Thar Shaddin

Name: Raspberry Fiddlebow
Player: Zinsk
Race: Gnome
Sex: Female
Age: 75
Height: 3'1"
Weight: 31 lbs.
Occupation: Thief/Artist

Physical Description:
Raspberry is petite, even by Gnome standards. She has dazzling blue eyes and natural red hair that is worn in a topknot typically fastened with a large, gaudy bow. Her clothing is a constantly changing mix-match of whatever appeals to her in the moment, and it is not out of place to see her wearing bright plaids next to bright polka dots. What most would see as eccentric fashion she simply sees as interesting clothing being worn because she likes some attribute of it. Most of what she wears is lifted or she makes herself (often from lifted materials) because in her opinion paying is for suckers.

At second glance Raspberry is extremely lovely and graceful, appealing to the eye in a charismatic (non-sexual) sort of way. She is an expert artist and musician, adept at almost any instrument she finds but prefers the 7 string Lyre she carries with her, an heirloom from her Father. She travels as a performer and artist and has the skills necessary to back up this appearance.

Possessions:
7 string Lyre, bone flute, Sling staff, several daggers hidden in various places on her person, set of throwing darts often tipped in various poisons, blow gun and projectile quills, trap-spring kit (a set of tools for dismantling or setting traps), leather sap, several leather bound journals, maps and blank parchments, leather travel pack, lock pick set, several leather pouches that hang from her belt, light leather skin tight armor worn under her (seemingly) ever changing clothes.

Powers or Strengths:
Raspberry is an expert at getting into places others would deem impossible. She is not an assassin or murderer, preferring to get what she went in for and making a stealthy exit without the inconvenience of being discovered. However if she is backed into a corner she is capable of unleashing lightening fast and deadly attacks, often using poisons to overcome her lack of strength. She is also an expert musician, a talent inherited from her father’s genetics. She will often use this to her advantage to settle into a town as a performer as she stakes out her next score.

Weaknesses and Flaws:
Raspberry’s curiosity will certainly be her undoing. On dozens of occasions she has managed to “paint herself into a corner” due to her behavior, and unfortunately those in her party tend to be painted into that corner with her. Raspberry is constantly finding herself in sticky situations due to her insatiable curiosity as well as getting her party members into fights due to her big mouth. As sweet and innocent as she appears, Raspberry can be brash and has mastered the art of the insult, often taunting people into fights, sometimes that she has been unable to finish and only avoided death by narrow escapes thanks to her nimble, swift feet.

Raspberry is very small in size, even for a gnome. Though this is sometimes advantageous if she fails to avoid her enemy she can be easily overwhelmed. This is partly why she taunts and distracts, often working her opponent into such a wild frenzy that they act irrationally and without technique, giving her the opportunity to slip a dagger into a soft, exposed place. Raspberry is also attention deficient and will lose focus and interest of whatever situation she is in should it become boring, tedious, or tiresome.

History:
Raspberry is the daughter and third child of Branch and Whisper Fiddlebow. The Fiddlebow name is known through many regions as spectacular performers, and many in her family line have performed for kings and those of the highest nobility. On more than one occasion Raspberry has been invited into the homes of dignitaries and those of importance based on nothing more than her surname. Raspberry however, also has a dark side, a side that was inherited from her mother. For as famous as her Father’s lineage is with those interested in the arts, so too her mother’s line is known for their acquisition of things that don’t belong to them. For good reasons Raspberry keeps her mother’s maiden name a secret, as quick as a king will invite her into residence home to play the lute, that same would have her locked in their dungeons to rot, remembering that their prized scepter mysteriously disappeared the last time that name was mentioned in town.

Raspberry is a bit more low-key than many of her thieving heritage, choosing to partake only in the jobs where she truly will make gains monetarily. She never steals for hire, most don’t even know that she is a thief with the exception of the few in her inner-most circle that she has either been hired by or adventured with.

Outwardly Raspberry is an eccentric artist with a penchant for cartography. There are always several maps sticking out of various places of her pack, and often she is working on one as she travels. She will also do portraiture for hire as well as play music in Tavern common rooms or town performance centers. This is the legitimate side of Raspberry, the side that makes a ‘normal’ living. This front affords her the opportunity to dig deeper into the layout of desired opportunities, giving her real life intelligence of the layout of homes, buildings, location of precious objects. Raspberry effectively uses her ability to create maps as well as her artistic talent to reproduce on paper what she sees visually to plan out and execute seemingly impossible acts of thievery. She is typically the last suspect in an investigation when a precious bauble has been stolen, seemingly nothing more than an eccentric artist.

Raspberry is well traveled, moving frequently so as to not arouse suspicion when too much goes missing. She will return to areas but is hundreds of kilometers from her birth place and true ‘home’. She enjoys the lifestyle of a carefree, unemployed individual with the freedom to move when she wants and stop when she desires. She is constantly seeking the next great adventure and actively purses whatever has captured her fancy in that moment.

I'm good with the length of the history as it stands, if you prefer to add more as you develop the character. I'm about to say a lot of stuff, but that's not because I don't like your application. I'm interested, which is why I want to devote some time to this.

What I want to address first is the matter of the race of kender. We're an expansive setting, with vast opportunity for user-created content, and at the same time, the canon specifications we have in place are also expansive. Whenever a new concept is brought in that could fit within the specifications already in place, we generally prefer to express it as it fits within the canon setting, and not as new content.

For this reason, we reject the idea of, for example "Drow" as a species, since they actually fit within our definition of elves. Here I'm going to start using "species" and "race" in terms that are more like what we use in the real world. Humans are a species, and we have lots of races (and that term can be used to describe ethnicity, culture, geographic origin, differentiating physical attributes, etc). Elves are a species in our setting, and a character that fits the traditional description of a Drow would be like an elf of a specific race. It would be an elf race that is probably dark-skinned and from a culture with values considered deviant and evil by most other cultures. Following this logic, I want to see if we can express kenders as a race of gnomes, in our setting. I myself play a gnome character who was raised between two different gnome cultures, and on her mother's side she is mechanically disinclined (in contrast to the more standard idea of gnomes). I can tell you like kenders a lot, so I hope you can see what I'm asking as an opportunity to stretch your legs in a new setting for a new sort of kender concept rather than a constraint. This is the sort of thing you could very well include into your character history.

Next I want to talk about the balance of character power and weakness. You strike me as the type who is interested in roleplay and character development rather than busting asses, so I'm not terribly concerned about reining in powers as much as I am interested in clarity. In our setting, we don't use "arcane" or any other classifying terms for magic. We do, however, require a clear definition of when "magic" is or is not being used, since our setting has laws against magic use and people who can easily track down magic (tons of players use it, though, just very carefully). What is magic, then, if we don't have classifiers? A good rule of thumb is, anything that breaks the natural order of physics is magic. Some magic might be spontaneous, but most of what we encounter in our setting is made deliberately by sentient beings.

So, we need to determine if what Raspberry does with her music is in fact magic. I will say it is breaking the order of physics to cause a person to do something they were not originally inclined to do by means that would not sway them under normal physics. Compelling speech might naturally influence people (but as with political ads, most of us know when we are being taken for a ride), as might body language; sensory stimuli like certain colors and types of music are known to have some effect on people's moods. However, there's no evidence to suggest that a certain type of music would influence people to take specific actions. I would even say that music that naturally sways the mood towards, say, "loving and generous" would still not change an individual's personality. The stingy innkeeper will probably always be stingy, even when at the height of his generosity spectrum.

The idea of people and animals changing their behavior for her music (people giving lavish gifts, animals not attacking) seems to lean towards magic to me. If you want to use magic, you can probably even do a bit more with it. I think it's quite alright to have a spell that would cause someone to relinquish some sort of material wealth, or a spell that would cause a very hostile animal to stand down, but these would also be tricky to pull off because of the laws in Marn. If you want to have her musical ability truly be nonmagical (and thus legal), then you'll have be more specific that it just tends to cause changes in moods, and that she has some awareness of which songs might be a better choice than others. She would basically have not much more influence than an interior designer has when choosing really aesthetically pleasing furniture to go with her calming color scheme.

Like I said, you don't seem interested in being a super powerful characters, so I hope you can see these ideas as germane to your character concept. Oh, and also please describe the hoopak in your application.

If you want to discuss any of this privately with me, please PM me, or else you can just post in this thread. If you alter the character sheet, please also post in the thread so we know to re-check it!

So it appears and reads to me that your response is a nice way of rejecting the toon as is. Obviously I can live with that but I have concerns as to the reasons and suggestions why. The character has been modified to adapt her to the realm as best I can, but I admit this is a character that was used many years ago in a Dragonlance storyline. I made an attempt to alter her for this realm and only used the word 'magic' in quotes.

I will do what I can to modify her, however I do have an overall vision for where and what I want to do with her in this setting and I will (respectfully) try to make alterations that don't necessarily follow your suggestions. The fact is a Bard is a magical class, so by not allowing ANY magic I am feeling a little but cornered. I read the descriptions in your definitions regarding magic and was trying to approach it from more of a natural ebb and flow manipulation rather than flat out casting... obviously I failed

Thanks, I won't be able to work on this until next week as I am going out of town and will be doing activities that don't involve computers. Thanks for your response

Please read my PM to you and let us know when you want to proceed.

Pagusel wrote:Please read my PM to you and let us know when you want to proceed.

PM read, response sent

Made updates based on our conversation, let me know.

Approved.