#fuzzy.oc

Dungeons and Dragons character

Tabitha Bucklen, a young lady from a noble family who has been disillusioned with that life and so has set out under the alias Captain Charybdis (both to avoid whoever her family sends after her and because that name is cool as shit to her) towards adventure. Also her family sold her boat, The Kraken, and she wants that shit back (she grew up sailing and much prefers it to acting like a stuffy noble).

Oh and she’s taking her personal butler/babysitter with her (another player character).

Yeah, they're pretty neat! From what I know, they're the people who cover what is legal for the military in their conduct, and responsible for advising on that and attempting to uphold said law, such as in the case of court-martials. Basically the military have their own legal and court system that is apart from civilian.

You can imagine how juicy that is in a time like Fallout where the country is in active war and committing all sorts of crimes both abroad and at home (and try not to think how close that might be to home rn...). And then to come out into a world where that is just gone? All of it?

I really liked that premise, and it also gave a reason for the female Sole Survivor, with the background we are given, to have some of the skills in fighting and surviving that would help out in the wasteland by simply making both of the survivors military.

A Judge Advocate has to be knowledgeable about a lot of broad areas of law, and I read somewhere that only about 5-7% of people who sign up get accepted. So Nora getting into the field is a lot to do with her being a massive fucking nerd who sacrificed large portions of her life to get what she wanted.

The whole backstory for it is that her father was a soldier himself and was sent to fight in the early years of the Resource Wars when Nora was a child. He got a lot of trauma from his time as a soldier and eventually ended up taking his own life when Nora was around 13.

This drove Nora to want to do something to put an end to the suffering people inflicted on each other, and her thought was to do it from the inside. She threw herself into study and mapped out her future, and was so driven in her goals that she rarely let herself break from them, leading to her having no real friends despite being a naturally friendly and charismatic person; she pretty much only used those skills to further her goals.

So yeah, Nora pushed herself and worked very hard to get to where she wanted, and she got it, but it came with drawbacks to her social life and made her go-to way of coping with things being to work herself even harder.

Judge Advocates don't do basic training like regular soldiers, since they aren't, but do have to go through a Direct Commission Course where they still learn a lot of the same skills and go through physical testing. So Nora comes out of the vault knowing enough about weapons, first aid, and survival to not die to her first raider attack.

How she felt though? Let down and stressed. She didn't really get to make the changes she had hoped to - she didn't climb as fast as she wanted, and most of her duties were mundane and routine. It's not that she felt she was doing nothing, but she wanted to do so much more. To climb higher and gain the power to have people actually listen to what she was saying. To make a difference.

Meeting Nate hadn't been part of her plan, and at first she tried to dismiss him and her feelings. Even more outside of her plans was getting pregnant. She had a lot of conflicting emotions about feeling like she was failing and giving up on the plans she had revolved her whole life around, but she had also come to know that having a family with Nate was something she wanted too.

Made a height chart for our pathfinder party members✨

Jenell, the Aarakocra Psychic, and Zaner, the Centaur Barbarian are mine, with art by me.

Zagara, the Dragonborn-Illithid Investigator, and Qakasha, the Blue Dragon Wizard belong to @noctiris, with art by them.

Find me not thinking about these guys, challenge impossible.

They are the definition of "talk shit, get hit", you wouldn't believe they're lowkey in love.

Nora would absolutely not be able to. She would 100% succumb to the draw of power, wondering how it might give her side a slight edge if they only used it just a little... responsibly...

Al would be Frodo-esque. They could resist it for the most part, but it would take a toll on them over time, especially with everything going on around them because of it. They would still be able to get rid of it in the end though, but at what cost...

♖ — Do people, in your muse’s opinion, ever really change? Do they believe themselves to be capable of changing?

♙ — How hypocritical is your muse? If they can be hypocritical, do they realise this about themselves? How do they reconcile with it?

Thanks again💖

♖ — Do people, in your muse’s opinion, ever really change? Do they believe themselves to be capable of changing?

✪ Nora

Nora 100% thinks people can change. That it's mostly a matter of (re)education, health, and environment. It goes into her thinking that all people would (or should) default to "good", given the right circumstances. And she's rather of the opinion that people should be given the chance to change - factoring in that with some people it might take more time than others, so patience is another element.

All that said, she actually ends up struggling with the idea that people also need to choose to change, and some people simply won't. It can keep her from acting as early as she should, because she's clinging to the chance that she can get a "better" outcome.

✝ Alberta

Much like Al's answer to whether people are good or bad, it's one of those things where she's aware that people can definitly change - she changed so much in a very short amount of time - but that they don't have the time, knowledge, or resources to help anyone along that journey in any good way. They also think people (including themself) mostly change for the worst too, since it seems far easier than changing for better.

It's again one of those things they don't like to think too much about because they don't believe themselves capable of doing anything about it, and it's so much easier to act with the idea that their enemies only are what they are in that moment.

♙ — How hypocritical is your muse? If they can be hypocritical, do they realise this about themselves? How do they reconcile with it?

✪ Nora

Nora is hypocritical in the way of someone who gives others good advice but sometimes struggles with taking their own. She also clashes with other leader types, even if their differences aren't so large. She's very aware of this, she's just also an opinionated person with a small habit of self-sabotaging when she isn't doing so well mentally.

✝ Alberta

♔ — Does your muse believe people are innately good or innately bad? Why do they believe this?

♞ — What does your muse believe happens after death? Do they believe in an afterlife and why/why not? If they do, what do they imagine this afterlife to be?

Thanks💖

♔ — Does your muse believe people are innately good or innately bad? Why do they believe this?

✪ Nora

Nora would like to say that people lean on the side of good - after all, a person isn't born evil, right? -, but ultimately she would have to come down on a far more neutral and nuanced stance.

In her thinking: Who is to say what even is good or bad? They aren't really objective states, and depend a lot on an individual's view on morality, which is heavily influenced by things like localised law, religion, and politics. Sure, most people can agree on a blanket statement that harming someone is wrong, but you don't judge a child yanking an animal's tail the same way as a bigger person kicking one, or a person stealing for gain as someone stealing to survive, so there are still caveats in why a person does something wrong to consider. Killing people is wrong, but Nora's killed to protect herself and the things she holds dear, and would do so again, so is it less wrong for those reasons? She'd never think it's good, of course, but it can be hard to reckon with the reality of these things and she'll never be able to settle for totally black or white thinking.

All in all, she could think in circles about subjects like this for hours until she gives herself a headache and just ends up coming down to caring less about if a person is good or if they (mostly) do good.

✝ Alberta

Al's short answer would be that most people are bastards. Meaning that most people will do what benefits them the most in the end, or even just the moment. For every person out there genuinely trying to do some good in the world, there's at least another three that would gut you for your spare change.

Like Nora, Al wouldn't want to think in too much of black and white terms for these things, but has a much harder time of that in practice than just in theory. They tend to prefer acting over taking a long time to think things through, which is easier if they can just give into that kind of thinking to help them get the job done.

Overall they don't really like to think on the subject too much, both because of their own struggle with it but also because they find it either leads nowhere or into religious thinking about some sort of post-death karma that they aren't sure they believe in (or in the instances that they do consider it, that they in particular aren't in for the good things).

♞ — What does your muse believe happens after death? Do they believe in an afterlife and why/why not? If they do, what do they imagine this afterlife to be?

✪ Nora

Nothing, but you can never be too sure. It's not an answer she's likely to get, so she doesn't think on it too much. At most she hopes that if there is some kind of afterlife, that the people she's loved and lost are having a good time and that she can see them again one day. But again that's just wishful, melancholy thinking, and not likely.

✝ Alberta