"Radical" Character Concepts

Discussion in 'Other Fan Creations' started by Mir0v0i, Oct 16, 2016.

  1. Mir0v0i

    Mir0v0i Void-Bound Voyager

    Here are some character concepts I made for my game; I put some thought into them, so I upload them here in case they might be useful for others. I prefer my character to have some history, background and goals beyond "was member of Protectorate, now search for artifacts". Each concept provides some history, quote and quirks of a character. Quirks are just for fun - they are self-imposed rules tied into overall character concept which I try to obey.

    WARNING: lots of text in the spoilers. Also, these characters are not very nice. They are made to provide counterpoint to the "official party line", where character from any race starts the game as peace-loving member of Protectorate (even the Floran!). For that reason I define them as "Radical".

    I intend to make a concept for every Starbound race, but it might take a while. For now I'll upload concepts which are already made, and will add other concepts when I finish them.

    Floran: Floran Hero

    Hunt. Ssstab. Eat. All Florans follow these tenets, but you aspire to something else. Glory. Most modern Florans are a disgrace, living on their ancestors’ successes but not making any of their own. What glory is in hunting fishfolk, few of whom know how to defend themselves anyway? What fun is in torturing helpless slaves? It is nothing compared to the deeds of the Blown Leaf clan, whose members were the first to rebuild crashed flying ship of the apes and the first to lead Floran to new hunting grounds in the black sky. Or to the clan that drove three-eyed smelling fish from their planet when they were still strong. These ancestor spirits are probably screaming in rage right now, for their descendants nowadays are content with small game, sullying the feared reputation of our race.

    But you are different. You were the youngest Floran to climb the dreaded Slashing Ladder and return unscathed. You crossed the Death Plains, which everyone considered to be impossible – and you did it twice. You have killed the fearsome Shining Spirit, which have roamed the jungles for decades following the crash of the flying ape-ship, and brought its iron head on a stick back to your village. Your ship was not stolen or, even worse, ordered from gullible game. You have obtained it by trickery and strength from hairy apes, like the Blown Leaf members once did ages ago.

    You found some documents in it describing an organization of the game called “the Terrene Protectorate”, though its goals made no sense to you. But it contained coordinates of the homeworld of these silly humans, and you instantly grasped at that chance. Driving the fishfolk out of their ugly homes by strength of numbers was not so hard after all; conquering the entire planet full of humans with their magic thingies all by yourself – now that’s a task worthy of epic sagas!

    Unfortunately, some giant monstrosity beat you to it and the humans were already scrambling away from the planet and the system when you arrived. You couldn’t kill the thing at that time, so you had to leave to gather resources. The stupid talking head in the skyship, which was supposed to give advice on controlling the vessel, became weird for a moment, and now you have no idea where you are. But the planet below is full of game; you can almost fell it calling to you. You will gather resources, using whatever means necessary, and then… then the world will know what it means to be tamed by a true Floran.

    Quote: You are in my way, cocoonkin. Ssstand asside, or ssufer death.

    Quirk: Raider

    You consider such activities like building houses or constructing dwellings for tenants to be time-consuming and demeaning for the true Hero (which is YOU, of course). Although this is probably because you just can’t hammer a nail without hitting yourself in the head (repeatedly), and because you are too lazy to construct anything useful. So instead you make use of the existing buildings, hijacking the inhabited houses by placing your own Colony Deeds in them, and in some cases even removing “ugly” furniture and adding “fashionable” one. This means that you can’t build houses for tenants or labs or houses for personal use; you must utilize existing buildings, though you can “redecorate” them if necessary (up to the point of leaving only the walls or the floor from the original building).

    Glitch: Unbounded Rebel

    I grew up… that is, I have been built up in a typical Glitch peasant family. My Mum and Dad – the Glitch who built me – spent almost every day from dawn to dusk growing automatos and currentcorn, grazing cattle and generally managing the farm. Life was hard, but me and my brother were used to it and even found some joy in simple things, like flirting with that tease Floppy JoyStick from the neighboring house who was a most marvelous piece of hardware.

    And then the war came. One day messengers from Lord Hardcurrent, our ruler, have arrived. They said the Lord needed all able-bodied men to defend his land against depredations of the neighboring ruler, Lord FaultyCharge. In fact, both of them have been eyeing the lands of each other for some time, FaultyCharge just struck first. No one knew this at a time, nor would anyone care if they knew – they were Lords, after all, it’s what they usually do. My father and my brother went to war, and for some time we had no news of them. And then we heard that our army was defeated.

    Army of Lord FaultyCharge routed our troops and then made its way to the castle of Lord Hardcurrent, taking everything useful and burning the rest. The fires were so big, we could see them miles away; when I see a glow like this, I can still hear my mother praying.

    After a short siege Lord Hardcurrent agreed to the truce, seeing that no allies were going to come to his aide. He had given FaultyCharge the disputed lands, then both lords shook hands and spoke about the peace. There was a cheering in the village as the war ended, but not so much in our house: my brother returned a cripple, his arm separated by a blow from a knight. My father did not return at all. He was killed when our army was routed and, maybe, still lays there, a broken heap of metal and gears. I couldn’t find him; my mother and brother didn’t even bother.

    And both lords shook hands. And they spoke about peace.

    With two fewer sets of arms (my brother couldn’t work now without an arm, and efforts to attach a new one failed; the knight’s electric axe messed up connections in his stump and new arm wouldn’t connect properly, as the medicine man explained) to work we had great trouble in meeting the quota on Automatos and Currentcorns set by our Lord. Other families tried to help us, but many were hit hard by war as well, and my brother was dead-set against their help. “We have to make do as well as we can, little brother. It will get better in a time, you’ll see”.

    But it didn’t. The Glitch who collected crops for the Lord came once, then twice, and both times our provision was inadequate. The third time they came, they came with soldiers. My brother was beaten and carried; it would be with same with me, had I not fled through the window. I knew not where to go, but at last I crept to a wizard’s tower, avoided all traps with strange ease and huddled in some bushes to sleep. Next morning I disguised myself and got to town, wandering there until I got to the town square. There I found my brother.

    He was put in stocks as a warning to other peasants who neglected to pay the tithe, and his face was already red from all the rotten fruit thrown at him. Any passerby could insult him, kick him, throw dirty stuff at him.

    I know that I should have glitched right there. Maybe I did. For some reason I felt no rage, but an understanding… an understanding like no other before. I suddenly remembered that I never exactly fitted in. I was the only one to object to that stupid war. I was the only one to come looking for my lost father, while others assumed that dead are dead and moved on. Only I minded the hard everyday labor. Only I have gotten through all traps around wizard’s tower with ease, without any training whatsoever. Now, looking at my brother in the stocks, I understood I was different from all Glitch I ever knew.

    It was no rush of secret knowledge; I just looked back and saw things in a completely different way. I couldn’t help my brother there – the guards would have caught me too – but I swore a terrible vengeance. I will see all these lords and kings and wizards – all those who lord over the common folk – I will see them fall away, their castles and hideouts crumbling before the fury of the mob, their precious fingers cut off, their heads put in stocks for anyone to kick them or laugh at them.

    But for all that I needed preparation. I needed resources. And so I made my way past wizard’s traps once again and lurked in his tower like a rat, coming out at nights to swallow knowledge from books and scrolls. After the revelation it did not surprise me much that “magic” of the wizards were in fact advanced science, and that this one was built a vessel for travelling in a void between worlds for Lord Hardcurrent. Because our gentle and noble lord deserved to be gifted with such technical marvels while we peasants toiled in the fields all day with aeon-old tools and provided him with food, as well as with ready soldiers in case he made his mind to war. And then war veterans like my brother could be put in stocks if they failed to pay tax in time.

    I stole a ship from the wizard and Lord Hardcurrent and flew away. I visited many planets and saw many strange cultures, but I always remembered about my vow and my family, or at least what remained of it.

    In my travels I made contact with Terrene Protectorate, a noble organization dedicated to promoting peace and goodwill among all races. Sadly, they were very naïve and could not decide to do many important steps, like arming the peasants against the nobles, but they were useful still. I was on Earth with a goal of buying weapons (mostly books, which proved to be deadlier than swords in right hands in a right time, and a whole lot cheaper), when a giant bellowing monster hit the planet. I managed to escape, but the computer malfunctioned (the monster probably emitted some kind of electronic interference) and delivered the ship into an unknown star system. All the refugees whom I have taken aboard have died, sadly (who would have thought that humans needed oxygen so much?) and I had to remove them from the ship once they started to decompose.

    But I can’t let that drag me down. Most other unbounded Glitch are too happy to be free from our outdated feudal system, so they forget about those left behind. They forget, but I do not. I would gather resources and then I would return… and when I do, no guards, no stolen technology will help Hardcurrent.

    Because I am the Unbounded Rebel, and I will topple the kings to the ground.

    Quote: Mocked Politeness: you have no idea what suffering really means, Your Majesty. But you’ll learn soon enough.

    Quirks: Lowborn, Social anarchist

    Built from low-grade metal, as befits a peasant, and manufactured rather roughly by your parents (who, like all low-class Glitch, lacked the fine motoric skills of noble arms), you suffer from limitations which will never go away and can’t be treated even with best technologies, now that you have them. One of them means that you are unable to consume organic food (which means any food not designed for Glitch consumption – you can eat only currentcorn and automatos and suchlike). Organic food of other races tastes absolutely horrendous (from your opinion), and you can force yourself to eat it only on the absolute brink of starvation, with no other food available.

    You also bear resentment against Glitch nobles of all kinds (kings, wizards and knights), whom you consider to be parasites and tyrants. You can’t ignore the plight of the common people (real or imaginary) and so you kill or humiliate all aforementioned nobles whenever you encounter them. Obviously, you will never do quests for them, too.

    Novakid: Bounty Hunter

    It is no secret that many places in the galaxy are sorely lacking in justice. It’s all right in the core systems, but not so on the outer fringes, with their haphazard settlements and multiple species. In fact, to simply explain the idea of justice and law to inhabitants of these places would require one to speak slowly and use colorful illustrations and diagrams (and Florans would probably not understand even after that). So there are literally hordes of outlaws out there, many of them with attractive bounties on their heads. Someone got to do a job of collecting them.

    Luckily for good guys (and unluckily for bad ones) that someone is you.

    Most of your life (or at least the part you care to remember) you roamed the space, tracking unpleasant guys and hitting them with even more unpleasant things. You are an expert in your line of work, doing it for money and sheer joy (not necessarily in that order). You have brought down many mad Glitch wizards, deranged Human warlords, Novakid outlaws and, of course, Florans of all kinds, shapes and colors. You are practically a beacon of hope for those small communities slighted by some powerful bastard who lives in a fortified fortress and has dozens of guards or is too dangerous for even an army to take on. It doesn’t matter for you. No target is too big if the pay is enough, and so far you haven’t found anyone who can match your skill and expertise. You are almost a paragon of justice, really. Right?

    Well, um, all right, you do some hits for corrupt Avian clergy and totalitarian Miniknog. Quite a few of them, in fact. A lot of them, to be absolutely honest.

    They are your prime benefactors, really. But who is to blame? It’s not your fault that totalitarian regimes are all paranoid and quite wealthy from sucking their nations dry and have a lot of enemies and therefore order assassinations on a regular basis, paying solid pixels for them, while peaceful regimes for some reason are mostly poor, and unwilling to pay for killing their enemies in any case. You blame the rebel leaders: after the 11’th successful hit the rest of them could take a clue and prepare big wallets with lots of pixels to buy you off instead of building “impregnable” fortresses (which are easily dug in from below) or employing dozens of “trusty” guards (more like “targets” or “vegetables” based on their skill with guns). You are privately hoping that your un-natural selection will uncover at least some smart ones, who would buy you off to kill your benefactors instead; it is becoming a bore anyway, and you hate being bored most of all.

    It is all just pointless philosophy now, however, with you stranded on a derelict ship in some backward system. How did it come to be so? Well, one of your long-standing contractors in Avian clergy ordered a hit on one of their own, some secretly deranged cultist who was about to arrive on a human homeworld Earth.

    You couldn’t find him before things became a lot more interesting: some giant tentacled monster was on a crash-course with planet. You barely managed to escape, and now orbit some planet without fuel onboard (which doesn’t worry you) and no weapons (which worry you A LOT). You have to remedy this situation, and after that you will ask some sharp questions to your Avian benefactor – like how strangely close was the moment between your arrival on a planet and the monster crashing into it. And then…

    The universe should better get ready, ‘cause the best bounty hunter out there is itching to go into business again.

    Quote: If you are a smart man, you’ll pay me the sum I mentioned and we won’t see each other again, If you are not smart, just keep reaching for that hidden pistol you think I can’t see.



    Quirk: Snobbery

    Mucking about with plants and soil and fertilizers and smelly farm animals to get food? This is for sissies! You won’t do anything of this kind even at a gunpoint. You can get all the food you need by hunting and gathering fruits and wonder why no one else does. Why would anyone waste their time preparing “Ocean Salads” when a cooked steak fills the belly just as well? Simply put, you can’t make farms to get food. You must get food by hunting or foraging or even buying it from stores. Note that farming for SCIENCE, like planting bracken trees in hydroponic trays to get silk in FU mod, is acceptable.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
    Omicron445 likes this.
  2. Master Automan IV

    Master Automan IV Phantasmal Quasar

    Whoa there!

    Maybe try to put these concepts into spoilers.
    It'll make everything less cluttered.
    If you don't know how, heres how you do it.
    Contents in spoiler
     
  3. Mir0v0i

    Mir0v0i Void-Bound Voyager

    Thanks for the tip! Yeah, it looks a lot less cluttered now :)
     
    Master Automan IV likes this.
  4. Omegagreen

    Omegagreen Starship Captain

    Wow, you actually turned the story into something interesting. Good work.
     

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