Too Many Annas

WTT:RP Hits Paydirt Again

1 Written by Anna on October 8, 2009 – 3:28 pm

Excellent post today by Bricu about RPing with characters from other servers.

I’m tempted to participate!

Current Happenings

6 Written by Anna on October 7, 2009 – 8:56 am

After yesterday’s Srs Bsns post, I thought I’d open things up a little bit today.

Sometimes it’s good to keep a “short update” list for your characters, both so that you have a good mental idea of where they are and so that if someone else asks (having been away or not RPing with that particular character lately) you have a short, sweet, and to the point update as to how they’re doing and what they’re up to.  As someone with a slew of various characters and independent personalities, I try to do this once every week or so.  It helps me keep tabs on them all, and know where to start if I randomly end up with some RP.  Having a list like this is also a good way to stay mindful about your characters when they’re doing “non RP” things (like leveling).

So anyway – I’ll give you guys updates on the four lovely ladies you’re used to seeing around here. (And don’t tell Angoleth I called her that, ok?) Then it’s your turn!  Give me a paragraph (not a novel – this should be something you could use for a /quick/ rundown or update) on your characters and what they’re up to!

• Aelflaed is working. A lot. If she’s not at the Pig or out with TRI, she’s in an infirmary somewhere, most likely in Icecrown, but she’s been spending her days off tending to scraped knees and sore throats in the Stormwind Infirmary as well. She’s started keeping some medical diaries, mostly because she’s learning quite a lot about the more mundane sides of healing, as well as spending a few late nights in her herb books. When she /is/ at the Pig, she’s making more of an attempt to look like a person and not like The Shiny Crusade Paladin. She’s also back to living in the walk-down apartment underneath the Silver Shield, having done a thorough fall cleaning of the place on her last day of “encouraged sabbatical”.   Oh, and her trips out to the Shimmering Flats have slowed down some. This may be because she’s discovered that Miller’s Bakery makes a sweet honey-raisin braided bread.
• Angoleth, on the other hand, is being a lazy arse.  She’s been wandering around in Northrend, just doing this or that, nothing with real purpose.  Russ is getting grumbly though, and she’s looking for a time she can catch Bellesta and Feliche to get him a proper Bear Sendoff.  She’s been in good enough spirits, so long as she doesn’t go back to the Pig and Whistle… mostly because the last two times she’s been there, she got thrown out.  Or rather Russ did.  But that’s the same thing in her book!
• Annie Mae is Officially Tired Of Ogres.  She fought ogres in Tanaris.  And then she fought ogres in Ferelas.  And then in Burning Steppes.  And now?  They’re all over Outland too.  For someone who’s only 3’5”, ogres are kind of annoying.  They also smell.  She’s having fun though, as she’s currently experimenting with a pair of really spiky brass knuckles.  They’ve proven surprisingly effective…
• Things for Anzefi are rather business as usual.  She’s got a small shop set up in Thunder Bluff, from which she sells potions, enchantments, and amulets, as well as fortune telling services.  Business has been a little slow, which she expected for being new, but she’s happy enough in her little tent-shop.  It’s also close enough to Senjin Village that she can hop back to get anything she needs, as well as take a trip to the ocean there to have a chat with her favorite Water Spirits.

So where are your characters right now?  What have they been up to, and how is life going for them?

Dealing with Sad

18 Written by Anna on October 6, 2009 – 8:04 am

How does your character deal with grief? With heartbreak?

It’s a question likely out of an old Friday Five, really.

One that I’m trying to wrestle with now with Aely – trying to find the balance between an unhappy character and not making other people want to avoid her because she’s vacillating between being deep in a funk and being randomly short tempered. And really, there’s only so much strawberry icecream and bourbon that will make a difference.  She’s flung herself into her work again, as though working her fingers sore as she bandages and heals and puts folks back together in the field hospital will drive away the darkness of self-doubt and loneliness through sheer exhaustion.  Her work-a-holic phase is bad enough that she’s even back to helping at the Stormwind Infirmary on her days off, tending all the sore throats, broken arms, and skinned knees common among school children.

I like to think I’ve struck a good balance between “putting on a face for the world” (since we’ve all been there, done that) and acknowledging her emotions, but it’s a hard one to hit right.  Too much in one way or the other and I’m either driving my friends nuts or not being true to the character.  Grief is, like many misfortunate things, a very personal, private sort of road to walk, but even writing fics has been difficult.  (Maybe she just wants me to leave her alone?)

Add to that my desire to scare up something remotely happy for her, since she’s been something of a tragedy-magnet lately, and with 3.3 on the horizon, that’s not likely to get any brighter.  She’s planning a bit of a shindig for the anniversary of the Longest Night – but even she can’t decide if that’s a happy or a melancholy thing.

I’ve got a pretty clean slate today, and it’s decided to be unseasonably gross outside, so maybe I’ll be able to get something written to deal with some of this.  Dunno.  Your ideas are welcome!

Annie Mae would like me to let you know that she’s been working hard fighting wolves with no tails and eels without fins in Terokkar Forest.  She’s level 65 now, and I’ve got a good momentum running, which is /really nice/!

Alliance Faction Relationships – IC and OOC

2 Written by Anna on October 2, 2009 – 9:39 am

Arrens has a post up today on how his two major mains (Arrens the Forsaken Rogue and Arrens the Human Warlock) perceive the different races of the Alliance Faction. It’s a good read, especially if you’ve not thought much about how your characters actually think about other factions in general (not just your own opinions).

Of course, I had to start thinking about how my various characters would respond.  However, rather than TWO characters, I have… at least four – if not five – that would respond.  So I’m going to break this into two posts.  Today you get the Alliance version.  Next week, the Horde version!

Humans

• Aely – “Nae much t’ say th’ likes ay human kin’. Wir a ragtag bunch, frae poncy nobles t’ ruffians, bu’ fair loyal on mos’ counts.  ‘Course, most ay th’ Southron folk’re wee on th’ floofy side, bu’ ye cannae blame ‘em f’r tha’.  Hard t’ judge any, wha’ wi’ all th’ various parts an’ sundries we c’n be frae. ‘course I’m partial tae Lordaeroners – who wouldnae be!”
• Annie Mae – “Human folk are generally a good bunch, if not the wisest folk I’ve met. Usually talk too fast an’ think too slow.  An’ busy interferin’ with stuff that ain’t botherin’ ‘em none.  But they’s good intentioned, ya know?”
• Angoleth – “I like most humans.  They’re a little short on perspective, but long on loyalty and commitment.  And when they do stupid shit it usually gets them killed so I don’t end up having to deal with them.”
• Anzefi – “Ooooo… ‘umans. Dats a hard one.  Dey’s not so easy ta pin inta any wun shape, ya know? Ya gotta giv’ ‘em each deys due. Voodoo… not so strong wit dem, dow. Dey don’ hold wit’ Spirits…   Too bad fer dem, ya?”

I’m fond of humans for their versatility, and for their racial bonuses!  They’re an easy race to pick up and RP relatively well without a lot of work, but if you want to DO the work, the lore is there to hold it up.  And, well… you know how I am with Lordaeron…

Night Elves

• Aely – “Elf folk… tha’s nae so easy as allat.  ‘ve met a few wha’ pester my las’ livin’ nerve, bu’ by an’ large they’re constan’.  Solid, ayeh?  Dinnae like t’ change, elves, an’ yet still like t’ be surprisin’ sommat.  Gen’rally, good allies.”
• Annie Mae – “Elves are weird. Too busy thinkin’ they’re important folk to see the problems under their noses.  But good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgement, so … good for advice.  ‘cept they usually can’t make up their damn minds what they think on stuff.  And they’re really … tall.”
• Angoleth – “I’ve met some good elves in my time.  Met some assholes too.  Mostly assholes.  All eternal this and Elune that.  Bullshit.  You do what you need to do, when you need to do it, and you stay the f*ck away from magic.  At least Shando knew that… <trails off grumbling>”
• Anzefi - “Elfses, hmm… don’ know many elfses.  Usually ‘cuz I be findin’ ‘em ded firs’ <cackles>  Longears dem gotta get som credit – dey’s mos’ly da reason we gots a worl’ ta walk on.  Dat’s good for somfin?”

I’m not that fond of elves, though I enjoy the two that I RP with.  I find that it can be hard to get into the mind of a character that’s been alive for possibly thousands of years.  I do, however, hold a longstanding and unchanging love of their starting zone, from an aesthetic and nostalgic point of view.  The first starting zone I got halfway through was Durotar.  And then I went to Teldrassil – and I did Teldrassil by myself? And I’ve loved it since.

Dwarves

• Aely – “Solid, straigh’forard an’ make th’ bes’ damn ale south ay Stratholme these days.  Nae tha’ ye’d wanna drink anythin’ comin’ owt ay Stratholme… bu’ I’m strayin’.  Gen’rally good wi’ th’ common sense ‘swell.”
• Annie Mae – “Dwarves are great – good friends, an’ good to fight with.  Not that they’s all good an’ wholesome, but it don’t take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.”
• Angoleth – “Only ever met one bastard that could out shoot me.  Was a Dwarf.  Figure that’s worth something, right?”
• Anzefi – “Now dats a question f’r da Spirits, mon.  Dwarves, dey gots som good Voodoo goin’ – but dey don’ call it Voodoo, do dey.  An’ somtime dey do dumb stuff, wit da bangarang round dose big mines?  Gotta be careful in dem earth.  Somtime ya not know what ya be findin!”

I really /really/ like Dwarves.  And I don’t have any Dwarven characters that I regularly RP with.  This makes me sad.  Of course, I don’t have time to really RP with the four/five/sometimes six characters I already work with on a regular basis, so I can’t really just “add one in”.  If I ever manage to start getting paid to RP though, I’m totally rolling one.

Gnomes

• Aely – “I coul’ do wi’ owt Gnomes, t’ be hones’.  They dinnae bother me owt, bu’ oft they seem t’ be so tied wi’ tinkerin’ an’ crazy shite tha’ I cannae get ‘em t’ hol’ feckin’ still an’ get anythin’ done.”
• Annie Mae – “We’re strange buggers.  Don’t much hold for Gnomeregan Gnomes – they usually want to make some floofanagle machinery instead of just pickin’ up a shovel and gettin’ to it.  If it don’t seem like its worth the effort, it probably ain’t – an’ mostly I see a lot of not worth the effort …”
• Angoleth – “Clever little buggers, Gnomes.  Never know what they’ll come up with next.  Of course, it’ll probably blow up your ox cart, but hey, it might save the world.  Gnomeregan… well that’s just misfortunate there.  Just don’t ask me to have a conversation with one.”
• Anzefi – “I knows, I knows, ya wan’ me ta say I like eatin’ gnomes, ‘cause dats wat Trolls be doin’ ya?  Well, I don’t.  Don’ eat no land meats.  ‘ceptin’ fer special, an’ fer spirits. Gotta sacrifice tings somtime, ya?  Den dat’s ok.  Oterwise, jus’ fishies fer ol’ Zefi.”

Gnomes are tricky.  They’re very very easy to turn into comic relief? And that makes them difficult both to RP and to RP /with/.  If your character is just there to be funny, it’s hard to have them around when I need to have Srs Bsns RPz.  RPing a gnome who is, in fact, rather silly – but who’s also a very serious character can be a challenge.

Draenei

• Aely – “Th’ Draenei ‘re an odd lot.  Hold still t’ tha’ poncy Naaru shite.  Th’ tails ‘re a tad weird.  Otherwise, nice enow folk, an’ bloody fearless in battle.  Good t’ have as allies, if nowt else.”
• Annie Mae – “I’ll admit, I don’t much hold with Draenei.  Not that they’s not pleasant folk.  But seems ta me they’s either so busy bein’ Light Filled that it ain’t worth tryin’ ta change the subject, or they’s touched in the head.”
• Angoleth – “They crashed.  A giant space ship. Into our islands. I’ll give one or two of them the benefit of the doubt… maybe.  Bunch of morons.  All that Light this and Light that.  Couldn’t they turn the f*cking headlights on in that thing?”
• Anzefi – “Don’ know much ‘bout no hoofed blue Draeneis. Ones I’s met all seem ta get da Spirits dow… which’s odd, f’r bein hoofy an’ horned but ain’t Tauren.  Still, dat ship ting don’t seem ta be goin’ anywheres <shrugs>.”

Draenei are probably the hardest race to RP because their lore is so sketchy in game.  I did some out of game reading and was able to piece together enough to get Annorah a decent setup, but I’m still not really happy with it.  I do really like Azuremyst though, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity for good RP with them.  It’s just not easy to do “out of the box” like it is with some of the other races.

And that’s it for today.  Four characters opinions (plus mine) on the five Alliance races.  I’ll see about getting those Horde opinions sorted out (and maybe add Anaje to the mix on that one!)