Five words. Write a Chracter

I've seen 'games' similar to this on other sites and I thought it would be good to bring it to the TV Tropes forum as it's a good way to get ideas for new characters and show that ideas can come from anywhere.

Rules:

• One player posts five words (these words can be as random/normal as possible)
  • Ex: Player 1 posts: metal, brownie, rabbit, purple, oracle
• Another player creates a basic character description that incorporates those words into it some way or another
  • Ex: "Venia Nash is a 21 year old woman with spiky purple hair. She lives in a small apartment with a pet rabbit named Skip (which she isn't supposed to have, but that has never stopped her) She loves listening to heavy metal music and baking (and is infamous for her brownie recipe) She's a pretty normal person, unless you include that she also has visions that predict the end of the world"
• The person who wrote the description also includes five more words for the next person to write a description for.

I hope you all have fun with this :)

• The first five words are: Cabbage, hammer, hat, dragon, orange

In peacetime, ex-soldier Markus Tullman used his small pension to become a cabbage farmer on the outskirts of a rural village, keeping himself to himself until his farm was razed by a bright orange dragon. When the village appealed for aid, Markus decided to join up with any adventurers that took the job, grabbing the only useful items he had left; a wide-brimmed hat and his heavy steel hammer he calls "Godric", his only surviving army souvenir.

The next five words are: canoe, forest, bronze, lucky, journal

Last survivor of his Viking tribe, Wolf Erikson was left adrift in a small canoe until he found a forest made entirely of bronze. Wolf makes a journal of his travels across the mysterious forest, all the while Hamingja, Goddess Of Luck, responsible for his tribe's bad fortune, hunts him down across the trees and conjures evil in hopes of ending his "good fortune".

Next five words: Flower, snake, hammer, justice.

Hahaha! I actually already had a character for this. >.>

Isska: Also known as the Lady of Blood and Flowers. In the beginning of time, she was the first to make her mark on the uninhabited plane, bringing forth plants from the barren soil. The goddess of plantlife, justice, plagues, and death in battle, she is almost never invoked by humans. The exceptions to this are healers and warriors (both under very specific circumstances. Her weapons are the spear and the war hammer, and her sacred place is Dodaan grove. Practices of her religious order include draining blood to use in their magic, and depictions of her usually include a snake biting her heel or wrapped around her throat.

Kaiju, parsimony, persimmon, obnoxious, and somnambulism.

edited 6th Apr '14 4:11:32 PM by Poisonarrow

Well this is tough.

Pacey Williams is a poor girl living with her miserly parents who are avid practitioners of parsimony. They have a wonderful family persimmon tree with the most beautiful, delicious fruit, kept alive through generations.

However, due to their stinginess, her parents think the tree's not worth maintaining and leave it. Pacey goes out to tend it, making her rather obnoxious in her parents' eyes.

One day, a Kaiju named Fred, cursed with chronic somnambulism, sleepwalks all over the tree. Given her parent' lack of concern for anything other than money, Pacey decides to chase down the beast herself and make even with it.

• Hamstring, oak, trombone, pretty, handsome.

edited 8th Apr '14 4:34:17 AM by Nadir

Uhhhhh...Hamstring, oak, trombone, pretty, handsome

Mike Guarez. Mexican soldier was hamstrung by an enemy combatant during some war or other. Wound became infected and medical science being was it was at the time, they decided to amputate. Prosthetic leg made of oak.

Plays the trombone as a hobby. Enjoys going out with his pretty lady friend, who considers him quite handsome.

Kinda terrible, but I've created worse.

Stoat, Aluminic, Nebulated, Outlawry, Sexisyllabic

edited 15th Apr '14 5:08:08 PM by Eagal

Ramanakyvosmo, better known as "the Aluminium Outlaw", for his aluminum plated armor, is a sentient stoat that roams the universe as a Robin Hood-esque outlaw in search for his brother, Yvmenjahyolekdran, a stoat trapped in the farthest nebula of the universe. In his quest he faces all manner of dark and foreboding evils.

Lake, Jester, gasoline, aglets, keyboard.

Jester Lake was just a boy with some nerdy hobbies and a talent for playing keyboard synthesizers. Little did he know one day that the aglets in his shoes contained the key for saving the world. Sadly no one believes this message not even Jester's older brother and part-time gasoline thief Merced.

Coconuts, engine, Leeroy, parfait, astrodynamics.

Melanie Leeroy is an ambitious technopreneur, famed worldwide for designing a revolutionary Hall effect engine derivative that allows unassisted takeoffs from within the Earth's atmosphere. Nicknamed "the Coconut" for its distinctive shape, the instrument is hailed as a masterpiece of astrodynamics, and the inventor's ticket to everlasting glory. Hours before the first launch, however, the entire assembly disappears, and Melanie is found catatonic and near death next to a glass of poisoned parfait. A week later, still recovering but unimaginably annoyed, she sets out on a personal quest to hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

Way more conflict than actual characterisation, but bear with me here.

Fiddle, wolf, firebrand, hacker, Joseon.

"The Fiddler" is a North Korean time-travelling Diabolical Mastermind who time-travels via firebrands. He seeks to go back to 108 b.c, in the Gojoseon (a.k.a Korea) kingdom, with future tech to start his very own empire. Little does he know that his pet wolf has done a Heel–Face Turn and hacked apart his firebrand, trapping them in ancient Korea. Now animal and master must battle one another in the past to decide the future (literally) of Korea and ultimately, the world.

Maelstrom, Sabaton, Caesar, Saint, beard.

A baby was spit out of a Maelstrom, for reasons none knows yet. Just as the whirlpool whispered in low, monotonous, demonic tone "Sabaton..." before dying out due to lack of momentum. Caesar witnessed all of that and goes "Double you tee eff?" before picking up the baby and decided to raise him as a saint. As Sabaton grew up he suddenly gained a magical talking beard who insisted him to go on an adventure to find out where did he exactly came from.

Almost, Birdhouse, Baker, Flip, Zero

Zero Mattson seems like your ordinary 12-year-old girl. She wishes to be a great baker, and practices by baking cookies that almost taste like they come from a well-known bakery. She also owns a birdhouse where she places her breadcrumbs for birds to feed on. However, she has a secret power: she can flip the species of two different creatures. So don't bully your dog. She can make you the dog, and your pooch the master.

Hi guys! I think this is a good writing exercise. Keep up the good work!

...Oh, and: Red, eraser, bees, lamp, chocolate.

Madison Tucker was just a lowly schoolgirl, clinging to her pencils and her erasers with a studious look in her eyes. She would stay up nights on end studying, lamp shining brightly on her face and her eyes bloodshot red upon waking up. She would always drink her tea with honey, giving the relaxing yet somewhat bitter drink a sweet undertone to help soothe her anxieties when the going got tough, and since she drank so much of it, she almost wished she had some bees to help with the honey, though she knew that would interfere with her schedule. After a hard day's (or night's) work, she loves to treat herself to some chocolate, knowing that all those hours of studying will come into fruition the next day.

This is pretty fun, I must say.

Next words: wish, cage, listen, geometry, piano

Peter Douglas is a geometry teacher who feels like his life is going nowhere. Disrespectful students and poor pay, it makes him feel like he's in a cage. His one escape is listening to piano music on the radio at night, and wishes he could quit this job and play it for the masses.

Marshmallow, kaiju, plasma, pride, vitamin

Laurent Newcomb is a talented young up-and-coming pianist and composer, following his hero John Cage into the realm of the avant-garde. Much of his inspiration comes from representing mathematical elegance musically, seeing it as a shame that the two disciplines have grown so far apart from each other when they were originally all but synonymous, and attempting to introduce modern developments and proofs to ancient concepts like Sacred Geometry. He speaks quietly and concisely, and reserves communicating much of his emotions for his music, where he is more comfortable with expressing them, but he does love listening to other people talk about themselves. This privately troubles him, actually - he has plenty of friends, but he does wish that they would trust him enough to confide in him.

New words: grandparent, earnest, snake, key, forgot.

You sneaky ninja, you.

edited 17th Oct '14 9:05:14 AM by Noaqiyeum

Looks like I'm doing double characterization.

Janice Wonderwall is a prideful future-tech engineer who specializes in plasma-based machinery. She is a health nut, making sure to take her vitamins every day and exercises every other day. One day she finds a baby kaiju and decides to adopt it, naming it Marshmallow.

Ernest Stanford is a grandparent raising his two grandkids on a farm after their parents died. He is as earnest as his name suggests, always putting great effort and sincerity in everything he does. He has a great dislike of snakes, due to one poisonous one biting and nearly killing him a few years back. He worries about his grandkids forgetting their parents, and therefore keeps a special room in the farmhouse where many of the parents' possessions are kept so he may tell them what their parents are like. He keeps this room locked with a key, as he is a bit paranoid about thieves.

Words: Foremost, Sooth, Bestiary, Sweet, Allusion

edited 17th Oct '14 10:37:16 AM by SkeletonJill

Foremost expert in marine biology, Arlan Devirenion wrote the Bestiary of our Seas used by all Valliverian navigators. However, any allusion to his past as a renowned pirate is likely to trigger an unhealthy number of bruises. He has a particular fondness for sweets, which help to sooth his memories.

Five words: sky, steel, sibling, seven, sorrow.

Eliza Steel, the eldest of seven children, and the daughter of two poor farmers in Idaho. She grew up working hard in the fields, even missing a few years of school in order to help out. But she doesn't want to remain a farmer forever- she has always dreamed of being a pilot and getting to see the world from the sky. Much to her sorrow, however, all of her sibling(s) had gotten their education and left, leaving her to tend to the farm as well as her aging parents.

Words: Cards, Electric, Shovel, Snow, Whirl

The snow fell harshly upon the landscape, yet Uma was unfazed. She carried with her a spade, something one could confuse with just the common shovel, but when she gives it a whirl, the air grows thick and cold, and all near her are silenced. She reads her enemies like a deck of cards, seeking to find the right hand to take home the pot, and if the odds aren't in her favor, she always knows when to fold. And when she's in the spotlight, she always knows to give one hell of an electrifying performance.

Next words: serpent, zygote, vestige, eyebrow, sharpening

Azalea Handle was sharpening her razors for the next assassination. She swiped it across her face — her eyebrow hair fell to the floor in a clean shave. Perfect... That's the precision I need, she thought, inserting a vial of concentrated cobra venom into the hilt, which would trickle down the blade at just the right time. It was exactly what that monster deserved, destroying her entire society like it did, leaving only the vestige of it where she now stood. The child she was with wouldn't be safe until it was dead.

Words: Twig, Adorkable, hunger, pipe, paneling

edited 21st Oct '14 12:03:01 PM by BaffleBlend

Wolsey was fiddling in the basement for about an hour now. The pipe was leaking, and the paneling was broken and had to be redone. He never had talent for the engineering stuff (or anything even thinly related, for that matter). Well, Wolsey was a nerd as all his friends said, but he was the humanities type anyway. At least his wife Clara thought he was adorkable. After wrestling with the tools a bit more, he finally came up. He noticed that his hunger was still there; he never fed himself at the proper hour. No one was at home, so Wolsey went out to grab a bite. He noticed a bunch of twigs on the lawn as he went out, making a mental note to take care of that as well.

Gah, this is hard. But quite fun.
Next five words: alchemy, television, wig, lotion, owl

Merlin Kashmerlin; formerly a widely renowned alchemist, he's since hit hard times and has been reduced to hawking lotion and other various [al]chemical products on TV infomercials, usually wearing a large false beard and wig and accompanied by his snarky pet owl Houte.

Blind, boxing, computer, insomnia, iron.

edited 22nd Oct '14 10:21:44 PM by somerandomdude

Terrence Fletcher, usually known by his ring name Blind Bagger, was a successful boxer in his prime, able to knock out any man of any size within a couple of punches. He was born with a deficiency, making him blind in his right eye. He's learned to adapt to living with one eye, however, and that quirk has made him even more well-known as soon as it was found out. He took up boxing when he was in middle school, and in high school, he took out state champion, "Iron" Raleigh High, within a single round. In his spare time, he likes to play a few computer games such as Starcraft and Baldur's Gate. Recently, his boxing career took a turn for the worse when he was knocked out by a rising star, Gerald Gregarion, and soon, he was losing matches left and right. Despite the occasional win, his popularity has dwindled, and his depression has manifested itself in insomnia that will sometimes leave him sleepless night after night.

Next words: empty, corduroy, generation, differ, orthocenter

edited 23rd Oct '14 7:39:47 AM by BlackMageAnolis

Zoey Andrews is a 14-year old girl who is in a garage band with other girls from her school, "Don't Be Empty", which seeks to emulate the feel of funky girl bands from generations past. The band logo depicts an equilateral triangle divided in thirds and a drawing of a flowerhead over the orthicenter. Her typical outfit consists of red-brown corduroy pants and magenta t-shirts to go along with her red hair and brown glasses. She and her friend Maria Espinosa, an older girl from Mexico, are the main vocalists. Their singing voices differ in that, while Zoey has an innocent, happy voice, Maria's voice is more powerful and sometimes harsh.

Next: opera, adobe, semester, green, smile

Why is everyone bolding their words in the description? I didn't think you had to transcribe them, just use them to contribute to the character concept.

Aniruddha Misra is a university student, double-majoring in digital art and drama. It's unclear if he's going to be able to graduate, though; he originally declared himself an orthodontist, and he's dabbled in so many different topics (everything from music to botany) that after next semester school policy won't allow him to continue. If only it were possible to major in Jack-of-All-Trades... At least his résumé will be an interesting conversation-starter.

Next words: Sleep, tongs, fast, duty, hospital.