Hey there! It's your good buddy Mia. Yeah, we've been through a lot together. Now we're going to go ahead and make a sheet-- but we're going to start small. Really small. The real sheet will appear here once the characters have been accepted. I know it's not traditional but it would make things easier for all of us. Some of you may laugh, but I don't think I have enough information to make a sheet. More accurately, I don't have enough information for you to make the sheet I want. Instead, I would like some fairly minimal information about your character. In short, their idea.
First, please read about the setting and concept, then proceed to getting started so you can get an idea of how I'd like for you to think about your characters. The pages will also direct you to read all of these notes in this order. There are many useful links throughout that will help you to get as much documentation on the world as will help you, but I highly encourage for you to e-mail me (you know how) or catch me on IRC to hammer out the hard details.
This is a marathon application. You have 1 week to make me love your character, the best aspects boiled down to a few paragraphs. Rather than write a complicated tao, I will list questions I would like for you to consider for your character, perhaps even write about. At this point, it is the character's concept I am interested in, not unlike the difference between all of my notes on Lunar Mecha and my RPG's concept. Please try and not bother yourself with more than a page or two if you tend to write large applications, a paragraph or two if they are generally small. I would appreciate something substancial enough to cover the basics, so more or less a page would do fine.
I think Getting Started gave you a good idea of how to make a character. I want to know that character, and surely most of you already know how to tell me basic things, so I'll let you decide those. I do, however, have more specific things I want you to think about that are harder. As I am paranoid this task will be too terrible, I must insist again that you ask me to answer whatever you do not know so that I can know what I need better documentation of.
Inspired by my favorite section of DNW's initial Lufia application, I have a list of questions I would love to ask all of you about your characters:
- What is your character's name?
(I reccomend looking at the cast list for ideas, and remember what I said in Getting Started.)
- How did your character grow up?
- How was it typical? How wasn't it typical?
(Vane Pilot Specific)
- Why is your character being educated?
- Is there a tradition in the family? This is specificly a question of Military Families, slyly refered to as Drakken Royalty.
- Why did he want to pilot?
- How did your character pass the entrance exam at Laritta? (FAQ, or ask me)
- Did he have any prior education to help with it? This will depend on how nice of a sector of Drakken he is from, and their family background.
- Maybe had some trouble proving he had the dexterity or balance to pilot a mecha? Too low of magic power until he was trained further? Failed twice before passing?
- How does your character pay for himself?
- Perhaps the student has a job? Mind, tuition, board, and one uniform is accounted for.
- How did the student learn this trade?
- Does he sell much at the Student Mall? Hang out often?
- Do his parrents help out any?
- Though it's not nice and easy like college here (hahaha), perhaps he has borrowed money?
- What classes does the student enjoy?
- What is his focus? Magic, combat classes, engineering, science? Just a savant mecha pilot, good at little else?
- What clubs are your student in?
(Lunar Mecha is slightly nerdy, and the mecha schools resemble my anime experience with japanese schools. Clubs are a big deal.)
- Who's the president of the club?
- What teacher is the advisor?
- Are there any fund raisers?
- What year is this character in? Your character's rank is most likely 3rd year Vane, Jr pilot.
- How old is the character? 17 is a good age for a 3rd year. If they are not 17, why are they not? I would not reccomend going lower than 16 or higher than 18 without a very detailed explination.
- Did this character aways go to Vane, or has he transfered in from Drakken's school?
- What is the character's background as a pilot?
STUDENTS: Is the student on any teams? In my game, there are competition with some special student pilots.
- What is the character's rank/station? Their project, if any? This doesn't apply as much to students.
- Has this character had any military jobs? Any career defining military jobs?
- If the pilot's focus was as a researcher, I need to know focus of research and background associated with it.
- If your character is not a Vane Jr. Pilot/Cadet, who is this character and why should they be in the game?
Is there a relation to the school? Is this character a teacher? Otherwise employed by Vane School? On a mission from the military?
What IS there a relation to? If they are not at least a former pilot, how on earth did they learn, and where is the mecha from?
Now, obviously if your character is not a 3rd year Vane Jr. Pilot, most of these questions will matter significantly less. This shouldn't matter-- simply omit that which doesn't apply (or if it applies but you don't know, omit everything you can't answer), or make up your own questions. I do not need to know everything about your mecha yet, or what magic the character uses, but it would be nice. I WOULD like to know what your character looks like, their general personalty, attitude, and connections to others.
Cherilyn Scarlet is a Nitolo girl-- not Drakkenian from a sector with Nitolo in it, a real Shaldoon girl. Her mother was a water witch and she was to be the next in line, but she had her eye on something other than drawing water and acres and acres of sand. A particularly cute pilot on duty from project safeguard caught her eye (I don't know who, maybe Brenton Brayer before he was a general?) and she had the maddest crush on him, slacking in her water witch training to talk to him about his wonderful job and far away land. The romance never worked out (or happened at all) but from him she learned a lot about drakkken and some confusing things about feather island, a land she knew a lot about from her studying from the shamans. She was too distracted to continue down her pathh and she was uncommonly bright since she was training to be a water witch, not to mention pretty good with magic, and decided to throw it away for a chance to study in Laritta. It was terrifing, a horrible culture shock. It took her 2 years to pass the test but she managed it. She could do a lot of great things but not many were exactly marketable or even useful outside of Nitou, but she certainly can paint, so she learned to silkscreen shirts. She loves the student mall, but she's a little shy and reserved, so she is probably not the greatest sales person, a little apologetic. Cherry's pretty chipper aside from her shyness, kind of the big sister type. She's the sort to make a lot of friends but never be the leader of the crowd.
She is sick, sick good at magic. That's her thing. And if you need water, she's your girl! The training at Vane has helped her a lot, and if she were to go back she would be the greatest water witch they've seen in a long time. She loves Professor Suris and Suris, since she thinks she's Nitolo too, always has lots to ask Cherry and it's probably Cherry's fault Suris ran off to Nitou this winter break! She made it sound so good! But she did learn a lot from her, since Suris is good with the 4 cardinal elements. I'm sure she would have a crush on Irving, too. She likes outgoing people I think, and outgoing authority figures would especially make her eyes sparkle. She loves art and doesn't understand why Drakken thinks it needs a practical value, especially since Nitou has more to worry about than anyone in Drakken but they still have time and room for decorative arts, even if they have to move too much to take most of it with them. Because of this, she would get along with the most outrageous artists in the school. I see her as being a huge contrast, since she's quiet. Kind of like Jean in personality, she's not meek-- gotta be strong to be a nomad-- but not outspoken, partially because of her weak grasp of the language.
She would be in very few clubs, even now, since she's a senior. Yeah, I imagine Cherry's a 4th year, since I want her to be the big sister type of girl, and she's even older for that since it was so hard for her to get in, and being from Nitou, so I bet she's 19 or maybe in her early 20s. I'd imagine it's hard for her, since she's between the age of many of the younger teachers and older students, adding to her lack of energy for clubs and the student mall. Still, she's friendly and makes an effort. Singing is an easy icebreaker so I can see her kareokeing with the hot science teacher and his merry gang, commissioning lots of fun things from other artists at the mall, things like that. She's not good enough to be on one of the teams. She pilots alright, but she hasn't hit her stride really.
I'd like to talk to Nadia. I think she'd really like Geranium, since she's also an artist, but there's a bit of an age gap so it may be hard. Thanks! Tell me if you need more!
And YOU tell ME if you need more! I want your mini applications by the first of September! There's limited slots, so I wish you all the best of luck and don't kill yourself over this. Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to reading them!
-Mia
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