Some characters come out of nowhere. They don’t always fit in the project you’re working on, and try as you might, making them fit just doesn’t work.
It was that way for Roi. Inspired by a painting by Brom, the name of which escapes me, it features a serious bad-ass woman in striped pants, open leather jacket with no shirt beneath. She was bald, with a scar down her face, a variety of blades in her possession. I’ve always loved that piece, and modeled a character on her years ago. She’s shown up in a variety of RPG’s that I’ve run, everything from fantasy to sci-fi. And over the years, she’s changed a bit, though she’s always been a bit of a bad-ass. And while I’ve tried creating a story for her, she has stubbornly refused to fit.
I found a home for her in the story I just finished my second pass on last night. At it’s heart a noir piece set on a space station, it was written for an anthology and will be submitted in the next few days. I just want to polish it up a bit first.
But it’s strange that this was the story for Roi. For one, she wasn’t the main character. Two, while she had a toughness, it was her humanity that shone through. That sounds weird, considering that she was a Delilah model “Courtesan” bot that had been damaged. But I realized on some level that every story I’ve tried telling with her had Roi as the main character, already established on her path. By telling an origin story of sorts, I was able to find a home for an orphaned character.
Whether the story gets selected or not, I’m just happy I finally got her down on paper.
Tales from the Ragged Edge 