I hear you guys like these sort of things? Well buckle up and get ready for a bunch of words about it!
So, the Genesis of Clash was like most of my jerks; I saw her picture and realized I liked it a lot and could use her as a character. Something I'd learned in 2015 was that a 3rd shift schedule fucking suuuuucks for getting to plots, much less attending them. Originally Clash was going to be a silent weirdo who'd show up possibly in the middle of fights and then disappear as soon as the problem was solved. The earliest power set for her I played with would later be repurposed wholesale for Beth.
The War Elemental thing came about for two reasons; the first being a Magic card called, well, War Elemental, a red creature that can only be played after damaging an opponent and grows stronger the more damage dealt to an opponent while it's alive. I'd never managed to get one, but I really liked the idea of the card and it's art. The idea of an intangible concept like War being embodied was cool to me, although I will say that when Gooper started mentioning Nostalgia Elementals I felt like a jackass for copying him, even unintentionally.
However, I realized having a character only for battles and plots with no personality or motivations to speak of would not only be uninteresting, but pretty lame. The blogpost with Clash that I typed up the night before the season started was spur of the moment, but it left me a lot of room to develop her and, you know, actually have fun with the character.
A lot of the first Clashplot was spur of the moment too, which was something I felt I was alright enough at doing to hammer something together. If Clash were a living weapon made by magic, it was inevitable there would be others, and not necessarily the exact same as her. I'm glad no one called me on having a four horseman motif coming from a world that couldn't possibly have a bible, and I even had Clash mention it at least once.
Anywho, Famine was my attempt to compare and contrast Clash with someone still active in their original role. While Clash was a physical powerhouse who was ignorant of the wider world, Famine was weak and sickly but intelligent. The choppy, emotionless way she spoke was a part of separating her and Clash further. I wanted to show that the system Clash had escaped was like most systems of slavery; circular, unending, and powered by blood.
Conquest and Pestilence were a little different, due to the fact that Famine would get stomped in a physical fight by anyone even slightly competent. Conquest's art came from another magic card; Akroma, Angel of Wrath. I played when she was first released, and managed to get her card; flat out, Akroma at the time was a beast, the kind of creature that could easily win a game on her lonesome. I wanted to capture the idea of a powerful face-smashing Angel without having her be an out and out angel.
Pestilence came about after I cancelled Clashplot; At the time, I thought other people's plots that had HAD build-up, that had HAD other people get invested deserved schedule days much more than my lame bullshit, and at a certain point I realized it just wasn't going to happen. Me personally, I hate half-assing things, and I didn't want to run a boring five or six hour long fight club that was attended just out of politeness. I knew I'd have to finish what I started, and introducing Pestilence off-world was my way of saying "Hey, I know that was a big ol' letdown wet fart, but it's not over yet!"
Jumpropeman commented once that the Alternates were a way to salvage the plot after making the Elementals too relatable, and honestly, he wasn't wrong. I like making my Villians as close to actual people as possible, and sometimes it works, while other times it doesn't.
For the most part, I was trying to have your character's actions influence the plot; if you'd all wanted to kill the Elementals/Alternates/Neos, I would have written it out like that. I kind of didn't expect you guys to save everybody, but hell, it worked for me. Railroading is generally a garbage thing to do, and I wanted to try and avoid doing it as much as I could. If nothing else, I hope you all had fun with the plot; I still don't know if it was satisfying, but at least we got it done.
If everyone's always stepping out of each other's way because we think others are doing better, then a lot of great stuff doesn't get done! I like to see some follow-through on set-up even if you're afraid it's not going to go gracefully. We can get small unexpected things like Lexi and perhaps more importantly, it delivers on investment in a character! Maybe it will be a big dumb fight, but I'll take that if it means we get some follow-through on set-up. I know your schedule doesn't make it easy, but you got a lot of cool dude-... ladies I'd like to see get their moment in the sun, so don't be afraid to ask for a spotlight every now and then! Also, guess I should say there's quite a lot of cool ladies in this plot! Lexi for life <3
ReplyDeleteHah, the bit about relatable, human villains. That has definitely been a Brine trademark for a while. The community's full of softies with big hearts like myself and Harpy who want to save anyone who isn't remorselessly evil, so it's no surprise that so many of your affable, fun "baddies" get spared. Even Antonio and Osric were killed only reluctantly, and I felt kinda bad about it afterwards since they were great characters. This was a very unique plot in that even with all the murder and threat of lethal force, only a single one of the antagonists wound up being actually evil, that being of course Gerrard, who was "affable" in more of a "love to hate" kind of way than a "I want to save this misguided soul" way.
ReplyDeleteOne thing your post didn't cover: you didn't talk about Death! Her mute gimmick did make her one of the least prominent of the Elementals, and I'm guessing she was the one earmarked for permadeath because she was the least essential to the group. It also appeared to be an attempt at garnering heel heat for the Alternates, and there WAS a period of time where I was ready to wipe them out... but more intermissions that fleshed them out and the passage of time meant cooler strategies prevailed, and the Kobbers opted to save everyone.
I'm glad you liked that Dolby/Rachel strategy. Making this one of Nerd Club's main plots this year was fun, and with Rachel's past being what it is, she was the perfect choice to be my flagship attendance character for the plot. Dolby had a pretty solid connection to the plot as well, and of course I had Jinako get involved a few times as my number three pick because of good ol' Grab-N-Go. She and The Magister's dynamic was pretty great. I'm glad they met one more time during the penultimate event and, if not exactly patched things up, showed that Jinako was not going to call for the Alternate's death because she knew they were just following orders.
I did forget about Death! D'oh. Well- Death was the Elemental I struggled with for a little while. It would've been easy to just have her be the usual black robe and scythe, but I wanted her powerset to reflect that unlike the others, she hadn't been made in a laboratory but was a generation one, something that arose in the wild due to belief and faith. Essentially, Death was a human girl sacrificed by a pre-industrial Revolution peasant village to keep their woods and their lands safe and to act as an eternal silent guard- until the forest was cut down for lumber, anyway.
DeleteThe real reason she was chosen as the one the Alternates killed early on was that with her around, the chances of them actually winning were slim to none; Death was the leader and too experienced and powerful to defeat in open combat, leaving subterfuge the only way to take her out.
One thing I do wish I'd done was have Famine see Death in a dream, before she smiled and talked for the first and last time, but I let it go.