Hero Critique Thread (Because it's about damn time for this too!)

Bruh. Critique/review someone's hero before adding your own.

I would have to agree with Serocco in that you need to keep a lid on the fan service, maybe not a tight lid, but a lid none the less.

I think having a mute character may be problematic from a story telling perspective since in order for her to appeal to the reader she can't use words, and (i assume your writing a book) words are how you convey information in a book.

Imagine a situation where character A is annoyed with character B. Titti can't say something sarcastic to get her point across so you would have to dip into her internal thoughts or spend time describing how she reacts physically, narrowing eyes, intense glare, stiffing posture, ectra.

What I'm trying to say is that flow could be a problem, if she gets annoyed or scared you can't have say something that explains her whole emotional state in one word, you need to describe her reaction in detail to understand. Don't get me wrong it can be done, but looking at the Cute Mute page none of the Literature examples are main characters, which might be a warning.

Having said all that: I am not an expert writer, these are just my thoughts and they may as far from the truth as my chair is from the dark side of mars. So take this with the biggest grain of salt you can.

Yeah, the muteness got old real fast. -_- I will have to change it. I guess it could work in a short story but always reading about descriptions of mimic and gestic alone gets awkward, repetitive and boring I found. Even with the inclusion of her thoughts.

The Fanservice is mainly an in-universe thing. Since the story is seen through her eyes, she won't be sexualizing herself a lot. She is exhibitionistic not narcissistic.

@James Lee Mc Kigney

Apart from the heroic BSOD business, James Jamerson (very good Mr. Stan Lee!) comes off as a very clear Expy of Ash Ketchum from Pokemon which I suppose is the point. Seems like a very conventional anime protagonist, idiot savant almost. Not really a big fan of this archetype.

Name: Sumisha "Kali" Rathore

Age: 13

Personality: Violence made flesh. Sumisha starts off as an angry little ball of hate who goes on a rampage to exact revenge against those who wronged/created her. After a near death experience she mellows out but retains her almost psychotic love of a good fight and needs little reason to kill people (not her fault, she was conditioned that way). She can be a good friend however and comes off as incredibly snarky and cynical. She could be described as "wild" and "life of the party." She is also disturbingly aware of her own sexuality to the point where she uses it to disarm or unnerve opponents. She has had a history of psychical, mental and one case of sexual abuse which has left her somewhat less than sane. The experiment that made her wanted an amoral sociopath killing machine.

Abilities: Cyborg Infiltration unit. Equipped with heightened senses, incredible speed, strength & agility, her entire skeleton has been reinforced. Imagine Spider-Man on coke. Her two primary weapons include a retractable blade on the right forearm and a prehensile grappling hook on the other. In addition she is an above average user of Krav Maga & Capoeira martial arts and is a gifted marksman even without her boosted senses. Resilient to small arms fire and unaffected by chemical weaponry.

More details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/2ksvyc/test_my_protagonist_strongest_characters_she_can/

Weaknesses: She is incredibly reckless and prefers a straight up brawl than being smart. Superior cyborgs can and have taken her down. At the end of the day, she shares a common human weakness of bullet to the head but it would have to be from an anti-material rifle or something. In addition, if he goes into her 'berserker' mode, all hell breaks lose as she will relentless attack anything and everything until her systems determine she is in a safe zone and shut down. She is little more than a primal beast in this stage and could be considered unconscious. Being critically damaged sends her into this mode and can easily lead to her death if the opponent is smart.

Goals: REVENGE!!! Was the initial goal but she had achieved it thanks to it being handed to her on a silver platter. The ones who handed the platter are now manipulating her but she doesn't know it. So her current goal is to stop any more "Kali" type cyborgs or other cyborg weapons from being created especially by terrorist groups (the plans for her design were leaked). The real villain keeps her happy and complacent this way.

Motivation: Making the world a better place, ensure no one suffers like she did and hope to reconcile with an old friend who ended up being turned into another cyborg and government pet.

Role in the story: Starts off as a MacGuffin/Protagonist combination. Evolves to Nominal Hero in sequel and does stuff mostly for the heck of it or "to make the world a better place" even though she herself admits it's impossible now. Will eventually become Villain Protagonist.

Backstory: Her first 10 years were spent in a Brothel under the tutelage of one of the prostitutes. The prostitute was a bit too touchy feely but otherwise did not harm her. However, at one point the manager of the brothel forced Sumisha into a sexual act which angered the Prostitute and she killed the manager. A Charity organization took Sumisha away but it was actually a front for a human trafficking ring run by a Mercenary Company called Aegipan. Aegipan was collecting impoverished kids and giving them to a company called Vishpala Technologies for experimentation. After two years of training in the jungle and augmentation, she managed to escape when the lead scientist being disgusted with the whole affair triggers her berserker mode. The lead scientist and Sumisha team up and take down Vishpala with the help of a benefactor, namely Sergius Technologies who had vested interests in Vishpala's program. Vishpala's atrocities become world news as powerful people rush to develop their own cyborg soldiers. Sumisha intends to stop the wrong people from abusing the technology while herself she is being manipulated from the shadows.

edited 17th Jul '15 1:51:23 PM by SmokingBun

@Ambar (606 & 608) : Feel a little late commenting, but, first off, that’s a pretty awesome setting. It’s interesting to envision what a world would be like when you give laser rifles and robots to knights and rangers. A couple questions about the setting, are the aliens still alive following the starship’s crash, and if so, how many of them are there? You said it was a LOTR style fantasy world, does that mean there are traditional fantasy beings too?

With Shivah, I will say I find it an interesting contradiction that she protects people but she doesn’t particularly like them. It seems to me that most people who suffer from Chronic Hero Syndrome in fiction, at the very least seem to think Good Feels Good. So that makes me wonder if Shivah is purely defending people on principle alone, because that’s what her parents wanted her to do and trained her to do? If she’s only doing her duty for the sake of duty, it would make for compelling reading to discover if or when down the line she’ll finally achieve more personal gratification for fulfilling her duty. Although I always suppose there’s the other option that she’s merely fulfilling her duty because it’s her best chance at vengeance against 777. By the way, are all robots, drones, cyborgs, etc, automatically evil? If not, would their alignment prevent Shivah from killing them or would she kill them either way?

As for Sargon Soll, I’ll be perfectly honest, I love this guy. As you said, less moral than Shivah but more likeable. Just imagining their interactions with one another makes for a goldmine of comedy.

@dRoy (609): Japheth sounds like a really compelling and three-dimensional character. Even though he has incredible abilities, his flaws are all believable. His backstory is also great. I love how he’s become trapped by the decisions of his father, has become a pariah amongst the other lords for a treason he never wanted to commit, and is acting for his siblings best interests rather than his own honor. His history as well as his relationship with his father and brother sound like they can make from great drama. The only thing I kind of question is the king arranging for him to marry his eldest daughter and setting him up as the next person in line for the throne since, a) Japheth is so mistrusted by others, and, even if he didn’t want to do it, b) did still commit treason. Maybe I could imagine it in a "Robert Baratheon, bad king, but fairly nice dude," kind of character, like if he had some attachment to Japheth (like the son he always wanted), or Japheth’s family (he actually liked Japheth’s dad and was disappointed in his treason), but without a good reason I find it a little unbelievable.

@Smoking Bun: Sumisha is certainly an interesting protagonist with a very sad backstory. She remind me in many ways of X-23 from X-Men, what with the prostitution angle and the trigger phase, and being essentially raised as a weapon. You are right, the idea of a thirteen-year-old person, male or female being so in-touch and aware of their sexuality is kind of Squick.

It's kind of a shame that her role is simply a manipulated weapon for the real villains of the tale to use as they please; I like the idea that she's trying to stop what happened to her from befalling other people and prevent the world from falling into chaos, though as you said, raw motivation to do good can so easily be twisted to the wrong ends.

Sumisha has a good skill-set too, and you managed to walk the line of being a skilled warrior and killer without making her overpowered.

So yeah, my only problem with her is actually her shift into a Villain Protagonist, and it's not even an issue with the character as much as it is the author's choice, so don't worry.

edited 2nd Aug '15 9:23:20 AM by Swordofknowledge

This is a re-post from a long time ago, but things have changed since then. Now then, reintroducing the Deuteragonist of Archmage Reborn.

• Name: Mia Scarlteen "The Deathless"

• Age: 22

• Appearance: Mia is a wiry young woman at least 5'4 in height. She has a light olive complexion, shaggy shoulder-length black hair, blue eyes and an Erzarian Warrior Caste tattoo on the nape of her neck. A jagged foot-long scar runs vertically down her chest to her abdomen. When in battle, Mia wears black and silver armor and chain mail with Erzarian Principality's symbol etched on the back. When not fighting, she wears white tunics and skirts. At all times Mia wears a giant wooden knife-block on a leather strap with slots for her three swords.

Personality: Mia is cold and standoffish, distancing herself from all but a few select friends in her guild. She has little pity for people she views as weak, and is comfortable letting them suffer and die, believing that the strong have the right to trample on the powerless. This temperament and outlook is the result of her difficult childhood, and the Erzarian philosophy she learned from an early age. As the story progresses, Mia slowly learns compassion and empathy both through gaining friendships and losing people close to her.

Mia is a deep believer in fighting to survive with all your strength. If she sees someone doing that, she will then lend assistance. She has next to no mercy in battle, and will fight to the death, even if her opponent has surrendered, resulting in a brutal execution.

Like most Erzarians Mia despises the Conclave for invading her country and cutting it off from the rest of the Haven. Being the latest Second Vessel only worsens this, since the Conclave subjugated Erzaria for the sole purpose of "protecting" the Second Vessel. Mia feels great self-loathing because of this fact, and hates any mention of the object sealed inside her.

• Abilities: Mia is an expert swordswoman and possesses incredible agility. She uses quick maneuvers to avoid her opponent's attacks before delivering heavy slashes and stabs. Mia can even utilize her unique scabbard as a weapon, swinging the heavy wooden object into her enemies. This can stun her opponent and even inflict serious injury. Because of the Key of Elements and Healing sealed within her, Mia is immortal. She still ages, but the Key will resurrect her if she suffers a mortal wound. This power extends even to attacks that utterly annihilate her—the Key will reconstruct her entire body in a matter of ten to twenty minutes. These resurrections heal any injuries she had previously acquired.

• Weaknesses: Mia's fighting capability decreases drastically if she is forced to use more than one sword. Keeping track of two weapons slows her down and leaves her vulnerable to attack. Even though she will rise from the dead, the process can take time, during which she is entirely helpless. Mia is still very unfamiliar with the Haven apart from Erzaria. Its politics and even its people are a mystery to her despite having been in the Hired Swords Consortium for at least four years. This leads to several awkward situations and even dangerous encounters simply because, for all her training and austere mentality, she is very naive. Because she was hit with it once, Mia is very vulnerable to the Four Points Extraction spell and can suffer its effects within moments of the original caster starting it nearby.

• Goals: Avoid being recaptured by the Conclave's forces or being abducted by Legenada. Defy the destiny of the Vessels by living out a normal life outside the Erzarian Principality. Later in the story, she wishes to save the world from Nadia Denashel's plans and raise her daughter in peace.

• Motivation: Mia grew up under the burden of being a Vessel and was told countless times with varying degrees of tact that she existed solely for the magic-users of The Haven. Adding to that burden was the resentment her own people felt towards her because the Conclave annexed Erzaria 200 years ago and sealed the land away when they discovered that one of the two Vessels was among the citizens. All she wants is to be away from the unspoken blame of her fellow Erzarians and be allowed to see the world beyond the Opal Sea that surrounds her homeland.

• Role in the story: The Chosen One Deuteragonist Defrosting Ice Queen and eventual love interest for Veil River.

Backstory: Mia was born 22 years before Archmage Reborn to the previous Second Vessel, Grail Scarlteen and her lover, Macklin Ondor, the son of the Conclave’s Viceroy for Erzaria. Minutes after the Key was extracted from her mother and placed into her, the witch Nadia Denashel attacked and slaughtered the guards and the Healers attending Grail for the delivery and Key extraction. After ensuring that Grail died from her wounds, Nadia made off with the infant Mia, using the painful Four Points Extraction spell to remove the Key. After seeing Mia had survived, Nadia attempted to crush her beneath her foot. It was only the time intervention and efforts of the young Eric Pilkan who saved Mia’s life and drove the invader away at the cost of his right arm and the transformation of his magic forever.

With the Key resealed in her body, Mia was given back to her father. However Grail was dead and violence and terror surrounded her death and the birth of his child. Macklin wanted to leave Erzaria and forget all that had occurred there. Knowing that Mia would be taken care of, he left his daughter and never looked back, though he did keep track of her development from a distance. Mia was raised in the collective manner of all Warrior Caste children, though she bore heavy resentment for being a Vessel. Though her physical needs were taken care of and she received the standard warrior’s training, her only friend was Eric due to his vow to guard her, and the understanding he felt because he too had lost his parents that night—and he knew what it was to be ostracized.

When Mia was seventeen, the Conclave chose an Erzarian warrior, a young man named Colin to be her husband and continue the line of the Vessels. Though outwardly accepting of this, Mia chafed under the strain of her destiny.The marriage felt like an intolerable burden, and at last she could take it no more. Playing on Eric’s soft-spot for her, Mia persuaded him to let her stow away on board a supply ship headed to the mainland just so that she could see something outside Erzaria before settling down. Eric reluctantly agreed and delayed the ship while she hid in the cargo hold. While passing through the barrier, Mia repeatedly died, but of course was able to make it through the trip. After arriving in the port city of Len-Attel, she made a split second decision and fled the ship, realizing that for the first time in her life she was truly free...

• Relevant Tropes:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Mia spends several hours a day personally honing her four swords to their sharpest capacity. It is mentioned that the Hired Swords have employees specifically dedicated to this purpose, but she prefers to do it herself, her reasoning being that if the weapons aren't at their best, she has only herself to blame. At one point she was able to sever a man’s arm through his armored gauntlet without the swing losing any momentum.

• Action Girl: She was raised to be a warrior from the time she was six years old, and has battled sporadically in at least five wars across The Haven due to belonging to a guild of soldiers-of-fortune. Mia is also capable of going toe-to-toe with fully trained combat wizards and witches, something that isn't taken lightly.

• Achey Scars: The Four Points Extraction spell left scars all over her body in the shape of the spell's runes. However, they are undetectable by the naked eye. They only become visible—and quite painful—when the caster of the spell and victim draw near one another. At first it is implied to be Malice of the Red Cloaks who tried to snatch the Key from her twenty two years ago, as he is certainly evil enough and the pain is triggered when he is close by. However it is revealed that the actual caster is Malice's supposedly blind and timid partner Nadia Denashel, who is actually the ancient and feared witch Thana Krelios.

• Anti-Hero: All Mia really wants is to be left alone to live out her life instead of being guided along a predestined path. Even after she agrees to help fight Legenada, it is more about self-preservation and revenge for her dead guild-mates than "saving the world".

• All Of The Other Rein Deer: Though never physically bullied and her needs were cared for she was ostracized by her fellow Erzarians, adults and children alike. The reason for this was simple: The Conclave annexed their country and trapped them in their own land—all to protect the Vessel in order to preserve magical power and stability in the world. Her mother and her mother's mother and all the Vessels for two hundred years previous have received this same treatment.

• Amplifier Artifact: Her presence can amplify elemental and healing magic, though it is unknown just how close one has to be to her for this to happen. In Veil and Ara's case, their magic was magnified when standing within feet of Mia, so it is likely to be a very short-range phenomenon.

• Arranged Marriage: She was promised to Colin, an Erzarian warrior around her age, to continue the bloodline of the Vessels. Mia has mixed feelings about this. She has no reason to dislike Colin, since he was one of the few children who was not cruel to her, but she hates the idea of pairing with him simply because she was told to. In fact, judging from her guilt at leaving him and her Heroic BSoD when Colin leaves Erzaria to find her and is mortally wounded trying it is possible that she had no real problem with him or even the arranged marriage. Mia just didn't want another thing in her life she had no control over.

• Aloof Ally: To Veil in the beginning. After she saved him from being robbed, raped and murdered by a group of bandits after his Empathic Weapon and he found out she was a mercenary, he offered to pay her to be his bodyguard until he could get to Anticlaire. Loathing those who couldn't protect themselves, Mia naturally refused...however she needed the money badly to pay her Hired Swords Consortium dues and he was offering far more than she usually got.

• Ambiguously Human: Mia prevents the Key from being taken from her and sealed in her daughter by pure force of will, which causes an even deeper fusion than before and it is noted uneasily by the Conclave's experts that it seems to be a part of her body now. Because of this, Mia expresses discomfort about whether she can still be called fully human.

• And This Is for...: She screams this almost word-for-word right before bisecting Nadia's artificial body during the second-to-final battle, dedicating the sword strike to her mother, her father and everyone who has ever suffered and died because of her centuries of machinations and plots.

• Awesome by Analysis: Part of what makes Mia such a dangerous fighter is that in addition to brawn and agility she is also very astute at discovering an enemy's weak point. She often dances around, evading attacks, whether they be magic or physical until she can best discover how to kill her enemy.

• Badass: People believe she is one by default due to being an Erzarian warrior. While she can't do a lot of things the legends credit them with, she is quite a skilled and brutal fighter.

• Badass in Distress: After escorting Veil to Anticlaire city, she is ambushed by the Red Cloak Sorrow, who is Dangerously Genre-Savvy enough to poison her with a toxin that will not kill her but instead stimulate every pain receptor in her body, incapacitating her and allowing her to be captured without a fight. It takes Veil and Ara to temporarily put aside their differences to save her. Mia is known for becoming mysteriously deaf when this incident is mentioned until the subject is changed.

• Bash Brothers: With Anash the Implacable, a bounty-hunter in her guild. The two of them have worked together before and make quite a good team, and are genuinely friends. However they snark at one another constantly while working. When Anash is hired to go after Mia, he is genuinely regretful—though he does comment that the upside is getting to fight her.

• Battle Couple: With Veil during the Second Enchanter's war. The two of them go from being protected assets to actual fighters in the war against Nadia and her forces, much to the anger and chagrin of those doing the protecting.

• Barehanded Blade Block: She does this several times, at one point pulling the blade of a knife so that her attacker is yanked forward, allowing her to knee him in the stomach. Justified since she is wearing metal gauntlets during all of these incidents, protecting her hands from damage.

• Beneath the Mask: Mia presents herself as cold, placid and aloof, but she struggles often with her anger and resentment towards the Conclave and her own people for treating her like an object and a pariah respectively. At the same time Mia feels that being a Vessel is contributing to her country's plight, even if she had no choice in the matter. Perversely, years of hearing how important she is to the magical world has made her guilty for running away.

• Berserk Button: If you truly wish to anger her, tell Mia that her life isn't her own, and must be lived for the sake of the magic-users of the Haven. After Ara Talbot helps Veil rescue Mia from Sorrow and Rand, he gives her a long lecture during which he calls her "nothing but a container" while berating her for not living up to the "honor" of being one of the magical world's cornerstones. By the end of it, Mia is almost speechless with rage.

• Big Damn Heroes: This was how Mia met Veil for the first time. A small army of bandits that had cornered him, and she only intervened when they had beaten him within an inch of his life and one was about to rape him. However she only "lightened the load" by giving them another opponent, and left Veil to defend himself against the ones not fighting her. She later explains that she felt he was doing his best to live and deserved a helping hand. Once that was done, she had no interest in continuing to lend aid.

• Big Eater: She eats a lot of food, but it is justified by the insane amounts of training and exercise she does.

• Big Brother Mentor: Eric was one of these for her. Mia looked up to him like a surrogate older brother due to his constant presence around her, and the fact that he comforted her after particularly hard training sessions or bullying incidents. However Eric always made sure to keep this to a minimum, something Mia first resented but later accepted, since she admitted it helped her "stand on her own two feet".

• Blade Brake: Thrown backwards by magic or an especially powerful blow? Mia will just scramble for one of her blades, plant it deep into the ground and use it to steady herself in time to counterattack.

• Blood-Splattered Warrior

• Bodyguard Crush: Inverted. After hiring her as his bodyguard to protect him due to his Squishy Wizard status Veil slowly developed feelings for her. Mia did not initially share those feelings, but after Veil risked his life to save her from Legenada and they began to fight side-by-side, a mutual respect grew between them...which slowly became romantic.

• But I Can't Be Pregnant!: Mia's reaction when she finds out she is pregnant with Veil's child. It couldn't have come at a worse time either.

• Calling the Old Man Out: The first thing Mia does when she actually lays eyes on her father Macklin for the first time in her life is to smash him in the face with her scabbard, knocking him to the floor before leaping on him and demanding to know how he could have simply left her alone with those who either hated her or saw her as a commodity. When he gasps that after the horrible circumstances on the night of her birth he wanted to leave Erzaria and all those memories behind she becomes even more enraged and starts punching him while sobbing. Macklin, to his credit doesn't try to defend himself physically or emotionally, waving off the guards who would drag her off.

• Celibate Heroine: Mia is far more worried about exploring the world outside her homeland, avoiding the Conclave and Legenada, and just living a normal life than gaining a love interest. She avoids sexual encounters like the plague for fear of becoming pregnant, which would forcibly trigger the Key's drive to migrate into her child—an act that would strip her of her immortality, and leave her saddled with a new helpless life dependent on her. She eventually has sex with Veil...which results in a child.

• Changed My Mind, Kid: Mia and Veil's contract stated that she would protect him until he reached Anticlaire City...whereupon she would leave him on his own. However when she realized that not only had he walked into a major base of operations for the very organization bent on acquiring his Empathic Weapon, but plans to ambush and kill him were being hatched right next to her at an inn, she returned to thwart the assault.

• Cooldown Hug: She receives one of when she meets her father and succumbs to fury and resentment. Macklin merely hugs her after she has beaten him around for a while, and it is enough to snap her out of her mindless anger, though she still has harsh words for him.

• Combination Attack: During their time traveling together, Veil, Ara and Mia learn to fight as a team against obstacles before them, inevitably resulting in several of these.

• Contralto Of Danger: Mia's voice is low and her heavy Erzarian accent makes it sound harsher than it actually is. In accordance with this trope, she is all too capable of unleashing a torrent of pain on anyone who threatens her.

• Cool Sword: A long red blade edged with black, with Erzaria's Warrior Caste symbol etched into its hilt. The sword belonged to Mia's mother, Grail and she treasures it above the other two. She's had the weapon her whole life.

• Death Amnesia: Mia doesn't really remember where she goes when she temporarily dies. However, she does mention that she went somewhere, she just can't recall anything that happened or anything she did while there.

• Defrosting Ice Queen

• Driven to Suicide: Her resurrections render her perfectly healed of any injury or disease, but of course she has to die first. Mia implies that she has sustained several nonlethal but crippling injuries and has killed herself in order to resurrect as good as new.

• Et Tu, Brute?: Her reaction when she finds out that Legenada has hired her guild to hunt her down, offering an obscene amount of money for her capture. What's worse is that the man they sent out, Anash the Implacable was a friend of her's in the guild.

• Everybody's Dead, Dave: After the Hired Swords refused to turn on one of their own, regardless of the money the Red Cloak Malice went on a killing spree through the guild hall with his wind magic, resulting in the deaths of countless members of the mercenary organization.

• Fantastic Caste System: During its "glory days", Erzaria had a rigidly set caste system. The biggest caste was the laborers—which included farmers, blacksmiths, etc—then the warriors, scholars and recorders of history, and finally an elite nobility who formed the council that ruled the kingdom. While the system remains mostly intact, it has started to fall apart due to the kingdom being cut off from the outside world and intermarriage becoming more frequent.

• Fight Clubbing: After escaping from the ship in Lens-Attel, Mia had no usable money and only her sword and armor on her. She didn't even speak the common language particularly well. Thus she was forced, for the first year of her life away from Erzaria, to fight in underground fight-clubs for money, sometimes to the death. Fedric Stolden, Mia's sponsor in the Hired Swords Consortium first noticed her in one of these clubs and offered her a job at the guild.

• Fire-Forged Friends: With Veil. Mia disliked him intensely due to his weakness and naive nature but she grudgingly began to respect him as they fought his assailants side by side. After he saved her, this respect gave way to friendship. To a lesser extent she has this relationship with Angelica and Anash.
  • This is notably averted with Ara who she despises even though she has known him longer than any of the aforementioned people in her friend circle. This is because he doesn't respect her as a person and while he's dedicated to protecting her, he views Mia as a "container".

• Good Scars, Evil Scars: The ugly jagged scar that extends from Mia's chest to her abdomen is from when the Key was sealed inside her. To do this, her body was cut open minutes after birth and the Key inserted within. It occasionally pulses with bluish green light.

• Heroes Prefer Swords

• Heroic Willpower: She refuses to allow her newborn daughter to become a Vessel and deliberately denies the Key's programmed urge to pass to its next host. This causes her unimaginable pain, which she endures until the Key actually gives up and simply merges with her fully. That's right...she won a contest of wills with half of an Eldritch Abomination. Granted it was a piece of one that had already been subdued and "domesticated", but still...

• Living Macguffin: Half of the Source of All Magic, which allows elemental control magic and healing magic to exist is sealed within her body. Naturally the Conclave will do anything to protect it, and the fact that Legenada also desires the Source complicates things.

• Loner-Turned-Friend: She starts off as a troubled, bitter and frankly misanthropic human being who is close only to a few trusted friends and her organization but blossoms into someone fiercely protective of her widened friend circle and her child.

• Master Swordsman

• Meaningful Name: M.I.A—the abreviation for missing in action, which she is.

• Neat Freak: Mia is zealous about cleaning her armor and swords; she devotes at least two hours every week to utterly cleaning them and making sure they almost shine. Again, the guild has employees for such tasks, but she prefers to do it by herself. On the other hand, she is far more lax about her quarters and while her rooms aren't a total mess, they aren't anything to write home about. Justified, since one of the traditions of Erzaria's Warrior Caste is maintaining your own arms and armor.

• No Social Skills: Played with. She does have social skills, it's just that they are both foreign and rather antique from the rest of the wider Haven due to her homeland being cut off from the rest of the world for two centuries. She also has a very different set of values.

• Pet the Dog: Despite her near murderous hatred of Ara, Mia understands his hatred of the man who murdered his entire family and set him on the path to revenge. She is the only one who advocates allowing Ara to go off on his own to battle it out with Malice while everyone else simply wants him to come back into the group and fight together.

• Perpetual Frowner: Mia rarely smiles, though she is known for a small smirk or two when amused. Strangely she has no problem laughing, so it seems a frown is just her resting expression.

• Power of Friendship: A large disbeliever in it. While Mia acknowledges her friends, she scoffs at the idea that friendship can solve everything, and when Ara goes rogue, she warns Angelica—who believes both in this and the Power of Love—that getting him back may be impossible.

• Proud Warrior Race: Erzaria had constantly warred against outside nations for centuries. Their Warrior Caste are trained from age six to fight and spend their lives under the "care" of their fight instructors. It is considered a great privilege to be born into their ranks, as they value those who defend their country almost as much as they do the small noble caste. However to the wider Haven, they are a nation that consists solely of warriors, rather than the caste system they really are. The reason for this is both because of the passage of time, and because their warriors made such an impression during the wars they fought.

• Open Secret: Mia belongs to a supposedly dead race and rises from the dead when killed, something many in her guild have witnessed. Yet no one comments on it, aside from dubbing her "Mia the Deathless" or mild interest in what she saw when "dead". The reason for this is because there are a lot of oddities and strange people within the Hired Swords Consortium, including a lion/human chimera, thus everyone simply has a policy of acceptance as long as the person can fight and is trustworthy and loyal to the guild.

• Red Baron: Much to her embarrassment and chagrin, her name "Mia the Deathless" has spread quite far across the Haven due to her exploits in battle and the fact that people have seen her rise from the dead. This also infuriates the Conclave because they see it as flaunting her secret and endangering herself—and one of the sources of magical power. They are eventually proven right, though it isn't Mia who suffers the consequences of this, but her guild.

• The Social Darwinist: Mia—and the Warrior Caste as a whole—are Type 5. They put their members through Training from Hell and encourage some measure of internal fighting in order to promote a superior breed of fighters. Those who are killed or crippled are considered weak and their lives mean little. Mia believes this wholeheartedly, and while she becomes softer over time, she never truly lets go of this philosophy. She also believes that if someone loses, the winner has the right to subject their beaten foe to any number of painful and humiliating torments without any moral implications.

• Shut Up, Hannibal!/ Talk to the Fist: After Bartholomew Harper completely destroys Evermerry and its citizens and executes Veil's father in front of him, he lectures Veil on his responsibility for the tragedy and his foolishness in following the Conclave's orders. Rather than try to rebut as Veil did, Mia simply slashes at his back, forcing him to fight again and abandon any hope of hurting them with words.

edited 5th Aug '15 8:55:56 PM by Swordofknowledge

Having first encountered Mia in the Relationship Critique Thread I don't have a lot to add, beyond that I now have fewer concerns about her as a character than I did after reading her entry there. I still do caution you to be careful how you handle her prior to her defrost, since it could kill the story if she comes off as too unpleasant to Veil, but with the backstory you've provided, giving her sympathy points shouldn't be too difficult for you.

@ Swordofknowledge2nd

Thanks for your input. Good catch that my character reminds you of X-23 since Laura Kinney was an inspiration for my character. In addition the world I am building is a fusion of Deus Ex and METAL GEAR (the more military focused aspects anyway). As far as Sumisha/Kali being a Villain Protagonist is concerned, that was more of speculation on my part of where her story could potentially go. She could turn herself into a target for a purposes of uniting the world towards a larger threat or some other game plan. However making her a VP brings her way too close to Big Boss (or even The Boss) from Metal Gear and I want to avoid making her seem like a copy. (Hilarious considering Metal Gear is all about clones.)

It can be very difficult to convincingly defrost a character who's explicitly listed as The Sociopath. She's fairly sympathetic, but she might be too bitchy for defrosting if you're not careful.

• Name: Renny Caroun (tentative name; another Eclipse concept).
• Summary: A gladiator girl native to Radiah, an island kingdom controlled by clans of Aura Users, often with their own family mythos. Embedded into society, clans ran every aspect of life in Radiah; criminal enterprises, industrial sectors, mercantile businesses, even political parties and military forces all function around the concept of extended families. Many "lesser" clans that are subordinate to other houses (note the difference in term), or just members of society known for being specialized, traditional, cultural, feudal, or mere political; their identity sets them apart from the more powerful and influential houses. Minor noble houses may serve their superiors, and the more powerful dynastic families tend to hold the most territory, run the most monopolies, or exude the most influence. The clans were overthrown by Cullivers during an insurrection. Unbeknownst to most, Renny Caroun, the Unconquered Warrior, is a former princess whose Dynasty was deposed and turned into convict gladiators, along with the other clans.
• Appearance: Renny Caroun is a tall, fair-skinned young woman, with an athletic, curvaceous figure, thick upper crotch lines, reddish-brown eyes, and a diagonal scar running across her face. She has shoulder-length light pink hair, with two forelocks hanging down her cheeks. She wears high-heeled Thigh High Boots; vambraces covering her forearms; scaled brassieres that curl over the sides of her well-endowed chest and hook at her choker; and scaled panties that convert into a skirt at the back.
• Personality: In progress.
• Abilities: Renny Caroun is a Huntress; she has an Empathic Weapon called a Destrier that has both ranged and melee attributes. Her Destrier is Axelrod, which takes the form of a Bronze Age sword with a hollow middle, and morphs into a semi-automatic firearm (a small barrel protrudes between the two blades) that fires forked projectiles.
• Backstory: A princess barely in her pre teens, Renny was a scion of the Caroun Dynasty, a family with massive ties to social, political, business, and military affairs; they were often nicknamed the Royal Family, and they were The Rival to three other families who bore the moniker of Dynasty.
• Role: Here is the part that I'm stuck on. I based her off Rebecca from One Piece, and I was intrigued by the concept around The Clan, so I created a whole new kingdom as Renny's playground. Remember Freesia Dreyvor, one of my hero characters a few pages back? She's the matriarch of the House of Dreyvor, and a Senator in the island country of Cessair, which is demolished by one of the main villains. I never did anything substantial with Cessair other than as backdrop for the House of Dreyvor as they met the main character, and the ideas I have for Radiah are something I only now feel like I should've done, so I'm very interested in changing up the story so it's a bit more like this, but I'm not sure how exactly to do it, because Radiah was overthrown by Cullivers and Cessair was destroyed by one of the Cullivers' leaders. I'm definitely keeping the latter, because that is fairly iconic for my story and a Wham Episode I'm proud of, so I gotta find a way to weave that into the new story, if I decide to go there.

edited 9th Aug '15 1:29:39 AM by Serocco

This is my first time posting here. Sorry if I do this wrong

@Swordofknowledge I agree with Ambar Sonof Deshar about being careful with how you handle Mia before she defrosts.

Otherwise, I quite like all this. It's interesting, and certainly detailed. Though I would like to know, does the fact that Mia has died several times take a toll on her? Even if she does revive, that's still a hell of a thing to go through and you'd expect that to show. Sorry if you addressed it already.

I want to say in advance I’m a little nervous about this. Things I would like feedback on in particular are the personality, abilities and backstory sections. If what I’ve written here is a Jerk Sue with stupid or special snowflake powers, please do let me know. I want to do better than that. Anyway, this character is for a superhero sort of setting. If I’ve left anything out, say so and I’ll try to elaborate.

Name: Joanna ‘Jo’ Brick

Age: 19

Appearance: Jo is a white Australian of average height for a woman, and quite thin as she likes to run. She is utterly flat chest-wise, but this doesn’t bother her at all. She has neck-length black hair with two bangs that frame her face. She has green eyes with dark bags underneath that seem to be permanent. She tends to wear brightly-coloured clothes. This was initially an attempt to appear more approachable, but they’ve grown on her so now she wears them because she actually likes them. She wears a lot of hoodies.

Personality: When you first meet Jo…you won’t like her. That’s fine, she won’t like you either. Jo is at her prickliest towards people she doesn’t know, mostly out of habit. She used to be a complete and utter hellion as a child, but eventually a near-death experience made her realise what a brat she was being and she is now attempting to be a better person. However, she’s not quite there yet so she still requires the occasional kick up the pants. As she warms up to others she becomes more likable, while still somewhat rude and difficult.

If she’s sufficiently angered or stressed, she reverts back to her childhood brat ways, but this is rare.

However, it’s a totally different story if she’s decided that she doesn’t like you. She will be utterly unreasonable. She will be snarky, gruff and aggressive. She will laugh at your misfortune, mock anything about you that she can, and make it as clear as she can that she doesn’t like you.

However, if you’re in genuine trouble, she will help you. Complaining all the way.

This is her best point. She’s got a very strong sense of justice, and will not tolerate anything she deems harms others without due cause. This extends even to people she doesn’t like or outright hates.

Abilities: Unlike most people in this setting, her power is a completely passive one. That is, psychic abilities simply do not work on her. Her mind cannot be read, she cannot be mind-controlled, and it is impossible to psychically sense her presence. Although this is not a particularly useful power in itself, it makes her immune to something her friends have cooked up called a “Blissbomb”. A psychic whose speciality is broadcasting the emotions, pain, etc of one person to the surrounding area uses her ability to inflict a friend’s superpower-enhanced synaesthesia on others. The result is a bunch of bad guys who are too busy giggling at the pretty colours or mumbling about how they can “hear blue” to resist when Jo ties them up and removes their weapons. She then ushers her two equally disorientated friends out of there to somewhere safe and waits for it to wear off.

Weaknesses: If anybody can bypass the Blissbomb, she doesn’t have much to defend herself with. She’s in shape and fights aggressively, but that doesn’t mean she can beat someone who’s trained for this, and she certainly cannot outfight bullet.

Also, her difficult personality has been known to turn away potential allies, cause problems, and generally be a pain in the arse.

A near-death experience in her childhood has left her with a dislike of water and birds, and she is terrified of swans. She cannot swim, and will panic if forced to enter a body of water bigger than a bathtub.

Goals: She wants to do the right thing and she wants to help people. She doesn’t have many goals past that, and will stare at you if you bring those sorts of questions up.

Motivation: She wants to improve herself and make up for being a total arsehole as a kid. And she was one, believe me. She also wants to figure out how much of “herself” she can be while still being a decent person.

Role in the story: She is the Naïve Newcomer at the start of the story, being mostly unfamiliar with the whole superpowers thing. The reader learns more about the setting as she does. Ends up getting rather into the whole thing. She does not get a love interest, the Official Couple instead being her two friends.

Backstory: As I said, Jo was an antisocial, unlikable, antagonised-people-for-the-sheer-hell-of-it brat as a child. The part of her backstory I’m going to put here is the incident that started to change all that.

Eight-year-old Jo was sent to visit Bram, a family friend, in order to allow her parents to go on holidays and have a break from her. The idea of actually taking her on holidays with them was terrifying. Bram was the epitome of Tall, Dark, and Snarky, and therefore little Jo’s heart was won at once. Jo pestered him constantly in her own obnoxious way, which Bram disliked, but put up with as a favour to her parents. However, one day Jo found Bram talking to a beautiful woman his age. Incensed that he was “cheating on her”, Jo went through Bram’s visitor’s many suitcases and cut every item of clothing to pieces. The woman found her and was furious, though Bram diffused the situation and convinced her to leave. There was a tension in the air little Jo didn’t understand. Bram then suddenly turned on Jo and yelled at her. He called her a brat, swore at her, and told her outright he could hardly stand the sight of her.

Little Jo screamed back that she hated him, then ran out of the house in tears. She ran to a nearby lake, where she started antagonising some baby swans in her rage. The parent swans soon attacked, and little Jo ran into the water to escape them, where she was badly beaten by the swans and nearly drowned.

However, suddenly she heard shouting from the shore, and someone splashed into the water, driving the swans away. She was lifted into two strong arms, and found herself looking straight at Bram, who was so furious Jo could’ve sworn his eyes were glowing bright red.

Bram carried her back to his house, where he tended to her wounds and gave her dry clothes. The following conversation, or something like it, took place:

“Why’d you save me? I thought you didn’t even like me.”

“I don’t. Your personality sucks, kid. You’re an arsehole. But you don’t get to pick and choose who you help. You save people even if you can’t stand ‘em.”

And with that, the present day Jo was born. Probably from shock, who knows. She began to try to help Bram out instead of merely annoying him, and paid attention as he showed her how to be a better person. She still retains some habits from the lessons she received, such as apologising instantly to anybody from her past the first time she sees them again. Jo eventually discovered her own power, and in doing so ended up learning some things about that childhood incident that she had no way of knowing at the time. She and Bram get along quite well now, due to both having similarly snarky outlooks on life. Jo’s crush has mostly faded into strong friendship, but a tiny bit still lingers. Jo will deny this with a passion. Her taste in men (snarky older guys) gives her away, though.

edited 9th Aug '15 6:10:28 AM by Murataku

@ Murataku: Welcome to the forums then!

First of all, I don't think that Joanna having unique "special snowflake" powers is a particularly bad thing—it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when people say that it is; should all of our characters/powers be the same and boring? Anyway, hers are not, that that's pretty good.

I like the way you handled Jo's passive ability; it isn't energy beams or super strength, but it essentially makes her the only functioning teammates within the situation you painted.

Her personality is...interesting, I'll give you that, but does not make her a Sue of any kind as far as I can tell. She comes off as Good Is Not Nice and a Knight in Sour Armor, especially with her whole "strong sense of right and wrong/justice" despite being nasty, petty childish in so many ways.

I would like to know more about her background, other than how she came to be a hero. A person with that kind of personality didn't just develop it in a vacuum. From what it sounds like, her parents spoiled her rotten and gave in to her every whim. So I think Joanna is a pretty well-thought out character so far.

@ Serroco—Since Renny's personality is still up in the air, I'll have to comment on her background and backstory. She certainly seems like a formidable opponent for whatever villain comes at her, and the idea of someone coming from a conquered and enslaved country is a good plot hook. I'm curious—I don't know much about One Piece so I had to look up Rebecca while writing this—did Renny become a gladiator voluntarily like Rebecca? You stated her country was defeated, carved up and the citizens turned into gladiators, so was she pressed into service along with the rest?

edited 9th Aug '15 2:12:42 PM by Swordofknowledge

Thanks for the welcome and the critique. About Jo's backstory, I've been undecided on that. I considered having her just be like that for no reason, but you're right, those kinds of personalities don't just develop in a vacuum.

So, I've decided that you're right. She was spoiled rotten as a kid. Her parents are decent people and didn't start out intending to spoil her, but they were young and probably not quite ready to raise a child and so when things got difficult they didn't handle it the best. As Jo got older and more difficult, they started to just give into her more and more. Eventually she was doing whatever she liked with no real consequences.

That's the idea, yeah. She was forced to become a convict gladiator.

Nothing seems wrong here.

Hum, let me try this too.

About the plot: this is about a group of heroes that ended up making a Deal with the Devil before an inevitable defeat, and fight multiversal conquerors as payment, with extras that are paid...differently.

But this one devil, Cain, abandon them to pursuit his own goals ,taking one of them in the process, and they persecute him with the help of a Guardian of the Multiverse and one of Cain's own alternate selves.

About the setting: this multiverse is one of high variability, and Cain ends up recruiting people of different but highly similar universes, that usually made deals with him through a similar circumnstance of defeat. That way, many of this people know, or think that know, each other.

Name:Alice Uxley,"The White Fox", "Justice".

Age: Around 500.

Appearance: Daughter of an asian women and(presumably) a slav man, Alice was born with white hair that slowly went red and blue eyes. With a height around 1,80 m and athletic, she somewhat looks intimidating, and her breasts are average-sized. She keeps her hair in a ponytail most of the time, and wears a simplistic lace dress given by her father that he inherited from a dead friend. She wears a collar that functions as Transformation Trinket, giving her full-body red armor.

Personality: Alice tries to act motherly through the rest of the team in Rose's ausence, but those that are the older than her think she is naive, including her own father, with the exception of Rose.

She is idealistic, and believes everything will come to a happy ending eventually, and that Cain, despite his wickedness, is the proof that fate favors good over evil.

However, her father always try to keep her at the edge, and she wonders if her idealism is breaking under his constant presence, and the misfortunes that fall over the group.

Abilities: Most of the time, Alice fights with a spear, always defensively. She is very skilled with it and fast, making her spear both a shield and a attack weapon.

If she gets really desperate, though, she will pierce her own hand with the spear and make a small ritual to initiate a partial transformation in a fox, making her faster and stronger.

Weaknesses: Without her spear, she has to resort to her fox side, that can make her go berserk if it is used excessively.

Goals: Defeat Cain and live a quiet life with her sister and family back on her world.

Motivation: She wants to prove she isn't weak because of her idealism to the cynical heroes around her.

Role In the story: There's Load And Loads Of Characters in this story, and each of them form their own five-man bands. She's The Lancer to Rose, the deuteragonist, and Cain used to call them "Team Idealistic" before his desertion, constrasting her father's "Team Old and Acid" . She is one of the 50 that Cain "hired" for this 100-years cycle, and one of the 47 that are mortal.

Backstory: Alice's mom was a fox monster that went berserk while pregnant. A mercenary killed her and managed to bring Alice on this world, and presumed her biological father was russian and her mother a chinese kitsune based on her physical features.

Later he adopted Alice's sister, Ruby, a hybrid of a revenant zombie and a succubus whose mother died in childbirth, and teached them both how to fight. But while Ruby grew a hunger for blood, Alice rejected the sword and asked to be trained to use a spear.

The nickname "Justice" came from her father, but he never bothered to explain the meaning of it. She always assumed it was just an way of making the mercenaries never say her true name, distancing her from the other soldiers of her father.

As she grew older, her father began to realize what were his daughter's true desires and asked for her to execute a mission where she don't would serve as bodyguard, but as an assassin. Alice rejected it.

Eventually Alice found someone she loved, and they raised a family together. She left the spear and picked up the hoe, and never saw her father and sister again.

Her original husband and sons and daughters died, but she was still the matriarch of the family now turned clan. Was then that happened.

Her world was invaded by demons from another dimension trying to terminate mankind so they could take Earth to themselves. Alice left her family and went to war.

The war entered in its decisive phase, and Alice meeted the Big Bad. They fought, and she almost went berserk like her mother trying to use the power of the fox inside. Anyway, she was defeated.

That was when she was meet Cain, that offered her a deal. 100 years of servitude and her soul for the victory and salvation of mankind, and the location of her sister for...something else.

To her surprise, between the group Cain has formed, there was someone like her father, but this version was a little different, more open in his despise and rejection of her idealism, shocking her immensely. Was then that this mercenary revealed that he was an immortal that could only be killed by very specific weapons, and adopted her to avoid to deal with the pain of loss as much he would have with a human child. He refused to reveal the circumstances of his deal, but said it didn't involve any "demon invasion".

edited 4th Sep '15 11:24:21 AM by MeetTheNewBoss

Interesting. Alice "Justice" seems to be a ray of light in an otherwise grim group of people—and no surprise considering they're enslaved to a demon in hopes of bringing their personal dreams to fruition. It's an interesting story and I'm wondering what the mystery of her father's actual contract is...or if it even is a mystery and he just happens to have a different dream. I'm curious, why is Alice considered one of the 47 mortal members of the group when she outlived her original family and was old enough to become the family matriarch?

She will eventually die from natural causes. Her children died earlier because they were mixed with a human, and Alice himself is mixed. People like ) her (adoptive) father can live forever, and can only die through special weapons made to kill immortals.

edited 8th Sep '15 2:09:52 PM by MeetTheNewBoss

@Meetthe Newboss - I think A.U. is pushing it a bit, but... do you.

Don't focus on breast size when writing women. Her total physique is (probably) more important to her job anyway.

Why is Rose motherly, why is she idealistic, how do her daddy issues bleed over into her life and job (if at all - though they usually do)?

What kind of spear, exactly? Something like a Naginata was made for exactly the purpose you're describing, and has some slashing use as well as piercing.

Weaknesses aren't just physical. What sets her into a BLIND rage, what distracts her, what kills her morale and spirit in battle, etc. I go with the rule that a character needs a physical, mental (logical/thought), and spiritual (emotional/faith?) weakness, and the first one is least important.

How does she try to live her goal in her day-to-day life?

Her motivation is a weakness by another name (I'm not saying it's bad, just that their loss of faith in her could be used to cripple her morale in or out of battle), and most people have a few reasons to get up out of bed in the morning. Add a couple.

The hell is a "chinese kitsune"? A huli jing? I'd drop the "physical features" bit, as that sounds a little like categorizing someone's race based on physical features (and it also doesn't work so well when the kid is biracial). Her reasoning behind her nickname "Justice" is a little odd (it says more about the relationship they had), and why didn't she ask about it? The whole "power of the fox" seems too derivative of Naruto - I'd tone it down to a power all "monsters" have in that world. I would also explain why her descendants stayed out of the battle - if your great-grandmama suddenly announced "I'm going to war with my goddamn spear", would you stay at home or would you jump up and declare "YOU HAVE MY AXE/sword/bow"?

I think that's about all. Can't say much more without familiarity with the setting. (Like how her husband and family would be treated as a mixed species clan, or if that was rare, etc.)

edited 10th Sep '15 2:02:35 PM by DeusDenuo

I actually just included breast size because the last guy did it too.

About the AU thing, it because I took things to its extreme: if one AU exist, then all possible ones must exist, but that's more about the setting than the character.

About the motherly thing, it's because she spend centuries as mother to her sons, grandsons, and so on.

About the idealism, it's because her father was an catholic(of the disillusioned kind) that read her the Bible in the hope that she would develop in a leader able to respect and treat his soldiers well, but that went a little too right and she found killing for money to be immoral, but was incapable of trying to turn on her father and his mercenary group for being killers for money because she saw they were happy being that way.

The spear is more like a wooden stick with the tip of a broken sword embedded on one of the ends.

Berserk Button? I don't see her as someone who could give in to BLIND rage, but someone calling her belief that "everything will end well" as dumb or ridiculous would set her off. Something that would distract her? I didn't think in distractions. As, a trap or something that would make her forget of her objective?

Interesting that you ask "day-to-day life" since the the characters are basically a troop of soldiers and the plot involves tracking one target for days in an planet devoid of intelligent's life in some forgotten point of the existence, while fighting his minions that stand in their way. But I could say that is hunting animals, searching for the signals that the Big Bad was there, collecting water, discussing strategies, and training. Oh, and fighting.

Yeah, it's supposed to be that kind of fox. The blood magic it's a thing for half-human hybrids, but that don't works well because the human side is much more weaker than the non-human side.

The nickname is there for Rule of Drama, to be an hanging question. Like "Who killed X" or "who is he?". She didn't ask so there would be a mistery. And so her father can call her "Justice" instead of Alice, showing that he is keeping a distance from her.

Great-grandmama in a family of farmers, and that looks a lot more younger than the grandma. And her descendants that are still alive have little to non-demon blood, preventing them of using the same ritual, as they married humans.

edited 10th Sep '15 4:49:09 PM by MeetTheNewBoss

I think, after a few generations, they could afford a better spear than a makeshift one. Does that particular sword have significance to her?

Everyone can be distracted by something, and it doesn't have to be an in-battle trap or anything. In her case, it might be along the lines of... a threat to her clan? Something that makes her stop and think, no matter what she's doing.

Day-to-day life in soldiering is actually quite (pleasantly?) boring when you aren't fighting - you have to do something for fun, right? I suggest looking into it.

Farmers cut down trees, get conscripted, and hunt for meat as well as anyone else. Some of the best soldiers in history were farmers who made their old skills work in a new context, and familial ties count for more than gold in a clan. I'm not saying her family should join her, but that there should be a good explanation for them not to when the combat teams in this story contain other mortals.

My turn!

There's a society that had to move underground after some ill-defined cateclysm. They woke up there a hundred or so years ago, and have been mining and making materials for the terraforming robots on the surface.

Will Harris is a Digger in this society, and one day he accidentally drops his lantern onto an ancient corpse. The corpse revives with the lantern jewel embedded in her chest, and this is a massive transgression of rules so he has to keep both her and himself safe.

Plus the usual dystopia jazz.

Name: Will Harris (for now)

Age: 14, but that's counting by local time.

Appearance: 170ish cm (5'8 to 5'9), 72-77 kg (160-170 lbs.). Has a swimmer's build. Shortish light hair (we'd call it blond), dark eyes (brown), rounded square for a face. Caucasian, like everyone else in the underground society (and this is for a plot-relevant reason). Wears his Digging work clothes everywhere, sleeps in his boxers.

Personality: Headstrong, stubborn, tough, less a jerk than he acts, content with what is basically a dead-end job in several senses of the phrase. Is fairly humble, doesn't envy or begrudge people for long - get in a fight with him at the beginning of a night, fight the police with him as friends by the end of it. He is willing to help a friend out, but not to the extent of risking his own life (and in kind of situation, he'd work to get them out of danger then help them on their way). Not a dreamer; he's happy with the present. Tends to view things moment by moment, and has to be convinced that the bigger picture matters. Is a little superstitious, but not more than would be normal for a career Digger (less than the pirates in POTC, a bit more than your average baseball pitcher). Won't despair for long. Center-right and conservative by mid-1980s USA standards, barely off the center by 2010s USA standards (Reaganite and offended by the modern GOP's sensibilities, but would have found Thatcher worrying).

Abilities: Has no special ability beyond physical strength and toughness. Continuing to work as a Digger (essentially a miner/construction worker) for 10 years means you have to be strong and tough, after all. By normal Troper standards, he's ridiculously tough and wiry in a fight, having grown up in a culture that doesn't demonize solving personal problems with your fists as much as it probably ought to. He knows the digging business through and through, but not a whole lot else.

Weaknesses: Hard-headed, quick to spend money on temporary things (food, fun, etc.), not particularly bright or willing to question the status quo, lacks ambition. Sloth in mind, Lust in the sense of chaste hedonism, Greed by way of habitually blowing through his paycheck a little too quickly. Tends to hit Wrath a little too quickly - long fuse, large explosive. He's aware that he knows his job very well and other things not so much, so he places heavy emphasis on his own knowledge when it comes to Digging and this can be used to trap him. Very used to doing what he's told, though not to the point of walking into an obvious death trap.

Goals: Will thinks he'll eventually settle down and get married, start a family, grow old on savings (that he hasn't even started putting together yet) - but for now, he's fine with his job and life. Surviving to work and play some more is enough for him.

Motivation: As with his goals, he gets up every morning to go to work, leaves work to go have some fun, and leaves his fun to go home and sleep - rinse and repeat. When Soya comes into his life, he's initially more concerned with keeping her safe (since her mere existence will get him in a mountain of trouble and probably get her killed), but decides to personally see her back up to the surface safely. Will's primary motivation is the expectation of fun after labor, but doing the right thing when possible.

Role in the story: Protagonist. Accidentally finds and brings Soya to life. Tries to keep her hidden from the Town Eight authorities at first, but listens to her and is convinced to take her first to the nearest way to the surface, then the surface itself. Manages to sow some distrust of the governement in the process (he provides the impetus, and others follow through on it).

Backstory: His mother died when he was six, and he didn't know his father (he values family ties and values as a consequence); he's an orphan with no living relatives. Started Digging when he was four, grew up poor. Rents a cheap room in the poorest section of town, because he spends his money on amusements; the only things in it are a bed and a wardrobe.

Relevant Tropes: I imagine him as Jiron Amos playing Yahagi Shougo in Castle in the Sky Laputa.

Is there anything I need to expand on?

He sounds like a generic guy. Don´t know if you want an average protagonist that the audience can easily associate with. He comes off with a fifties feel, I could see him being at odds with those around him. Be aware that a generic protagonist has pitfalls (can be the dullest character in a work if handled badly) and try to avoid them. I think you misunderstud what a trope is.

edited 11th Sep '15 4:13:55 PM by manicnightmarepixie

He reminds me of Simon from Gurren Lagann simply from his role or perhaps his job and setting. Will could come off as generic, but I think it also depends on the setting and how the world around him works. Who or what is Soya? And what lies on the surface? If you handle these mysteries in a satisfying manner, then I think he will turn out fine. Apart from that, you could make him more unique by exploring what those amusements he spends his money on are, and just how he demonstrates his respect/care for familial ties in-story.

@ DeusDenuo: Try to make Will a little less like Simon. Even if it's a different personality quirk, like "smokes a pipe" or "really likes baked beans." Somethin' somethin' to make him his own character.

• Name: Scizore
• Age: approx. 29
• Personality: Grim, hard and has a soft spot a mile wide for his daughter.
• Abilities: swordfighting; agile enough to dodge spear thrusts and magic blasts.
• Weaknesses: A Trigger word that brings him to his knees in tears; bordering on PTSD.
• Goals: Freedom for humanity from its oppressors, initially. Once that's done with, raising a family.
• Motivation: "40 acres and some seedcorn" sounds about right.
• Role in the story: The Villain Protagonist's Morality Pet of book 1; the protagonist of book 2.
• Backstory: A former gladiator who escaped his bonds during the Mass Resurrection of Mankind. I'm still working on it (it's 1:30 in the morning), but I have big plans for him.
• Relevant Tropes:
  • Appropriated Appelation: Chose the name "Scizore" because his master couldn't be arsed to name him properly and called him by the name of the sword he was given. Scizore considered the name the only thing really his, and was devastated when he found out.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: His weapon and namesake, the Scizore (a punching dagger used in gladiatorial combat).
  • Blood Knight: As a former Gladiator, he was trained to force fights to go on for as long as possible. Has to curb this every so often.
  • Culture Clash: Absolutely horrified by Sunshine's... let's call it "upbringing,". Sunshine has a habit of bringing up something heartbreaking/stomach-turning from her former life, and then giggling and saying "Good times, good times."
  • The Dog Bites Back: murdered his master with his bare hands and legged it during the chaos of the Resurrection.
  • Happily Adopted: The parent in this. His daughter, Sunshine, comes from absolutely nightmarish circumstances but loves him even more fiercely than her heavily misremembered and idolized first master, mostly because Scizore treats her like a person rather than a thing.
  • Kicked Upstairs: Wants to farm. Has to mayor.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: Not undead yet, but due to the way the Resurrection works, he's only "mostly living," which means he can get necro-mechanical grafts and implants if he wants them (he doesn't though), and if he were to die, he'd get right back on his feet as a Revenant Zombie.
  • Sour Supporter: To the Grandfathers/Revenants. He doesn't share their supernaturally blazing hatred, and gives the Revenant Prince a good chewing out in book 2 when he/it almost sentences an entire culture to death (not that the world wouldn't be better for their absence, but there's justice and then there's simple, mindless vengeance).
  • The Spartan Way: Keeps a fancy, four-poster canopy bed in the guest room, sleeps on a straw pallet himself.
  • Trigger: The word/title "master".

edited 16th Sep '15 2:00:06 AM by dvorak

The idea of a Morality Pet turning into the protagonist is kinda fascinating. His Blood Knight problems can create a good conflict over nature and nurture, like how much of his bloodlust is controllable or was imposed on him as a defense mechanism.