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View Full Version : Playing A Character Who Wants to Revive Bael Turath



Leliel
2008-07-08, 04:00 PM
Well...The title. Look at it.

Basically, my human warlock in the making, Adria Chiaros (he's a guy, thank you very much) was raised by tiefling bandits who were of the opinion that Bael Turath, apart from the whole "diabolic pact" thing, was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. After being indirectly driven into the Underdark by a green dragon-indirectly, beacuse the not-very-intelligent adventurers who were dispatched to deal with the forest's corruption intially blamed the tieflings for it, and chased them off-they ran into a party of drow, who captured them...and found they should have put up wards against Far Realmers, since one who called itself the Seeker contacted Adria and gave him star pact powers in exchange for allowing the Seeker to implant a bit of it's being in him, and thus experience the mortal coil. After escaping from the drow, Adria was enraged to learn that it was adventurers' intolerance that drove his adopted family underground and nearly killed them, and vowed to create a land where no tiefling, or any other civilized creature, would have to experience discrimination...To bring back Bael Turath.

As a person, he's rather snarky, never resisting a comment at other's expense, and also a bit amoral, putting praticality and logic over honor. Even so, he's quite kind and empthetic, having picked up those qualities from living with tieflings for the majority of his childhood. He also has a power-hungry streak, always wanting more power, but he has standards on how to gain it-no Hand of Venca for him, thank you.

So, how do I incorperate his goal-restoring Bael Turath, sans diabolic influence-into his personality and actions?

RukiTanuki
2008-07-08, 06:17 PM
I'd start with a set of motivations and long- and short-term goals:

* Seek out information regarding the lost empire.
* Find allies and contacts who share my goals.
* Acquire wealth, power, and the services of others.
* Research and locate any lost artifacts of the empire.
* Locate and acquire either the empire's land, or a suitable "New Bael".
* Gain followers who can develop, cultivate, and build the new community.
* Create, inspire, and spread a moral code that embraces personal power and scorns dependencies on external forces. Note that your character's being a bit of a hypocrite on this one... :)

Looks like you've done good starter work on a personality to match. In particular, if I ran the character, he would be extremely task-focused, interested in finding and doing whatever needed to be done, but losing interest in the details of anything that didn't bring him closer to his goal. This might result in him frequently being blunt and to-the-point for most things ("It's probably best we move on"), but extremely forward and cooperative anytime tiefling affairs came up in conversation. ("Did I hear lost artifact? That I can help with.")

He'd be patient (this is a long-term goal after all) so long as he wasn't being prevented from an immediate and direct path towards advancing his chosen destiny. He'd be tolerant of little foibles (because the value of "networking" can't be overstated) but become exceptionally frustrated (but still diplomatic about it) if even a casual happenstance stood in the way of his goals (particularly if he recognized the problem as something that didn't particularly advance someone else's goals). Incompetence that blocks his way might be something the character would take as seriously as direct opposition. "Lead me to my goals, follow me to my destiny, or get out of my way" might be his motto.

Hope that helps!

[EDIT: missed the big ol' friendly in the description. Hopefully my idea is still useful; I've seen plenty of people who were friendly but firm about getting things done.]

Leliel
2008-07-09, 01:59 PM
Yeah, I pretty much intended him to be a subversion of the idea that "Ambition is Evil"-True, he has a fairly dark goal (restoring a fairly amoral empire with an elilitist streak), is power-hungry, and (not a part of his discription, but something I plan to insert into the story at some point) a necromancer, but he has a softer, kind side (although he isn't the old "jerk with a heart of gold" cliche-his are geniune inner demons that he has met-and likes-albeit restrianed ones).

EDIT: By the way I like those ideas. Seems like exactly the kind of things he would do.