Development questions
1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?
Around two hours, after that he’ll get the urge to walk around or hum or do anything, but he can also control that urge if needed.
2. How easy is it for your character to laugh?
Rather hard. He’s so guarded that even if a joke is good he usually won’t react. BUT if someone trips onto their face or something like that it can startle raucous laughter out of him.
3. How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)
He lays on his back and thinks until he falls asleep. Might also try and focus on his hearing kinda like in a meditating way. If he’s sleeping in private, he’ll roll around on his bed and shift positions. He gets itchy easily, but he’s generally tired enough at the end of each day to fall asleep rather easily.
4. How easy is it to earn their trust?
Very hard. 100k words strangers to friends slow burn where you only unlock a third of his backstory. Shallow trust is often necessary for his job though, and that he gives out fairly easily, he does consider himself a good judge of character quickly after meeting someone in general.
5. How easy is it to earn their mistrust?
Not as easy as you might think. He notices things that are off or imply ill intent or judgement to an hypervigilant degree, BUT he doesn’t hold grudges all that much and will generally always rationalize wether to trust someone or not. Trusting someone however is always, always a risk, and he knows that even when he does choose to trust or think it’s the wisest. He has bad faith, but everyone starts out neutral if not leaning slightly forward distrust due to him knowing how mindsets in his region tend to be. He knows how customers and service providers alike can mistreat others, especially kobolds, but attempts to start off on the right foot with everyone.
6. Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?
He’s careful about breaking them, but he considers them to only serve the most powerful and knows how flexible they can be in the hands of law enforcers. They’re bs, essentially. He considers community-lead guidelines and rules more trustworthy and respects those much more.
7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?
Seeing kids run out, or specific plants like the flowers in the fields he used to play in. They’re fleeting moments where he loses himself for a second, but they make his chest feel lighter. He shakes it off when he realizes, but he enjoys the feeling more than he cares to assume.
8. What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?
He mostly got told to stop doing things. Crying. Wagging his tail. Being picky with his food. Complaining.
9. Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?
He’ll frequently drop a "shit." but he doesn’t have much of a foul mouth. He doesn’t remember his first swear word, he was young though, when people are away from the elders’ wars it’s very casual and frequent to swear in his hometown.
10. What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?
"Where do you come from?" "Do you know those kobolds?" "Have you heard about what this kobold village did last week?". He remembers each instance and it haunts him every day.
11. How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?
In a professional setting, he’ll always ask for as much clarification as necessary. Socially, he never asks and at best will assume what they meant and at worst just zone out during the convo and hum along as if he’s listening.
12. How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?
Will math out physics or use items, like bunching up his cape so that it gives his hand some inches more, usually uses an arrow or his crossbow. Will often endure it though.
13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?
Yellow. It does generally look good but he leans towards mustardy greenish brownish yellows which oh god no, but more orange and golden ones look great when they don’t blend in with his tan fur color.
14. What animal do they fear most?
On a personal, irrational level, snakes. Logically? Stalking predators like leopards and stressed trigger happy prey animals like rhinos.
15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?
He usually thinks through what he’ll say for one or two seconds before replying, except if it’s to say very dry information like "We’ll stop at this place for tonight." or "We should be there in three hours." which is often what he talks about. He’s rather monotone due to nit speaking about things other than work much, but he does intone, and usually sounds strict.
16. What makes their stomach turn?
A bunch of stuff. Risk, dread, hunger.
17. Are they easily embarrassed?
Yes, very self-conscious. He responds to embarrassment by retreating into himself though so it doesn’t cause problems or even is all that noticeable.
18. What embarrasses them?
Anything that doesn’t make him seem cool and in his element. Especially when it comes to getting something wrong on the job. If his step falters and he’ll almost trip he’ll want to crawl in a hole and die.
19. What is their favorite number?
Doesn’t care about them or think any is special, but if you ask him he’ll think of a different one each time with a different deep reason. Not that he’ll tell you, he’ll say it’s a stupid shallow question.
20. If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?
He has a lot of feelings he could say on those deep type of bonds that he wouldn’t be able to put into words at all. He’ll try, struggle to string three words together, then shrug.
21. Why do they get up in the morning?
Life will continue on no matter what until you die, gotta get through the day. Make money, make a name for yourself and survive until you can hope for more than that.
22. How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)?
They become an ass, snappy, rude, petty and more standoffish than usual. If it’s over someone, he’ll lash out at the person he’s jealous over and not the one pulling moves he doesn’t like. Bc he’s a clown that wrongly misdirects his frustration, but also because he only feels comfortable showing the jealousy type of vulnerability to people he knows and trusts.
23. How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?
He longs for things but doesn’t act upon that longing if he doesn’t think it’ll work out. He keeps his impulses at bay and withdraws into himself.
24. Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom?
No, no one. At most he’ll shallowly engage with conversations about it and posture in the hope it’ll die out quicker.
25. What are their thoughts on marriage?
The thought of it makes him uncomfortable for reasons he can’t pin down or explain, despite his parents being a very good and loving model. He’s conflicted. Conceptually seems neat. Instinctively seems dreadful.
26. What is their preferred mode of transportation?
He’s most used to walking and trusts it the most, but does really enjoy the occasional carriage ride. Riding alongside many others stresses him out though. Horses and camels are fine but not comfortable.
27. What causes them to feel dread?
Things not being as they usually are, silences too deafening, unexpected things happening. Conversations, meetings, fixing a payment. Things that tire him out, like cooking.
28. Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?
No. Lies are dangerous and unproductive.
29. Do they usually live up to their own ideals?
No. He has high standards for what is realistic in his situation and is hard on himself.
30. Who do they most regret meeting?
His first customer as a guide. Was horrible to him, but in a way he attributes a lot of the learning he did to them. Nowadays, he knows what red flags to avoid in customers.
31. Who are they the most glad to have met?
A nice tallman inn owner that offered him board, good faith and support when he needed it most.
32. Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke?
The last time he tried to make conversation was embarrassingly long ago. He remembers that time he got stung by a bee that causes intense swelling vividly and there’s a part of it that he finds funny, but sharing it with anybody that wasn’t part of his hometown is unthinkable.
33. Could they be considered lazy?
Only in the "Wow you just have to walk around all day and stand still to not get noticed in tense moments or wait after people? You have it easy" false assumptions about his job sense.
34. How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?
He is very experienced at it but it tends to stick with him for a while. It usually ends up being overshadowed by guilt from something else pulling him in the opposite direction.
35. How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?
Depends on so much of the context and what it specifically is, depends on his mood and if they’re in public too. He sees being excited in public as a dangerous show of weakness, and he’s the tough love kind of guy, but wether he’ll say "that’s stupid" or "that’s cool" depends on what it is about. In a good mood he’ll be more lenient and positive, and the reverse is true as well.
36. Do they actively seek romance, or do they wait for it to fall into their lap?
Avoids it, honestly. Scared of feelings being faked to use and betray him, even more terrified of them being real.
37. Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?
He needs to remember the order of things often with his job, mostly directions, and he generally just drills them into him by repeating them over and over and quizzing himself, he also writes on his skin when he has the material, not words just symbols that he’ll remember what they mean. He has a good ear for names in general.
38. What memory do they revisit the most often?
He has a couple his mind often circles back to. His mother comforting him just before he had his ears cropped/cut at thirteen years old in the rite of passage into an adult warrior. Helping his hometown arrange an ambush for traveling merchants. Getting yelled at at a tallman market despite having done nothing. A comforting and unusually vulnerable conversation with the inn keeper. Laughing and genuinely having fun with one of his customers on a trip once, Nor.
39. How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?
If they don’t treat him like shit, he’s lenient. Most of his relationships are professional and shallow so it helps but they oftem spend a month together, and his patience tends to run out near the end of contracts, not that he voices his frustrations. With friends, he has higher standards.
40. How sensitive are they to their own flaws?
If you confront him about them in an argument he’ll both bite back and go into quiet survival mode, and it’ll eat at him all week, gets him existential. He’s aware of them but doesn’t know what to do about it. "I’m not a violent dog, I don’t know why I bite."
41. How do they feel about children?
Full of goodness and potential, should be treated with as much kindness as possible. Too good, too pure for this world /hj
42. How badly do they want to reach their end goal?
Badly enough to lose some of his precious honor in the fray, but some limits should never be crossed unless you want your soul to be cursed. He wants to be good and to do good, but… He does hunger for ways to reach them faster and better, or is tempted to corrupt his goals if it means living more comfortably sometimes. He holds strong, though.
43. If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?
"None of your business."