Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Behind the Faces

Shared Topics. Blog Azeroth. Perhaps you've heard of these things? If you haven't, you should check them out. Every Sunday (or near every Sunday, depends on the participation) Twisted Nether does a round-up of all the participants. You should check out all those as well.

This week's topic is brought to us by Kamalia from Kamalia et alia.
Whether you have many alts or just a few, do they know each other? Do they have some sort of relationship as people living in Azeroth, or is sending materials and money between them just a game mechanic for you? If your characters do know each other, what kind of relationships do they have, and how did those relationships come into being? If they don't, what functions do your different alts serve?
Outside of my incessant need to use /emotes, I don't even remotely consider myself to be a role-player. My characters live on a strictly PvE server and generally they live to destroy and/or heal other players and NPCs. However, I have been as of late thinking about story lines and backgrounds for some of my characters for writing purposes. I mean, I have spent how many hours over the past three years vicariously living in this fantasy world wearing the names and faces of these characters? At some point I'm bound to think of a story about why they do what they do. I'm a crazy writer after all, my brain tends to do off the wall* things sometimes.

I think my characters know each other in a very general sense. Most of them are simply co-workers for missions or general contractors simply hired to make my main character's life a tad bit easier. Many of them simply trade their skills between each other. Some of my characters are very close, others simply live on the fringes on each other's lives. Perhaps I should just do a break down on all of my characters and their relationships to each other. Hopefully this isn't shooting myself in the foot with giving away how everyone interacts by writing this, messing up vital "a-ha!" moments for potential future stories. Oh well, here we go!




Saz (The Shaman) - She is in general the starting point for all things. She's the one who attempts to heal everyone's life wounds; she is the warrior by your side. An ambassador, the alchemist, the ring leader. If there's a show to run, you better believe she's at the helm. She's kind yet strong headed, and if she tells you something chances are pretty good that it won't be sugar coated. She's in dire need of a pocket healer.


Kelebek (The Druid) - She's a bit of a loner, preferring the lone of the wilds to larger packs of people. Bek has a strangely torn past and enlists Saz's help in a few different battles. In exchange for the assistance in battle she offers her talents in gear making to Saz. A lot of her story is in development, so I shan't go into too much detail since that would spoil the surprise, but let's just say she has run ins with nearly everyone in my arsenal.


Spazm (The Mage) - She's a little Gnome who still calls Ironforge home. She's a noob in Magery department, so she's rather useless in battle. However, she is quite handy at working the auction house. Because of her auction house talents Saz, along with the rest of the team, has hired her to take care of their auctioning needs. She's more than happy to spend her days playing with cute dresses and counting coins instead of fighting the masses of murlocs. Spazm has a bubbly little personality that all have come to know and love, furthering her social circle and making her quite the business woman.


The Warlock - She's the sassy ginger kid of the team. She's a bit twisted in the head, a bit off her rocker, and slightly vindictive. She's quiet, but often likes to spend her nights mingling with the so called mundane folk of Azeroth. She was at one point hired by Saz do to her specialization in demons (Saz had run across some that she couldn't figure out how to defeat). The Warlock also at some point joined Kelebek in one of her many battles, simply because she was bored and wanted to afflict some folks with pain.


The Hunter - This is Saz's younger twin sister. On a rare occasion you may see her in battle along side her sister, but she typically prefers to spend her time hunting for rare beasts or tinkering with something explosive. She's shy, but usually eager to help just about anyone. Currently she's the master of the house that Saz once ran.


The Priest - She has a very conflicted personality. She often likes the more shadowy and twisted things in life, but feels guilty for indulging in them. She tends to discipline herself in order to justify her indulgences. She doesn't really know anyone in my team personally, she's more of a friend of a friend. She did however buy some clothes made by the Warlock once.


The Death Knight - She's a distant cousin of Saz, Saz's twin, and their little brother. She got into some sketchy stuff in her youth, and now prefers to spend her days mining as opposed to battling. She's had enough of conflict, and would prefer to remain out of the way of any warring parties.


The Rogue - She's young, vicious, and kind of shady. In battle she's relentless and can slip away to safety at the drop of a hat...not that she would. At one point she was hired for some undisclosed business by Kelebek. She's fairly good friends with the Warlock and they often team up to break the hearts of men everywhere. Secretly they may have a thing for each other but neither of them have ever acted upon their urges or will even admit to the attraction. She can be uncannily loyal to those she cares for.


The Warrior - Younger brother to Saz and her twin sister. He's quiet and rather calm for a rage-type. He's a sort of librarian, taking care of the various items that Saz and her team collect during their adventures in the world. On occasion he steps out to engage in some civil combat (if there is such a thing) but for the most part he's rather satisfied to simply sit back and observe. He may engage in the bigger conflicts of the world once he understands everyone's motives.


Kaelei (The Paladin) - She's young, sweet, and rather innocent. She's a bit of a hopeless romantic who's a bit down on finding that one compatible man to help fill a certain void in her life, though she doesn't believe that this lack of a significant other devalues of her life any. She's a tinkerer, loves mechanics, and loves to figure out how people and machines alike work. She's a cousin to the Rogue, but doesn't much associate with her. Kaelei often takes care of the finances of the house that the Hunter currently runs, and did so under Saz's occupancy as well. She's a positive and loving person, and could never wish anyone any ill will.


All of my characters have a part of me in them and each contains both some of my hopes/dreams and some of my flaws. I am by no means a perfect person; I'm far from it. I think that my characters really reflect that. They're not perfect either. They've all messed up, they've all felt guilt on some level. Yes, even the Warlock and the Rogue sometimes doubt themselves and their actions, though they have more of an ability to push away that feeling of guilt than the others do. They all have their personal triumphs, as well as their own conflicted pasts. At the end of the day all they want is a bit of happiness and a way to hide from the warring ways of the world.

I also have some other characters hiding on other servers who interact with those who also reside on that server, but there's really no cross server interaction going on. They all have their own little stories going on in their own little nebulas, and unfortunately are often neglected. Perhaps more on them at some other point in time.



*By off the wall I mean off the wall for your standard non role-playing player. I'm sure this is fairly common for most story writers and role-players.

3 comments:

  1. Most of them are simply co-workers for missions or general contractors simply hired to make my main character's life a tad bit easier.

    I like that way of describing profession alts.

    It was fun to meet all your characters. All your really dark skinned draenei are making me want to roll a new draenei alt with that skin tone, though I don't really know what I'd do with another alt at this point. :P

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  2. Saz,
    Hmmm so many shades of you! Most entertaining way to add your alts. I think your a closet RPer though. I really do! Heh keep on postin Miss, you bring smiles every day to people who read them!

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  3. @Kamaliaetalia - I'm not sure why I'm so attracted to the dark skinned Draenei, but I almost always gravitate towards them when rolling a new Draenei. You should roll one anyways, just because of their sexy factor ; )

    @Mhorgrim - I might be a closet RPer. I just have never given RP a chance, nor have I really had the time to reroll properly on an RP server and get into some sort of story line. I also have this horrible problem of keeping a story straight after a "chapter" or two, so I guess I gave up on that aspect of the game long before I even bothered to give it a chance. Thanks for commenting once again Sir, your comments never fail to make me grin : )

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