Ingenuity & Explosives

Population of player characters does not reflect frequency of actual races ingame. So male viera are still very rarely seen by comparison due to their preference to keep to themselves, as given in Stormblood.

The male viera lore we have been given prior to Endwalker indicated they are super aggressive and territorial. As the city Viera met in the storyline don't show traits of this in Endwalker, my assumption for the time being is the aggression and territorial behavior is a result of one's connection to the woods they were originally to protect. In departing from the woods, the bond is severed, and the influence that the woods once exerted on the mind is no more.

City Viera might not be at risk of outside influences affecting their mental state like those that live in the woods and are bound to it, but we don't know if it's purely a benefit to break from the woods. As of time of writing, I assume that side by side, a Viera still bound to the woods would fare far better in a hunt than his city cousin due to that connection, and potentially heightened instincts from the forest's influence would allow to exceed the cousin where instincts and reactions are key to success.

It wasn't a plot run with others, as most others I'd been writing with were vehemently opposed to me dropping Eligos in favor of a random Viera, let alone the idea of altering Eligos in any fashion, even though I'd been struggling with him. Not that running a plotline with others with potential of killing off a character would have gone well, had I gone that route. Especially given situation at that time. Rather, I selected a series of potential incidents in a timeline, and wrote down ahead of time what the fail rates would be before writing for Eligos, and then rolling at incidents in question to see how well he'd hold up. It really didn't matter in a sense, he rolled multiple 1s in a row there, only succeeding in any of the rolls at the very last two checks. While I was initially hesitant to do so since I was still struggling with him, I decided in the end I'd run with it. It made for extra trauma for Eligos and some comedy as well as he adjusted to his new life and having to clean up the literal wreckage from his old one.

While I can run plots with others, I haven't considered doing so for a long time, due to the nightmare that is scheduling. I might again if I find myself in position to, but that's hardly on the list of goals at this time due to how thinly I already find myself stretched. I still have to finish writing a Lancers RPG campaign and build a few model kits before I'll be in a spot where I can try to find folks interested in tolerating Eligos long enough to run any sort of plotline!

Eligos isn't a WoL, but simply a soul trying to make it by in the current age where his only applicable skill sets are now all but useless in the momentary peace. As for how he was made, he started out as a fallback character made when we didn't initially get male Viera for Shadowbringers. Rather than a Viera, he was a Garlean that'd defected, having run off when he had been mentally pushed to the brink by the stresses of his research and environment and been broken by them. He was built as a a sort of thought experiment given goals and personality, as well as to see how well a character who lacked the internal compass others guided themselves by might handle when tossed into a new environment. Rather than some sense of inner morality guiding Eligos, he's instead an amalgamation of his inner demons, with opposing aspects tempering each other to keep in check and acting as a far better restraining bolt than any personal code, and allowing for hypocrisies to occur that make him a little more fleshed out as a person than if he'd kept to a list to guide him.

It's been amusing to play him, but over the course of his journey so far in roleplay he's evolved quite a bit from there. He's a Viera now as we were finally given them with Endwalker's launch, which gave me the option of shelving him to start on what I'd wanted to do from the start, but it was decided to give a few chances to see if he'd make it with the End of Days and also how well he'd fare. I rolled a few times to determine his fate, and let's just say his luck in rolls tends to be consistent, and brought him to where he is now. So while he survived by the barest skin of his teeth, it's allowed him to carry on, now as a Viera.

In some ways he's lucky, and in others he's unfortunate to have lasted as long as he has, particularly considering how frequently he ends up on the wrong side of dice thanks to exceptionally poor RNG luck, but the character's stubbornness has allowed him to persevere and somehow thrive all the same. He's like a weed in a way. A stubborn weed that got to see daylight another day, and is prepared to make that everyone else's problem.