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kardar233
2013-03-26, 05:04 PM
I'm playing a character in a just-started campaign who is from a very strange society relative to the other characters, and I'm looking for good ways to bring that out.

Some background information:

The setting is Iron Kingdoms by way of Full Metal Alchemist; the world situation of the former with its magic system replaced by the latters'.

The character is Alaixandra Theodosia Katherine Kingsleigh (cursed with unutterably pretentious parents), a minor noblewoman who left to seek adventure in first a mercenary and then an exploratory voyage, and got much, much more than she bargained for. She was captured by the Skorne, a very nasty demihuman race who enslaved her and her crew, though she managed to escape her position and end up as a figure of some small power in their lands. She recently headed home due to troubles in the Skorne lands and reunited with her brother. They're currently in her old homeland of Cygnar, a fairly standard steam/electro/magi-punk country.

The thing is, over the course of her time as a prisoner she forgot a lot of her earlier life due to the ministrations of the Paingivers (not likely to happen, but a character device I'm using) so the only society she's comfortable in is the Skorne one.

What I want to do is accent just how out-of-place she is here is Cygnar. There's not a whole lot written about Skorne society so I'm drawing on whatever "honor-based hierarchical military society" sources I can find.

Things I know for sure about the Skorne, and want to work in somehow:


They have a strict honor code/way of life called hoksune which is all about attaining excellence through struggle. A little bit of information here (http://fourplustough.blogspot.ca/2012/05/skorne-fluff-post-actually-shameless-re.html). It also includes a lot of Bushido-like stuff, like fighting honourably and all that.
They are generally ascetics to some degree.
They respect two things: power, and also power. However, they're quite selective about what kind of power is "okay"; if it goes against their other tenets then it's "not okay".
They know that when people die, their spirits go to a hellish place where they insane, unless you have a special soul stone nearby, which captures the soul and allows it to stick around and not be crazy.
[**]They revere the most awesome of the spirits that they've kept around (and stick them into golems and such) and anyone who is sufficiently awesome gets put into a stone when they die.
They have a caste-based society, which includes castes like Extollers (priests who deal with the soul stuff above), Paingivers (slave masters/beast trainers), etc.


These are things I have already implemented for her:


Tattooing mementos of won battles over her body
No nudity taboo, as the aforementioned tattoos are a major status symbol
Reacting harshly to being touched
It's not only potentially dangerous, it's also a slight to your honour
Assessing people's social status in terms of the Skorne castes
Getting really freaked out by undead, as they're crazy spirits that should not be


Do you have any ideas of what else she can do?

PersonMan
2013-03-26, 05:40 PM
One thing I do, that could help in this case, is language-related. Essentially, I pick a real-world language that's the equivalent of whatever regional tongue the character is used to speaking. It's essentially always German, since I speak it, but anything you understand the grammar of will do.

Then, based on how "fresh" the foreign character is, I build in odd grammatical constructions. For example, rather than saying "They will raze the city", they might say "They will make the entire city equal to the ground" (Die ganze Stadt den Erdboden gleich machen.). Of course, making this work and not just be a caricature-esque usage of bad accents requires knowing the other language at least relatively well and for the in-game nation to speak a different in-game language.

Apart from this, I'd just occasionally show confusion at things considered normal - shaking hands comes to mind, but also other random things such as order of names ("Bob Jones" vs "Jones Bob" or similar), titles and the like. A ringing bell above the door of a shop might strike her as a sign that the owner is paranoid or the staff incompetent (unable to see if someone comes in) or similar.

NikitaDarkstar
2013-03-26, 06:11 PM
On top of what PersonMan has suggested it sounds like the burial rites would be vastly different from what she's used to. Being confused by the notions of "heaven" and "hell" (or in-game equivalents) could be appropriate, along with questioning the funeral rites of the current country (if it ever comes up).

If the country she's currently in has a different caste system not understanding it would also be fitting, especially if it's more fluid than her own (Strict caste societies often don't agree with marrying outside of your own caste, and certainly not BELOW your own one). If status is not something inherent in her native society that's another thing she could have problems comprehending.

Bucky
2013-03-26, 11:38 PM
Extending PersonMan's suggestion, she probably uses a different set of idioms from normal. Expect both a lot of missing the point ("Hang out? Hang what out?") and a few cryptic expressions ("hold your stones") as well as straight juxtapositions ("Electric? That's for punishing slaves, right?").

kardar233
2013-03-27, 12:59 AM
One thing I do, that could help in this case, is language-related. Essentially, I pick a real-world language that's the equivalent of whatever regional tongue the character is used to speaking. It's essentially always German, since I speak it, but anything you understand the grammar of will do.

Then, based on how "fresh" the foreign character is, I build in odd grammatical constructions. For example, rather than saying "They will raze the city", they might say "They will make the entire city equal to the ground" (Die ganze Stadt den Erdboden gleich machen.). Of course, making this work and not just be a caricature-esque usage of bad accents requires knowing the other language at least relatively well and for the in-game nation to speak a different in-game language.

Apart from this, I'd just occasionally show confusion at things considered normal - shaking hands comes to mind, but also other random things such as order of names ("Bob Jones" vs "Jones Bob" or similar), titles and the like. A ringing bell above the door of a shop might strike her as a sign that the owner is paranoid or the staff incompetent (unable to see if someone comes in) or similar.

I like the first suggestion, though I'm not fluent enough in any languages other than English to use a different syntax for her (unless I count programming languages which aren't very helpful here). I also think that since she's actually coming back to speaking her first language (though she doesn't remember speaking it originally) she would have far less trouble with sentence construction than a normal newcomer woud have.

The second one is what I'm trying to do. Shaking hands is a big no-no based on the touch taboo mentioned above; she bows as an introduction, the depth based on her guess of their social status.


On top of what PersonMan has suggested it sounds like the burial rites would be vastly different from what she's used to. Being confused by the notions of "heaven" and "hell" (or in-game equivalents) could be appropriate, along with questioning the funeral rites of the current country (if it ever comes up).

If the country she's currently in has a different caste system not understanding it would also be fitting, especially if it's more fluid than her own (Strict caste societies often don't agree with marrying outside of your own caste, and certainly not BELOW your own one). If status is not something inherent in her native society that's another thing she could have problems comprehending.

Hmmm, the religious conflicts are something I could look at. The Skorne know for a fact that their dead go to a place called the Void where they go insane, so the claims of the setting's resident LN (though close to LE) Church Militant (that obedient service to Menoth is the only way out of a trip to the Void) may sound quite appealing or laughably ridiculous, depending on how it's presented.

She'll probably be quite mystified by all the attention people give to corpses though: "They're dead. That's not them, it's just a bunch of meat that looks like they used to. Why are you doing all this stuff?"

Cygnaran society is very much based on Victorian England circa The Difference Engine, so there's a certain level of classism that she can interpret as caste differences, but the Skorne's castes are considerably stricter. Basically, if you're badass enough, you can be in one of the warrior castes, and if you're not, then you're less than dirt, like a marginally more meritocratic version of Rokugan. She'll definitely have no patience with the Nobles Who Don't Do Anything.


Extending PersonMan's suggestion, she probably uses a different set of idioms from normal. Expect both a lot of missing the point ("Hang out? Hang what out?") and a few cryptic expressions ("hold your stones") as well as straight juxtapositions ("Electric? That's for punishing slaves, right?").

This is a good point but I really don't want these differences to be played for laughs. The latter examples I could see working but the former seems more fit for a comedic treatment.

NikitaDarkstar
2013-03-27, 11:41 AM
Hmm I wouldn't brush of the "missing the point" just yet. While it can be used for comedy it's also fairly reasonable that such a misunderstanding could lead to a less than ideal situation. But like most things it should be used in moderation as it can wear out it's welcome pretty fast.

Surfnerd
2013-03-29, 08:14 AM
There is also playing up anxiety about death for your character without the stones around to prevent her soul from going insane. Its not a cowardly fear of mortal death but the fear of immortal insanity.

Also bringing the caste concept to bare on the Cygnar society might empower your character to feel above them. She sees the soft unproven and unrestrained society of the Cygnar as beneath even the lowest caste of Skorne. There is no reason why she has to treat it with wonder and awe, but something to be looked down upon as inferior.

maxriderules
2013-03-29, 11:33 AM
Depending on Skorne society, she may have an odd feeling about money. If it is the steriotypical demi-human society, Then she may have trouble assigning value to money, as they have no real practical use.

Also, it seems the Skorne have no slavery taboo. This could be interesting, and a source of moral dissonance.

kardar233
2013-03-29, 03:38 PM
There is also playing up anxiety about death for your character without the stones around to prevent her soul from going insane. Its not a cowardly fear of mortal death but the fear of immortal insanity.

Also bringing the caste concept to bare on the Cygnar society might empower your character to feel above them. She sees the soft unproven and unrestrained society of the Cygnar as beneath even the lowest caste of Skorne. There is no reason why she has to treat it with wonder and awe, but something to be looked down upon as inferior.

Getting put in a soul stone (called Exaltation) is an honour reserved for the very top of the Skorne warrior caste, a point that Alaixandra knows she hasn't nearly reached yet. Being overly cautious to ensure you don't die before you make it high enough to be Exalted is very much frowned upon, so in the short term she won't worry about that. However, once she is badass enough to be an Exaltation candidate she'll definitely be concerned.

The latter's a good one; she'll definitely interpret others' social standing in terms of Skorne, and be very dismissive of anybody who didn't earn their status through asskicking.


Depending on Skorne society, she may have an odd feeling about money. If it is the steriotypical demi-human society, Then she may have trouble assigning value to money, as they have no real practical use.

Also, it seems the Skorne have no slavery taboo. This could be interesting, and a source of moral dissonance.

I've looked it up, and it seems that the Skorne have a monetary system. It seems it's primarily used for inter-caste interaction (Paingivers are hired, beasts are sold, smiths are paid, etc.) so any warrior type that tries to offer her money will either provoke an offended reaction or a revision of the offender's perceived caste down to one of the merchant type.

The Skorne enslave each other all the time; when a house defeats another house, they often take whatever warriors survived in as slave fighters, who may eventually get a chance to prove themselves and be taken properly into the house. It probably won't come up very often, but there's a serious values dissonance there as Cygnar and the other major countries are violently anti-slavery as they broke free from an empire who'd enslaved their whole countries just six hundred years ago.

TheThan
2013-03-29, 07:02 PM
The Scorn favor strength and martial Prowers beyond just about everything. Also scorn believes strongly in ancestor worship. So everything should be like “by the ancestors” and what not.

So if this character has been indoctrinated into the scorn belief system. Then it stands to reason that she only respects strength. She might be very fighty, willing (and maybe able) to throw down at the drop of a hat. After all, if you can’t prove your strength, are you truly strong?

You could play up the high society/high cast. Treat commoners like dirt, that beggar touches you? Cut his head off. How dare that swine even consider the notion! Threaten to lash underlings, even carry a whip and do just that.

Remember the Scorn have a really weird relationship between honor and brutality, play that up. She wouldn’t stab someone in the back or go back on her word (especially to an equal), but she’ll stab you in the face, and even challenge someone to duel to prove her honor. She might lie to someone of much lower class, even though it might not seem like lying to her.