A New You, Tuesday, Period Two

[built_fjord_tough]

Fjord was alone in the Danger Shop today as students started to file in, though the exhaustion on his face wasn't from staying up late for any New Year's countdown (and really, he hadn't been aware that it was much of a thing around here anyway), but because he'd woken up early to try to figure this damn room out. And he'd done a nominally functional job of it, too. He'd managed to achieve 'standing in front of a pub overlooking the docks of a port town,' anyway, though the water seemed to be frozen in place. Not ice. Just... unmoving, droplets hanging in the air where the waves had presumably broken against the pier. There were no people, himself and the students being the obvious exception, and if one were to attempt to go into the pub, they'd take a step directly into a two-foot drop down into a ballpit.

So, you know. Work in progress. Getting there. Fjord wasn't going to let this stop him from teaching this damn class, though.

"Good morning," he said, laying on his most congenial drawl as he nodded at the students assembled. "Welcome to 'A New You,' which has a longer name, but hell if I didn't forget it." He had not. But he wasn't rattling off 'Casually Camouflaged or Commanding Respect' without getting more coffee into him, dammit. "For those who aren't quite certain what they're doing here, this class is less a chance to gear yourself toward self-improvement, and more an opportunity to hone your improvisation skills and your ability to think on the fly. We'll be using it as a means to explore opportunity, to take chances that might not have been taken otherwise, to behave in ways you might never think of behaving, to explore the possible outcomes of new behaviors and attitudes. And," he cracked a little grin, "we'll probably end up fighting some shit."

D&D with your Dungeon Master... Fjord.

So, so sorry, kids.

"The world you interact with in here will be affected by the choices you make and the actions you take. Not everything you do will end well for you. Hell, I'm expecting we'll all be surprised by where this whole mess ends up by the end of the semester. Sometimes, you'll critical fail. Sometimes, you'll try something and even you'll be surprised by how well it works out for you. Little bit like life, like that. But, whatever you do, you won't be doing it as yourself."

And that, apparently was where the challenge of this class really sat.

"Today, you'll be building a new persona, that you'll be moving through... whatever ends up in here... with." He was really hoping this wasn't just an entire semester of barbarians raging their way through randomly placed ball pits, but gods only knew how he was going to master this damn room before they got started in earnest next week. "I have a small list of options that you can explore here, that you might not be able to toy at elsewhere. Run down that list, build a new persona, and prepare yourself to take some chances."

This was going to be interesting.

"Before we get started, I want to know a little bit about who you are when you aren't pretending to be somebody else. Name, why you took this class, and one adventure you've always wanted to go on."

[OOC: Open! What have I done.]

Comments

Sign In!

[built_fjord_tough]

Take a Chance!

Re: Sign In!

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto Argentum

Lecture!

[built_fjord_tough]

Make yourself comfortable on a barrel or something, squinting at the paused water or glancing into the open doors of the pub. There are a LOT of balls in that pub.

Re: Lecture!

[goldfishontherocks]

Weird how this felt kind of more like home somehow.

Which didn’t mean Keyleth wasn’t still standing awkwardly off to one side, looking perturbed at the unmoving water and occasionally shooting worried glances into the pub at the ballpit.

Re: Lecture!

[hashtag_chocobro]

It was probably a good thing Prompto had elected to plop on down on a barrel, because otherwise, he'd be spending the whole time just bouncing between his feet, instead of just idly kicking them a little back and forth as he listened with eagerness. Real life video game class! REAL LIFE VIDEO GAME CLASS!!! Glitches and everything!! Oh, man, what was he going to beeeee? What kind of things were they gonna get to fight? Were there going to be puzzles and sweet loot and level up stats???

...okay, sitting on the barrel wasn't helping, he was definitely still bouncing a little while sitting, he couldn't hellllp it, okay? It didn't even matter that, honestly, his real life was pretty much like a video game lately, anyway. IT WAS A REAL LIFE VIDEO GAME CLASS, DUDES.

Re: Lecture!

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina had done a double-take at the water, but really, the ballpit pub was holding her attention more as she listened to Fjord's spiel.

It was a pretty good spiel.

She totally bounced a bit at the mention of fighting.

Introductions!

[built_fjord_tough]

Name, why you took the class, and one adventure you've always wanted to go on! Fjord might be fishing for inspiration. Or maybe he's just nosy.

Re: Introductions!

[unusual_sith]

"Lana Beniko," Lana said, nodding to Fjord. "I thought the class sounded interesting, and improvisation is a useful skill." She thought about the last part. "I've always wanted to meet people with other viewpoints, like the Jedi. But I've done that now, so I'm not really sure of what else."

Re: Introductions!

[hashtag_chocobro]

"My name's Prompto!" And he'd even managed to try to contain himself there. A little. Kind of. "Prompto Argentum! And I'm taking this class because I was signed up for it, but, man, I gotta figure out who picked this one for me, because..." He grinned lopsidedly, holding up a thumbs up of approval for it.

"Aaand, I guess, one adventure I've always wanted to go on? Man. There's so many! But I guess if I'd have to pick one"....pick something impressive, Prompto! "...I'd go with climbing the Rock of Ravatogh. Photographer's dream to get some new shots and perspectives of that place! Oooh, or the Disc of Cauthess! But...that's not as exciting, everyone gets shots of that one, but I've never been there yet, so it'd still be an adventure. And I've always wanted to go to Altissia. Or Tenebrae!"

He stopped himself, laughing a little as he realized he was rambling and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I just like adventure, I guess."

Or, really, he had spent his entire life in one city behind a magical wall, and just got his first real big taste of exploring and adventuring last week and was h.o.o.k.e.d.

Re: Introductions!

[goldfishontherocks]

"Um, hi?" Keyleth fluttered her fingers awkwardly. "My name's Keyleth, and I'm in this class because -- useful life skills. Yes. If I'm going to be the leader of my tribe someday --" and gods help her and her charisma score of 10 on that point -- "I'm going to need to understand different points of view and, you know, things. And this seemed like it would help with that. And also the part where I'm going to have to go out on an adventure of my own to meet up with all the other tribes, because they're scattered all across Tal'Dorei, and really it's less that I want to and more that it's required, and . . ."

Was she talking too much? She trailed off, looking apologetic.

Re: Introductions!

[crack_that_whip]

"Trevor Belmont--" And if the name didn't garner any sort of reaction, then literally no one knew shit about his past. Which was nice? In a way? "--didn't sign up for shit. I don't know. Does a quiet day avoiding shit count as an adventure."

He knew it didn't.

Re: Introductions!

[thegreatmanfredo]

"I'm Manfred," Manfred said, "Uh, Bernardo, and I thought this class could be useful as far as building a persona went. Because of reasons. Professional reasons." Gee, Manfred, could you vague that up for him? "I'm not sure what I was really expecting."

Re: Introductions!

[bookbeltof_love]

She beamed at Fjord.

What? He was already her adventuring buddy! This was great!

"Oh my gosh, hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And that wasn't even her at her most excited. "I guess, like, I took this because it sounded both crazy fun and also maybe useful???????????????"

Maybe. She was still side-eying the water and the ballpit.

"And, like, I totally want to fight a dragon or save the world or rescue somebody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Nina considered that. "Or all three at once??????????????"

Because that would be amazing.

Build a New You!

[built_fjord_tough]

Yeah, you're basically going to be building a character that fits into a very particular scope from a world most of you aren't necessarily familiar with. That's gonna be you for the rest of the semester. Or until you get that character killed. Did Fjord mention that your character could die, forcing you to start with a new one come the week after? Oops, no idea how he could possibly have overlooked that...


[You're basically just building a wee baby Dungeons & Dragons character for your pup to toy with this semester, yes. If you have a character already ready to go or you know how to build them from scratch, then by all means, do so, and share them here! If you don't, OrcPub has a very useful ten second character building tool that you can avail yourself of (you'll need an account - they're free - if you want to save them on the website, but some screencaps will do just as well for the purposes of this misadventure), or you can improvise-- just Make Some Fantasy Shit Up™ based on the D&D classes and races and we'll make it work. If you need any help at all, feel free to poke me in the OOC thread or fire me an e-mail or a Discord DM.]

Re: Build a New You!

[hashtag_chocobro]

Oh man, oh man, oh man! You better believe Prompto was the type of gamer who spent way too long on the character creation set-up, because how in the hell did someone choose between so many great options, and his was poring over the possibilities, just trying to decide and leave know option left unexplored. Should he stick with his own personal skills and be, like, a ranger or something? Or go completely the opposite, focus on something with magic and spells? Maybe a bard, people liked those,right? Should he stick with something more human or go really hog-wild and pick something really out there and different?

...although, really, he mostly just kept giggling and coming back to a concept about a kenku modeled entirely after Kenny Crow, because, um, how could he not? It would be terrible and ridiculous, so he was definitely not going to do that because he wanted something epic over here, but it was still fun to entertain the idea.

Could he pick all of them? Couldn't there be maybe some sort of job class system, or something? Man, this was tough!

...maybe he should just be Kenku!Kenny...

Share the New You!

[built_fjord_tough]

What did you come up with? Tell us a little bit about this persona you're going to be adopting! Give us a name and some background, maybe some insight about your character's skill set and alignment moral tendencies. Fjord would share his with you, but a good DM doesn't reveal his hand this early in the game, does he?

Re: Share the New You!

[unusual_sith]

Right. So, Lana decided to go with non-human, just because. There was no point in doing this if you were just going to be yourself. And she could use some work on her stealth...hm.

"All right," she said once she'd figured it out. "I'm a yuan-ti rogue." Because she could have yellow eyes that way and thought she was funny. "My name is Jatila. I don't believe in plans or odds, and I never met a rule I wouldn't break, but I'm loyal to my friends."

Okay, so sue her, she couldn't completely break with who she was.

Re: Share the New You!

[goldfishontherocks]

You know what? Sure. Why not?

"Okay, so . . ." Keyleth wasn't even sure if she was doing this right. "My name is Yelden, and I'm a firbolg, but I'm a fighter."

So a little bit of branching out, a little bit of trying to stay close-ish to her comfort zone!

"I was living in seclusion for most of my life --" not branching out too far from the truth there, Kiki -- "until I uncovered an ancient sacred site, so now I'm out in the world trying to . . . make sure no one . . . uses it for evil? Oh! I'm really calm in the face of total chaos, though."

She sounded so unsure about that.

Re: Share the New You!

[hashtag_chocobro]

Okay, so, after spending way too much time on going back and forth between a million different options, Prompto finally came up with something that he felt was definitely different from himself that he'd still feel comfortable playing with. He stuck with human, because, as a self-conscious young man with an inferiority complex, all those other options just seemed way too cool for him to be able to play them, but he definitely branched out with the character itself.

"Alright," he said, sounding a bit to bright and excited for the character he was about to describe, "I'm Seros Glacium, and I'm a dark and mysterious sorcerer who was totally betrayed by my fellow sorcerers who, like, I totally thought were cool with me, but I guess not! So I'm all cast aside and totally angry and broody about it," just look at his broody, angry face!, "and I don't trust, like, anyone."

...he just might be kind of basing this guy a little on Noct, but he'd never actually admit that.

Re: Share the New You!

[crack_that_whip]

Since vampire wasn't an option or anything fun, Trevor had to amuse himself with the listed options for these 'characters' he was supposed to pretend to be.

Basically he was going with whatever would fuck up a party right quick.

"I am an..." He glanced down at the papers to read it correctly. "Aasimar Paladin who would do anything for the Church to protect the poor, downtrodden people of the land."

Despite parts of that being accurate for him, his tone was still dripping with sarcasm.

Re: Share the New You!

[thegreatmanfredo]

"Okay," Manfred said after a long while, half of which had been spent frowning at the information on Tieflings, which to a Romani boy rang just a little uncomfortable, instead of actually creating his character. "I'm a dragonborn rogue named, uh... Verthisathurgiesh Kriv. I have no idea if I pronounced that first part correctly, but good news: you can call me Kriv. I'm in search of adventure and, you know, treasure." Because dragon.

Re: Share the New You!

[bookbeltof_love]

It had... taken Nina a good while to get something that she didn't totally hate but, then, this was really something that was more Vette and Prompto than it was her so she didn't feel bad about this.

Sure, coming up with a background was easy enough, but the framework of it threw her off a bit.

"I'm, uh, Edor Kochev, a dragonborn cleric," she said, a little doubtfully. "Does that, like, mean I'm half-dragon, do you think? Should I probably not be haring off to kill dragons???????????? Oh, but I guess clerics don't do much of that anyway..."

Hmmm.

Talk to Fjord!

[built_fjord_tough]

He's doing an impressive job of not looking like he wants to run screaming into the sea, there. But he's here if you need him.

... And he's looking for a TA, if anybody feels so inclined.

OOC!

[built_fjord_tough]

Mandatory opening sequence.

Also, if you need anything at all, feel free to poke me and we'll make this sucker work!

Re: OOC!

[goldfishontherocks]

Just . . . Gonna go watch it for like the billionth time . . .

(I can also help with character creation if you need me to, while I die of RP-ception. XD )