 Hello Mizahar! As is customary the Founders Circle and Regional Storytellers have come together to select a character worthy of being featured for the month of October! This Kelvic PC is a troubleseom, fun and engaging fellow you might see sneaking around in his pique time around Lhavit, though if he's doing it right, you most certainly won't  . In this interview we endeavored to discover a bit more about the Kelvic bat that is Brandon Blackwing, and I hope you'll join me in congratulating him, and enjoy the interview! |
1. There are so many options open to people when choosing the animal their Kelvic would be, can you tell us a little bit about your decision to have Brandon be a bat? Were there any other animals you contemplated before settling on that? Ah, Brandon’s animal form is actually one of the few things I pondered on for a while when starting out. If I should explain why I picked a Kelvic, I wouldn’t be able to answer. I must admit I did not really think about it –I read the lore and all, but yeah, I don’t really recall why it had to be a Kelvic character. It might just have been the shifting ability I found interesting, which is pretty weird since I don’t write that many posts where Bran shifts or spends time in that form. I should work on that. But why a bat was the question, I believe? (Heh, digressing is a tendency of mine, so I apologize beforehand.) Well, truth to be told, I was first thinking of three other animals before bats came to mind. I first thought to create a cat or wolf Kelvic, but I did a bit of digging before writing my CS and noticed there were a whole bunch of those already. They’re the most popular animals among the Kelvic characters it seems. I wanted to be different though, standing out for being original, as it were. I mulled over the thought of choosing a bear –but then I read about the Icewatch. Not to mention that being a bear wouldn’t fit well with the current character concept. I then decided to browse through some animal books I had laying around first and one of the mammals being discussed there was –indeed- the bat. However, picking the right bat was my next trial to overcome. I wanted him to be a large one so he could carry a limited amount of stuff with him should he travel by flight. On the other hand, echolocation was something I found way too cool not to have… It took me a couple of … hours I guess to decide and picked the right one! Well, now I am certain I have, there has been a time I thought myself a fool for not reading the other races’ lore. Then I also realized that bats have a rather limited lifespan… In hindsight though, those thoughts were trivial. I can’t imagine Bran being human, and well, I’ll do my best to prolong his life for as long as I can. He’s too much fun to be taken away by Dira after all  2. You add a lot of description to your posts. Is this something that comes naturally or is it something you've struggled with? Hm, it comes natural I guess. I don’t really think about it all that much, I just want to show everything Bran encounters through his own senses and thoughts. There might be quite a bit of descriptions in my posts, but I missed more than double of what’s in there. The influx of information is too overwhelming to write down all of it, and a lot of minute details are overlooked, but I do my best to give as much narration of backgrounds, people and all the like as possible. Bran is observant, so it makes sense to me, but like I said, it comes natural. There are almost no moments when I’m writing that I think: “Hey, I should add some more descriptions of this and that.” I just write and it just so happens to turn out like this. It’s my style of writing, I guess. 3. What is Brandon's favorite midnight snack? What is yours? This is probably the easiest question for me to answer  Brandon is someone who likes the simple things. He does not demand a king’s meal, though when it would be served to him he wouldn’t complain. No, I’m fairly sure that any kind of insect would do. Moths especially, those are his favorite.As for me, it depends on the alcohol in my blood. Hehe, when I’ve been out with my friends I tend to enjoy a Bicky burger around that time. Otherwise I will take whatever kind of charcuterie is still present in my fridge. Or a slice of ordinary cheese. Or chocolate… Maybe some cup noodles too once in a while. Though I never had cup noodles at night, since I usually eat them for dinner instead. 4. Brandon is a very unique sort of kelvic. What is your inspiration for him? Heh, I have no idea. I just write and see what happens. Occasionally there’s an idea that pops into my head and I start a thread about it. Or a plot. But Brandon himself? No idea, not at all. Bran is just who he is and acts like he would. I have no trouble getting into his skin and while writing him I rarely have to stop and think about what he would do. I only need to read a reply or imagine a situation and I can more or less tell what he would do. When I’m reading a reply, I already see how Bran would react or could react in my mind’s eye, though not in detail. I am guessing that Brandon is a character I can relate to very easily. Bran is just Bran. He came from the depths of my mind and made it very clear to me what he was like when I started playing. But if I had to name a character that Bran was originally based on I’d say Hei from Darker Than Black. Still, I don’t know about the accuracy of that statement, I’m not too sure about it. It is true Bran was based on him but he has changed too much for me to tell. Let’s just stick with what I said before. Bran just is who he is. There’s nothing more to it. 5. Brandon has very little concept of 'boundaries' and 'property'. Did you plan that about him or did he just fall into his life of larceny due to plot twists and turns in game? Both, actually. I planned on a thief from the very beginning –which is why a bear wouldn’t fit right. Not in my mind anyways. Somehow I have always been attracted to the thief-playstyle. You know, light armor, agile and fast. In almost every RPG I’ve ever played on consoles I played as a thief. Or at least as a character that is agile and fast, and not dependent on armor. Skyrim? Thief. Dragon’s Dogma …. Assassin by lack of thievery, but it’s almost the same. Even in Dark Souls! Always, always light armor and I’d preferably be using daggers or so, but that did not always made it easy to slay enemies so I took up weapons better suited for combat. However, when browsing Miz before creating Bran, I just knew that I could do here what couldn’t be done in console-RPGs : having a character who really was a thief. And when I started playing it just felt right, it suited him pretty well –though Bran was nowhere near who he is today. He just seemed to enjoy what he was doing and did not seem to care at all who he was robbing or what he was stealing. I don’t really know if I’m making sense, so I’ll do my best to summarize what I’m thinking. When I started playing things just started clicking into place, one at a time and one after another. It was a perfect fit. 6. How does Brandon feel about bonding and how, if at all, does this affect his interactions with other PCs? Bonding, eh? Well, I suppose he does not really thinks about it, though I do. I do have a couple of interesting bonding scenarios in my head, but I don’t want to force anything, that’d probably ruin it. I’m letting him do as he pleases and Bran doesn’t appear to be craving a bondmate right now. I mean, it was part of the reason he left Kalinor, the other part being his thirst for thrill and adventurous spirit. Strangely enough, he doesn’t want to leave Lhavit yet, but that’s fine. So basically he does feel some sort of drive to find someone, though he has become rather oblivious about it. It’s something that’s always been part of him and he has stopped noticing it. However, I think that the fact that he’s rather lonely will someday push him closer to someone –no idea who or when- and might lead to the forming of a bond. Or he might find someone first, who chases away the loneliness and then bonds. We’ll see. But it does not really affect his interactions with PCs… The only thing that does is his arrogant demeanor, haha! Seriously though, that’s the one thing he’d never think about when meeting someone new. If he’d get to know the person in question better, like them and start to open up though, I could see a bond being forged. On a conscious level I don’t believe Bran is affect by the instinctual need to bond all Kelvics have. 7. Is there any sort of item that if Brandon had the opportunity to steal he simply couldn't pass up an attempt? Oh, there most definitely is! Anything that fascinates him is a possible soon- to- be- stolen- item, but there is something I can totally see him take when he gets the chance or the idea in his head. As you might know, Brandon is a bit into trolling people… For example he likes to pickpocket someone just so he could see their face when they notice their wallet’s been stolen. The same thing applies to infuriating certain people with his words to see how they’d react, and to breaking and entering. There is also the possibility of him going for revenge, which is another reason to steal the ‘mystery item’. I am certain that when the idea pops into his head he’d be unable not to do it, I might just do it in thread some time, now that I think of it! Heh, it’d be great! Anyways, what I am talking about is Bran stealing all the keys to one’s house. He’d sneak in, stare at the key ring with a mischievous grin on his face and imagine the reaction of his victims. That is all it takes for him to do a thing like that. After grabbing the keys he’d chuckle excitedly and sneak around with butterflies in his stomach, taking more keys from every door he encounters –be it the door to the bedroom or to the closet of medicines- and lock every single one of them before going back out and throwing them on the street or so. Whatever time it was at the time of his leave, he would stay in the vicinity to hear the confusion and anger when the victims find out they’re locked up in their own house. With a naughty smile on his face of course. 8. You have a theme song for Brandon as well as battle theme songs, what would his theme song for nocturnal larceny activities be? That is a hard one. I have been asked this before, or at least someone told me they’d like me to add such a theme song to the list, but finding one is harder than it seems. I have been searching for a suitable one ever since –albeit not that hard, I must admit- and did not find something I found fitting. However, just because it’s for this occasion I put some effort into it so I could at least present something that would be satisfying enough  Even if I find something, I keep looking until I have gathered a couple I deem suitable, and so it went this time too. I actually found three Theme Songs (all of them happen to be from games I like) and since I am unable to pick one, I decided Bran will have three Nocturnal Larceny Theme Songs The reason I choose those three over the other 80 (or so) songs I browsed through is that they give me exactly what I was looking for: they reflect the tension of larceny, sound a bit threatening –which should represent the threat Brandon is to his victims (like a “Hey, there’s a thief stealing your stuff!” shout perhaps?) and of course it had to be something that went well with the “sneaking around” part of Brandon’s activities songs :
9. What would be the perfect day for Brandon? The perfect day… Hm… Sleep through the day, wake up around dusk and venture out in bat form. It doesn’t end there though, during his flight he’d eat, flying around for a couple of hours, maybe half the night or so before returning. Then he’d go out in human shape, geared up for –yes, indeed- a break-in. It would be a challenge, one that required all his skill to pull off, something that makes him sweat quite a bit, something that gets the adrenaline pumping through his veins and makes his heart jump up in joy. Of course, he’d succeed in doing there whatever he wanted to do and get away safely. After getting back home and dumping the loot there, he’d probably go to the Azure market to watch people or go on a stroll to clear his mind, though he usually does that right after waking up and getting dressed. (As a Kelvic, mentioning to get dressed is very important –he’d forget otherwise). What’s next? Ehm… Well, I can imagine it would take a while, the stroll I mean, and when he decides he has walked long enough he’d return home once more, noticing a stand where they sell meat pastries on the way there. As he’d like to have one, but hates paying for it, he’d pickpocket someone and buy a couple of pastries with his victim’s money. He would then get home, undress and crawl back into his bed with a satisfied smile. 10. Has Brandon's goals or concept changed at all from your creation of him, if so, how? If I said no I would be lying and everyone would know it. Yes, he has been going through a lot of changes actually. I originally planned him to be a quiet mysterious guy, a professional thief with this very professional attitude. A silent hunter of other people’s belongings, but it changed soon enough. When I started writing I just couldn’t depict him that way, quiet was not a trait of his. Neither was professional. So he went from badass thief to wannabe dramatic thrill seeker from the moment I started my first thread in Lhavit. His personality in regard to larceny was the first thing that changed, as well as his thirst for excitement that grew even stronger than I had planned. Then came the tendency to annoy people, which started with Chari –my very first thread partner. Not only did he do his utmost best to anger her while she tried to chase him, later on he mockingly made several moves on her, as to see her reaction. He just wanted to see her get all annoyed, I on the other hand wanted to see her smack him. Ah, good times. But during that time Brandon also displayed the tendency to drag people into his games, while Chari was trying to get her purse back, he played tag. There have been more situations he turned into games, though not a lot of them. While the Brandon we know today differs strongly from the Brandon I had planned to play, I don’t think he has actually changed, rather he showed me who he is, bit by bit. If that all makes sense. His goals though have remained the same. What I want to see him do has not. Originally, apart from being really badass and awesome, Brandon was to be a traveler. He’d journey from city to city, spend some time there and be off. Larceny was an easy way to make money and he’d be hard to catch since he’d always be on the move. I have to admit that when the season came I had been planning to leave Lhavit, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I postponed it for another season, I’d had too much fun there and there were still a lot of PCs I wanted to thread with. I already had begun plotting with some and a certain rivalry wouldn’t be able to be played out if he left. So I kept him in Lhavit, threading with interesting people and passing up the opportunity of meeting other great PCs in other cities. However, I feel like I must go to another city in Kalea, even if it’s just for one season. Wind Reach has been my target for a while now. I made a promise with a PC over there to come visit WR, and I don’t plan on breaking it. I can see a lot of interesting events unfold if Bran was to stay there for a while, and I don’t want to pass up the opportunity. Still, it won’t be soon since there still is business for Bran to take care of in Lhavit. Other than that, I don’t think I had any goals for Brandon. I was very laid back and all when creating him, I figured time would give me lots of goals to aim for, and it has. For the sake of not revealing all of my secrets, I won’t tell you more though  I have been rambling for a while anyway 11. This is your spot for whatever you want to say, have at it! I want to say a lot of things, but I’ll start by confessing that finding the Featured Character PM in my mailbox was a big shock for me. I never expected to be awarded with it, and at first I thought I was dreaming. It was 5:30 in the morning and I had woken up because someone was making a lot of noise while going to the bathroom. Half asleep I thought I had to get up already and looked on my phone and saw I still had 30 minutes left. Then I saw I had new PMs and figured I’d read them. I was wide awake after opening them! Short anecdote. I don’t know about other players here, but I have a brother who is always hating on me roleplaying here. He’s always saying I should write a book instead of wasting time on Miz and fails to understand if I try to explain what’s so great about Miz. He believes that rules and having to stick to the theme is limiting one’s imagination, that you can’t do whatever you want. (He always starts ranting about Bran having to open the gates of Hell, which I reply to with : “There’s no Hell”) I think the point I was trying to make was that you don’t have to care about what family or friends say about your hobbies. If you are having a good time, then that’s important. Something like that. Er anyways, moving on, I’d like to thank a lot of people. I’ll start with those crazy enough to select me as Featured Character, who nearly gave me a heart attack at 5:30 AM; thank you, I am honored. Next up are my threading partners –those who already are as well as those who will be , who deserve to be thanked for making Bran’s life a little bit more interesting every time. Then there’s also my PM buddies and people in chat, who have to be praised for being able to put up with me and my antics. And last but certainly not least, thanks to everyone who graded my threads, for your comments and of course the xp and lore! I will conclude this interview with a message for all players around. Write for yourself, write for fun and do what you like to do. Don’t force things –if your PC wants to stare at Akalak butts, let her- but softly, gently push your character in the direction you want to go. That seems to work for me. But most important of all; have fun. That’s all. *waves and steps out of the spotlight* |
