I’ve been formulating a background for a character and while I like some aspects of RP especially the idea of a character background its never been particularly compatible with me for reasons which I wont bore you with. So I decided to drop the background here for people to critique so I can improve it and if anyone want’s to lift it entirely or modify it to their own ends feel absolutely free as I don’t see the point of sitting on it like a secret. So without further ado lets get to it.
Let me introduce you to Barbarus a male unholy Lightforged Draenei who is always accompanied by a nameless Geist. Barbarus is unaligned to anyone except himself and has a nonchalant outlook towards others, the living are all the same to him and the undead seem to have learned nothing.
Barbarus is entirely a self made figure having been raised against his will to join the ranks of the Ebon Blade however during the process of raising him something went wrong wiping his memory of who and what he was, all that remained was his combat abilities. Barbarus is not even his real name but one he found scrawled on a piece of parchment in a warlocks layer that he sacked after breaking away from the Ebon Blade, liking the word he took it for his name. The botched raising also had another effect on him affecting his speech meaning he often mispronounces words or uses the wrong ones entirely (this is to account for my dyslexia and lack of spell check in the chat). Another issue that plagues Barbarus is that being lightforged and imbued with the powers of undeath simultaneously means the two forces are at war always within him causing constant pain worse than the hunger that plagues all Death knights.
Barbarus’s views of the world are still being formed as he finds his place or lack of it in the world, He detests the Knights of the Ebon Blade for having forced this unwanted and terrible existence on him and finds their justifications of their many actions lacking. The Alliance and Horde are all the same to him from an outsiders view, simply two opposing bickering factions that have appear to only fight because they want dominance Azeroth to themselves, he reserves special loathing for the Forsaken and Death Knights that have sided with the factions as in his eyes they have wasted their chance of braking free of the pointless endeavours pursued by the living. He has no feelings towards living Lightforged Draenei other than finding it amusing that his existence and presence unsettles at best and out right horrifies them at worst.
Barbarus resides within the Alliance strongholds solely because unlike the Horde they don’t attack him outright though he is not against allying with anyone from any faction for a price, though the price is always something obscure such as a book, the remains of a specific individual or old knowledge that seems to be of no use to anyone. While no one other than Barbarus is truly sure of his goal but himself many followers of the light have noticed the diseases he uses on his enemies seem to be growing ever more powerful and he has a very explicit interest in the Naaru and their healing capabilities.
So that’s what I have so far please feel free to let me know what you think of the back ground I have created, good and constructive feed back are equally welcome.
Hi man! You sure took up a big challenge making a lightforged/dk as a char!
I will spend my 2 cents on what you put down here, hoping you will like it and help you in some way.
This character is for sure complex to make work, but it can be done. I would work a lot around the light/undead contrast obviously. Now, make him lose his memory is a bit of a trope, but again, is not a bad idea.
A character that loses his memories usually is tormented by the fact and tries with all his might to discover who he was and is generally very curious about the world since he knows nothing about it. That is the basic quirk that i would give him: obsessed by his past life and curious about everything.
I think a cool thing would be to play around the two factions that rappresent his two “faces”.
Imo it should go a bit like this: after he comes back to life he runs away and tries to get back to the lightforged in hope to find informations about his past life, they accept him but see him only as a weapon (undead powers where created to fight the legion) and don’t see him as one of them anymore (the lighforged are a strict sect of fanatics). Because of this he runs away and goes back to the Ebonblade, where he was created as a weapon, yes, but the only ones who really understand him are the other deathknights, in which he finds brotherhood.
This would play on the simingly good faction being hearless and the litleral undead beign more humane.
This i love! I would explore this fact more. For example, what can he do to relieve the pain? Deathknights have to inflict pain on others, so this would make him a super-sadist i guess? Or does this mean that he has to inflict pain on undeads/demons to appease his light side?
On this I would try to understand why? Why is money or other stuff important to him? What is the end-goal of becoming a mercenary?
As a last thing, when I create a background for a character I try to work in: why the character is the class and spec that he/she is? Why did my character chose a specific profession? Why is my character doing pvp/pve?
Sorry if my idea is too different from yours XD Hope I helped you in some way.
Personally, I try to RP my characters so that other players only know what their characters might know. I think that makes the RP more exciting and “realistic”.
I wonder if maybe the Horde/Alliance view might be a little dated, with the truce being in place for years now, and the factions cooperating on the Dragon Isles?
I’d be careful about distancing too much from the Ebon Blade, though, since they apparently are the only “sanctioned” group of DKs.
(Meaning he should, at least “on paper”, belong with them.)
I imagine the Ebon Blade would want to govern themselves without outside meddling, though, so I can definitely see them having an agreement with Barbarus like,
“From time to time we will ask you to remove this or that cultist/fanatic/ rogue warlock/necromancer/bandit/whatever. If you do this, we don’t care what you do with the rest of your time, as long as it does not reflect negatively on the Evon Blade.”
I also feel like Barbarus could have very interesting RP interactions with “outside the box” / open-minded characters of various classes.
