(no subject)

[humble_scholar]

Body and Appearance
1. Describe the character's height and build. Is he heavyset, thin, short, rangy? Athletic; he stays very active normally, and basically has to keep military/acrobatic "front line" shape.

2. How old is he? He's about forty, but he basically seems to've stopped aging around 20.

3. Describe his posture. Does he carry himself well or does he slouch? Most of the time he carries himself well, although it's kind of a performer thing, and he'll shift it for situations/times he's trying to vibe less, uh, respectable.

4. How is his health? Is he fit or out of shape? Any illnesses or conditions? Any physical disabilities? He might be a bit weaker health now thanks to his energetic condition, but he does spend a good amount of time doing active and physically-oriented work; he's in good shape and mostly good health.

5. How does he move? Is he clumsy, graceful, tense, fluid?

6. How attractive is this character physically? How does he perceive himself in the mirror?

7. Describe his complexion. Dark, light, clear, scarred?

8. Describe his hair: color, texture, style.

9. What color are his eyes? Brown.

10. Does the character have any other noteworthy features? See the tattoo that's along her arm and side? He has one. Also the archon tattoos on his neck that are more visible.

11. What are his chief tension centers?

12. What is the character's wardrobe like? Casual, dressy, utilitarian? Bright colors, pastels, neutrals? Is it varied, or does he have six of the same suit? Black and white, fairly utilitarian; he habitually wears long sleeves and gloves to hide some of his tattoos, and it's actually better suited to the desert climate than it looks for the amount of black - it's breathable fabric that works fairly well.

13. Do his clothes fit well? Does he seem comfortable in them?

14. Does he dress the same on the job as he does in his free time? If not, what are the differences?

15. You knew it was coming: Boxers, briefs or commando?



Speech
1. What does this character's voice sound like? High-pitched, deep, hoarse?

2. How does he normally speak? Loud, soft, fast, evenly? Does he talk easily, or does he hesitate?

3. Does the character have a distinct accent or dialect? Any individual quirks of pronunciation? Any, like, you know, verbal tics?

4. What language/s does he speak, and with how much fluency? Game conventions don't really distinguish languages for the most part. Odds are that whatever passes for "common"/trade-language for Eorzea is Ul'dahn based, though, given the history, and rendered into something more normal, he probably speaks that, Sharlayan, Garlean, and can read/write/partly-speak ancient Allagan and fragments of Nymian.

5. Does he switch languages or dialects in certain situations? It'd mostly be for situation, context, and being understood; he's also perfectly willing to pretend he doesn't understand a language.

6. Is he a good impromptu speaker, or does he have to think about his words? Bard. He does damn good off the cuff.

7. Is he eloquent or inarticulate? Under what circumstances might this change? Bard. If he's flat-exhausted, really sick, or out of it enough you can shake him out of it.



Mental and Emotional
1. How intelligent is this character? Is he book-smart or street-smart? He's quick on his feet; he's started out and mostly leaned street-smart, but you don't live with the incarnation of Knowledge without getting put through an education.

2. Does he think on his feet, or does he need time to deliberate? He's usually quick on his feet and used to not having a huge amount of time to debate.

3. Describe the character's thought process. Is he more logical, or more intuitive? Idealistic or practical? He's pretty prone to gathering information but he leans more intuitive in his interpretations of the information. He's usually big-picture idealistic, but on the small and direct scale he's pragmatic and practical to the point of mild paranoia.

4. What kind of education has the character had? Some tutoring while he was on the streets after pestering a couple of scholars doing charity; after that he pretty much got caught up and then some by Louisoix and the others.

5. What are his areas of expertise? What, if anything, is he interested in learning more about? Music, history, literature, aetheric study, politics and a decent practical experience-understanding of people's behavior. Given access to modern means he'd probably end up picking other world's music/poetry and a smattering of sociology and psychology, as well as anarchist's cookbook type subterfuge.

6. Is he an introvert or an extrovert? He leans more extrovert, as much as he tends to be pretty private and keep the majority of interactions to "public face".

7. Describe the character's temperament. Is he even-tempered or does he have mood swings? Cheerful or melancholy? Laid-back or driven?

8. How does he respond to new people or situations? Is he suspicious, relaxed, timid, enthusiastic? Generally he will be friendly and relatively enthusiastic/relaxed. How much of that is genuine depends on the context and the person; give him a context where he has reason to expect something up or someone where he feels there's reason to think they might be a threat and he'll be a Hell of a lot more paranoid and cautious than he acts.

9. Is he more likely to act, or to react? He prefers the former given the chance.

10. Which is his default: fight or flight? Depends on the situation. He's perfectly capable of a fight and even seems to enjoy occasionally being in the thick of things, but he's not a dedicated front-line type and he knows it.

11. Describe the character's sense of humor. Does he appreciate jokes? Puns? Gallows humor? Bathroom humor? Pranks? Wordplay, sarcasm, snark, and mild teasing.

12. Does the character have any diagnosable mental disorders? If yes, how does he deal with them? He's had a general case of bad coping and overstress recently, and the events that resulted from that have him at risk of developing PTSD, although it's being fairly well handled so far and he's had support coming out of it. Technically speaking he's currently coming out of Acute Stress Disorder.

13. What moments in this character's life have defined him as a person? Getting found by Louisoix is the biggest one. The Calamity hit him pretty hard, and getting possessed has also been a fairly major life-changing event.

14. What does he fear? The huge ones are Lahabrea and getting possessed again. More abstractly, he's afraid of failing and innocents getting hurt as a result of his action/inaction/mistake.

15. What are his hopes or aspirations? Most distantly, he'd like to see the Garlean empire dismantled, for the sake of its own people as well as everyone else they've conquered and abused. For now he's settling on "get better and hope everyone can keep things under control and not getting worse".

16. What is something he doesn't want anyone to find out about him? As much as there were some other circumstances where he'd misidentified what he was talking to and was pretty badly manipulated as well as getting his exhaustion and other issues taken advantage of, Lahabrea had gotten him to agree to letting the entity in.



Relationships
1. Describe this character's relationship with his parents. He didn't really know them. He has some memories of his mother, who was vaguely apathetic towards him and abandoned him when he was small, but that's about it.

2. Does the character have any siblings? What is/was their relationship like? Not that he knows of. It's possible he has some half-siblings, but finding them would take knowing who his father was, or finding his mother again, assuming either one is still alive even. There is the note of the Fraternity in Limsa, the underworld group he grew up in before Louisoix found him, which he'd refer to as "siblings" in some sense.

3. Are there other blood relatives to whom he is close? Are there ones he can't stand? He has no idea who his blood relatives would even be.

4. Are there other, unrelated people whom he considers part of his family? What are his relationships with them? Louisoix, and the other Archons are his adopted family, and he was raised by an underworld group in Limsa who he still considers family.

5. Who is/was the character's best friend? How did they meet? Outside of the Scions/other Archons, Minfilia is probably the next closest, and one of the few people he'll actually open up to when he's having doubts or falling apart.

6. Does he have other close friends? He's pretty comfortable with Raubahn and the Sultana, to the point of cheerfully and good-naturedly razzing the Sultana when she's incognito and giving him heart attacks. He's familiar and friendly with Louisoix's twin grandchildren, and the three engineers of Garlond Ironworks are other old allies and friends. He'd count Maggie at this point, since he owes the Magitek his life. The bartender and owner of the Adventurer's Guild in Ul'dah's on good terms with him, too, and they trust each other pretty well. The "Warriors of Light" would count at this point, which is a headache because lol customizable player characters.

7. Does he make friends easily, or does he have trouble getting along with people? He gets along with people well, and will happily be friendly, relaxed, and act familiar, but it takes a decent amount of time and the right kind of events and interactions for him to actually count someone as a friend in the sense that he'd trust them.

8. Which does he consider more important: family or friends? Not a great question for him; at this point his adopted family and most of his friends make up the same circle, and are on good terms with the few others he has.

9. Is the character single, married, divorced, widowed? Has he been married more than once? Single! And hasn't really had a stable relationship, ever.

10. Is he currently in a romantic relationship with someone other than a spouse? ..........Well, he hasn't really been skirt-chasing as much as he used to since the Calamity, but he will still flirt, and he's coming back into flirting more as he recovers.

11. Who was his first crush? Who is his latest? His history with stable relationships is nonexistent, but he probably ended up with a few girls around Limsa before Louisoix found him, probably at an age modern people would consider disturbing. (13-14 ish) As of his canon point, he's spent five years mostly out of circulation, though a bit after his canon point there's one of the Doman girls....

12. What does he look for in a romantic partner? Vaguely decent human being, pleasant company, most of his relationships have been one night stands; with his life situation, the most he'd consider pursuing is a running friends with benefits.

13. Does the character have children? Grandchildren? If yes, how does he relate to them? If no, does he want any? His career is a little at odds of settling down and raising a family, or even adopting; he's fairly good with kids, and traumatized kids, but it's first-responder - he's getting them out of a bad situation to someone stable. He's also got a small tick about emulating "the only thing he knows about his father" where he's pretty careful about keeping in touch with the alchemists, although it's possible there might be a couple slips from before Louisoix/before he had income and ability to keep that sort of thing around reliably that he doesn't know about.

14. Does he have any rivals or enemies? There is a lot of trauma associated with Lahabrea and the Ascian scares the shit out of him. Most of the Garlean officers and power-structure that he'd know of directly are dead now, but he's got a pretty good hatred going for the leadership of the Empire because of what they tend to do to anything in their path. By this point the Amal'jaa probably loathe him for the amount of times he's interfered with various attempts of theirs to expand territory or raid Ul'dahn people/caravans, and he's not that fond of them either.

15. What is the character's sexual orientation? Where does he fall on the Kinsey scale? Straight as a preference, although he doesn't mind otherwise. This is where I will disclaimer that his society is very much pre-industrial and has all the hallmarks of some earth-parallel on concepts of relationships, which means not really having a solid concept of a "sexual orientation" in the modern sense, particularly considering that Ishgard almost seems to veer into "fooling around esp. same-sex is fairly normal when younger/not in a stable relationship" going by ambient dialogue...so less "ORIENTATION" and more "preference/lack of interest the other way" without a real concept of treating it as a Thing.

16. How does he feel about sex? How important is it to him? It's very much something meant to be enjoyed, and if he feels like he has any room to relax he's certainly up for it or pursuing it, although it's not important enough to be something to get upset over unless someone's being hurt in the process.

17. What are his turn-ons? Turn-offs? Weird bedroom habits? How much you want to bet enchanted tattoos tied to his Aetheric system are kind of sensitive? Placeholdering this for a period of time where I actually get to listing this out.



Beliefs
1. Do you know your character's astrological (zodiac of choice) sign? How well does he fit type? Alien world with a different calendar and different Zodiac, will get back to you when we have a clue. There is a native similar idea, but years are 384 days and the native astrology is completely foreign to Earth. Add that they seem to track/emphasize Namedays over birthdays, and the fact that I'm pretty sure he doesn't ACTUALLY know his own birthday to begin with, and it's ... entertaining.

2. Is this character religious, spiritual, both, or neither? How important are these elements in his life? He's an avatar-of-sorts of one of the Twelve. He deals regularly with Primals, Ascians, and occasional more positive meddling from Hydaelyn and the Twelve proper. It's not even "religion and spirituality", it's Tuesday, a part of his life, and really, it's hard not to be religious/spiritual in situations like that.

3. Does this character have a personal code of morals or ethics? If so, how did that begin? What would it take to compromise it? He's a pretty sound neutral/chaotic good; he mostly just charts things by trying to find what option will do the least harm and the most good. There's not a lot that's codified besides a few pretty obvious off-limits lines (rape, child abuse, genocide) that you won't get compromised, and it'd take a pretty solid "there is no other option" to get him hurting someone innocent or doing more harm than he feels necessary to someone who isn't. He's also fairly forgiving in the sense of allowing second chances in many cases.

4. How does he regard beliefs that differ from his? Is he tolerant, intolerant, curious, indifferent? Tolerant/curious so long as they're not hostile and don't include abusing others as part of their beliefs. Garlemald's aggressive enforced atheism will get him spitting nails; his relationship with the Amal'jaa's worship of Ifrit is something a little less grounded in religion and a little more grounded in "every time your God does something it does horrible things to people I'm protecting and your God is actively commanding you to kidnap/murder/etc. my people".

5. What prejudices does he hold? Are they irrational or does he have a good reason for them? The few he has are ... kind of informed. He's wary of most Beastmen in general because the greater majority of the Primals are hostile to anything that doesn't worship them, and even outlying Beastmen like the Qiqirn are decently prone to raiding and pillaging, but he'll relax and be friendly with individuals or groups that prove they're not a threat. The Garlean rank and file mostly fall under a sort of "poor bastards" category - "I probably don't personally dislike you but you happen to be part of the invasion force so I'm going to have to kill you now, possibly with more prejudice if I catch you involved in an atrocity". However, he has active hatred for ranking Garlean officers - the ones in authority giving orders to destroy other countries and put the survivors through rape, slavery, and torture. Voidsent are even more of a "Nine times out of ten they're hostile" where he'd be at best wary until he could confirm there wasn't another shoe. Ascians and those too closely associated with them would be the most likely to get "shoot first ask questions later", but when you're dealing with the close personal agents of a mad void god, it's not really irrational to not trust them.



Daily Life
1. What is the character's financial situation? Is he rich, poor, comfortable, in debt? He's decently well off now; the Scions seem to get some support from the Grand Companies and city-states in return for their aid, and quite a bit of the membership roster still keeps up their "normal jobs" as part of it, adding resources and funds. Before the Calamity, Thancred worked primarily as a bard; after, he's been focusing on helping groups of scholars that're tracking the changes in the landscape. He also will bring in things from forays into the desert, selling off alchemical reagents and other things he finds as another cover of "earning a living".

2. What is his social status? Has this changed over time, and if so, how has the change affected him? Right now he's essentially a ranking and decently-off adventurer/special agent; he doesn't really advertise his actual position, although people in the right places know. He grew up backstreets, and is pretty clearly familiar with and comfortable moving through the lower levels of society, something that's very useful for his current job and role in Ul'dah.

3. Where does he live? House, apartment, trailer? Is his home his castle or just a place to crash? What condition is it in? Does he share it with others? He has an apartment in Ul'dah; it's in a bad part of town and slightly shabby, because that's where he works most of the time and he doesn't want to draw attention. He also has a room at the Waking Sands.

4. Besides the basic necessities, what does he spend his money on? Work-related expenses/things to further his work, books here and there, carousing when he does have free time. He probably has more saved up since he's been overworking himself and not going out goofing off like he used to, which honestly probably isn't good for him.

5. What does he do for a living? Is he good at it? Does he enjoy it, or would he rather be doing something else? He keeps a half-truth cover of being a "scholar studying aetheric anomalies", and probably does a bit of odd-job "bringing in odd reagents from the field to sell when he's been out in the desert", and likely by now has a stipend from the Flames in return for intelligence work and helping them with various problems. He used to be a performing bard more, but it's mostly just that the other aspects are taking up too much time right now to have the windows for it; as long as he's busy and it's constructive he's happy.

6. What are his interests or hobbies? How does he spend his free time? He does have an active interest in history and literature outside of what's relevant to his work; a lot of his free time outside of that is spent wandering the city, exploring and occasionally drinking, skirt-chasing, or pulling impromptu performances.

7. What are his eating habits? Does he skip meals, eat out, drink alcohol, avoid certain foods?



Associations
Which of the following do you associate with the character, or which is his favorite:

1. Color?
2. Smell?
3. Time of day?
4. Season?
5. Book?
6. Music?
7. Place?
8. Substance?
9. Plant?
10. Animal?



END
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