Creative Process: Characters, settings, concepts, and how they came to be

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I think I'll talk now about one character I've wanted to use, but never found a world or story where she'd fit.

Once upon a time, in a village high in the mountains, there lived a remarkable writer. A poet and storyteller, able to spin out verse and word with no effort. She wrote not for money, of which she had little, or praise, of which she had more then she knew what to do with. No, she wrote, composed, and weaved stories for the pleasure of it. The village loved her, and she was happy.

One terrible winter day, a plague swept into the storytellers village, ravaging the people. The Storyteller, mindful of her ability and healthy as a bull, vowed to travel to the city. There, she said, she would share her stories for coin and return with a cart-full of medicine. Those that could saw her off that day, all of their hopes riding on her.

In the city, she was well received and praised as a genius. She graduated from poems on a street corner to entertaining at the noble houses. Finally, she gained enough money to buy medicine for everyone in the village. She was about to take her cart and leave when a messenger arrived from the magistrate. It was his sons birthday tomorrow, and if she could regal him with one of her wonderful stories, he would give her 1000 pieces of gold.

1000 pieces of gold? thought the storyteller. Why, with that, no one in the village would have to work ever again. So it was that she decided to delay her departure for one day. After all, what could happen in that small amount of time.

That night, it began to snow. A howling, whipping blizzard had blown in from the north and painted the world white. The Storyteller tried to get back to her village, and was found the next day by the magistrates search party, frozen nearly to death. He was not an unkind man, and tried his best to return her to her village. But the village was remote, and the road to it treacherous, and time and time again his men failed to find the path leading to it. The best he could do was allow the storyteller to stay in his home until the blizzard had run it's course.

By the time the blizzard abated, a month had passed, and the storyteller set off, as quickly as she could, back home. Alas, I do not have the heart to describe what she found there. Know only that the silence broke her.

It was many months before the storyteller, now alone and painfully thin, began to write again. And when she wrote, it is said, a miracle occurred.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

She wrote of the villagers, the rough blacksmith who gave apples to the village children when he thought no one was looking, the old women who knew everyone by virtue of being present at every birth, the young lad who she had fancied and his strange coin collection. And as she wrote, the people began to come back, vaguely at first, then fully realized, as if they had never went away. Because they had just gone away, of course, and now they were back. They repaired the village better than new, were never sick, and never wanted for anything by way of the storytellers pen.

She lived a good life among these people, and found she knew them better than she ever had before. She was able to easily with the heart of her young love, and soon had a child to share her stories with as well. Her daughter, who she called Story. Everyone loved Story, and she returned that love. She grew into a fine young women there, in the village, in the mountains, and she was happy.

But the storyteller seemed to be waning. Story had always thought that her mother looked very tired, but none of the others noticed her slow pace or the dark bags under her eyes. She wondered what her mother could be doing, to look so tired. One day, waking up early in the morning, she found out, finding her mother slumped at her writing desk, barely coherent. Story tucked her in, and tended to her the best she could, but her mother insisted on writing. We she became to weak for even that, she began to talk, at all times talk about the village and it's people. And Story began to notice how pale the villagers looked, how slowly they seemed to move now, how the village seemed to wasting away with her mother.

Finally, the Storyteller died. And then nothing was left. The people and buildings dissolved before Story's eyes, vanishing in puffs of black smoke, and saw to her horror that the color was beginning to drain from her face. She screamed and sobbed foe who knows how long, before finally realizing that she was not vanishing. Picking herself up, she saw that nothing was left of the village she had loved save for the old husks of houses and the papers.

For their were papers, papers everywhere, filled with descriptions of the villages and their lives, some things that Story knew for a fact had happened. It was then she understood. Her mother had dreamed this village up, and now that she was dead, so was it. All except her.

The silence nearly broke her.

But she was a brave girl. She pulled herself up from the dust. She buried her poor mother, in the shell of the village that she had loved, and set out to make her way in the world. For if there was anything her mother had taught her, it was the value of a good story.

So if you ever encounter a wandering storyteller with skin as pale as the moon and eyes, hair, and lips of the darkest black, as if she were made up of ink and paper, then share a tale with her if you've got one. I hear she collects them, and that she never ever forgets a story. Because to that girl, they're the only family she has left.

This one was inspired by a song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeSUvoY2oUk

It's all a wash though, because I can't think of how to use her.

[Zaleramancer]

Perhaps I could put up something for the evolution of one of my oldest characters..

Her name is Angeline. Though it's a bad idea to call her that.

Or Angel.

Angie is usually what they call her, so they don't get punched. She's from Cimmeria, an island country covered in fog.

Her full name is Angeline Lindwyrm. The ancestress of her entire family-clan was famed for kill a poisonous drago-serpent- A Lindwurm.

Currently, her Clan has supernatural powers from that heroic act. Like most Cimmerians, they can gain power from helping or harming powerful beings. The Lindwyrm clan is known for the immense strength, durability and utter resistance to poison that they display.

She, herself, is the daughter of the matriarch of the clan. Her mother is ferocious and highly overprotective, so Angie ended up trying again and again to assert her independence. The arguments they had made a great many Clan members decide to take an early vacation from the Hall. Eventually, Angie conspired with her younger sister, a prim and oddly proper girl, to finally sneak away.

Since she had a nasty temper, she left a trail of destruction behind her most of the time. Particularly when someone implied that Angie was weak or helpless... To be fair, she only broke some of their bones for that.

Angie is.. stubborn, violent and possessing of a hair-trigger temper.. But she's also loyal, determined and a very good fighter. If she's agreed to help you, then you are going to get helped. Nothing is gonna get in her way.


But that current version of her is not the original version.

At first, she was a fusion of two separate characters.

A southern girl with super-strength and a really nasty temper..

And a winged warrior woman with a electric war-hammer.

She got the temper and strength of the first, and the name and wings of the second.

After a while, The wings were slowly fazed out and given to another character (Who became her sister).

Her friends got used to her temper, and they used it in their plan B. "Piss off Angel and point her towards the problem. Then just sit back and watch the fireworks".

I only really got to the idea of where she came from a bit after making her. I eventually decided to use the semi-mythical Cimmeria. Most of her friends and companions were also from there.

Then I decided on a reason for her powers, literally years after making her.  I added that to the Cimmerian race, that their clans get diverse powers from doing heroic or villainous acts.

She shifted from Angel to Angie, with her younger winged sister getting other name.

Angie Lindwyrm.

Sorry for the lack of coherency. Illness has made me slightly unlucid.  

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Oh, my, a Cimmerian? You mean she's one of these?

A "mythical" people also named Cimmerians are described in Book 11, 14 of Homer's Odyssey as living beyond the Oceanus, in a land of fog and darkness, at the edge of the world and the entrance of Hades.

Or these?

Cimmeria is a fictional land of barbarians in antediluvian earth (cp. the Hyborian Age) and the homeland of Conan the Barbarian in the works of Robert E. Howard.

[Zaleramancer]

Not really.

I found the name before I realized anything else about it, as a fog-covered country.

It has virtually nothing to do with the actual myths.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Oh, hm. I used to do stuff like that, too, with mythology and legend. Interesting.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

I think I'll allow a little insight into the idea behind my project, "The Old Earth" (As seen in the thread dedicated to it). Originally the idea came to me as a blend of the plot from Jyu-Oh-Sei in which prisoners are sent to another planet where the inhabitants have organized themselves, with a story of superpowers and evil overlords.

and thus the idea was born. Of course there were lots of things I needed to make first....like a main character. That was difficult. Mostly because his power had to be perfect. I needed something that he could slowly discover, but was potent enough to keep him from being easily killed. Also, I wanted something that could potentially become the "key" to the evil mastermind's plan sometime near the end.

[Zaleramancer]

I had a dream..

It was interesting.

The dream was about a time traveler who was trying to catalog various ages and alternate presents.. quite a task considering the way time worked in the dream.

I focused more on the way time worked than the traveler himself..

It was.. interesting.

Time was essentially represented as a various two-dimensional layers stacked on each other. Each layer extended to infinity.

Each of those layers was a moment in time. The "Present" was whatever layer you happened to be on at the moment. "Upwards" led to the future, while "downwards" went to the past.

The interesting aspects were how the future and past worked... The next moment from the present was represented as an infinite number of sections of the next layer. Each of those sections was a possible future. Each of those split, yet again, into another possible future for the moment after the next. Since a section of infinity is still infinity, this could go on forever.

In essence, it could be represented as a river system- the original moment being the origin from which many streams spring. Each of those streams would split into several other smaller rivers, and each of those smaller rivers would split into smaller rivers, ad infinitum.

The past was also interesting. If you jumped down to the next lower layer and looked up, you'd see an infinite number of sections, each representing a next possible moment- including the one you were in. As such, the past is just like the present- each expands into a vast number of possible futures. If someone changes the past, their own temporal continuity would be largely unaffected- a new section of infinity would form with a new set of futures.

However, if you traveled far enough down, you'd reach the origin- the first instant of existence, from which all possible futures spring. Though, for one reason or another, no one can reach that moment. Some past and future moments are forbidden for people to touch.

Then there's extra-dimensional space, which is best represented with one of the other ways. If time is a river, then extra-dimensional space is basically where you are if you jump out of the water. It's the between-place outside of time. Things live in extra-dimensional space.. things you'd rather not run into.

So time can be represented as I suggested.. or as some dizzying ever splitting fractal.. or as a tree with branches growing from branches.. or a river that splits into a million streams..

Then there's time-travel. Humans, of course, naturally "travel" forwards in time, splitting into an infinity of possible selves as they do.

Anyone can learn to time travel. It merely requires a few mental adjustments and some concentration. Moving to the future is much easier than the past, because humans don't usually live in reverse.

Time traveling simply moves you partially into extra-dimensional space and out of sync with normal time. Once there, you can easily travel forward or backwards in time, as desired. If you want to reach an alternative present, then you just have to reverse backwards until you reach a the originating moment right before whatever that split the two branches of time away from each other.

It's.. interesting. It'd make an awesome story.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Yeah, I think that's be really interesting to read about. That'd be a fun read.

[Mik_Hael]

Which is why the invention of the time rope is one of the most useful events ever to happen.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I think I'll take a moment to detail my two current RP character: Billy and The Watchman.

First is Billy. I decided first that I wanted to play a good aligned necromancer, and set out to make that happen. I decided that I wanted someone who was out to spread the word that necromancy wasn't that bad and actually quite helpful to anyone who would listen, and that's the point I realized that this made him pretty smiler to a Mormon missionary. Seeing  The Book of Mormon beforehand might have had something to do with that (In my head, his voice is Elder Price's spoken with the exited barely contained glee of Elder Cunningham). So I decided to go all out, making him as stereotypically cheerful and polite as possible.

On a Macro level, Billy is really a reflection of his country turned up to eleven. The Kingdom is alone and desperately needs needs allies, Billy wants to make friends and will do anything for them. The Kingdom is beset on all sides by enemies and must be constantly vigilant for attack, Billy is paranoid. The kingdom respects and venerates the undead, Billy has a Death Fanboy Thing. The Kingdom discourages attacks on itself with a policy of swift retaliation, Billy absolutely does not believe in turning the other cheek, but considers things even after appropriate retaliation (which is why he expected to be messed with by enchanters for touching their centerpiece back at the beginning, and why he encouraged the fight between Ashgrove and Asoka).

The last aspect was inspired by Discworld. In it, zombies are created when someone dies but keeps going, running on pure stubborn willpower. Since I thought it would be cool for Billy to die and come back like this, I gave him an abundance of energy so that this wouldn't seem like it came out of nowhere. This also gave him a flaw of rushing from place to place, not thinking thing through, and jumping to wild conclusions. When I picture his eyes, I can always see a manic energy running around in the background. He's at least a little bit absolutely nutter.

[Zaleramancer]

Frightening.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Hm...Wulf may have something to say about Billy's perspective on death...

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Love it...

[Celadon's Penultimate]

I know this is a repost, but I absolutely need to work on this story, so here's a reminder to me. And perhaps I need some help on it.

Tell me what you guys think of the idea, and anything that comes to mind in reference to the story, characters, etc.

Shadowulf1 wrote

MIRACLE!!! I just had an epiphany for a new storyline! And I WILL NOT post it on www.fanfiction.net until you approve of it! Here's the idea. It's a magical boy fanfic based on the Zodiac. Main Character: Lucas Elliot Oliver (Constellation: Leo), and his team includes all twelve members of the Zodiac that we use (Aquarius, Capricorn, Taurus, Aries, etc.). They'll eventually form into a team of (What else?) crime-fighting superheroes...

His Origin:  He's a student in high school (DUH), with an assignment to do in science class. He figures that, even though he thinks the work is boring, he'll do a stargazing project, to impress the class hottie, Violet. That way, since she's a stargazing buff, she'll want to do her project with him. The two become lab partners, and when they are stargazing one night, they notice a REALLY bright star. The two gaze at it, and in an instant, it flashes so bright that it knocks the two unconscious.

The next morning, Leo wakes up, and as he's getting ready for school, he notices what looks like a tattoo on his right shoulder. It looks like THIS: ♌

He goes to school, deciding to ask his friend, Caleb Nicholas Ceria (a total mythology and legend buff) about what the sign means. Caleb tells him that it’s the sign of Leo, the Lion. He asks Violet in class if she has any strange marks on her, but of course, she thinks he’s trying to be a perv, so she tells him stay away from her. Then the typical school day for his kind of student (bullying, etc.)

Later that night, you have his first heroic deed, and the series will continue from there. It is not planned, and so I won’t do 50 points, so you don’t have to worry about it being over any time soon.

Tell me what you think!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So, yeah, we're going with Sky Kingdom, and the place where Leo and the others are coronated as sovereigns of the Constellations (i.e. Constellation Kings) is called the Zodiac Kingdom. A chapter of this series (preferrably the coronation scene, WAY!!! in the future) will be called Zodiac Sky. So there, take that PROCRASTINATION DEMON (preparation, ftw!!!)...

names of the Constellation Kings/Queens so far...

Constellation L.E.O (the Lion ♌): Lucas Elliot Oliver (Main Character: Male)

Constellation V.I.R.G.O (the Virgin ♍) : Violet Rose Gordon (Cute smart: Female)

Constellation C.A.N.C.E.R (the Crab ♋): Caleb Nicholas Ceria (Best friend: Male)

Constellation A.R.I.E.S (the Ram ♈): Aries Jackson (Tough guy: Male)

Constellation T.A.U.R.U.S (the Bull ♉): Taurus Jackson (Tough guy's older brother: Male)

Constellation G.E.M.I.N.I (the Twins ♊): Cassi Victoria DiOscouri, Polly Alexandra DiOscouri (twins: Female)

Constellation L.I.B.R.A (the Scales, or the Balance ♎): Lia Bradford (aristocratic loner type: Female)

Constellation S.C.O.R.P.I.O (the Scorpion ♏): Scott Ryland Pietto (charismatic and ambitious: Male)

Constellation S.A.G.I.T.T.A.R.I.U.S (the Archer ♐): Sage Bittari Usman (Good natured, honest: Female)

Constellation C.A.P.R.I.C.O.R.N (the Sea-Goat ♑): Capri Coronado (Cautious, insecure worrywart)

Constellation A.Q.U.A.R.I.U.S (the Water-Bearer♒): Aqua Marissa Ponce-Marius (creative girl, with a flirty side; Female)

Constellation P.I.S.C.E.S (the Fishes ♓): Piotr Sasha Cesnik (sympathetic, sensitive Russian exchange student; Male)


Other constellations are also included, including Ophiuchus (serpent-bearer), Crucio (cross), Ursa Major and Minor (Big and little bears), Canis Major and Minor (Big and little dogs), Hydra (the Lernaean Hydra), Cygnus (the Swan), Orion (the hunter), and many many others; but they'll all be villains... The main villain? Yet to be identified...probably Chaos (the unimaginable, heartless, soulless void...heck, Chaos could scare the crap out of a DOOM CLOUD!). Tell me whatcha think so far...

[Zaleramancer]

The names are clever.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Thanks.

I'm hoping I can come up with decent details for the story in the near future.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Hm. So, I've been imagining Celadon in greater detail of late. Or, rather, I'm imagining some stuff I want to flesh out more, and some plot holes I need to fill in.

In particular, aside from the lots and lots of Celadon pics I'll have to redraw in order to accomplish a proper redo, I have a problem with the Elementals.

ORIGINAL ROSTER:

The Drym- Space, Time, Gravity
The Arbor Avatar (named Illyrion)- Plants and Wood
The Glacier Guru (named Polaris)- Ice and Water
The Lava Lord (named Vulcan)- Lava and Fire
The Storm Sage (named Sciops)- Sky and Storm
The Wind Warden (named Gandrei)- Wind and Air

Notice anything missing? Yeah. No Earth Elemental. Sure, there's one for plants, but...doesn't cover the non-living element. SO...I added THIS guy.

NEW ROSTER:

The Quantum Keeper (named the Drym)- Space, Time, Gravity
The Plant Paragon (named Illyrion)- Plants and Wood
The Earth Exemplar (named Habador)- Earth and Metal
The Water Warden (named Polaris)- Ice and Water
The Fire Fantast (named Vulcan)- Lava and Fire
The Storm Sage (named Sciops)- Sky and Storm
The Air Archon (named Gandrei)- Wind and Air

Also need to work out some other minor details. I may use this also to go through with my description of other reality benders who DIDN'T win the position of Penultimate (but who had a chance). As well as details of Celadon's history, religion and culture. Might even need some minor elementals and/or more heroes/villains. And lands.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Man, it's been a while.

So, The Watchman. The Watchman is the result of me wanting to create a god with a unique perspective.

The Watchman is based on a mortal, was called into being by the wishes of mortals and the deification of a mortal.This, combined with his domains, causes him to see himself not as the mortals ruler but their servant. He's also a young god, probably the youngest of the lot to come from off world and thus is fairly inexperienced. I also make a distinction between gods who's domains are based on something physical (like Mina with demons, or Waverider with the sea) and a concept or idea (Such a his the Oppressed or Gilgamesh's Conflict). A conceptual domain binds a god, chains them up, makes them it's slave. The Watchman's Domain of The Oppressed pushes him to make everyone equal. Since this is an unattainable ideal, it's caused him to do some pretty crazy things in the past that had earth shattering consequences (This is the reason he's willing to give Gil some slack: as he would put "Gil is the God of kicking hornets nests. You can't ask him not to kick hornets nests any more than you could ask me to tax people into the ground").

So, what do you get when you have a young god, based on a mortal folk hero who was revered enough to create a god in his image, who has made horrible mistakes in the past and is pushed toward making desperate decisions by a domain he can't possible satisfy? You get a god who is constantly comparing himself to his mortal counterpart, and finding himself wanting. That's the core of his very being, the point from which all of his characterization springs.

On to his character traits. His most prominent is how nosy he is. Literally the first thing he did in the story was non-existent noes into Gilgamesh's business. He does this a lot, especially if he thinks a conflict can be resolved without violence. He also needs to know everything that's going on at all times, facilitated by his watcher network.

He disagrees with gods directly interfering in the affairs of mortals, and won't do so himself unless it involves another deity. He would rather work behind the scenes, taking disguise and inspiring mortal to rise up themselves while giving them phantom aid in the form of blessings and miracles that could be plausibly explained. The reason he works this way is twofold; First, it keeps people from relying on the gods and seeing how great the power gap between them really is. Secondly, he just doesn't like being worshiped or venerated. Unfortunately, this aspect hasn't gotten a lot of play in the RP because most everything has been God related in some way.

He doesn't like war. Between anyone, but especially between gods. In his experience, war only results in a lot of young, poor people dying to advance the agenda of a bunch of old, rich people. When Gods fight, no one benefits at all, especially mortals. This feeling is mitigated if the war is for a Just Cause, or if the rulers are leading at the front lines. He also doesn't value physical strength, instead placing stock in cunning, pragmatism, and lateral thinking. When he really fights, he fights dirty. He also has a flair for the dramatic, because if you're going to make a statesmen you may as well make it boldly.

A strange thing that happened over the course of the RP, and I didn't plan this so it's exiting, is that he's actually becoming more and more of an lawmaker, especially since the founding of Spectropolis. This, combined with the fact that the police force of the city is made up entirely of his own servitors, he has a spy network spanning the world made up of other ones, he has others that can find anyone he wants found, and one of his subordinate recently created a race specifically to be an army paints him in a rather Big Brother light. Expect to see him worry about this when LoC starts back up.