'd like to see somebody take a Palidan character, though.  A combat character who worships some God (there are lots of... interesting Gods).  They would get spells just like a spellcaster, but can also do combat.  Their spells depend on their God.

If you are wanting a spellcaster, that might be an idea. 

Having a Wizard / Necromancer / Priest-or-Palidan wouldn't be so bad.  They do get a unique set of spells.