Author Topic: URGENT! Need background ideas for a character!  (Read 2066 times)

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Offline ToM

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URGENT! Need background ideas for a character!
« on: February 21, 2011, 11:52:25 AM »
The campaign is set on a homebrewn conversion of Gamma World setting.
Much more gritty realistic feel a-la Fallout, much less wackyness.

The character is a Sleeth, a race of sentient lizard-folk.
They're all generally adept and talented studious, scientists, and sages. Here's a description of the race taken from 6th Edition (d20 rules) Gamma World manuals:

Quote
Sleeth are a race of reptilian humanoids,
mutated descendants of alligators. But rather than
the voracious killing machines one might expect
these creatures to be, sleeth are peaceful, highly
intellectual and empathic beings who devote their
minds and psionic abilities to gaining wisdom and
living in harmony with nature. Whatever nanotech
soup lifted the sleeth to intelligence also took away
most of their aggression — a trait that few of their
neighbors in the Gamma Age share, sad to say.
The sleeth are a thriving and vital species,
respected as healers and custodians of information.
They lend their knowledge of plants and nature,
and their medical and diplomatic skills, out to other
communities and species, acting as peacemakers and
helping villages survive in the jungle. In return, the
sleeth ask for knowledge — information and records
from before the Final Wars, which they store in
their village libraries. They will also help their
neighbors in return for advanced technology, or just
to build up goodwill. Sleeth villages are normally
deep in the middle of jungles or forests, formed from
reshaped living plants and trees.
Sleeth are friendly to outsiders, and readily engage
in trade for goods and services, but look down their
(long) noses at other species, whom they see as
intellectually inferior. This arrogance takes the form
of condescension rather than aggression; a sleeth is
likely to talk slowly and use short words when dealing
with humans, explaining things in excessive detail in
an attempt to help the poor hairless apes understand.
The sleeth use academic labels to denote
positions of responsibility — a village is governed by
a dean, who is counseled by a faculty of elders called
professors. Important members of a community are
lecturers, while younger sleeth are students, and
outsiders or visitors are referred to as transfers (or,
more derogatorily, dropouts). In times of crisis, deans
of different villages may congregate into a college,
electing a president to lead the discussion and
decision-making process. No one knows where the
sleeth learned of these terms, or why they chose to
base their whole society around them.
Sleeth who venture out into the world gain
further titles relating to their interaction with
humans and other non-sleeth. The more famous
and well-known a sleeth adventurer becomes, the
more prestigious the title other sleeth might bestow
on him. Sleeth characters gain new titles as their
Reputation bonus increases.
These titles are independent of the traditional
sleeth titles — it’s entirely possible for a sleeth professor
to be a freshman or a student to be a graduate. Sleeth
have a habit of boasting about their status and using
their full titles in conversations, even with humans
who have no idea what the sleeth is talking about.

Character's a level 3 Mentalist.
I already know he was raised in a protective community in which he had all the time to learn important cultural skills and the basics of his Mentalist training.
Then, he headed out of his community to complete his training. He has the Physics, Loremaster and Crusading Academic training packages.

I need some input from there on to add something interesting in its adult life.
I originally thought about having him teach a young gifted student to use Mentalism, but, having not sufficient skills himself, letting the student "go wild" and become a very powerful evil mentalist. So, he could have an antagonist and long-term goal to follow. But, this is not so particularly shiny a background, isn't it?

Help in advance for any advices...
« Last Edit: February 21, 2011, 12:00:19 PM by ToM »
"For no one in this world can you trust, my son. Not men, not women, not beasts. But steel... THIS, you can trust!"

Offline markc

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Re: URGENT! Need background ideas for a character!
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2011, 12:13:04 PM »
  How about reversing it, have an older Sleeth ask him to go into the wild to find things for him and he eventually has less that noble purposes.


 I also have trouble with non-violent races in GW as IMHO they have to have some way to protect themselves from everyone else. So once you can explain that IMHO you know a lot more and can plan a lot more.
 I guess you could have Armsmasters and other non-magic using members of the society be devoted to protecting the village and gathering the food needed for every day continued existence.




But that is just my opinion.
MDC


BTW in one game I played a pure spell cater of the mentalism realm that wanted to write a book on swords styles and really wanted to be a swordsman, ie a pure arms profession. So he want around a found tutors to teach him and wrote it all down. It was also one of the reasons he was travelling with the group as he wanted to learn about them (fighters) and the world. So he provided his gifts to the group in exchange for knowledge of fighting techniques and styles. the MAC was not used in this game world so it was not an issue.


MDC
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Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
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Offline GrumpyOldFart

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Re: URGENT! Need background ideas for a character!
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2011, 02:48:37 PM »
Seeing "Mentalist" and "peaceful", and combining it with
Quote
I also have trouble with non-violent races in GW as IMHO they have to have some way to protect themselves from everyone else. So once you can explain that IMHO you know a lot more and can plan a lot more.
reminds me of a quote I've heard attributed to H.G. Wells:

"A man who raises a fist is a man who has run out of ideas."

So okay, we have a guy who isn't actually the pacifist, conscientious objector type, but rather goes by the standard of "enough, and no more."

Never speak where showing is enough.
Never hold where speaking is enough.
Never harm where holding is enough.
Never kill where harming is enough.

You aren't someone who refuses to defend himself or others. You're a Mentalist, which means you have pledged to yourself never to run out of ideas.

 ;)

Make of that what you will.
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Offline ToM

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Re: URGENT! Need background ideas for a character!
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2011, 03:29:23 AM »
Seeing "Mentalist" and "peaceful", and combining it with
Quote
I also have trouble with non-violent races in GW as IMHO they have to have some way to protect themselves from everyone else. So once you can explain that IMHO you know a lot more and can plan a lot more.
reminds me of a quote I've heard attributed to H.G. Wells:

"A man who raises a fist is a man who has run out of ideas."

So okay, we have a guy who isn't actually the pacifist, conscientious objector type, but rather goes by the standard of "enough, and no more."

Never speak where showing is enough.
Never hold where speaking is enough.
Never harm where holding is enough.
Never kill where harming is enough.

You aren't someone who refuses to defend himself or others. You're a Mentalist, which means you have pledged to yourself never to run out of ideas.

 ;)

Make of that what you will.

VERY nice input. Thank you a lot.
"For no one in this world can you trust, my son. Not men, not women, not beasts. But steel... THIS, you can trust!"

Offline DavidKlecker

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Re: URGENT! Need background ideas for a character!
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2011, 02:10:36 PM »
I had one character named Dhalen who was a young elf who was protected by his clan until he became "of age". At that time he was sent off as a growing up ritual into the world to "learn" more. I played him naive. He wasn't dumb but just didn't get how things worked or tried too hard to fake it. One incident had him approach the bad guy and tried to act cool under pressure but started to cave pretty quick he then lost his temper and threw a glass at the bad guy who ducked and the glass hit a patron instead. Early on I had him not trust the world but eventually he began to trust the people around him, that is those who traveled with him, but over time certain people he met betrayed him. A child tried to poison him. A person he confided to hide him betrayed that confidence and then one of the players outright became a traitor and almost got him killed. the campaign ended there but after thinking about it for a while I was convinced that after all of that, he found a clan of elves who eventually got him to start speaking out against humans until he basically turned "evil". that is, right now if I were play Dhalen again, he would be in charge of a terrorist organization that wants to root out human corruption completely and restore Middle Earth to the Elves.

Just thought I share to see if that helps generate ideas.