Sunday, August 12, 2018

RPG a Day: Days 11 and 12


As promised here’s my weekend double header.

Day 11: Weirdest character name?

My weirdest character name was actually an alias for a character known to the rest of the party by another alias, in an Inception situation of weirdness.  An akarakokra rouge, hiding in a land where akarakokra were thought to be extinct wore an amulet to conceal his identity, he was known to the other members of the party simply as Archer.

 Archer’s true name was Taal Azazel, a weird name in its own right, as I wanted the aarakocra to have a unique name. Taal was an altered spelling from a character from the very underrated book series “The Seventh Tower,” and Azazel is a fallen angel, since akarakokra have wings.

Of course when Taal went undercover and faked his own death I gave him the name Zane Landstander, when he was disguised as a human. This was of course a play on the fact that he was pretending to be a human and not someone who could fly, and me trying to come up with a bizarre name for the deepest level down of this name Russian nesting doll.

Image result for aarakocra

Day 12: Weirdest character concept?           

There were a few things I considered putting here, like the bird person I just mentioned, who was undercover and faked his own death, or the young girl monk leaving her rich family behind to search for enlightenment, or I could have talked about the young force user from Naboo with the old family friend Jar Jar Binks. But I’m not going to do any of them, and I’m going to completely cheat.

The character I’m using is actually from Arkham Horror, which is technically a board game based on a roleplaying game, and the player I used was one of the pregenerated characters from the game. But when we play we tend to play it more like a roleplaying game, not making decisions based on what makes sense to win the game, but as characters. I decided to put my own spin on the character based on his backstory and goals; I even did a character voice.

This was my first time, and it really was like a mini campaighn because we played with four expansions leading to a massive map. I chose Bob Jenkins, a traveling salesman who misses his train because he finds some mysterious gold coins. For those not familiar with Arkahm Horror, it’s a Lovecraftian game about trying to stop ancient gods from destroying the world in the 1920’s.

Bob was just a guy trying to earn a quick buck, looking for coins, but ended up fighting monsters with a tommy gun pretty quickly. Bob wasn’t really concerned with where these monstrosities were coming from, and even when traveling to dark and evil planes he didn’t care about understanding about any of this, he just knew he had to stop it, there wasn’t much profit to be made if the world ended.

Bob found his golden coins, but that was the least of his trouble, and he quickly traded his fortune for clues to find a way to seal these portals to the other world that were letting in these monstrosities. He grew into a less selfish character, but one that stood by his capitalist ideals, which ultimately helped him save the world. In the end the game all came down to a single dice roll, if I sucsseded, the world was saved, if I failed an elder god would return and destroy us all. Of course Bob Jenkins was up to the challenge, shouting after he had spent his last dollar to help seal the portal “If that isn’t an endorsement for capitalism, I don’t know what is!”

Bob Jenkins; wheelin, dealin, and sealin!

Image result for bob jenkins arkham

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