This article got me thinking:
That has more to do with theme than it does with any specific character. Wonder Woman is optimistic. Gal Godot’s Diana wants to be a hero. She leaves Themyscira to be a hero, and while her faith is tested, her resolve ultimately holds. She climbs out of the trenches in WWI because there are human lives at stake and she’s going to protect them. Hers is a movie about a superhero making the choice to be a superhero, without any expectation of praise or reward.That’s more or less the elevator pitch for superheroes as a concept, but it’s strangely at odds with everything we’ve seen from the DCEU thus far. Prior to Wonder Woman, DC’s output included two grim deconstructions of Superman and a third film about supervillains. All three have been skeptical of altruism as a concept, as if the most implausible thing about superhero movies is the hero’s willingness to help other people.
What if there's a thirst out there for real heroes, who want to do the right thing? Good doesn't mean Nice, but for the sake of this thread, let's say that Good means wanting to do altruistic things. It's the journey there and the character themselves that is the challenge.
Writing Challenge!
If you like, create a HERO. Let's flesh out their backstory, toss in some stats if you like. They can be gritty or bright, but at their core give them that classic "hero quality" of wanting to the right thing. Give them some altruism. Give them some flaws.
I'd love to see what you come up with!
Kicking things off. Here's a heroic twist on a classic adventuring backstory. I've kept some of the gritty elements, but turned it around.
By thirteen, I knew the feel of the lash. By fifteen, I knew what it was like to snap its length across my master's throat. I knew the feel of death, and I knew the feeling of relief as the other slaves rushed forward, taking the freedom I'd given them. That we'd given them.
I know some men are evil, but I know that many men are good. It isn't true that no one hears you cry in the slave pens...the other slaves do, and we helped one another. The kind woman who stopped by to give us bread, heard, and helped. Without them, I would have had no freedom and without me, they would not have lived to see the light of a new dawn.
We fled the streets after our master died, and took refuge with good people. Some were weak and terrified, but others took us in despite their fear. This gave us hope. This was a terrifying thing for them, but they did. I, who knew the evil man's lash, understood their risk in a way they did not yet, and in a way I hoped they never would.
I stand here today as living testament to the power of strength in the face of fear. What compassion we were given, and gave to one another as brother to brother, I will give to others tenfold. I will embrace the slave as I free him, and remind him that there is good in the world...
...and that I am part of it, and that I will stand for him. I have faced fear, and the strength of evil's lash, and I am afraid. But I will stand, and so must you.
Not sure what class he is, yet. Maybe y'all have ideas. :D
Kicking things off. Here's a heroic twist on a classic adventuring backstory. I've kept some of the gritty elements, but turned it around.
Not sure what class he is, yet. Maybe y'all have ideas. :D<snip>
I stand here today as living testament to the power of strength in the face of fear. What compassion we were given, and gave to one another as brother to brother, I will give to others tenfold. I will embrace the slave as I free him, and remind him that there is good in the world...
...and that I am part of it, and that I will stand for him. I have faced fear, and the strength of evil's lash, and I am afraid. But I will stand, and so must you.
Wow, that's a pretty powerful backstory, and it seems to me that it points plainly to Avenger Vigilante as his class.
Wow, that's a pretty powerful backstory, and it seems to me that it points plainly to Avenger Vigilante as his class.
I am all for that! These are off the top of my head. Sort of roughs and tending towards the epic, I guess. They could easily be less epic.
I removed the sand-crust from my eyes, and looked upon the destruction of my people. Smoking ruins is all they had left us. The sharp-eared creatures had come to us, seeking water and shelter from the waste's heat-sun.They had stood with their faces covered, and eyes downcast. Modesty, the eldest had whispered, though our druids felt there was a taint to the wind that came from them. We should have listened, but we too, knew starvation in the waste. The sharp-ears had had children among them. Who can say no to a child, or the sacred traditions of our clans--traditions which kept us alive for generations more numerous than the sands?
My people lie in ash.
As we offered them the gift of shelter, the sharp-ear'd clan struck. I ripped one's mask with my ferrah-blade, and saw the scars of Sherraq, the Hated One. What we had thought were children ripped away their cloth before our eyes. Spikes covered their hands, and the heat of the Hells, not the desert, burned upon their skin.
I say my clan is ash. I am of the few that is left.
I remember the touch of kindness from family, the tears of my kindred. I would give everything I had to bring them back again. I know though, that my clan were not the first to be hit.
That the clan who had come to us, masked, were Sherraq's first victims.
I do not work for vengeance, but for salvation and the preservation of our clans. There is another of my cousin out there, another of my husband and child. They do not deserve Sharraq's twisting, and one day I will find life among them, again.
Today, I walk among the few remnants of the sharp-ear clan, and a few stragglers from mine. Some of them have turned the darker path, and for them I must be also strong, and remind them that there is also light.
Together, we hunt the taint that would destroy us. And then, we will rebuild.
I see this one as something of a war-priest. They remember the sacred, and their life before--but know that the problem lies in the corruption of the Hated One. They must be a beacon to their remaining people, and protect those who still exist--while hunting down the source of Evil.
At my mother's feat I learned to weave the kvorra. She sang to me the ancient songs, and I would lean against her legs. The kvorra would dance in front of us like a lazy thing, filled with colors and light.
Sometimes, I would laugh and reach out my hands towards it. It seemed alive to me. Over time, my mother's kvorra split and its smaller piece entered my service. My mother cried, and held me, she was so joyous.
Later, I would enter temple among my peers. I worked hard, and though we advanced in our learning and knowledge, that time with my mother and our two kvorra, one-now-two, I will never forget.
When we graduated, my peers and I, we set out upon the world to see its vastness. It is everything my teachers had said, and everything mother whispered to me when I was a child.
What they did not teach us was the suffering. Oh, I knew it in abstract, but I never knew how fortunate I was until I saw a beggar for the first time, with dust in his cup.
I called upon my magic to refill it, and found ten, then twenty of them set upon me.
Some of my peers have grown haughty and returned to the higher places. Perhaps they were afraid of the beggars, but so many of them never made it a mile past the temple gates.
I have made up my mind to stay here, to help. The kvorra within me sings for gladness, but also anticipation. Perhaps some fear.
Perhaps next time, there will be only two beggars, not twenty.
Here is the start of a hero, who among her people, others have turned away. They've forgotten the purpose of their original gift.
.
Anybody? I'm sure there are more creative People out there
For erathi maybe a cleric/oracle level 3+
Is nobody else interested?
I should let this die