Who is your favorite character?

[Klara Meison]

After all these years of roleplaying, rollplaying and just generally enjoying yourself playing RPGs, which is the most memorable character of the ones you have played? Which one had an incredibly amusing backstory? Who had the most heroic death? Is there any character that you still come back to, even though it has been years since you have scribbled the first feat onto their sheet, just so you would have a cool persona for that one-shot game a friend of yours planned to run?

Basically, who is your favorite character?

[Derek Dalton]

That is tough. It's between two characters. One was an archer back in old 1st ED D&D nicknamed Yea Holy Sharpshooter. Our entire party had nicknames like this. I got mine because whenever I missed in combat I hit the frontline fighter. His nickname was of course yea holy Target.
My second was used in a post apocalyptic game. He was a magic using knight well versed with modern tech. We ran that campaign for a long time and he had several close calls half from the party itself.

[TomParker]

The only one I really remember after all this time was a laser rifle-toting, six foot tall mutated rabbit I played in the first edition of Gamma World.

[Aberzombie]

My favorite was my character from the Age of Worms campaign - Yorgo Wormsbane. We were using the 3.5 Gestalt rules. He was a half-orc Fighter-Cleric of Kord. One of his most memorable moves was picking up the body of a drow and using it as a missile weapon against the corpse's former companions.

[Cole Deschain]

Too many to pick from (I've been at this a long, long time).

Three Standouts:

Alexander Weathermay, the human ranger I ran when I first played Rise of the Runelords. Had a bit of a thing for Shalelu, and got extremely good at mowing down giants (He, uh... also one-shotted the Scribbler, which was sort of funny). Ended up being nicknamed "The Stalker of Xin-Shalast," since he basically stealthed around killing monsters and mapping the old city.

"Burning" Takarov- Neutral Evil human cleric of Pyremius from an all-evil group that was the most cohesive party I've ever been in... despite being some of the worst people around.

Isawa Taisho- Heavily inspired by Sand dan Glokta, Taisho was my character at Winter Court 4, which some people will get and others will not. Suffice to say, he was an L5R character whose story arc jumped the rails I'd had him on and led him into some unexpected heroism. (Honorable mention goes to my Winter Court 3 character, but he was a less complicated guy)

[Goddity]

Krog. He's a character I'm playing right now, and he's only level 3, but he's still my favourite. Despite having 3 different classes, he still gets referred to as "The barbarian". He has an int score of 3. The stupidity is amazing, and the many feats of Krog that were pulled off through blind stupidity, luck, and skill have everyone in hysterics. His many achievements include:

Convincing a group of enemies he is a god
Acquiring and then using a demonic muffin at every available opportunity
Entering combat with a crowbar despite a perfectly functional greatclub
Using said crowbar to murder a giant dire rat brutally
Finishing his drinking contest while the bar burned down around him
Getting a dragon drunk, before tying it up with nothing but his bare fists and some rope.
Charging straight in when outnumbered 15 to 1. And winning.
And too many other things to count.

[EileenProphetofIstus]

Tashiana Mao Ling is my Top Secret/S.I. game character, my favorite game and favorite character. She worked for the ORION Foundation (Organization Resisting Imprisonment of Nations) and battled the evil organization WEB (World Enslavement Brotherhood). She was basically a ninja who used a Ninja-to sword, sais, a crossbow and shurikens (throwing stars).

Tashiana was the product of an American man and a Japanese woman. She had a difficult and abusive past with her father and thus grew up hating men (as a general rule). Tashiana and her mother found a Shou Lung Temple in New York's Chinatown they began attending.

Her mother died when she was young her father came home in a drunken stupor and went into one of his violent fits. He hit Tashiana's mother and she fell down the stairs and was killed.

The failed court system kept Tashiana living with her father and later on, again in a drunken stupor he began hitting her. She struck her head on the corner of the bedroom dresser and was knocked unconscious. She remained in a coma for several months. When she awoke and was eventually cleared from the hospital she went to the Shou Lung Temple where she lived with Suruto Myrushi, her martial arts teacher.

Here she learned martial arts and combat with various weapons, which eventually prepared her for joining the ORION Foundation as a spy.

[Freehold DM]

EileenProphetofIstus wrote:

Tashiana Mao Ling is my Top Secret/S.I. game character, my favorite game and favorite character. She worked for the ORION Foundation (Organization Resisting Imprisonment of Nations) and battled the evil organization WEB (World Enslavement Brotherhood). She was basically a ninja who used a Ninja-to sword, sais, a crossbow and shurikens (throwing stars).

Tashiana was the product of an American man and a Japanese woman. She had a difficult and abusive past with her father and thus grew up hating men (as a general rule). Tashiana and her mother found a Shou Lung Temple in New York's Chinatown they began attending.

Her mother died when she was young her father came home in a drunken stupor and went into one of his violent fits. He hit Tashiana's mother and she fell down the stairs and was killed.

The failed court system kept Tashiana living with her father and later on, again in a drunken stupor he began hitting her. She struck her head on the corner of the bedroom dresser and was knocked unconscious. She remained in a coma for several months. When she awoke and was eventually cleared from the hospital she went to the Shou Lung Temple where she lived with Suruto Myrushi, her martial arts teacher.

Here she learned martial arts and combat with various weapons, which eventually prepared her for joining the ORION Foundation as a spy.

But what about Eileen, Prophet of Istus?

[EileenProphetofIstus]

Well as much as I hate to admit it, She's second place. Top Secret/S.I. Tashiana Ling just RULES!

[Aelreth]

It is honestly a draw between two, Edward the Necromancer (Human wizard/necromancer), and Skeet the Goblin Rogue.

Edward, travels around with either the skull of his dead brother, OR (being a necromancer) with the reanimated skeleton of his dead brother. He is adventuring around trying to either truly resurrect him or failing that, turn him into some kind of intelligent un-dead. During his adventures though he continues to talk and have conversations with his brother, even though his brother is dead (or a mindless skeleton and can't talk). So I have a crazy necromancer that thinks he can talk to dead people just trying to bring his brother to life.

Now Skeet is a goblin I made during a play through for Rise of the Rune Lords. The party was still in the first chapter and we were clearing out the goblin tribe. Some bad rolls happened, and my Monk died. So I had to make a new character. Since we were in the Goblin camp anyway I asked the GM if I could make a goblin (I had to be CG but that was fine) so I could easily jump in next session. So next session the party finds me tied up, The Paladin uses detect evil, sees I am not evil and frees me. I then start following the Paladin around and treating him as my master. So the party now has a crazy Goblin Rogue (his stealth was INSANE) following the party and practically worshiping the Paladin :)

[GM_Beernorg]

Tough one, I think I have three tied for my favorite character I ever played.

1. Ser Beernorg Drankul (yep, like, my handle) was a half-orc knight (actual 3.5 class) played in a home brew. Beernorg was unlike many half-orcs in the world, born of a happy union. His orcish mother and her mighty rolling pin, and his human father (a skilled fighter and war vet) had raised him in a mostly human village called Haven-shire. Not only did Beernorg never use magic item (save for potions now and again), he forged his own mithral full plate, found his families lost honor blade and reforged it (it has rusted to hell buried in quick sand), killed a necromancer who was about to slay his dwarven paladin friend by throwing his bastard sword and impaling his head (nat 20 :) ) Trained his own war house (named Valor) by claiming the first random cart horse he found in a bandit lair, bought, raised, and training his Irish wolf hound war dog Squire from a pup. Died in a one of one duel with a troll knight, only to be sent back to life due to his unwaivering honor and pure heart (despite his protests of, I lost a fair fight, death is my reward earned!), protected the future queen of the greatest nation in the game, had my war dog Squire given lycanthropy by said paladin (which made Squire a were-human by GM ruling, this is another story, though). Ended up wielding a lance made from a black unicorns horn (slew that beast myself), knocked down an evil temple by shield bashing Bell Ringer (my not magic but special) shield against its bell, defended Haven-Shire from an army of orcs that outnumbered us 10-1, and then after we won, brokered the great peace between them and Haven-Shire, survived a fight with THE BBEG of the game while almost completely unarmed and unarmored (caused by another PC with a bad plan). Successfully wooed Haven-Shires's mayors lovely human daughter and eventually married her (she turned out to be a ninja, oh the battle they fought back to back!) There is much more to the story, but you get the idea.

2. Meloney Chandler Marshal (3.5 class)/Psychic Warrior, and eventual queen in our Kingmaker game. Mel was a LG human woman, daughter of well off candle-makers, and entirely unwilling to marry for money as dad wished, so she joined the army instead. Walked with a limp (8 Dex, ug, that was a bit rough). However due to 20 Cha and ethics like a steel bar, as queen, she ended up doing things like this, and I quote:

"Woodhaven is a city of law, built upon the presumption that those laws apply to all, from the humblest wood cutter to its queen, in equal measure. Thus, what you do to the least of my people, you do to me. And should you, as you do now, wish to harm on of my people, you shall also have to do so to me!" (an honorable but oath bound sword lord wanted to take the hand from a man for giving a much deserved beat down to a noble brat from Brevoy, he served that noble family) Ended up challenging him to a duel to prevent the punishment, alas, I lost, but my opponent was actually lvl 12, when I was level 6, but that really set a tone about what kind of ruler Mel was, man her people loved her, and in turn, she loved her people, there are many more deeds of note, but shall leave those for another day.

3. Last, but not least, is Numla of Clan Shadow Watch, a goblin ranger/rogue who would constantly hide under things, tables, chairs, etc. To this day the quote "under something" causes much guffawing from players and the GM who remembers Numla and her antics, I have never played a less suited to be leader PC who became leader (no one else would do it) than her. She is also the only PC i have played to have used cat pee as weapon, which is another long, and somewhat gross story!

[Eliandra Giltessan]

My favorite character is Ollie King, human empiricist investigator. She's not so great at combat, but she can do everything else for the party. Her main goal in life is to be friends with EVERYBODY. When she meets a villain who is willing to talk, trying to make them her friend is like her extreme sport. Most of her social skills are based off int instead of cha, though, and sometimes her smarts are her own worst enemy on the friendship front. She has a hard time being friendly to people who are engaging in largely unscientific processes, like claiming they can see the future or some such.

She sucks up to all kinds of nobility, mostly so she can be put in charge of planning important people's parties. (Of course she has ranks in profession(event planner).) She prepares a polypurpose panacea at the beginning of every day to enjoy at the end of it.

[Currahee Chris]

Acrolon is celebrating his 30th birthday this year!! :) He has been a fighter, Paladin, Deathwatch Tactical Marine and just recently, a Jedi Sentinel. The son of one of my closest friends has adopted Acrolon into several of his own games now that he is in his late 20's and creating his own material for his navy gaming group.

[berserker444]

Both are from way back in 3.0 but either my Gnoll gladiator Khang who eventually ended up inheriting the school he was sold to or my Goblin monk Frekk that grappled a minotaur bossfight to death amongst other supremely lucky shenanigans during his existence.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Oh, how to choose?
Nigel Smythe
from V:tM just wanted to become Sir Humphrey when he grew up. Then got ghouled by a high-ranking Ventrue in Brussles, Embraced by a renegade Lasombra Noddite scholar to use as a disposable spy, managed to fool his coterie (and I fooled the players IRL) into thinking he was still a normal ghoul (never mind not liking sunlight, Rötschreck when confronted by fire, being caught feeding, being outed by Mages as a vampire, etc.)

Hida Akira
in a very alt.u. OA/L5R/historical Japan game. He started out as a low as you could be as a samurai and worked his way up to marrinyg the Emperor's daughter, and over the course of nearly 60 years game time has given rise to quite the dynasty. His exploits are many and varied, but the most poignant and memorable was when he had to condemn his daughter for consorting with the Taint. These were characters we had played for years and I was in tears by the end of the session.

other favorites, from Akira's lineage:
his son Hirohito. Again, too many stories to tell but perhaps the most indicative of his personality was when his younger sister was kidnapped by a Chinese noble to use as leverage.
Akira and some ninjas sent by his best friend had made their way unnoticed to the capital of China and not being quite as sneaky as the ninja (though enough to give them heart attacks when they discovered he was following them), Akira stayed behind while they extracted his daughter from the tightly guarded mansion she was being held in. They brought Hirohito out as well.
The boy (all of 12 years old) had refused to take his failure in protecting his little sister lying down, stolen some Figurines of Wondrous Power and made his way to China and through ridiculous luck found out where his sister was and sneaked, bluffed and fought his way in.

Hida Kuon (yes we reuse a lot of L5R names in this game) is Akira's great-grandson. Akira allows his descendants to draw from a DoMT when they become adults and while it's generally gone well or not so poorly things couldn't be fixed (and bad draws make great adventure hooks), Kuon drew nothing but bad cards, which resulted in him setting loose a demon his master had trapped for study, being kicked out of the clan for his foolishness, having all titles and names stripped from him and made a penniless ronin. The rest of his family can't really do anything because they can't argue with the logic behind the decision. Then he became Tainted. So basically, unlike the rest of his extended family which can rely on wealth, high status and impressive family history to cover for any personal deficiencies he is on his own and fair game for anyone who wants to mess with him (and there are plenty of people who would like some revenge, however petty, against his family). however fun it is to play those on the top of the heap, it's also fun to play the underdog who has had a lot of bad things happen to him yet perseveres and is slowly improving his station rather than having most of it handed to him at birth.

[Gerrinson]

My personal favorite would be Connor O'Hara, Barbarian/Warmage back in D&D 3.5.

The favorite PC of that I created, if chosen by other players, would be The Ron. A D&D 3.5 changeling Fighter who spoke about himself in the 3rd person and always as 'The Ron' i.e. The Ron really likes this ale. Had to roll up a character because I left my new PC at home by accident, got The Ron, who became the staple 'go to' for anyone's forgotten character or filling in if a PC died mid-session. Voted most favorite PC by a lot of people. Which feels weird because I spent less time building him than any other character, ever.

[TriOmegaZero]

So far, my AP characters have been the best. Yroh Snowborn is a crazy half-Orc Winter Oracle who is now turning to living ice. He worships The Snows, which was very confusing for the Reign of Winter party when he slept in snowbanks. Kamishah is a Bekyar Druid and all around scary man, first mate of the Destiny's Breach in our Skull and Shackles crew. He is very much 'the strong will rule the weak' and is testing his strength in preparation to return from exile and slay the "nature spirits" his tribe worships.

[DungeonmasterCal]

I have three that I can't decide which I love most. It's like deciding which child you love most.

The first was Schwartz the Lawless, an Anti-paladin devoted to set. Played him for 10 years until he achieved demi-godhood. I named him Schwartz because it's from the German word for black. That's right, I named him after the heavy metal musician Blackie Lawless from W.A.S.P.

The second was Stormbringer, a DC Heroes character who was a sorcerer and also the leader of a heavy metal band called Mournblade.

The third was Diehard, also a DC Heroes character. He had no superpowers beyond the ones that made him totally indestructible. He once took a punch from Superman and had to take a taxi back to the fight. He and Stormbringer were members of the Justice League Canada.

[The Usual Suspect]

I've played so many characters that I just loved that it's hard to chose. I can list a few favorites, but to pick a single favorite just isn't possible.

Myrlan Dai; tiefling sorcerer 10/evangelist 2. Carnival barker and tour guide to the planes, Myrlan is a fun loving and gregarious survivor of a childhood in the World Wound region. His time as a Pathfinder agent is finally coming to a close but he has ever been a favorite character to play.

Qakisst Vishtani; ifrit Sorcerer 6/oracle 4/ evangelist 1. Child like and outgoing, Qakisst is a master weapons smith and crafter living in Sandpoint. His devotion to his adopted Varisi family is comparable only to his devotion to the Dawnflower herself.

Halliiama; human enchanter 8. Controlling and manipulative, yet honest and caring, Halliamma keeps himself aloof from most of his acquaintances as it can be difficult to tell after a while if the people around him are being honestly friendly or simply have forgotten that they have free will.

Tether Taloson; human ranger 12. Too nice and too naïve, Feather (as his friends call him) just wants to make his way in the world and raise a family.

Torn Taloson; tiefling ranger 4/bard 4. Shunned and abused by his peers, the son of Tether Taloson has fought to make his way through life and prove himself and clear his reputation.

Wo Ken Chiema; human wu jen 15. Smarter by far than any of his peers, Ken Chiema has come to despair the errors of others in their inability to see the world as it is and could be. (Ken Chiema started off as a true neutral character, but is as close to being Darth Sidious as you can get. This is my Emperor Palatine.)

The last three characters there are all 2nd edition characters. If I were to ever rebuild them for Pathfinder I think I would have to build Torn as a magus/slayer; but the original character always used two weapons so I'm not sure how I would do that. Ken Chiema would definitely be a arcanist; either of tien or varundi ancestry. Feather would be a ranger focused on archery.

[Set]

I'm too fickle to pick just one. I sometimes recycle the same character name, appearance and / or concept/backstory in multiple different game systems, as radically different people (Max Caldwell is a Nosferatu in vampire, a monster-hunter (and secretly a werewolf!) in GURPS horror, a telekinetic Legionnaire in Trinity and a flying super-hero in Mutants & Masterminds!).

[samerandomhero]

My current favorite is my Halfling "commando" that infiltrates goblin tribes and incites them to attack Cheliaxian interests.
A very merry time indeed is had with this little warmongering halfpint.
Disguised as a goblin he trains them on wolf-riding and general mayhem targeted towards commando raiding cheliaxian targets.
Wowing them with fireworks and booze (craft) combined with songs (perform) and awesome pets (handle animal), the little andoran spec forces Halfling is probably the most fun I have ever had playing a character. XD

[Christopher Dudley]

I had read a story in elementary school or middle school called "The Soul of Caliban," about a dog that was ugly and misshapen that everyone misjudged.

So back in '88 or so, I made up a character named Caliban, who was a fighter, but who behaved in every way like a paladin, because he really considered himself one, but his Charisma was under 10. Back in 1st ed, classes had ability score requirements, and to be a paladin, you had to have a Charisma of 17 or higher.

In the course of the game, he acquired a troupe of followers in his religion, and then in an act of divine intervention, his ability scores were rearranged and his high strength replaced his Charisma, and the DM replaced his fighter levels with paladin levels.

I played Caliban for a while longer, until I left that town. But I continued to name my PCs that in the future, in Baldur's Gate, and those sorts of games. My first WoW character was a paladin named Calliban (Caliban was taken). Some people still call me Calli.

[DrDeth]

DrDeth: OD&D then AD&D Necromancer. Slightly undead. Grew to be archmage and Coroner of Greyhawk. very dry and black humor.

Kane. BoNS Warblade, 3.5 . Fighter with massive mobility skills, could do a lot of wushu moves.

Jack. Jack was the Jack of Diamonds from Wonderland. Totally insane. Carried *THE* Vorpal blade.

[SmiloDan]

Rook MacCobrood, an elf druid archer in 3.5. Super versatile. I played him from level 1 (when he was so poor he couldn't afford a backpack) to level 16 (when he had TWO magic bows, and a magic sword--plus metamagic rods, a monk's belt). He was a prince on the run away from his evil court, and he had a pet dog.

Eddie Meehan, a firefighter EMT in d20 Modern (Tough Hero) with an epic mustache. He was designed for 2 levels as just a regular joe, 2 levels as a zombie apocalypse survivor. So he had Endurance, Great Fortitude, and Heavy Vehicle Driving to help with being a firefighter, and then got Fireman's Ax weapon proficiency and Power Attack for zombie whacking. His most memorable fight was when he had to fight fast zombies in his boxers--by running them over with a Jeep.

I liked him so much, I converted him to Werewolf in Vegas. He ended up becoming a mechanic with his own body shop. His "Dark Secret" flaw was that he was in one of those Fire Fighter Calendars. He bought it in a fight against 2 corrupted PCs wielding Uzis loaded with depleted uranium slugs. He "stepped sideways" while riding in a car, which totally shredded its back. It was pretty epic. Almost as epic as his mustache. My replacement character was a wolf that could turn into a human from "Sigmund and Freud's" magic animal show, so he had very weird impressions about human society.

[Tim Emrick]

My favorite PC is Patricia "Trick" Tillinghast, one of my PCs from a long-running Buffy/Angel campaign set in witch-haunted New England rather than SoCal. The campaign is a highly-variant take on the Buffyverse, with numerous homebrew elements added in, such as new kinds of heroes beyond what either show covered: divinely-empowered champions, new kinds of weres and fae, Atlanteans, etc.

When I started playing Trick, she was a human teenager with no supernatural gifts, just a lot of training as a fencer and musician, and a very soap-operatic lovelife. She became a Maenad, a champion of Dionysus, in order to better help her new BFF, the local Slayer. It wasn't long before her relationship with her patron god soured, and she gave up those gifts. But then she started having visions--once touched by the mystical, she was connected to it forever--and no longer had any help to heal from the strain of her visions.

Her search for solutions to staying alive led to her bargaining with some mysterious witches for a Slayer's powers. Shortly after, she was on the front lines of a war between gods, now known as the Ragnarok, that irrevocably revealed the supernatural to the world at large.

The original campaign stopped shortly after that war. We picked it a couple years ago for a 10-years-later "reunion arc" of sorts, and now the stakes are higher than ever: The Old Ones have released a threat that we have to stop before it devours the entire multi-verse. We're collecting angelic artifacts from across multiple alternate dimensions, some characters are powering up even further (a few are demigods in their own right now), and there's a very real chance that pur allies among the older gods will have to sacrifice themselves to preserve enough worlds and afterlifes for everyone else to survive.

During the hiatus, Trick has become a Thyrian, part of a group of superpowered Amazon-like champions whose resurgence has been at the heart of the whole campaign. Her Thyrian gifts make her a scarily adept warrior, but her main calling has always been to defend those who can't fight for themselves, and to teach the new generation of champions how to be heroes.

Trick has always been fun to play, even when she was going through rough patches (like the season that she alienated almost every friend she had--eek!). So I'm ecstatic that I get to play her again now, when she's older and a bit wiser, a better team player, but still in the thick of things, doing what makes her a Big Damn Hero.

One of her recent personal triumphs has been reuniting with the long-lost love of her life, a witch who died during the Ragnarok and became Persephone's champion. Diana led half a life--alive during the spring and summer when her goddess was in the living world, but a ghost the rest of the year--for over a decade before she and Trick were given an opportunity to perform a dangerous quest through the underworld to restore her fully to life. They succeeded, and are happier together than ever--but now they have to save the multiverse to get any of that blissful future together that they so deeply crave.

[quibblemuch]

My favorite character was from the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path. He was a tiefling. His name was Alias. Just... Alias.

He was an inquisitor of Groetus. I would write up every session from his POV, ending every day's entry with "One day closer, one day gone." He was a Pathfinder, who believed that the Decemvirate were the unwitting dupes of Groetus and that collecting artifacts from across Golarion and piling them in the Pathfinder Society Vault would eventually lead to a critical mass of magical energy that would bring about the end of the world. His completely warped perspective meant that he was fanatically devoted to the party and the campaign arc as a whole, rather than being disruptive.

About nine months into the campaign, a journal entry finally revealed that his Venture Captain, the guy who'd been giving him missions to join the party and advance the campaign, was a Tyler-Durdenesque split of his own personality.

Alias was cray. He was so chaotic that he wrapped round to lawful and then back to chaotic. Several times. Then Mobiused around the alignment spectrum and became something for which there isn't a sufficient descriptor.

He also had 10 different classes by the time the campaign was over. Inquisitor was just his identity--everything else was just one more fragment of a shattered persona. Not multiple personalities, just one great big pile of shards of what should have been an integrated psyche, vibrating with manic energy.

At the end of the campaign...

Serpent's Skull AP:

Alias seized the skull of Ydersius, the resurrected Serpent God, created a gate, and stepped through to the surface of Groetus. Thus ensuring that the Continuing the Campaign section of the AP did not have to worry about the Serpent God returning or his minions ever finding that skull again. It was the perfect solution.

I've never tapped into quite that level of madness again. It got a little intense for the other players. But every now and then I like to imagine that Alias is the real one and I'm the imaginary one, and somewhere on the surface of the Grinning Moon, he's dragging a giant skull around with him and talking to multiple people who aren't there.

[Sir Belmont the Valiant]

Steel Fin the Shark Shaman, ShadowRun 2e RPGA Living campaign. He had the flat emotionless eyes of a dead fish, and occasionally had to remind his chummers that not only do Shark Shamans never bluff, they don't really have a sense of humor either.

Mel the Mellifluous, a Troubador in a DragonQuest game. He was the party ham.

[quibblemuch]

My *second* favorite character (who would've wound up being my favorite, had the group not dissolved around 4th level) was a gillman dual-cursed seeker oracle (haunted/wrecker) named Jerica Gellman. She didn't realize she wasn't human, assuming that her gills (which she generally kept covered by a scarf) were part of the same set of bad luck that hounded her her whole life. Like how in times of great stress she'd speak Aboleth...

She had the misfortune revelation, which proved surprisingly useful for the party members. If someone rolled, say, a 1 on a save, she'd yell "NO!" and they'd get a re-roll. It really made an asset out of liability. As did her ability to bypass locks as a move action just by touching them and breaking them.

This was her session zero email character intro:

The Girl Who Said No

Jerica Gellman, the Girl Who Said No,
got into her boat and started to row
over the waters of a pitch-black bay,
to scavenge old wrecks by the break of day.

The footstretcher groaned and the thole pins creaked
every caulked seam in the hull seemed to leak,
the thwarts were all warped, the gunnels all cracked,
the oars bowed and splintered at every catch,

but Jerica Gellman refused to sink,
and, stubborn, she sculled, till the east turned pink.
Whispers like ghosts whimpered in the still air
and a breeze that was not flicked her brown hair.

Untethered tools scuttled round, fore and aft.
An invisible coxswain guided the craft
to a spot on the bay of no great note
and there unseen hands stopped Jerica's boat.

"Here then?" she asked. There was no one else round.
She nodded and dropped a rope to take sound.
"Ten fathoms," she sighed, "well, so mote it be,"
tied off the line and slipped into the sea.

The water was silent, the bay was still,
the boat floated empty, an hour, until
Jerica burst to the surface and cursed.
"Damn" she said, and "blast and bugger" - and worse.

She tossed an old sack, all slimy with muck,
into the bilge. "Frickin flockin lack of luck!"
The sack burst. Junk flew all over the place.
Jerica bobbed and peeled weeds off her face.

"Anything else?" she asked a passing gull.
Wiping off his reply, she grabbed the scull
to pull herself in with a practiced jerk,
when eight writhing arms reached out of the murk!

Powerful tentacles grappled the girl.
Almost dragged under, not long for the world,
Jerica demanded the squid let go.
She was, after all, the Girl Who Said No.

In a strange language with too many vowels,
Jerica called out, she prayed, and she howled,
and, a miracle to tell! she was saved,
and the foul beast slipped back under the waves.

In the bow of the boat, she piled her wares.
Giving the squid one last threatening glare,
still muttering words in that eldritch tongue,
Jerica turned the boat and rowed back home.

[Azothath]

for me they are like children, something I've created and grown. Each has their goals, personality, and successes and failures. So they are not so dependent on system as complexity which also relates to time played in game.
examples; >> Dr. Ers@tz, a psychic technologist who eschews super heroes, etc and who's gadgets always look mundane (winneboggle camper, x-ray glasses, flycycles(bicycles), spray-on ablative armor, healing pills that also boost Cha so you look better too).
>> Violet Beauregarde, ex-competitor and industrial accident survivor now a samsaran enchanter bloatmage with something to prove...
>> Charon Zinfindel the cleric/wizard of dionysus with a magical winery and where each bottle was a scying focus.
>> Culdahara Rog2/Transmuter 11 who was a nasty piece of work (casting Shadow Projection and attacking with spells and a ghost touch rapier) and took over for Deskari in OrgPlay...

I love some of my villains and NPCs also... lol... with those you can be a bit more impractical in the game system as they don't need to be as competent.
>> a notable one was KaliVa, an avatar of Kali in Champions/Hero5 at 325pts(about 700 active). The more you attacked her the more powerful she became (highly amusing) as she was about the equivalent of a tough human BEFORE you honored her with acts of violence and destruction.
>> Thunnus Thynnus, a rapscallion halfling selling all sorts of dubious magical components and elixirs at bargain prices... several PCs are after him but as you know - "all sales are final!"

I also have some themed builds for PCs modelled from various characters from authors; MMoorecock(elenoin, mabelode, balo), HPLovecraft et al(mordiggian, pickman, carter), RDahl(CatCF villains), AMoore(ooooh dr something-or-other, ozymandius), WShakespeare(the plays tha thing), CJung(speaking of archetypes...), SClemens(I paint this fence as an ART...), OWilde(lol...), etc...