Journey Into the North Discussion Thread (Old 4T thread)

Thanks for inviting me. Here's my character rough draft, tell me what you think! I'm not attached to anything here, so if you think something needs changing, let me know.


Full Name: Becky Stillman

Gender: Female

Age: 20

Race: Human

Eye Color: Brown

Height: 5'6" average build.

Occupation: none yet.

Personality: Sedegely survivor. She ran away and hid at the first sign of trouble. Becky and her siblings were trained by her parents. She followed the hero's group away from Sedegely because of her shame at her cowardice. She wants to learn to fight and avenge herself.

Appearance: Unable to control facial expression, so she always looks how she feels. Her face isn't pretty at all; her eyebrows are too thick, her nose is freckled and her mouth is small and full of crooked teeth. She has a cute smile though. Sandy hair.

Clothing: Leather vest over brown tunic, brown pants.

Weapon:
-- father's sword, with sheath.
-- dagger

Spells/magic: Minor. She can magically repair things some of the time.

Special Skills:
-- Easy to forget. Because of her plain features and clothing and quiet manor, she is often ignored, and isn't perceived as a threat. She can gain information this way.

-- Doesn't get bored. Becky has an amusing brain, and can thus entertain herself for hours without needing to do anything physically. This is interesting for others to watch, because it appears that she is just sitting there making faces.

-- Not very gullible. She had lots of siblings.

Weaknesses:
-- Proficient with a blade, but inexperienced in combat. Angers very quickly while fighting, because of her need for revenge, and loses control. Sort of like a barbarian, only more reckless and less talented. She'd be a liability until she gains more experience.

-- Her face. She can't control it at all, which makes it near impossible for her to conceal her emotions, or to lie.

-- Afraid of animals (or anything not humanoid.)

-- Distant until she knows someone well, and then clingy.

This is an interesting profile!

She wouldn't be the only Sedgeley Survivor, Finn also survived, (although she wasn't around at the time.)

I'm not sure if she'd be able to use magic (most of the arcane magic is pretty much in tatters) but once it's restored, it would be quite possible to use.

If you don't mind, I'll include Becky in a post with General Harris. She'll point her towards the group (the Army won't allow women into combat, but the group would.)

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Adrian. Desertation means being branded with a "D" and by branded, I mean red-hot iron brands.

Of course, if one of the elites is a coward, then that poses problems for her. She's trying to convince her army that they're dangerous, but a coward could unfold that claim in no time.

Adrian could take the branding like a man, commit suicide, or Harris could try to bury it.

And Valin thought branding was just giving someone a cut...

Still, Seraph and Valin would be called in as well. She needs to go through them to discipline Adrian, if she needs to at all.

I'm not sure what you have in mind for Adrian, Siegfried.

Okay. Make sure that if she sees Alden, she's sufficiantly spooked. (Fear of anything not humanoid.)

I was talking with Jack, Dono and Fand about having her be caught nosing about for food in the camp, where she's been blending in, by one of the group members. In your post, the general could point her towards the group without really thinking about it, and move on. She could be caught stealing later.

I don't know, though. Anything works!

Sorry for going past your placeholder misspriss, but it shouldn't effect your character or the others.

I just edited my placeholder and put in my post, thought it doesn't show that there is a new post, there is.

Griffinkeeper wrote:This is an interesting profile!

She wouldn't be the only Sedgeley Survivor, Finn also survived, (although she wasn't around at the time.)

I'm not sure if she'd be able to use magic (most of the arcane magic is pretty much in tatters) but once it's restored, it would be quite possible to use.

If you don't mind, I'll include Becky in a post with General Harris. She'll point her towards the group (the Army won't allow women into combat, but the group would.)

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Adrian. Desertation means being branded with a "D" and by branded, I mean red-hot iron brands.

Of course, if one of the elites is a coward, then that poses problems for her. She's trying to convince her army that they're dangerous, but a coward could unfold that claim in no time.

Adrian could take the branding like a man, commit suicide, or Harris could try to bury it.

And Valin thought branding was just giving someone a cut...

Still, Seraph and Valin would be called in as well. She needs to go through them to discipline Adrian, if she needs to at all.

I'm not sure what you have in mind for Adrian, Siegfried.

She can't brand him he's a member of the church. He can't be harmed Dono told me. Ask Jack or Dono they told me this Grif.

Grif--te three of us (Jack, Jenna, and I) actually developed a really awesome backstory for Becky;

The party believes Sedgeley was destroyed because they withheld information from the priesthood, and that's true. However, they don't know what information was withheld, and who held it. As it turned out, Becky's mother was a very powerful mage in her time--when she gave up a life of study, she retired to Sedgeley, and used her magic sparingly, to help the community. Very few, if any, of the citizens would know of the presence of a mage.

Becky's mother was also the keeper of the Tomes of Arcana--another reason why she was located so close to the cemetary. Now there's a relevance to this, but I prefer to not give it away right about now.

When the Weave was destroyed, Becky's mother lost her power, along with the other magic users of the planet. Previously, she taught Becky some minor spells--obviously Becky can't use those, now.

This is just what we were tossing around yesterday...if it works, awesome--if not, we need to think of osmething else before we rush Jenna into the story.

How she introduces herself should be purely Jenna's decision, in my opinion.

As for Adrian: Adrian is a Paladin of the Church--he's not technically affiliated with any military group, now. As such, he is protected by that church, and is only succeptible to the punishment they have dealt him--a life of servitude to their god. Furthermore...he's under Valin's command--it's Valin's decision.

Here's what I'm thinking of for Becky. Now that she's an apprentice, she is going to be doing a lot of tough work.

This is important because she isn't on the level of the rest of the group. So, to keep her focused and to keep Finn from killing her, Alden's turned her into an apprentice. This effectively means that she is a second class citizen. Finn can go from hating her guts, to abusing her, to pitying her, to making friends with her (this being at Fand's sole discretion.)

Alden's time is going to be spent in one of three areas.

1. Giving Becky busy work (chop some wood, clean the floors, change the bedding, make your bed, make Seraph's bed, re-make your bed, clean up gryphlet bile, etc.) The idea is that it builds character. During this time, he'll treat her as a servant.

2. Giving Becky instruction. This will involve a lot of talking and some exercises. He might have her do all her chores and exercises in chain mail (so that she can get used to it.) During this time he treats her like a student.

3. Seeing to Becky's needs. This includes food, shelter, clothing, and dealing with the rest of the group's problems with her. He acts more like a benefactor at this point.

Do you think we can work with this for a little while?

Yea, but it's gonna have to be a crash course or something due to the Elven situation on our hands.

Also what might be good, is to have someone relatively hard and possibly even scary teach her how to fight.

Seraph wouldn't allow that treatment--in his eyes, there are no second class citizens--only people who aren't him

Seriously though...Becky is already a trained warrior--she's somewhere between Henry and Adrian in terms of her skill with a blade. I fail to see how turning her into a slave will help her become a warrior.

There is an important distinction between a slave a servant, and an apprentice.

A slave is someone who is forced to serve someone for the rest of their natural lives, without compensation.

A servant is someone who serves someone for a certain time and with privilages and money (or compensation.)

An apprentice is the easiest: they are not forced to work. Where you would punish a servant or a slave for not working, you wouldn't for an apprentice. If Becky were to stop, she would be told to leave.

Her compensation is that she is taken care of (as a master would take care of a servant) and that she may stay and learn. In return, she must do something to earn her keep. This means work.

If Seraph thinks she's being overworked or being treated unfairly, then he can say something to Alden.

No, Grif. Becky should not become Alden's apprentice. Not least because of one glaring fact: she's scared $h**less of him.

I agree with DQ that someone "mean and scary" should give her some training and such. I think the best candidates would either be seraph (but I will nto volunteer him for Dono) or Valin.

The problem with having Valin and Seraph do the training is that Valin is busy trying to coordinate his return, and Seraph is busy trying to hold the group together. Neither of them have the time.

Alden is big and scary, but this makes him an ideal candidate. She'll need to face the unknown, and Alden is representative of that unknown.

She'll gradually lose her fear of him.

If Alden doesn't know something, (like archery or advanced swordsmanship) then he'll call on Seraph and Valin. Otherwise, he'll let them do their important work while he deals with training the child.

I think Alden can't really teach Becky anything. Although Henry isn't scary or particularly trained with a blade, he could help out -- he needs to blade practice too, so a sparring partner would be good. Becky and Henry have similar backgrounds, very similar backgrounds, so that will help. If not, we could always have Cyrus help her out -- he's a Dwarf, a veteran fighter, someone who knows how to fight but isn't tied down with other responsibilities. I just don't see how Becky would react to a Griffon.

The way you describe Henry, maybe he should become an apprentice as well!

Seriously though, I've talked with Jennafina about this idea, she's okay with it.

But... perhaps we can work with this.

Seraph gave her over to Alden. What if Cyrus and Henry took this as a vote of no confidence, a snub in response to their earlier behavior.

This would cause tension in the group and then Seraph or Valin would have to deal with it. All sorts of jealousy and anger could be the result of this; this makes for conflict.

If Alden were to be replaced, then it would be telling Alden that they don't have confidence in him.

But for right now, Jenna and I are working together on this, it will work out just fine.