In light of my belated conversion to Gary Gygax's own perspective on humano-centrism, I'm wondering if my focus on a number of non-human iconics is as appropriate as it was when I first conceived it. Not that non-human characters don't exist, of course. Or that they're not playable, protagonist races (although I have been gradually migrating mentally away from some of the races as really good choices for protagonists except in unusual circumstances, especially for Wendaks, and to a lesser degree for orcs and goblins.)
That doesn't mean that any of my iconics need to be abandoned, but they may need "re-grouping". This is especially true if I'm actually going to end up turning some of these iconics into fiction characters in the setting. In that case, I'll definitely want to focus on fewer of them, with many of the non-humans demoted to supporting cast. Let's go through the various groups as I currently have them and then I'll noodle around stream of consciousness like to see what I think needs to be done.
Group #1: The Original Group
—Stefan Clevenger, human fighter and freelance Shadow Ranger.
—Kimnor "Kim" Rugova, Hyperborean shadow sword
—Shule, goblin thief
—Oisin Dughall, woodwose outdoorsman
—NPC extra in the form of Alys, who appears to be a human expert with some spells but who is actually a wight-witch, i.e. a wight who has some added spells to her repertoire of abilities
—Revecca von Lechfeld, another NPC who becomes an ally and semi-member of the group following the events of the CULT OF UNDEATH campaign. I'm not really sure I should consider her a part of the group at all, but because she's fallen in love with Stefan and eventually is meant to be come a pseudomage human expert, I've traditionally talked about her as if she's kinda sorta part of the group.
Group #2: The Splinter Group
—Ragnar Clevenger, human outdoorsman and freelance Shadow Ranger (he needs an animal companion! I hadn't thought of that yet.)
—Cailin Clevenger, dhampyr fighter; former victim of vampire attack (hence her change from human to dhampyr) and wife of Ragnar
—Fredegar de Wend, human fighter
—Dean Bannermane, human thief
Group #3: The Edgy Group
—Claud Lupescu, human fighter who is cursed with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde condition. Since there are no rules for that, and it's hardly a PC compatible ability, I'm not sure that I believe continuing to have him as an iconic when he's anything but is a good idea.
—Claud's fraternal twin sister Griselda, on the other hand, is a typical human expert who's dabbled with way too much sorcery and is at risk of becoming fallen morally and in every other way. Classic character arc potential stuff there.
—Victor Lupescu, older human fighter and Claud and Griselda's father and mentor and weary conscience is the next member of this group.
—Redemption, the full-on succubus (from the monster list) who is attached to Claud and spends most of her time in the form of a dog is a monster, not a PC character race.
—Mabuk, the imp companion of Redemption; same thing.
—Dominik Schneider, the charming and roguish swordsmaster who is only a part time member of the group, but who Griselda has a terrible crush on is another pretty basic character type.
Group #4: The Anti-PC Villains
—Averell Geoffson is a human thief and expert cat burglar and knife fighter
—Bahram Khanwar is a jann duelist (fighter)
—Bahram's sister is Javaira, a jann thief with a nymphomanic addiction to sex
—Merra Kuzalash, a kemling expert witch, and sometimes girlfriend of Ragnar and Stefan's nemesis
—Namzo, orc fighter
—The Reaper, a human fighter (customized with weapon mastery) who is an anonymous assassin that only sometimes works with the group
Group #5: Mystery, Inc.
—Frederick von Johannes, human fighter with optional focus on craftsmanship instead of Acrobatics
—Daphne FitzBlake, dexterity focused gymnast. Thief class.
—Gavin Shagford ("Shaggy") an outdoorsman with a focus on his quarterstaff instead of ranged weapons. His animal companion is a large mastiff named Scoob.
—Zelda du Velmois, expert scholar and student of the occult
So, where does that leave me? Group #1 is my original iconics group, but I think it's too diverse in retrospect. But I don't want to abandon it, just restructure it and probably turn many of its more outre members into supporting cast of an ensemble that's more based around Stefan and Ragnar rather than Stefan and Kimnor. I do, however, like the concept of Kimnor as a character. I want to keep him looped in.
Group #2 is possibly not diverse enough to show off much, plus Ciarin is an optional race added in the appendix (although there's an in-game story reason for that; she starts off as a regular human teenaged girl before being victimized by a vampire and partially turned into one before Ragnar saved her and stopped—but not reversed—the process.) Plus, I don't really have much headspace given to Dean or Fredegar. I don't really know why they're important or what they're doing. There there because someone needed to be, not because they really mattered or had a compelling story of any kind.
Group #3 begs to be a fictional story group, but are actually very poorly suited to be any kind of iconics. I think they need to be un-iconicked and turned into NPCs.
Group #4 works as iconic characters, but from a story-perspective as the villains and anti-PCs, they were never really in my mind meant to be a group of PCs at all, but rather a group of antagonists that are a dark mirror to a PC group. They're basically already NPCs.
Group #5 all go together, but they're kind of tongue-in-cheek and are a pastiche of the Scooby Gang, who are in turn a pastiche of some of the main characters of the old Dobie Gillis sitcom from the early 60s. I can continue to pursue them as iconics, but their connections or ability to coexist with the others is debatable. They kind of need their own semi-comic campaign to be in.
Now, of course, all of this varies depending on what is meant by "iconics." Paizo used iconics not only to showcase their race and class combinations, but also as pregens in many of their earlier adventure paths (or maybe all of them. Did they continue that? I don't think so, but I might be wrong.) And, of course, they were meant as a common artistic touch in their artwork, which usually highlighted at least some of the iconics. Especially, over time, the less white and less male of them. Blergh.
I think what I need to do is reconfigure groups #1 and #2 into a single group of four, with the remainder being in and out characters who are not always part of the core group, but who tend to be associated with them on a more ad-hoc basis. Kind of like the way Alys and Revecca are to group #1 already.
Group #3 are just NPCs and I don't even know if I can stat some of them up at all, especially Claud who has a unique condition, and Redemption and Mabuk are just straight up monsters. I'll keep them handy as NPCs, but they will no longer be considered iconics. (Maybe I can call them pseudo-iconics? False iconics? Iconic NPCs, but not suitable as PCs? I dunno.)
Group #4 will be statted as iconics, but I will never treat them as such. I've already decided that for MIND-WIZARDS OF THE DAEMON WASTES one of the columns will focus on them as antagonists. They're just NPCs, and can be treated as non-iconics.
Group #5 will continue as is, a parallel group of iconics for a different game within the same setting, with a somewhat different tone, and more of an in-joke than anything else, given that they're a pastiche of a cartoon made for kids of my generation.
So, the "true" iconic group will be Stefan, Ragnar, Ciarin and Kimnor, with the possibility of "prequeling" how Kimnor and Ciarin join the group. Fredegar, Shule, Oisin, and Dean are on again off again characters, like in the olden days when sometimes folks wouldn't show up for every game. And Alys and Revecca continue to be NPCs, although friendly ones who are almost part of the group.
No comments:
Post a Comment