OOC: NPC gallery

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Hours
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Hours »

There's a story split mentioned regarding Jamie being kidnapped and taken to Port Lorrel. Graybeard mentioned the possibilities for new characters to be introduced there, yo.
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Graybeard
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Graybeard »

Hours wrote:There's a story split mentioned regarding Jamie being kidnapped and taken to Port Lorrel. Graybeard mentioned the possibilities for new characters to be introduced there, yo.
I second this emotion. This would be an EXCELLENT setting not just for new characters, but for new players. Port Lorrel has been reasonably well defined as a venue -- see the thread in the Rear View Mirror -- but there is no major "plot" there yet, in contrast to what's happening in Rinkaiel and Gervasiel (which can be described as an interactive mystery). Yes, there are certain things that will happen in Lorrel connecting to the (as yet unseen) BBEG and events in Rinkaiel, but they'll be at the 20% level or so and need not dominate the way characters interact. So this is a very good time for newcomers to show up and have their own adventures. Tamina looks like an excellent start in that direction, and there's plenty of room for more.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Just because these guys seem to be growing into a personality beyond my control.


Name: Robin Loklier

Occupation: Mid-level business liason for the Port Lorrel Eisenfaust

Description: Robin is an average-looking man (5"10, short black hair, brown eyes, plain features, early 30's) with a predisposition towards expensive clothes that befits a man of his station. He enjoyed a fairly privileged upbringing in Port Lorrel, joining the Eisenfaust guild out of a childish desire to be a 'mysterious cool assassin', but wound up working mainly as a negotiator due to his education, speaking skills and lack of fighting prowess. He currently works in the 'entertainment' area of the Eisenfaust business sector and, if he wasn't dealing in the trafficking of slaves, drugs and other vices, would probably be considered a pretty nice guy. Robin is a pretty big suck-up to his superiors in the vain hope of reassignment and fulfilling his childhood dreams, for the most part he keeps his head down and does the job in front if him.


Name: Alec Fredriel

Occupation: Business owner in Port Lorrel

Description: Alec is an associate, but not a member, of the Port Lorrel based Eisenfaust. His position as a man who owns several 'entertainment' based business in the City (including his personal favourite 'The Red Rose' on Holden Street) means he does frequent trade with the organisation. Alec's a heavyset, middle aged man with a bad skin and a nose that dominates his face. His mannerisms are flamboyant and personal tastes bordering on perverted. His personality is reflected in the docur of his establishments and choice of clothing.
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Name: Gabriel Averis

Occupation: Alec fredriel's right hand man (read: dirty work)

Description: Gabriel was a fifteen year man in the Port Lorrel Miltia, he rose to the captain's rank through the virtue of his intelligence and ruthlessness both in inter-city squabbles and in the field. His success didn't last however, during his rise he'd grown corrupted by the opportunities that being an authority figure presented. Investigators inevitably uncovered evidence of the young captain taking brides, leading his men to hit caravans and working backalley deals with some of the more disreputable elements that the city had to offer. Although Gabriel was able to beat the charges against him (by calling in a lot of favours from certain businessmen whose crooked transactions he'd 'overlooked') his reputation was permanently tainted and he was eventually forced to leave the military anyway. Soon after, he was offered a 'business manager' job by Alec Fredriel, which presented the perfect opportunity for the corrupted Captain to make the most of the skills he'd acquired during his service. Nowadays, Gabriel's military mind invariably makes him the rock the storm of The Red Rose swirls around.

Appearance: Grim faced with a strong jawline, appears gnarled even in his early thirties, stands tall at 6"2 and in good physical condition. Gabriel looks like the guy of guy people would be reluctant to argue with, much less start a fight. Has a humourless, flat voice to match how he looks.
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Graybeard
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

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Jack Rothwell wrote:Name: Gabriel Averis
Just a minor note on this one: In general (although not without exceptions), we have given characters "unique" names to avoid one being confused for another as play proceeds. It doesn't have to be so; there are a couple of Jakes running around as NPCs (one is a dog), and considerable hilarity resulted early on when Layla's mother Faye and the batty Kureji Mesuinu's "Aunt Fei" got confused (by Layla, and by design...). However, it's probably important to be aware that there's another Gabriel out there in Errant Road: the very same Gabriel as in Errant Story, in fact. Like all characters from Errant Story itself, he has been seen only distantly in Errant Road, and in circumstances specifically intended to distance him from the play. However, his influence remains, both as a Big Shot in the Gewehr and as Layla's absent father -- the latter role unknown to anyone (including Layla) except Faye.

No need to make a name change or anything drastic like that; the other Gabriel really isn't a factor in the game. Just be aware that he's out there. (Hm -- wonder if there are any possibilities for mistaken-identity entertainment as happened with Faye/Fei? That was fun while it lasted...)
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Graybeard »

Since Benedict and his family are likely to play an important role in the Snamish thread, here's a bit of background on him.

Name: Benedict Lucas; also Councilor Lucas, and to those with a very long memory, Benedict Valis

Occupation: Councilman for the town of Snamish; when not doing official things, jack-of-all-trades when it comes to farming, ranging from animal husbandry to working as a plain handyman

Description: A half elf, and a fine specimen of the race. Benedict is 88 years old, in objective time, but looks fiftyish in human years. The years have sat well on him; he is healthy of mind and body, with the personal vigor of a much younger man even than he appears to be, and abundant charisma. He is tall at 6'5", rangy, and spare. He has silvery hair that might be gray, might be a sign of his elven ancestry, might be both. His eyes are dark gray-blue, his face craggy and commanding, with a long, straight nose and even, white teeth that show themselves easily in a smile. His half-elven ancestry is clear both from his stature and his mildly pointed ears, but he could pass for a tall human when wearing a farmer's hat, as he does often. He prefers modest (if well tailored) apparel and is often seen in the coveralls of a farm hand, at least when not doing official council business.

Backstory: Benedict has lived in Snamish for his entire life. He is a many-times-great-grandson of Drusia Valis and has been a member of the town council for years partly because of that heredity, although also because he is a capable administrator who cares deeply for his people and shows it. His half-elven father and human mother are deceased, as is his first wife, a human(?) woman from far northern Veracia whom he met while climbing in the mountains surrounding Snamish. (He wonders to this day whether Drusia had something to do with his meeting "Trini," as she was known, and also whether she might have had just a bit of elven blood to her. However, he has never asked, and Drusia isn't telling.) Kenny Lucas, late husband of Sister Rose, was his only child from this marriage, and after Trini died tragically young, he remarried to a half elven woman named Beatrice, with whom he has two daughters, Claire and Alia.

Benedict's religious views are unusual by the standards of his people. He accepts the validity of both the elven deities worshiped by his elven ancestors and the Luminosita followed by his human forebears, believing both to be manifestations of some greater Cosmic Good that does not reveal itself directly to humans or elves or half elves. This allows him to be on good terms with both the Anilis worshipers and the embryonic Reformed Veracian Church in town (there is no organized church yet and no Luminositan temple, but several Snamishites have a religious practice that Rose would recognize as Reformed). He also accepts the presence of nature spirits around him and allows for the possibility that some other divine figure may be behind them, so that nature worshipers more like Lillith and Suriah are also within his tolerance. However, he himself belongs to no particular religion, temple or religious practice. It honestly has never occurred to him that this trait might be a useful thing in a community whose religious practices as a whole are unusually diverse by the standards of Veracia.

He is reserved with strangers (unless they are endorsed by Drusia, whom he loves and respects greatly as the bringer of new life to the town as well as its founder and protectress), and it took him a while to warm up to his human daughter-in-law. However, Rose (with Kenny's help) eventually won him over, and they are now extremely close. He is a loving father to the rest of his family, although his relations with his youngest child, Alia, can be tense at times because of her rebellious teenager-like nature as well as her penchant for magic that he does not share. In fact, Benedict is strangely unskilled at magic. His capacity for empathy and charisma probably has the same kind of magical underpinnings as his daughter-in-law's, but without any obvious spellcasting or other exertion of magical energy; it is entirely instinctive and intuitive. So is his skill at working with the animals, and also equipment, of the farm. Otherwise, his only known spellcasting capabilities are very rudimentary combat magic that he has not practiced in years, and a capacity for predicting the weather that could make him a great deal of money if he could practice it in Veracian society as a whole. Of course, he can't, at least not without risking both his own life and his community, so he won't.
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

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This may seem like an odd time to write a gallery entry for an NPC who's never been seen directly, just mentioned in a thread that's been closed for months now. However, there's a reason for it, so ...

Name: Lucy Kankaniel

Occupation: Captain of a smuggling ship operating out of Port Lorenzel

Description: Lucy Kankaniel is in her late twenties or early thirties, a short, compact woman who shares her brother's bowling-ball physique in many ways (see under Backstory). She looks and dresses like a female version of a Veracian ship's master, which is exactly what she is. However, she does so in ways that convey authority but never, ever draw attention to herself. No ornate jewelry or extravagant piercings for this woman; she looks spartan to the point of being drab. Her outfit conceals several kinds of weaponry, however, and she's never without both a dagger and a small single-shot handgun, both of which she wears, literally, to bed.

Backstory: Lucy Kankaniel is the much younger sister of the mysteriously deceased Egbert Kankaniel, aka "Father Egbert" of the Veracian mission in Kiyoka, whose puzzling flight and horrifying suicide were a huge plot driver for most of the first year or so of the game's Veracian threads. Like Egbert, she grew up in the curiously "mobile" town of Ramanzel, and also like her brother, she got out of town once she was of age. Unlike Egbert, however, she didn't go into the Veracian Church (she has no known interest in religion), and without that connection, the military path followed by Sister Rose was not open to her, either. However, she is altogether too forceful a person to become the compliant baby factory that rural Veracia generally expects of their women unless they become nuns. Instead, she somehow -- "how" has never been clear -- managed to amass the resources necessary to run a smuggling operation connecting the smuggler's paradise of Nautkia, down the river from Lorenzel, and the Southern Continent. She spends most of her time plying the ocean between these two areas, and usually isn't on dry land for any longer than she has to be.

She has no known vices, weaknesses or interests, and is attached neither to a church nor to a mate. Her crew is generally in awe of her knowledge of the sea, personal forcefulness, and complete single-mindedness in conducting her business, and in most regards, acts as though she were just another male sea captain. She is believed to have magical talent, but there are no reliable accounts of exactly what form it takes. Her small cabin aboard her ship is absolutely off limits to her crew (she has been known to casually shoot a drunken crewman who was trying to break into it), leading to all manner of speculation as to just what she has, and does, in there. However, she isn't telling.

Her only known living relative is her sister Mildred Hamael, nee Kankaniel, the widow of Wilbur, the kill-with-a-word mystery man who recently became Living Impaired when his balloon landed near the half elven village of Snamish. However, she hasn't seen "Milly" since she was a girl and has no ties to the Hamael family -- no known ties, anyway. Other than the smugglers in Nautkia, she also has no ties to other named characters (so far) in Errant Road, with the single exception of the young Millenarian mother Carly Bindiel (or "Sister Carleen"), whom she baby-sat ten to fifteen years ago in Ramanzel, just before leaving town.

We'll be hearing more of her soon ... maybe.
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

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I'd planned for Galina to be a pop-in, pop-out NPC who would play no enduring role in Errant Road, but the way things are developing in the Rinkaiel threads, it looks like she'll be around for a while, so here are some details...

Name: Galina Scherbatcheff

Occupation: Right now, magic instructor; regularly, security specialist for Mesuinu Enterprises; formerly, a torch singer in cheap bars, as she mentioned here

Description: Galina is a woman in her late twenties. She is short (5'1" or so) and compact, and looks athletic, as indeed she is: during her youth in Tsuirakushiti, she was a champion fencer. (This isn't as impressive as it sounds. Swordplay is, to put it mildly, not a skill that is highly valued in Tsuirakushiti. Quite a few nuns of the Veracian Church could best her in a fencing duel, to say nothing of the typical Veracian soldier. Of course, most wouldn't have a thing on her if the combat turned magical.) Her face is round to square and is framed by short-to-medium blonde hair that she typically wears in a "bob" or similar, slightly longer cut. She has a fair complexion, laughing blue eyes, a pert, snub nose, and a mouth that is full of even, well maintained teeth and smiles easily. When in the service of Mesuinu Enterprises, she dresses somewhat flamboyantly (although, by the standards of the Mesuinus, her apparel is subdued to the point of being boring), but left to her own devices, she prefers to dress well but conservatively, favoring modern business suits and dresses over "traditional" Tsuirakuan garb. She is often seen carrying her daughter Oxana, a 7-month-old who takes after her mother in appearance.

Backstory: Galina is the daughter of a third-generation immigrant to Tsuirakushiti from the Northern Confederacy (hence her unusual surname, which would be fairly common in the cities up north but is almost unknown in Tsuiraku) and a Tsuirakuan woman. Both sides of the family had money, and so she was able to be educated at Sashi Mu despite a certain amount of social stigma resulting from her gaijin ancestry. She graduated in the upper third of her class, although not at the extreme top, and developed a "jack of all trades, master of none" reputation. This, however, understates her magical prowess: in fact, she is indeed a jack of all trades, but also a master of quite a few (particularly Detection, Divination and Evocation magic), although not at an archmage level. These skills eventually brought her to the attention of Mesuinu Enterprises, as Saiko Mesuinu (who is completely batty, yet shrewd when it comes to turning magic into money) realized that just this kind of polymath with detection skills would make a fine head of security at the Mountain of Madness amusement park. She was recruited for this purpose and was functioning as the security honcho there when she met Layla and family and entered the world of Errant Road. She is presently on leave from that position, officialdom having decided that her diverse skills also would make her a good magic instructor (a role she enjoys) and therefore put her in charge of developing indigenous talent in Rinkaiel to support the coming warp gate.

Her never-seen husband, Kensuke ("Kenny" -- no relation to Sister Rose's late husband) Goto (a common surname in Tsuirakushiti; he is distantly related to menacing Homeland Security officer Captain Haniko Goto, but has never met the woman, which is just as well...), is also a Sashi Mu graduate who was in the battlemages for a while and now operates a winery in Volkanenborg. The Tsuirakuan Powers That Be set him up in this operation to make it easier for his wife, who's the higher-powered mage of the pair. They married soon after Galina graduated from Sashi Mu, and she stayed in Tsuirakushiti briefly after graduation while he was finishing his military stint. At that time she worked as a teaching assistant at Sashi Mu, in which capacity she had a brief and highly amusing interaction with Meji Hinadori, whom however she really doesn't know.

She and Layla became fast friends almost at first sight, both being new mothers and recognizing something of the other in themselves. She has few other interactions with regulars in the Rinkaiel threads. She isn't the slightest bit religious and views both the Temple of the Divine Dwarf, and the Luminositan religion that Layla follows distantly, with tolerant amusement. She might have just the tiniest bit of half elf blood to her, from both sides of the family, but considers herself complete human, and to all appearances, that's exactly what she is.
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Graybeard »

Having just introduced this guy and hinted that he's going to have something significant to do with events in the Veracia threads, I probably ought to say a little more about him. So: introducing Brother Dalton...

Name: Brother Dalton

Occupation: Priest in the Veracian Church, and currently, kidnapee.

Description: Dalton is a young man of about 25 years, and average in almost all respects -- height, weight, build, you name it. He is a priest in the Orthodox church and while in Veracia, wears the usual robes of an Orthodox priest, augmented only by a mildly unusual-looking ring that was given him by his parents as an ordination present and has no known magical powers. If you passed him on the streets of Emerylon, you probably wouldn't notice him, for all the similar young priests in the city. However, he is not above "going native" with his off-duty garb, the better to move inconspicuously in the culture where he's now a missionary and learn more about it. This is of little significance in the game/story, though, as he was wearing his usual priestly robes when he was kidnapped.

His magical powers are minimal, other than greater than usual aptitude with Healing magic. He knows all the rites and rituals of the Orthodox church, of course, and would administer smitings if there were ever any believers or candidates in his temple to administer them to. Fact is, however, the mission hasn't been very successful, a fact that both he and his superiors pretend not to notice.

Backstory: Not really much to tell. He's the second son of an upper-middle-class family in Saus, and as is common in that demographic, joined the Church of Luminosita to improve his prospects, since his older brother (a generally rather worthless layabout) stood to inherit the family wealth, such as it is. He was an ordinary seminary student in almost all respects, the one unusual one being that he has a greater than average interest in cultures other than his own, courtesy of a childhood encounter with an airship captain who showed him strange and wondrous things from the Southern Continent and taught him a few words in one of the tribal languages used there. As an adult, this led to the Church detecting in him a potential missionary and sending him off to the temple where he now serves. He has continued his studies of foreign cultures there -- to a point that would probably make the bureaucrats in Emerylon rather uncomfortable if they knew about them, actually. However, despite those studies, he's still a believing (if comparatively liberal, for his denomination) Orthodox priest and conducts himself accordingly.

More on him as needed, but this will get the ball rolling.
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Re: OOC: NPC gallery

Post by Graybeard »

Since Father Amalric is assuming an important role in the windup of the "Convergence" thread group, here's a little more information on him. There are minor spoilers in this sketch, although nothing that totally gives the game away.

Name: Father Amalric

Occupation: Priest in the Orthodox Veracian Church, retired general, and currently, airship pilot.

Description: Amalric is in his sixties, a tall, spare man with a severe, hatchet face and gray hair. He carries himself stiffly upright at all times, with a distinctly military bearing that matches his past (see below, which has a spoiler or two in it). His normal garb is priestly robes, although on one notable occasion, he was seen to be wearing, underneath those robes, the tunic of a retired general officer formerly in the Veracian military.

He is an extremely powerful spellcaster, far more potent than one would expect of a senior priest in a small town in rural Veracia. The full extent of his magical capabilities has not been revealed yet, but he's clearly a master of offensive and (presumably) defensive military magic, and he also has shown a nearly elf-like capacity for mind magic -- a trait that almost got him killed during the game, when real live elf Drusia Valis took exception to his use of this magic in a setting that included Drusia's lover Suriah. This power has caused many in the Veracian Church to look askance at him, which may or may not explain why he's been shipped off to the small town of Gervasiel, where he is head of the local church.

Backstory: Warning, spoilers ahead.

Unlike most Veracian priests, Amalric did not join the priesthood as a boy or young man. Instead, his upbringing took him down a military path, where he showed exceptional talent but offended many with his utter, unbreakable devotion to duty as he saw it -- which often differed from the views of his fellow officers. Eventually he rose to the lofty rank of general before making enemies too powerful to overwhelm with the formidable force of his personality, at which time he was (not entirely voluntarily) retired from active duty. During this ascent through the ranks, he fathered at least one child, the deceased Melusine, lover of player character Therese. This daughter was raised in the Northern Confederacy, where he was stationed for a time, but despite this, Amalric managed to remain in close contact with her until her death a few years back. Her mother was a woman of the Northern Confederacy, also presumed dead by the present time; the exact nature of her relationship with Amalric is not known.

After his retirement from active duty, Amalric took up studies for the priesthood, in which he again excelled despite advancing age. However, his crustiness and intolerance for what he viewed as corrupt, ineffectual behavior in the church offended enough other priests that he made no friends among the priesthood (which doesn't bother him in the least), and therefore nobody spoke in his defense when his enemies caused his internal exile to Gervasiel. That suited him just fine; in the years he's spent down there, he has been nursing an increasingly powerful thirst for revenge against the forces that took his daughter's life ... and when he met Sister Rose (for whom he has a great deal of respect despite their many differences), he saw the means for exacting that revenge. He still has supporters as well as enemies in the Church, and he was able to pull enough strings to get named to lead the board of inquiry convened to debrief Rose and her colleagues on what happened in Goriel. Further string pulling has put him at the helm of the inexplicably advanced airship that is now bearing him and the party north for a confrontation with the shadowy "Convergence."

He has, to put it mildly, no great love for elves, half elves, Tsuirakuans, or most anyone else outside the Veracian fold. However, his commitment to duty is so intense that he is more than willing to put himself in harm's way to do what he believes duty requires of him, which includes protecting those whose well-being has been entrusted to him in his role as priest, even if he finds those whom he is protecting to be distasteful. Where this commitment will lead him as the airship heads toward the confrontation with the Convergence ... well, let's wait and see.
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