Alleyverse Character Discussion

[+ZincAboutIt]

1 hour ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

Here's another character, because I had a cool idea.

I'm worried about this one's power level. I've tried to balance, but I understand if you feel that I need to nerf it.

This also may not fit into the lore. If so, let me know!

  Reveal hidden contents

Name: KanDraa (There's actually a reason for that, I'm not being lazy. Also, for the sake of convenience, I'll just type their name as Kan in most cases.)
Appearance: KanDraa is a kandra (). They often appear as a semi-transparent humanoid with a slightly luminescent, semitransparent crystal True Skeleton and four Hemalurgic spikes made from an unrecognizable metal. The spikes appear to have rusted.
Guild (or intended guild): None yet. Kan was made by the DA, but wants nothing to do with them. They might join TUBA, but probably not.
Personality: Kan is unable to understand the emotions of others, and often is unable to identify with those around them. Kan just wants to live their own life.
Concept: Insane DA-made experimental allomantic Kandra with severe limitations.
Motivation (Short & long term goal): Short term, Kan wants to escape from the influence of the DA and find peace. Long term, Kan wants to "fix" themself and find a way to "be normal". 
Merits: (These are what I'm worried about...)
Minor Merits: Kan was made by the DA. As such, they have a baseline knowledge of Hemalurgy and can navigate through the Alleys better than most. 
Normal Merits: Kan is a Kandra. They have all the benefits associated with being a Kandra, except for one. Kan's skin is always transparent. Kan can't make themself look realistic at all, making the disguise factor rather useless.
Major Merits: Kan's DA design has some benifits. Rather than have normal Blessings, Kan's hemalurgic spikes are far more powerful. Once each day (for you D&D players out there; during a long rest) , Kan can give themself an Allomantic power, essentially becoming a powerful misting. While not quite a Mistborn, Kan's versatility is not to be underestimated.
Flaws: (This one's gonna be long) As previously mentioned, Kan can't disguise themself. They're somewhat insane (See the personality section), and have trouble in social situations. Kan was designed by the DA, and has trouble avoiding alligning themself with the DA's goals. Kan is also filled with self-loathing due to being 'useless'. Kan's actually quite powerful, but they're a faulty prototype. They can't avoid blaming themself for everything.
Relationships (Eg. Family and Friends): Kan is an insane Kandra, what are these 'friends' that you speak of? Kan hates the researchers who made them with a burning passion, though.
Home Planet: Alleycity! Technically, Kan was originally a mistwraith from Scadrial, but that matters very little.
Current Residence: The alleys, Alleycity. Kan never stays in one place for too long.
Backstory: Kan was originally a mistwraith on Scadrial, but was quickly taken by the DA for experimentation. The DA wanted to create a mistborn kandra with no free will. Kan was their prototype - something that they made when working out the bugs. Kan was treated harshly by the DA for not being perfect. When the WorldForgrey ended, Kan was able to escape from the DA with a fractured sanity and novel hemalurgic design. When Kan was asked who they were by a random passerby, all that they could say was: "I am Kandra."
Loose ends (What is unfinished in their life?): Kan seeks perfection and wants to escape from the DA. Escape won't be easy, as Kan is important to the DA's plans.
Links (Eg. Theme song, a spotify playlist, a pinterest mood board): None. I'm sorry. How about a cookie instead?

 

 

 

Hello! We can talk about this illustrious individual here. An escaped experiment is a fun character idea, lots of material to work with. I would say that you might want to actually switch your Major and Normal merits. Kandra have quite the advantage (though lack of disguise is a big flaw). Still you get functional immortality, healing power, etc. And learning some hemalurgy and basic alleytravel is closer to a Normal merit in my opinion. Someone could learn both, for instance.

Claiming that your character is “important to DA plans” is likely a tad grandiose. However, many an R&D denizen would be cross to have an experiment wander off, and other Departments would be peeved at the potential security leak. One thing you should know is that Loyalty Spiking is an established thing in the DA, so your character would likely be incapable of directly betraying the DA or going 100% outside of general DA motives. Happily the DA doesn’t really have a set motive other than “don’t get in our way we want to do science/seek power” so there is a lot of wiggle room. Mostly you’d likely have to worry about someone coming to look for you and then point blank telling you to come back. Probably also being rather mean with the emotional Allomancy. Four spikes means extra vulnerability to that as well, so you could add it as a weakness.  

[NerdyAarakocra]

23 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

Hello! We can talk about this illustrious individual here. An escaped experiment is a fun character idea, lots of material to work with. I would say that you might want to actually switch your Major and Normal merits. Kandra have quite the advantage (though lack of disguise is a big flaw). Still you get functional immortality, healing power, etc. And learning some hemalurgy and basic alleytravel is closer to a Normal merit in my opinion. Someone could learn both, for instance.

Claiming that your character is “important to DA plans” is likely a tad grandiose. However, many an R&D denizen would be cross to have an experiment wander off, and other Departments would be peeved at the potential security leak. One thing you should know is that Loyalty Spiking is an established thing in the DA, so your character would likely be incapable of directly betraying the DA or going 100% outside of general DA motives. Happily the DA doesn’t really have a set motive other than “don’t get in our way we want to do science/seek power” so there is a lot of wiggle room. Mostly you’d likely have to worry about someone coming to look for you and then point blank telling you to come back. Probably also being rather mean with the emotional Allomancy. Four spikes means extra vulnerability to that as well, so you could add it as a weakness.  

Thank you for the advice! I can adjust my bio as nescessary. Here are the edits that I'm about to make. If there's anything else, let me know!

1. Change the part about importance to the DA to something less grandiose.
2. Swich the Major and Normal merits
3. Add Loyalty Spiking as a flaw.
4. Add Easy Allomantic Mannipulation as a flaw.
5. Add escaping from the Loyalty Spiking as a long-term goal & loose end.

Thanks for the feedback!

Edit: Done editing the character sheet.

Edited October 31, 2022 by NerdyAarakocra

[Lord Meeker]

@Voidus Ok. A few things I'd like to discuss. I'd like to at the very least keep the D.I.D. I can do away with the straight up evil bit (despite chaos incarnate is my whole persona I created here ). I can have them be a neutral chaotic instead of evil chaotic, or good chaotic depending on how I'm feeling later. I want to have the whole steel compounder powers split between personalities, I think that's cool dynamic to have in a character. I'll bump up the savantism to normal I suppose, if you'll allow. I dunno if it will be allowed to down grade combat experience to firearms revolvers specifically into a minor feat. If not I can down grade the nobility I guess depending on what happens. 

 

Edit: Would like thoughts so I don't waste effort

Edited November 1, 2022 by Lord Meeker

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

7 hours ago, Bookmaster007 said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Name: Willbur Bright

Appearance: 

Guild (or intended guild): TUBA

Personality:  horrible with social situations he finds his comfort in tinkering with his guns. Their rules don’t change. At least not much, compared to humans.

Concept: A gunslinger an gunsmith from Era 2 scadrial who wanted to be a lawman but kept finding himself on the wrong side of the law

Motivation (Short & long term goal):

Short: Get acquainted with the new guns he’s seeing around

Long:  clear his bad reputation so he get around to enforcing the law

Merits: 

Minor: can pick up schematics quick, carries basic tools with him

 Normal: Practiced gunfighter, Survivalist

Major: Excellent Gunsmith

 

Flaws: 

Gullible by being so focused on his guns he doesn't notice body language

Social awkwardness. The rules are never the same.

NPCs (Eg. Family and Friends): while his Dad and little brothers are still alive back home, he hasn’t had much much contact with them since he left to become a lawman

Home Planet: Scadrial

Current Residence: None

Backstory: ______ set out to be a lawkeeper after some particularly nasty bandits wreaked havoc. his hometown. However, when he came into town the bandits would always convince him they were the law into town. Until the real lawmen would come down on them – and him, no matter how many times he told them he was a lawman. After he got rejected from the first few towns he ended up in, he found himself in the alleycity

Loose ends (What is unfinished in their life?): He has yet to find a job as a proper lawman

Links (Eg. Theme song, a spotify playlist, a pinterest mood board):

 

 

 

 

My character please approve

He might be interested in meeting with Demaren, if you so choose.

[Bookmaster007]

 

1 minute ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

He might be interested in meeting with Demaren, if you so choose.

I'd need some more information about Demaren

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

24 minutes ago, Bookmaster007 said:

 

I'd need some more information about Demaren

here's his character sheet, he runs the Technotic's Shop thread:

Spoiler

Name: Demaren Technotic

Appearance: piercing blue left eye, dark brown right eye. Red hair. Pale skin. 6 foot even

Guild (or intended guild): Unaffiliated

Personality: Lonely, but used to being alone. Something of an introverted extrovert. Enjoys being around people, but not necessarily talking with them. Somewhat disillusioned and cynical, but has odd spurts of hope and trust. Has a very slow temper, but when his patience runs out it can be devastating. Absorbs knowledge like a sponge.

Concept: A bit rough around the edges, and wary of power, but primarily gentle and aware of others. Very much a mentor-type personality.

Motivation (Short & long term goal): Short term: Build a successful business, and avoid trouble. Long term: Create functioning mechanical limb replacements; lessen debilitating effects of soulcasting Savanthood

Merits: Minor: Ameuture artifabrian; Enhanced glasses capable of projecting plans to be manipulated virtually, and zooming in on objects he is working on; Latent polyglot capabilities
Normal: Highly intelligent; Foil soulcaster
Major: Expert at crafting technology from basic resources, and expanding on it.

Flaws: Lost left leg to an explosion in his former home, so moves slowly with a cane, and prefers to stay in one spot; shortsighted, needs glasses; Thick accent; Due to backstory, does not trust authority, especially those in authority with some sort of magical power. Strongly dislikes Epics of any type.

NPCs (Eg. Family and Friends): Family killed in breaking of the U.S. Has contact with a group that transports Stormlight and fabrial gems off Roshar, he is unaware that the group is headed by an Epic with Gem-creation powers.

Home Planet: Reckoners Earth

Current Residence: Technotic Shop

Backstory: He was 20 or so when Calamity came. Lived through a technological revolution in calamity-era Reckoners earth. He was forced to build fancy gadgets for the Epics, which he did not mind because working for them gave him access to resources. He was primarily controlled by the one called Nightweaver(powers like a KOTLC shade, especially Shadowflux), who sometimes leased him out to other Epics. He had been constantly emotionally abused by the Epics, and so distrusts them and any magically powerful being in a position of power. Nightweaver, the Epic he worked for once brought some odd crystals (paired gemstones) to him, and he experimented with them, gaining some knowledge without any prejudices about them. Nightweaver also had gotten ahold of a Foil soulcaster, and Demarin learned how to use it. Nightweaver’s base was destroyed in an Epic battle, and an emergency destruction sequence blew off and cauterized his leg. At this point, after waiting for the fight to calm down, he salvaged what he could from the rubble, including the Soulcaster and several small machines with the gemstones, and escaped into the woods. He found, completely by accident, a circle of six strange standing stones in the middle of the wilderness, and entry into it knocked him out and shifted him to the Alleyverse.

Loose ends (What is unfinished in their life?): Haven’t developed a good way to replace missing limbs via cybernetics.

 

[Bookmaster007]

I'd be up for it

[Lord Meeker]

@Voidus I've been thinking about my character and I'd like to ask a few questions before I take the and effort into my character sheet V2. I'd like to keep working on a DID character, I've been re reading material on the subject to better write a DID character. If it is okay to keep going with this idea. I'd like to have the character be a mistborn but have their powers split between 4 personalities. A category for each person (mental, physical, temporal, and enhancement)

[Voidus]

17 hours ago, Lord Meeker said:

@Voidus I've been thinking about my character and I'd like to ask a few questions before I take the and effort into my character sheet V2. I'd like to keep working on a DID character, I've been re reading material on the subject to better write a DID character. If it is okay to keep going with this idea. I'd like to have the character be a mistborn but have their powers split between 4 personalities. A category for each person (mental, physical, temporal, and enhancement)

Can I ask why the focus on having a character with DID? 

[Lord Meeker]

3 hours ago, Voidus said:

Can I ask why the focus on having a character with DID? 

No particular reason but I just wanted to see if I could write or portray mental illness in my writing accurately. But if that's not allowed for any reason, I understand and I have other set of ideas. (The other idea revolving around a noble twinborn coinshot savant/bloodmaker vigilante)

[kenod]

Would having basic investure sense be a minor or normal merit?

[+ZincAboutIt]

22 minutes ago, kenod said:

Would having basic investure sense be a minor or normal merit?

Could be played as minor. A Seeker has it, or someone with enough Breath. Depends on how much it's used probably.

[kenod]

1 hour ago, ZincAboutIt said:

Could be played as minor. A Seeker has it, or someone with enough Breath. Depends on how much it's used probably.

Innate biological ability, meant less to find active use of kinetic investure around them, and more to map out innate investure someone has

[+ZincAboutIt]

10 minutes ago, kenod said:

Innate biological ability, meant less to find active use of kinetic investure around them, and more to map out innate investure someone has

Map it out... like see where it is in the body? See where someone has used it? Sorry, I'm a bit confused.

[kenod]

Just now, ZincAboutIt said:

Map it out... like see where it is in the body? See where someone has used it? Sorry, I'm a bit confused.

Basically, see if anyone has any investure, and get a basic sense of what they can do and how strong they are.

I suspect that it'll probably veer more into a regular merit though.

[18th Shard]

Quote

The First Heightening grants Aura Recognition, the ability to see the Breath auras of others instinctively, and an increased life sense. This allows them to judge roughly how many Breaths the person holds and the general health of that Breath. 

... The Seventh Heightening grants Invested Breath Recognition, the ability to recognize the auras of objects, and can tell when something has been Invested with Breath via Awakening. 

So similar to the above abilities from Breath, but broadened to all Investiture sources? 

[kenod]

Basically what the first heightening does, but also for other forms of innate investure abilities, and with an ability to distinguish which kinds of investure they have

[+ZincAboutIt]

8 minutes ago, kenod said:

Basically what the first heightening does, but also for other forms of innate investure abilities, and with an ability to distinguish which kinds of investure they have

Ah so it would be sort of like First Heightening plus burning Bronze? Yeah, likely closer to a Normal merit I'd think.

[kenod]

Figured as much. I guess that just a more universal first heightening or just bronze would be a minor merit?

[+ZincAboutIt]

9 minutes ago, kenod said:

Figured as much. I guess that just a more universal first heightening or just bronze would be a minor merit?

Yes, seems more likely, especially First Heightening. Bronze, depending how often used, could be Normal or Minor.

[MacThorstenson]

7 hours ago, ZincAboutIt said:

Yes, seems more likely, especially First Heightening. Bronze, depending how often used, could be Normal or Minor.

Building off of this, skill with bronze is an easily definable thing. Basic bronze for allomancy would be minor, but being skilled/knowledable enough to detect feruchemy and other investitures would certainly be normal. 

[Lord Meeker]

What flaws could be developed by trauma of parents, sibling and fiance death? Or general flaws that revolve around trauma, specifically death?

Edited November 4, 2022 by Lord Meeker

[Voidus]

On 11/3/2022 at 2:05 PM, Lord Meeker said:

No particular reason but I just wanted to see if I could write or portray mental illness in my writing accurately. But if that's not allowed for any reason, I understand and I have other set of ideas. (The other idea revolving around a noble twinborn coinshot savant/bloodmaker vigilante)

Yeah I think our preference would be to try something else, we can potentially revisit the idea of someone with DID later if it's something you want to practice writing. Alternatively we are hoping to start up some more things like writing advice threads, and practice writing areas where people can try things like this out, might be good to practice and also let us see kind of what you were thinking. But for now I'd say probably the twinborn would be the better choice to start.

27 minutes ago, Lord Meeker said:

What flaws could be developed by trauma of parents, sibling and fiance death? Or general flaws that revolve around trauma, specifically death?

Fear of loss comes to mind as the biggest one, but generally speaking it would somewhat change based on the person and the circumstances. 'Trauma' can be reacted to in a million different ways, there's not single universal human response.But also what counts as a flaw is somewhat different for different people. Honestly though referring to Brandon's characters is not a bad idea in this, look how various characters have responded to trauma and deaths of those close to them. Kaladin's depression, Vin's emotional walling off, Dalinar trying to change. A flaw also does not necessarily have to be internal, though I would suggest thinking of at least one of those for each character to add some complexity. But a flaw could be that their goals are stifled by some insurmountable authority, or the thing they are seeking is unrecoverable and held by an opposing faction. There are a lot of ways to approach looking at it but it boils down to 'Thing that is stopping your character from achieving their goals and introducing tension into their arc.'

[+ZincAboutIt]

@Lord Meeker Your new character seems balanced and thought out. The only thing I'm curious about is if/how he would interact with others in a group plot. There are plenty of ways to get a loner/vigilante character engaged in a plot, of course. We are just focusing more on encouraging a lot of group or at least pair/small group interaction this era to increase collaboration.

There is the idea of starting a "crime ring" side plot if enough people are interested in doing so, and I think this character could work very well in that kind of setting as an oppositional element, along with some of the other characters who have goals to improve city life for the general population. I also think it will be interesting to see how this character acts with the current iteration of the Ghostbloods, who have been renamed and are going through a bit of a purpose Renaissance. Maybe your character could get in touch with Tena to try and find out who might have murdered their family, root out members still looking to randomly assassinate, etc. We also have a new gunslinger/lawman type character who recently joined, maybe the two (or more!) of you could find common ground. Just a few suggestions, and you're welcome to post in the Collaboration Thread or Chat Thread if you have ideas. I just know we've had some players have trouble in the past with lone wolf type characters finding ways to get fully invested in a plot or a group of people. And we don't want anyone to get left out! 

Edited November 4, 2022 by ZincAboutIt
a word

[Lord Meeker]

44 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

There is the idea of starting a "crime ring" side plot if enough people are interested in doing so, and I think this character could work very well in that kind of setting as an oppositional element, along with some of the other characters who have goals to improve city life for the general population. I also think it will be interesting to see how this character acts with the current iteration of the Ghostbloods, who have been renamed and are going through a bit of a purpose Renaissance. Maybe your character could get in touch with Tena to try and find out who might have murdered their family, root out members still looking to randomly assassinate, etc. We also have a new gunslinger/lawman type character who recently joined, maybe the two (or more!) of you could find common ground. Just a few suggestions, and you're welcome to post in the Collaboration Thread or Chat Thread if you have ideas. I just know we've had some players have trouble in the past with lone wolf type characters finding ways to get fully invested in a plot or a group of people. And we don't want anyone to get left out

Yeah. I can do that, just as long as the Ghostbloods are involved in this crime ring It'd fit right in with my character plot. I'm not sure if it's allowed for me to use a guild I created but technically left because of life and such for my plot purposes. I've heard that there aren't any "evil" characters anymore really so I'd figured it be ok. But let me know. And I going to assume he is approved. Just add something into my sheet that I forgot. I want his alignment to be Chaotic Good.

Edit: Where is a good place to start. I've seen two threads.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Lord Meeker
See edit