More Character
Another subject came to mind last night as I considered my previous character retrospectives. Annoyingly, the thoughts aided in keeping me awake until rather later than I would have liked.
Jhazza was, in many ways, my "main" character for the revamped FurryFaire with Mika retiring from active play. Daughter of Mika and Khett, she was ICly a deliberate effort of breeding the partly-demonic bloodline strong. With the displacer beast-like tentacles, her supernatural heritage was blatantly obvious. She was a fun character to play - intelligent, but highly favoring direct approaches and dangerously irreverent. She saw herself as a guardian and warrior, not a leader. Rather than being a caster like her mother, she took after her father's shapeshifting. I used Wild Path magic as a way to describe her adaptive and flexible nature, giving her the ability to gain temporary powers almost at will. She gained a lot of them permanently later - after a major ice/winter-related TP, for example, I purchased a resistance to cold. It did little actual good after the fact, but represented the way she grew stronger specifically in response to what she faced.
On many points, however, I probably have to consider her a failure.
From an OOC standpoint, Jhazza was meant to be a free/unaffiliated character. Many of my FFA2 characters were connected directly to those of other players (mate, sibling, etc.) and Jhazza was supposed to be someone I could play without that attachment to the characters of the people I normally play with. But, in the end, she wound up in much the same circles as I'm used to.
I made her a Kithain, which was a stretch. They're generally summed up as "anti-mage" and her abilities were, by the rules, a form of magic even if I never really played it as magic flavor-wise. I looked at the order and I saw a core belief in mortals (I would say "humans," but that's not accurate when characters aren't actually human). The Kithain, as I envisioned, were dedicated to empowering mortals through their own strengths rather than relying on magic or divine influence as (dangerously corruptive) crutches. In that way, she fit. She was supernatural herself, but she fought for the normal people against things they might not handle so well themselves. She recognized divine power, but generally held the believe gods should leave the world alone. Seeing a Joshuite angel tear up a section of Argus was just the sort of thing to back that belief. So it was strange, perhaps, when she helped a ritual that pushed Mika to divinity. At the very least, Jhazza knew her mother had a largely hands-off attitude. So her being a Kithain was all about necessary evils along the way to a greater goal. But... I'm about the only one who's ever portrayed the Kithain in that light, so one could readily say I was doing it wrong.
Early on, she was exposed to a particular roleplay scenerio that was... borderline infuriating to me, and unpleasant for her. It defined some of her traits, including a strong anti-kitsune bias. But it's worse than that. The MUCK bans certain types of RP (which seems silly to me, but that's policy). I don't recall now if the ban was before or after the incident... I think officially after, but I'm unsure. The ban includes "this can't exist in the character's history." To me, what happened fits in the category of banned topics. One or more others apparently disagree because there was supernatural mental influence involved. So... That's always been a bit touchy and frustrating, seeming rather hypocritical to me.
Ultimately, though, she was a casualty of rules changes. When the core mechanical concept of a character is "they literally adapt to and overcome challenges, becoming more powerful," they can only go through so many rules revisions that take that away before the concept breaks. We hit a redo of the rules that would have lowered many numbers and outright removed a lot of her abilities, and it finally stopped being worth the effort of trying to re-imagine that side of the character. So, she was retired off-grid to avoid the hassle.
Jhazza was, in many ways, my "main" character for the revamped FurryFaire with Mika retiring from active play. Daughter of Mika and Khett, she was ICly a deliberate effort of breeding the partly-demonic bloodline strong. With the displacer beast-like tentacles, her supernatural heritage was blatantly obvious. She was a fun character to play - intelligent, but highly favoring direct approaches and dangerously irreverent. She saw herself as a guardian and warrior, not a leader. Rather than being a caster like her mother, she took after her father's shapeshifting. I used Wild Path magic as a way to describe her adaptive and flexible nature, giving her the ability to gain temporary powers almost at will. She gained a lot of them permanently later - after a major ice/winter-related TP, for example, I purchased a resistance to cold. It did little actual good after the fact, but represented the way she grew stronger specifically in response to what she faced.
On many points, however, I probably have to consider her a failure.
From an OOC standpoint, Jhazza was meant to be a free/unaffiliated character. Many of my FFA2 characters were connected directly to those of other players (mate, sibling, etc.) and Jhazza was supposed to be someone I could play without that attachment to the characters of the people I normally play with. But, in the end, she wound up in much the same circles as I'm used to.
I made her a Kithain, which was a stretch. They're generally summed up as "anti-mage" and her abilities were, by the rules, a form of magic even if I never really played it as magic flavor-wise. I looked at the order and I saw a core belief in mortals (I would say "humans," but that's not accurate when characters aren't actually human). The Kithain, as I envisioned, were dedicated to empowering mortals through their own strengths rather than relying on magic or divine influence as (dangerously corruptive) crutches. In that way, she fit. She was supernatural herself, but she fought for the normal people against things they might not handle so well themselves. She recognized divine power, but generally held the believe gods should leave the world alone. Seeing a Joshuite angel tear up a section of Argus was just the sort of thing to back that belief. So it was strange, perhaps, when she helped a ritual that pushed Mika to divinity. At the very least, Jhazza knew her mother had a largely hands-off attitude. So her being a Kithain was all about necessary evils along the way to a greater goal. But... I'm about the only one who's ever portrayed the Kithain in that light, so one could readily say I was doing it wrong.
Early on, she was exposed to a particular roleplay scenerio that was... borderline infuriating to me, and unpleasant for her. It defined some of her traits, including a strong anti-kitsune bias. But it's worse than that. The MUCK bans certain types of RP (which seems silly to me, but that's policy). I don't recall now if the ban was before or after the incident... I think officially after, but I'm unsure. The ban includes "this can't exist in the character's history." To me, what happened fits in the category of banned topics. One or more others apparently disagree because there was supernatural mental influence involved. So... That's always been a bit touchy and frustrating, seeming rather hypocritical to me.
Ultimately, though, she was a casualty of rules changes. When the core mechanical concept of a character is "they literally adapt to and overcome challenges, becoming more powerful," they can only go through so many rules revisions that take that away before the concept breaks. We hit a redo of the rules that would have lowered many numbers and outright removed a lot of her abilities, and it finally stopped being worth the effort of trying to re-imagine that side of the character. So, she was retired off-grid to avoid the hassle.
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