Side Characters

[faderifting]

↞NAVIGATION—

SIDE CHARACTERS

Side characters are a middle ground between PCs and NPCs, with short apps and no AC. Our hope is to allow players to flesh out the environment with character types that are underrepresented in Fade Rift—commoners, Andrastians, people with more mundane skills or boring jobs or OOCly unpopular opinions, etc.—but who wouldn't necessarily be as fun to play with the same level of commitment as more unusual or sympathetic characters. If you think it would be fun to sometimes write a put-upon diplomat telling other characters to behave themselves or a haughty Chantry Sister judging heathens, that’s what this is for!

Alternatively, you can use side characters to test or develop vague concepts that you might be interested in apping as full characters later, or to play characters with a specific short-term arc, such as temporary allies or citizens that cross paths with Riftwatch somehow.

Side characters are not required to be Riftwatch members. You can play a Kirkwall local or an openly hostile antagonist. However, please keep in mind that unaffiliated characters won’t have access to sending crystals, and it’s your responsibility to keep them playable. We won’t provide plots or mechanisms to keep them from wandering away forever if that’s what they would do. And if you decide to app one as a normal PC later, they’ll have to join up.

This is not meant to allow anyone to indefinitely RP six full-fledged permanent characters, and especially not six strange egalitarian poster children with lots of special skills, so please use it in the intended spirit. Characters who have more unusual qualities than side characters warrant may be given time restrictions on how long they can be voice tested as side characters before becoming standard characters.

RULES

Character Limits

1. You must be a current player who made full AC the prior month.
   
2. You can have two side characters at a time, but you can only add one per month.
   
3. You can app a side character as a full character at any time, as long as you have open slots. You can also change main characters to side characters if you want to put them on the back burner without dropping them. But you can’t use it just to dodge AC for a month or constantly rotate.

Character Types

1. Side characters must be native OCs.
   
2. They can’t be from any character category we limit to one-per-player.

Activity

1. Side characters do not submit AC and are also not eligible to earn AC reward points.
   
2. Other PCs can earn reward points by playing off of other people’s side characters.

Plot Involvement

1. Side characters can be members of projects, but they aren’t eligible for any IC leadership roles.
   
2. Side characters are allowed to participate in plots, but must be given lowest priority in sign-ups for any closed plot, including player plots. It’s fine for them to fill out a group that has empty slots, just not to take a slot that could otherwise go to a willing PC.
   
3. You can propose your own player plots for your side characters, and obviously in that case the 'lowest priority' rule doesn't apply.

APPLICATION

Side character “apps” are very short and meant to encompass just the broad strokes of the character concept, to allow people time to figure details out in play. However, you can’t add big things like mod plot-relevant events or connections that were not included in the initial proposal. E.g., it’s fine not to tell us the details of a character's childhood if that childhood was pretty normal, but you can't then say that the character spent their childhood learning shapeshifting from the Chasind or is Corypheus' secret love child.

Please post your app in the body of the comment rather than linking it.

PLAYER

Name:
Other Characters:

CHARACTER

Name:
Race:
Nationality:
Mage?:
Age:
Affiliation:
Occupation:
Goal: Briefly, in one or two sentences, are you planning for this character to stick around indefinitely? Voice testing a potential full PC? Apping a temporary character for a specific plot arc? (It’s fine for your plans to change later; we just want to know what you're up to now.)
About: In 100-500 words, tell us generally who this character is—key background facts or personality traits, opinions, skills or connections, etc. You don’t have to have every detail worked out, but you do have to tell us anything that’s hugely important, controversial, rare, or plot-relevant in advance. Otherwise, think of this like the elevator pitch section of a CR meme: what are the essentials that make your character who they are and set them apart?

<div style="text-align:justify;"><div style="font-family:georgia, serif; color: #0B610B; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size:1.75em; border-bottom: 1px solid #bbbbbb; ">PLAYER</div> <b>Name:</b> <b>Other Characters:</b> <div style="font-family:georgia, serif; color: #0B610B; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 3px; font-size:1.75em; border-bottom: 1px solid #bbbbbb; ">CHARACTER</div> <b>Name:</b> <b>Race:</b> <b>Nationality:</b> <b>Mage?:</b> <b>Age:</b> <b>Affiliation:</b> <b>Occupation:</b> <b>Goal:</b> Briefly, in one or two sentences, are you planning for this character to stick around indefinitely? Voice testing a potential full PC? Apping a temporary character for a specific plot arc? (It’s fine for your plans to change later; we just want to know what you're up to now.) <B>About:</b> In 100-500 words, tell us generally who this character is—key background facts or personality traits, opinions, skills or connections, etc. You don’t have to have every detail worked out, but you do have to tell us anything that’s hugely important, controversial, rare, or plot-relevant in advance. Otherwise, think of this like the elevator pitch section of a CR meme: what are the essentials that make your character who they are and set them apart?

—NAVIGATION↠

Comments

[pearlescence]

PLAYER

Name: Libby
Other Characters: Gwenaëlle, Petrana, Joselyn, Tsenka

CHARACTER

Name: Sibylla-Therasie "Lalla" Vesperus, nee Lovita
Race: Human
Nationality: Tevene
Mage? Yes
Age: 35
Affiliation: Tevinter
Occupation: PTA church mom

Goal: At this stage, indefinite side character with the potential to one day graduate to a whole real girl, dependent on what I'm doing with the rest of my cast and how engaged Lalla becomes with The Cause. (She will be arriving with the intent to "assist the Inquisition without joining", but realize along with her husband the necessity of actually joining Riftwatch, which at the moment she doesn't actually know is a separate thing, for various practical reasons fairly quickly.)

About: Lalla was born the youngest of five children born to a successful merchant family of Laetan mages in Tevinter, a "happy accident" that came along twelve years after the Lovitas thought they were done having children. Less the baby of the family than the afterthought, she was considered biddable and sweet-tempered, but was expected to go with one of her elder sisters as a help in their home. A rising tide lifts all boats, and her parents had put a lot of work into their older children already, so not much was expected of the littlest Lovita and accordingly she had a lot of freedom and rarely heard the word "no". Deciding that she would rather be the tide than a boat, Lalla surveyed her options and parleyed a knack for sight-reading into an opportunity to spend time with up and coming clergymen of the Imperial Chantry — charmingly volunteering to sing and test their compositions. Through this, she met Nicomedes Laurentius Vesperus, determined that no other husband would do, and waged a tireless campaign with her parents to have him. She can recite his lineage back to the very first exhibited sign of magic in the Vesperus bloodline, and on paper there was nothing to object to except that twenty-somethings arranging their own marriages raises an eyebrow.

An avid student of spirit magic with an affinity for storm magic, Lalla pivoted from her own studies to focus on preparing her children (Therasia, 13, Damita, 6, and Marothian, 5) for when they develop magic and devoted herself to the ambitions of her husband's clerical career — she has long harbored dreams of one day being married to the Imperial Divine. She has a knack for the kind of ruthless maneuvering required for advancement professionally and socially, and a keener sense for other people's angles than her husband, less clouded by his sincere passion for theology. (She doesn't not care about the Maker*.) This meant that it was Lalla, first, who recognized the danger that his outlandish ideas were putting their family in; what might have inspired vigorous intellectual debate in the Tevinter of ten or fifteen years ago might now be heresies they can't take back. Sending their children to stay with an aunt in the hopes of distancing them from any fallout and salvaging their futures, she and Nicomedes fled Tevinter abruptly under cover of night a week later, buying the silence and assistance of their household slaves with coin and freedom when they reach the south.

Lalla, who believes staunchly in the superiority of her homeland, is not thrilled about this development — but she's a ride or die bitch, and hopes to one day return to a better Tevinter that maybe her husband can still become the Imperial Divine of if Corypheus is defeated.

* [ citation needed ]

ACCEPTED + NOTE

[faderifting]

APPROVED

Your application has been approved, with the following notes:

This character is approved as a side character for up to three months of voice testing/settling-in, but after that point we'd like to see a full app—just for the sake of having her magic, other abilities, and useful connections nailed down. However, she'll be able to remain a side character for AC purposes. (We may also be reworking how we handle side characters in general before the three month point, so keep an eye out.)

Welcome to Fade Rift. Before you start playing, please:

↠ Join the Log, "Network," OOC, and (optional) Meme comms.
↠ Reply to the Taken List.

You're then welcome to begin RPing!

If you decide to drop this side character, please do so via the drop page. If you decide to app the character as a main character, you can do so without letting us know here—we'll remove the side character profile for you on acceptance of the full character application. Please remember that this character cannot earn AC points and must be given last priority in plot sign-ups.

If you have any questions, let us know.

[glossator]

PLAYER

Name: Abby
Other Characters: Flint, Wysteria, Cassius, Fitcher

CHARACTER

Name: Nicomedes Laurentius Vesperus
Race: Human
Nationality: Tevene
Mage?: Yes, but mostly for the Tevinter social cred validation to the extent that I don't even bother to write on it in his About section. Laurent practices the school of Creation magic, with a focus on glyphs. He's capable of minor healing and status buff spells.
Age: 36
Affiliation: The Imperial Chantry
Occupation: Chantry Brother
Goal: Indefinite side character with potential to go full if the spirit moves me or if character development warrants it. Laurent is going to start off being visitor to the Gallows, imagining that he will simply be assisting the Inquisition, but will join up relatively quickly once realizing that Riftwatch is a separate entity (and that wearing a membership pin helps to avoid an ass kicking courtesy of the Kirkwall locals).

About: No one told Laurentius he had to take vows. But as the second son of the Vesperii—a Laetan family with ties to the mason trade who, while prosperous, have yet to acquire the sort of status associated with the upper echelons of Tevene society—, it was simply understood that he and his younger brother would acquire positions advantageous to the family. Happily (particularly for a quarry-owning family who might wish to secure a connection to an organization notable for building cathedrals), Laurent developed an early passion for theology and the various scholastic pursuits surrounding it. He was perfectly eager to join the Imperial Chantry and to leave managing the family business and the realm of politics to his older and younger brother respectively.

Rigorously curious and sincerely devout, Laurent proved an adept cleric. He had a knack for languages and the sort studiously decisive streak which leans well to translating, cataloging, and debate. While not an excellent composer, when Sibylla-Therasie "Lalla" Lovita showed up to test and sing various choral compositions of his peers, Laurent briskly took it upon himself to learn enough to woo and marry her with.

Had they been born two generations earlier, little ill would have ever befallen them. But like everywhere in Thedas, Tevinter is changing. The insistent qualities which once had all but guaranteed Laurent would reach a high-ranking post have soured as his beliefs and theories have diverged from those held by the majority of the Imperial Chantry. Theories like "But what if Andraste wasn't a mage!" which may have been deemed eccentric but fascinating grounds for debate fifteen year ago have, in the wake of the regime swap in Tevinter, become controversial at best and outright heretical at worst. Laurent's latest venture of translating a new version of the Chant which aimed to converse and reconcile with Justinia V's "New Cumberland Chant of Light" has proven to be a bridge too far both from a theological and political perspective.

Putting down the project was simply out of the question; there is an ethical and moral duty to complete it (and Laurentius has just enough egotism to think no one else would do so properly). But with his socially savvy wife having identified the seriousness of the threat against him and therefore their family, the three Vesperii children have been sent to stay with an aunt in an attempt to preserve their reputations as upstanding members of Tevinter society while Laurent and Lalla have fled south to Kirkwall. Laurent doesn't believe himself a grand reformist and certainly doesn't consider himself an enemy of his homeland. He does however suspect that his family will never be able to return to their lives unless Corypheus' influence in Tevinter is tempered and someone figures out how to moderate tensions between the two branches of the Chantry.

(The silver lining? There's something symbolically compelling about penning a unified translation of the Chant of Light out of a place so infamous as Kirkwall.)

ACCEPTED + NOTE

[faderifting]

APPROVED

Your application has been approved, with the following notes:

This character is approved as a side character for up to three months of voice testing/settling-in, but after that point we'd like to see a full app—just for the sake of having his magic, other abilities, and useful connections nailed down. However, he'll be able to remain a side character for AC purposes. (We may also be reworking how we handle side characters in general before the three month point, so keep an eye out.)

Welcome to Fade Rift. Before you start playing, please:

↠ Join the Log, "Network," OOC, and (optional) Meme comms.
↠ Reply to the Taken List.

You're then welcome to begin RPing!

If you decide to drop this side character, please do so via the drop page. If you decide to app the character as a main character, you can do so without letting us know here—we'll remove the side character profile for you on acceptance of the full character application. Please remember that this character cannot earn AC points and must be given last priority in plot sign-ups.

If you have any questions, let us know.

[kyrr]

PLAYER

Name: Rachel
Other Characters: Sidony Venaras

CHARACTER

Name: Tofa an Halvor o Talonhold
Race: Human
Nationality: Avaar
Mage?: No
Age: 35
Affiliation: Talonhold
Occupation: Scout
Goal: Partly to test if she might work as a full character, but also to have someone with some interesting mechanics (not being able to actively speak) alongside being able to get involved in things that are not quite as battle-shy as Sidony is as an untrained healer.

About:

Tofa is the sister of former Riftwatch member Magni (shared mother, separate fathers). She was raised as a ranger and scout for Talonhold. She is adept with hand to hand combat and has mostly done whatever was asked of her when it was asked of her; that was her role and she was content with it. She is very much the 'take orders first, ask questions if it becomes important' sort of person, especially if it means protecting/taking care of her family and the people she cares most about.

During a raid about ten years previous, Tofa was organising her people and taking point to rally the warriors and fighters, as well as doing quite a lot of war-crying. As a result of this she was attacked and had her tongue mostly cut off, leaving her incapable of proper speech. She can still eat (mostly, when things are mushed up or liquid) but she can't talk, so her communication is focussed on her own, made up hand signals (familiar to anyone from Talonhold/anyone who wants to practice it with her) and writing notes and letters to people if they want to communicate with her.

Tofa is a quiet and intense person. She puts all her energy into her work and is devoted to her family. She originally came to Riftwatch to support her sister and help investigate it for the purposes of making sure it was a safe place, but with the changes in the world she is now far more interested in making sure bad things stop and good things continue, in whatever way that might be.

She also wants to learn more about fighting. All kinds of fighting.

[faderifting]

APPROVED

Your side character has been approved! Before you start playing, please:

↠ Reply to the Taken List.
↠ Join faderift, therookery, faderiftooc, and (optionally) allthisshitisweird.

You're then welcome to begin RPing!

If you decide to drop this side character, please do so via the drop page. If you decide to app the character as a main character, you can do so without letting us know here—we'll remove the side character profile for you on acceptance of the full character application. Please remember that this character cannot earn AC points and must be given last priority in plot sign-ups.

If you have any questions, let us know.