Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-03-08, 06:28 AM	I am bored. I am stuck here at work with a 12 hour shift and 1 hours worth of work. Tops. Therefore I am going to give you guys the start of a character and a challenge. I want you to tell me who the character I have written for is. If possible include a background, if not just tell me what vibe you get. I haven't created an actual character, just a speech, so he's open to anything you guys can come up with. The character isn't intended for my personal use so if anyone wants him he's free to all. Of course he woulda been even if I did intend to use him... They say that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man rules. Why then, I would ask, is it that in the land of fools the wise are mocked? I have travelled these lands for 3 decades and I have been spurned at every turn. Every offer to teach refused. Every hand offered in friendship slapped away. I have been driven from their "civilized" lands as a barbarian, a demon, a monster, and worse. I have tried, time and again, to show them that there are other ways. Still they run, both in fear and in chase. Still they hate me, not for who I am or for what I have done to them, but rather for what I represent. I represent change. Indeed I represent change, a new path, a new wisdom. They call it madness because they do not understand it but then refuse to listen when I offer to teach them. Still I reach out to them, seeking to teach them a better way. They cling to old superstition where I offer knowledge. They cling to the dogma of their churches when I would grant them access to the heavens themselves. What I offer could be called magic but it is also something more. I offer truth. Their fear and hatred stems from being blind and deaf, yet when I try to peel their hands from their eyes and ears I am met with shunning, even violence. I wonder sometimes if perhaps I truly am mad as they say. It would be so easy to accept that what I know to be true is false. I could close my eyes to the truth, like them, and so live peacefully amongst them. Yet I do not. Perhaps that is the final proof of my madness? No. I can see what they cannot and so must show them. A Pelorite in a world ruled by the clergy of Nerull. (For some reason I keep thinking of what it must have been like to be a good Catholic priest in Soviet Russia.) A double submission for either a demon worshipper who sees the gods as evil or a fey who sees his views of the world as perfectly normal and orderly and wishes to explain this to the strange mortal creatures of the world. A truly mad mage who believe that mankind has been blinded and fooled into thinking themselves powerless and that he has uncovered the keys that will unlock their true destiny/power. The first wizard. Lost in a world he does not recognize as the remains of his own. Seeking to return that world to its golden age and remind its people of the wonders magic once brought them.
JulesCARV 01-10-08, 08:14 PM	An unconventional approach: he's your basic, vanilla, good cleric of Pelor. It's just that he exists in a settings where the conventional religion is Nerull worship. The ordinary view in this setting -- or at least this character's part of this setting -- is that life is unending torment, and it can never be changed for the better: the only hope is the sweet surcease of death, offered by Nerull. The ordinary folks are heavily taxed, malnourished peasants. The aristocrats, who spend their wealth on fortifications and magical weaponry and armor, live lives of unending conflict, fighting battles with each other to maintain their prestige and honor, most dying violent deaths in their youth. Those who do not fight must break their commitment to their allies in battle, showing dishonor, or let a last vegeance-killing of an enemy with a blood feud go unavenged, showing weakness, and they are swiftly destroyed. This guy is your basic cleric of Pelor. He wants to end the pointless blood feuds among the aristocracy, create schools and hospitals, unite the warrior-aristocrat class against monstrous threats like mindflayers, etc. Also, he wants to spread various forms of utility magic to improve lives (like creating automatic reset traps of remove disease, continual flame, etc). Most people, especially Nerull's clergy, think he must be mad and delusional. The idea that this life could be better verges on blasphemy -- an offense against the divine will, which sees this life as a trial which must be endured in preperation for the next life. So his views provoke an reaction that is uncomprehending at best and violent at worst. Probably not the interpretation you had in mind, but who knows: maybe it's almost crazy enough to work!
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-10-08, 11:41 PM	I love it. A great interpritation and your right it certainly differs from where I had thoughts. Of course that's why I made it a challenge. I wanted to see where others' minds would take the speech.
I_roll_ones 01-11-08, 04:42 PM	A redeemer, or a follower of Baphomet, the demon of beasts. He's being turned away from civilization for being BOTH demonic and turned away from civilization, so some aspect of him is wild, primal, savage and throughly evil. I had a hard time explaining both the demonic AND the uncivilized. He's trying to turn people away from churches, or the churches to gods when the route to truth and power is from demons. the churches will not lead them to truth, they are old traditions and superstitions that need to be cast off. The nobility have not embraced this path, and must be culled. If you do not wish to obey these masters, embrace Baphomet and become your own, with the power to kill your former masters. For a while, I wanted to say that an evil ranger would work, such as Malar, who would want to show people that the true way is to return to savagery and let the strong kill the weak to promote strength. Fighting as a nation is to hold to civilization which does not strengthen you, just sends you to your death for petty gains of others because you are too weak to cast off the nobility. They make the peasants weak, but do not kill them, letting them fester as a weak life form undeserving of life but refusing to grant the peasants death as they should. He is turning people to heaven as he leads people to the true afterlife, where the strong endlessly prey on the weak and the hunt is everlasting. He wants them to shun the "civilized" churches of a town, with the trappings of softening civilization and embrace nature, or be killed by it. Evil fey could work. Both an unpredictable, malicious nature to explain the demonic, and an inborn affinity for nature. Through many would normally associate them with superstition, the knowledge that the average peasant would have of the fey would probably be highly exaggerated and largely made up. They may want to educate people on the true ways of the fey, their beauty, strength, and terrible power. Some could want to cast off nobility, and follow them instead, promising beauty, food, and other things for their service. Heaven is to serve the fey and to embrace them, to live in their world.
Aaarrrgh 01-11-08, 06:06 PM	How about this one: he actually is mad! I'm thinking of a sorcerer, who does not understand his powers, and instead believes they come from his "scientific" experiments. He is sure that anyone can gain the powers he have, if they just follow some easy steps he have created: 1: Water drains power from you when in contact with your skin, so you should never take a bath. 2: Cooking destroys the potent energies of food, everything should be eaten raw. 3: Since insects are so powerful compared to their size, they must have much potent energy. This means you should eat a lot of insects. 4: Metal drains energy. You should never use, or touch, any metallic objects of any kind. He travels from village to village, and in each he stands in the most visible place, screaming his message at the top of his lungs. Whenever someone tries to get close to him, he yells at them to remove all metal before they touch him, and if they don't, he runs. Combine that with never washing or shaving, and you might understand why people always chase him away...
Master_Vega 01-12-08, 01:27 AM	He is the final wizard, and in the same life he is the first. Returning from his exploration of a timeless plane, he found the world a scarred and darkly changed place. The wizard could not know why it had changed so, not without investigating first. On his first venture back into civilization, his clothes and equipment drew the peoples' eyes to him, wondering exactly what he was. When he mentioned in his introduction he was a wizard, the people recoiled in fright. Warriors were sent forth and ordered him to leave the village... he did not, instead asking what the meaning of this treatment was. When they came at him, he subdued them without lifting a finger. This frightened the people even more than before, and many fled the scene. Before the last warrior could stumble away, he took hold of the man and demanded to know why they acted this way. All the soldier could do was spit and curse about how his heretical ways would destroy the world again. Again...? The man would not answer further; he knew not the rest of the tale, so the wizard let him go and left town without another word. It took him many years to gather the scattered pieces of the tale, but finally he managed to collect and understand them all. A foolish, but powerful arcane magic user had managed to tear open a permanent gate to the abysmal plane. Things had gone downhill from there, and there had been a great divine war before everything returned to stability. Arcane casters were blamed as a whole for this calamity, and had been hunted to extinction, if that term can be used, over three centuries before. The wizard wishes to revive his trade, as he knows how useful it is to the world. He knows it is time for arcane magic to start anew, or so many incredible things will go undiscovered by all intelligent and mortal beings. He knows for certain that he is the last of his kind, and will be so forever if he does not pass on his knowledge in the precious -though many- years he has left... and it frustrates him to no end that, even after so many years, the world tries its best to be unready for his and his artform's return. What irritates him even more is the peoples' ignorance to the ways of magic; if anything, the foolish sorcerer's deeds, and the artifacts they must have required, were closer to the divine magic the clergy use than the arcane magic and science the wizard wields. ... I think he's a gnome... a fairly grumpy gnome. :P Sorry for spending more time on the world than on the man himself. :P
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-12-08, 04:15 AM	Very good submissions so far. I like the fact that we've got whole worlds going to explain why a somewhat normal person seems so strange. I think JulesCARV is still closest to the prize but am very happy with the submissions so far. I'm going to update the OP with a quick review of the existing posts.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-12-08, 04:20 AM	PS: I've decided to sig the winner in my impromptu little contest. I think I'll give it another week to gather submissions. Meanwhile, if I get any requests for it I may decide to do a few more of these once the current one ends.
CrimsonDeath 01-12-08, 05:01 AM	Sorry I don't have a fancy story to go with it, but I think he might be a Binder. The Signs of a Pact often make someone look monstrous. Traditionally, they have poor relations with churches of all kinds. Their power stems from forgotten lore beyond the planes. About the only thing that doesn't really fit is his universally poor reception. (Andromalius could help find lost objects, Buer is good for healing, Eurynome would help with training animals, Naberius could help with diplomacy... But then, making poor Pacts and falling under the Vestiges' Influence wouldn't generally make him popular.) I briefly thought it might describe a Psion in a largely Arcane/Divine world, but I think it fits Binders better.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-12-08, 07:14 AM	Truth be told that's what came to my mind when I first read the finished speech. More specifically a binder who is convinced that the vestiges are what happens to people (beings) who discover one of the great universal truths.
Aaarrrgh 01-13-08, 08:03 AM	Is it allowed for the same person to make more than one submission?
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-13-08, 08:37 AM	Feel free. I'm not gonna restrict anyone's imagination. I'm also not giving any judging critieria.:P
Prime32 01-13-08, 11:39 AM	I also thought he might be a binder, or a warlock, since I believe Complete Mage suggested that invocations are a new kind of magic, and may be an indication of the way magic is changing with time.
CrimsonDeath 01-13-08, 01:52 PM	I also thought he might be a binder, or a warlock, since I believe Complete Mage suggested that invocations are a new kind of magic, and may be an indication of the way magic is changing with time. But then, Warlock powers are in the blood. They're not something you can teach.
Aaarrrgh 01-13-08, 05:58 PM	Feel free. I'm not gonna restrict anyone's imagination. I'm also not giving any judging critieria.:P Nice. I've got at least two more ideas about this. They will need some more work, though, so it might take a while for me to post them...
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-17-08, 02:40 AM	You've got till... let's say next Wednesday 10PM Eastern Standard That's the start of my next work week so now we have an official end-time.
Aaarrrgh 01-17-08, 01:03 PM	OK. The enlightened, take two: ...I wonder sometimes if perhaps I truly am mad as they say. It would be so easy to accept that what I know to be true is false. I could close my eyes to the truth, like them, and so live peacefully amongst them. Yet I do not. Perhaps that is the final proof of my madness? No. I can see what they cannot and so must show them... ...and that is why I give you, dear friends, an opportunity to do right where others have done wrong, to embrace the change others have feared. An opportunity to buy my miraculous healing water! Waylon stood smiling as he watched the line to his tent grow longer. The speech always worked. Waylon Demuir is an experienced con artist, who recently found a new, simple way to get rich: "Waylons Wondrous Water of Well-being". The concept is simple: it is cheaper than a healing potion, while also being more effective and tasting better! However, you have to drink one flask every day for five days before it's fully effective. And by then he will be far away, together with his "blind" friend Gartan, who drinks his fifth flask in every village, and gets his eyesight back! (Amazing, huh?) He then somehow turns blind again on the way to the next village... The potion is actually just water and sugar.
Master_Vega 01-18-08, 01:17 PM	:rofl: Awesome, Aaarrrgh, pure awesome. I never would have thought of a snake oil salesman. Way to take this in a completely different direction. :P
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-19-08, 02:04 AM	Another round of applause for you on that one. :clap: :w00t: :clap: I may have to create a second category of prize for you Aaarrrgh.
Aaarrrgh 01-19-08, 07:44 AM	Wow... Thanks! I thought it was good, but not that good.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-24-08, 12:38 AM	Alrighty! Folks it is :cheer: prize time!:cheer: :king: In first place is JulesCARV. Our original submission wins the prize as it makes me want to write a full novel around my speech. You may pick up your 3 +1 vorpal, returning, shuriken at the prize desk. :w: :w: :w: :w00t: In second place we have Master_Vega. Destroying the world to explain a speech is just made of win. Your prize will be an eternal wand of ray of clumsiness and an eternal wand of ray of enfeeblement. :ayyyy!: Third but not last we have Aaarrrgh for his mad sorcerer. A strange individual who I think could well be developed into a full-fledged and playable character. You will receive a Healing Belt from the MIC. :pint:And as a special note our new catagory, the Least Expected Response, also goes to Aaarrrgh for his snake oil salesman. Due to late ordering your +1 held clown of impact is currently on back order but you can leave your information at the prize desk and we'll have it sent to you as soon as it arrives.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-24-08, 12:39 AM	While additional submissions will be accepted and displayed there will be no further prizes in this contest. Keep an eye out for later editions as this may not be a one-shot though.
Master_Vega 01-24-08, 01:39 AM	:rofl: Hooray for me getting second place, and congratulations julesCARV on getting first prize. Wow, I need to start subtracting from my signature; I'm running out of space for this kind of stuff. :P
Terjon of the Blue Rose 01-24-08, 01:43 AM	I've had to kill 2 & 1/2 ego pads because of that character limit ya know.:P
Master_Vega 01-24-08, 01:46 AM	Yeah, but I'm on my first and it's so young... I can't kill it yet. lol! I'll get rid of a few quotes I'm bored of. :P Edit: Award has been sigged! :D