Bandit pattern
Parisa loses everything when the bandits leave town. Everyone in the mansion is dead. She has no home. And her town peers are either dead or too busy trying to get their family back together that they have no time for her, let alone offer her shelter. At this point, she is about fifteen years old, so she is not yet an adult, but is old enough to take care of herself. After scavenging in the ruins of the town for food and the ruins of the mansion for any other necessities, she leaves town to go after the bandits. At first, she doesn’t know where to go, but she follows rumors and the gossip of other towns. Eventually, she is able to figure out which towns have been raided over the past couple of years (possibly having visited a few of these as well). Based on a map that she acquires in her travels, she finds that the most recent attacks that have been carried out radiate from a focal point that appears to be an isolated farmhouse. Before that, the attacks radiated from a small forest. So it appears that for a time, the bandits pick a base of operations that makes it difficult to find them and attack nearby towns before moving on. Since it has taken her awhile to figure out the pattern, a few more towns have been sacked. So, adding this to what she knows so far, she has a couple fairly intelligent guesses where their new base of operations is, as well as possible towns that will be attacked in the future.
Parisa, knowing that she cannot take on a whole bandit camp by herself, opts to go to the likeliest town to be attacked next and warn the town leaders. Here, she will meet Mareike, who has also been tracking the bandits down, but has not been approaching the problem in the same manner as Parisa, and so has just been going to the nearest towns of the previous attacks. TBC
Parisa’s history and meeting with Mareike
Parisa lives with her mother at a noble’s house. The head servant of the house, her mother is a stern, but wise and loving woman. Since she is expected to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she has never bothered to go any farther than the town boundaries on the occasions when she errands to run outside of the mansion. She doesn’t know much of her dad, nor does her mother speak much about him, if at all. Growing up, she did not have many children her age in the mansion, but in town, she found some peers. When she has the opportunity, she goes into town to meet up with these kids. Though she has not attended school, her mother has taught her to read and she expanded her education herself by reading more books found in the house’s library.
When she is thirteen (about the time the story starts), bandits attack the town, zeroing in on the mansion as their main attack, since the mansion is the town’s center of opulence. The bandits kill everyone, including women and children. Just as Parisa is about to get killed, a mysterious warrior (from her point of view) saves her, but before she has time to react, she is gone. Parisa stumbles out of the castle, which by now is on fire and smoky. Once she gets out of the mansion and into town, the town is in chaos and Mareike is gone. There are some dead bodies, a few of which are of the bandits themselves. Later, she finds out that this group of bandits have been raiding town after town and that Mareike, the mysterious woman has been following them. TBC.
Mareike
Mareike will be a character that conflicts with Parisa’s personality. Mareike is a warrior whose past is full of violence. She had loving parents and a sister she adored, but she lost them all at a young age, and has had to fend for herself ever since. She is very independent and is often only looking out for her own interests. She can be uncompromising, and often categorizes anyone she meets as ally or enemy. She hardly ever considers anyone a “friend.”
If Mareike and Parisa were to meet, Mareike would find Parisa contemptible and weak. To her, Parisa may be deadweight, or someone who may get her killed. If she were in a situation in which she were stuck with Parisa, she would try to take advantage of every opportunity to get rid of her. However, as she spends more time with Parisa, she finds that Parisa reminds her a lot of her sister, which she tries to hide, possibly by acting even more like Parisa is beneath her contempt. Parisa, on the other hand, finds that Mareike a fascinating and worldly stranger, since Parisa has only seen a very narrow view of the world and Mareike has traveled quite a bit in her lifetime. However, Mareike is not exactly the picture of cleanliness, having probably often just slept on the floor most nights, and thus having no need for hygiene beyond the occasional bath. So, Parisa, having lived with (and cleaned after) nobility since she was young, finds Mareike’s habits to be a bit distasteful, though she won’t say it out loud. In dangerous situations, Parisa would probably be quite useless, but in situations requiring tact, Parisa would probably have some experience in diffusing the situation… perhaps because she has seen diplomats and politicians at work before.
Goal for tomorrow: Come up with a history for Parisa and/or a situation in which Mareike and Parisa meet.
Parisa
Today, I will be using David Freeman’s technique of “NPC Interesting Techniques” to try and create a character. This is actually just a really rough brainstorm at this point.
Let us start with Parisa, a maid (or something):
1. Sympathetic: Even in her low station, she looks beyond herself and emotionally attaches herself to others. This may be of help or be detrimental to her.
2. Weak: Her life has not given her an opportunity to develop physically or mentally. In particular, her station in life has taught her that being meek is the best way to go.
3. Valiant: Still, it seems apparent that she has an inner strength that she hides. Perhaps she needs something to jar her out of her complacency.
4. Meticulous: She needs things to be kept clean, almost to the point of obsessiveness.
Tomorrow, I’ll either give her a back story or another character for her to interact with. Hopefully, that will help develop/deepen my ideas about her.
