Emo Samurai's dedicated character page. Options

[emo samurai]

Somewhere along the line, my character's probably going to have an ally spirit. Is it possible to give the ally spirit the option of having alternate forms and letting it choose them itself?

Also, I'd like to have its first form be a gauntlet, just because gauntlets rock. It will be heavy-looking and stuff, with spikes on it.

[emo samurai]

I'm thinking of adding a girl in Shen's past who momentarily "humanizes" him; when thinking about why he loves her and stuff, he'll meditate on how his whole life had been devoted to universal principles and she made him see the beauty of everyday life by "understanding" him. Either she'll die of old age Highlander-style or they'll grow to hate one another because of their utterly polarized personalities.

[Freddie=Mercury]Who waaaaaaants... to liiiiiiiiivee..... foreveeeeeerrr..... [/Freddie]

[emo samurai]

I was thinking of having his awakening occur when he's a child and a wandering "wise man" comes around to teach the children about Confucianism. He'll be all like "everything has its place." He'll also give off the very true impression that he's trying to make good with the naive son of the local nobilitiy when he asks "Where is the fish?" One of the kids would give the obvious Confucian answer that's totally in keeping with the thread of the lecture and say "in the water, for it is its place." My character will say "There is no fish; all creatures are different, and so are fish in this respect." The "wise man" will point at him, show a momentary bit of greedy opportunism, and my character will assense for the first time, seeing him for all his gleeful desire and self-subservience. He'll also unconsciously cast his first spell, manabolting him at Force 6, almost killing him.

[James McMurray]

"There is no fish?" What is he, some bald kid in the Matrix?

[emo samurai]

Basically, he was trying some bullshit answer to try to throw off the wandering master and make a departure from the more logical answers the other kids were giving; the fact that the master accepted the answer was pretty much proof that he was full of shit. Although he was sincere and everything, he was also very smart and tricky.

[Dranem]

[Grinder]

Just leave out the Force in the story and everything is fine. ;)

[emo samurai]

Dude, in ever story about awakenings, somebody casts a random spell at a crucial moment at, like, force 6 before passing out. You'd think they'd make an exception for your first spell.

[James McMurray]

Every story? Really? Wow. :)

[emo samurai]

He'll pass out afterwards, if that's any consolation.

Also, even though you have to build up magic, you also have to build up logic, intuition, strength, etc. etc. etc. Yet I doubt that most people, at the age of 10, have all of those set at 1. So even though he didn't really practic magic until then, I'm sure he'd be able to start out higher than 1, especially since his awakening's supposed to be a big deal and everything.

Plus, manabolt's DV: f/2. Even if he was overcasting, he'd take at most 3p, and if he's strong-willed enough to bait the "wise man," I'm sure he could survive it.

[Aaron]

[emo samurai]

But my dude's the fairy godfather! If he was picked up as a hitchhiker by a college kid with a crush, he'd secretly do random things with magic to help him get the girl, like Accident her into tripping into his arms, or sustain Charisma and Intuition health spells on him. You don't give the wise sage a diagnosis to find the source of his power!

[James McMurray]

What would be cool is if he tried to accident her into falling into the guy's arms and instead the spell made her concealed gun misfire, taking out the guy he was trying to help.

[emo samurai]

Can I take that to mean that you disapprove, or that Accident can't be controlled?

[James McMurray]

That accident can't be controlled. I could be wrong though, as I don't have a book handy. IIRC it just says that you cause a glitch or critical glitch, but doesn't specify that you have any control.

[emo samurai]

Okay the, Psychokinesis it is.

[James McMurray]

Cool. She'll wonder who just pushed her, but in the absence of visible evidence the human mind can set aside a lot of strange occurrences so she might not think about it for long.

[emo samurai]

Or she'll just mysteriously stub her toe on an invisible root.

[James McMurray]

In which case she'd wonder what the heck she just kicked.

[emo samurai]

If it's in a wooded area, she won't suspect that nearly as much as the invisible hand of plot.

[James McMurray]

True. But even in a flat featureless grass plain she's likely to set her wonder aside after a moment. Few people stub their toe and suspect invisible meddling coots who think they know what's best for the world and can trip you with the power of their magical uberness.

[emo samurai]

My dude is an elf, he is physically incapable of being a "coot," at least not until the Horrors finish their bridge. :D

And do you think my dude's self-righteous or something? He wouldn't treat this as a social engineering project; it's personal gratitude more than anything. And even his people-watching is more of a personal thing, a mental diary of what people do.

Speaking of which, I should update that sometime.

[Glyph]

What's so wrong with having a character who is self-righteous? Perfect characters are boring. To me, half of the fun in playing characters with a strong moral code is watching them be hypocrites, or break one of their rules and try to rationalize it, or try to do the right thing and have it blow up in their faces.

[James McMurray]

Obviously he's self-righteous. He thinks that he knows what is best for other people. And you don't need old age to be a coot, just an old coot. :)

<self righteousness>
Glyph: there's nothing wrong at all with being self-righteous as a character. I just like to make sure that emo knows when the character is being self righteous. Fictional charcters can misconstrue motives all they want, but us real life folk should pay closer attention to the whys and wherefors fo the world around us.
</self righteousness> :)

[emo samurai]

He's just trying to be sweet... :(