Post by Jade on Nov 24, 2016 4:22:06 GMT -6
So I was thinking just now that it could be fun to talk about some of the Behind-the-Scenes junk on how our characters and plot elements came together. Probably ought to limit this talk to completed seasons, though (Essentially this is a post-mortem of, currently, ADD 1 and ADD 2).
Stuff I can think of offhand:
ADD 1: I made Malika because I didn't want to insert Jade the Thief into yet another story (and have her fate determined by dice rolls). Had Shantae on the brain, and since I didn't know D&D or what classes are available, I figured she'd be like a Fire Emblem dancer and play a support role. Her name was something I made up to sound dancer-ish, and because I'm a Star Wars nerd, the basis of her name was Malak from KotOR (absolutely nothing in common with Malak beyond the name). Unsurprisingly, "Malika" actually is a real name, meaning "queen."
-The story picks up around the time Malika gets her magic because of a combination of things. At that point, Dragenda had made a character sheet for her and we were rebalancing her stats and skills, so I needed a story reason for that to happen. At the same time, I had started to create the first few gods of Mythos and needed an outlet to tell stories with them, so the two ideas flowed together.
-We hadn't intended to leave Dave behind; it just sort of happened from Sean's busy meatspace social life
-As mentioned on Funk Dunk, "Edinaja" is a Jade reference. "Ed" (blah) "ja". This sort of thing happens a lot with me, you'll notice XD. Basically, I had an idea for a sex goddess to be part of the Pantheon, and thought "Why not Jade?"
-Mara is also a Jade reference. Mara Jade from the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy is one of my favorite characters. I wanted Mara to be a powerful, serious, yet fiery and passionate redhead, so the reference fit.
-The inclusion of Mara and Komarot happened because I realized after Malika was attacked that she wouldn't be a good fit for a serious, dramatic story with threats to life and limb. She's too fragile for that XD. Mara was added to be Malika's intentionally-overpowered protector, while Komarot came in to both explain Mythos elements and add more comedy.
-Gorfinax falling in love with Malika was a funny but unexpected twist. Originally, the Calumox/Edinaja dynamic was that Calumox wanted to lure Gorfinax into the Dream World and imprison him there, and only then launch his attack on the mortal world. Edinaja feared Gorfinax too much to join in Calumox's plan, but Calumox knew he wasn't powerful enough to stop Gorfinax alone. Once Gorfinax was removed from the picture, that dynamic obviously changed.
ADD 2:
-Since script duties fell squarely into my lap around late September/early October, I had Halloween on the brain, so I wrote up a list of monster battles to pad out the campaign. Also, when naming the city, I smashed the word "Halloween" down into "Alwen."
-My original idea for a character was to do a warforged bounty hunter (ala Boba Fett). Having a super serious badass robot sounded like it'd make for boring character writing, though, so I decided to ramp up the over-the-top badass attitude and make it be a delusional Batman punch robot. Obviously, the Batman elements bled into the rest of the plot after that: police Sergeant Jordan and his rooftop spotlight, Melvin (reference to "Melvin White" from The Dark Knight, which Melvin-Brother-of-the-Joker also drew reference from) the maniacal villain who created "Batman" (like in Batman '89 with Joker killing Batman's parents), perpetual-question-asker Jade in her green Riddler coat, ROB-1N (credit to ZenPsychosis for that character) and the black Bat-Trolley.
-It never happened in the story, but the code word for making B47 freak out and shut down is "Martha."
-Flumbert came about after Dragenda pointed out how badly Fedor would thrash B47 if the two ever came to blows, and I started thinking I'd have a dead character on my hands. So I threw Flumbert together last minute, with the ironic combination of Barbarian with an adorable, 6 STR flumph.
-Josh is a character in the Jeff mythos as the Anti-Christ of Jeffs. I reimagined him as a Dr. Frankenstein character, trying to create the Jeff god, "The Jeff", by combining the bodies of the most perfect Jeffs he could find.
-Zocrab is, of course, "So Crab So Good."
-The finer points on the Shakas were talked out in depth over on the ADD 2 Discussion thread. Mistress Kirsten's characterization was based on my impressions from her excellent Halloween costume of her. I don't think the real Kerstin would electrocute us all with her lightning hands... (or would she? o.O)
-Jalos was briefly name-dropped by Komarot in ADD 1 as a god who jokingly gives people false visions of the future. The original idea for Jalos was that he'd be a god who poses as other gods, thus allowing me to rewrite other stories about gods by claiming it was just Jalos being a goof. After working him into B47's backstory, though, I realized he would likely be the end boss, and so I evolved his gimmick into being a god who feeds on the faith that mortals have toward other gods by deceiving and manipulating them. Melvin was one of his early victims, shortly before he launched his plan to take over the Jeff community. Melvin, a devout Jeff, met Jalos in the guise of The Jeff, and was led to believe that The Jeff does not and never has existed, and was always just Jalos in disguise. His faith shattered, he devoted himself to Jalos instead and created B47 to facilitate the plan to frighten the Jeffs. (I don't know whether The Jeff really exists or is just an ideal; I wanted to leave that open to interpretation)
Stuff I can think of offhand:
ADD 1: I made Malika because I didn't want to insert Jade the Thief into yet another story (and have her fate determined by dice rolls). Had Shantae on the brain, and since I didn't know D&D or what classes are available, I figured she'd be like a Fire Emblem dancer and play a support role. Her name was something I made up to sound dancer-ish, and because I'm a Star Wars nerd, the basis of her name was Malak from KotOR (absolutely nothing in common with Malak beyond the name). Unsurprisingly, "Malika" actually is a real name, meaning "queen."
-The story picks up around the time Malika gets her magic because of a combination of things. At that point, Dragenda had made a character sheet for her and we were rebalancing her stats and skills, so I needed a story reason for that to happen. At the same time, I had started to create the first few gods of Mythos and needed an outlet to tell stories with them, so the two ideas flowed together.
-We hadn't intended to leave Dave behind; it just sort of happened from Sean's busy meatspace social life
-As mentioned on Funk Dunk, "Edinaja" is a Jade reference. "Ed" (blah) "ja". This sort of thing happens a lot with me, you'll notice XD. Basically, I had an idea for a sex goddess to be part of the Pantheon, and thought "Why not Jade?"
-Mara is also a Jade reference. Mara Jade from the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy is one of my favorite characters. I wanted Mara to be a powerful, serious, yet fiery and passionate redhead, so the reference fit.
-The inclusion of Mara and Komarot happened because I realized after Malika was attacked that she wouldn't be a good fit for a serious, dramatic story with threats to life and limb. She's too fragile for that XD. Mara was added to be Malika's intentionally-overpowered protector, while Komarot came in to both explain Mythos elements and add more comedy.
-Gorfinax falling in love with Malika was a funny but unexpected twist. Originally, the Calumox/Edinaja dynamic was that Calumox wanted to lure Gorfinax into the Dream World and imprison him there, and only then launch his attack on the mortal world. Edinaja feared Gorfinax too much to join in Calumox's plan, but Calumox knew he wasn't powerful enough to stop Gorfinax alone. Once Gorfinax was removed from the picture, that dynamic obviously changed.
ADD 2:
-Since script duties fell squarely into my lap around late September/early October, I had Halloween on the brain, so I wrote up a list of monster battles to pad out the campaign. Also, when naming the city, I smashed the word "Halloween" down into "Alwen."
-My original idea for a character was to do a warforged bounty hunter (ala Boba Fett). Having a super serious badass robot sounded like it'd make for boring character writing, though, so I decided to ramp up the over-the-top badass attitude and make it be a delusional Batman punch robot. Obviously, the Batman elements bled into the rest of the plot after that: police Sergeant Jordan and his rooftop spotlight, Melvin (reference to "Melvin White" from The Dark Knight, which Melvin-Brother-of-the-Joker also drew reference from) the maniacal villain who created "Batman" (like in Batman '89 with Joker killing Batman's parents), perpetual-question-asker Jade in her green Riddler coat, ROB-1N (credit to ZenPsychosis for that character) and the black Bat-Trolley.
-It never happened in the story, but the code word for making B47 freak out and shut down is "Martha."
-Flumbert came about after Dragenda pointed out how badly Fedor would thrash B47 if the two ever came to blows, and I started thinking I'd have a dead character on my hands. So I threw Flumbert together last minute, with the ironic combination of Barbarian with an adorable, 6 STR flumph.
-Josh is a character in the Jeff mythos as the Anti-Christ of Jeffs. I reimagined him as a Dr. Frankenstein character, trying to create the Jeff god, "The Jeff", by combining the bodies of the most perfect Jeffs he could find.
-Zocrab is, of course, "So Crab So Good."
-The finer points on the Shakas were talked out in depth over on the ADD 2 Discussion thread. Mistress Kirsten's characterization was based on my impressions from her excellent Halloween costume of her. I don't think the real Kerstin would electrocute us all with her lightning hands... (or would she? o.O)
-Jalos was briefly name-dropped by Komarot in ADD 1 as a god who jokingly gives people false visions of the future. The original idea for Jalos was that he'd be a god who poses as other gods, thus allowing me to rewrite other stories about gods by claiming it was just Jalos being a goof. After working him into B47's backstory, though, I realized he would likely be the end boss, and so I evolved his gimmick into being a god who feeds on the faith that mortals have toward other gods by deceiving and manipulating them. Melvin was one of his early victims, shortly before he launched his plan to take over the Jeff community. Melvin, a devout Jeff, met Jalos in the guise of The Jeff, and was led to believe that The Jeff does not and never has existed, and was always just Jalos in disguise. His faith shattered, he devoted himself to Jalos instead and created B47 to facilitate the plan to frighten the Jeffs. (I don't know whether The Jeff really exists or is just an ideal; I wanted to leave that open to interpretation)