- gwadahunter2222 wrote:
- The problem with me when I create a character I always a vague ideas about him or her and it's through the different stories I start to have an idea about them.
Hey, 'a vague idea' is where I usually start with something; it's enough to build off of and refine the idea further.
- gwadahunter2222 wrote:
- They are couple because before they become elemental. They know they are married, their actions are the remainder of their former life. The fact they are old, I prefer to not develop about their background and let people speculate about who they were before. Their past are a riddle for themselves, by example Kelard knows and Umrod knows many things about their respective elements if you ask them about their past they will just answer "Ask to my wife." because they were so focused about their research they forgot their past. It's the same case for Anzu and Saeko.
The problem with that is that it becomes a lot harder for people to form attachments to characters without a past; the usual plot device for amnesiac characters revolves heavily around exploring their forgotten past, and cluing the viewer/reader in at the same time as the character. It really helps people come to bond with a character when they can see where they are coming from, and the sort of things events that influenced their life.
Even if you don't have any ideas about their former life, or would just prefer not to go into it, you should elaborate further on their lives since they have become Elementals. What sort of things have they done since then, how have their relationships changed, and what reasons would people have to get involved with them? "Knowing many things about their respective elements" isn't really much of a reason; they can't be the only knowledgeable elementals, or even the most knowledgeable elementals regarding their elements around; what reasons would a person have to seek them out in particular?
- gwadahunter2222 wrote:
- Their life as elementals are influenced by their former lifes were but with the time they have no idea about who they were before to be elementals. They know they have some link between each other
Fair enough; it's a start, but there should be more to it than that, for the reasons I mentioned above.
- gwadahunter2222 wrote:
- We know their present and future but we don't know their past, they are elder elementals so old they forget who they were before, I want to give them a nebulous past. I want to develop them more as historicals characters of Felarya.
Their existence are known by many race but few knows who they are really.
The problem is, for them to be historical characters, they need to actually have a history, and an effect/connection to the history of others or Felarya itself. Right now, that connection is missing, so they seem kind of out of place.
Also, even if they are elder elementals who became human a very, very long time ago, there are bound to be several entities on Felarya who know
something about who they were before. Elementals who were old (or even young) before they became Elementals themselves, friends they made shortly after becoming Elementals (long before memories of their human lives started to fade), etc.
The thing about 'historical characters' is that they don't exist in a vacuum; they influence and are influenced by events and the lives of others- while it's definitely possible that nobody knows the full truth about their past, and that there are dozens of rumors regarding it, it is
almost impossible that nothing at all about their past is known... unless you're talking about extremely improbable, wide-scale effects like a spell or temporal paradox causing everyone in Felarya to forget they existed.
... And things like that are stupid and ridiculously overdone (Hello, Joe Quesada), so I'd recommend avoiding things along those lines.
Subject: Re: Quantum's Elemental Creature Compendium 
Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:27 am
