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View Full Version : Has real-world history ever inspired a player character?



EccentricOwl
2013-08-30, 04:01 PM
I'm working on a historical fantasy campaign; set in a version of the real world during the late 1600s.

I wanted to help out some of my players by providing some inspiration for their PCs.

Has a historical figure or archetype ever gave rise to an interesting character of yours?

For example...

A firebrand revolutionary a la Patrick Henry
A French musketeer
An eccentric, cruel noble like Gilles de Rais
-Scheming eunuch from the Ming Dynasty
-A heavily-armed and armored Turkish Janissary

Bulhakov
2013-08-30, 05:36 PM
I once made a short nobleman swordmaster based on Michal Wolodyjowski - a fictional character from a Polish literary classic The Deluge (but the character is based on an actual historical officer with the same last name).

Good clip of a 16th century sabre duel featuring the above fictional character at work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siCPozekiro
Short summary of the scene:
The bad-boy hero of the story Kmicic (still in his bad-boy stage) is holed up in a house after a kidnapping gone wrong, surrounded by the guards. He has a few pistols with him, so in order not to risk lives of his men, Wolodyjowski (the short military officer) offers an honorable duel. Makes his men swear not to harm Kmicic. Kmicic makes fun of his short enemy and is very sure of his own dueling skills, but he has no idea he faces the best swordsman in the country. The more experienced officer teases Kimicic that he swings the sabre around like a farm instrument. Finally Kmicic asks "Finish this sir, spare me the disgrace" and Wolodyjowski knocks him out with a nearly lethal cut to the head. This is actually the start of the redemption phase for the main hero of the story.

Yukitsu
2013-08-30, 07:55 PM
A lot of my characters in terms of demeanor, are heavily influenced by people like Admiral Horatio Nelson or Duke Arthur Wellesley. It's less in what they do, and more the quips that they say that makes me similar. Beyond that, the other players tell me my characters tend to come out a bit Lord Byron.

Kitten Champion
2013-08-30, 08:04 PM
Christopher Marlowe, the most wildly speculative version thereof, makes an awesome base for a bard.

Basically he was a student in a bard's college recruited into the royal spy ring. My Marlowe is more successful as a playwright in his world, to the point that he sees players performing plagiarized versions of his work three countries over. "The Halfling of Lageri", "The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Sorcerer Vuustagan" and " The Elf Queen of Ivore" are particularly popular.

Before the start of the campaign, he's on the verge of being implicated for the theft of certain documents belonging to the neighbouring countries' Republican Council, to avoid his exposure his Spymaster manufactured a heresy claim against him and faked his death. He starts the campaign under an assumed identity with orders to do something he'd never done before, assassinate. In this case, the young head of a merchant empire that's been buying more and more of their Kingdom's debt.

Arkhosia
2013-08-30, 08:06 PM
Joan D' Arc is a great influence for a female paladin.

EccentricOwl
2013-08-30, 10:11 PM
A lot of my characters in terms of demeanor, are heavily influenced by people like Admiral Horatio Nelson or Duke Arthur Wellesley. It's less in what they do, and more the quips that they say that makes me similar. Beyond that, the other players tell me my characters tend to come out a bit Lord Byron.

Ah, yes. The men who put the capital "B" on "Britain." :)

Dimers
2013-08-30, 10:49 PM
Boudica, Imhotep, and numerous nameless heretics to the Catholic religion in medieval western Europe.

Ravian
2013-08-31, 10:39 AM
Reminds me of 7th Sea, a setting based upon that era in 17th century Europe, only with Sorcery. It basically takes some of the best characters from history and has them all exist at the same time. In a France on the cusp of Revolution, the musketeers attempt to stand for the people against the depravitites of Louis XIV who has just sent Napoleon to conquer a Russia ruled by Ivan the Terrible and his wife Catherine the great. Meanwhile in England Queen Elizabeth has recovered the Holy Grail and started a kingdom of heroism living in uneasy harmony with the fair folk. Zorro protects the young King of Spain from the intrigues of the Inquisition. And Vikings launch raids upon the Dutch East India Company.

It's great fun, and definitely makes for a very swashbuckling game filled with dramatic heroics.

Rosstin
2013-08-31, 11:11 AM
I made a character based on Phineas Gage once.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

http://atlas-dev.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/assets/gage.gif

Hyena
2013-08-31, 11:22 AM
ruled by Ivan the Terrible and his wife Catherine the great.
How is that possible? Their policies and world views are directly opposite to each other, not to mention that one would not share power with another.

Laughingmanlol
2013-08-31, 12:35 PM
Badass of the week is an excellent resource for this, if you don't mind the excessive swearing and exaggeration, especially as you can filter the tagged articles to find what you're looking for.
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?archive=1

Black Jester
2013-09-01, 04:26 AM
I personally think that Julie D'Aubigny (also known as Julie La Maupin) is a great character orientation and an overall interesting character in general. I mean noble maitresse, swordswoman (and professional duelist in a time where dueling was illegal), criminal sentenced to death (for a romantic affair... with an nun, which included faking the death of said nun by replacing her with the dead body of another nun and arson) and, of course, opera singer (yeah, why not?).
For me, D'Aubigny is swashbuckling royalty and the first archetype for any form of swashbuckling hero (yes, more so than D'Artagnan and his fellows, mostly by being historical and that her adventures tend to overshadow Dumas' fiction, as good as it is).

Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke is the epitome of the saying 'a good commander leads his men to victory, a great commander leads them home.'. Mücke (meaning mosquito in German) was part of the Crew of the SMS Emden during the 1st World War and when the Emden was sunk, he was on a commando raid on an island nearby - in the midst of the Indian Ocean. Mücke decided to leave, basically captured a sailing ship at gun point and let his team back home - first to Indonesia, then Arabia (back then a part of the Osman Empire), through the Arabian desert where the troop was attacked and later basically arrested by one of the local potentates, had to flee, and eventually arrived in Istanbul, six months after their Ship was destroyed. With the result that most of the men with Mücke were ordered to the front and died in the trenches of World War I.
Mücke later became a Nazi (yes, that is not so charming about him), but left the party again due to his pronounced anti-war positions (I guess that after all these months traveling and suffering to finally return so that his crewmen could die in a gas attack is a reasonable explanation for that). He was even eventually arrested (twice) for short periods.

The Emden returnees around Mücke (more so than himself; the relative anonymity of the crewmen helps to include the events in a character's back story without making him a carbon copy of a historical person) are basically my go-to Characters for Call of Cthulhu. It's this combination of adventure, responsibility for their fellows, and the futility of the whole endeavor (and thus a certain bitterness) that makes them so interesting. Mücke himself in his ambivalence between his leadership days and his latter political career is actually interesting (while certainly not endearing) as it helps to portray him as a man torn between his ideals and that can be quite rewarding.

ra88
2013-09-01, 03:36 PM
I draw a lot of my character's of the world they live in from some the philosophers of old, such as Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Plato, etc.

Ravian
2013-09-01, 04:51 PM
How is that possible? Their policies and world views are directly opposite to each other, not to mention that one would not share power with another.

Catherine's still new at the whole ruling thing, she just came over from Germany after being married off by her brother. Also this Ivan isn't quite over-the top crazy yet. He's mainly becoming obssessed that the Boyars are plotting against him and are planning to replace him (which is a fair assessment with some of them.) Especially given that his childhood was spent being imprisoned and tortured by the Boyars after his parents death in the hopes of breaking his will so he could be their puppet. (Instead he had their own dogs rip them apart and eat them) So basically its an inevitable part of the metaplot that Ivan will fall over the edge and Catherine will have to step in and take power.

It's a great setting if you don't mind alot of anachronisms (and historical figures thinly veiled behind fake names (Ex: Queen Elaine instead of Queen Elizabeth, General Montegue for Napolean))

Asmodai
2013-09-04, 06:26 PM
I've done a pulp character that was the failed bodyguard of the Romanoffs and now fights the Reds seeking vengeance for their sins, and spars all over the world with his one time friend who betrayed him and the royal family.

I've also done a character based on Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. Some of my players have used Otto Skorzeny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny), the delightfuly insane Roman Ungern von Sternberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ungern_von_Sternberg), Karl Willy Wagner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Willy_Wagner), Lizzie Borden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Borden) the european Musashi -Johannes Liechtenauer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Liechtenauer) and Jack Churchill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill),

I have to confess that I tend to pillage the more obscure fiction for my characters and NPC's rather then history, but still history can be quite useful, and I've got loads of plots and characters that could be lifted straight from history and inserted into a game.

elliott20
2013-09-04, 10:55 PM
Joan D' Arc is a great influence for a female paladin.

This was responsible for at least 2 character I've played, and countless NPCs. In fact, if you're playing any of my campaigns and meet a female paladin, there's a pretty good chance that she's the base influence.

I have met a Homer NPC who basically around collecting tales, and then rewriting them. This particular NPC actually would start telling the players stories about their previous characters from other campaigns. It was pretty funny when the GM starts butchering the events of our campaign in amusing ways.

In every Feudal Japan game I've played, there is always at least ONE Miyamoto Musashi expy somewhere. (And the Sasaki Kojiro is usually not far behind)

One of my friends once played a character that was modeled after Rush Limbaugh, though I guess that's not historical...

Doorhandle
2013-09-04, 11:33 PM
If I eve roll up a mounted character, he's going to be ether Ghengis Khan or Alexander the Great.

... Although they would also work perfectly as big bads...

Yukitsu
2013-09-05, 01:23 AM
In every Feudal Japan game I've played, there is always at least ONE Miyamoto Musashi expy somewhere. (And the Sasaki Kojiro is usually not far behind)


All the one's I've seen were expies of Benkei for some reason. Probably because while Miyamoto killed like, 30 guys in a go, Benkei killed 300 according to legend. Maybe that and because at the table I go to, we all view swords as a bit weaker than reach weapons.

elliott20
2013-09-05, 12:21 PM
All the one's I've seen were expies of Benkei for some reason. Probably because while Miyamoto killed like, 30 guys in a go, Benkei killed 300 according to legend. Maybe that and because at the table I go to, we all view swords as a bit weaker than reach weapons.

I think it's really because my table tend to be huge fans of Vagabond that those two keep showing up.

AKA_Bait
2013-09-05, 12:31 PM
Not so much for PC's, but lots of my NPC's have been based on historical figures. Francis Walsingham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Walsingham)was the basis for one of my more longer running baddies/allies (it was an evil campaign.)

Ansem
2013-09-05, 01:33 PM
I have used Zheng He, Yama****a, Peter the Great (undercover at the Dutch docks) and even had a Hitler Gnome wanting for his race to rise to power and no longer be belittled.....
Since history is my major I like to use these turns of events.

I also managed to make a town communist once.

LWDLiz
2013-09-05, 01:39 PM
My duelist rogue pirate is based off of Grace O'Malley, a pretty fantastic Irish pirate from the 16th century.