Something to keep in mind: this Alternian AU is one I’ve been working on for quite some time now, affectionately titled the Cullbait Crew; everyone in it knows of the game’s effects, and decides to play because they’re all gonna get fuckin’ culled anyways, so why not?
Name: And here, we have Alodie Valois- Alodie [meaning wealth] Valois [from Jeanne de Valois st Remy, a famous french thief]
I like this name! Solid set-up for her concept.
Strife Specibus:Gunkind- A weaponized Snap gun, or pick gun. It’s rather useless at long range but it does fire sharpened picks at a fairly decent rate. Consider it more of a blowdart gun than anything else; she can poison the tips or just use it to injure/distract opponents before leaping out the nearest window, cat-burglar style.
I definitely like that a lot for her. I think that the poisoning and such should be left for weapon enhancements made in-game, though. Gotta leave room for improving and editing! Ex: letting her alchemize up a grapplehook!
Fetch Modus: Lockbreaker- each item is encased in a chest, and in order to get it out, Skyrim-style lockpicking rules apply. The bigger/more important the item, the harder it is to break out- and if she runs out of lockpicks, then she’s gotta wait till she can get more to try again.
Blood color:Teal, #1A3333
Since teals are so often civil servants, I find the idea of a thief-based character here really funny. Do love it.
Symbol and meaning: It’s a made-up symbol- a five-fingered hand with a swirl on the palm, meant to represent the idiom ‘sticky fingers’
I think this is a really good and perfectly suiting symbol! A great example of self-made symbols, definitely. If you wanted to go with something a little more established, you could perhaps consider:
It is not quite as intricate or neat-looking, but it essentially means “two pounds, ten shillings” which was old-timey code for expressing suspicion that someone was a thief.
Trolltag: aurelianAntivol- aurelian meaning gold or golden, antivol meaning lock in french
I do like this trolltag a lot, and could even see keeping it, but I don’t know if it represents her true motive a lot. She’s interested in the adventure, not the gold itself! Maybe adrenalineChampion. gutsyGambler. audaciousCheat. something like those lines?
Quirk:“Pa<k my 8ox with five do|z|en liquor jug|s|.” [c, b, z, and s are switched to resemble pieces of a lockpicking kit- the same kit her horns are based off of]
I’d like to know what lock pick kids you’re looking at, because I can’t find any that have any 8-shaped tools. Does sound neat, though! I might recommend switching the 8/b for a 7/t instead since 7 is more recognizable as a lockpick shape?
Personality: Alodie is a magnet for trouble and entirely too fond of shiny things of her own good. She likes a large nest egg in the form of more gold than she knows what to do with, but honestly doesn’t care about what happens to a majority of the things she takes- it’s the thrill and the adrenaline rush she gets from breaking and entering that’s the draw. Likes a good brawl as well- anything that gets her heart pumping. No one would say she’s overconfident in her own abilities; she just has so little care for her own mortality that she takes risks in order to fuel her craving for adrenaline. Living her life in this moment is what she truly believes she’s doing.
I like her a lot! A good-old fashioned pugilist. A brawler. Everyone needs a little good fun and chaos.
Likes: Lockpicking, history, trade and bartering. She finds it fun to argue prices and can haggle with the best of them. She’s made it a point to memorize the going rate of the stuff she runs across commonly and knows who’s trying to stiff her and who she can get away with stiffing in turn. Loves bar brawls and anything involving an adrenaline rush
That’s fun. I like the idea of her haggling with people and trying to sell off stolen goods, too. This character personality also sets up an interesting situation vis a vis her planet! I wonder if she’d pull a Dave and destroy her consort’s economy for kicks. Figures out how to play their really simple marketplace and then just devours it. What sort of history is she interested in in particular, though? Does she like reading about famous adventurers? Revolutionaries? Does she like to try to emulate their feats or does she want to try to avoid following a pattern?
Dislikes: Hates sharing. Dislikes laziness and being lazy, always has to be doing something. Hates cleaning- her hive is a disaster, just piles of stuff everywhere. Also has a very distinct problem with authority and authority figures; following rules has never been something she’s been concerned with.
Is the dislike for authority figures somehow a product of her upbringing? This is the fun stuff to think about. Was her raccoon mom really chill and let her have independence? Did that result in her hating the rigidity of troll hierarchy? Did she learn to hate it because of the stories she read? Did she stumble upon banned history texts while doing some thieving things?
Hemoloyalty: Next to none, though she’s fond of highbloods, if only for what they have in their homes.
I wonder if she makes a habit of conning highbloods. Do you think she’d make a habit of hustling on top of thieving?
Lusus: An eight-pawed raccoon.
Haha, because it looks like a masked thief and is also extra handsy I get it.
Hive: A veritable one-story fortress, built into the side of a mountain; solid stone several inches thick with narrow slits for windows and a maze of tunnels underneath where she squirrels away all her best catches.
Ancestor and Story: Levoleur, the giving thief. A famous Robin Hood-esque criminal known for being able to break into any location, up to and including the current Empress's main underwater fortress. No one knows how, and she was never caught; she disappeared into thin air, only remembered in history books. Most trolls believe she was nothing but a legend, a fake story to give hope and amusement to low-and-midbloods who were displeased with the Empress’s rule and blatant overspending.
Reason for Cull: She broke into one of the Empress’s several [land-based, lesser used] homes and stole a bunch of shit and now she’s wanted by like, literally every law organization on Alternia.
Quickly following in her ancestor’s footsteps. I’m so proud of her [sniff]. I’d really love to know if she was inspired by the tales of her ancestor or if she just really wanted to steal from the Empress because Fuck The Empress.
Title: Thief of Breath [???]
I DO like this a lot. It would imply her desire to allocate all the direction and freedom for herself, which is really emblematic of her decision to take the reigns of her own life and play around in the game. Though I’m almost tempted to make her a Thief of Life, because Life is heavily associated with luxury, excess, gold… vivacity, breaking the rules and attempting to change norms…
Here’s what I think. If, within the game, Alodie becomes very goal-oriented and has a lot of motivation and a desire to move forward and be a bit whimsical, and kind of makes a habit of doing her own whimsical and chaotic things while leaving everyone else with all the responsibilities, I’d say Thief of Breath is fitting for her. Otherwise, I’d go with Thief of Life. The inverse of that one is Page of Doom, which would allow her to passively exploit the rules, messing around with the nature of the game itself to get what she wants- maybe she could even use these abilities to Cheat the game.
Land: [Kind of unsure on this one. It was the Land of Chests and Frogs, with a quest to breed [or steal] the god frog, of course, but that was back when she was supposed to be a thief of space. That’s just recently changed and I haven’t remade her land quite yet to match]
Hmm. I do like the idea of stealing the god frog for a point of tension within the story, and being a Thief of Breath OR Thief of Life would involve needing to steal something for development or potentiality, which is a hefty theme with the Frog because of birthing the new universe… What if she had to steal the Frog from her own team and somehow utilize it on her planet to accomplish her own quest? Land of Nets and Bizarres. A big ol’ marketplace where she needs to sell the rarest commodity, perhaps?
She can only be a Prospit dreamer if she makes her bed. I’m joking but also it’s something to think about, because Prospit dreamers DO always make their beds in canon.
On to the design stuff! I’m going to say ahead of time that I literally adore her design and suggesting anything to alter in it is hard. So take everything below as experiments/ideas to consider for adaptation.
Basically I just simplified her horn shading. It looked nice, but it was distracting and a little unbalanced. I also got rid of the hair stubble. I understand the look you were going for, but with characters with shaved sides in this style we don’t tend to see the stubble and I think it might look better cleaner.
I also tested out the new symbol on the shirt and got rid of the neck detail- I know she’s 9 sweeps, so she can probably get away with more complex outfits, but I thought it’d be worth a try. I do like the symbol being at least more front and center on her design.
Overall Fantastic troll, I love her a whole lot! Thank you for sharing!
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