----------------------
| Welcome to Mythwood. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features. |
| Artan | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Jul 7 2013, 05:54 AM (236 Views) | |
| Afshar | Jul 7 2013, 05:54 AM Post #1 |
|
Name: Artan Race: Human Gender: Male Age: 17 Abilities: Dark Mage Rank 1 - Shadow Lance Rank 1 - Disease Rank 1 - Portal Appearance He is 6 ft but looks taller because he is very thin. not much muscle on his body . His skin is dark, not black skinned but more like a very deep tan. Big dark brown eyes and black shoulder length hair. Shaves clean . Very long nails. Clothing and Attire His current clothes are a long black robe , black pants and no shirt. Also black leather boots. Personality Batshit crazy.He has schizophrenia, meaning he hears voices and sees things. Has an imaginary spiteful friend named Moq.(and other less influential delusions) He was raised by a criminal Dark Mage and his mentor used him as a tool to keep his subjects afraid of him, So he has no concept of morals. Despite the fact that Schizophrenia comes with aggressiveness and paranoia most of the time, Artan is not like that, he is mostly a calm silent person blending with the background. his paranoia and aggressiveness is instead based on Moq's opinions. If he is suspicious of someone, Artan doesn't like him, if not Artan likes him. Moq is not really picky though. Most of his childhood was spent with no human contact except for his master, so he doesn't really know anything about ethics or how to interact with others properly. Ian used humiliation and all other sorts of torture to keep him in line, he did not have control over his body nor his mind. He was a disgusting wretch until Moq came to him. After months of interacting with Moq he developed a serious pride issue. Meaning he is very proud and thoughts of himself very highly. Also, because he did not have any schooling except for reading, writing and basic math. He doesn't know any history or even simple geography. His master always called him Artan, he never told him how he came to be his servant or what his family name was/who his family members were. History The first thing I remember is Master Ian beating me because I did not cook his food enough. He used to beat me with his walking stick. It hurt a lot but did not draw blood. He didn't want to ruin my clothes. After that my memories are mostly writing numbers in Master’s records, watching the master beat other people and being beaten by master Ian, until he started teaching me magic. Fiver years ago he sent me to kill someone for the first time. The night after I killed Maximus in his tavern , “they” started talking. At the beginning they only spoke to me when I was trying to sleep, then they started speaking to me when I was in Master’s presence. They spoke about everything, some of them were kind, some spouted insults, and others threatened me. I was afraid of them when they first started talking but in a couple of months it was normal for me to have a conversation with one of the nicer voices. After I killed Max for master, He started sending me to other missions, like killing people or torturing them until they passed out. One time he sent me to kill a girl. But when I saw her I could not do it, she was too beautiful, too innocent to be touched. I returned without killing her and told Master Ian that I would not do it. He touched my head and left. I lay there in agony for hours, I could not move or see or hear. When master came back he had the girl’s body over his shoulder. He released me and threw her unto the ground beside me. I had to cut her body open and eat her heart before Master let me go. Moq came to me then. Standing beside master, he looked at me and shook his head. That night he started talking to me about power and how it was so important, so good. He told me Master Ian was a weakling, that I should choke him with his own intestines. Moq spoke to me for month before I started trusting him, last night he asked me to kill the master. He told me it was the price for his friendship. I went to master in his sleep and started beating him with his own walking stick. He never woke up. Moq told me it would spite his soul, so I ate his heart before leaving my cursed home. Edited by Afshar, Jul 8 2013, 09:53 AM.
|
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| Akio Fairchild | Jul 7 2013, 03:33 PM Post #2 |
|
Friendly but Annoying
|
I like what you have going here. while his physical description is lacking imagery, that is merely my preference and holds no real importance. what i find most important, however, is the personality. You have a basic form for it, yes, but from his history and personality, we do not get a full enough picture of him as a person. Is he confident? Shy? Determined? Does he revel in the kill? is murder and assasination his only source of joy? or is it merely an endeavor he must partake in, a boring part of every day life? All these questions and more tell us more about what your character looks like than any physical description can. His personality defines how he walks, how he stands, what he does in odd situations. In fact, i find that people dont often comment on clothes, but race, stature and posture to define what characters they meet. just something to think about. |
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| The Gunslinger | Jul 7 2013, 10:13 PM Post #3 |
|
Administrator
|
I agree. It's brutally simple, which is often more effective than being verbose. The fact that killing is basically brushed off suggests that Artan is one messed up individual. The only known sign of sympathy was him sparing the girl, but even then he feared Ian so much that he went ahead and ate her heart. If you weren't already messed up in the head before that, this is definitely going to leave a mark. Also, Moq. I assume that, since there's no mention of Master seeing him even though you mention Moq standing at his side, Moq is just another one of the voices in Artan's head, but one that he can actually see? If so, this speaks volumes about how crazy this guy is getting. Spiting Ian by eating his heart was also a nice touch. How much more of this do you have left? I'm not sure if you were going to do more history. My suggestions basically reflect what Akio said. You've shown me how Artan acts. Now let me inside his head. It's going to be a very dark, unpleasant place, but that's okay. |
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| Afshar | Jul 8 2013, 06:56 AM Post #4 |
|
Thank you both for your opinion. About imagery and description of appearance, I prefer to not do that. That is because I personally do not pay attention to the initial explanations of appearance but make it up in my mind after I have a first expression of the char. For example I once read 6 out of 10 entries of a series before realizing that the I was supposed to imagine the protagonist as bald. The personality of the character, was determined before I joined this site. Artan is among one of my writing projects (none of which I have finished yet. :| ) I had already written some 3k words from his point of view. So I KNOW what kind of personality he has. I was not succesful in describing it to you because I had to make his history up to not contradict this world. I'm now trying to somehow get more detail in there. My greatest problem is that I don't like writing " this is his personality" I prefer writing " he did this, go figure his personality". Show NOT tell. Edit: About Moq, I will give you a tip. I had to read "Kaplan & Sadock's Concise Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry"s entry on schizophrenia before I started writing him. Edited by Afshar, Jul 8 2013, 07:00 AM.
|
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| The Gunslinger | Jul 8 2013, 08:44 AM Post #5 |
|
Administrator
|
Sure. The stuff in a profile is often just as much for other people's reference as it is for yours. If you prefer the ambiguity of show rather than tell, that's fine. It'll be interesting to see how it works out for you. I lean toward the same in my solo writing, but in the RP I tend to intertwine the two. If you don't want to add anything else, that's okay. The last thing I want to do is force you to make more content that you have no desire to write. |
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| Afshar | Jul 8 2013, 08:47 AM Post #6 |
|
Nah. I knew there are some things missing in there. I just didn't know what was missing. I've decided I will have to add the personality part anyway. I would hate it If I had to read a lot of history to understand a character. Edit: I edited in my personality description. Edited by Afshar, Jul 8 2013, 09:03 AM.
|
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| The Gunslinger | Jul 8 2013, 09:29 AM Post #7 |
|
Administrator
|
Cool, the personality is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. This has been marked as complete. Have fun in the RP! Small suggestion: use enter twice to separate your paragraphs. Unfortunately, many online forums don't have a tab function, so it can be a little more difficult to read posts when paragraphs aren't divided in some way. |
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| Afshar | Jul 8 2013, 09:41 AM Post #8 |
|
Done. Sorry about it. I copy them from word. Seems there is some problem transferring over. |
| Offline Profile | Quote ^^^ |
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Complete Characters · Next Topic » |



9:12 AM Jul 11