Gauging interest for a shared universe.

Well, as I said, we haven't an upper power limit. If you persuade us that you can write a good story with this character, without letting his powers make him a Sue or disturbing the balance of the whole setting, there won't be a problem. Of course, the more powerful the character is, the more difficult it's going to be.

In my mind though, power is a secondary factor, and you haven't said anything about the character himself. (Admittedly, you did say you had "an idea for a character's powerset", but if you want to participate in this, we need a whole character.) I'm waiting to see your character detailed before I can judge him.

Name: Niccolo

Physical Appearance: Five feet 11 inches. I checked, by the way, and noticed several other people were 5 ft 11. It's my actual height, which is why I picked it, but I'll change it if you want.

Niccolo is a pretty boy, with long black hair and grey eyes.

He has terrible fashion sense. He has a wardrobe of the clothes worn by "Earth's nobility" but has no idea which clothes are worn with which.

Personality: Niccolo is a True Neutral. This is partly due to the fact that his powers make fighting risky for him, and partly due to being torn between his parents. He's adopted a policy of caring only about himself, and almost never uses more than the Gate of the Body, since the other gates are risky for him. I'll give him some Character Development later, though.

Attitude: Niccolo attempts to avoid participating in anything. He's not sarcastic or cynical so much as he is uninterested.

Background: Niccolo is the child of a mother from the Seelie court, and a father from the Unseelie court. He's been brought up in luxury on both sides, moving back and forth. Both have gotten fed up with him, however. They've sent him to Nephilim on his five-hundredth birthday.

Race/Species: Unseelie/Seelie Sidhe.

Staff/Student/Other: New student.

Archetype: Specialized Mage

Fighting Style: See above

Relationships (if applicable): Despite being attractive, Niccolo's personality keeps him from ever ending up with a girlfriend.

Relevance to Plots: I don't know what the plots are. Something to do with the Sidhe, maybe?

edited 17th Dec '10 8:45:14 AM by Ultrayellow

Sounds like a mage, yes.

Probably a shaman.

Problem is, in this word, magic is more a matter of imposing your will on the world around you, willing it to change in the way you want it to, than casting spells or manipulating the elements.

Sommeone who is manipulating the elements... is limiting themselves a lot. There needs to be a reason for it.

Also, I'm not really feeing your character as a person. I'm not sure if I want to accept it.

Can you give us more information? If you're having trouble with this, try the Character Sharing thread.

But if I give my character the ability to do more than open the gates, then the character becomes extremely powerful. Are you saying you want me to get rid of the powers for this character? Because that will kinda ruin the character, and at that point I might as well start over. Can Niccolo's powers be a specialized discipline, which sacrifices the rest of magical learning if you pursue it?

What part of the character do you dislike? Because I realize that until he grows up a little, Niccolo is an unpleasant person, and I designed him to be that way. I'm not going to write a Jerk Sue, the people Niccolo acts this way to will dislike him.

Sudden thought: should I be P Ming you, or should I keep posting here?

edited 17th Dec '10 8:57:38 AM by Ultrayellow

No, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that I want you to come up with a reason for him to be limited like this. A good, satisfactory reason that doesn't seem like a handwave.

And my problem isn't that I dislike the character. My problem is that from reading your character, I don't really t a sense of who the character is.

That's why I suggested the Charcter Sharing thread. We're great at helping people with thngs like that over there.

And yeah, posting here is fine. Keep the thread bumped :P

edited 18th Dec '10 1:27:51 AM by CyganAngel

If getting rid of a magic power gets rid of the whole character, then I'm not sure the character was worth keeping in the first place.

You see, there's a difference between what a character can do and who a character is. Can their abilities affect who they are? Yes. Should their abilities define who they are? Not necessarily. Sure, a character could very well define himself by his abilities, but his abilities should not define the character to the reader. Example: My character Azher Kant has a pretty decent power set. She sings enchanting and empowering songs, flies, shoots sonic waves from her mouth, knows karate, and a bunch of other stuff that I may think up on the fly, provided it makes enough sense. However, none of these things tell the reader who she is. What she does with them (She enchants people for lulz, for example) is an indicator of who she is.

Did that make sense?

edited 18th Dec '10 6:35:40 AM by SalFishFin

Niccolo's parents were both nobles from different courts, who were married in order to try and bring the courts closer together. They taught Niccolo only this method, despite it being both dangerous and difficult (perhaps it's only possible for high-ranking Sidhe? I don't know how their system works) believing that it would teach him to use his powers responsibly, and develop good self-control. However, the different expectations of his parents (both of whom secretly wanted Niccolo to favor their court) led Niccolo to try to always take the middle ground, and keep everyone happy. He became a passive child, and refused to open the Gate of the Mind, which was a risky technique to use, requiring perfect self-control.

His father (unseelie) was especially determined to force him to advance, going so far as to release monsters to pursue him. But because Niccolo knew his parents were unwilling to actually kill him, he refused to open the gate, forcing his father to save him every time. Niccolo knows most mages could defeat him fairly easily, as he has only his one technique (if you want, it could be his plan to learn new techniques at the Academy, against the wishes of his parents) and he's unwilling to unlock the mind or soul unless his life is actually in danger. So he avoids conflicts, and fights to kill when he does enter fights. He never uses his powers in non-combat situations, trying to get others to do work for him.

On the outside, Niccolo is arrogant, self-centered and vain. But on the inside, he's lonely and feels unloved. Of course, his attitude keeps him unloved, but he's unable to realize that. He makes attempts to appear in control, trying to appear aware of the customs, knowledge and fashions of Earth (which he clearly isn't).

That's why I like the specific powerset, it leads to Niccolo's withdrawn, passive character. I don't really know a lot about the Sidhe, or the magic system, which makes it hard for me to know what exactly to do about this, but I like the rough outline. As I said above, if you really feel that Niccolo should want to learn more magic, I can do that. What exactly is a shaman in this world?

edited 18th Dec '10 1:51:05 PM by Ultrayellow

So his parents are traditional people from a backwards-thinking sub-society of old noble sidhe families, and this stupid (stupid in practice, not that it's a stupid idea) magic system is a matter of family tradition? That sounds plausable. I'm going to give you a cautious yes vote to write your sample, but please, if you do get three more votes, do your best on the sample to convince us that this is an interesting, well-rounded character. I mean, I like what you described, that sounds good, but you need to be able to convey all that cool (sad) stuff within the piece.

And I guess you can start writing your sample if you want, but the other authors might still object to something at the character level, and you'd have to go back and change it in your sample.

edited 19th Dec '10 3:21:56 PM by DaeBrayk

A shaman is like, a culture-specific mage.

For example, take Australian Aboriginal shamans.

Australia, in this world, is somehow even more dangerous than it is in real life.

So, the Aboriginal shamans developed their magic in ways that would help their tribemates survive for as long as possible.

They learned healing magics, learning how to do it using the least amount of energy. They devoted a lot of time towards learning how to cure poisons and venoms. They learned how to ground flying enemies. They made magically-enhanced weapons for their comrades. They learned how to wield the heat of the desert as their weapon in combat.

But in doing so, they're not picking up other forms of magic. For example, they haven't learned any detection magics to see if the person they are talking to is human or not, as they have no need of it. They haven't developed any methods of flight. They know very little spells that deal with water, beyond locating it. They know very little about calming enraged animals, like European shamans know.

Shamans are, in essence, mages who have limited themselves to magic that will serve them well in the country they live in.

So should Niccolo be a shaman, or should he be a mage who is capable of learning almost anything, but who hasn't been taught anything beyond his one technique? I don't know how the Sidhe culture works, could you explain some of that?

I'd say the second. Shaman sounds like a human classification. I also don't know much about sidhe culture.

I vote a yes for Ultrayellow to write a sample as well.

Yesness'

I don't vote on the subject.

I like Yellow's writing style, and I wouldn't mind seeing something written from him/her.

But I don't really have a hang on the character.

So if you're going to write a sample for us, may I request it to be a character study?

Also, I'm disappearing for a while again. I'm back home, and I've actually stolen my mother's personal modem for a few minutes to type this.

So... Anyone else wanna take a crack at the Sidhe culture question? I don't hve anything in mind for it.

Hopefully, I'll be back in a few days.

Is nobody going to take a crack at it?

Damn, I wish I could actually discuss this with the other authors. But nope, no IRC for me.

I imagine Sidhes to have a kind of Eurasian culture, as in European customs with Asian philosophy and themes mixed in.

Star_Kindlers Dear God, Have I Been Away So Long? Proposal:

Even with the Bible, we don't have much to go on, but I'm looking at what we do have, and this is the impression that I get:

Sidhe spread out slowly. When they build their cities, they build them AROUND the things already there instead of tearing the world down and starting anew, ala humanity. Cities follow a very official layout: A central building for the Courts, and then houses radiating outward for less and less important Sidhe. Obviously, layouts become quickly outdated as people rise and fall, but Sidhe are okay with that.

The more important the Sidhe, the more nuclear their family. Part of this is a sense of egotism and paranoia that each Sidhe develops as they become closer and closer to Most Important Sidhe EVAR. Part of this is the sense of jealousy and paranoia everyone else gets. Ironically, because gaining rank is so dependent upon family, the upper bastions of Sidhe society are less stable than anywhere else, usually switching completely in as little as a century!

Another downside to their complicated hierarchy is that jostling to become the greatest occurs everywhere. A student could receive a 27% in a class and still pass as long as they scored highest (this rarely happens, of course). Sports teams or the equivalents thereof don't have betting- the same team wins every year, the only thing that changes is who plays for what. Failure in this way seems [i]wrong[/i] from more human perspectives, but the Sidhe themselves are fine with it.

Upon adulthood, most Sidhe immediately end up in a parent's court, which ninety-nine times out of a hundred is BOTH parent's. Firstborn children of the head of the court are guaranteed to be in charge, with their siblings taking high-ranking positions and their cousins filling out the rest of what the court needs. Everyone after that takes part in a specific part of the court functioning; soldiering, farming, whatever. Upward mobility only exists for that rare one in one hundred child, and even then only 50% of them get it, as this is a rare opportunity for a Sidhe to choose based on love.

Sidhe, of course, can have problems. Sexuality is an issue they have been fluctuating upon since they've had a society, but it is obvious to historians as to [i]why[/i]. When Sidhe have population growth and good control over an area, alternate sexualities appear in full bloom. But under attack, or just losing people, and suddenly (for Sidhe values of suddenly) the idea of wasting time on non-procreative activities becomes scandalous and immoral. A homosexual couple might, in full hypocrisy, chide their adopted child for homosexual acts.

Their other big problem has always been inter-species dealings. Humans might not understand the Sidhe hierarchy (which is why I've avoided touching on it too much), but they are very aware that at best, their greatest leader is three or four rungs below the most important Sidhe. When the two species come into conflict, it is difficult for them to resolve things diplomatically because of their opposing values.

At its best, Sidhe society is a place of idealism, where those in power have good intents for the overall growth of the species and stability of the culture. At its worst, Sidhe society becomes a strange combination of Eldar and Cardassians; on the one hand willing to kill thousands of non-Sidhe to save a Sidhe, but on the other constantly fighting amongst themselves to grow in status.

In short, Niccolo fits in perfectly with this model, especially if the courts around him represent darker Sidhe societies.

@Ultrayellow— the Sidhe live on a cube-shaped planet in an alternate plane of reality called the Ancestral Court. They've only settled one face of the cube. They do not understand physics. They do not care to. It's pretty sporradic on the cube anyway, and they can usually make it do what they want.

Culture: Make it whatever you want it to be. I personally suggest a free-thinking, rennaisance culture, with an emphasis on creativity and exploration, for reasons I cannot explain until after you've been accepted. Your sidhe can come from another face of the cube, where a few sidhe groups went to uphold their own bizzare magical traditions. This would leave your character ostracized by everyone—too repressed for most sidhekind, too revolutionary for his own sidhe subculture, and he'll probably be forced to find companions among humans, which is convenient because most of our charcters are human.

Thanks! I guess I'll get to work on my writing sample, then. So a marriage between Unseelie and Seelie is possible, although rare? Perfect. And yes, Niccolo is the firstborn, while his father is/was (considering having Niccolo's problems stem from his grandfather's determination to get his heir ready to take his place soon) the firstborn too.

Ah, ninja'd by kindler, but I think it would be quite interesting if you combined the two ideas. Under the rigid social structure, creative pursuits are a given. Everyone plays six instruments or builds statues or paints—it's never not happened, it's not even a luxury. It would be like humans not sleeping in times of war, which is to say, out of the question.

Rigid social structure sound good, and I like the idea of having everyone have luxurious personal hobbies (what else would they do with all that free time). As to the court system, I want his mother's side to be mainstream Seelie nobility, but I love the idea of having his father's side rule a different side of the cube, as an extremist branch of the Unseelie Sidhe.

I was using courts to represent smaller structures within Seelie and Unseelie courts, though intermarriage is of course possible. Remember though, only one side of the cube is colonized. A possibility to consider is that the father rules part of the Black Forest (yes, the German locale) as an Unseelie on Earth.

edited 23rd Dec '10 12:34:00 PM by Star_Kindler

Perhaps the grandfather could control an Unseelie court which was strong in a few Sidhe cities, but also controlled a lot of land on Earth. I like the idea of the Black Forest, since that's an area that's been thought of as magical for even longer than the grandfather's lifespan would have to be.

Ohhhh, I like these ideas!! And Im mega-interested in your character, Yellow. Being a Sidhe, he could have connections with my character...must discuss that when you get accepted!!