Who are the real or fictional characters who have inspired or influenced your PCs?
Sam
- Gollum, on account of "talking to yourself".
- Chrona (Soul Eater) - where the character concept originally came from.
Haelae
Brother Florian
- Pretty much every single healer type gentle disneyish princess trope rolled into a male pc
- Also trashy romantic novel covers, terrible romcoms and generally terrible romantic tropes from things which have been very poorly written.
Miss Blackwater
- Started off as a straight up Pratchett witch (particularly me going "no one plays pointy hatted witches in TT! THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED!) but seems to have drawn in a *lot* of Mary Poppins somewhere along the line and associated Governess tropes.
Alferwen:
- Children's books. In characterisation and their world view.
Vala:
- Captain Jack Sparrow and Isabella from DragonAge?. How tropey a pirate can I be while playing a fire mage.
Krsto
- Every mad scientist and evil overlord trope ever. Plus a big dose of Insanity Prawn Boy, a dash of Borat, and the most unpronounceable name I could find.
Ariane
- She's pretty much a Pratchett witch. Talented healer, yet ruthless and sometimes calculating, but always for Good. When she's older, she'll be Granny Weatherwax but with some of the safety catches left on.
- Her name was plucked from thin air, by which I mean agonised over for weeks, the only restriction being something she could get arsy over the spelling of...
Brucal
- I wanted something between a Ranger of the North from LotR?, and a D&D druid. The sort to wander round with a litter-spike and a bin bag, and pick up demons, undead, "unnatural" stuff, for proper disposal.
Evelyn
- I didn't realise this until later, but Evelyn is essentially a grumpier version of Derek Jacobi's portrayal of Cadfael. His name was intentionally chosen to be an ironic counterpoint to his grumpiness.
- Am I right in thinking that his surname is "Brightworthy"? --Jacob
- Correct. I've also come to realise there is a fair amount of Odo from Deep Space Nine in his makeup, too.
Rosamund
- Retrospectively, Rosamund has a fair bit of Elinor Dashwood in her. Very different in some ways, but in others... Emma Thompson would make a good Rosamund, too. :)
Professor Greenheel
- Originally was meant to be a little Indiana Jonesish, hence the hat, her speaking was meant to be along the lines of Rupert Giles, in retrospect there seems to be a bit of Leonard of Quirm and perhaps Doctor Who there... but with a considerably higher level of incompetance. Perhaps a little bit of Willow from early on.
- Alyson Hannigan or Warwick Davis? --Jacob
- Alyson Hannigan --Porange
Black Molly
- Her attitude is almost entirely inspired by Adam Ant in "stand and deliver", I suspect she is quite heavily influenced by Jack Sparrow and Elaine Marley
Marrick
- Alanna from Song of the Lioness... Out to prove something to the world. 'Cept Marrick is actually male.
Heresy
- Oh God. It has just dawned on me that Heresy is an unholy combination of Shrek, Mrs Tweedy from Chicken Run, and... something else. I beg forgiveness of the entire world.
Galwyn Blackthorn
- I associate him with the explorer Ridgewell from Tintin...
Elizabeth of Gedhrent
- I started off firmly in the trope of Van Helsing, but have inevitably tended towards the trope of the musical Oliver! in play...
Darcy Nottingham
- Valley girls, as seen in American shows about High School life (for her background more than her present)
- The folk-tale archetype of a middle-ages noble, as seen in Robin Hood etc
- Any of the looong shelf of books you'll find in WHSmith at a railway station with a picture of half a tudor woman in a very posh dress on the front, and a sensationalist blurb about 'being swept up in intrigue and romance at court' (whilst wearing very posh dresses).
- The film of 'Evita'
Zak
- The name was stolen whole-cloth from the first book of the Drizzt series by R. A. Salvatore.
- The character was inspired by Tolkien's elves - not the stuck-up creatures of the cinema adaptations, but the author's merry, immature-yet-deep fair folk.
Mazrim
- I just wanted a bluff hearty viking type, who would charge screaming into any fight, and had the tact of a brick.
Robin Player
- The initial inspiration was a single source: I watched the film of the musical of "Phantom of the Opera" and thought "wow, I have to play a character with a theatre"
- The first name was picked primarily because of R. Goodfellow, but also with reference to R's Gadling, Goblin, Hood, Oakapple etc - it's a good traditional name...
(Invader from another setting)
Auriel
- Dream of the Endless was and is my inspiration for this character. Ageless, entirely focused and lost in duty, completely lacking in understanding of people. Timeless and unable to change, in a situation that demands it. Inflexible in belief. Also goth.
- The name is merely a different spelling of the name of the archangel Uriel from apocryphal angelology. Hebrew translation: "Light of God". Milton's "sharpest sighted spirit in all Heaven". Associated with the element of Earth, which was why I chose this angel.
Panama
- Panama is my "Learn the system" character, so was statted mostly by Koryne. I wanted to play a Fire Burny-Things mage.
- The original concept was for him to retire when he found out how to fix his speech patterns
- For people who missed his original introduction, for the first two years of his existence Panama could only speak in a kind of scrambled sentence style, where words in order wrong be would sort head in out your own could you about just. This came partly from a corruption of a meme that was going around at the time I originally created the character ("If you randomise all the letters between the first and last of every word in a sentence, it still makes sense"), which I attempted to use as a story character. This failed but the idea stuck with me, and came back in time for starting TT.
- His name is directly from the palindrome, because the original character (from the book) got a half-solution by talking in palindromes. And no, I didn't try doing that in Larp.
Satrah
- Satrah exists because Panama left to play with the fairies, and the only things I had that were close to kit was a couple of costumes I put together partly to freak out people who couldn't do mornings at a camping event (http://www.aquarionics.com/2003/08/06/there_is_no_such_thing_as_too_colourful/) (I never claimed to be nice). Those were obviously Kenderific.
- I was on a "My fun trumps your rules" kick, and wasn't particularly interested in having him live more than the interactive and linear, so I statted him with stuff I thought was funny, as a not-very fighty character with berserk, no armour and as many background skills as I could come up with for him without thinking about it.
Older characters
Sir George
- The original concept owed a lot to William de Word from "The Truth".
- Since he became a cop, I've based as lot of his thoughts on Duty and the like on Sam Vimes.
- His I-must-do-more complex owes something to observations of one of my real-world friends.
- His adoption of Edward (then Lucy) was partly inspired by the whole genre of lost-soul-cop/soldier-redeemed-by-having-to-care-for-child movies (Leon, Man on Fire, Commando, etc, etc, etc).
- His relationship with Lucie is likewise archetypical, and also largely arose in play rather than being deliberate, but I think there is a wide streak of Clouseau/Dreyfus? to it...
- His verbals have started to owe something to Prospero's "You elves" speech about the things he has done with magic in "The Tempest".
Aellin
- His true name, Iarla Nam Bratach Bana, was from a Gaelic folk song of that name.
- Vervain is traditionally a plant associated with magic and druidism.
- My views on the Fae are influenced by all the obvious things - Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck of Pook's Hill, Lords and Ladies, all sorts of folk tales and the like.
Sir William Fitzwalters
- Sir William de Traci and Sir Hugh Fitzurse were two of the four assassins of Thomas a Becket.
Vlad
- Greebo. That about says all I need to say, really.
Sarah
- All cliché, I'm afraid. I wanted someone I could relax with and hit things, so went for the Larger-Than-Life Fire Mage stereotype with a side order of sex. Of course, it all went "wrong" from there, but that was the inspiration :)
Ana
- I'm almost ashamed of this, but she's Miko Miyazaki from OOTS except with a bit more common sense and a bit more valkyrie complex.
Borric
- I started this guy in the simple concept of Xenophobic Single-minded Tank, but went off track quite quickly. Perhaps Cohen the Barbarian, in armour. Didn't give a damn, impulsive, and inclined to run over most things in his way.
Tebah
- Started off based on Rincewind. No useful spells, fast talker, faster runner. Course, events have turned him into Lu Tze instead. Or possibly Vanyel Ashkevron from Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series. He's got the silly power levels, white uniform, trail of dead friends... Far too many similarities for me to be comfortable with. :)
Darya (Maelstrom)
- My initial concept for Darya was an irresponsible, extroverted, irreverent drug-pushing surgeon. How she looks in my head owes something to the description of Alison in "The Miller's Tale" from the Canterbury Tales. "And sikerly she hadde a likerous ye..."
Edwin de Lacey
- The novels of Philip Marlowe
- Film Noir
- And therefore, inevitably, Prachett's Vimes