How much RP freedom do I have with my character?

[Zakov]

I'm not very familiar with the FF universe, despite having played a few of the games here and there. I keep reading about Roegadyn, mainly the Hellsguard, but I can't find enough information to build my character on. Or rather, it's so vague that I'm not sure how much freedom I have in terms of building his character. For example, I don't know if a Hellsguard is "allowed" to be more than a giant, loyal mercenary, or if I can do whatever I wanted with his personality. 

 

Am I just having trouble finding Roe lore, or is their lore kinda vague in general? The sea wolves have a bit more info about them, but I'm not rolling one so that doesn't help.

[shotgunbadger]

For most of the races there's a decent amount of stuff for players to make up. Basically what's on the site is the core info that's canon. There's also obviously stuff like naming conventions which I believe our wiki has in each race section, and hinted at but never explicit things like the nature of Miqo'te tribes.

[Jomoru]

I'm not very familiar with the FF universe, despite having played a few of the games here and there. I keep reading about Roegadyn, mainly the Hellsguard, but I can't find enough information to build my character on. Or rather, it's so vague that I'm not sure how much freedom I have in terms of building his character. For example, I don't know if a Hellsguard is "allowed" to be more than a giant, loyal mercenary, or if I can do whatever I wanted with his personality. 

 

Am I just having trouble finding Roe lore, or is their lore kinda vague in general? The sea wolves have a bit more info about them, but I'm not rolling one so that doesn't help.

 

Well as a Roe you do have to be a giant!

 

Other than that the general gist I get of Hellsguard is the following. They intially broke with the rest of their race to master magic that was beyond them,while it seems the rest of the race has caught up, Hellsguard can still be a bit more magical than their kin(and they have better starting stats for it)

 

They are natural adventurers(which is the mercenary thing) and are loyal to those who earn it. Since I doubt you're going to want to constantly be betraying people it seems like its not a huge thing.

 

Hellsguard have bad ass Wuxia character style names. This is probably the most important thing and what I would say covers any "Oddness" in a character. Ultimately Hellsguard are individuals who want their greatness recognized by the world. IF they've found a new and different way to go, well so be it.

[Divisor]

I don't know much about the Roegadyn, but in my experience, nothing is stopping you from making your character's personality into whatever you want it to be for the sake of being unique.

 

In a lot of games, certain races have tropes and consistencies that each person follows, and yet in most cases I've been able to find the odd one out that doesn't really follow any of them, which is what makes that character interesting. i.e.: "I thought all dwarves had thick accents and drank all the time?"

 

The key is to keep it realistic, because going too far out of bounds is more detrimental to your character than anything. In the Roegadyn's case, being Hellsguard and preferring cooler temperatures is pretty contradictive, but maybe your character does so simply because they've lived too long in extreme heat?

[Averis]

You also don't need to really stick with race lore to a 'T'. Just like people in our world, depending on where you are born and what you are exposed to can change how you see things and act. I think a lot of people usually give their character a backstory with some wiggle room and then place them at the start of the game among the general melting pot of world we play in.

 

For example, Miqo'te are setup as tribes, hunt and stay away from outsiders mostly, but that doesn't really work for those of us that play one. The PC Miqo'te are usually the ones that left the nest, so to speak. As such it's inevitable that they will have become acclimated to the broader world, especially as an adventurer. 

 

Basically, I think it's more important to worry about the character's personality, which can be pretty varied, just like us humans.

[Ildur]

As a rule of thumb, racial descriptions in any game are just guidelines for them, a way for the player to draw a mental picture beyond the physical appareance. You can deviate from it in any way you want, but always keep in mind you will need to have justifications for doing so, even if it's something as simple as "he grew up in the city-states" or "he was terrible at physical activities, prefering books and magic instead."