Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Einvaldurinn_mikli 08-19-07, 09:35 AM	Hello. I am applying for a Play-by-post over on the Real Adventures forum and I need some help in improving the fluff section of the application. I really want to get into this game, so I decided to come here and ask for help as you all were so helpful the last time I posted here. Anyway, here comes what I have so far: Lucius Maximus is a man that has seen better days. Born quite some time ago, 683 years to be precise, in the land of Argail, Lucius was born quite privileged. Actually, that's an understatement of quite some magnitude. Lucius is royalty. Not the kind of royalty where the country is ruled with brute force, no. Rather, Lucius is the kind of regal, commanding royalty that you find yourself obeying without question for no particular reason. His parents were powerful rulers, emperor and empress of the country Argail. That did not remain true for a very long time however. When he was 20, things started slipping out of control. Argail came under siege from all sides. All of it's neighbors had finally had enough of Argails arrogant dictates. They launched a joint attack, intended to bring Argail to it's knees. The assault, while not quite as devastating as the neighboring countries had hoped, had a dramatic effect on Argail. It lost quite a bit of land in the initial assault and was at quite the disadvantage. For the next fifteen years, constant warfare characterized Lucius's life. As it happened, Lucius had quite the penchant for the highest of arts, magic. In fact, he was like no student of the art in the known world. As Lucius's powers grew, he often single-handedly decided crucial battles for Argail, decimating entire armies by changing the terrain, weather, the soldiers themselves or simply blasting them to bits. When he was 34, the opposition managed to assassinate his parents. Lucius assumed the mantle of rulership. This was accompanied by a drastic change in army tactics. For the better, as it turned out. Argails fortunes had just turned. After Lucius took charge Argail started regaining lost ground at an alarming rate. It's armies were better organized, better equipped, and better supported as a result of Lucius's secret cabal of Wizards suddenly practicing their art in the open. In six months, Lucius had regained all of Argail's considerable lost ground. Four years after that, he had conquered each and every one of the upstart neighbors. Argail entered a new era of great prosperity. With great sweeping changes in the entire socioeconomic structure of the country, Argail was an entirely new beast. Twenty-five years after the rebellion was quenched, Lucius initiated the Great Crusade, as it later came to be known. With it's powerful infrastructure and economy, Argail could afford to maintain a massive standing army of truly exceptional soldiers. Lucius decided to take advantage of this and decided that he wanted to expand Argail. He launched a three pronged assault, that with considerable aid from his now able Wizards, managed to quickly seize control of the capitals of three separate countries. That was the beginning. Over the course of the next 84 years, Lucius slowly and methodically took control of the entire world. It was a first, something no other being had ever achieved. A single man with incredible force of will and purpose, had united all of the worlds different nations. Lucius ruled in relative peace for over three hundred years of prosperity. During that time he worked on his magic and research, uncovering information thought to be lost forever and creating magic never before seen in the world. All things come to an end however and Lucius' reign was no exception. Argail experienced a time of great upheaval and turmoil. The outer territories started rebelling, there was unrest in the central cities and dissent everywhere else. It was slow, but it was happening. Lucius was losing his grip on the world and no matter what he did, he couldn't quell the rebellions, pacify the citizens or do anything else to halt the decline. In a matter of some short fifty years, Argail had shrunk to a size even smaller then it was when his parents left it to him. No longer even the most influential country, let alone the most powerful. Lucius considers this his one and only failure, and has been planning his inevitable (or so he'd like to think)return to power ever since. He has decided that military power is not the way to go this time around, and has been researching alternative ways to achieve his goal furiously. This research culminated in the discovery of an impossibly large planar metropolis and a powerful new spell allowing him to travel there. He has been preparing his departure for the past two years now, finding all the information on the city he could, preparing powerful magic items and spells and planning all sorts of contingencies and last resort plans. All that remains is stepping through the Gate and on to the other side... Lucius Maximus has quite the commanding presence, that commonly associated with aged royalty. He has a generally friendly and helpful manner, quick with a joke and a smile. This assumes however that you happen upon him in a good mood. Lately, those are not guaranteed. He can get quite surly and sometimes even downright dour. When this happens, he becomes snappy, sarcastic and occasionally, downright mean. Fortunately, his closest friend Marcus Valerius knows just the right things to say to get him to look on the bright side of things again. He wants to trust people and believes that any given person is worthy of that trust until shown otherwise. Lucius is quite driven, always on the lookout for opportunities to advance his goals, increase his power or make new friends. He is incredibly intelligent and as such can grasp new concepts instantly, formulate complicated, multi layered plans in a matter of minutes, or recall obscure facts about unimportant things that he casually glimpsed hundreds of years ago. He his a very charismatic individual and has been known to persuade diplomats coming to demand something from him to leave thinking he was a lot better off without it and that Lucius was the greatest thing since sliced bread. His speech patterns include some quite complicated vernacular and archaic words, although those tend to slip out mostly when he is pressed or flustered. He tends to make references that no one else gets and he ends up having to explain, which he finds quite the hassle. Lucius has been married numerous times for relatively short periods(compared to his lifespan), mainly because while he doesn't age, his wifes do. He has had lots of children, actually numbering in the dozens, but most of them have died of old age by now. Some though, are like him and age at a snails pace. These children are all powerful sorcerers in their own right, although none of them can even begin to compare to Lucius's arcane mastery. He has maintained his relationship with some of them, but several of them have also cut off contact with him and now rule their own realms. He is understandably quite peeved about that. He however holds out hope for them, hoping that someday he and they will rule side by side. So what I am looking for are just general ideas on how to improve what I already have, switch out what's bad and add new things to make him come alive. I'm not very good at these things, so any help you are willing to give me will be well received.
nightside_samurai 08-19-07, 04:32 PM	To be honest, I find Lucius hard to believe. He is long-lived, good looking, smart, smart, royal, a powerful Wizard and despite some setbacks he's a happy go lucky guy. It doesn't seem real. Where are his character flaws? How does losing his whole kingdom affect his state of mind? Seeing his many wives die must have some effect on his behavior towards the opposite sex and towards his children. Does he sleep well at night knowing that there countless people that he screwed over by taking over the world by force? I'm basically saying that the good should have some sort of counter-balance with the bad.
Mysteria 08-19-07, 04:36 PM	Well, I'd start thinking on these questions: Why, if he's from the kind of royalty that is naturally obeyed and that is not a tyranny did the country of Argail treat its neighbours in such a way that they rebelled against him? Why did he feel he needed to recapture the territories that were lost? Why did he feel he needed to expand his territory? Why was there a rebel uprising under such a great diplomat whose country prospered? Why does he still feel, even though the uprising should have made it clear that his way to run things wasn't accepted by the population, that he needs to reclaim his lands? What is he actually? Why doesn't he age? I thought lich at first, but I guess that's not the answer. Can you tell us more about his friends? Where is his friends while he's off adventuring. (I doubt that his friend will be in the same game.) What do you think his alignement is. I have problems seeing him as good, in fact my gut reaction is to put him at LE. (I'm sure others will disagree. :D) He might not see it as evil but those constant uprisings are telling me something is/was badly wrong in his kingdom and it could very well be his fault. You're missing a description of him. Is he tall or short? Lean or fat? Still looking youthfull or aged? Hair, eyes ...? Clothes? Well, I think that should give you some stuff to think about. And good luck to get into that game. :)
Einvaldurinn_mikli 08-19-07, 08:29 PM	To be honest, I find Lucius hard to believe. He is long-lived, good looking, smart, smart, royal, a powerful Wizard and despite some setbacks he's a happy go lucky guy. It doesn't seem real. See, this is why I need help. I actually intended him to be a bit darker, but I thought that might make him not enough of a team player thus making my chances of getting in to the game slimmer. Maybe I should just go ahead and make him the snappy, condescending sarcastic bastard he was originally envisioned as? I intended his closest friend Marcus(who is also his Cohort for the purposes of the game) to act kind of as a counterweight to his surliness. Good idea? Bad idea? Think I'll change it. Where are his character flaws? How does losing his whole kingdom affect his state of mind? Seeing his many wives die must have some effect on his behavior towards the opposite sex and towards his children. Does he sleep well at night knowing that there countless people that he screwed over by taking over the world by force? All good questions. Hmm... He's quite arrogant, overly critical and tends to hold some serious grudges. Regarding his kingdom, it's quite an obsession and is what motivates him to act. He doesn't just want to regain it, he needs it or he just might snap. It shapes most, if not all of his decisions in one way or the other. Always there in the background so to speak. His agelessness has given him a unique perspective on life and he has come to accept the fact that he can't stay with anyone too long before they age before his eyes. As a result, he is reluctant to form strong relationships with people that don't share the same longevity. I'm basically saying that the good should have some sort of counter-balance with the bad. Yep. Balance is the word of the day.
Mysteria 08-20-07, 02:53 AM	Well ... let me quote this from the Real Adventures Handbook: Right now, we have a cloak of goody-goodness, nicey-niceness, (and neutrally neutralness?) hanging over the forum. No new evil-sided players, characters, or campaigns can be added here. The purpose is to encourage "players/posters" to focus on contributing heroics, player-to-player cooperation, friendships, positive language, and all that sort of stuff (you get the basic idea...). Also another reason is to make it easier for the players to focus on the main storyline instead of constantly dealing with distractions caused by their companions. Each thread's meddling DM is the only one allowed to control the wicked things, so that the players do have some evil targets to defeat. Things NOT allowed include any aspects marked by the word "evil" in the core books; such as "evil" alignments, abilities with the "evil" descriptor, races with the "evil" subtype, etc. In addition to those, there's a big grey area in how you interpret actions/intents, so anything that might be mistaken for evil-sided should be avoided by the players. Neutral and partially neutral characters must have something written in their personality description to make it clear that they will be cooperative and trustworthy towards the other members of the PC party, though not necessarily towards NPCs. We all know evil-sided players, characters, & campaigns are fun and usually harmless, but nonetheless new ones aren't allowed here right now (though we do have a few already running, and three times a year we have a small lottery to add a couple more). So, he isn't LE? What then? Where's the bit about working with his party? Right now, if you'd ask me, I'd see that the party is a means to an end. Consider this: if a demon or some such tempted him with this: betray your party to me and you will have your kingdom back, presenting a watertight contract that would assure the demon actually came through with his part of the deal, would he betray them or not? If not, why not? Cheers, Mysty :)
Einvaldurinn_mikli 08-20-07, 03:15 PM	Well, I'd start thinking on these questions: Why, if he's from the kind of royalty that is naturally obeyed and that is not a tyranny did the country of Argail treat its neighbours in such a way that they rebelled against him? Because they got fed up. His parents had slowly become complacent in their power and messed in matters that really weren't their business one too many times. The neighbors had just had enough. Why did he feel he needed to recapture the territories that were lost? It was his parents that launched the counterattacks originally, but it was because those territories belonged to them, it was their's by right. That's how they(and he) saw it anyway. Why did he feel he needed to expand his territory? Why, ambition of course. If you had the means to rule the world, wouldn't you? What if you were an extremely powerful wizard? Why was there a rebel uprising under such a great diplomat whose country prospered? It was just too big. Similar to what happened with ancient Rome, the differing nations and cultures within Argeils borders simply didn't want to all belong to the same empire. It started at the edges and once it gathered momentum, there was precious little he could. Why does he still feel, even though the uprising should have made it clear that his way to run things wasn't accepted by the population, that he needs to reclaim his lands? Arrogance. Pure and simple. He believe that he knows better then everyone else, he knows what's good for you better then you do. That, and he can't take the slight that this is. It's driving him nuts. What is he actually? Why doesn't he age? I thought lich at first, but I guess that's not the answer. He's actually just a Human. He just doesn't age anywhere near as fast as anyone else because of his immense arcane might. I cleared this with the DM, it's okay. Can you tell us more about his friends? Where is his friends while he's off adventuring. (I doubt that his friend will be in the same game.) I actually took Leadership, Epic Leadership and made Marcus his cohort. So his best friend will be accompanying him to Sigil. I can't tell you a lot about Marcus though, I haven't really worked it out yet. He is intended to be sort of a counterpoint to Lucius though, always cheery and optimistic. What do you think his alignement is. I have problems seeing him as good, in fact my gut reaction is to put him at LE. (I'm sure others will disagree. :D) He might not see it as evil but those constant uprisings are telling me something is/was badly wrong in his kingdom and it could very well be his fault. He was originally intended to be LE actually. But no, that's not allowed. So I will be posting him as LN and trying my best to make him LN while still being what I imagined him as. You have his point of view in a nutshell though. He does not believe he had anything to do with Argeil collapsing. He's not entirely correct in that however. Well, I think that should give you some stuff to think about. And good luck to get into that game. :) Thanks!
Mysteria 08-21-07, 02:44 AM	Well, good luck to keep him LN then ...