Transcript
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What masks does your character wear? How much control do you give a GM over your character story? And would your character pick up a mysterious item? Or would they leave it alone? Hello friends welcome to characters without stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm star. This episode, I'm joined by Jack, a Jewish trans man just trying to play and learn as many different games as he can, so that he can write his own adventures and games. Jack, I'll give you a chance to plug your projects at the end. But right now, do you want to tell listeners a little bit about yourself?
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I'm really just trying my best to absorb as many games as I can and see what kind of what kind of things are out there already?
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Yeah, that's great. How long have you been playing TTRPG? Yes,
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I started in 2012 started with Pathfinder. edition one did two campaigns with that game.
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And then I took a break because I just couldn't find anyone to play with. And then recently, I found a discord where people were playing online and I've been enjoying that quite a bit.
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And I'll just give a plug that discord servers called Twitter pig Academy and it's aimed at trying to teach people how to play non d&d tt RPGs I have had a similar experience.
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It's been really great. And we actually got to play Troika together which was a ton of fun.
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It was a lot of fun. I want to bring slug back.
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Slug was awesome. So Jack, who are you bringing to the table today?
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I am going to bring you Shasta who is a pathfinder character. She technically is like two characters in one.
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Shasta is essentially the host for a god trapped within a mask.
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So a lot of fun.
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So what is the other character's name? Would you say within Shasta's head or that Shasta is hosting?
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His name is Alistair. And he's started out kind of contained within just the mask but like her wearing the mask for so long their, consciousnesses have kind of melded a little bit.
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It's interesting to me that you have two characters kind of living within the same body in a way, and that those characters are two different genders. Right? Why is it that you made that particular choice?
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I think kind of it goes into my own transness I made this character before I had really come to grips and acknowledged that I am trans. I was still actively trying to convince myself that I was just a tomboy. And there was nothing more it was That's it, just just a girl that really likes being called sir. And I liked the idea that because people see a young girl and they have an immediate kind of like assumption of how she's going to be and how to treat her and how to behave with her. But Shasta psych there is a chaotic God in play. And she definitely I must, I'm assuming when throw people for the loop, because I haven't actually gotten to play her yet.
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And you said that Alistair was originally confined to a mask? Yes. And Shasta would wear that mask like all of the time.
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Yeah, he ended up in the mask is kind of like a chaos God in the sense of like Loki, and one day, he pushed his pranks a little too far with his siblings. And they were like, Nah, we're done with you trapped them in a mask, chucked him in the middle of the jungle was like, you're done. You stay there and think about what you did
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is the backstory that Shasta found this mask in the jungle.
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Yeah, it's a little bit more complicated than that. But yeah. And he was just like, Alright, you're my ride out of here.
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So to get into that a little bit, and we don't have to tell the entire story at this point. What made Shasta decide to pick up this mask and then what made her decide to put it on?
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Shasta didn't really have a choice. She was very vulnerable when she first met him. And he's charismatic. So it was it was hard for her to say no and I don't think that she even understood that it might have been a choice. Is that she could have made so when he said, Hey, put me on. I'm such a beautiful man. It's look great on you. She did. To be fair, she was also a child. So like unfair advantage on Alistair's part.
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How old is Shasta now?
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She's 21. Now, they met about 10 years ago.
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Right? That's a long time.
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Yeah. That's why I like to think that their consciousness is have started to meld together have started to like really intertwine because he can talk to her, just inside her mind.
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And he can see what she's thinking. And I like I figure he spends enough time in there messing with her head, he might not always have control of that connection. And sometimes things might get a little bit messy.
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Is there a push and pull between them as in one of them will kind of take the lead at certain points? Or is this a, like a happy relationship between them?
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Yes, it definitely started out as more of like a more off balance our dynamic with him being more in charge. But as she's gotten older, it's turned more into like a brother sister kind of dynamic, where like, he might try to force his control, and try to get her to do things, but she's gotten better at being able to fight him off. Or a lot of times, they're squabbles or dealt with just you know, talking it through, because they've spent so much time together. But it's definitely a lot gentler of a thing now than it used to be.
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Are either of them seeking to end this relationship.
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No, I did almost get to play her. But in the very first session, the GM was immediately just like, you know, self insert GM character, and we're going to separate these two and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, that's, that's not what I'm doing with this character. Please don't do that.
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And you didn't listen to so I just left the game.
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I think it's an important lesson to learn, especially for newer players that no TTRPG is are better than bad TT RPGs. And it's very unfortunate that the Game Master felt the need to kind of take that agency from you as a player.
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Yeah, I didn't anticipate that being something that I would have to deal with with her. And I think that might play a role into my hesitancy to use her again, because like, I can easily take her and put her into a different game. She doesn't have to be a pathfinder character. But I think I have a lot of emotional attachment to her. And I don't want someone who doesn't understand what I want to do with her to kind of mess it up.
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All right, I get that. So it's interesting. You're talking about presentation, how you present to the world, especially in the context of being trans.
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And I'm kind of curious, does the mask itself have a different kind of gender presentation?
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Does it look different from Shasta's face?
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Yes, it's a very masculine, boldly shaped mask, it has like a mustache and a beard. And the shape is very square, not exactly a square, but like square jaw chiseled looking. It's not a feminine mask at all. And it's it's got bold colors. So like it's kind of I imagine it as like a, like a steel base color with vibrant dark colors. For the details.
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Interesting. Would you say that people assume that Shasta is male because of this mask?
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I would say that if they couldn't see her body, clearly they might. But when they hear her speak, they would definitely have that disconnect of Wait a minute, that's not the voice I was expecting to hear. And because she's a monk, she does wear looser fitting clothing to allow freedom of movement. And I'd like to think that occasionally just for fun, Alistair would speak for her because he is his voice is audible to people externally. I think if I got to play them, I would definitely have them pull that trick a few times.
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Does Shasta enjoy. Is she playful with that is Alistair is he playful with this kind of relationship and their ability to present in different ways to the world?
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Yeah, the one thing that they both have in common is that they're both chaotic. She's more neutral, but in Pathfinder rules, they're both neutral, but she definitely leads towards the good and he leans towards evil so
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they kind of cancel each other out a little bit.
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Yeah, Basically when she met him, she was chaotic good when and he was chaotic evil and then just through 10 years of being stuck together, they've just canceled each other out.
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So tell me what does Shasta look like?
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She's got dark brown hair for now, because Shasta is an Aasimar, which is basically the child of a human and an angel.
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Or at the very least, there's angel blood in there somewhere.
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But as she levels up, I can give her like angelic flesh and you know, stuff like that to change the way she lives. But for right now, she's got dark brown hair, her skin is kind of leathery from being outside all the time, because she doesn't she just wanders around and just like she doesn't actually have a home. So she's always outside in the elements. She's about five foot ish, and she wears loose kind of flowy pants and a like linen, I think would be a would be the fabric and like a piratey looking top kind of like a blouse, but not quite. I intended to have her be no weapons fighter. She's got a pack of gear, and that's about it. And I haven't thought about her face too much just because like Alistair's her face,
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so it's not apparent that she's Aasimar.
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In her story. She was initially apparent to be Aasimar in that, like when they have angelic blood. There's kind of like the way that I have always pictured Aasimars even the ones that don't have like the wings and the metal skin. I see them as looking a little too perfect to be a human. But like they they don't look like an elf either. But I think with Alistair on her face, and you know she looks grungy and dirty, so no one really notices her now.
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Is she trying to hide that? She's Aasimar?
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I think she is Yeah.
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Why is that?
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Well, the start of her story is she wakes up in the middle of the forest with no memory. She's small, 10 years old ish. And she is found by a remote village inside the forest. And they see her as being like, the perfect offering to their god who is Alastair?
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Because of her being Aasimar.
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And why is that? Why does that make her the perfect offering.
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So Alistair, like I said, was chaotic, evil, and he was locked inside of a temple that's filled with traps, and all kinds of stuff to prevent people from getting in there and getting him out. But he could project his mind out. You know, it's like he could influence people who are close enough. And he's stuck there for generations, he's getting bored. And he decides, you know, makes a deal with this little town, you send people in here to get me. And if I think it's entertaining, I'll bless your crops for the next year.
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And he blesses our crops and they get this in their head of like, Oh, she's, she's this perfect, quote unquote, Angel, complete opposite of our God.
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She'll really think it's funny watching her die, going through the gauntlet, they prep her for it. And they know that the closer she can get to him, the better the blessings are going to be. Because that's more entertainment for him, I guess.
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And they send her through. And she partly by luck, and partly because like they train her a little bit, but she manages to get to him. Part of her being vulnerable when they meet is that you know, she's tired, she's hurt, she's hungry, she's thirsty. She's been put through this trial. So she wasn't in any position to defend herself.
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Really, at that point, she probably assumes that if humans know that she's asked them are they're going to or take advantage of her again, but kind of hides it.
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Is this something that is based on her personal experiences? Or is it based on kind of societal norms?
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It's based on her personal experience, because that village used her the way that they did, because her being Aasimar. She just assumed that's how all people are going to be.
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Would you say that she is distrustful in general of people?
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Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it's like Stockholm ish. But at this point, she believes that Alistair is the only one who truly cares about her and truly has her back. Everybody else is like we can hang out but you don't get too close.
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It's interesting to me because there's a few different ways this could go in a campaign, right? There could be kind of a process of realization of how she may have been manipulated or used. And then kind of separating herself from Alistair, there could be kind of a self actualization process where she is able to take control, or to convince him to stop taking advantage of her. I know that the game hasn't been played yet. But did you have any particular character arc in mind? Just kind of based on how it made you feel to try and separate her from the mask? Is that something you just didn't want to happen right then? Or is that something you didn't want to happen at all,
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I was hoping that through the process of a campaign, Alistair and Shasta themselves would come to the realization that their relationship even though they might enjoy each other's presence, and enjoy each other's company, is not healthy, and it's not beneficial for either of them. So I was hoping that eventually in the campaign, they would figure out how to release Alistair from the mask and separate that way, I wasn't okay with treating Alistair as if he was a evil parasite.
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Because I think about it in the way of he's been stuck by himself for hundreds of years.
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And he is the kind of person who really enjoys the attention and the praise of people, you know, he's got and enjoys interacting with other gods other people. So to be stuck there like that, unable to actually do anything, I think would have gotten to him. And as much as he wants to pretend that Shasta needs him. I think he needed her more than he wants to admit, because they kind of develop a codependent relationship. So I would have liked to see them grow and realize that we can be separate and still be friends. And we don't have to hurt each other, to keep each other as friends.
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Like I don't have to manipulate you into being my friend, you can just be my friend.
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Right? The other big kind of hook or missing piece and Shasta his backstory is how she ended up in this jungle by herself. Did you have an answer for that? Or is that something you were also hoping to discover during play?
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I was hoping that that would be something discovered during play. I wrote her in a way that I felt would give the GM and other players opportunities to go somewhere with the fiction and to kind of intertwine each other's stories possibly because I think that that kind of a dynamic where you can pull different characters stories into a convoluted kind of web of like, Oh, we didn't know each other, but like we forgot or so and so was the child that someone else saved from a fire and things like that. Like I think the storytelling possibilities in an RPG are really interesting. I tend to like to leave holes in my backstory where things could be built in by the GM or other players.
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Why did you choose the name Shasta and the name?
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Alistair?
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I chose Shasta because I've just always thought it was cool. When I was a little kid.
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There was a brand of soda. That was Shasta. And I just really loved saying that word so and then Alastair, I think sounds it sounds cool. But it also sounds kind of fancy. And I feel like a god would be kind of fancy.
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Right? What was the inspiration that led to you creating this character? What was kind of the spark that set it all off?
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The spark that set it off is I was bored, because I don't have a game to play. And I was like, You know what, I'll just create a character for Pathfinder and have some fun that way. And I was thinking to myself, you know, how can I create a character that's got enough complexity and weirdness to give some drive to a story?
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Because, you know, a lot of times in traditional fantasy games, it's kind of easy to fall into the trap of just going town to town and just fighting monsters and not really having a lot of big overarching story to help move you along. So I figured, you know, instead of making just a monk who's got nothing really exciting about them going on about it Make a monk that people are going to see and be like, Okay, I want to engage with that person, because you look interesting. You've got, you got something going on here. And I was remembering, you know, the movie the mask. And I was like, you know, it'd be kind of interesting to do something with that. So I kind of played around with it for a bit. And initially, it was going to be a much darker relationship between the two, where, like, she can't speak at all. And the mask is kind of like stuck to her face because of hooks and give him the ability to hurt her if she makes him mad. You know, I was, I was considering doing that.
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But I realized, you know, I don't, I don't want to play a character that that's that that's dark, like, I'm not that dark of a person. And I definitely don't play characters that are really dark. As you've seen, I like to play goofy guys who just are trying their best with what they've got. So I was like, you know, this might be a cool character for somebody else, but I definitely won't be able to keep this up. Because that's just not my personality at all. So I was like, Okay, well, how can because like, I was still interested in this idea of a diety being stuck to a mortal so they Okay, well, how can I make this more my flavor more fun for me? And out came Shasta.
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Shasta doesn't sound like a particularly humorous or goofy character, just, you know, just kind of on the surface level, how much humor or goofiness would you inject into play,
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I kind of have a bit of a dry sense of humor. I like to do deadpan a lot when I deliver my jokes. So with Shasta, I was intending a lot of the humor to come from their interactions with each other, and the rest of the party observing it, and not knowing what's going on, because she's not going to tell them that Alistair is a god trapped in a mask. She's not going to acknowledge that. So as far as the party is concerned, she's wearing a mask in doing two different voices and talking to herself.
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Yeah, that could be difficult to explain.
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That's also I think, why I was so put off when the GM in that other game tried to first session split them up, because it was like, No. It was supposed to be just kind of like, wow, she's weird. But she can fight?
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Do you usually do character voices? And did you have plans for like two different kinds of voices for this character?
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I used to do character voices before I started transitioning, I'm still trying to learn how to do them now. But I did have a plan to do Shasta in one voice and Alistair in a different voice. But yeah, I can't quite do my Shasta voice anymore. So I think if I were to ever get to play her, I would just try to give them different accents maybe, or at least their pattern of speech be different,
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right? Not to pry, but it has come up in a previous interview I did, which is that when you're trans and taking hormones, it can be really difficult to change your voice and the way you were once able to is that kind of part of your decision to change that?
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Yeah, yeah. It hurts. I used to be able to like kind of pitch my voice up and tuck from the front of my mouth in sound a lot more feminine. But I've, you know, like I've been doing voice training, my vocal cords are a lot thicker than they used to be, and I just can't do it anymore. Sometimes my voice will sound a little bit more feminine, but for the most part, it's definitely down in the more the deeper register. And if I try to if I try to push it, my voice cracks and it hurts. Just doesn't sound good.
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Just to say to my audience, it is okay not to do character voices. Unless it's something that you really enjoy doing. I don't personally do character voices all the time.
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So you know, doesn't necessarily need to happen.
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Yeah, the thing that I really like to do is giving them a different speech pattern. I feel like that's a really it's a lot easier to do I think for people than you know trying to actually change the way your voice sounds.
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Why are Shasta and Alastair out adventuring in the world? And what is their aim?
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Alastair didn't like you know, spent hundreds of years cooped up in one spot and was like, Okay, I got legs now.
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We're gonna go see the world.
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Like we're gonna go do things and Shasta just went along because she didn't want to go back to that village I don't think that she was expecting them to do what they did to her.
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So she's like, Nah, I'm not going back there. I'll go see the world. And now it's just you know, they've been doing it for 10 years, because she doesn't have a connection. Like she doesn't go somewhere and develop connections with people. So she's like, okay, he's ready to move on and go somewhere else fine. Go somewhere else, because I'm not leaving anything behind.
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So does Shasta have any significant relationships besides her relationship with Alistair?
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No
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That must be lonely.
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I'm hoping that in the campaign, she would develop some finding that found family. Yeah, I think that she is I think that they're both lonely. But I don't think that they recognize that they're lonely.
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Would either them pursue romantic relationships.
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I don't think Alistair would, while he's stuck in the mask, and I don't think that Shasta has even considered it or thought about it. I think at this point, they're kind of I'd say that Shasta is probably going to be demisexual slash Demi romantic. Alistair, I think is pan, but he's just, you know, he's stuck in a mask. So not a lot he can do there. Nobody wants to date a mask.
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Yeah, probably doesn't have a lot of prospects.
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Yeah, it's not good for him right now. But yeah, I think I would like to think that after they do their growing and split apart that they would pursue relationships, but at this point in time, no.
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So Shasta is a monk. Can you explain what that means? In the context of Pathfinder,
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monks use ki to do some special things. But for the most part, they are the typical martial artists kind of an idea of a monk that you would think of, there's like different paths, I guess. And the one that I picked for her, I believe came from the advanced players guide monk of the sacred mountain, the monk of the sacred mountain finds strength and power in the earth beneath his feet. Rather than spinning through the battlefield with the fluid motion of the river. He routes himself to the ground as immovable and unshakable as the stones of the mountain.
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What kind of abilities come with that?
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There's iron Monk, which increases your toughness, it also gives you like a natural armor bonus with in Pathfinder, there's like armor that you wear and the natural armor that you have, because of like your race or stuff like that. So you know, increases your AC, so Pathfinder has like touch AC, and then like normal hitting AC. And if it's touch, it ignores the armor that you're wearing Pathfinder is Chunky. There's also like, at level four, you get bastion stance that you can't be knocked down, like you plant your feet, and someone can charge it to you or try to knock you down and you won't, you won't fall iron limb.
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The one that I was excited for is called Adamantine monk, which is like your muscles and skin are so strong and so resilient, that you gain a damage resistance. And that just like increases as you level up like every three levels, you get another point towards that damage resistance. I was excited to see how monk really worked.
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How did Shasta learn how to be a monk? Was she trained by the village?
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No, she was trained by Alistair.
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And how did he do that?
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Taking over her mind and basically teaching her body muscle memory. I think that after he taught her body, that's when he would have trained her mind. But yeah, you know, like they are a small child when they first leave, they definitely need to know how to defend themselves. And I think that she's like, obviously she's gonna start at level one. But depending on the GM I had, if I were to actually use her, one of the things I was open to was in situations where things are looking dire letting the GM take control in the form of like, Alistair, taking control and doing things that she can't do.
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Because, you know, sometimes a GM thinks that their party can handle things that they can't handle and they don't. They don't want to TPK but they're not really sure how to backtrack.
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And there's an opportunity there to help out in dire straits.
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Yeah, a chance for them to backpedal without looking like they're backpedaling.
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What kind of special abilities might Alistair have?
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I was going to mostly leave that up to the GM because I know every GM would have their own reference. But since I haven't used them in my own headcanon for this character, he would very much be chaotic God fleeing fire, you know, changing the site transmutation, you're standing on solid ground now.
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But oops, now you're standing in a pit of quicksand kind of a thing, because he's like, I wrote him as being a chaos God, I imagine that his powers would be things that would also be usable for pranks, because that's how I got in trouble in the first place.
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It's funny, it's interesting, because the way you describe Shasta and her monk kind of path, it sounds like it's really all about, you know, being kind of solid and immovable. And then to have this God who is creating quicksand and playing pranks. It's they're a very different kind of approaches.
00:30:54.470 --> 00:31:05.119
Yeah, I like the contrast between the two of them. I didn't want them to be like I wanted their personalities to really stand apart from each other. Because otherwise, what's the point?
00:31:05.509 --> 00:31:09.619
What kind of flaws does Shasta and Alistair have?
00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:40.460
Shasta those flaws are mostly that she is a quote unquote people pleaser, specifically an Alistair pleaser, she doesn't stand up for herself, at least in the beginning, where they are right now. She doesn't stand up for herself hardly at all. Not in the sense that like he bullies or pushes her around, but if he wants to go somewhere, she just is like, Okay, we'll go and for her to actually argue with him.
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:51.799
It's usually about some kind of situation where he wants to go in there and be unhinged and just do whatever he wants. And she's like, No, we can't do that. We're gonna get killed. We need to be careful.
00:31:52.190 --> 00:31:53.390
And what about Alistair?
00:31:53.660 --> 00:32:04.009
Alistair has got an overinflated ego. He's a quite certain that he is the coolest and nobody can tell him any different.
00:32:04.140 --> 00:32:05.640
Yeah, that sounds appropriate.
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:06.990
He's also always right.
00:32:09.809 --> 00:32:14.940
Shasta and Alastair? Do you think you're attractive?
00:32:15.329 --> 00:32:29.519
Oh, absolutely. I mean, look at me. I'm so shiny. I glisten in the sun. I don't know. I haven't seen my face in 10 years. So maybe it's something that you care about?
00:32:29.730 --> 00:32:43.529
No, thanks. I mean, being pretty. It doesn't keep me safe or food in my belly. I mean, I'm handsome. It I don't know that it matters. But like, you can't refute that. I'm handsome.
00:32:45.420 --> 00:32:52.980
Jack, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your character with us.
00:32:48.900 --> 00:32:54.210
Are there any projects or anything you'd like to share?
00:32:54.240 --> 00:33:30.000
Um, I have some projects, but they're not in the stage yet where I'm promoting them. I'm working on a game that's basically going to be along the lines of some bigger deities in the universe deciding that they need some new deities for a new planet that's just starting to develop sentient life. So now those new deities need to figure out how to be a guide and all they've got to help them is a really old ratty manual. I'm trying to figure out which game system would work best for it.
00:33:30.029 --> 00:33:32.789
But yeah, that's that's the only thing I'm really working on right now.
00:33:33.900 --> 00:34:18.360
You can find me on Tik Tok at Star mama See, that's S T A R Ma Ma see. You can also listen on YouTube, just search for characters without stories, or follow the link in the description. Thanks to all of you, my listeners, I now have over 1000 downloads. I can't thank you enough. Help me keep the ball rolling by telling your friends and family about the podcast or by sharing it on social media. Most of my listeners come from word of mouth so it makes a huge difference. I'm currently accepting submissions, particularly for non d&d characters. So if you'd like to share your character, you can go to the submission form at characters without stories.com.
00:34:13.739 --> 00:34:20.760
Thanks for listening and may all your characters find their stories
