1. What originally drew you to the kelvic race and noting that how did you go about coming up with Khida's character concept?I came into the game specifically looking for a shapeshifter and/or "feral" character niche. That sort of concept is among my main archetypes, and the game I'd been on just before Mizahar didn't allow nonhumans; I was very much due for one. When I found the Kelvic lore page, I realized I had a perfect "in" to this game -- not only shapeshifters, but decidedly inhuman shapeshifters. The rest just followed from there.
This is actually Khida's third incarnation; she is an old and beloved character. In her very first game, she was a magic-made 'hybrid' of human and falcon, still a shapeshifter, with a distinct identity in each form. The falcon half really was a pretty ordinary falcon, while the human was heavily influenced by the raptor. In her second, she was an 'uplifted' falcon given shapeshifting and human-level intelligence. And now she's a Kelvic. In all cases, she has been falcon first, with human traits coming a distant, distant second.
When I was defining Khida as a character, both originally and in each revamp, I sat down and asked myself, "what is it to be a falcon?" That's where her pragmatic outlook and attitude come from -- she doesn't need anything but her own wings and talons to do just fine by herself, thank you very much. (Or thank you not at all.) For Mizahar in particular, I then asked myself, "what is it to be a Kelvic?" That's led to some interesting juxtapositions -- namely, falcon ego and independence vs. the Kelvic need to bond and "serve". But I don't see that as a conflict, and I don't play it as one either, because both are absolutely integral to Khida -- both are at the heart of who she is, and she cannot be untrue to herself.
2. People are always complaining there are too many Kelvics. What do you have to say to them?...I admit, I detest that complaint. I really really do, because it's made as a blanket statement. But I do understand what is meant -- which is that there are too many of the Kelvic race who don't play Kelvics, they play shapeshifters. Which is a subtle but profound distinction.
Kelvics are probably... no, absolutely and hands-down my favorite race here. I welcome more Kelvics. But be sure to play Kelvics! I think many players have a hard time shedding the typical mold of shapeshifters so prevalent in other media. There's a gorgeous writeup in the lore with great detail on what Kelvics are -- take advantage of it, and follow what it says!
3. Cyphrus is an amazingly diverse landscape but also fairly harsh. One would not attribute your PC to any one Cyphrus city, but rather being one of those PCs that roam the wilderness and wildlands telling stories in the wide open between settlements. How is that different than most people’s experiences? What are the challenges and what is to be gained from not being tied down to one place?What was... not difficult, but an added wrinkle to the equation, is that I play Khida almost exclusively in falcon form when she's away from Endrykas -- she (with reason!) perceives it as not safe for humans out there in the wilds. But you can have some marvelous opportunities to get into your character's head and really come to understand them when it's just them and the great wide landscape. Also, city threading is most of the time about interacting with people, and you necessarily focus on people. Wilderness threading, if you want it to make it so, is great for experiencing the environment. Playing Khida as a falcon drives me to dig into the lore for any random details I can throw in for her to see, even if just in passing -- otherwise, what am I to post about while she's hanging up there in the sky? It's a good way to learn about your region, which knowledge also applies to city RP.
Challenges. In Khida's case, it's been an ongoing challenge making the transition from wilderness RP to city RP. Having lived as falcon for a year and more, she has zero possessions -- which has made for a succession of clothes-less threads in human form. She has no money, which she doesn't mind -- right up until she decides she needs to give Shahar something. Then she has to solve that problem, which is one most people don't have -- especially when the item in question is really a pretty trivial purchase! Even a new character bemoaning the state of their starting purse wouldn't likely have trouble affording it. Threading in the wilderness has also been a definite challenge in that there are fewer people to thread with, and most seasons' events are in or associated with cities. Literally half of Khida's threads have been just her and Shahar/Khasr. But that's why they have the profound relationship that they do, forged through their shared experiences in the Sea, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.
4. Most PC’s have a routine to sit down and post. What is yours? Do you have favorite music? Favorite beverages? What is your routine to sit down and catch up with posts?I rotate through my characters, designating a day to focus on each one's owed posts. I also occasionally toss the schedule out a figurative window and just write for whomever's speaking loudest to me. I have music running in the background all the time -- mostly video game soundtracks. I've tried making character-specific playlists, but it doesn't really work for me. I find that I need all of my music at a given time to be very similar in style, so I can't much hop between soundtracks with different instruments, or mix instrumentals and lyrics. Sometimes I will pull out songs which all have a certain 'mood', such as being fast and action-y or slow and full of minor-key melancholy, when I'm writing a specific scene. But mostly... I sit and write. I get up very early in the morning so I have two hours before work to write; in the evening, I usually have another two hours. And sometimes I work on solos during my commute. All of that's assuming a good day, where I'm not recovering from the chronic energy-sapping effects of graduate school; on bad days, my eyes might be open but no words reach the screen. I try not to have too many of those!
5. To go along with question number 4, do you have to be in a certain mindset when you sit down and post? How do you even delve into the mindset of a falcon to play Khida so well? Any advice to new players wishing to get their Kelvic animal mindset right would be really greatly appreciated here.This one's actually hard for me to dissect, because I've been playing raptor shifters for... a long time now. And plain old raptors for even longer than that. I do have to be in a certain mindset in that the right muse needs to be active -- and sometimes others want attention now. But most of the time, reviewing a thread is enough to wake up Khida's muse. Then I just have to try not to think too hard, or I might get in her way.
My biggest advice to new Kelvics: try to forget all the preconceptions of your animal, all the things that are "known" to be true. Forget that owls are wise and foxes are clever. Forget that cats are standoffish and proud. Forget that wolves have packs with alphas and betas. Then go find an authoritative book on your animal, or whatever resources you can documenting actual behavior. Not just interpretations, but the situations and actions directly. Immerse yourself in it for a while, then build your character from those behaviors. Never rely on what "everyone knows" about an animal when you're devising a Kelvic concept.
6. How do you plan for Khida's future? It's obvious the character is really the type that lives in the hear and now. How hard is it dealing with a PC that lives for the moment rather than plans for the future? Are you like that in life, or just the opposite?I honestly did very little planning for the first six months. I was at absolute loose ends in getting started -- I finished my CS and then literally dawdled on the forum for a month! -- until I found Shahar's matchmaker thread. We talked for a while, and it happened that what he wanted to do fit Khida perfectly. We came up with some fun situations to throw them into, developed their relationship, and moved to Endrykas. And I continued to float plan-wise, until Khida started to realize she needed to do and be more than just a hunting bird. After that, plans started putting themselves together -- with a little help from a conversation in chat that cued me to revisit the gnosis list.
Since then, I've developed probably a year's worth of plans for Khida, especially as I expect Shahar or certain STs will bring other opportunities and wrinkles along which impact those plans. Khida lives for the moment, but I as a player need to have at least something in mind for forward motion in order to keep my engagement with a character. So it's my job to know what her next moment is, at the very least.
I've learned to kind of balance that way -- I start a character out with only short-term plans, or no plans at all, and just follow the threads until my characters get soundly rooted and start telling me what their inclinations are for future development. Then, well, I wind up with plans spanning years in outline. The biggest key, for me, is not to force anything -- not to drive the character to be what I want, but to let them define their own goals and growth. I've tried starting out with plans determined in advance, and usually find that the character winds up going their own way within a month, on some track I didn't expect them to take in the least. Mind you, I also consider that a sign of a good character -- one with enough identity to have their own goals, not just mine.
In life? In life, I am organized six ways from Sunday. I quip that I was detail-oriented before I went into science, and now, nine years later... well.
I've become even more organized as a survival tactic against graduate school; it's truly the only way I manage to RP in the current phase of my life. I have lists of threads tracking everything I owe, everything I'm working on now, and everything I want to work on someday. Lists upon lists upon lists... OneNote is a wonderful tool. I'd be so lost without it.
7. Khida and Shahar have been exploring the grasslands together forever now. What's the story between those two? Friends? Lovers? Bondmates? Tell us all the dirty little secrets.Dirty little secrets... the funny thing is, they don't have any! Unless you count that Shahar doesn't know she's Kelvic... yet. We're literally in the process of setting up their bonding, at long last. ICly, their relationship started as a matter of convenience -- Shahar flushed out a pheasant, Khida took advantage of the opportunity, and then he had the audacity to try and steal her kill. You can imagine that went over well! But as the only sentients within some awfully vast distance of the crater both sheltered in, they got over that rough start and started hunting together routinely. That developed into a comfortable partnership -- so comfortable that I couldn't possibly bond Khida to anyone else, even if I'd wanted to. Which I don't. Shahar is the center of her world. There isn't attraction in it as such, at least right now, although she's not averse to becoming his lover. What it is, is that Shahar has been a practically constant presence for a third of her entire life. They kept each other from starving in the middle of the Sea of Grass. He is the first thing she looks for after dawn and the last person she sees before sleep. Khida doesn't even need to bond Shahar for him to be the most important thing in her life -- that's just the inevitable development which will make it complete and certain.
8. What do you think makes a great character on Mizahar? We don't want to hear what the 'normal' thought on this is. We want to hear what YOUR thought on this is. What sorts of PCs do you like reading about and writing for? What actually attracts your notice as a player when you look around for potential threading partners?
When I'm looking through character sheets, the first thing I look for is attention to the lore of their race and city. Someone who isn't playing a deviation that's so common it might as well be 'normal'. And I look for characters that have a concrete concept. It doesn't have to be long or involved; it doesn't have to be flashy or special. It just needs to be solid and sound, thought through and reasonable to the setting. I think a great character isn't necessarily Great in the titular sense, like Alexander the Great or Peter the Great, off to do grandiose things. They may be; they don't have to be.
Great characters are ones with a solid concept who can develop in RP, both according to plans and as IC events inspire. Maybe they'll grow up to be rulers or champions or accomplished adventurers; maybe they just want to run a quiet little shop and master some craft skill. I find that it's self-identity which makes a character. If you know who your character is, and play them true to themselves, then being a great character is likely to follow.
9. You've been playing Mizahar quite a long time now. What are some of the things you really love about Mizahar? What direction would you like to see the game go in the future? Are there any blatant changes needed since we've been growing so quickly?What do I like... oh, where do I start? I like that Mizahar is an original fantasy setting, not based on book or movie or comic like so many other games I've played. I like the diversity of places, the fact that every city has a very unique environment and culture. The dedication and involvement of staff, the fact that a PC can do all kinds of things -- once they've worked up to it and earned it. The fact that you have to work up to achievements instead of just being 'the best X' or 'the champion of Y' at character start -- granted, I chafe against the work plenty too! But I love that I can make years' worth of plans just out of my character's growth and development, on any and all fronts.
And ah, there's the seemingly inevitable what-would-you-change prompt.
There's so much already extant in the game that I'm exploring and will be for a long time to come! I'm really glad to see cities like Kenash and Syka come up -- I think Cyphrus and Falyndar will benefit a lot from this... and I'm admittedly biased about Cyphrus.
I look forward to seeing other things get fleshed out in the wiki, too, such as the land-swimming serpents in the Sea of Grass or historical lore like the Suvan Empire. I don't see a need for 'direction change', just ongoing development and investment. Growth-wise... I think Mizahar is equipped to handle it, actually -- given storytellers. Hopefully, growth of the playerbase will also bring more people able to commit to staffing!
10. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about? Any advice to new Kelvics or warnings to current ones? What makes playing a Kelvic rewarding for you?Kelvics are defined by their animal nature, but also the bond. I see so many Kelvics who ICly just 'don't want to bond', or have reservations about bonding, or things like that. I get the impression that a lot of players -- Kelvic and otherwise! -- equate "service" with "subservience" or "slavery". Rest assured, Khida doesn't have a subservient bone in her body. Shahar is the only person whose welfare Khida puts before her own -- but bonded or unbonded, not even he can make her do anything she doesn't choose to do. Service isn't just doing whatever's asked of you, it's looking out for another person's welfare, and every Kelvic will do that in their own way according to personality and ability.
Shahar and I have a thread where he's been fasting for days as part of the Drykas observance of the new year, and -- rather un-falconlike! -- Khida takes it on herself to try and make him eat, because she's worried for his well-being. I see that as part of 'serving'. It's concern and care; it's love. Even unbonded, she's learning about horses because she sees they're important to him; she's learning Pavi because it's the language he speaks. Also because both of these are pervasive in Endrykas -- but really, when it comes down to it, because of Shahar. Because he's important to her. Anyone might do the same, Kelvic or otherwise, in Mizahar or in real life -- if they had a reason important enough to inspire them to it. Kelvics just 'have' to do this as part of their nature... which of course makes people chafe.
I've played a lot of characters on a lot of games, yet it's really quite rare I've had any develop such a depth of relationship and affection. The Kelvic bond provides an opportunity that in my experience is really hard to come by otherwise -- not only in the fact of bonding, but in the way it can shape your character. So my opinion is, don't shy away from bonding, IC or OOC! But do take the time to find the right fit for your other half. It's well worth it.
by Eida on July 2nd, 2013, 4:56 pm 
