Need help with a character idea

[Ghostfreak]

Good morning.

I have been tasked by my dm to create a character with the following stipulations and homebrew rules. Character can be male or female (I decided on male), second born of two children from a father who is a knight. The surname is Lemming and our house's status is of low nobility. The mother is deceased and my family's relationship is good. The game will take place in an alternate version of the world in England, set in medieval times. Story is about trials, tribulations, change and political gain. Those of common and low noble birth are all born and raised in England, medium to high nobility are all foreigners outside of England. The lore skill is considered the info for religion and superstition, to our knowledge magic is not real. An is regarded as the talk of crazy people.

 Everyone has to be pure mortal so we start off at feet in the water difficulty.

The furthest I've come up with for the character is this: His name is Klaus Lemming, the youngest son of Sir Raolin the Brave and the late Lady Seraphina of House Lemming. He is 13 years old and his older brother is 18. He looks and acts very much like his mother, which his father resents him for since it reminds him of his lost love. Who was known for her kindness, cunning and intelligence. Klaus's birthday is seen as the anniversary of her death rather than a day of celebration. The oldest is very much like his father but serves as a foil so that Klaus does not feel that the world is against him. He greatly seeks his father's approval and feels that the best way to do so would be to increase the political and military standing of his house.

Which will include getting his hands dirty.

This is a character I envision who would like to see use his brain to formulate and think his way out of problems and situations. Or even benefit it to his advantage. With inspiration stemming from Tyrion Lannister and Oberyn Martell, I would very much like valuable input to help bring this character to life as much as possible. Any and all input would be extremely grateful.

Thank you!

P.S. I am also having problems with what kind aspects to give him to match this characters backstory, along with stunts for improved survival. Would deeply like help on that aspect as well please. Much appreciated.

[Sanctaphrax]

Intelligence, as opposed to knowledge, isn't really represented by any particular skill. But Tyrion-style manipulations can be handled with social skills.

Stunts can go a long way. An Empathy stunt that helps/lets you predict what other characters will do in the future could be good. So could a Deceit stunt that lets you attack with Deceit, take-outs letting you plant ideas that the victim thinks of as their own. You'll want to talk to your GM when writing such stunts; the way to make them really depends on how permissive they are with social skills in general. Who knows, maybe they think that's stuff anyone can (try to) do.

And worst comes to worst, you can always sometimes give the GM a Fate Point and Declare that a "clever" plan is actually clever and more or less works.

As for the Aspects...the obvious starting points are his relationships with his parents. Something like TAKES AFTER HIS MOTHER could be a sort of generic cunning-related Aspect, invoke-able for various schemes. ARE YOU PROUD OF ME? would be a solid Trouble Aspect, capable of pushing the character to all sorts of actions.

By improved survival, do you mean survival the skill? Or something else?

[g33k]

I have been tasked by my dm to create a character with the following stipulations and homebrew rules. Character can be male or female (I decided on male), second born of two children from a father who is a knight. The surname is Lemming and our house's status is of low nobility. The mother is deceased and my family's relationship is good...

Hmmmm.

This strikes me as a lot of PC-specifics for the GM to stipulate.  There isn't anything inherently "wrong" with this, but it's particularly jarring IMHO in a game like Fate where narrative elements and PC / player agency are emphasized.

I'd be inclined to ask a bit more about this from the GM...

• why so much detail? e.g. why a 2nd son of low nobility instead of a 5th son of higher nobility (that tended to be one of the ways "minor" nobility happened -- the family manages to get non-heirs a minor title)
• do you have complete auctorial control over backstory/friends/family/etc?  Could you make your older brother a weak-willed puppet like Thomas in Eyes of the Dragon?
• or might the GM assert control & surprises -- the brother you love who you thought was a loving son&brother turns out to be a psychopath who killed his own mother and will kill his father shortly; or Sir Robin is secretly a member of a coven of blood-magic practitioners; or etc etc etc...
• But really, back to the original:  why so much detail?  Why MUST you have (exactly one) older brother?  Why noble not rich merchant, or clerk/churchman, or other person who might reasonably move in the same circles?  Etc ...

I'd want to understand what these constraints were about, before I tried to design within them.

[whitelaughter]

In addition to 2nding g33k's "why so much detail?" question, I have another *when* in the Middle Ages? It's Ages - plural - for a good reason. Anglo-Saxon? The Anarchy? The Hundred Years War? The War of the Roses? Tudor times?
You can be fighting with a war axe or an arquebus, repelling invasions or conquering your neighbours, repelling vikings or moors, establishing the King's Peace or rebelling against him. Each era is a different world.

[g33k]

I would be willing to bet pretty long odds that part of the "alt" in this alternate world is to have the "history" a bit LESS pinned-down.

Still, it's a fair point, and worth knowing WHICH of the "medieval" tropes are in play... are gunpowder (and early guns) a Thing?  Are we in a time of plague, or famine?  Is the Church in one its more-influential phases, or less?  Are mercantile/trade guilds a notable element?  etc etc etc ...

[Ghostfreak]

Whoa, didn't think I would get a response. Bogged down with exams on my end so trying to get that sorted out before  doing anything else. So, I will get to answering your questions.

No, guns will not be prevalent where we are at so that will not be an issue.

Anglo-saxon period.

The reason why I have to build the character with said stipulations is that the dm didn't want everyone to come in as nobles. So to make things interesting and with permission from the other players rolled to see whether each player is either a commoner, low noble, mid noble or high noble. Commoner and low noble means that you are born and raised in England. Mid and high noble are foreigners. Lore was gimped because as far as everyone and their mother knows, magic is the talk of crazy people and superstition.

Yes I have total control over background/friends/family.

I'll be sure to grab more information from the dm so I know what I am getting into.

[whitelaughter]

[grins] nearly cross posted!
Okay, that's a lot better than I feared.

Since you are the Noble, think hard about a Resources focus - not just the skill, but also Aspects. Being able to *buy* locations in the setting, or found them, is one of the most useful things a vanilla mortal can do: and it isn't hard to ensure a +9 resources roll.

If you make your trouble some variation on Noblesse Oblige then the other PCs will know to bring you into the action, and the GM will be feeding you Fate points.

Anglo-Saxon means you'll be trained to fight on foot, so let one of the commoners be the Survival expert: you only need a point or so to indicate that you can ride and hunt. Instead, have a really high Weapons. Note that you'll be able to afford a high quality war axe, hauberk and shield, so will make an excellent meat shield.

Your Thane may also be a shire reeve (sherrif!) or magistrate, so take a decent Investigate if you want to go this way.

How 'blind' does the GM want your character creation to be? Because OOC it's obvious that having a True Love Aspect etc will be helpful for your PC, some GMs will consider that inappropriate. If the Gm likes the idea of your PCs 'coincidentally' having the tools to defeat the bad guys, consider that if another PC is a weaponsmith, then Aspects such as 'my creations inspire courage/will bring peace to England/are made so that I can afford to wed my True Love/give us hope of defeating the Vikings' will make them very bad news for the local White Court.

[Ghostfreak]

My dm said that he is taking creative liberties since it is alternate universe, so in terms of time period. It will be set in the 1300's. More or less. An by improved survival I meant not die in the first game session.

[g33k]

... An by improved survival I meant not die in the first game session.

<heh>
OK then.
1.  Keep plenty of un-spent Fate points during character-generation.  They WILL save your butt.
And your neck.
And maybe similar body-parts belonging to other characters.
2.  Ask your GM if you can take a Skill or two, a Stunt or two, and maybe even an Aspect, as "blank/TBD."  You will assign them in-play as your understanding of your character evolves (there's a pretty strong tradition of doing this in Fate games).  Keep an eye out, not for assigning them tactically (to survive *this* encounter) but to assign them strategically (to make your character better-suited to the GM's game-world as you learn about it in-play).

[Sanctaphrax]

I wouldn't worry too much about death. This game makes it pretty hard to die.

[whitelaughter]

I wouldn't worry too much about death. This game makes it pretty hard to die.

Granted, but set in an era with very little healing. The good news is that Islamic texts aren't widespread yet, so bloodletting isn't a major treatment yet (and yes, once it became the norm they did treat anemia with blood letting). Assuming that your PC is moderately devout, you'll be able to refuse treatments based on horoscopes; if wealthy use silk thread (which dissolves, so doesn't need to be removed) for stitching up wounds. Herbal treatments are widespread, and were apparently moderately effective...

Anyway, while first aid exists, you won't have anyone with the doctor stunt nor any medical facilities. So you are unlikely to be able to heal a Severe Consequence, and forget ever getting rid of an Extreme Consequence. So that's 2/3rds of your ability to soak damage being one-shots.

Hope an NPC has an Item of power with a Recovery Power!