Effle Stormwind, Mock Fairy (Help)

A fairy is my favorite predator. I don't know why, they're just really awesome in all respects. So, starting from what I know, my character is human because starting at fairy would mean I would have to delve into predator and prey business that I'm not too interested in yet. Because he is human and will always remain human, I gave my character special benefits to feel more like a fairy (he recieves blue butterfly wings in a freak accident listed as an extremely lucky coincidence, befriends an old tree with size changing apples, and has ended up living in Kortiki Town). However, I'm starting to think I'm overstepping boundaries here...

Fairies should be the only one's who can change size at will. I've heard that mages can do it too (???) but that's another case for later. Effle, whom is in no way magically inclined, is basically using a tree's apples to change size. As of late, I feel like it's cheating to do so, therefore I placed restrictions on his change rate (15 minutes before he can call forth another apple from his apple pouch, one apple at a time, one bite per apple per person, etc.) but I still think it's wrong. My character seems to have too much power to do whatever he wants, and he's certainly not some sort of great legend of the west.

On the other hand, characters have to stand out from the usual in order to survive. Because of which, I do like the idea of keeping the fairy wings, mostly for flying and freedom purposes and also to roam the fairy lands in general safety. This is where I need someone to draw the line; "Your character seems overpowered, cut back a little." or "He's within a certain range, he seems fine with what he has." The only reason I want to make this character reasonable is in hopes to fit in with some major storyline or another somewhere down the line.

Another thing, his weapon; a two-sided curved dagger (looks like a tilda ~) that can be split into two to look like fangs of some great beast. He shares one half with his clone (another freak accident, represents Effle's darker side, another story) and both use it to their advantages. The dagger itself doesn't actually cause any real pain but more of a psycological pain; a dagger that enflames the nerve cells in the skin to make the brain feel an extreme burning sensation worse than the scrape they actually recieved; the stronger the mind, the more effective the pain (though the range on mental strength isn't that significant in the overall scheme). Pain ranges from fracturing a bone, to driving someone into an unconscious state for a short while. I feel it a good weapon, mostly because it barely causes any physical pain and because it plays into Effle's physical weakness (being rather scrawny and all). It doesn't take much to dodge a small dagger like his, but if you don't, it would be utterly fatal. On a side note, there are six symbols on each side of each half blade that are 'filled' (like a measuring guage) with blue light by someone's energy (getting more into that later). If the symbols are all lit, one can hit the hilt for a roar that paralyzes everyone in the surrounding area like they were hit by the dagger itself 10 times over- this is a last resort move that also affects Effle himself and is rarely ever used. Is this considered 'overpowered' and am I just blind by my love for it?

Because he is physically weak, I also let him master the use of his wings for a significant speed boost; combined with sedating type magic, he can almost vanish from sight, appear right behind an opponent, do various attacks where one throws their entire weight into a punch or kick to throw others off balance, etc. (but he doesn't travel with a mage, so that rarely happens). He takes his speed seriously, and practices sprints in his free time. He is considerably weaker in long range flights if he has to carry someone, but short bursts of speed are his specialty. Is this increase of speed in order to make up for a lack of power balanced enough? On a related note, he did fight Jade the Giantess only to get rolled over because there was no power behind his punches.

Also, as a final note, his clone Elffe (name spelled backwards, reeeaaally creative I know.) can share vision with Effle, even take control of each other at points only for being able to see behind oneself, watch blindspots, basically just to sperate them from the normal adventurers and give them mental telepathy with each other as long as the other knows generally where you are. I thought this was a fair choice, any suggestions?

EDIT: I also threw in the ability to drain weeds and small plants of life in order to slow the digestive process (not dryads or other complex organisms, it's not a weapon. That and his mother is a dryad in order to make this at least a little plausable) so that if he were ever big and needed to eat someone, he could cough them up later somewhere safer. That was basically the only way I thought I could adress the vore aspect of a character that is friendly to everything he meets and has no interest in eating others for survival. If there is another easier way that doesn't involve carrying around a potion of some sort, I'd be glad to hear it.

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Because he is human and will always remain human, I gave my character special benefits to feel more like a fairy (he recieves blue butterfly wings in a freak accident listed as an extremely lucky coincidence

Is that really nessecary? I mean, those wings might be useful in the jungle, but he's not going to be let anywhere near a human settlement, they'll think he's a fairy.

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befriends an old tree with size changing apples

This is a little too convenient. It just doesn't make that much sense. How does that work? Is it controlled size changing or does it change the person who eats it to a random size?

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Fairies should be the only one's who can change size at will. I've heard that mages can do it too (???) but that's another case for later.

In general, shrinking magic is restricted to fairies.
Human mages might be able to learn it if they spent decades studying it, but they still wouldn't be as good as a fairy.

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. My character seems to have too much power to do whatever he wants, and he's certainly not some sort of great legend of the west.

It's good that you can see that yourself.

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on the other hand, characters have to stand out from the usual in order to survive.

Not necessarily. The average adventurer can survive Felarya using the normal equipment available to them.

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also threw in the ability to drain weeds and small plants of life in order to slow the digestive process (not dryads or other complex organisms, it's not a weapon. That and his mother is a dryad in order to make this at least a little plausable) so that if he were ever big and needed to eat someone, he could cough them up later somewhere safer.

Except that Dryads can't breed with humans.

Anyway, this is a bit odd. You seem to want to take all the powers of a fairy and put them on a human.
I'm not entirely sure what you want to achieve with your character, so if you explain what you want him to be, that would help a lot.

What AJ said is all true, and it is very good that you want to create a character that is interesting but not overpowered.
I'd say a human-like fairy would be much more believable then a fairy-like human, or you could make a hybrid, I think that's this character's biggest problem.
I'd do what I can to get rid of the size changing apples if I were you, the dagger was fine till it got to the energy guage and area effect paralysis, that is indeed a bit too much as well.
And evil clones? That might be a bit much too, remember every strange/exceptional trait your character has will require a ton of development to make believable, and you put just about every unusual trait you could on this guy.
I get the feeling you'll have better luck going a different route, you seem to want to make a fairy, so do it! I guarantee you'll have more fun.
Make him be raised by humans or something, I'm sure it happens in Kortiki, you do NOT have to touch the predator/prey buisness with him, even if he's a fairy, and vore is completely optional as well, no need for that plant/dryad/potion thing.

... Crap.

I wrote quite a bit, there's an overview down below if you aren't interested in the developments.

Well, I've already developed him for 49 stories, so the best I can do now is start taking away. The tree is gone (glad I asked), I just thought of a way to kill it with good connections to my stories that will be developed in the future. The idea was that he would think 'big' or 'small' and an apple would teleport from the tree's random location in Felarya into his apple pouch. He would take a bite of this blue crab apple and change from human height to 80 feet or 3 inches, with no real use to go anywhere in between except back to human size.

Though I am glad I remembered; the apple pouch (which only creates regular apples by stealing them off apple trees across the galaxy) itself was mostly used so that I could eliminate the problem of having to hunt for meat, scavenge, scrape up what you can with the money he doesn't have and what-not. Though apples aren't exactly life sustaining, I'd rather not write a story about how he hunts for rabbits for days at a time ( though it would give a good survival aspect...). More importantly, it was also a 'predator detector' and a normal red apple would appear in his pouch when it detected someone hungry in the area, like a reverse predator sense. With this rose complications, however; the pouch doesn't distinguish between an 80 foot giantess or a 5 foot tall human and would start dishing out apples like popcorn if you walked into a city and didn't snap the pouch shut, or how it only worked when the predator was within some small radius like 25 feet. I only wanted it to let my characters know they were being stalked by something else (if all other requirements were met) so they weren't totally caught by surprise and eaten like so many others before. Additionally, the person wearing the pouch looks tastier than others in the area (not significantly, but if given a choice between two people, the pouch wearer would be picked out every time- this was just a reason no one bought it before him and has yet to be developed into a story).

The wings, I still think, are is greatest strength (mostly for the freedom aspect of being able to soar into the sky). Because they aren't true fairy wings, they can be folded without harm to loss of magic and such (cutting still hurts, I try to avoid that kind of injury because they shouldn't be able to grow back). This lets him hide his wings under his shirt for a long time (like flexing your abs; you can do it, but only if you concentrated on it, and it cant be done forever). He was caught in Negav, however, and the villagers did drive him out into the jungle so he isn't allowed back in or even near for that matter unless incognito (but if a mass of people were to figure him out again, they'd tear him apart so it's not advised). The wings have the ability to expand through microfolds in order to make the wings seem larger or smaller, but only by a few inches. This was originally intended to shape a fighting style, short wings for quick bursts of speed or long ones for far distances, but this never affected his actual fighting style in the long run nor was it developed properly thorughout the storyline and now happens on its own (like adrenaline while running; you'll get a big kick if your body knows it's going to sprint for two minutes, but it isn't dumping all of that at once if you were going for a five mile hike). I gave him this strictly for the ability to shrink his wings so that he could fit them under his shirt and not look like the hunchback of notredam.

Now the human-towards-fairy approach I felt best for its ethical appeal; "I am human" leads him to feel apart of the human race, but when he is given fairy wings he can see the life of the predators that are eating his species. This would lead to ethical delemas and arguments he can have with fairy friends that ordinary humans can't (taking away the fear of being eaten right away); "Though it's apart of life, don't you think they have every right to life you have? Just because they aren't big doesn't mean they should be slaughtered!" (however, the eating of humans is something I personally see as acceptable, so I'm arguing on both sides for the sake of developing the 'I'm big you're small' debate, story filler basically- don't kill me )

Also, I use Elffe as a worthless sidekick to go places Effle can't (like human settlements) and to occasionally get eaten by a naga or fairy for vore purposes. He interacts in more of a way that would find out important information as a docile character and isn't a battlehard veteran. I had him developed before as taking the 'hate' emotion out of Effle and creating a person out of it. This Elffe was eventually eaten by the succubus Menyssan and Effle's hate was returned and directed at the succubus. He preformed the same ritual again on accident and this time Elffe took away a VERY cheap teleporting trick that I'd given him when I first started writing. This Elffe is still alive today. Every duplication cuts Effle's original lifetime in half, so he basically now has only 20 years to live (though I heard Felaryans don't age, so this was mainly to force him to be unable to go back to his home planet). There can in no way be more than two Effles at the same time, and growing up this Elffe acted as his brother and was treated like such by his father and mother. All of Elffe's abilities are lost if he dies (except walking, talking, eating, that sort of thing) so he lost what was once impressive swordsmanship. He certainly can't utilize the paralysis effect with his half of the dagger, and I will cut back on that aspect as well.

Now the dagger issue; I guess I could eliminate the area affect completely (very reluctantly though) or I could cut back quite a bit (preferably). I wasn't entirely accurate last time now that I'm rereading it; the area affect again causes no real pain, but it does take every failure and bad memory you've ever had and throws it in your face over and over again until all hope is lost within the 10 seconds that is the roar. The only reason the caster is able to get up again is because he is fully aware that it will end while others are so lost in despair that they can't even dream of fighting back. There is a severe physical lashback that drains you of actual physical energy until you only have enough to keep standing, and it takes YEARS to charge the meter fully.

An extreme weakness already present is that the people left on the ground aren't physically damaged in any way. If anyone were to have the iron heart will of determination- one that rivaled someone like Jesus- they would still be left with an ounce of hope after the roar. They could then get up and tap every affected member in the area which would be all that's required to give them hope in turn; "We're still alive, we're still here. There's no need to mope around when we have a life ahead of us to live and a fight to win!" Basically any small words of inspiration would almost fully cure anyone affected. I haven't yet seen anyone with this kind of determination, but people like mercenaries are immediately taken out of the picture because they aren't fighting for their lives but some other secondary motive like money. Of course his dagger is rendered useless for minutes afterwards as it would be way too cheap to go around and hit anyone still struggling on the ground after being stunned by the roar.

So now I'm left with a few options;
remove this ability completely (by making the recharge time longer than a lifetime)
reduce the amound of willpower needed to withstand the affects (anyone's willpower stronger than Effle's would stay standing)
reduce the affected time period afterwards to something like 5 minutes (enough time to escape a big crowd)
reduce the effect drastically over a distance
or more repercussions on the caster (looses abilities or more severe physical injuries)

Overview:
The tree will be eliminated
Is a regular apple pouch acceptable?
Is the human-to-fairy thing still a little too weird?
Elffe was never a real asset to the characters except for storyline purposes and his cloning never helped anyone- is this still acceptable?
How should the dagger be changed?

Unresolved conflict; Effle's mom as a dryad... I really need help here. I'd like to give him that drain weeds of life for an ounce of energy thing in case he's really beat up and left for dead now that the stomach issue is no longer a problem, but this can be eliminated if need be. I guess I could always make it such that Effle remembered it wrong and his mother is really... a... nymph? She is a good mage that uses nature based attacks so species of that kind are appreciated as suggestions. I wouldn't suggest a scientific experiment hybrid cause then there would be others and it would become more trouble than it's worth. He hasn't talked to her directly yet in the storyline so anything can and would still work here.

Thank you all for listening, these suggestions really help!

First off,, I am very very lazy. Sorry, but didn't read everything. I skimmed it. But thanks to your emoticon bullet points highlighting key points I think I got the gist. Good job on that by the way


First off. I like the character design. A human that is physically similar to a fairy. Nice idea.

The wings are sweet. Keep them. They only add the ability to fly, and can be a limited disguise that can save his life. I'm sure there are spells that can grant flight and make the illusion of wings. And biomancy can change some things about the body. So sure, entirely plausible to have fairy like wings for whatever reason.

The magic apples. I'm kinda the Felaryan flora guy. So no there. Magic size changing apples won't work. The only time it could work would be a cursed tree, like the fairy pool. But then that would shrink, and not grow, and would be permanent. So scrap that. Looking like a fairy is good enough for the character design. having their powers isn't necessary.

As for the dagger, I like the idea. It's not a SUPER POWERFUL SORDE THAT CAN CUT DOWN PREDS LIKE BUTTAH. It's an enchanted dagger that doesn't do much damage, but instead inflicts debilitating pain. Sounds cool. It's a believable way to combat a predator. It has it's downsides, adreniline can cause a pred to ignore the pain and keep on going. And it can't be used to kill anything giant. The AOE charge thing is unnecessary. Since this character can fly, and is a very speed based fighter, he can zip around and prick multiple opponents very quickly. That seems to be more impressive than the magic weapon doing it all for him.

The clone is interesting. I can see him having found an artifact in some Felaryan ruin that created a double of him. Just be sure to use this wisely. This is now a different person. He can have different goals and possibly a different personality as well.

As for Dryad Mom. Impossible in Felarya. Maybe not impossible in other dimensions other than Felarya. He can have the druidic past in that way. He would just have to not be a Felaryan native.

I love you :'D

Yes, the tree is gone and Effle's mom is not from Felarya. Everything works out and I'll get rid of the roar (with a bang) promptly. Thanks again!

Ronoc wrote:

I love you :'D

Yes, the tree is gone and Effle's mom is not from Felarya. Everything works out and I'll get rid of the roar (with a bang) promptly. Thanks again!

Cool cool. Rewrite it if you don't mind. I'd like to see what he's like post change. So write up a new improved bio for our viewing pleasure.