Fine Tuning a Child (?) Mage

Before I go into the topic of the post, some quick background/context:

I recently had an idea for character that struck me as a potentially hilarious premise for a story. Imagine a warrior, the kind of utter badass decked on black with a giant sword. In short, an expy of Guts from Berserk.

Now imagine this utter badass taking care of small children. Happily and unhesitatingly giving them horsey rides, telling bedtime stories, sitting at tea parties, etc.

The idea struck me as amusing so I've started developing it. Specifically, I started thinking about what kind of children sick a character most find himself the caretaker of, because this isn't he kind of premise where you wind up in charge of average children.

The first idea I had was a Child Mage our warrior rescues from some form of exploitation. However, as I developed the other two kids (a Wild Child very early in acclimating to human society and a girl dealing with day to day life under Demonic Possession) I began to feel the wizard boy needed something more. The idea that came to me is to change things a bit so he isn't, strictly speaking, a Child Mage. He's an old powerful wizard who got dipped in the Fountain of Youth after an experience in eternal youth went awry.

I like the idea, but it presents a dilemma in that there are a few different ways to go about it and I can't decide which idea, or combination of, I prefer. So I thought I'd get another opinion or two on it. I have three ideas in particular, should I go the turned into the kid route with the character, currently named Leonel:

1. If I go the Fountain of Youth route, should Leonel know about it? Are his memories gone with his age? Or does he remember everything that's happened to him? If he doesn't remember, I still plan to have his past life have an effect on him, but I lean more towards his remembering which leads to...
2. If he remembers, should he be a Deliberately Cute Child to play it up, or try to only to routinely fall into childish behavior anyway because The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body?
3. Should the Warrior Daddy know the truth? Should he know the boy is really this powerful old wizard and took him in out of a desire of Raise Him Right This Time? Or would it be better if he just took in what he believed to be a lost child with nowhere to go. Either would probably be in character (or can be, things are still in very early stages so nothing's concrete)

So I like the Fountain of Youth idea. I think I there may be more potential in Leonel retaining memory of his past life, though I do wonder if it doesn't run against the premise too much. I'm not sure which combination has the most going for it or if I should scrap the idea and keep him a Child Mage.

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

edited 6th May '18 12:18:32 PM by sgamer82

I like that premise a lot... Maybe combine 2 & 3? and having The Mind Is The Plaything Of The Body being a big thing, with the "kid" having most of its old memmories and personality. However, the kid-part of his mind just tend to be in charge... Also I think the soldier should know, but took him in anyway, because "he is a lost kid without a home.

I reject your reality and substitute my own!!!

Two and Three were going to be combined in some form to begin with. My main issue is deciding what would be a good combination.

Having Leonel not fully retain his memories can create a situation where the old memories can crop up unexpectedly. On the other hand, I have something similar going for the kid with Demonic Possession, who has to deal with being compelled towards bad behavior.

I like the idea of The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body scenario, but I'm not sure if it would run counter to the premise of the soldier being a paternal type.

EDIT: Within the story itself, I'm thinking that, whatever I decide, I'd play it off as ambiguous so it's not entirely clear which answer is the correct one. But, if I'm going to do that, I ought to know what the answer is myself. I think that's why I'm particularly stuck on this one.

edited 6th May '18 3:58:09 PM by sgamer82

The question I have is if he actually counts as a child if he's got these decades of memory as an adult. The whole Mind is a plaything of the body thing aside, he's still got those memories. He's still got a perspective an actual child wouldn't and occasional moments of childish behavior wouldn't undo that.

Course, you could have it that the wizard did that deliberately in order to escape punishment for some crime and the amnesia part was simply an accident or something. I dunno. Maybe you should rethink whether or not the kid needs to stand out. Or if you really need three kids. It sounds like if the girl has issues with demonic possession she could also be a wizard sometime down the road. Or just ditch the idea that he's a child and he's just an old dude trying to help out a middle aged dude take care of a couple of orphans, one of which he might have the ability to help!

(I do think it runs against the premise of "buff guy takes care of orphan children.)

edited 6th May '18 5:07:56 PM by AceofSpades

That first paragraph is where the "runs counter to the premise" problem I have kicks in.

Hmm... that could bear some thinking on.

Three is an arbitrary number, I admit, but four total seemed like a solid number to work with. I originally had the thought with just the wizard kid and nothing else. Badass and Child Duo aside, I felt I wanted at least a couple more to provide a mix of interaction.

The demon girl's premise is something I'm still working out the exact mechanics on, the short version is that the demon compels her to make others suffer, but she manages to maintain control by a bit of Loophole Abuse: The demon doesn't compel towards any specific target, so she decides to make its life miserable. There's potential overlap with old memories influencing the kid mage, but if I can make it work I like the possession premise enough to leave it as is.

---

Still, I'm getting a good path now I think. How's this sound:

Old, powerful (possibly dark/evil) wizard turns himself into a kid, does not retain conscious memory of his original life, though ingrained habits and personality traits may still crossover. Due to a combination of suspicion the bad wizard may still be in there somewhere, the fact the kid can't really take care of himself now either way (I have Leonel in mind as the youngest of the bunch), and to avoid the possibility that more vengeful and less forgiving might just decide they Would Hurt a Child to get rid of him for good, the soldier opts to take Leonel into his care. He may tell Leonel he's simply the grandchild of this sorcerer in a bit of Lies to Children if the subject of his origins comes up.

I like the idea.

A few ideas:

• Lionel partially keeps his memmories. He keeps all his childhood memmories up untill his current age. The other memmories comes in temporary flashes and are quite jumbeled and unspecified. (Neither the warrior nor wizard kid however realizes that these memmories are quite old so they go looking for his family...)
  • Your friendly warrior can of course not say no to help this lost little boy find his family.
• The wizard could perhaps know who he really is, but that's it. He is in that case essentially a kid who knows that he is actually an powerfull de-aged wizard, but apart from the occasional memmory (and maybe his magical power) is he not that different from ordinary kids his age... Candy is much more important than world domination nowadays.
• The demon and/or posessed kid knows who the wizard really is, making cryptic comments about him all the time.
  • Maybe the wizard is behind that posession?

I like the fact that the warrior atempt to protect him and raize the wizard right. After all, he is a (depending on your view) innocent child.

I like also like the ambigiousness if the wizard knows who he is or not

I reject your reality and substitute my own!!!

The demon knowing him is something I might do, but otherwise each kid's origins will be independent of the others'

Temporary flashes of old memories is something I considered. Could be a source of drama here and there depending on how it's used.

edited 7th May '18 10:43:57 AM by sgamer82

Wat fantasy genre are you aiming for? High fantasy? Where on the idealism scale is the story?

I reject your reality and substitute my own!!!

I tend to default to High Fantasy, as a rule. I could be steered towards other styles of fantasy, like Urban Fantasy, if I thought they'd fit, though this specific idea is probably best kept high.

Scale wise, I'd say far on the idealistic scale in this one, since I mostly imagine it as something silly and fluffy with a bit of drama thrown in.

I want something eventful in the backstories, but I don't like to pile on angst for the sake of angst.

edited 7th May '18 3:00:53 PM by sgamer82