Archive for November 12th, 2011
#12 Steve The Wooly Rhino
Crazy as it seems, Wooly Rhinos apparently existed during the Ice Age. Steve is a slow, fairly immobile tank of a creature. All muscle, all heart, but will fight for his team with all his might.
#3 Baron Von Schtyk
A shady character, apparently having a distinguished look about him, with an air of mystery, and high class, the Baron is not someone to mess with. Sought after for a multitude of unsolved crimes of global caliber, and other reasons not to be mentioned, numerous crime fighting agencies, as well as crime syndicates, have failed in their search. He is one difficult person to find. From the little information we have, he lives a life of seclusion, far away from the beaten path, or does he hide in plain sight?. His name, or at least the one we have so far, has been associated with war crimes, as well as critical global situations. Not even the most infamous villains in history know much at all about him. This one semblance we have has been reconstructed from deathbed descriptions from the few that have had the unfortunate fate of meeting him in person. It is said that all of today’s global crisis situations can be linked to him in one way or another, though no one has direct proof. He’s so nefarious that evil doers everywhere fear even the mention of his name. He appears to be of European descent, though no one alive can confirm this fact. If you think you’ve seen him, you’re probably wrong, though I wouldn’t go around talking about it. He does look stylish, though, doesn’t he?
(Drawn on an iPod Touch with Sketchbook Mobile and a Pogo Sketch stylus, hiding in an airplane lavatory, at considerable risk to my life).
#11 – Jasmine
Jasmine is a well-known member of The Collections Agency. The collections group is a multi-city organization which works in agreement with the local governments to collect wanted individuals. These are not criminals, per say. To be criminals, they would have to be accused of a crime. In these cases, they are indivduals who owe others a debt. In many cases, this has to do with the conflicting feudal and merchant societies throughout the regions surrounding the inland sea. Feudal lords might lay claim to an individual who skipped off form their lands with belongings the Lord believes are theirs. Or it might be a skilled tradesman who never finished repaying his guild dues. In some cases it might be an errant husband a wife suspects of adultery and wishes collections to catch and present evidence to support a legal divorce (or simply forcing the bum to accept his fatherly responsibilities).
The Collections have two very specific rules: 1. They do not go after people who are violent. It endangers their agents and is better left to to law enforcement authorities. 2. There must be proof presented of a debt, ownership, etc. The rest of hte rules are a little more complex, and involving proving a debt, what is acceptable for the debt, etc. But we are talking about a system where people can still be bought and sold (ie. slavery in many various forms, including self-accepted indentured servitude). And more importantly, a system where mass-machinery does not exist, and a person’s skills, knowledge, talent, and personhood can be a very desirable asset.
Jasmine has been an gent for almost ten years, and in that time, she has brought in many people and pieces of property, and is most noted for having absolutely no fear of Wizards. In fact, Wizards are known to recognize her on site. And run. She doesn’t play ‘fair’ with them and has a very devices and tricks of her own, despite having no talent for The Word itself. She’s an excellent swordsman (woman) and has a sweet diplomacy about her that has aided her many times across a number of countries. She is also well known for having one of hte broadest cultural knowledges amongst the organization, being an ex-gypsy herself. Her father disowned her when he found out she was working for an organization working with the government, until she insisted on returnin home each year with a new exotic (expensive) liquor to add to his collection. It only took a few good bottles of Kirche and a night of drinking for him to embrace her again.
Jasmine and her partner are given the task of bringing in Leandra. A task she accepts gleefully (because Leandra has a high price on her head), but soon sees might be more complicated than it’s worth. But after several run ins, and finally pinning Leandra down long enough to speak with her, Jasmine has the opportunity to offer Leandra a few ways out of the situation Leandra would never have thought of for herself. (And Jasmine still profits!)
#12 “Moss”
A man who left his old name behind for freedom and self-exploration. While his new life promises adventure, his past is haunting and hard to ignore, despite his cheery and optimistic nature. He is studying to be a doctor.
Changing gears again, Moss exists in a fantasy wild west setting. Cowboys, gunfights, magic and dragons!
G. Brett Williams #12 – Amelia du Couer, The Ace of Hearts
Amelia du Coeur – Amelia was born into a prominent French family with very, very old money. Her mother and father were both anthropologists and archaeologists. Unfortunately for Amelia, they were also very busy and rarely ever home. Both parents loved their daughter, but they weren’t exactly cut out for parenting. They didn’t think that the girl might need constant doting or attention, because that’s certainly not how they were raised. They’d seen as much of their schoolteachers and housekeepers as they’d ever seen of their parents, and they turned out alright. So it was decided that, from a very early age, Amelia would be sent away to the best possible boarding schools in Europe. She did some years in France, some in England, some in Spain, and it made of her a very worldy and well-rounded young girl. When Amelia was thirteen, her mother died suddenly of an ailment she’d contracted while adventuring. Her death sent Amelia’s father into a fit of depression. He became addicted to morphine and liquor, he railed against the world and he let a hatred for his own daughter boil up inside of his soul. For him, Amelia’s presence was nothing more than a reminder of his dead wife. It seems awful, but one can understand how he felt stronger for the mother than the child. After all, he’d hardly spent any time with this young woman now thrust into his care. So he decided that he was no longer capable of taking care of the girl and Amelia was sent to live with her grandfather, her mother’s father. Amelia’s grandfather had been a decorated soldier in the French army who had eventually retired to take up a life of adventure. So at thirteen, Amelia gave up the life of boarding schools and girlish tropes and instead went out to see the world with her grandfather. The man had a tough, stoic exterior and he was never what one would call easy on the girl, but it was obvious that he cared for her a great deal and that his life was better for having her in it. See, he had lost his own wife some years before and the years since had been filled with a vast loneliness. His vibrant and eager young granddaughter now helped to ease that loneliness and he rewarded her by teaching her anything and everything he could. Amelia learned to appreciate fine foods and wines, she learned how to sing old folks songs and dance the night away, she learned to hunt, fish, track and shoot, and she cherished every second of it. The time she spent with her grandfather was the happiest of her life. Because of her unique experience with various locales throughout the world, Amelia is the team’s specialist on international affairs and etiquette. She is also quite possibly the most dangerous person in the world with a firearm. A woman in a man’s world, Amelia works and fights twice as hard to prove herself. She is as rough and stoic as her grandfather but as beautiful and full of life as her mother was. Amelia has assumed the role of leader in the small group.
#10 – Georgius Greniczer
Georgius is a gruff, short-tempered and generally unagreeable old man. But he is also a brilliant Wizard, spending much of his time charting the interelationships of various materials and developing new ways to use sub-sets of The Word to better control and shape magic. Though he has the respect of many of his peers for his studies and findings, he has very few friends because of his consistently deteriorating demeanor. As he has aged (over a long 200 years, lengthened by magic), his bones and joints and constitution have failed him slowly. Now life is a series of medications from Maria Toella, canes and walking implements and attempts to keep his body working another year. He keeps much of this from his colleagues and peers, though, so to most people, he is simply a perpetually annoyed and irritable individual.
He hides another secret of his condition, which terrifies him more than the deterioration of his body. He is slowly loosing control of his senses. He has already had two apprentices taken away from him, and has chosen to move himself to a more remote section of the castle ground, up in a tower connected to the facility by old stairs. It is at this point that he is given Leandra, who is warned of his ill temper (this was her master BEFORE Thadeus. She was perhaps ten when she was told to help Georgius). Over the course of two years she spent helping him with his studies, research and measurements, though, she grew to respect the old man greatly. Her meek attitude and constant apologies were a nusiance to him at first, until he realized she genuinely wanted to help and be acknowledged. When he began to see that she actually had enough of a mind to grasp his work, he actually showed her the occasional smile. These smiles unfortunately came as often as his rages. He was grab her wrist and shove her around, or toss his laboratory implements at her. It grew to the point that she would appear the next day with bruises that he could not remember, or could not understand the reasons for his previous anger. He was slowly loosing grip on his emotions, and the pain of his aging years did not help.
Leandra never judged him for it. She would simply nod and continue her work in the naive belief that if she did better, he wouldn’t have reason to be mad.
One day, a few years later, his rage and madness grew so great that he grabbed Leandra and shoved her, and finally kicked her down the stairs leading up to his laboratory. He passed out, and she was fond by one of the dormitory mothers, concerned that she was out past her curfew. She was taken to Maria Toella, who refused to believe that she had fallen ‘by accident’ without Georgius giving notice to the other Wizards. Within a week a quiet, secret committee was discussing Georgius and his actions in recent years, and by the en of the week, Leandra was forbidden from seeing him again, and Georgius was denied any further apprentices. Leandra tried ot plead that he was a good teacher, but as a younger Wizard, her words fell on deaf ears. Georgius, finally faced with the severity of his own mental deterioration, simply closed the doors of his study and kept to himself in self-exhile.
Day # 12 – Kirhanna
Sister Goddess to Marikutonaam
Kirhanna like her brother Marikutonaam created clothing from the sky. She does not shine brightly like her brother but simply admired the beauty of the storms she stole for her garb.
Kirhanna is a theif and a trickster, she wears a mask so she can slip away unnoticed if she removes or switches it.
She once attempted to steal the sun, doing so burned her hands and face. The scars have since healed but the colour remains. When traveling on earth her red hands are the only thing she cannot hide so she often wears gloves. In most of her tales it is her hands that reveal her. It’s also why we use the phrase caught red handed. She also wears a shawl of the night sky. Everyone believes she stole it from her brother, but actually Marikutonaam presented it to her as a gift.
#12: The Stupid Best Friend
You hate her (not really)
You’re hearing her cry.
You can’t help but be feeling
you wish that she’d die.
Except you don’t mean it,
well not in that way.
You want her to see that
she’s blocking her way.
She runs from her issues
and sobs end to end
You’re holding the tissues,
her stupid best friend.
You guess that you love her and want what is best.
You’ll just have to point and hope she’ll do the rest.
#12 – Antonio the pizza making elf
#12 – Antonio the pizza making elf
A little known fact about the North Pole is that it has its own pizzeria. You see, Santa is a big fan of the pizza pie and has enjoyed the fact that people have been leaving him slices on Christmas Eve instead of cookies. A guy can only eat so many cookies in one night before wanting to throw up, so pizza was a refreshing change.
On the other days of the year, Santa would occasionally visit The North Pole Pizzeria to get his pizza fix. Antonio is the head chef and has been making the finest pizza for hundreds of years. Antonio’s family broke off from the cookie making elves group in the late 1700’s, migrating to the North Pole in the hopes of making finely carved wooden toys that were so popular in Italy. It didn’t take long before they realized that toy making wasn’t for them, so they sought out another avenue to express their creativity.
Soon a small eatery was opened and that slowly morphed into the North Pole Pizzeria. Pizza has been all the rage in the North Pole for years. Try to guess the elves favorite toppings.
I drew this picture trying to replicate the style of one of my favorite artists, Mark Mariano. I’ve got a long way to go.
#10 – Quartz
To see Quartz‘s full listing and origin story please click on over to www.geekywhiteguy.com
day 8
oh fuck i’m four days late. it’s ok i’ll catch up
this is the asshole fairy. whenever she feels that someone needs to be a ass, she goes up to them and bites them, effectively turning them into assholes.
#12 – Meg
Megumi (or Meg, as she prefers to call herself) was an ordinary high school junior who just wanted to grow up to become an expert swimmer. Â That was, until Julia moved to her school, and founded a club dedicated to obstacle courses and game shows. Â Shortly afterwards, Meg was dragged into the club and it slowly began to interfere with her swimming practice sessions.
Meg became furious at Julia for founding the club in the first place, and threatened to sabotage her course by adding a large swimming pool in the middle of it, but Mandy stopped her on the grounds that she doesn’t want anyone to get in trouble while she’s around. Â However, Meg and Julia would pretty much hate each other, and Meg, being older than Julia, claims that she has no right to boss her around (or anyone else in the club for the matter, as they are also older than Julia)
Outside of arguments with Julia, Meg is actually a really nice girl. Â She likes helping anyone in need, and she is also very sociable.
Meg is 17 years old.
#12 – Thunderclap
Shauna Jacobs, codename Thunderclap, 31. Shauna’s the powerhouse of her team and a single mother of two darling children. With a bit of a wild streak, she’s seen a lot of the world and done a lot with her life already – ask her for stories about the Peace Corps – but if it seems like having kids would make a super settle down, Shauna sees things with a new resolve. She was a dangerous hero before, but now she has something to defend, and she is positively fearsome. Funny, strong, warm and occasionally short-sighted, she’s Mercy’s best friend and spoke up for her when she wanted to rejoin the team without powers. Shauna’s powers include pressure control and the mom stare. You know the one I’m talking about.
#11 Whisper
I noticed that I had far too many male characters and so I thought I’d switch it up. Her name is Whisper and yes, she has a striking resemblance to the Sinister Smoke and that is because she is his sister and the only family he has left. When Smoke defected from the Animal Elite, he thought that his sister would join in his fight to destroy the Elite instead she sided against him thinking that he’d gone mad with power. Heartbroken, Whisper believes that there is still good in her brother and hopes that one day he will return to her the man he used to be.
As for Whisper, she is one of the Elite’s prized agents–a founding member(with her brother). She is called Whisper because she practically invented the term, stealth mode. She is always the first agent on the scene of a mission because she can survey the area undetected. She’s a bad ass.
Day 12: Miraka
Character #12, Miraka. She’s the other half to Miranda.
To Miranda, Miraka is like an extra limb. Miraka and Miranda’s souls are connected, and Miraka’s soul is like a growth on Miranda’s. Miraka is in every way inferior to Miranda, and most of the time she’s just puppeted by her. In short, Miraka is Miranda’s “mini-me”. They both have the same mindset and will, as well. Miraka doesn’t need to eat, either, she’s just a limb. She doesn’t really talk much, but if she does, she says what Miranda wants her to say. If Miraka dies, Miranda will be fine, but if Miranda dies, Miraka does too.
Miranda and Miraka work like a tag team in their “business” of hunting. Miraka is surprisingly the brute force. Not exactly “brute”, but like an assassin sort of figure. Sometimes they put on a “little girl looking for her lost puppy” act to draw people in.
For her main half, Miranda, refer to here:Â http://www.30characters.com/2011/11/11/day-11-miranda/
#12 Colonel Spelunkington
Colonel Spelunkington is the leader of a cave dwelling radical anti-sunlight group.
#11 Kit Zenko
#11 Kit Zenko (science fiction/anthropomorphic cartoon characters) Kit is the “big Boss” of the Skyfoxes, the space ranger branch of the IDF (Interplanetary Defense Force). Her base of operations is in the Rubah space station (orbiting the planet Rubah4), right size where she commands and sends out mission plans for 17 squads of rangers (while rangers can work solo, the usual habit is to work in teams of four or five; these teams are just the right size to pilot the standard patrol starship).
Kit Zenko is part of my “Kitty and the Skyfoxes” series of characters. Her character is patterned after the Japanese myths of the Fox Woman. Long and thin, a fox woman is really a fox who has lived long enough to gain mystic and magical powers. At one hundred years old, a kitsune (Japanese word for “fox”) has the power to see and hear every in the world and gain as many as nine tails (in the series, Kit has a desk that has a throne-like chair behind it, the chair looking all the world like nine fox tails spread out on the chair’s back). Other powers include shapeshifting, demon possession, mental influence, and creation of fire. All these help Kit Zenko in her job of commanding the Skyfoxes.
#13 – Ghilanna Ghanta-Sidhe
The Liche is more of a process than an end result of magical immersion taken to supernatural lengths. Ghilanna was so far into her studies and mysteries that her physical form has mostly turned to dust, as centuries passed. But something has pulled her back to the reality of her former lands and life- a calling- and her anger at the intrusion cannot be measured by either man nor elf.
#12 Eloise Jenkins
Who doesn’t love a Harry Potter character?
Eloise Jenkins grew up near Cardiff, Wales and attended the local comprehensive. It wasn’t very interesting, save for the few times that her Great Uncle Howell would show up, much to her father’s frustration (who grew up to be quite like his mother is ways that Uncle Howl always sighed dramatically about). He didn’t show up often, though, so her life was quiet and dull for almost eleven long years.
And then a few weeks before her  birthday in June (which, she had been told by her great uncle and his wife Sophie, to never give out; it was advice she took quite seriously because while Uncle Howl could be quite silly at times, Aunt Sophie was often not), a great barn owl appeared on her window sill with a parchment envelope in its beak.
Everything got rather interesting after that.
It was a few years after the Second Great Wizarding War when Eloise attended Hogwarts, so many repairs were still taking place and a whole lot of recovery was going on. These were the reasons why they were so intent on getting her to come, said Uncle Howl, since there had apparently been a Compelling Charm on the letter before he got a hold of it. (Probably the least surprising thing about this whole magic business was that Uncle Howl was a wizard himself, though a self-taught one apparently. It ran in the family, just like parents who didn’t want their children to go, as she’s the first formally trained witch in their family.) However, the fact that it was magic and real was enough for her to overlook things like still-bordered shops and too much black clothing.
Eloise was sorted into Gryffindor, even though wasn’t feeling chivalrous or brave at all. Her lessons went decently enough, but she was far better at theory than application, unless setting things on fire in the first five attempts was an acceptable course of action. Potions and Herbology were her best subjects in First and Second Year, and the less said about her Transfiguration grade the better. In Second Year, she worked up the nerve to try out for Chaser, didn’t even make reserves, and then was inconsolable for hours afterwards. And covered in green slime.
In Third Year, she signed up for Arithomancy, which she loved, Divination, which she did not like at all until Uncle Howl finally decided to help her (which he didn’t because the magic he knew was much different than what she was learning) and sent her a magic eight ball. Not like one of those silly Muggle toys which gave out ambiguous answers at best, but a proper enchanted magic eight ball that nearly landed her in a lot of trouble. Apparently being able to spy on anyone no matter where they were as long as you knew their name (unless you were Uncle Howl or Aunt Sophie for some reason) was nearly as bad as the fact that it was an enchanted Muggle object that resisted deenchantment.
She tried out for Keeper in Fourth Year, and was explicitly forbidden by her dorm-mates from ever trying out for Quidditch positions because green slime in the bathroom again.
In Fifth Year, she went mildly insane with OWLs nerves, which was perfectly acceptable. What was not acceptable was the coffee-drinking at all hours of the day for nearly five days straight before passing out mid-sentence and tumbling down a flight of stairs. She still passed most of her OWLs, aside from Transfiguration.
Her Sixth Year was much quieter than her previous years, given that most of the reconstruction was nearly done. Teachers resettled into their old classrooms and quite a lot of mix-ups occurred. Aside from losing her way to class too many times to count in September, Eloise was quite bored. The reduced number of courses was no good for her – or maybe it was the lack of Transfiguration, which caused enough fright and frustration for eight whole classes – so now she went off looking for trouble. Not into the Forbidden Forest, no, but the Restricted Section was quite interesting. What was especially interesting was the whole section on other worlds and portals and making them, and the ghostly whiteness of her great uncle’s face when she managed to open a door to Ingary.
Eloise Jenkins was never bored after that.
#8 Tante Nameh
#8 Tante Nameh
This is the 1st character in a story I’m tossing around about an oppressively matriarchal culture. Because unlike many feminists would like to believe, men aren’t the only ones capable of despotism, oppression, delusions of grandeur, and warmongering.
Tante Nameh was strong. But of course, she had to be to lead a House the size and power of hers. She followed the teachings of the mothers before her and found no cause to doubt any of their tenets. After all, it was a strict adherence to the Ways that had brought her people as far as it had, and none of their neighbor nations could dispute this, even those that claimed serious grievances against the Seven Sisters Dominion.
Those nations might have even gone as far as criticizing Tante Nameh, although not publicly and not to her face. Which was really, in the end, all she could ask. Calling to task those who called her a bigot would only bring to light the fact that her presence reached far deeper than any of her enemy imagined. And if they wished to believe that her mindset was one of delusion, all the better for her. After all, believing your opponent deluded would inevitably lead to overconfidence, a fatal weakness and a trait she always described as exceedingly masculine.
As if it were bigotry not to ignore the physical evidence which was daily presented before her. Evidence as simple as that soft and delicate sack which males carried prominently between their legs. Evidence of their inability to hide their feelings, their passions, their… arousal. Clearly they had not the skills to control their urges, shackled as they were by their own physiology. Even their superior physical strength was evidence of how far the male body had to go to compensate for its vulnerabilities. Strong as a man may be, he would never be strong enough to bear a child. And it was no terribly complicated task to convince a man’s body to plant its seed, even when the man in question might not wish to.
Tanteh Nameh did not fear men any more than she might fear a draft horse or an elegantly turned weapon. The trick was to ensure you were the one wielding it. And being the head of Bear House, she should be the one to speak of weapons.
Being the Elder of Bear House also meant that she had no room for weaknesses, either in the powerful blooded men who kneeled to her or in the spirited daughters who carried her name. Or in herself, which meant that although she may not have hid her silver hair she carried herself ramrod straight regardless of how strenuously her joints may ache. She did not make a single move without purpose and she could still take down a fighter half her age, be they male or female.
On the days she felt all her years bear down on top of her and her bed tried to keep her down past dawn, she gripped tightly to her Purpose. She who knew, more than any other House might, exactly how serious that purpose was. Crow and Bee may think that she acted in order to bring more goods, wealth, and land to the Sisters, but one need not be Crow to know that the Sisters had more than enough coin and supplies. And Turtle may rail as much as she wished, arguing at every council that Bear House was bringing fire upon their doorstep, but none of this would blind her.
Most Houses were so lulled into complacency that they forgot their deeper History. All the reasons why the Sisters came to be were conveniently ignored in the name of civility. House Turtle might remain starkly vigilant in their defense, but Bear House were the only ones still willing to admit the truth. No House of the Dominion would ever be safe while any Man walked unclaimed upon the earth, willing and capable to pick up arms against whomever He may wish. Dominion. Dominion from sea to sea. That was her Purpose. Not in the name of gains or power, but in the name of total security for all the Seven Houses. And nothing, not a single living thing that was capable of bleeding was going to sway House Bear from this one course. This was the fire that glowed behind Tante Nameh’s icy gaze. This was the truth that caused all but the strongest willed to drop their eyes when dealing with the Elder of House Bear.
#30Characters Chatter…