Good background, Shayuri. I like how you expanded upon the things I'd only alluded to, very nice.
My only concern is that if Taylor's 18 now, wouldn't that make her 13 when she was first called? I know the slayers get called young, but that seems VERY young to me.. I seem to recall the potentials being around 15.
Good background, Shayuri. I like how you expanded upon the things I'd only alluded to, very nice.
My only concern is that if Taylor's 18 now, wouldn't that make her 13 when she was first called? I know the slayers get called young, but that seems VERY young to me.. I seem to recall the potentials being around 15.
Yeah, if she was called as a high school sophomore (i.e. 14 or 15 unless she skipped a grade somewhere) during season 7 of Buffy (which was in 2003), she's 20 or 21 now (Buffy was Sunnydale High class of 1999 in season 3, and her tombstone showed a birth year of 1981).
The only other thing is for plot purposes I'm going to say that Faith and Robin Wood were 'officially' assigned to watch the Hellmouth in Cleveland, and they're the ones who discovred Taylor and James. Other than that, it looks good.
Sandusky, Ohio (about an hour west of Cleveland)
July, 2005 (a little over two years after the battle at the Hellmouth in Sunnydale)
The sun had set long ago, but the Cedar Point amusement park was open late in the summer. Rides ran, vendors called out for games, and even the giant ferris wheel still spun. And a tall, athletic, fair-skinned woman in her mid twenties and an African-American man in his early thirties got off the park's most recent effort at the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world.
The woman was singing the coaster's praises to her companion when she suddenly stopped.
"Robin, we came out here for fun, right? I mean, the creepy crawlies have been awfully quiet for a town with a Hellmouth. You weren't planning to buy me some cotton candy and then tell me a few pale guys with messed up foreheads had taken up residence here?"
"No. I think I can safely say that there were no undead involved in my plans for the evening."
"Then why is there a girl beating up on a few vamps over there?"
"You did say she was beating up on the vampires, not the other way around?"
"Yeah, but even B can have trouble with 3 or 4 unless she's really mad." Faith said, Robin following behind her as they ran to the obscured area between attractions where Taylor and James were fighting four vampires. She picked up a vaguely stake-like wooden object from a souvenier shop as she was running through. "I'll pay for this in a few minutes, I swear." She told a clerk.
The young slayer and her watcher were holding their own, but the numbers were giving them a bit of trouble. Still, they were somewhat surprised when half of their opponents turned to dust, but reacted quickly, staking the remainder seconds later.
"You don't know what went down last spring, do you? You thought your girl was the one and only?" She said, when James had obviously put two and two together.
"I'm Faith. The vampire slayer." She said anyway.
"Robin Wood." He added. "Nikki Wood's son, if you're curious." Taylor didn't recognize the name, but James knew quite well who had been the slayer in the late 1970s. "And unless I miss my guess, you're James Caine. The list of watchers that are unaccounted for is pretty short. You were last seen in England, in the company of a young woman, presumably a potential slayer. We thought the bringers had caught up to you, but no one ever found your bodies, so you were on the watch list."
Cool deal! I also added some flavor text and a description of Taylor's demonforged goody. The italic quotey lines, except for the gauntlet's, are actual lines from the show. Found a site that has episode transcripts.
Would it be possible to put the meeting with Robin & Faith in 2005? I was kinda picturing Taylor and James having been on their own for a couple years before finding out - Long enough to train, get used to each other, have some heavy adventures (a'la The demon gladiator pit), etc.
Also, If it's ok with you, drothgery, I'm planning on leaving James' 'before' background (before the harbingers), pretty vague/blank at this point, so we can insert interesting tidbits through the game/series (I figure the 'mysterious past' thing worked pretty well for the other two watchers.)
Reprinted from Drothgery's post on previous page:
proposals with backgrounds and stats
Jemal - James Caine, Watcher (swordsman/mage)
Shalimar - Gale Tuuli, half-demon (slyph; can fly, fast, acrobatic)
jkason - Gavin Peterson, half-demon (pain-eater, can heal, inflict pain/nausea/stun)
Shayuri - Taylor Marsh, vampire slayer
Walking Dad - lucky/unscious probability controller/regular guy
hero4hire -a fully intelligent, preserved but dead approach. (like the Crow?)
Vertexx69 - shapeshifer with a measure of control idea (like Oz)
**
OH, One More Thing: I'm wondering if we should all be working on connecting our backgrounds (IE 'how did X meet Y and why are they working together now), or are we planning on having the characters meet IC/On screen?
Would it be possible to put the meeting with Robin & Faith in 2005? I was kinda picturing Taylor and James having been on their own for a couple years before finding out - Long enough to train, get used to each other, have some heavy adventures (a'la The demon gladiator pit), etc.
Sure. Though if I do that, by the time Faith & Robin meet up with you, you've probably had enough 'near misses' that both James & Taylor and Faith & Robin are suspecting another player in the area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jemal
Also, If it's ok with you, drothgery, I'm planning on leaving James' 'before' background (before the harbingers), pretty vague/blank at this point, so we can insert interesting tidbits through the game/series (I figure the 'mysterious past' thing worked pretty well for the other two watchers.)
Sure. Though if I do that, by the time Faith & Robin meet up with you, you've probably had enough 'near misses' that both James & Taylor and Faith & Robin are suspecting another player in the area.
Yeah, that was kinda the impression I was on too, and was what i thought of when I read Faith's quote of 'I mean, the creepy crawlies have been awfully quiet for a town with a Hellmouth.'
Yeah, that was kinda the impression I was on too, and was what i thought of when I read Faith's quote of 'I mean, the creepy crawlies have been awfully quiet for a town with a Hellmouth.'
I guess my original thought was in summer of 2004, Faith's been in Cleveland for about 9 months; in summer of 2005, she's been there a year and nine months. It's a difference between having a vague suspicion something's up, and being darn near certain there's another player in town.
OH, One More Thing: I'm wondering if we should all be working on connecting our backgrounds (IE 'how did X meet Y and why are they working together now), or are we planning on having the characters meet IC/On screen?
Were the characters suppoused to be knowledgeable about each other, and have been sent to San Diego together, or is that really only for the Slayer and Watcher? I ask because Gale's backstory and personality make her unlikely to be part of such an organization, she is merely helping out of boredom at first, and doesn't even believe that the others know she is there.
Were the characters suppoused to be knowledgeable about each other, and have been sent to San Diego together, or is that really only for the Slayer and Watcher? I ask because Gale's backstory and personality make her unlikely to be part of such an organization, she is merely helping out of boredom at first, and doesn't even believe that the others know she is there.
It's entirely up to you. None of the other potential PCs proposed would have been sent by the Watcher's Council; if they've met and/or befriended Taylor and/or James and/or each other, it was on their own.
At this point, Taylor's been in San Diego a while (it's up to Jemal and Shayuri to decide how long; at least a few months, it could be as long as three years, figuring a year or so on the run and at least two years in Cleveland, but it's probably a year or two). Taylor really wasn't 'sent' to San Diego so much as given a bunch of potential trouble spots that didn't have a slayer in residence and asked to pick one (there was a previous San Diego based slayer from late 2004 until a few months before Taylor showed up, but she left for one reason or another; mostly likely she went away for college or joined the military).
Shayuri/Jemal
Taylor and James may have spent some time in Cleveland after meeting Robin and Faith, working with Faith on Slayer 101 and with Robin on getting Taylor's non-Slayer life back in order -- i.e. finishing high school and getting her transcript into a shape that at least with a little prodding from the Council, some college somewhere will take her.
Walking Dad - lucky/unscious probability controller/regular guy
hero4hire -a fully intelligent, preserved but dead approach. (like the Crow?)
Vertexx69 - shapeshifer with a measure of control idea (like Oz)
**
I was under the impression that the revenant idea didn't quite fit with what Drothgery had envisioned.
It's entirely up to you. None of the other potential PCs proposed would have been sent by the Watcher's Council; if they've met and/or befriended Taylor and/or James and/or each other, it was on their own.
I think Gavin could be pretty easily worked in, background-wise, given his job / abilities and the tendency for folks in the demon-fighting business to get banged up but not wanting to maybe seek normal medical attention.
Actually, I could see a rather interesting first meeting between Taylor, James, and Gavin given Taylor's demon-senses and relative greenness. Suppose James wound up really torn up after a fight (nearly incoherent, say), and Gavin, 'smelling pain' went to see if he could help?
Taylor can tell he's demon-y, misunderstandings occur, etc (though eventually James would put a stop to things once Gavin had him at least partially healed. Heck, maybe healing James was necessary to keep Gavin on his feet).
After that, Gavin starts acting as an (initially unwilling) medic for them: they keep his secret, he keeps theirs, as it were, until Gavin's own desire to make up for his heritage (and his realization that The Slayer is making a difference) get the better of him and he signs on.
Got inspired. I didn't give Taylor much to say 'cause I didn't want to steamroller over characterization Shayuri might be working on:
When Gavin met Taylor
As Gavin parked his motorcycle, the scent of pain was unmistakable. Okay, it wasn't really smelling, but Gavin found that to be the closest human sense he could relate it to. In any case, whoever was giving off this much pain was probably on his last legs.
"You're off-duty," Gavin insisted. "Anybody getting himself torn up in a garbage-filled alley is not someone you want to know."
Despite what Gavin thought was a well-reasoned argument, he nonetheless found himself grabbing a first aid kit from the bike and turning toward the alley the 'scent' was coming from. The source was obvious on sight: a young woman was kneeling beside a man broken and cut and bruised to within an inch of his life. Instinct and training took over.
"I'm an EMT," Gavin said as he knelt on the other side of the man. "What happened here?" Preternatural senses pointed him to the parts that hurt most, but it was his real-world experience that told him the searing chest pain was a broken rib pushing on a lung, that the gash in his leg had by sheer luck avoided the femoral artery.
He was busy grabbing gauze out of his kit, so he didn't see her boot coming until it hit him in the chest, the kick throwing him up against a wall.
"How stupid do you think I am?" the woman said.
"Well, your friend's bleeding out and you just assaulted an EMT," Gavin said, forcing himself back to his feet. "I'm guessing: not a MENSA candidate."
"You look human, but I know you're a demon, so you can stop pretending."
"Oh, crap ... Look, I don't know how you ... seriously, I promise it was just a fling my dad had, and I'm completely harmless -- beneficial, even. If you let me see your friend, I can--"
He barely dodged the girl's flying kick.
"Are we sure I'm the only who's not human here?"
"I'm a Slayer," she replied. "As in 'slays demons.' Like you. You're not eating my Watcher."
"If you don't let me near him, the worms will be, though. Seriously, his pain's fading, and since I haven't treated him, that means it's because he's fading." It was clear, however, that talking wasn't going to get Gavin anywhere.
"Double crap," Gavin muttered. He held his ground this time, and as the fist connected with his chin, Gavin used the contact to send a wave of nausea through this 'Slayer.'
He knew it wouldn't buy him much time, but while the Slayer reeled for a moment and tried to keep her lunch down, Gavin dove for her companion, grabbing his ankle. The rush was instant and intense as Gavin's nerves sang from the feast of pain. When he let go, the leg wound had sealed itself, and he could tell the man's rib was knit back together.
No time to savor anything, though, because the girl was back, and had him pinned against a wall, stake poised to skewer Gavin.
"Taylor?"
She and Gavin both looked to see the man struggling to his feet.
"See?" Gavin said. "Beneficial! I made him better! No need for Filet Gavin, right?"
"Taylor, what's going on?"
Taylor released her grip on Gavin, though the stake remained at the ready.
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