Open AU Discussion Post

[lethevale_mods]

Having trouble with a facet of your AU backstory? Trying to co-ordinate your AU with another player? This is an open post for players to discuss their AUs, give/receive suggestions, and thrash out any crossover between your characters' pasts!

Comment with your character's name/canon in the subject line, and discuss away!

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Comments

[missionfail]

Alright I'll start it off.

I'd wanted Jasper here to have just come off the Civil War in the US, fighting for the Union. Before that she would have found combat wherever she could, be it in the many Indian wars or against bandits. She'd been born a large girl and had never tried to be particularly feminine, and in fact would often pose as a man as she got older just so that she could enter into combat situations without being questioned.

She had hoped to prove herself during the war so that she'd be seen as less of an abnormality, but never really got the acknowledgement she hoped for. Disgruntled, she left the United States shortly after the war ended and took a ship to England, wanting to leave that whole country and anyone who knew her behind. Here she would eventually join a travelling carnival as a strong woman. It isn't the acknowledgement she'd wanted, but at least the other members of the carnival treat her as an equal.

If anyone else is interested in joining this particular group as it passes through and potentially gets stuck in Lethevale, it might be a fun thing to work with.

[singingintherain]

Hmm, your concept intrigues me! I know Clear here is going to be an albino with some past history of being run out of places due to superstitions regarding his coloration, nonsense things like calling him a ghost-boy or thinking he brings bad luck, etc.

Maybe he could hop on your carnival as a sideshow oddity? That'd make for a more entertaining background than the 'wandering vagrant' I'd probably go with otherwise!

[mercenaryempathy]

Might Jasper's circus/carnival thing be interested in a blind medium? Piercing the veil of the beyond, etc. etc. He won't be too useful with the chores though.

[warrior_princess]

ah shit Jasper that's awesome.

...I'm suddenly tempted to try Plourr again, she's another character in the "huge woman who's arrogant as fuck and loves fighting and has Secret Angst" category but unambiguously heroic despite being an ass a lot. She's basically if Anastasia became a space marine on her way to being Aragorn. Historically though I've had trouble with her voice.

I'm also looking into another character who would also have had Civil War ties, though in his case he'd have had a prominently Confederate family but hadn't fought.

[teratias]

Waver's definitely going to be a university student who's traveling for research and Lethevale is in his path. That's the easy part. But the issue for me is how the rest of the canon goes and I don't want things to be weird and obscure because that's all his canon is.

Waver goes through a huge maturation process via a magical battle royale with paired partners in canon. I want to be able to preserve that maturation, but figuring out replacing magical paired fights isn't something I can pick out. The closest thing I've gotten is "getting into weird artifacts being traded in underground London circles with the artifact being supposedly magical (but if it is or isn't is obscure, as per rules in game)"

Any thoughts on how to flesh this out would be really awesome and appreciated.

[unabatedly]

oh hey friend

I'd also like for Neria to have been at university and since she has an eye and passion for magic/the occult, I'm wondering if they wouldn't have some kind of history? I'm trying to adapt the Warden parts and struggling with it, same as your stuff.

Maybe if not magical artifacts but some kind of twisted science+magic stuff? And a fighter is paired off with a scholar/magician in training to see how to best groom the most powerful fighter?

Haven't picked a character yet, just general plotting...

[wyvern_friend]

Characters getting dropped into another world with fake memories and slowly realizing their life is a lie is one of my favorite rp tropes. I'm weird like that. I have quite a few muses that might be fun in this setting and I haven't decided who the lucky(?) winner is.

Anyway, one of my favorite things to do in a setting like this is play around with fake family cr. Setting characters up as parents, siblings, cousins, spouses, etc. Would anyone be interested in plotting along those lines?

[bloodisthicker]

I vote Cherche, she could be an adventurer zoologist ala Steve Irwin combined with one of those adventurer types.

...I mean, this guy's whole thing is that his family is Complicated so I can't help with that, but man. Cherche.

[bigfatgreekfuneral]

I'm looking at trying out 2 here as an engineer/mechanic type hailing from Germany who got his start in clockwork and has landed in Lethevale on having found convenient room for work as a repairman. I'm not sure what exactly the stretch between Point A to Point B would've been like yet other than figuring a parallel to his having gotten roundabout kicked out of his group's sanctuary in canon seeming like an easy thing to move it with - possibilities coming to mind range from a portion of his family having attempted to dodge the Prussian draft and been floating around central-to-Eastern Europe since then to a more simple "something's driven a wedge between him and technically more authoritative peers, related or not, and he's been maybe-and-maybe-not-solo drifting around from there to wherever he's pointed by curiosity or possibility of getting to dabble in new area of gadgeteering".

He's going to be on the older side - somewhere in his fifties or his sixties - so there's plenty of room for him to have bumped into other technologically- or curio-minded characters in the right age bracket within the past twenty or so years, and ha, openness to relatives or associates he might be blowing into town with was probably enough of a given by this point.

[internalizing]

I'm looking at three options here, one because I like writing him and two because their canon experiences make them difficult to write without a good bit of tweaking.

At least for me.

Elijah would probably be a traveling nobleman, horse throws a shoe or something that has him stopping in the town.

Chris Argent I'm thinking maybe a metalsmith of sorts, weapons, silverwork, stuff like that, maybe on his way to deliver something to a client or going to a client to discuss an order.

And Bran Cornick as a normal human would just be interesting, probably just a traveler who ends up there for whatever reason, honestly.

[empathising]

i'm out at the moment so no time to really get in-depth just yet, but i wanted to say i'm thinking seriously about throwing elena in here as a grieving orphan after her parents died, so i'm very excited to see elijah on offer! i'd love to get some cr built into their aus if you're interested :)

[fantail]

I'm considering Sakuya Shirogane le Bel, the rich brat fantail from the bird dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend.

no come back this character can totally be taken seriously

The le Bel family had been something to be reckoned with in America before the Civil War. Its patriarch, Sakuya's father, had property and investments in both the North and South and sought to profit off the conflict, claiming allegiance to the Union while putting more support into the Confederacy. Sakuya's black sheep of an older brother, Yuuya, was a spy for the Union and uncovered the family dealings, which dealt a huge blow to family fortunes. Yuuya was disowned and took off to parts unknown. He sent Sakuya letters with no return address for several years, before this correspondence abruptly stopped.

Sakuya was a child during the war. During his father's scramble to reclaim power and influence he's slowly been realizing that he does have a moral compass, though he's reluctant and ashamed to actually admit to even thinking of going against his family. He's finding it increasingly difficult to pretend he sees nothing wrong but doesn't see his way to repudiating anyone either. So, faced with the opportunity to go see a distant French relative's business and practices he jumped at the chance... and while an ocean away from his father, why not seize on the opportunity to drag his feet about going back?

There's a small town here and it's kind of a stretch, but perhaps his brother visited here.

...mmm, I'm not sure in general. I'll work on this some more.

[teratias]

Hope you don't mind my poking a head in here. I think the concept you've come up with is really awesome.

You could perhaps use the "opportunity to drag his feet about going back" to cover a lot of ground/give yourself an awful lot of wiggle room for being in the area actually! Perhaps the nature of just traveling and dragging one's feet could justify taking lengthy coach routes that cut through the area, and thus justify arriving at Lethevale either by way of something going wrong with transportation, or picking a remote location to linger in for a few weeks before heading elsewhere?

[bloodisthicker]

AW SHIT SAKUYA THE SMUG PIGEON OF MY HEART

Also honestly as a smug rich boy there really isn't any reason why he can't just. like. decide to do a tour of Europe on top of visiting his French relative, especially if he can BS something about his relative sending him off to pursue an opportunity.

[bloodisthicker]

HEY DID YOU KNOW THAT CANADA CONFEDERATED LIKE THREE YEARS BEFORE 1870 BECAUSE I SURE DIDN'T.

So I figure Tarrlok could be an extremely ambitious young Canadian politician or sth which I'll have to research but I think I could have him try heading somewhere more important than Lethevale when he gets... kind of stuck there. THAT'S EASY NO PROBLAO. I think the thing I'm having trouble with is the fact that like... okay, canonically his dad Yakone was formerly the Don of the Inuit Mafia and had some freaky-ass powers that the Avatar took from him that he tried to teach his kids to take revenge on the Avatar.

Like... I'm thinking that it wouldn't be too difficult to translate that into a real world setting? Maybe Yakone was some sort of incredibly powerful regional chief who'd moved south some and extorted the fuck out of other local tribes and settlers until an alliance between them fucked him up physically and sent him packing up north, where he settled down until he could start preparing his kids for Revengequest until things go to shit on that end. Then Tarrlok, who got a reasonably good education from a lot of his shitty dad's collected resources, heads down south so he can BE A NEW MAN IN QUEBEC CITYYYYYYYY.

But yeah that was kind of disjointed, but I think it might be workable. I DON'T KNOW. ANYONE KNOW CANADIAN HISTORY REAL WELL.

[imozon]

SO THIS LITTLE WEIRDO I'M CONSIDERING is going to need some AU TLC. Her name is Dark Dream and she is a magical girl's evil twin who existed for a grand total of maybe two days from when she popped into existence to when she heroically sacrificed herself to save her original who she was supposed to kill.

So yeah in order to exist in Lethevale's setting she kind of needs an entirely new history. WOW I SURE CAN PICK 'EM

[bloodisthicker]

...I mean I'm guessing real fucked up noble family politics might work because that seems like the weird bullshit European nobles get up to in gothic horrors like this.

[affluenza]

Dandy here is going to be a very wealthy Southern-American looking to start up a new life in a new place. His official reasons are going to be that he found running a business rather dull and would prefer to take his money and invest it in other budding success stories, but his real reasons are that both he and his (now deceased) father committed a string of unsolved murders and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep his family name clean.

Of course, his true passion is for theater, so he'll likely be trying to set something up for himself and his fellow performing artists.

[theguiltiestguy]

HELLO YES I WILL JOIN THE ACTING TROUPE

My character is an overdramatic piece of shit in canon so I'm gonna make him a theatre performer in this one, I would be SO DOWN for an actor clique happening :D

[unabatedly]

womp womp Dragon Age Warden but I actually have some ideas to adapt from that universe.

Neria is from Western Europe, adopted daughter of an older professor who had a thing for science, medicine, and the occult. It's a very private sort of hobby and nothing prolific or interesting ever happened, though, sorry to say. Instead, Neria had a good education and was originally in university.

The Warden part is iffy, as I'd like to preserve some kind of fighting history, even if it's not extensive. It would also give a reason for coming to town (separated from the group, the group's been mysteriously killed/picked off in the mountains, or simply coming here separate while she waits for them to join her or send word), but I don't know how it could translate without being some kind of spy/military organization with belief in the supernatural, which isn't common. Hunters, maybe? I'm not sure.

I'd love some ideas!

[teratias]

You could perhaps tie being in the area to research in Spiritualism? It was very popular in the 19th century (wiki summary), and then there's a lot of smaller groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn that grew out of that.

[sparetime]

My immediate thought for how to handle Frisk is to just take their implied backstory and turn them into the standard "slightly-eerie suspected-as-haunted gothic novel orphan". I was considering having them sent to live here with an NPC distant relative, or perhaps a foundling raised in one of the churches? If anyone's in the market for a long-lost cousin or something, I'd be down! (edit: By foundling I don't mean they were abandoned in Lethevale as a baby, just that they wandered into town and were taken in by a church when no other family was available, or something.)

The other character I'm considering is the Doll from Bloodborne, who comes to the town to work as hired help. Anyone here have a character in need of a housekeeper or nanny?

[overshadowedingly]

I'm canonblind, but if you want to have the Doll be a nanny, the family in the mansion have a young child? I mean, if there aren't any PCs wanting hired help. :p

Faramir | LotR

[overshadowedingly]

I'm planning on bringing Faramir in as a clerk/researcher, in Lethevale to do some kind of study (historical? geographical? anthropological? Still figuring that out).

Backstory-wise, he was born the second son of a lord, which he just barely remembers. His mother died when he was very young and his father, not wanting to be reminded of her death every time he looked at the child whose birth had brought on her fatal weakness, sent Faramir to an orphanage. Because this was so long ago (Faramir was 3 or 4 at the time), Faramir doesn't remember the details of this: he only knows he had a brother and a father, and that he was sent to the orphanage because he did something terrible and his mother died. Oddly enough, he has some... issues about that.

At the orphanage, he worked very hard to educate himself and the other children, and when he left at the age of 15, he found work as a clerk. He went on studying, saved all his money, and eventually, at the age of about 30, was employed by an academic (...Beregond?) who sponsored him through university. He's moved from being the academic's clerk to his friend and research assistant, and has spent the last six years travelling doing research, with or without his employer.

I haven't got the details thrashed out yet, or decided which journal to use, but that's the gist.

[maipokerface]

My initial idea is to say Mai is the daughter of a new money politician who to increase his family's standing and his political reach wanted her to marry the son of an old money and politically influential family.

And yeah, Mai isn't having that. After refusing both her mother and her father's pleas, she's been sent off to Lethevale until she decides to "behave herself better" (i.e. agree to this plan quietly). Now she's looking for a way away from her family for good and possibly a deeper purpose in life.

I'm also interested in perhaps bringing in an OC who would be either a maid or a governess with a love for studying and the hope to go to a university/further school some day. She's not that great with confrontation, likely a bit of a scaredy cat with a good ability for reading people. I'm still playing around with ideas for her but I would love to play someone who was a governess or academic in some way.

[warrior_princess]

...okay it's easy to come up with a Plourr backstory, but what she'd do is harder. She's a Star Wars character best described as "what if Princess Anastasia became a space marine and also was Aragorn". That covers everything except having to murder her brother and the optimism of her part of the setting.

Basically... these four pages still hold, except her family was royalty to some country or other instead of a planet and her brother may have been her twin because that's dramatic as fuck. Like in the comic this was a coup and her brother collaborated, unlike in the comic there were no thuvasaurs.

Then like canon she's wandered and grown up hard and arrogant, but more aimless. She may or may not have allies called the Rogues, but her propensities for bars have become the ability to work as a bartender. Lethevale's old bartender's had a funny turn and needed someone to help fill in on days he's not up to NPCing.

Like canon, specters of her brother are certainly a possibility. I like the idea that wherever Eiattu is there are superstitions of Shadow People who are sadistic and disloyal, and can become or possess regular people to go be cruel. She could've believed in them as a kid and feared Harran was one. He's dead, of course, but something might remain.

Maybe I should come up with a new name. Plourr Illo, or Isplourrdacartha Estillo, is not a normal name.

I have too many crazy ideas. Send help.

[hadthenerve]

I have it narrowed down to five different ideas, but I'm not really sure which one to go with. And they all need more fleshing out. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas, they will be so much appreciated.

Caramia | Ozmafia!!

Okay, so this one is a little weird. Caramia is from an otome game where a bunch of fairy tale and storybook characters inhabit this town that is essentially run by rival mafia families. He's the boss of the Oz family and is actually the cowardly lion from that story. This is post wizard visit so he, like the scarecrow and tinman, has received an item that represents the gift he got from the wizard. The traits they got from these gifts are literally represented in these items. In an 'if it's lost he will also lose the gift' kind of way. I swear I am not making this up.

But he wouldn't have the item in this game. And I already asked the mods, so I know he would be able to regain it eventually. What this means is that he'd be starting off a coward. And I mean, really a coward. The guy is afraid of everything. But at some point, he'd regain his courage. And suddenly be brave to the point of recklessness. Frankly, I think all this sounds like so much fun. But I really have no idea what job to give him. Or why someone afraid of his own shadow would come to spookyland central. Advice and ideas are appreciated.

Cherche | Fire Emblem Awakening

A young widow who is moving in with her sibling/cousin/etc. to help run the family business. A very prim and proper lady who is about to find out she's a lot tougher than she looks. Open to plotting for friends, relations, etc.

Victor Frankenstein | Code Realize

An alchemist in canon, he was working of the British government and invented something very dangerous. He packed up his toys and left when they tried to use his invention as a weapon. So they framed him for a crime he didn't commit and put a price on his head., I'm thinking of making him a doctor here. Not sure how much of his backstory I could work into this though. Open to suggestions.

Fon Master Ion | Tales of the Abyss

A sickly child who grew up in an orphanage. A recent fire forced the facility to close, and all the children had to be sent to other orphanages. He drew the short straw and ended up here.

Isaac Morton | Devils and Realist

Coming to work in a relative's tea shop to learn something about the family business. Isaac is a huuuge fanboy for anything supernatural and is going to love this town. He will have a million incorrect theories about what's really going on.

Mabel Pines | Gravity Falls

[relativelypureheart]

Hiya! I'm not totally sure I'll app just yet, since my life will be pretty busy until January, but I'm going to throw around ideas to consider anyway. Any help is appreciated!

Mabel is twelve years old and canonically has a very close relationship with her family, her twin brother especially. To preserve those two things, the only reasonable way for her to come to Lethevale without her family (while leaving room for them to possibly show up later) would be if she were traveling with them and she got separated.

Where they were traveling from is a question. The family is implied to be non-observant Jews in canon, so I'd like to run with that in the AU (though Mabel would probably be slightly more observant in this time period). Her family could be made up of traveling merchants, though historically it would have been a poor idea to bring one's entire family and no one else on the dangerous journeys required, especially since Jews were so disadvantaged in many international markets. Luckily, we don't need to be historically accurate and I can fudge it if I really want to, but if anyone has ideas to help me keep the fudging to a minimum, I'm all ears.

A darker idea is that could be traveling from Russia due to the pogroms, and while roughhousing with her brother on the trail, she got separated and lost from her group heading Westward.

If I ran with that, I'd keep the antisemitism inherent in her history on the back burner unless I knew whoever I was threading with was comfortable with it (since I am Jewish myself and I understand potential discomfort), and Mabel would likely avoid revealing that she's Jewish unless she thought it wouldn't be a big deal. To be honest, she'd probably do the latter no matter what I picked, since I don't want to brush off the antisemitism of the time completely and it's not something she has to announce to everyone anyway.