Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Workshopping a WIP character

Hi all, sorry if this isn't the place for it, but I'm working on my first character, and while I have a pretty solid idea and a few key details about what I'd like to do with him, I figured it would be best to take some suggestions so as to hash out my ideas and get a feel for the story.

So I'm creating a sith character, with the central idea being someone who is extremely strong, supernaturally durable, and always a bubbling pit of anger and hatred under the surface. A late-level endgame for the character would be something like Darth Sion, someone who can take an insane amount of punishment and keep himself together by sheer force of will. A more realistic interpretation would be someone like Michael Myers from Halloween or Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th Parts 2-4 or Walter from The Mask comics. Not invincible or immortal, just insanely tough. He's big, mean and wields the lightsaber equivalent of a zweihander. The force only exists to him as an instrument of destruction, something either to use as a weapon against others or a means of keeping himself together just so he can hurt a few more people.

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Of course, he wasn't always a tough guy. In fact, he was originally a slave on Dxun, a strong, tall, muscular laborer who often times carried the heaviest burdens and used the largest, most unwieldy tools. He didn't seem to mind the terrible working conditions on the Demon Moon, and indeed, he adapted quite well. He didn't even have to fight and kill every beast that threatened his camp, as the smaller predators learned to respect his might. But Dxun still fought back against its would-be colonizers as always, and this time it came in the form of a lethal form of fever, a plague that could kill within days. A cure was easy to develop but expensive to produce, meaning that any slave who caught it was written off as already dead. Indeed, a large, intricate cave system, perhaps once an ancient mine, was further excavated and turned into a massive quarantine facility, a series of endless tunnels where sick slaves were sealed off to die. And much to his master's disappointment, this massive slave was one such slave. He was sealed away in the dark cave alongside the thousands of slaves who were dying or already dead. And so, lost to the darkness, he found himself confronted with death.

And yet, he refused to die. He wandered the tunnels, stricken with delirium from his own illness and the miasma. And yet, while traversing the perpetual night of the underground, his body withering away from malnutrition and his mind near broken, he somehow managed to survive, perhaps through sheer force of will. He clung to life firmly and resolutely, refusing to succumb to his illness or starvation. And some time later, almost certainly over a month, when his owner returned to drop off more sick slaves he found his slave, a withered husk of what he once was, still wandering the tunnels.

The owner was astonished to see that his slave had survived for a month, and even more surprised when a medical droid accompanying had confirmed that there was no trace of the disease anywhere on the slave's withered body. Of course, a mad, famished slave was of no use to the owner, but he found that his astonishing resilience could interest other buyers. His owner sold him off to the Mandalorians, assuming they would find some use of such endurance. But his new Mandalorian owner, familiar with the evils of Dxun, could recognize the aura of the Dark Side surrounding the slave. He couldn't sense it directly, but he was old enough to recognize the Dark Side's taint when he saw it. And so, knowing what vast power he acquired, he resold his new acquision directly to the Sith (for a much greater price than he paid for, of course).

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So I could just leave it at that and introduce my character as an acolyte. And that's all well and good, but I feel like with the direction I'm going, that's more of a background thing. And from what I'm seeing, it's not necessary for new characters to be acolytes, so I'm willing to add that part in as backstory as well:

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Despite his new owner sensing the potential in him quite strongly, the slave was still in no condition for physical training or hardship. And so, as a cruelty disguised as mercy, he took the slave, whose mind had hardly recovered from the ordeal in the quarantine caves, and put him to work doing menial administrative work, his large but still emaciated frame hunched over a desk keeping the books for his master's estate, only sometimes doing menial physical tasks as a means of recovering his strength. The other acolytes jeered him and taunted him for his frailty, and while he stoicly endured, he still felt the resentment grow. Indeed, as he returned to mental coherency and physical fitness, he could feel a sort of raw anger burning in him. It was a deep, boiling sort of anger he had never felt before. Not just anger at his supposed peers, but a more existential rage at his lot in life. Fate had inflicted cruelty after cruelty upon him, and he wanted nothing more than to repay it tenfold.

As he was educated by his master, history seemed to spell out a sort of message to him. Life in the galaxy had once been strong and abundant, powerful and enduring. But then, centuries ago, there was a devastating sickness, then centuries of darkness, madness, and death. And yet, life in the galaxy recovered, much in the same way it did before. And as his studies into history progressed further, a cycle began to form. Life thrived, then was driven into near exile, then recovered with a roaring, bloody vengeance. Empires and Republics, Jedi and Sith, there was a consistent unending cycle of near-death and rebirth. And so finally, he understood his place in life. He had taken on a lifetime of indignity and pain specifically so he could become an instrument of bloody destruction. His rebirth meant embracing hostility to life itself.

With this revelation, the slave-turned-Acolyte's recovery took off. Whenever he wasn't working, he meditated intently, letting his hate flow through him and empower him. Using the power of the Dark Side, he began to restore his body through sheer force of will. His master, impressed, reassigned him to more physical labor, often times under the supervision of other acolytes. And while at first the Acolytes loved to abuse their lesser peer as he toiled away, they soon found that provoking him was a bad idea. His hateful glare resulted in crushed windpipes, then ribcages, and finally skulls. Some Acolytes were hacked to death in their sleep, others were killed when their speeders suddenly veered wildly off-course. The slave began to slowly but steadily pick off his peers until finally, he had proven himself to be the only one left.

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At that point, I think it would be fine to have my character be introduced as an apprentice. I could keep going until he became a knight, but that seems like asking a bit much more my first character.

Now then, you may have noticed that I've omitted two key things from this backstory. This is what I'm hoping to get suggestions for from the community, mostly because I'll tend to default to something remarkably bland otherwise.

1. Species: The idea of making my character a human is far too tempting. There are plenty of alien races throughout the galaxy I could experiment with, especially traditionally enslaved races. I was humoring the idea of a Wookie, but the language barrier seems kind of obnoxious, and it would mean my character wouldn't be huge, he'd be average for a Wookie. (Huge by Wookie standards would just be ridiculous).

2. Name: This is harder than it looks. The main problem here is that I would assume that during my character's ordeal in the quarantine caves, he forgot his name, that is assuming he even had one to begin with. After all, he was born a slave, and so he never had family to name him, and it's possible that his owner didn't give him a name at all, just a number. That would mean that his master would presumably be christening him with his first real name, or perhaps he would pick one for himself. I'm open to a lot of ideas on this front.

So yeah, fire away with suggestions, critiques, whatever. I'm willing to hear out and humor whatever you guys have to suggest!
 
The darkness lays ever near the light.
Hey! So, I really like the idea you have for this character. The only concern I would say I have is the premise of him being a big, hulking man who is despondent and void of any emotion. From my experience - playing these types of characters gets extremely boring extremely fast. You need to be extremely careful not to make your character two-dimensional and show some development quite regularly. What I'd suggest doing is doing a few threads based in the character's past to show who he was and what his origins were. This will help you when it comes to getting attached to the character and getting a feel for him. You need to understand fully how he got to where he is - and past threads help you do this.

Anyway, the rant's over so let's get to the points you're stuck on. Although I can't suggest any species in particular, Chaos has an enormous array of fan-made Species that are made right here on the board. You can find them in the Species Index or the "Approved Species" section of the Codex. You could even go as far as to make your own by submitting it in the Codex using the applicable species template! Unfortunately, I can't link these right now as I am on my phone while writing this :p

In terms of a name, think of a theme that can be applied to your character and then twist it slightly so that it sounds cool.

Anyway. Welcome to the board and good luck with your character! :)

[member="Hammerhead"]
 
[member="Darren Torran"]

I get what you're saying, and I actually agree, that "silent but violent" is a rough character to play in downtime. Admittedly, my intention is to focus on the negative space: outside of his constant, simmering bloodlust that he hides behind a stoic veneer, he's very much a social blank slate. His entire life has been labor, then horror, and then after that, murder. So I see the personality traits left blank as a strong field of possibility, leaving myself a lot of options for how he grows as a character. Admittedly, if I wanted to age him up to be a Knight or Lord I would have him a bit more "pre-made", but otherwise, that would be a bit much. I do think I'm going to add in some very minor personality traits from his education, though. He's almost certainly an avid reader, and he really appreciates poetry and has a scholarly interest in galactic history. Also, he despises mathematics. I've also thought some additional ideas based on his race. I'll post a link to his profile here when I'm all finished, and we can go from there.

Thanks a lot though, you've helped steer me in the right direction!
 

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