Looking for ideas (woman, noble)

I need to burn up a 5- or 6-LP noble (female) for a fairly high-stakes game I’ve been running for two years. We’ve got a Prophet and a Legendary Swordsman that have been joined recently by an Exiled Sorcerer (sorcery being quite rare in this world). Now we’ve got a player coming in who will play once in a while, but not too often. I’m trying to keep her more or less rooted in a huge city where the three main characters will be for a while.

Ide’ers?

Sounds like a good time to have a powerful political character.

Assuming the BWG LPs are pretty much the same as BWR LPs, here’s some possibilities:

Baroness w/ some extra skills:
Born Noble, Young Lady, Student, Stewart, Baron - 39

Crimelord/Kingpin:
Born Noble, Bastard, Criminal, Moneylender, Banker - 36

Religious Cult Leader:
Born Noble, Cloistered Nun, Abbess, Apostate, Heretic Priest - 40

Warrior-Woman:
Born Noble, Page, Squire, Knight, Lord - 32

These generally gives you some nice angles in terms of character concepts, a good set of skills, and a formidable crew, and RPs to spend.

Chris

Don’t forget the option to repeat a lifepath, if you want a more focused character. I’ve found it really useful for burning characters, especially those with many lifepaths.

Here is a character idea I have been toying with:

A Courtisane. (or how far can the trait Drop Dead Gorgeous bring you) - 34 years old
City Born, (Lead to Outcast) Prostitute, (Lead to Villager) Serving Wench, (Lead to Noble Court) Courtier, (Lead to Noble) Lady

I loved the combination of lots of social skills and interresting wises. and enough trait-points for some very nice traits. I worked her out as a 4 lifepath character (without the lady lifepath) and ended up with a very appealing character.

Politics seems like an odd choice for an occasional player… Why not make her a more law-and-order type? Prince’s Justicar, or head of the city watch, or a Temple inquisitor, maybe.

I think Faithful might be fun for an occasional player. Faith is pretty easy to advance, and it’d give her the ability to significantly alter the story every time she has a chance to drop in for a game. Occasional players sometimes miss out on a lot of fun, because it’s hard to have a real impact on the story when you’re not one of the main contributors. But with Faith, it just takes a few high-Ob prayers (successful or not) to really shake things up.

Perhaps a Joan d’Arc type of character? Or a gypsy or voodoo priestess, or something like that. Sounds like it would mesh well with your current PC lineup.

The reason I suggest politics for an occasional player is that:

a) They can always be “away attending to matters of power” as the reason they’re not involved in any given session.

b) You can hand them a short list of information/resources which their network of power has gathered between sessions and it’s up to them how the player to think about how they want to use it as a lever.

"It’s been about a month since you last played. Here’s a bullet list of what happened with the other players, and your own spy network has found:

  • The cult leader has been gathering gold and boats. Something is going down.
  • Your rival has increased his food stores by 5 times the normal amount. Perfect for supplying troops in the city, perfect for a coup…"

Also if you load the character up with -Wises related to the city, and the people in the city, she becomes vastly useful in a sort of politically backstabby Gandalf sort of way -

“That’s the Baron, he has a weakness for wine and women (instincts), a strong belief in order, ambition, but not the will to push for it (Belief), he’s a vulture not a hawk, show no weakness and you’ll have no problems with that one.”

Chris

I like this, kind of a Lady De Winter or the like.

I think the important thing to consider is how the player wants the PC to fit into the fiction, what is her role in the scheme of things, what will she bring that is new or different to the party and to the campaign as a whole.

If she has an occasional role and the GM want’s a plot manipulator, then Augur is a hard lifepath to beat. Either the PC or herself or a Relationship she has that travelled that path, perhaps her handmaiden was an Augur. GM fiat can play around with leads a bit if the character concept is solid.

[Edit]

Going over a few idea’s myself, Blackmailer has some appeal to a politician. I did a quick build following…
Born Noble, Young Lady, [Court]Courtier, [Noble]Lady, [Outcast]Blackmailer
I created a social monster, with Will 6, Persuasion, Extortion, Estate Management and Falsehood at B5, a host of other useful social skills.

Want higher resources, though older, this Dame kicks arse.
Born Noble, Young Lady, [Court] Courtier, [Noble] Lady, Dame

5 Lifepath Characters are monsters.

that is a very nice character… :slight_smile:

Sorry I didn’t respond earlier. I ended up going with Born Noble, Young Lady, Lady, Courtier, Physician. It worked out very nicely.

The reason for no Faith character is because we have one already. It’s kind of a classic triad: Swordsman, Priest, Wizard. This isn’t a diplomatic or intrigue game, so an infrequent player who is a noble works. She only has a small window of play for the next while anyway, and the city she’s in will provide fodder for 2 or 3 more games, I figure, which will roughly sync up with when she’ll need to stop playing.

Thanks for the advice, all! I hadn’t considered Courtier til I read the responses.