Thursday, August 14, 2014

Character introduction: Chrysoula

This weeks character introduction is about Chrysoula, the harpy queen!





Name: Chrysoula
Type: Harpy (eagle bird girl) – Demi-god
God allegiance: Phoenix
Team: Independent (belongs to the Phoenix)
Rival: none
Height: 1,71 meters

Hobbies:
Playing violin, singing, dancing, reading books, discussing important topics.
Getting to know about other cultures and people.

Purpose/Job:
Protecting life, and defeating beings that threaten life.
Immortal queen of the harpies.
Carrying out the Phoenixs will.

Strengths:
Superhuman strength (slightly weaker than most other demi-gods)
Wind element
Is able to fly

Weaknesses:
Her close combat abilities are slightly weaker than the others.


Personality:
Chrysoula is a very noble and elegant lady.
Though she seems to be haughty and slightly arrogant, she doesn't look down on common people.
It's just that her personality is this way.
In fact she is very interested in the everyday life of the common people and other cultures.
And she's constantly trying to improve other peoples manners and intellect, as she thinks it's in everyones best interest to help them to become more respected and well educated.
One of Chrysoulas personal goals is, to spread her ideals and lifestyle to as many places as possible, in order to improve other peoples lives.

She has been created and raised by the Phoenix god-creature (who's one of the ten god-creatures), with the purpose of being one of her first agents.
The harpies view her as their queen, as she's the oldest and strongest of all of them.
She lives in a castle with lots of harpies serving her, so she's used to a life full of luxury and responsibility as queen of a country.
However, Chrysoula still does a lot of things on her own, and she's also often leaving the castle, travelling around her country and carrying out the Phoenixs will.


Since Chrysoula is one of the oldest beings on the planet, and because she's been the harpy-queen right from the beginning, she kinda set the standards for etiquette and manners of nobles.
Some historians even consider the harpy-kingdom to be the very first kingdom that ever existed.
(some historians... lol)

When the mortals started forming kingdoms themselves, several kings and nobles started adopting the etiquette and manners from the harpy kingdom.


Oh oh... the queen is looking at you!

Her visual appearance isn't like that of a typical queen.
This is because Chrysoula doesn't "really" distinguish between nobles and commoners.
She would like to turn everyone into "nobles", and she doesn't believe in "royal blood", as initially there where no people with "royal blood" in the beginning.
Chrysoula believes that everyone should be able to become a noble, regardless of their heritage.

When speaking to commoners, Chrysoula sometimes gets frustrated about the way they talk or act, and tries her best to teach them to act and talk more like nobles, despite them being commoners.
She thinks, that not just nobles should talk and act politely, but also common people.
This leads to a lot of weird situations, where the harpy-queen tries to force commoners to act more like gentlemen or ladies.

When traveling alone, she often has troubles to adopt to the life of common people.
Leading to a lot of confusing and funny situations, since she doesn't know how to use certain things, or how to respond to certain situations accordingly.
(at least, if those are everyday situations for common people, that she usually doesn't experience herself)



Chrysoula feeling embarrassed

Because she is a nice and mercyful queen, Chrysoula is a little bit naive when dealing with bad people.
If they plead and promise to not continue their evil ways, she's letting them off the hook.
However, as she's not stupid, she won't fall for the same trick twice (usually...).


In the future there are no kingdoms anymore.
But Chrysoula owns a large company by that time, and she continues to live a wealthy life.
While continuing her job as one of the Phoenixs agents.
Because of the apocalypse that happens in the game, Chrysoula is joining the fight against the demons and monsters.


Abilities:
Physically she's way stronger than regular mortal harpies, but she's still a little bit weaker than the other demi-gods.

Her power to control wind however, makes her a fearsome opponent, as she can summon a devastating tornado.
She has also the ability to summon small spirits.
Chrysoula is very agile and with her ability to fly, she can dodge most attacks.



I've got the feeling that something in her personality is missing.
So probably I'll slightly rework her at some point.

Anyway, if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments!

5 comments:

  1. Great post, as always.
    You think something's missing, huh?
    Well, I think I can see why, so here is my thought on that:

    Right now, she seems a bit too perfect.
    In comparison to the other characters, you didn't talk about her flaws. Instead, she is this great harpy-queen, champion (and kind-of daughter) of the phoenix god, that is very noble but does not look down on people and even interacts with commoners, trying to better them, believing everyone can live in harmony and having this utopian dream of a world where everyone is very intellectual and noble and excellent to each other etc.

    The only downsides you did mention was, that she gets frustrated with commoners sometimes and starts to force them to act better. But I think she needs a bit more.

    Maybe make her a helpless idealist, who always believes in the good of people (because she thinks everyone can be noble etc) and that is why she might not be able to see the sinister nature of some people and how they are backstabbing others with malicious intend. It would make her blind towards behaviour like that.

    Or she might be too merciful to bad guys if they plead to her, getting tricked by them and letting them escape.

    Or another flaw could be that she can't deal well with being poor or being in everyday situations where she has to act like a commoner, because she always was rich and wealthy and had all those servants around her who would do everything for her.
    So if she would be on a covert operation and had to live in a common house or inn, she would have trouble adjusting to "commoner life" or something.

    Just a few ideas I had in mind, other than that I think she is a cool character, with being able to fly and the wind magic she controls, I can think of a few cool games with her.

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    1. I have to agree. She is a bit too close to perfect. The question is now, "Do you want to keep her perfect (or as close to it as possible)?"

      If no, then those suggestions BladeFire said are going in the right direction for you, I'd say.

      If yes, then...she has to be imperfect in a nonserious way, so as to make her perfect in serious situations, but outside of that, she could be silly. Flaws make things interesting.

      Though it might seem cliche or common with this personality, she could have a crush on someone, anyone, that acts similarly to a commoner and it frustrates her to no end, moreso than a normal commoner, but still likes them. Very close to tsundere, I suppose.

      Another side to approach this on is...how dark or light do you want her backstory to be like? Judging from everyone else, it won't be a dark one, otherwise she might stick out way too much. A dark backstory has a lot of options and a lighter one...well, I'm blanking without going to humour. Which seems to brings us back to square one.

      Hopefully you can come up with something. The thing with her, basically, is that she is haughty without being haughty. Normally, you'd "break" a haughty character, but since she isn't trying to be haughty, you can't fault her for it. It's hard to put her in a bad situation without feeling really bad for her, unless it was a funny situation. So, what I think would be a decent idea would be to add another facet to her personality. That way you can play with another side of her while leaving what you wanted for her untouched. An issue I see with this is that it could make her seem like two characters rather than one if not done well.

      Sorry if I went in a circle a bit, I tend to do that. I don't know if you're familiar with tvtropes, but it may or may not help. I hope I didn't ramble on too long.

      http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakTheHaughty
      http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PlayingWith/BreaktheHaughty

      Aside from all that, she seems like a character I'd tease and mess with. Not to hurt her feelings but just to get her to act out of character.

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    2. Thank you very much for both your comments!

      I figured that she needed some "weakness" or something in order to make her not that perfect, but I had a hard time to come up with anything useful.
      Anyway, I really love some of those ideas (well, actually all of them are great), so I'll include some of that stuff into her personality.
      I'll edit the blogpost later.

      Thank you very much!

      Delete
  2. I have to say this newest character is rather delightful! Though I agree that she does seem a little too perfect in her capabilities and resources. Perhaps have her be a bit more fragile due to a lighter body structure? Regardless, shallow as it may be, she's gorgeous and looks like a very fun character for the game!

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    Replies
    1. I actually edited her character introduction already, and the previous "over perfectedness" (or whatever you want to call it) was mainly because of her personality.

      Regarding her powers and capabilities, she's not that perfect.
      She might be able to fly, though her physical strength is lower than the other demi-gods physical strength.
      So basically I think, that also includes being more fragile (at least a bit).

      Delete