OOC - Character Workshop

[Graybeard]

*raises hand* I wish to join in on the fun.

Name: Reyn Argan
Race: Human
Age: 27
Occupation: Travelling entertainer

Sounds good. Am I correct that you see this fellow as joining the "Airship Pirates" thread? I have it on good authority that various unnamed characters may have slipped aboard before the ship launched...

[Reavey]

My intention was more that he could join wherever he's needed so I didn't go into too much detail as to what he was doing currently. Airship pirating sounds good and I've got an idea as to how he ended up on board so I'll go with that, I'm assuming that I just go ahead and post.

[Sareth]

Please do.

[Porcelain Fish]

Alas, this clashes with canon. We know that Misa is the youngest elf in the Poe-verse, and she's nearly 1500.

Hmm. I suppose he'll have to gain some years then. Add a 1 onto the beginning of his age I think lol.

[Garlock]

Ermmm.....I didn't post that.

I made that mistake too; it's just that you had posted twice checking if it was okay to post a character and then suddenly one appears. Assumptions are silly things, but they happen. >.>

I don't think this has ever happened to me before. Hello!

*Waves*

I'm the actual Garlock guy, though I don't own the original cat. I was catching up on Errant Story when I happened to notice the "Hey, we need characters!" call. I've roleplayed at other boards, and I'm a decent writer, so I decided to give it a try.

Sorry for the confusion, though I must admit...it wasn't my own doing. And thanks for the compliment, Fish.

[Mysterious Old Guy]

Hello, I saw the message, and since I am a fan of the comic, I wish to join in. My screen name is Mysterious Old Guy, (MOG for short. Yes, the little things with pom-poms on their head.)


Name: Coryn
Age: 45(Looks 25)
Race: Human(?)
Personality: Coryn is one of the more humorous people people you might meet. He tires to find laughter where he can, since his life has been lacking it. The best way to otherwise describe his personality is fiery. His emotion can sometimes compel him to do what others would call, 'Stupid Sh*&". He tries to be honorable, his role model being a knight that he traveled with in his childhood. He is however, not above sticking a knife in the back of his enemies. Preferably a serrated knife, and moved with sawing motions. He enjoys music, and killing things, and tasting diverse foods



General info/Abilities: Coryn has a special ring on, enchanted to slow down the wearer. Whoever wears it has a constant slow effect cast on them, slowing them, body and mind. They think slowly, and move really slowly. Coryn has overcome this effect, having worn it since early childhood, and his body adapted to the the effect allowing him to move, and talk, and think at normal speeds.
When he takes off the ring, he gains speed, as his metabolism is operating at an incredibly enhanced speed, yet moving under a slow effect. Once the slow effect is removed, he moves at an inhuman speed, becoming an indistinct blur to mortal eyes. He can only maintain this for 15 minutes, which seems like most of a day to him, before his metabolism runs out of fuel and forces him to find food. Once there was a time when he had finished fighting a large group of enemies, there was no food available. However, there was a large fire, and plenty of corpses, so he had to sample a new type of food. Ever since then, his eyes have become sightly discolored, and his pupils changed, though he knows not why.

Equipment: Sword, three two-shot guns hidden in various places, armor, arm gauntlet. Ring.

Location: Anywhere.

History:
Cory was originally a young boy in a coastal city. He lived as a marginally good pickpocket, and was an un-official associate of the thief's guild. Un-official, because none of the wanted to admit a seven year old was part of the Guild. He had some skills, but one valuable talent. He was the quickest youngster in the city, out-running guards, and once, a fireball cast by an angry mage. One day, he was sent with a group of thieves to steal from a mage's house. They ran into traps along the way, traps that eliminated most of them, until they finally got to the object they were supposed to steal, only to find that the mage was there as well. This mage was experimenting in Time magic, apart from regular spells. He killed the others and decided to do an experiment. He began to cast a spell, perhaps it would have turned the boy's skin inside out, or aged him until his skin was wrinkled. He never found out, because in a flash, several men in black.... the only word the boy could describe it with was...a dresses. He confronted the mage and with a quick sentence gave both an introduction and the mage's death sentence. "We are the Ensigerum, and we are here for you." In a flicker of blurred movement,they collided, before separating again. The Ensigerum looking surprised, and then they flickered again, this time the mage's body was sliced in several pieces.
As quick as they were there, they were gone. Being the urchin he was, Coryn checked over the body, finding a pouch of money, and a strange ring. He pocketed the ring, took the gold and got out of there.On the way out of the city he took out the ring, and looked at it. It was a fancy ring, the kind a noble would wear. On a whim, he decided to try it on. Once it slipped on his finger, the world seemed to speed up. The people around him seemed to be moving much faster, so fast he wasn't able to keep up. He was walking through the city, so this was decidedly a bad thing. He was mugged a few streets later, the gold was taken, and some of them tried to take the ring. It stuck on his hand, and they left. He swore, the ring was undoubtedly a cursed object. No-one could remove it. He struggled through the crowd, only being able to get through by dint of his former skill, and luck. He was able too stow away in a nearby wagon, and left the city. The wagon was driven by a old man, who began to talk. At first, Coryn feared he had been discovered. After awhile, he realized the old man was talking to himself. He spoke to his imaginary friend, who he only referred to as 'squire'. Coryn decided it was safe for the moment, and went to sleep. After half a day the wagon pulled over, some things began to be unloaded. He tried to move, to get out of the wagon, but he was discovered. The old man found him and exclaimed. "What?! A child! What is a child doing in my wagon?" Cory tried to respond. He tired to speak, but he couldn't, He tried with all his might, and finally, a word came out. "Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiammmmmmmmmm, CCCCCCCCCCOOORRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYNNNNNNNN." The old man looked down sadly. "So, you are slow in the head are you? That's a shame." He looked around. "Y'know, I've never had a kid around this place, would you mind staying. Coryn was amazed, this was a great kindness. He nodded, slowly, like he would do s for quite some time, and the old man laughed. "Excellent, then you shall stay, Coryn."

And so, for many years, Coryn stayed with the old man. Over time, the man began to trust Coryn and talk to him, although he could not answer back without great effort. He said he was a knight of Aerthyl. Coryn had never heard of this place, but he had not heard of a great many places. He went on to say how this was an outpost for Aerthyl, with the farm as a place to grow food. He told him how he had been assigned this post a great many years ago. Too long for him to remember. He was supposed to protect passing merchants from robbers, and thieves. Although, he had not received his pay in a long time. Coryn nodded. The man was obviously insane, but he was a good man at heart. He raised Coryn, as much as he could, teaching him how to hunt, and farm, even telling him stories of the great knights of his realm. Eventually, Coryn began to adapt to the ring, his motions becoming faster, more sure. He became able to speak, haltingly, but still intelligible. Coryn went through the stage most young boys do, fantasizing about being a knight, or wizard. He asked the old man to teach him swordplay. The old man agreed, and made him a wooden sword. On the anniversary of his first year of training, Coryn successfully blocked one of the old man's strikes. As he exercised, and fought, his body adapted at a greater pace. The next year after that, he was blocking most of the hits, and struck one of his own. On his fourteenth year, his body had adapted to the point where he could dodge a slow moving sword strike on his own. At the age of fifteen, he could swim to the other side of a stream without being drawn half a mile down from his starting point. On his sixteenth birthday, he held his first conversation with the old man. After his seventeenth birthday, the old man judged him worthy to be his squire, and proclaimed him so. He let him come on his next patrol. No bandits ever came by this road, so the old man judged it safe. He put on his armor. A chain mail armguard, and some leather armor. They arrived to find bandits ambushing a merchant wagon. The old man told Coryn to hide, and attacked. He cut down three of them before the band noticed he was there. He fought against the rest of them, a band of ten more, and killed two more, before they brought him down. They did not kill him though, they decided to torture him. The old man looked toward where Coryn was, a bandit was going in that direction. He yelled for Coryn to run. Coryn tried. They cut the old man's throat, and chased after him, catching him easily. They argued over what to do with him, and decided on slitting his throat. Coryn cursed at the ring, and the bandits laughed. He though back to his life, what he could have looked forward to, if this damn ring was not holding him back. He scratched and scrabbled at it as the bandits knife moved closer, determined that if it was the last thing he did, he would have it come off, even if he had to tear off his own finger. He tugged and pulled, and with an audible pop, the ring came off. Suddenly, everything slowed. The bandits knife stopped its arc, and came to a halt, the expressions froze on the bandits faces. He pulled himself from the bandits grasp, and grabbed the knife from the bandit's hand, determined to not let this miraculous chance pass him by. He jammed the knife into a bandit's chest, and then stabbed another in the face. He turned to his next victim, and saw the facial expressions start to change from sadistic glee, to horrified surprise. He continued stabbing until there were large, gaping bloody holes in every bandit. The first bandit had begun to fall over.Coryn waited for a little bit hoping it would wear off. It didn't so he did the only thing that came to mind. He put the the ring back on. Instantly, time sped up, the bandits fell over, and he was back to moving slowly again, with his stomach feeling very empty. He stumbled to the corpse of the old man, and checked him for any signs he was alive. The merchants ran off. He shouldered the old man's corpse, and since he wasn't able to ride, placed it on the horse that one of the bandits had rode. He walked it back to the farm, and buried the old man, removing his armor first, and with one of the ceremonies the old man had taught him. He put the armguard on, the leather having been severely cut up. He travelled, and his body sped up over the years, to let him act at normal speed.

[Graybeard]

Hello, I saw the message, and since I am a fan of the comic, I wish to join in. My screen name is Mysterious Old Guy, (MOG for short. Yes, the little things with pom-poms on their head.)

Well, welcome to the funhouse.

Your character concept sounds intriguing. There are three problems with it, none necessarily show-stoppers, but things that will have to be considered as play goes forward. First and probably most serious, dabbling in time magic appears to be forbidden in most of the Poe-verse (and therefore the Errant Road-verse), except among the Ensigerum. This creates some problems of backstory and logic as to where he got the ring. It may also make him unwelcome in many of the Errant Road venues.

Second, the Ensigerum obviously do mess around with time magic -- and as Chris' backstory makes clear, they don't like it at all when other people do it. This guy may spend all of his time on the run (so to speak) from Ensigerum goons who'd like to rub him out. That isn't a problem yet, there having been only one fleeting (indeed, inadvertent) encounter in Errant Road with anyone tied to the Ensigerum, but they're out there somewhere...

Third, a character with this kind of skill could easily start to present balance problems -- as is true with the Ensigerum themselves.

Again, none of these are game-breakers, but it'll be good to think about them as things go forward. Which of the three active threads would you like him to fit into? Airship Pirates would probably be easiest right now, but I have it on good authority that the Waldhaxen Channel thread is going to turn into something at Rinkaiel some time soon, and there should be some good opportunities there...

[Imp-Chan]

I'd add a caution here about remembering to stay true to the Errant Story-specific universe. For example, knights aren't completely impossible, but they imply a feudal system which doesn't really exist in Errant Story, so where would they be from and where would they owe fealty? Similarly, a dark mage might theoretically exist, but they certainly haven't been mentioned in the story and it hasn't been implied anywhere that they have a specific, identifiable armor type (though I assume it's black). Just keep these kinds of details in mind... while they'd work just fine in a more generic game, here they provide an opportunity to add amusing in-universe substitutions. The black mage armor could easily become Battle Mage armor done up in black, or an all black Veracian priest's outfit, etc. The knight could be one of the higher-brow mercenaries from Farrel, or one of the higher ranked guards from the temple of Luminosita, or just some crazy old guy who claims to be from a lost kingdom and attacks windmills. There's all kinds of possibilities, here.

^-^'

[Mysterious Old Guy]

Thank you, I considered two of those problems, the first and last, and solutions to the are in the back story. I was going to post it in the original post, but the Data Vampires decided it was not to be so. Re-typing it currently.

As for the second question, he is aware of this, and it ties into the last. He rarely uses this in groups, as rumors will get around. He has had one encounter with them, and it ended on a decidedly bad note. He was saved by the fact that while they can dodge bullets, they have little experience with dodging bullets with the barrel pressed against the bottom of their chin. Though he did have one of their fabled staff/swords pressed to his throat. He skedaddled after that, without taking the weapon, as it was really conspicuous. He does not want to encounter them again.
Perhaps that he ends up where he is.

As for where he ends up, what would you suggest?

As for the knight, I have to agree with one of your possibilities. Lost Kingdom it is.

[Viking-Sensei]

Maybe if we attach "mysterious origin" attributes to the ring, possibly a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation dating back to some odd ancestor who lived in the Northern Territories (indicating that it's Dwarven in nature without outright saying it).

I'd say that and attach some real-world logic to it... for instance, since he's not magically accelerated (if anything, he's magically decelerated) he wouldn't gain inertia at an accelerated rate - the force he applies in clocked up mode would be the same as a normal person would be able to apply in real-time, and since he'd only be doing it for a fraction of a second, it'd make him considerably weaker. There are plus sides to this, though... his sped-up mode can't be disspelled or countered by magic (like the time ninja's can) meaning he wouldn't trigger the elves reactionary shields.

If we shave down the amount of time he can stay sped up... maybe to a minute or so... I'd think we're about balanced out.