Grott

Lately, I've been thinking about an alt that I can use to practice RP with during betas and practice writing with. I like this character a lot and I'm strongly considering keeping him for the entirety of ARR. I wrote the following while trying to fix my RL sleep schedule by staying up very late. You might pick up on some mentioning of the character narrating being tired as well, because that's just what was on my mind. Without further ado, here it is. This isn't something you'd expect to find in the back of a book of schematics and blue prints, but here it is. In an attempt to stay awake and keep my mind sharp, I have taken to writing a few words about myself on the blank pages in my book. I do not know who will read this, nor do I particularly care. My name is Wowonji Wart Totonji. Currently, I am somewhere in the transition between the forests of the Black Shroud and the sands of Thanalan. Where exactly, I can not say with any semblance of accuracy. I have been asleep for a good while, as it was well into night when I decided to rest my eyes, and we seem to be at mid sun right now. My rest is over, much to my dismay, until we reach Drybone and we can settle for the night. I suppose I should explain who "we" is are is. As of this moment, I am sitting in the back end of a juryrigged carriage as part of a small caravan headed from Gridania to my home city of Ul'dah. I spent the last two weeks in the forest town, inquiring about certain flora native to the Black Shroud to be used as composites for my alchemical concoctions. I, unlike many of my kin, am entirely lacking in the ability to use magic. To make up for my weakness, I use my sharp mind to create inventions, potions and simple machines to keep a combative edge. Unfortunately, certain circumstances arose during my academic adventure and my armor, along with the inventions attached to it, were utterly destroyed. There is little to show for my Gridania trip outside of a backpack full of leaves and the notebook I am writing in right now. Requiring heavy armor, a shield, and minor crafting and engineering tools, I am forced to return to Ul'dah. These things are cheap in the marketplace and I anticipate I will get some sort of discount from age old friends of my family. I despise returning to Ul'dah. The city makes me cringe. It means nothing to me but defeat and the foolish choices of youth. As a wealthy, young, and bored citizen of Ul'dah, I enlisted in the Brass Blades, hoping to find adventure and serve my nation. I had heard about the fall of Ala Mhigo and I thought I could make a difference in the world. It took a lot of scars and dead friends to realize that a nation is just a place, and people are the ones worth defending. Through my defeats I learned to fight with my mind and not merely the weapons I was given. Crafting gadgets and tools out of standard issue armor and weapons, I became quite fierce. A powerful, but kindly Hellsguard gave me the name "Wart" during my time in the service of the Blades. He said it was because I was a short, unappealing pain in the ass behind. After a few cycles, I left the Blades and took up adventuring as it was gaining popularity. I moved between mercenary groups and solo work often, and for many cycles I was quite successful. Five cycles ago, I broke my leg in battle against a group of bandits and was recovering in Ul'dah when Dalamud fell and released the beast. I should have been there to fight alongside my friends. Ever since then, Ul'dah has reminded me of nothing but shame and helplessness. But alas, here I am at thirty-six cycles old, complaining like a child. Thirty-six cycles old. We lalafell age slower than most races in Eorzea to my knowledge, and I still feel like a bright-eyed child sometimes. In truth, I would much rather be fishing and sleeping the day away like a boy than traveling and fighting. I suppose that would be the reason I enjoyed my stay in Limsa Lominsa so much. Last cycle, I journeyed to the port city to help an old friend with a pirate problem he had been having. Although the business was serious and the battles were dangerous, all I really recall is how much I enjoyed sailing for the first time. After two weeks of chasing down the pirates and skirmishing with them, we successfully sank them brought them to justice. For a full moon after that, I remained in Limsa Lominsa, just to enjoy the sound of the waves and the salty air of the sea. I would very much like to return there some day. Perhaps after my stop in Ul'dah, I can find an excuse to return. Though I feel my Ul'dah trip will include fights and favors, and will last at least twice thrice as long as I intend. I hate Ul'dah. It must be mid afternoon by now. The hot Thanalan sun is burning my skin even through the overhead tarp. In a few bells the sun will go down and the desert cool will ride in, bringing some temporary comfort to the sun-burned skin of my companions and I. From there it will get colder, as deserts tend to at night. I can only hope we reach Camp Drybone by then to find comfortable lodging. I have been writing in this notebook for what appears to be several bells. I suppose it is time to give it a rest and join my traveling partners in conversation. I doubt any of them know Thanalan like I do. Not my best writing, but I think it outlines the character well enough. Let me know what you think!

I'll be there. I need to test out my new alt with a big crowd anyway. And with this character, I might be able to make it canon this time!

1. No one on this thread has asked for a name. 2. That's fair.

I think it's 7. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure I've seen "What in the Seven Hells?" On a side note: I'll adopt "Visiting Oschon". I like that one. I've also seen "Who in Halone's bloody fury are you?"

This is my point. Right here. But this back-and-forth is getting us nowhere. Granted, I don't know all of the facts. You're correct on that one and I'll admit to it. Once again though, if people are asking for less transparency, why not give it to them? No names have to be released for obvious reasons, but why not just put whatever was going to be said when someone asked via PM into the log?

Well the obvious reason is because people are asking for it. Also "Someone sabotaging the RPC" is not a cross-linkshell issue. It's a community at large issue. So if "It's not meant to be a forum to discuss issues with the community at large" why is that happening?

Well no one's out to get anyone, because no one can get anyone. It's ridiculous to think that anyone in this game and it's community has legitimate power over anything other than their own character. That being said, I want transparency, not because I think they're the government and trying to conspire against me, but because it seems very cliquish to me to have secret conversations which could possibly be about some of us and the linkshells we affiliate with and keep it a secret. It's a manners thing, not a security thing. To me, it comes down to "What makes you better than the rest of us? Oh, right: nothing." I understand the need for organization between linkshells in a roleplay capacity so I'm not going to belly ache about the meetings themselves, but there's nothing so important in there that us puny mortals have to be left out. That's how I feel about it at least. Maybe I'm crazy. So then it doesn't matter if people have secret conversations about you or your character. You said it yourself: Not one of us has ever claimed to be better then anyone else. I'd suggest you stop trying to victimize yourself. The linkshell leaders are trying to facilitate an enjoyable experience for their members. I'd have to pose the question: why are you joining the linkshell if you don't trust the leader to have your best interests at heart? If left out, you mean not being able to see the chat go on why it happens; have you seen the Skype OOC chatroom? It's practically unmanageable. There would be no way to have a structured meeting with that many people talking and questioning and interrupting. The whole point of my post is that it comes down to manners. If people actually had legitimate power and could do anything I could understand a sense of secrecy. But they can't. So it comes down to "Why are you talking about us if it doesn't matter?" It's just rude and cliquish. I'm not trying to victimize myself because I seriously doubt I've ever come up in conversation. That quote was taken out of context. If you want to know what I meant look at the paragraph above this one. By being "left out" I'm not suggesting we all get to talk, but letting us watch and maybe fielding some questions at the end would solve this problem. As for my linkshell leader. I completely trust him as a more experienced roleplayer and I think he's a good guy. But that's about it. That's all it should be for anyone. I personally don't give a shit if he has my best interests at heart. It's a game. I'm free to come and go as I please. But, really. If you're going to start quoting my post and trying to spin everything on me, at least read the whole thing. The main point was "It's not about security, it's about manners." Which apparently you missed because you didn't quote anything from the second paragraph... Which is the one that had my main point in it.

This next bit is about hostility in threads. If you wish to skip it, I have opinions on transparency below it. I don't think anyone in this thread was being hostile at all until the last half of page 3... The second someone drops the "You're being hostile" card, things actually get hostile. Really though, we are quite literally in a public forum. I've never heard of any type of public forum where people just sit around and agree on everything. Furthermore, I don't get why every time there is a disagreement, someone ironically escalates it by telling people to calm down, and then someone makes it even worse by threatening to close a thread. Poor Beatric yesterday put up a thread for a healthy discussion about grit vs. beauty in the world of Hydaelyn and even that got shut down because for some reason everyone thinks that any disagreement of opinion is a blatant and hostile personal attack. Everyone needs to leave their seemingly extremely fragile egos at the door so we can actually have a decent conversation about an issue. That's all I have to say about thread arguments. Other than that, I think it's a no-brainer that LS meetings should be completely transparent. The redaction was clearly a misunderstanding, but the secrecy of these meetings is why everyone got paranoid about it. Besides, I'm only seeing two sides to this argument. Those sides are "We need more transparency" and "I don't care." I haven't seen a single argument for less transparency.

This is one thing I can't stress enough. Any time any issue seems to come up, everyone gets so terrified of disagreement that they try to shoot it down and pretend it never happened. People will always disagree. The only way to come to any sensible solution is to let people discuss it. We're not children and we don't need kid gloves. We're adults with opinions and ideas and those can't be properly presented if any sort of difference is immediately snuffed out for fear of hurting someone's feelings. Everyone should know that none of this is personal before even going into a discussion. But discussions need to happen or everyone will remain pissed off forever. Also this. For the love of god. This. ^^^^^

Well no one's out to get anyone, because no one can get anyone. It's ridiculous to think that anyone in this game and it's community has legitimate power over anything other than their own character. That being said, I want transparency, not because I think they're the government and trying to conspire against me, but because it seems very cliquish to me to have secret conversations which could possibly be about some of us and the linkshells we affiliate with and keep it a secret. It's a manners thing, not a security thing. To me, it comes down to "What makes you better than the rest of us? Oh, right: nothing." I understand the need for organization between linkshells in a roleplay capacity so I'm not going to belly ache about the meetings themselves, but there's nothing so important in there that us puny mortals have to be left out. That's how I feel about it at least. Maybe I'm crazy.

This is outstanding.

While I don't think any in-game stereotypes exist among NPCs as extreme as treating lalafell like their own personal teddy bear like some PCs are prone to do, I was planning on giving my character a bit of an inferiority thing where he feels he has to prove himself a lot. I would never specifically say it's because of his height, but I think that would be implied. He would be the valiant knight type but with an arrogance or bravado to him that another race of that archetype probably wouldn't have.

First of all, this is a great concept. I love it and I could see Uther and my possible alt Wart both being loyal customers. 1. No 2. Yes 3. Not at all, I'll even advertise for you by IC word-of-mouth.

Wish I saw this earlier. Don't even want to get into all the money I spent on dyes last weekend.

That's, uh... There's really not much to add there. That's exactly how it feels.

I'm going to throw my two cents in here. Take it or leave it. I'm for 100% transparency. 100%. Nothing less. Linkshell leaders aren't some appointed government body that actually has any real authority, so I don't see why there's even a question about it. Linkshell leaders just happened to be the ones who bought pearl sacks or whatever first and established a group. I could be a linkshell leader if I just made a thread about it on the Linkshell Hall forum. We're all a bunch of gamers who pay the same amount of money to play the same game. There's no real governmental structure here and I don't see why a bunch of dudes sitting around in skype pretending otherwise needs to be hidden away from us like they're some type of shadow council. It's essentially a socially accepted clique. And to pretend otherwise is a joke.

Uther would think this is unnecessarily dangerous. I could see Wart, my lalafell do-gooder with a healthy side of bravado and a Napoleon complex, being really into something like this though.

I don't mind at all, and you bring up a fair point with your examples. It really comes down to how you choose to interpret the world your character is in. You may choose to see Uther as an attractive dude with nice clothes and hair. I don't see him that way, and if I'm RPing, I will probably drop hints that he's supposed to be dirty and beaten. I expect that to be respected, but to what degree is up to you. And I'll do the same for you. If you want to look pretty, I have no issue with it. I won't say "Your dirty because that's how I see it." This game is open to a lot of different interpretations. I just prefer to see my character as a little worse-for-wear. And I agree that in some situations it might be easier to see them as pretty rather than dirty. I've been racking my brain trying to make a dirtied up lalafell for a few days now, haha.

Hahahaha I love it.

My main and alt (if I ever stop being lazy and actually make him) did some crafting to help rebuild after the calamity. This is an interesting concept. Even if I don't end up joining, I'd love to see it implemented.

I've been going through this name generator all day. Best I came up with for my character was Wart Totonji. Thinking his birth name might have been Wowonji Totonji but on the battlefield he just adopted the call sign "Wart" for being an ugly little pain in the ass. Still looking through the generator though.

Hyur Midlanders kind of lack a cultural identity. Hyur Highlanders have some. They're brutish people. Usually manual laborers or fighters, though not entirely unintelligent by any means. They're big city state was Ala Mhigo until it got taken over by the Garlean Empire. A lot of Highlander refugees live in Ul'dah now, though they can be found all over.

Uther didn't make it to the battlefield in time, though he wanted to be there. Didn't get time skipped. My WIP alt Wart also didn't get time skipped, though I don't know if I want to place him at the battle or not.

...I actually kind of like Wart now for a first name. I got it from The Once and Future King. It's what they called King Arthur when he was a child servant. I think it fits a rough-looking lalafell paladin. I might use the name generator for a last name and have Wart as a nickname. We'll see. Thanks for the suggestion though, I forgot all about the name generator. ...Though last time it generated "Brian Clark" ...lame lol

Maybe I'll just give my new lala a mustache to get everyone away from him... Also, since I can't do that multi-quote thing everyone else can, @Desphiria, Nothing wrong with being cute and lalafell is definitely the right outlet for it. I just don't want to be forced to be cute by player interaction and expectation. I mean, look at this guy https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/968950_10151733312980871_633335608_n.jpg He looks badass. @Koko, -.- You're everything my lalafell stands against lol @Kari, Accurate assessment. Didn't even think about that analogy. I always saw Wart (...that's what I'm calling my lala while I'm thinking of something better) as more of a wolverine. @Eva, I don't imagine I'll see this stereotype from you. You're one of the good ones. :thumbsup: