New Characters Say Hello

[Adelene]

...I find myself curious about what happens if we introduce a Lurker to a Sadde.

I don't know who or what a Lurker is!

Lurker is a kobold! (Usually. She also comes in sentient robot under some circumstances, and maybe other species too, but not human without something really weird going on.) There's a couple different places where her stuff and Sadde's stuff intersects interestingly; the most obvious one is that she comes from a culture where cis-by-default isn't a thing; people are agender-by-default instead. So, having a gender is weird, putting it on display like humans do is really weird (but she's polite about it), and changing gender in a visible way is liable to break her brain a little bit if she knows enough to figure out what's going on.

She also comes from a society where ownership isn't a thing, and is liable to have Opinions about Sadde's financial situation.

Kobold instances of Lurker tend to be too shy to talk to strangers unless they have magic that'll let them escape the situation easily - robot instances don't so far; this is a cultural thing rather than a template thing - so even if we stick them in Milliways it'd probably be an instance who has shareable portal magic - I suspect she's not going to be willing to teach it to Sadde, but there's a way of sharing it that requires less trust on Lurker's part (though more on Sadde's) that Sadde could usefully geek about if they're inclined.

Also depending on what's going on in Sadde's life at the time she might be inclined to go deal with it - a portalbold instance of Lurker can get home on her own without having to wait for a Milliways door (and can let Sadde do the same thing, once she's visited their world), so there's very little in the way of her doing that if she wants to.

Also also, the default sort of lurkerbold is a doglike kobold, not a dragonlike one, so she's both small and cuddly. ^^

[pedromvilar]

Lurker is a kobold! (Usually. She also comes in sentient robot under some circumstances, and maybe other species too, but not human without something really weird going on.) There's a couple different places where her stuff and Sadde's stuff intersects interestingly; the most obvious one is that she comes from a culture where cis-by-default isn't a thing; people are agender-by-default instead. So, having a gender is weird, putting it on display like humans do is really weird (but she's polite about it), and changing gender in a visible way is liable to break her brain a little bit if she knows enough to figure out what's going on.

She also comes from a society where ownership isn't a thing, and is liable to have Opinions about Sadde's financial situation.

Kobold instances of Lurker tend to be too shy to talk to strangers unless they have magic that'll let them escape the situation easily - robot instances don't so far; this is a cultural thing rather than a template thing - so even if we stick them in Milliways it'd probably be an instance who has shareable portal magic - I suspect she's not going to be willing to teach it to Sadde, but there's a way of sharing it that requires less trust on Lurker's part (though more on Sadde's) that Sadde could usefully geek about if they're inclined.

Also depending on what's going on in Sadde's life at the time she might be inclined to go deal with it - a portalbold instance of Lurker can get home on her own without having to wait for a Milliways door (and can let Sadde do the same thing, once she's visited their world), so there's very little in the way of her doing that if she wants to.

Also also, the default sort of lurkerbold is a doglike kobold, not a dragonlike one, so she's both small and cuddly. ^^

Colour me interested!

And now that I think of Sadde in Milliways, they'd geek out so hard at all the people!!!!!!! and magic!!!!!!! and universes!!!!!!

[Adelene]

Hee.

I think this goes slightly better if Sadde is in Milliways first, if you want to start a thread. ^^

[DanielH]

Lurker is a kobold from a wold based on Dwarf Fortress (at least usually; I don’t remember if there are any not of that same mold). They gather interesting abilities (ranging from the ability to speak—most kobolds don’t use language—to various magics) and try to get society to work better; kobolds are often not recognized as people by the other species of their home world.

[Adelene]

That's a pretty good summary, yeah. (There is a sentient magical robot instance under construction for the play by post RPG thread, though.)

Further template attractors that haven't been mentioned: Her brand of trying to get society to work better is a long-haul one, generally involving putting herself in a situation with a high baseline risk of her being killed if she messes up the wrong way and where she has to rely on nonmagical social skills for safety. Also species is important to her, pretty reliably to the point of mild-to-moderate speciesism, though by default the kobold instances have never met a human before and have no reason to react any particular way to them. (Elves are the biggest deal, for those - the closest we get to a Lurkerbold talking to an elf outside of special circumstances is 'lurking unobtrusively nearby, ready to spring into action if the elf attacks someone'.) And, she comes with a pretty significant albeit very well handled case of PTSD - her species's situation isn't nice, and she's observed and/or ended up on the painful side of that more than a few times.

[AndaisQ]

Leo's Mom's Thing was that she was poorly written. I decline to put in the effort to defend the actions of characters from like the third thread I ever did concerning a universe half of the rules of which I had forgotten.

[DanielH]

Yeah, I forgot about Lurker’s speciesism. I don’t notice it most of the time, but when I do it seems pretty big. Like in the one thread with the wish pools, her reaction to her vision. I can’t find that thread now so I can’t be much more specific.

EDIT: Found the thread; it was missing the Author: Rockeye tag. And the reaction was much less speciesist than I remembered.

[Adelene]

The thread in question.

Yeah, speciesism is kind of overstating it, except with the elves? It's not a superiority thing or anything; it's that she sees species divisions as particularly relevant, so if someone treats her well or poorly she's likely to take that as a reflection of the whole group. Even then, she can wrap her mind around a lot of complexity - the situation with the tigerfolk is a good example, she has basically no problem with the idea that various tribes are going to have a range of reactions to her based on their specific leadership and situation, or that that thing where they were hunting kobolds for food was because of a famine rather than them being evil or something, it's just that when she's thinking about that she's considering tigerfolk as a distinct and cohesive entity and assuming that what she learns about a given individual or tribe holds basically true for all of them.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

That world/character never 'woke up' by the way so don't be proposing threads there.

[MaggieoftheOwls]

Which world never woke up...?