Archive for November 7th, 2012

Characters 1 through 8 (-ish)

“Brain” I said “What the hell? I thought we had the setting planned. Come November first, you were suppose to start creating characters. It’s been eight days.” “Well, you know…” Brain replied with a shrug, or the cerebral equivalent of it, “… the thing is, the more I thought about it the less… original …it seemed. I mean struggling to survive after a Disco Apocalypse sounds pretty interesting as a setting, but when you break it down, it kinda’ ends up feeling like a rehash of the last idea that I posted. A bunch of people fighting another bunch people.” “So what now, o creative one?” I asked. The reply was a drawing of an eel wearing headgear and a belt with a sword & scabbard wedged into it.

“That’s an eel wearing headgear and a belt with a sword & scabbard wedged into it.” was my rather obvious response.

“Hear me out” said Brain, “That’s not just any random eel wearing headgear and what have you. His name is Christiæn. He’s the warlord of a collection of schools living to the North-West of… someplace in the sea. He’s good enough with the sword to have carved his way to where he is now, but also intelligent enought to be the first to deveop a sense of what’s happening.”

“What exactly is happening?” I asked. “I don’t know,” said Brain “but whatever it is, it cost him his son and second in command, Matheus. Something of a tragedy too. The poor kid had such potential. An unparalelled tactician. However, the death of Matheus is what gave Jooris, a sea slug of rather lowly origins a chance of a lifetime. Whether he uses it or not remains to be seen.”

“Alright… so why are you drawing an armored great white shark?”

“Arethusa. Matriarch of the Southern-ish-region, kinda’… She spent her early life as a mercenary, but somewhere during the near-continuous wars she found herself leading a formidably sized school. A decent number of her ex-opponents were quick to judge her by her appearance. She’s one of the first leaders to consider Christiæn’s claims of what might be happening. She does not, however, act on those considerations directly, due to web-like nature of the balance of power between the warring schools.”

“Web-like balance of power?”

“Web-like balance of power.  Complicating things are the complex definition of territories.  For some, it’s purely physical locations, for other, it involves magnetic fields, some define their territory by currents, some by the deposits on the ocean floor.

As things stand, the different schools have fought themselves to something of an n-way standstill where n is of an equal or greater value than three. Anywho next up is-“

“An octopus wielding… sickles?”

“An octopus weilding six sickles and one shield. Enghel. Leader of a school of master assassins. The armor, eyepatch and weapons are all a part of an act though. If it needs be, he can blend into the environment like nobody’s business. He’s convinced that something is … off… due to the behaviors of Christiæn & Arethusa. Two of his underlings, Engel and Goossen have gone missing. They will be discovered in various states of insanity, getting worse with time, before they die under mysterious circumstances. Goossen’s attempts at communication almost implicates-“

“A hammerhead shark in a Darth Vader mask?”

“Pauweline. Leads a nomadic school of hammerheads. Unparalled with a sword. She and her ilk have a sixth sense, of sorts. Nothing too precise, but it’s enough to save their skin quite a few times. She has something of a history with Gerardus.”

“Would that be the Jellyfish or the Pomfret?”

“The Pomfret. Living up to his name, he is pretty good with the spear he carries around. Atleast two of the major scars you seen on him were due toe Pauweline. Aside from that, he functions best under pressure. During times when peace seemed imminent, he was prepared to retire to a life of farming. He’s the last of the group to be affected by whatever it is that is happening.

The Jellyfish, Lord Bertholmeeus, as you can see, was hideously disfigured sometime in the past. Almost half of his body is covered in an armored shell, with blade tipped chains where the tentacles used to be. I believe he will be the first one to die in the story.”

“There’s a story?”

“Ofcourse, it makes the process of character creation a little smoother.”

“Characters like the body-painted nunchaku wielding spider-crab.”

“Yep. Wylyame. Started off as a loner, and eventually developed a following amongst the area where he was staying. He’s not exactly fond of being dragged into the politics, and couldn’t care less about the other schools fighting amongst themselves. He is the third of the leaders to unofficially support Christiæn.”

“And the tattooed Coelacanth?”

“Perceval. A berserker by trade, currently rules the Western bits. There’s a decent amount of argument regarding the mental facilities of Perceval. One group prefers to argue he’s a lucky individual to survive battles, rushing head first into frays the way he does. The other group argues that at times he seems a bit too lucky, and most of the battles that involve his feats of berserker rage are intentionaly picked and/or arranged for such outcomes. Either way, his reputation makes him a living legend amongst his schoools, regeardless of what the reality of things might be. Anyways, that should bring up the character count to eight, not counting minor characters like Matheus, Jooris, Engel, Goossen and Bob-“

“Bob?”

“Yes, Bob, the indescribable horror from the great beyond, the eye with a thousand sores and what have you.”

“What?”

“The story, man. You have different schools fighting amongst themselves, and slowly things start happening. Nightmares. Whispers at the edge of consciousness. The usual Lovecraftian bits. At fist the schools start blaming each other.  Eventually most of them realize the scope of the situation,  band together, and try to deal with it.

Uneasy alliances will be forged, friends will become frenemies, etc.”

“And then?”

“I have no idea.  For the time being, I am off into the cold embrace of the night. I think I’ll let things roast in their own juices for a while. See what develops. Goodnight.”

True story.

Honest.