Exchange of Realities

Two of my riffs (including one that got a rather interesting reaction) this week were on the subject of love interests, in both games and literature. It interests me how much people forget about the human factor when creating such characters. So let me show you the curious case of Ruby and Lirit.

Ruby and Lirit were introduced simultaneously, originally as antagonists. Both served the cause of Death, and both were rather stunningly attractive, but that was about where the similarities ended. The rest were contrasts; Ruby was a combat sorcerer and a hands-on fighter, young and energetic, and still absurdly innocent, while Lirit was older and more refined, a talker rather than a fighter.

Lirit, I will admit, was a DLI within one session, and in this case it was destiny. (This was partly by player request; due to some maneuvering by my assistant, they’d been de-antagonized not long after their first arrival, and one of the PCs decided that a destined possibly tragic love story would be interesting.) The romance between Lirit and Shadow worked out pretty well, at least for the first arc or so; the balance and dynamics between the socialite and the barbarian were a thing to behold.

Then we had Ruby. Aside from her backstory ties to Lirit, there really wasn’t much by way of plans with her; she just was. Enter Luath—crafter, healer, and soon rather taken with the hyperactive combat monster. I really hadn’t seen it coming, but next thing I know there he is carefully setting aside a specific batch of pastries for her (this makes more sense when you see the rolls behind Luath’s cooking), and things just sort of went from there.

As the time went on, they underwent the usual character development. Ruby’s personality-niche ended up being threatened by a PC played by my assistant, so I had to work hard to make sure I knew who she was; Lirit, on the other hand, had nobody threatening her role, and was approached more often for plot-related matters than for things that might help me make sense of her, so she tended to stay static.

Lirit left her old position as a servant of darkness after one of her equals arranged the true-death of her master; essentially identity crisis meets moral crisis. The problem with identity crises is that characters who can’t resolve them get downright boring, and Lirit was no exception; there were several directions in which her arc could go, and it took me far too long to figure out which. There were a few other factors; her general lack of touchy-feely tendencies didn’t help matters (Lirit was more suited for one of those poetic romances that pop up in legends every so often), and neither did the whole warped destiny issue.

And then, in came Tsubame, a fast-talking Fate enforcer with a vicious sense of humor and a bit of backstory connection, and, most importantly, a life both inside and outside the party’s world. Unlike fish-out-of-water Lirit, she belonged where she was; and not only did she not have an identity crisis, she knew exactly what she was and what she needed, and while romance interested her she could do perfectly fine without it. Then again, she was also a bit more dangerous; Lirit was a known quantity, but Tsubame’s first introduction to the group had been as an enforcer for her own boss on an errand the group had run, and let’s just say she hadn’t made the world’s best impression. I’ll admit, I’d tossed her into the mixture partly to shake things up, and I hadn’t expected her to make too good an impression.

But after a little while of agonizing, here we have Shadow, not just seeing this new woman but at the point of devotion where he has, on screen if you will, declared “Screw Destiny, I’m going with this one.” Lirit, meanwhile, is starting to regain her individuality; it’ll be interesting to see what, if any, difference this ends up making.

Luath and Ruby, on the other hand? Still exchanging shy smiles and the occasional overenthusiastic hug (and an absurd amount of blood per day, but that’s another story) and giving the group sugar-sickness.

The conclusion? Humanity makes a difference.

(Speaking of things that happened this week, Havalyon of Nonfiction Lover accepted me as a guest poster, with a review of The Language of the Night, the book in which I met the illustrious Mrs. Brown. I highly recommend Nonfiction Lover in general; her book reviews are spot on, and her stories about her misadventures in library work are an excellent source of inspiration. Go check out the review and wander around the site a bit!)

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