Shorticus

Let sleeping dogs lie.

On that note, let me just say that reading about our resident goblin and his mud-covered mats was a freakin' joy.

After the End

*Still here*

*Still really patient*

But yes, Delta V has now been gone for 13 days.

Sacrificial Characters and Writing their Deaths

The time I've done this most is during tabletop RPGs, though sometimes I like to bait the idea that someone is a sacrificial lamb but then actually have them survive. I've also done this in MMOs.

Let me start by quoting Village's first sentence:

I try to avoid that just because I feel like, when you write a character knowing they are going to die, it'll sort of be obvious.

This makes sense... but sometimes that's a good thing.

Let's say that we're in a medieval fantasy setting. Everyone has one character. I go out of my way to make an older guy, someone in their 60's or so, who's lost his family, his friends, and is essentially an old knight wandering around doubting whether what he did matters and whether he can still make a difference. Lo and behold, one of the other players is playing a young, idealistic adventurer, someone who is just beginning their journey. This gives me an opportunity to have the old man try and turn that youth into a proper knight, pass on the skills he was afraid he'd never get to pass on, and then face Death's door with a proud look when the time comes.

An example of something I did in an MMO was I essentially made a gnomish alchemist on WoW who... Well, to put it frankly, she was dying of a disease that'd be comparable to cancer. She was young, but she knew her time was limited, and I knew she was never going to cure herself despite that being one of her goals. Everything she did had more meaning, and it gave her a lot more emotion than you'd expect from a perpetually smiling gnome girl because she was secretly wishing she didn't have to die. She saw her own expiration date. That just helped guide my RP so well.

(Of course, a friend and I got the dumb idea to cure the disease for some reason I forget, but we eventually went back and said "yeah, that was a bad idea that ruined her story." And then we changed it back.)

And there's a ton of other examples I can think of. In a tabletop game I'm playing right now, I'm playing a character in a fantasy setting whose species is immortal but cannot breed. Namely: my character is a genderless warrior who was made for the sole purpose of fighting someone's war, and now that the war is over (lost), they are trying to discover their purpose anew. They are trying to cope with the fact that one day they and everyone like them will cease to exist because no more of their kind will ever be "born" again. In the end, this means that my character is on a quest for glory, for one last hurrah before they inevitably die (which may not happen in the roleplay itself, but you see why this is tragic).

The point is this: I find that some great story can come from writing a character that everyone knows is fated to die. Even if it's obvious as all Hell, you can make it a great place to start, and if the character survives despite that, or if you intentionally are baiting-and-switching their "sacrificial lamb" status with the GM's permission... Well, there's a lot of potential there. I'll leave it at that.

As for the how of doing this, here's what I say:

1. Make sure the GM knows, especially if you plan to bait and switch. Make sure they're okay with it.
2. Take the potential death seriously. It doesn't need to be a long, extended death scene; it can all end in a wink. Take it seriously either way.
3. Since roleplays can be unpredictable, be ready to consider what happens if the character doesn't die, or be ready to consider what happens if the death is just an unfitting one.
4. Drop hints, but don't choke up the roleplay with constant arrows of "DEAD MAN" pointing down at your character. That is: don't constantly remind everyone in your posts how your character is going to die. Instead, drop early hints, and maybe a rare couple more throughout the course of the roleplay, and otherwise let things occur naturally. (Note: the hints can practically be freakin' bricks with "BOB IS DED MAN" written on them, but use 'em sparsely. Very sparsely.)
5. And generally just approach any touchy topics surrounding your character's potential death maturely.

New Dawn Rising

If that's the case I can work with that. I'll wait to see what the GM says, but the parts that'd remain the same would be the "people from all over flocking to the mostly pristine island of Madagascar" part. The technology part isn't so important.

New Dawn Rising

Okay, so I'm just now starting to wake up.

I'd like to go ahead and ask what sort of technologies were present in the 22nd century (which is when the world went BOOM, right)? I'd also like to pass a few specifics by you for consideration.

So, my idea for the Malagasy Empire is that Madagascar was left virtually untouched by the nuclear war that gripped the world... because it's freaking Madagascar. Almost nobody thought it was important enough to bomb. People were too busy slugging it out with other nations. So, while a few nukes fell on the island nation, it was the rest of the world which took the brunt of the worst.

This means that at the end of the nukes and its own recovery, Madagascar finds itself in a unique position: unlike the nations surrounding it, and unlike many nations, a lot of its infrastructure and such is still standing. Of course, Madagascar in our spacefuture of mankind was never, ever at the front of the pack technologically, but it nevertheless started off with enough leftover pre-war technology to have generally good civilian life and more quickly prepare for its future role as a regional / global power. This is sped along by the fact that the island of Madagascar is seen at the end of the war as a sort of "hidden utopia" that a ton of people along the eastern coast of Africa go on a quest to find.

Lo and behold, Madagascar becomes overpopulated. Like Great Britain in the colonial era, that overpopulation and some discrimination between social classes, religious groups, and clashing cultures leads to colonial efforts on behalf of Madagascar, and its people start to take over the coastlines and islands of the Indian Ocean.

Is this all acceptable? And if Madagascar has a larger-than-average amount of leftover tech, what am I looking at for story purposes? One thing I'd seriously love to roleplay having is some sort of laser rifle that nobody knows how to rebuild because the metals involved were synthetically made in the 22nd century and nobody knows had to remake those materials. Or maybe, despite being generally outclassed by the Middle Kingdom, the Malagasy Empire stays in the game with a combination of advanced naval tactics (thanks to literature on the stuff still being around for them) and a few nuclear submarines looted from where-the-Hell ever they could be found? (Or would nuclear submarines armed with torpedoes and such be blown to bits by the Killsat?)

Oh, civilian technology would be Madagascar's real cookie, note. Skyscrapers and little lovely things in life (microwaves, air conditioners, etc) would still be around, probably with some solar paneling.

New Dawn Rising

<Snipped quote by Shorticus>

The Race for Indochina and Austronesia

@Nerevarine

ITZ AWN

New Dawn Rising

@Brink_

I figure I might as well present this thought now: the chief languages in Madagascar in the present, modern world are Malagasy and French... meaning we could have some interesting roleplay in the future concerning there being a shared heritage between our nations. It'd also have some tension because the Malagasy culture is the dominant one ATM.

Just a thought in case you wanted to discuss that later.

I'll post a proper app tomorrow or Tuesday.

What's Got You Up At This Hour?

What's Got You Up At This Hour?

Is this a Cards Against Humanity card?

Uhhh... I answer, uhh... Bees?

New Dawn Rising

I have a Claim if it's acceptable

The scarlet area in China

@Nerevarine

Are we gonna have a race to take over the Indochinese Peninsula? That'd be good roleplay, I think.

That or we could be racing to grab all the islands. All the islands.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Sorry about the late submission. Without further ado...

Bjorn the Bearblooded

Username: @Shorticus

Character Name: Bjorn the Bearblooded

Race/Species: Human (Norsca, Skaeling)

Gender: Male

Age: 34

Career (if any) and Skills: Bjorn is a hunter, trapper, and wrestler of bears. Yes, really. He makes for a handy man to have around in the wilderness. He's no ranger, but he's nevertheless as perceptive as he is huge and sturdy.

Sailing is a specialty of Bjorn's, and sailing is where he thrives. Others may be better fighters, but few people can handle oars or steer a vessel quite like Bjorn. He's been on a dozen different longships, and since then he's been on Empire vessels as well. To say that he's an experienced seaman is a grave understatement.

Bjorn's chief profession, though, is that of fighting, especially with an axe or sword coupled with a shield. He's a warrior born, having been a raider and attacked the Empire's lands long before he ever started working as a mercenary. Having fought alongside the sorcerers of Chaos, he also has good knowledge of their tricks and can share secrets on how to defeat them with his fellow mercenaries.

Weapons: Bjorn carries on his person a large battleaxe, two throwing axes, three javelins, and two different daggers, all of which are of Skaeling make. He has a worn scabbard at his hip in which he keeps an Empire longsword whose blade is emblazoned with the twin comet of Sigmar. He also keeps a large, round metal shield with a human skull cast at its center. Bjorn claims that putting the dead man's skull in front of him encourages bad luck to hit the dead man, not him. The skull has been chipped a dozen times over despite the iron cast.

Attire: Bjorn dresses in a mish-mash of Empire armor and Norse furs. His cloak is made from a massive, chaos-touched white bear, and his clothing was fashioned by rugged Skaeling hands. His armor, however, is rather typical of an Empire spearman: a metal breastplate bearing the skull emblem typical in the Empire. He wears boots, gauntlets, and pauldrons of similar make, though his armor seems to have been looted from half a dozen different corpses. On Bjorn's head is a horned helmet with an open face, the sort you'd find in Norsca.

Equipment/Other: A tinderbox, spare rations, rope, and two separate flasks from which to drink are Bjorn's other chief possessions. He also has a coinpurse, of course, but he doesn't seem to need much else. The man is used to much harsher climates than can be found in the south.

Physical Description (as detailed as possible please, pictures not accepted.): To call Bjorn "big" would be an understatement. He's much like the bears he's named after: huge, broad of shoulder, hairy, and altogether a fierce sight to look upon. The Skaeling stands at a whopping 6'8" and towers over regular men (though not over men of Chaos) and has the sort of build that conjures up images of bodies being snapped in half like twigs. He's got his fair share of fat around his stomach - it helps him stay warm in the winter - but he otherwise is an imposing figure to say the least.

Most would describe Bjorn's face as "wild." He has a habit grinning enthusiastically at the mention of combat, and green eyes turn crazed and red when the fighting gets good, potentially a mark of Chaos. His red hair is long and unkempt, kept in check only by a series of braids that knot it up in a thick whip that goes down to the middle of his back. Bjorn's large nose flares like a bull's nostrils when he gets worked up. His beard is not nearly so long as his hair, and he's gotten into the habit of shaving his chin and neck, leaving a sort of upside down "U" to grow on his face.

Mental Description/Personality: One of the more interesting qualities of Bjorn is that he, like many Norsemen, has a rather eclectic pantheon of gods. Chief among the deities he worships are Mermedus (believed to be Manaan), Ulric, and Sigmar. He also calls on his ancestors for aid and on spirits of the north (which may be daemon princes). An Inquisitor would probably have a grand old time torturing him. Still, he's a religious man, and he respects all his gods rather equally, trying to curry the favor of each.

Bjorn is also a rather cheerful and rowdy fellow. He loves nothing more than fighting and following the bloodshed with a round of ale or mead shared with good, stout company. He particularly enjoys going up against wild beasts and monsters: the bigger the better. Most would call this typical of the Norse, but they might wonder why Bjorn isn't raiding and plundering as well.

Of course, there's more to the giant man than just drinking and fighting. Bjorn is a man who regrets much of what he's done, though he doesn't enjoy talking about that. He fights for money because that's what he's good at and because that's how he can see the world. And he sincerely does want to see the world, as much of it as possible, because in his eyes he can only redeem himself by walking across as much of it as he can and killing the biggest, baddest, meanest monster he can possibly find. He would, perhaps, sympathize quite well with slayers.

Background/History: Bjorn was born into a society from which the Chosen of Chaos are picked. He is a Skaeling, one of the Norse peoples of Norsca, and like most strong boys he was brought up to fight, to raid, and to plunder. It must he said that he was damned good at it, too: Bjorn used to collect fingerbones to commemorate his successes on the field of battle, each of them taken from a different enemy, and he'd worn them on a necklace to proudly show off his terrible skill at murder. In those days, he praised Khorne gladly. It's very likely that he would have become a Chosen of Chaos.

But he found himself face-to-face with a Warrior Priest of Sigmar perhaps eight years ago, and he was astonished by both the man's ferocity in battle and his raw tenacity. Bjorn had crippled and maimed the man over the course of the fight, but somehow he'd managed to muster enough will to defeat the Norse warrior nevertheless. Bjorn would have died then if not for a timely shot from an arrow by an ally. As he stood there, Bjorn realized that Sigmar's devotees were just as strong as his brothers, and so he began to respect and even revere the God among his others.

Bjorn continued fighting for his people for a year or so more before some of his fellows realized he had a small altar to Sigmar in his home alongside the shrines to the other gods. They also saw him watching how Empire soldiers fought, even mimicking a few of their moves. It was believed that he had grown soft and weak, and before long people that Bjorn had known for his whole life decided the best course of action was to throw him out into the wilderness and let him die in the wastes rather than kill him immediately. A death by the sword was too good for him, after all.

Of course, Bjorn survived. He had to kill a huge bear in the wilderness, which is where he got the fur to make his cloak. The exiled warrior traveled south and eventually made his way into the lands of the Empire.

Not much more needs to be said. Since then, Bjorn has worked as a mercenary in the Empire, fighting both on land and on ships. He's an experienced veteran with over a decade of experience. Any mercenary company would benefit from having this northerner around.