Subject: Re: Hmm... (Spoilers for the uninitiated)
Author:
Posted on: 2011-12-24 03:15:00 UTC
Well, now I'm feeling somewhat ashamed for not going out, getting the books, and figuring all this out. I don't have answers yet, so I'll probably postpone writing this character for a bit... But thank you anyways for raising all these questions.
I'm currently trying to come up with character ideas for when I ask for permission, and I'd like some opinions on them--they're not really fleshed out yet, but the basics are:
An ex-cursor from Codex Alera who specializes in firecrafting
and
An ex-Mary Sue from a Nanoha badfic with the "Book of the Dawn Sky" a speshul version of the Tome of the Night Sky. Her story had enough good spelling and grammar, so the agents figured that she might be salvaged.
Try being descriptive about its strength and weaknesses to justify your specialty. Anyway, good luck with your character.
Anyway, check out my idea for an agent:
http://rc6981.blogspot.com/2011/12/profile-nathaniel-kronos.html
Thank you.
The Flowers are giant telepathic plants, no two ways about it. You're gonna want to brush up on the Original Series and the basics of the PPC in general before asking for permission, I think. Also, you can't actually claim that RC number until you have permission, so I'm afraid creating a journal named for it was a bit premature.
I recommend re-reading Nate's bio. There's a fair bit of wonky grammar and word choices—just in the Appearance section I find "complex" where you need "complexion" and "tied behind the his head," which has an extra word in it. Reading through it out loud might help, since it's hard to spot errors in things you wrote yourself.
Try to keep in mind that there's no rush here. We're not going to disappear, so taking your time to make sure everything is ship-shape can only benefit you.
~Neshomeh
That was wrong of me... I'll finish remember that in the future.
Ex-Cursor in what era? The 'ex' totally means varying things depending on when. And pure firecrafter, or just specializing in that and with another talent or two?
Era? You mean which First Lord she served? I imagined that she fought against the Vord, and she probably has limited skills in all crafts--enough watercraft to heal some minor wounds, enough woodcraft to hide, enough metalcraft to be able to tell when someone's carrying a weapon, that sort of thing (forgive me if any of those things are not, in fact, easy to learn; it's been a while since I read the books). She probably specializes in firecraft and windcrafting.
Yes, I meant which First Lord. So, if she's an ex-Cursor, is that 'ex' only because she joined up with the PPC, or did she retire in-world, and how? And if she fought the Vord, then she served towards the end of Sextus' reign, I take it? Older or younger than Tavi?
It should be noted that skills--however limited--in all the crafting types are painfully rare except in the very highest Citizenry. My immediate suggestion would be that unless she is supposed to be related to--and, within-world, probably known to be related to--one of the major families, especially the High Lords'? You're going to want to limit her crafting sharply to either two at decently to strongly formidable levels or three, with one noticeably stronger and one extant but barely functional.
For someone like her, I'd point to Bernard and Fidelias as the proper templates for highly-powered in multiple crafting types. Bernard is noticeably and highly powered in wood and earth, but without anything noted in any of the others; Fidelias is similarly powerful (or possibly slightly less so, but with a different kind of finesse) and also has some low-level watercrafting. I think in her case you'll want to look at Fidelias in particular. Healing is actually decently difficult; as I recall, Fidelias cannot manage it at all, though he can change his appearance with many weeks of putting in a couple hours a day into it. Knowing when someone's armed with metallic weaponry is pretty much a natural side-effect of being a remotely noticeable metalcrafter and has a lot less power and skill associated with it.
Given what you seem to want to do, I'd suggest limiting it to firecrafting and windcrafting with a possible side dose of minor metal or water--not both. In particular, if you want woodcraft for hiding, keep in mind that isn't actually necessary: windcrafters can do both auditory and visual veils (there's a whole part where Gaius Sextus teaches Amara how to veil while flying, and it's the windcrafters who do soundproofing). Far more to the point: it is more interesting to have a Cursor who does not have 'Every Possible Base Trick In The Arsenal' to work with. Cursors are chosen to be deadly and creative about it, and work around their difficulties. One of the most dangerous Cursors in Alera is little Ehren, and he doesn't need more than token crafting to murder a High Lord--and Tavi himself, pre-crafting, could have taken out two given the element of surprise. It's not about how much crafting, it's about how it's used, and with Cursors? The best of the best are smarter than they are magically powerful.
This is, of course, a good rule of thumb for creating Agents in general--being a not-dissimilar vocation--but in the case of Aleran Cursors this is implicit and frequently explicit in canon. Unless your agent being a child of the upper echelons of the Citizenry is crucial to her backstory, I'd say limit it; if she really is that high-born, of course, you've got a radically different ballgame with its own set of challenges.
Well, I think ex- because she joined up with the PPC. I think she had finished her training a short time before the Vord War, so early twenties-ish?
Thanks for the information on crafting. She's not a member of the Citizenry, so I'll limit her to Fire- and wind-crafting.
Then I think, in character building, I only have a couple more thoughts to suggest you keep in mind:
1) Early twenties is good, but when she became a Cursor is still relevant. Remember that we don't know who trained Cursors after Killian's death in Book 2, and Tavi is all of 24 in the last book, so 'early twenties' doesn't hit up the key point. Is she older than Tavi? Did she finish her training before he did, or was her training approached differently than his thanks to the circumstances? If she finished after book two, the question of who trained her becomes relevant; his Cursor class is the last that we know of graduating, but it's unlikely Sextus would have just let it go merely because his primary teacher fell. Still, we don't actually know what happened, and we know the Cursors were getting decimated as the Vord War approached.
So, did your Agent graduate before Tavi did, or after? And if after, given she likely studied in Alera Imperia, who contributed to her training once Killian was dead?
2) You mention she's not a member of the Citizenry--so, I assume, not born so. If she's a strong enough crafter, she might have become a Citizen based on that crafting (the way some Knights become Citizens rather than just being freemen thanks to being incredibly strong crafters; it's mentioned Bernard could have been a Citizen prior to becoming Count Calderon if he'd wanted to, he just hadn't bothered). Is she a Citizen now, born a freewoman or not, or has she not challenged for full Citizenship?
3) This is purely a question that came up for me when thinking about a Cursor-cum-Agent, and takes several sharp turns into serious and more detailed character development territory, but it's a question I thought I'd share. The only two Cursors known to quit within-world are Fidelias and Amara, and they both did so... spectacularly--and in both cases it didn't last very long. If you think about the job of a Cursor, they first and foremost serve the Crown, approximately to protect the Realm (and that's where the idealism can lead to conflict of philosophy)--and the House of Gaius does not let go of talent easily. Cursors serve as the First Lord's eyes and ears, and frequently mouth and hands. Does your ex-Cursor still carry the coin that marks her as a Cursor? Does she have that life waiting for her should she leave the PPC, and if she does, is it because she simply never bothered to 'abandon Real Life,' as it were? Whether or not any of this is the case, how does her previous loyalty to Lord and Realm currently play into her view of her duties as an Agent?
In case you can't tell, the idea of an ex-Cursor for an Agent is hugely exciting. These are just the questions which arose in my mind immediately upon reading your premise.
Well, now I'm feeling somewhat ashamed for not going out, getting the books, and figuring all this out. I don't have answers yet, so I'll probably postpone writing this character for a bit... But thank you anyways for raising all these questions.
Cursors are chosen to be deadly and creative about it, and work around their difficulties.
This. This is an excellent rule of thumb for PPC agents. It's not about what powers you have or don't have; it's 100% about putting whatever you've got to good use. The more challenging it is, the more fun it is to read about. {= )
Incidentally, I might have to look into this series. It sounds interesting.
~Neshomeh
The reading of the series as being a good idea.
Alera is a world with highly practical and tribal not!humans who occasionally have giant badgers and feathered mini-T-rexes for soul-bonded companions, abominable snowmen, giant wolf-men summoning eldritch abominations, Zerg, and a Lost Roman Legion with Pokémon.
It also has tons of highly competent, intelligent, charismatic, deadly characters, and a central hero who is the illustration that you can do Standard High Fantasy Tropes and still do them entertainingly, interestingly, well, and without falling into complete Stu-dom traps. Sure, the big solutions are helped along by having magical nukes to drop, but it is always about brains with the power, and the lovely thing is that people are shown to be charismatic and clever, not just stated to be, and in situations which flow naturally.
I love both Dresden and Alera, though Alera far more, but a guy who works at the gaming and sci-fi/fantasy store I frequent prefers Dresden. That said, he described the last Alera book as virtually flawless. It's a fantastic series, all told.
Also, it was written practically on a dare.
yes, someone bet that he couldn't take two ideas and make a great series. They were Pokemon and the Lost Roman Legion.
Did someone say Zerg ? The Swarm has invaded other dimensions? Cool.
I am picking this series up right now.
Not by name, obviously, but Butcher has been asked where he got inspiration for his 'highly original alien specieses' before.
His response about the Vord, from Dragon*Con 2010: "And the Zerg I mean the Vord? Yeah, those are completely original."
Romans with Pokemon fight Zerg
Besides, the entire "aliens who are controlled by gigantic Overmind/hive-mind" archetype is a staple in many sci-fi or fantasy stories.
Well, they're called the Vord, but you should read it anyways.
And given that Butcher is a huge nerd, there's almost certainly some of the Zerg in the Vord (although they only barely show up in the first book)
It is fantastic.
Is Jim Butcher's other series- the first book I think is a bit rocky, personally, if better in quality than the first Dresden Files book- but it is excellent.
Very enjoyable series overall, though I am not quite the utter fanatic that FractalDawn is.
I don't know Codex Alera well, but I'm currently watching Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, and I think that a speshul version of the Book of Darkness is really, really, really overpowered.
You...are probably the only person I've met here that knows what Nanoha is without my having to explain most of the plot. And DoSAT or some other department probably either took the book, or depowered it by a lot.
Corolla won't be the only one Agent from that continuum for long. (she's an Unison Device, by the way)
Hm--if I end up writing this character, would you maybe want to do a co-write?
Also, I had some ideas for a female of Garyuu's species--I brought it up on the chat and they thought it was good, which is why I didn't ask about it here before now.
I really like to co-write things, and a pet normally-miniature dragon sounds like the perfect companion for a MGLN character. However, here too you need to write it well, after all we're still talking about a dragon here.
Dragon? Garyuu is Lutecia's humanoid summon--are you think of Fried?
Yeah, I was thinking exactly that. Sorry. (Never enjoyed Strikers too much)
Ah well, the character as I thought of her is not that powerful--she has a handful of really quick combat spells, but won't be throwing around Divine Busters anytime soon, and while she can use her swords and tentacle-things, she can't go toe-to-toe with, say, Signum or Erio.
I'm not familiar with either continuum, but being an ex-Sue means leaving behind the trappings of Suedom, including speshul artifacts.
~Neshomeh
I figured that DoSAT confiscated the book after she joined, so she could probably only handle basic-ish, not-powerful magic, or none at all. In fact, the reason that she wasn't killed is because, in the canon, the Book of Darkness would just reincarnate somewhere after being destroyed, and the agents didn't want to take that risk.
I think she still has magic, after all Hayate got a hell of a Linker Core (=mana storage, in layman's terms) in canon despite the first Book got destroyed.
Surely your Agent without the Book of Dawn will lose a good chunk of power, but she'll keep enough mana to cast some combat-capable spells. My advice is to keep her no more than B or at most single A ranked, as MGLN power levels tend to go really high. Go google "Nanoha blasts Quattro" to get what a pissed off S+ ranked mage can do.
There's a reason why I think the only was to deal with an S-ranked Sue is "close air support with jetfighters". And I'm sure there are some SSS-ranked ones out there. (Sun Crusher required.)
As I recall, Hayate had almost no magic before she fixed the book-it's why it was eating into her body. And while she can still cast spells, then she'll be really limited--I'd guess that a severely depowered Bloody Dagger or Diabolic Emission--enough to fight with, yeah, but no city-destroying (I'm fairly certain that Diabolic Emission was intended as an anti-warship weapon, even if Rein Eins and Hayate use it as an anti-personnel attack). Her equivalent would probably be enough to cover a large room-no where near the ToNS equivalent.