3. What inspired your character?

What inspired your character?


  • I really never know where I'm going when I start a character concept. Rico and Sirion both started out as jokes, but I started to put more of myself into them, selectively, and they rounded out and surprised me.

    Ethan I did entirely improvised, down to his stories and backstories. It was a fun exercise, but it wore on me fast. I'm just not that kind of guy.

    Rico Swift began as attempt to see if I could make a paladin fall. Apparently I failed, as the guy is so milquetoast good he sells his soul and the demon gives it back because it tastes bad. He's built on every little idealistic and romantic thought I have in my head. He's the part of me that's five years old, watching Reeve play Superman on TV broadcasts, given an adult mind and body.

    Sirion is also me, but a different part. He's the intellectual part of me, almost pinched off into a vacuum. He has a conscience, possibly keener than most. He's never worried about making a mistake…he's worried about every possible outcome leading to a mistake. Now, if I draw any inspiration for how I play him, it's the unlovable but entirely correct asshole prevalent in modern television. Cumberbatch's Sherlock. Laurie's House. Gordon Ramsey (and all British...huh). Which in and of itself isn't new...it's just the modern spin on the counterculture protagonist doing his fish out of water thing with an incredulous degree of success. It's the same thing that built the entire cop drama genre starting with Dirty Harry. Sirion's got a code of ethics as well. Some of it's distinctly elven. Some of it's self imposed because it gives him a way to challenge himself. You might compare Sirion to Ozymandias from Watchmen too. I never meant for that, but it fits.

    Notice how I've left out words like good and evil. Not because I don't personally belief in such, but because I believe in such as a purely human construct (in other words, we do it to each other). The concept of evil is entirely subjective to the course of human history. As for whether or not it would come up in another sentient species is a source of good debate.

    Maybe these reveal a little more about me than I'm aware, but I can't help but pour myself into them.

  • F

    My characters mostly grew out of a single idea or arbitrary concepts that flew into my head for long enough to manifest itself in NWN. There are many that never got that far. I daydream a lot, often at work, and that gave me plenty of time to flesh out a character, but in terms of what inspired them, it was always very loose.

    I often used film and TV actors to get a solid idea of the appearance, then I would flesh out backstory and character traits to varying degrees of detail. Moira started life as a Morrigan (Dragon Age) clone and had essays of background written up, and the more I researched Rashemen the more I added.
    Olwyn had.. er… a name and a subrace; otherwise most of her background was written ad hoc (Olwyn literally spawned from my interpretation of a paragraph in the book of exalted deeds).
    Kamilah was originally a male bard, played on another server. Said bard died pretty pathetically, but I liked the concept of an avant-garde bard in Faerun so much that I wrote him a twin sister into his backstory and played her instead.

    My NPCs were usually a bit more clear-cut, although I pretty much winged 90% of my DM events so the characters were usually just designed to fit the scenario (i.e. Wouldn't a bashful, idiotic newbie of a guard really bring the most of this situation). Some survived the event and graduated to a second dimension of personality, sometimes accompanied by a backstory! (re: Olenin). Since I needed names fast they were often ripped straight from books.

    The key exception being the surly Naval Officer guy with the horse (Selgaunt) and the gnomish assistant (Forbes?). I cannot for the life of me remember that guy's name (does anyone remember?) as I didn't write it down outside of the DM forums. But he was basically a carbon copy of Stephen Fry's portrayal of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington in Blackadder the Third.


  • I'll just start going through my accounts in alphabetical order. Some chars have more inspiration, some very little - but I'll list all just for the kicks.

    Acitzam

    Aluna Pothpatek Priestess of Set, I first thought I'd make her, as I realized how many scalykind enemies there are around Narfell. The idea was to get them all united under the banner of Set/Sseth. Nothing yet on that front…

    C'tan Sunburn One of my longer lasting chars, C'tan wasn't even originally meant to be good all the way. I wanted him to be a "rayman", cleric with as many beams as possible. I had planned him to be such a scholarly fella, he'd fall into some 'heresy' of lathander.. how the gods of the sun move like the sun, thus next true sungod would be not Lathander, but Tezca from Maztica (Chaotic Evil god of sun). That would have allowed Sun and Evil Domain. Neg. Energy ray at 1st and Searing Light at 2nd. However, character interaction caused him to go all the way to the good side. Go figure. No beam pew-pew. 😞

    Gloirin Dantoff: Priestess of Thard Harr, mostly just a product of reading too much Faiths&Pantheons.

    Greatest Rager of Village Elderly Lamb …or Grovel for short. I made him around the time when the other gnomes (Gilda, Garmey and Perri) were active too. Just a wee lunatic inspired by the soundset he uses 😛

    Kalienah Summerbloom Plot character made for Salsa's Orcus plot. Some kind of half-demoness priestess of Orcus. Not much more to tell there.

    Yaotl Chimalpopoca Reading the Maztica campaign set, me and Vash made two mazticans. Mine was jaguar warrior of Tezca - theyhad some restrictions such as no metal weapon / armors, and would trot about ripping hearts out and offering them to the sun. Too bad Vash doesn't play anymore and Yaotl doesn't really speak common.

    To Be Continued..


  • The Dolvaks were the first idea we had, basically we wanted some VErgadain following bullies to invade a server. We actually tried a couple other servers before finding Narfell.

    Dwin inherited 2 very important character traits that were very timely in 2003; Grumpy/Dwarfy Gimli and Tony Soprano. I figured that any money-loving Vergadain follower would do well to take on a mob-boss type personality. Its still how I try to play him, though his INT isnt as high as a mob-boss, so I try to dumb him down a bit. That's actually the biggest challenge in playing him.

    Hess Arksaniss was the first PnP character I ever rolled. I wont give you a year, but I'm betting he was rolled up well before 90% of this server was born :). Back then he was a Human Fighter/Magic-User combo and rode a Pegasus. (Clash of the Titans was a current influence back then).

    I re-rolled Hess about 10 years ago when we played some PnP at work during lunch. That's when he became a Half-elf RGR/DRD. For his back story I actually based it completely on my own RL family history. In the latter half of the 18th century my family was settled in a fort in Western PA. The indians were being back by the Brits in that area to terrorize the American colonists. They attacked our family's fort one day and massacred many women and children. They kidnapped 2 boys. One got away (Hess) and the other was taken to Canada where he was raised as part of the tribe and eventually became chief. Its all documented here, and is a pretty cool story: http://noel.mcn.org/Westmoreland/WhitePeter.htm


  • Creating a character is a very fluid (and sometimes very slow) process for me. I rarely have a fixed concept or any one single source of inspiration when I start out, but rather a jumble of vaguely defined ideas and thoughts sloshing about, and it's usually only when I get a feel for the character's personality that I bring them into being.

    Ragnhild, the first character to "stick" in Narfell, was created with atypical speed in one afternoon, inspired by nothing more spectacular than a group of Nordic players creating a small band of "Glacial Barbarians" who initially spoke nothing but their own tongue (Swedish). I rolled up a standard barbarian, outfitted her with a spear in classic valkyrian style and bam, that was that! The rest of her story, I made up IG, and her personality simply flowed from this very simple basic outline and the many interactions with others that followed IG.

    Sabre too is the result of outside influence as she was made specifically to join the Black Sails, after weeks of nagging by their then guild leader. She's in some ways a typical "pirate", but I also put a lot of thought into her backstory, trying to create a more complex character who could truly walk the fine line between good and evil (I knew from the start that I wouldn't enjoy playing outright evil). Duality is at the core of Sabre's being, the name "Seesaw" signifying this constant to-and-fro between good and bad, hot and cold (even her weaponry reflects this), salty and sweet, joking and melancholy. It's a concept which really worked, especially in the Sails setting with the many moral quandries a life of piracy presents!

    For my most recent character, Willow, I did insert some shamelessly Indiana Jones'esque features such as her eternal state of scruffiness and more blatantly, the whip, but mostly I wanted to create an explorer, someone very free spirited and curious who would seek to see all the places in Narfell (that not even her player has experienced yet!). She could have been a ranger, rogue or bard, but Shaundakul is a deity that fit my ambition like a glove, and so I decided to try a cleric for the first time on Narfell. With the domains of Travel and Air, it's perhaps natural that she turned out something of an airhead…

  • Legion

    Kayleb the Beggar: My first ever character in Narfell (that didn't die instantly - my first actual character started off in the Gypsy Camp while it was home to 20ft tall demons). I was brand new to NWN and the last DnD I played was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons back in High School.

    The idea behind Kayleb was to let the RP mold the character. Starting off as a street beggar, I took a level of Rogue (closest thing I could think of to "commoner" class). I was hoping to become a paladin, but the paladin characters always treated Kayleb quite harshly. Through IC conversations about religion he eventually embraced Illmater as his patron god.

    I found playing a non-combat character to be pretty much impossible however. So I eventually knocked up a new character who could I could play solo when I needed to. Marty.

    Martoushca Leaffall: My second character. I figured the best way to play in a quiet timezone and still have a meaningful connection with the other players was to play as a scout. That way I could be out "in the field" alone and report anything groovy back to the other players via the forum.

    So I needed a character that could heal a bit, was good out in the sticks, that could take a bit of a beating, and who could run away if things got scary. So I went with a halfling rogue/druid/barbarian. Rogue so I could dish out a bit of damage, Druid so I could heal a bit and actually hit stuff (+2 in wilderness areas baby!), and barbarian for a bit of a HP boost and the ability to barbarian fast run the hell away from stuff.

    So unlike Kayleb where the classes were based on the RP, for Marty I based her personality on the classes she was taking. Fiesty (barbarian) raised in the city (rogue) but with a connection with nature (druid). Gentle and delicate one moment (rogue), and cranky the next (barbarian). Wise (druid) and intelligent (rogue) but with an impulsive nature (barbarian).

    I signed her up with the guilds that matched her personality. I did have in mind to join the Peltarch Defenders to serve as a scout, but I could never get in. Also hoped to join up with the Wolves, but she also had trouble finding a way in there. The Legion on the other hand was very active and it wasn't long before she signed up with them. The Sisterhood help play out her kind and ladylike side. She also hooked up with the Circle to gain some guidance for her gardening work in the city.

    Other influences on Marty's personality were Cindy Lauper and my Daughter.

    Grobble: … Goblins are awesome. I tried pretty hard to fill the comic relief role with Marty, but so often it seemed to be interpreted by other players as a challenge to grating PvP RP. I really wanted to play a character that could more easily play that kind of role - but for some reason didn't think that the obvious potential for PvP that would come from playing a goblin would bother me... I really don't like PvP.


  • He'd be a dervish dancer crazy bard or drunken master (insane?) monk if anything!


  • @489646522d=Emerwyn:

    As for the aesthetics, who hasn't played Soul Blade/Soul Calibur? Siegfried anyone?

    Speaking of Soul Calibur, my next planned character is going to be based on Lord Geo Dampierre.

    Be afraid.

  • ?

    When I'm RPing Beorn, I'm usually thinking "How would Conan react to this?" I love Conan the Barbarian. I have most of Robert E. Howard's work and WAY too many comic books on the character. I love bawdy characters like Gimli and Thormund Giantsbane, who carry that presence of being loud, proud and stubborn, but they're loyalty to their few friends are unshakable.

    I have a few other dwarven PC's floating around. Bharuk the Unquenchable is a drunken master monk and his personality comes from Strong Belwas, from A Song of Ice and Fire. I love that character, get over those honeyed locusts already! 😄

    I've always wanted to make a PC based off Thanos the Mad Titan, that mean mug that is my avatar. He's awesome, but way too smart and complicated for me. Im just a simple dwarven RPer.


  • Whenever I make a character, I always discover like, 100 pre-existing characters and then I take those characters into account when thinking of a characters next move.

    IT'S PRETTY MUCH THE SAME SO WHATEVER.

    Arlan for instance, is incredibly similar to Roy Mustang from Full Metal Alchemist. Particularly the intentionally cultivated appearance of being lazy or just leaning against the ball instead of being on it, when in reality he's two steps ahead and even planned all of this and you don't even realize he did it.

    Elva doesn't really have any characters like this, but the obvious one is Shinji Ikari and if you're familiar with NGE I'm sure I don't need to explain any more than that.

    My latest PC Damien is the exception though, I decided his character long long long before I made him in game and there is a character he is almost directly based off, The titular character of the little known webcomic Todd Allison and the Petunia Violet. They're a rather aggressive little shit who needs everything he does to be perfect and more or less hates nearly everyone around them but is polite to who he thinks are his betters. The idea is that people wont like him very much.

  • A

    What an interesting thread. Thanks for starting it Emer!

    I had never played an online server before MaverickTO talked my brother-in-law (Gatlord) and I into joining Narfel, where he had been playing since 2003. I had played the NWN campaign three times, the last as a bard, which was my favorite character. So I created a bard named Romulus because that was the name I used whenever I played the Romans in CIV4, a favorite of mine. I decided his backstory would be that his father was a Harper Scout in the Neverwinter militia, and his mother was a tavern singer and mage. Everything else just grew from that.

    Trotter, my halfling ranger, was an attempt to run a solitary character during those times when I couldn't find anyone to adventure in Narfel with. I found the name in Christopher Tolkien's Histroy of Middle Earth, the story of his father JRR Tolkien's writing of the Lord of the Rings. Trotter, a halfling Took cousin of Bilbo's who ran away from home, was the original character who later became Strider (Aragorn). He was Trotter the halfling for the first couple of drafts of the Fellowship of the Ring, before Tolkien created the Numenorian legend.

    I always said that Romulus had a sister who ran away with a gypsy boy when she was 17. Eventually, this character became Shesarai. Her backstory is rather sad, but she doesn't like to talk about it. When she left her Romani lover, she changed her hair-color from black to red, and changed her name from Shiela to Shesarai. Nevertheless, a good deal of her father's scouting ability survives in her, just as it does in Romulus. You can never fully escape your roots.

    AubreyMaturin


  • Well, the general idea behind Salin was to make a character that had to struggle with a traumatising event that shifted his personality towards bitterness and evil. I just had this concept in my mind for a while, and was (and still am) trying to write a book around this, and around the time I started in Narfell, I just made a few adjustments to fit the D&D lore (having said event being the attack on waterdeep by Drow from HOTU, which was kinda risky as I didn't know if it'd fit the timeline of the server, and didn't know we had a forum where I could ask about this stuff, and making the change toward evil coincide with the aspects of Bane: fear, revenge and hatred). However, i didn't want him to be just another "I'm bad because they forced me to it" kind of guy, so I mixed it up a bit and made him kind and an overall nice person to be with, until something happens (either some event where someone he cares about gets killed off by drow, or just the influence of his Familiar Hell Hound/other evil aligned characters) that makes him acknowledge and accept the act that he is, in fact an Evil person. The influrences, per se, were just how my life was a few months ago, as I was forced to question myself on whether I was the good guy I thought I was, and from there, I just let my imagination flow… And poof, Salin Ashald's story shows up.
    The "nobility" part came as an afterthought, as I had to make his parents important enough to be considered a target for the Red Sister assassins, and making him son of adventurers was not something I wanted to go with, so being noble was the next best thing, I guess.


  • Most of my characters are conjured through the music I love. While a song will never give me a vivid description of an actual character, it can affect the entire mood of my (un)creative writing. As well as a simple fragment of a song, a word or a verse, can put me in the notion to play a certain class.

    My Ranger takes me back to song like "An Arrow From the Sun", and "The Nomad", while songs such as "The Wizard's Apprentice" and "Chains of Minerva" inspired my Spell-Sword character. Though the songs never mention such things as Rangers, Elves, or stuttering spell-knights - they still gave me enough of an impression that I could begin to create.


  • If anyone remembers my Kelemvorite Kosef BErsk… he was inspired by the zeal and religious fervour of the Space Marines & co. from Warhammer 40K.

    PURGE THE HERETICS


  • Jason Selious - Priest and Painbarer of Ilmater, I had started this char on another server and was forced to retire him much sooner then I wanted to, so I brought him here as a traveler to be able to continue a story I loved so much and wasn't quite ready to end. The idea behind him was to try out a different religion as I had done the Torm and Bane thing so many times and I came to the conclusion of Ilmater and a shy young man from a tougher background, Jason came from that and its just continued to roll since then.

    Eilonna Moonshadow: Ranger scout of Moradin, This idea was given to me from our dearest DM Skippy who suggested starting a character from the area of Narfell and together we panned out a ranger from the old elven camp and when I sent him my back story to make sense it just seemed to come alive. He designed the uniform she wears from scratch and I have used it ever since even turning down better armors. Many have been involved in steering her story, Brumir, Beorn, Kessimah, Elessar and so many others. She has been a delight to play from day one and I continue to look forward to seeing where she goes!

    Trent Lormain: Doombringer of Assurian (Hoar), Another attempt at expanding my personal understanding of the Faerunian gods. Trent kinda reminds me of myself a bit in the ideas of always having to watch over your shoulder for backstabbers and being nervous to extend trust too far. So I would guess he more comes from a view of my own life in general.


  • //Sorry for all the duplicates… seems like the posts I tried to make 2 days ago when the forums went down appeared now all at once 🙂