Hunter Bio: First Character

First of all, I'm new to the forum, so go easy on me. Second, please feel free to criticize. (Mixed messages are a lot of fun, aren’t they?) If there is something that seems off about my characters, my grammar, or my style of writing feel free to point it out. Finally, the bio:

Name: Hunter
Species: Human (half Neko)
Age: 19
Sex: Male
Height: 5 feet, 10 inches
Skin colour: Tan
Hair colour: very dark brown, almost black
Eye colour: slightly lighter brown than his hair
Other characteristics: very athletic, beyond the physical skill of the average human-sized felaryan native


Hunter’s mother was a Rosic Neko, and his father was a human. Hunter’s father was half Greek and half Sagolian. They were eaten by Crisis right in front of Hunter when he was ten years old, and he still holds a grudge against the giant naga because of it. The naga Katrika tried to be kind to him immediately afterwards, but he drove her away. He then got lucky and semi-accidentally killed a Manticore. He used its poison to become a hunter, which is what his mother had wanted. He made himself a bow, and coated some of his arrows with the powerful poison. Over nine years, he learned how to capture certain creatures alive. The wealthy people of Negav know him as a source of exotic pets and food.
Hunter is very quick to distrust anything bigger than him, and is highly paranoid and aggressive towards any predators, largely because of what happened to his parents. He is not a very angry person, but all of the anger in him is directed primarily towards Crisis, partially towards other predators. All the same, he refuses to try to kill them, in spite of the large number of people that have offered him money to go after certain predators. He is not as afraid of predators as most people, because of his poisoned arrows, but he is very scared of fairies. He is afraid of finding himself too small to use any weapons, and tends to avoid fairies in general. Fairies seem to be included in his distrust of predators. He has befriended a giant Sphinx named Joy, who is not native to Felarya and claims that she doesn’t need to eat. She only convinced him that she wasn’t going to eat him by saving his life.
Hunter was recently welcomed into the following of Khord, god of the night. He was chosen to hunt whatever Felaryan creatures the cult wanted, living or dead. The creatures are held in a bestiary/museum dedicated to Khord, unless Hunter wants to use them for something. He is quite crafty, and enjoys coming up with intricate schemes to capture dangerous fauna alive. His schemes have a relatively high success rate, and while he is lucky when compared to many other adventurers, Hunter has led a harsh life that has shaped him into a relatively kind person.

Again, please let me know of any issues with my characters or writing. I'm worried that he's overpowered, so let me know about that. Above all, thank anyone who read this for reading.

Well, the only thing I'd point to is him hunting giants alone and surviving. Once in a while, maybe. But as many times as he takes them on makes him seem overpowered.

Looking at your deviantart, I feel a bit bad for you. You've already written 8 parts to your story. Really, it's a very good idea for one to talk to someone or post a bio before one starts writing.

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Hunter’s mother was a Rosic Neko, and his father was a human.

As far as I know this is impossible. Elves can breed with humans. Fairies can breed with with elementals due to both having a magical nature. Harpies can breed with almost any humanoid male but the result is always a female harpy. Apart from those I'm pretty sure that's the extent of interbreeding bar some seriously advanced magic and/or tech.
Anyway, as far as his description goes you could remove this part and have no effect on his appearance as I see nothing in his description that indicates that he is a half neko.

Quote :

Hunter’s father was half Greek and half Sagolian.

Hm. As far as I know there are no Sagolians left on Felarya.

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They were eaten by Crisis right in front of Hunter when he was ten years old, and he still holds a grudge against the giant naga because of it.
The naga Katrika tried to be kind to him immediately afterwards, but he drove her away.

I'd like to point out that involvement of canon characters doesn't really add much to a character.
Anyway, so after being horribly traumatised by the death of his parents and leaving someone who tried to help him, he somehow made his way through the Felaryan jungle, over the shard river and past the fairy kingdom to the great rocky fields at age ten. (where else do you find Storm Manticores?) It is obvious to anyone that the possibility of that kind of thing succeeding is nil. Nothing is that lucky.
He then got lucky and semi-accidentally killed a Manticore. [/quote]
Storm Manticores are rare mythical creatures of great power.
They attacks human caravans and succeed. This is not the kind of thing a young boy can accidentally kill. There's nothing in the great rocky fields that could really accidentally hurt a manticore. No falling branches, no falling boulders. Nothing like that.

This pretty much disbars the rest of the bio, but I will point out the problems anyway. You've got a young man taking down giants (or at least driving them off) and all sorts of fauna and flora apparently by himself. The dangers of Felarya are not the kind that normal humans brave along. Even Isolon battlemages travel in pairs.
I'm sorry to say your worries about him being overpowered have a real grounding in reality. You need to rework this character.

Edit:To give some more clarification; the possession of the poison alone doesn't make him overpowered. Even without that I'd have some problems with this character. You are implying that this nineteen year old has expert solo survival skills, that he knows how to use everything that he needs to survive in the wilderness, that he has a vast knowledge of plants (and how to recognise them), animals and how to use the environment to his advantage. A nineteen year old simply can not have that kind of experience. it's the kind of experience I'd expect an old veteran explorer or adventurer to have.

Edit2:
I notice in your poll you have the option for "Maybe a little bit. A good handicap would fix it though."
In my opinion having a really overpowered character then adding a huge weakness to try to "balance" them is not a good idea. It's really artificial. tacked on, if you will. Whatever made the character overpowered in the first place is still there, so the problem remains.
A character's weakness(es) should be 'built in' to their abilities. A good example of this is Bonzaigirl's Althea "Thea" Tennon. She has a superheavy hammer that weighs almost nothing to her. The built in weakness here is that she's not actually superstrong or a particularly skilled fighter, so an experienced warrior could defeat her but he'd still have to watch out.

As pointed out by the others, taking down a giant manticore not only by accident, but as a child, smells incredibly overpowered. While the point of a fictional character, and IMO, anything fictional, is to retain an air of credibility within the setting, Hunter does not. As AJ pointed out, Storm Manticores are not only rare, but are incredibly powerful. By all logic, Hunter should have either died, or have survived but could not do anything.

Furthermore, the implication of the poison killing the manticore is very suspect. Against something this massive, you would need a titanic dose to affect it, otherwise it would likely dilute itself in the creature's bloodstream. I know there exist poisons that can kill in small doses, but if we are to assume that he created said power poison, a single mishandling with it would pretty much instantly kill him if such a small dose killed the manticore. Plus, from that experience alone, he's now a renowned hunter. This was an accident. There was no skill or tactic involved. If he took business right after this stroke of luck, he would be dead on his very fist "assignment".

Also, avoid canon characters in backstory. All they ever do is act as face value for your character. The implication is that you have no faith that your character will be interesting on its own merits, so you have him meet or interact with a canon character in hopes that this will make your character more appealing. But we can spot this kind of thinking from a mile away. You want the readers to relate to your characters by his own quirks, not because he did something with a canon character.

Lastly, you obviously did not read the wiki enough. Ur-Sagol has been wiped out to the ground and there is no such survivor. Bringing in an otherwise never mentioned sole survivor of a great apocalypse has a parent figure is a very common Mary Sue trait. Furthermore, said parent is half-Greek. Now, I'm rather liberal when it comes to Earth references with Felarya, but how did a Greek ever end up with a Sagolian? Let alone in Felarya? How did it survive to find someone to have a baby with? None of this is ever mentioned. The character is also half-neko, which is also a classic Mary Sue trait. So in total, he's one-half neko, one-quarter Greek, and one-quarter Sagolian. Quite hard to simply nod and smile at.

It seems to me that this is your very first character, and it shows. I recommend that you look at other stories to see how good characters are done.

Wait, didn't he say he gathered his super-poison from the Manticore?

Also, was he refering to a Storm Manticore, a mythical beast from the Great Rocky Fields, or a regular manticore?

Black Aquila wrote:

Wait, didn't he say he gathered his super-poison from the Manticore?

Also, was he refering to a Storm Manticore, a mythical beast from the Great Rocky Fields, or a regular manticore?

Well, then it raises another question: how did he kill one, when he was 10? Was he all alone? Was there a more experienced fighter with him and he managed to land the killing blow by accident? None of this is ever mentioned.

Sean Okotami wrote:

Well, then it raises another question: how did he kill one, when he was 10? Was he all alone? Was there a more experienced fighter with him and he managed to land the killing blow by accident? None of this is ever mentioned.

Yeah, it makes a lot more sense if he came across one that was already dead and just collected its' poison.

Of course, that just raises another question: How has he not run out of poison these last nine years?

Thank you for your comments and criticisms. You are completely correct, of course, in that this is my first character. I've been considering completely dropping this storyline and starting a different one, but I'm hoping that with enough criticism, I can revise the plot and his capabilities to make it more plausible/interesting. To be completely honest, I'm pissed at myself for not posting this before I started writing. I agree with everything that everybody said, and will begin revising as soon as possible.