New Character Submission - Orias Lidel

[Sicanasda]

Character: Orias Lidel
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Class: Monk
Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Good
Deity: Multiple


Biography:

As a baby, Orias was discovered in a basket, cold and alone, at the doorstep of a small monastary along the banks of the River of Reflections, a few miles from Lake Lodan. Many attempts were made over the years to find his parents, and only after he'd matured to a teenager were their records finally found, the couple having starved the winter they'd left their son. It was found that being poor and unable to feed even themselves, they left their son with the monastary so that he could have a chance.

Orias began a childhood full of sickness, starting with a terrible chill brought by this first night in the elements. This set him on a path for a life long fear of plague and disease.

The monks saw his fear and set to aiding him overcome his fear and his frail body. They taught him that through meditation and intense training, he could become whole, and even stronger than that.

Orias took to his training and meditation with enthusiasm. He found it easy to adopt the doctrine of monastary, worshipping not one god, but many dieties of good intent. Yet the elders believed that they need not seek to harm any of a different path and were content with peace amongst all walks of life. They believed that any creature could be brought to see the light, no matter how deep in the shadow they may be.

Orias, however, held different views, his argumentative nature and love of questioning the norm made him a difficult student for his elders, and often he found himself either leading an idea, or by himself. He always found it hard to believe the best of people. He believed this was the quickest way to find a knife in the back. He found it hard to look past his prejudices and stereotypes of the monstrous races of the realms, though he never had any problems with the more common races, viewing them as equals. This all came as a blow to his teachers, who feared he would be lost to his prejudices.

Orias grew more withdrawn from his peers. They found his ideas a disturbing contrast to their elder's. Yet his own teachers never gave up on him. His once outgoing personality faded inwards as he began to contemplate himself and his own views. In time, his views shifted as he was forced to recognize the good deeds of the often misunderstood monstrous races. He'd slowly learned to judge individuals by their deeds, rather than by their ancestors.

As his mental training continued, so too did his physical training. He often worked himself into a heavy sweat late into the night before turning into bed. Early on, his training was to prepare him for eradicating the evils of the world. Later, as he came to understand that no evil was too far to be turned to the light, he trained to defend himself from those that would seek to harm him.

He grew older, and in due time, it became apparent that his skills and training had reached their limits for the safe and controlled environment of the monastary. And so finally, with a few parting words of wisdom from his elders, Orias set out into the world, to further his training of body and mind. After many days of wandering, he found himself looking upon Port Hempstead, and, little did he know, the beginning of his journey.

[darkstorme]

Hi there!

It's good to see you've put some thought into your first character here, but there are a few more things we'll have to see before Orias can be approved.

First and foremost, while it's perfectly acceptable for Orias not to know who his parents are, you have to make it clear to the character approvers that he is not of royal, noble, or deific descent - no lost heirs or powerful parents looking for him, that sort of thing. It's all outlined in the Character Submission Guidelines.

Second of all, a vague idea of where Orias is from (and how he came to Hempstead or Vehl) would be nice, though not compulsory, and would give you an idea of the geography of Layonara. To that end, the Layonara Online Reference Encyclopedia and the Maps of Layonara may come in handy.

The one other thing I'd like to see is a bit of clarification of "healthy respect for the power of the evil gods as well". While respecting that they are not to be taken lightly is reasonable, no Lawful Good character would ever give an evil god the time of day, let alone a nod of worship.

Your writing looks very good - we just need a bit more and you'll be ready to go.

Thanks!

[Sicanasda]

All right, thanks so much for the pointers. I'm really liking the way this entire thing is looking. It looks like I've finally stumbled upon a serious roleplaying community, and I have to say I love it. I've edited his bio, so after reading it, if you have any more pointers, I'd love to hear them. Thanks again.

[darkstorme]

Hi again!

Your expansion is good - just two more things I'd like to see addressed and Orias will be able to truly look upon Hempstead for the first time.

First, you've still got the monastery as "worshipping all deities", which just isn't going to happen. Some deities get really ticked off if someone worships one of their enemies along with them. A monastery could be secular, or could predominately worship a set of gods with similar doctrines, but to worship all deities equally is beyond unlikely. That has to be addressed.

Secondly, I'd like to see just a little bit about Orias as a person. We have that he was sickly as a child and that he took to the doctrine of the monastery, but we've very little on what he is like. Is he talkative? Taciturn? Is he gregarious or reserved? Is he pious or irreverent? How does he view other races? How does he view monstrous races (dark elves, goblins, orcs, half-giants, half-ogres, half-orcs)? (As a corollary to the last one, if he doesn't view them with suspicion, fear, or hatred, why not?) What is his likely approach to meeting strangers? Would he rather talk or fight? Etc, etc. The answers to some (or all) of these questions, covered in a paragraph or so, would flesh out Orias tremendously.. and make him ready to meet his first denizen of Layonara.

Thanks!

[Sicanasda]

I have to say thank you once again. I've rewritten parts of his bio to make more sense and to give him more depth as a character, thanks to your suggestions. As before, if you feel he still needs more, I'd love any suggestions to help make him the best I can. Once again, thank you.

[osxmallard]

Thanks for the updates, I think you have a well fleshed out character concept with which to begin. Welcome to Layonara.

Your character has been approved.

Server address is west.layonara.com
Password is layoplayer

Some final notes on character creation:

• Please note that racial adjustments for players with subraces are skin based and thus get applied after getting in game.
• Only two ability scores can be less than 10 and only one can be less than 8 after racial adjustments
• Brownies, when selecting a head, the head you choose on the halfling selection will correspond to that numbered head for elves (for example, clicking right 6 times on the head selection during character creation will take the 6th head when clicking right on the elf creation)
• Half-giants and ogres, please ask for a GM (type /dm Anyone here?) if you would like to change to a custom skin.

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