Character Inspiration Thread

Some people know this, but he didn't start out as a full-on skeleton. Originally an OC I made just to have some sort of skullhead representation in my roster, he later became a D&D character in a buddy's campaign, being a Warlock whose patron god was the GM himself. His personality was initially shaped around being funny, goofy, and all that, but later on I decided to make him a genuinely kind and selfless character because I felt like it was something I've never done before. (LOL) A 'luck' based character, who either had all of the luck or none of it, depending on the situation.

As for his appearance, it's honestly a wild mix of all my favorite visual aesthetics. His signature hat's design was influenced by already existing characters like Ace from One Piece, Alcina Dimitrescu from RE: Village, Scaramouche from G*nshin Impact, Paddington's bucket hat and Hiruzen Sarutobi from Naruto. As for his more generic open coat and overall looks, it's basically just old-timey thrift shop fashion I thought of on the go while designing him, mostly sticking to a tri-color formula of red, yellow and brown, to create a familiar, memorable color pallette he could be recognized in.

I was unsure about what kind of character I wanted to play when I first joined GC, but the moment I heard of playable skeletons I immediately got the idea to make Chayka a skeleton, and obviously develop his personality further. Originally a very one-dimensional happy-go-lucky type of guy, some of the interactions with various people have shaped him into a more 'aware' and mature being. Or something along the lines of that. I think the major inspirations for his overall character, attitude and humor were surprisingly joke twitter/tumblr accounts like horse_ebooks and the absurdity of the game Magicka.

@Occultatum Dobra Noch!!

 

Reggie came from me needing a new character for a trial Cyberpunk Red campaign a friend was running. We were looking for good Rockstar names, and we used this generator to find some. Reggie Crash was the one that jumped out the most to me, and I went and found a picture of a shitty Party City "Rockstar" costume on google images for a visual reference.


Everything from there was just us fucking around during the campaign. After it was over, I liked the character so much, I brought him to GC, rewrote some of his backstory to fit in better with GC, and that was it.


Reggie pretty much radiates good vibes. I don't want him to actively attack anyone or be mean, it's just not in his nature, but if he's pushed hard enough into a situation, he'll end up having to roll with it. I have more interesting things going on behind the scenes that explain things like his faulty vision, somewhat stunted intelligence, and surprising strength, but I'm not gonna talk about that here.

I intend on bringing him to other places, too. He could be in an actual game at some point soon.

 

Dobra is based on a character I played on GC years ago, who'd come to the Fringe fleeing someone in Civ-Space. Oddly enough, Dobra as she exists now is a result of me forgetting a lot of what her motives were. I did, however, remember that she'd gotten exposed to a chemical weapon that damaged her body, mind, and memory, which really worked to my advantage when it came to developing her into a more fleshed out character. I tried to look at what little I remembered through the lens of someone with severe amnesia, and came to the conclusion she probably wouldn't like the person she used to be based on those few fragments she had.

Another source of inspiration was the philosophical concept of the 'Ship of Theseus', which asks the question as to whether Theseus' ship was the same ship, even if every piece of it was gradually replaced through the years. I aimed to explore that with Dobra, and so far I'm fairly pleased with the result. Part of her becoming a 'new' character over the old is the result of her inadvertantly learning to meditate whilst in her damaged state. Gradually she could assert more control, and as she did she would look into various meditative introspective ideas like the 'Middle Way' and the 'Noble Eightfold Path'. Diogenes the Cynic was also an inspiration, albeit a very very mild one, which further formed Dobra's character into the selfless, ascetic, perpetually travelling scavver you all know and love.

@Randy I wanna know more about Lorch.

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention her 'No Man is an Island' ethos, which is why she's so dedicated to helping people she barely knows. This is drawn from the poem by John Donne, of the same name, which reads:

"No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee."

She truly believes that everyone and everything is connected in one form or another, and so the suffering of one increases the suffering of others, and there's nothing she wants more than to reduce the universe's suffering as much as she can. Naturally this mentality applies to all living things, not just men or Europe.

EDIT 2: Also the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series played a big role in her signature outfit, but that's neither here nor there.

 

I just noticed that I've been tagged to do one of these things, so here I am with Lorch!

Lorch was initially meant to be a side character, can you imagine? I created a couple of characters when my main characters (Bradley and Ro'di Sykes) were busy with the war against the Godus or busy doing things in the background for Margury. At first, there was Archeus Meltdown, a Miniknog General that had ties with a shadowy group of aristocratic businessmen and women called the Welton family. While I enjoyed roleplaying him, it was hard to have him connect with people, since he was (and still is) just a big old grump of few words. So, I created something quite the opposite. I gave Archeus a son who would be energetic, joyous and as gay as one could possibly be. My biggest inspiration for him back then probably would've been Zhang He from Dynasty Warriors, and Gregorio III from Gitaroo Man, which I used to play then. I stole the name Lorch from a guy named Lorch Furholden, a recruitable NPC in the game Granado Espada / Sword of the New World, whom I recently unlocked back then.

He and his personality were well received by the community, so I just kept him around, but it meant that I'd have to give him a backstory. With Lorch being so different from his strict and exemplary Miniknog father, I imagined that there'd be a lot of tension at home and the other people in the colony trying their best to live up to the rules and standards of the authoritarian regime of Big Ape. Comparing the Miniknog to a country such as Russia, I figured that being homosexual could also be a big no-no for the Miniknog, or at least heavily frowned upon.

[SPOILER ALERT FOR DRAGON AGE INQUISITION]
I eventually picked up Dragon Age Inquisition and felt a connection between Lorch and Dorian Pavus in their backstories. Both were shunned by their fathers. Dorian, in his backstory, reveals that his father tried to change him using the forbidden art of blood magic. I took inspiration from that, adding to the backstory that Lorch's father once forced his son to undergo a good, old-fashioned thought-reassignment; a brainwashing method that was already part of the Apex lore in Starbound.

Lorch lore aside, I did have sources of inspiration for his many outfits. Him being a fashionista, I looked up tons of imagines and tried to replicate those in Starbound Outfit Studio or Starcheat back in the days. Of course, I don't have those images anymore, but I do remember getting inspired by the use of hats by Mitch Grassi from Pentatonix, who wore a hat in their clip "Hallelujah". Inspiration of that can be found again in one of the arts I made, as well.

His transition to a goth didn't come without inspiration either. While the transition itself was an idea of my own, I did take some inspiration for Lorch's new hair from Hubert from Fire Emblem Three Houses.

I believe that's it! All of the inspiration on the table! Seeing that I now have to tag someone else.. I would like to go with someone I only recently started to come across....

Gilligan, by @Samwych

 

oh wow ok! i gotta think for a minute about all the inspo for gill.

Originally, he started out as a sort of beanpole PTSD kid with the edgiest backstory ever (of killing his best friend) and dealing with the aftermath of it (emotionally) when he was just 15. Ever since then Gills been evolving and changing but one thing has remained consistent: I've always aged him up in real-time. I've been playing him for about 8 years coming this November (He's 23 now) and I'm very content to continue playing him

He sorta started out as my outlet to express my anxiety and distress when it came to RP in the first place. I was always anxious when it came to meeting new people/preexisting people i knew. I had a lot of anxiety (Still do!) and Gill has been a great outlet to express it and process it.

Processing Trauma is a difficult thing and Gill really helped with that! I'll always be grateful to have him in my life.

As for inspiration- some of the inspirations I pull from can be kinda obvious while some are more obscure. Here's a list (in no particular order) of characters from media I use for Gilligan.

1. Guillermo De La Cruz (What We Do in the Shadows)
2. Doctor Doppler (Treasure Planet)
   
3. Milo Thatch (Atlantis)
   
4. Doctor Sylvester Ashling (Epithet Erased)
5. Caleb Widogast (Critical Role)

idk what else to put here thank you all for reading

im tagging @crumchy next

 

I am just now seeing this so I will do a short response.
I created Yaretzi as my second main character because Roleplaying with Endy was just not the vibe at the time and she needed some re-writing.

Her inspiration was the typical rigid/mean doctor that softens when she makes good friends.

 

Hi everyone! I'm going to do an inspiration post for Clover as they're one of my more fleshed out characters that take heavy inspiration from many other media properties. However, Clover was a character made to introduce a new culture group xand set of areas to the GC setting that acts as a compliment to my other additions, so I'll be reviewing the general ideas and inspirations around that first.


The Steppean Glitch are a mini-lore faction I wrote in order to both compliment the themes and concepts I worked on prior with factions like Renaize and species like the Bubs but also to retread old ground to flesh out the ideas and make them more interesting. The major concepts of the Steppe are a peaceful anarchy, stagnation, and the search for order and control in one's life. The Glitch of the Steppe are an incohesive cluster of clans across a string of star systems in the Fringe that are united by the common trait of being once enslaved by a creative and charismatic Glitch hive until, one day, without warning, the hive vanished, leaving its controlled populace to their own devices while they attempt to recreate its perceived "glory" by reenacting the grand epics the hive created as an expression of its creativity. The Glitch are stuck in these old ways, have grown stagnant, and have only organized with one another based on their places in grand "ballads." They do, however, seemingly universally, crave the feeling of becoming a pawn again in a great story, leading to a warped view of everything regarding slavery and freedom.


I think the most obvious inspiration for the group and setting are the Summer Fae from Kingdoms of Amalur.





Since KoA is a game that flies under the radar most of the time, I'll elaborate. The Summer Fae have a House of Ballads that are locked into an Eternal Cycle. History doesn't repeat itself just in a vague sense, it's all literal to them, with Fae constantly reborn to repeat the same "ballads" and feats in each life, as opposed to the mortals of the realm who forge their own, linear destiny. The Steppean Glitch practice a similar cycle, reenacting ballads, but in a far less literal and clear-cut way, where each new Glitch is meant to assume the last position that has been made available. It also isn't the very nature of their being as it is with the Fae; they're doing it to capture a long-lost, twinkling state of living that they were placed in against their will and grew rather comfortable in.


The next of the inspirations of the Steppe is the world of LISA: The Painful in its theme of stagnation in the face of great change of the status quo.





When visiting the Boneyard, the only current Steppean in-game hub, one of the things a character might notice is that there's a lot of Steppeans kind of just standing around doing absolutely nothing. With nothing to do and a non-specific role in their Ballads, the Glitch have very little to actually accomplish in their day-to-day lives, and as such any progress in bettering their society has come to a crawl. This is similar to the world of LISA, as the colorful cast of characters face a similar predicament. In the wake of a disaster ridding the world of women, the remaining men of the world find themselves in new and uncomfortable lives. Some join groups in an attempt to better the world and others join gangs, but the majority of people in Olathe can be found kind of just sitting around in small hamlets doing nothing.


I think that the inspiration from Dark Souls is worn on the sleeve of every Steppean, at least aesthetically since I've never actually played Dark Souls and know nothing about it other than cool dark fantasy world and some pot guy in Elden Ring.


Alright, now down to Clover as an individual. If the Steppe were its own setting instead of a part of GC, they'd probably be the protagonist. They are the firstborn after the disappearance of their hive and don't quite fit into their designated role as the lucky hero, Clover. In that way they take heavy amounts of story cues from the main characters of dystopian novels. However, I think that on a more personable level, Clover takes the most amount of inspiration from the character of Wheatley from Portal 2 as well as Alistair from the Dragon Age series, who their outfit is actually based on.





Wheatley is one of the main inspirations as Clover is both a robot and a bit of a fumbler. They're clumsy, extremely gullible, maybe a little bit dull, and generally have no clue what they're doing. The main divergence in this point is that Clover isn't particularly selfish or malleable to outside influences; they're an unwavering beacon of positivity, although a bit of a cheeky one.





Alistair from Dragon Age is, superficially, quite a bit like Clover. They are a bit witty and can give a bit of sass, and mean well deep down and don't condone any kind of perceived evil or betrayal. Additionally, they were both born into a position that they don't want and have renounced their titles to become an individual more capable of helping others closer to the bottom line and with more freedom in their choices on what they want to do with their life.