In chess, the postmortem is a discussion and analysis of a completed game. When playing face to face with a friend, I like to discuss what the good and bad moves were and how the game might have gone differently. Since the game is over, there are no secrets to hide, so players may reveal what they were planning and why.
Now it's been over 20 days since I deleted my Cantr account. (I've even been too busy to get back to the forums.) So anyway, here's the rundown on the three active characters I left behind:
Billy Budd of the Nosse, in Drojf, age 54.
It was a poignant moment for me to see the notice in my email that Billy Budd had died. As one of my earliest characters, he had a long history and some tight friends in the Nosse clan. I'd say the theme of his life was that of family and death. When he was a newspawn in Drojf, I had in mind that he would want to find his origin, that is, is "parents" or family. As a matter of great coincidence, the Nosse clan was based in Drojf and used the terms "mother", "father", "brother", "sister", to structure the clan as a family. Joining was the natural thing for him to do, and he quickly grew to love his "brothers" and "sisters". After witnessing the death of other characters, he was struck early by the preciousness and meaning of life. Each death of a clan member struck him hard, and sadly, the Nosse saw many members die (of natural causes). The last few years of his life were quite enjoyable for me to play, and I was trying to meld together his ideas about the afterlife into something, but I wasn't sure where it was leading. If he had lived longer, he might have started preaching some extravagant theory about the meaning and purpose of the "sleeping sickness" and heart attacks, asserting that those who die in such a way go on to live a blissful afterlife. This would have been a reflection of my own feeling that players can spend their time better than playing Cantr.
Leora Svensone, "Alexilad", age 24
She was my experiment in playing a character without using any emotes (*no astrickal actions*). Since emotes can be an important method of expression for characters, I chose to adopt instead a couple peculiar idiosyncrasies for her. To make up for the lack of facial expression and mood-conveying body language, I simply had her verbalize all her moods and feelings. The effect was that she was very honest and forthright with her feelings and intentions, wearing her heart on her sleeve. She was constantly stating her likes, dislikes, admiration or disgust. This seemed to me to lend itself to a style of speaking that was analytic. I imagined her as rather like a straight-faced Vulcan from Star Trek, but who nevertheless stated what she was passionate about. She also had the idiosyncrasy of stating the name of the person she was addressing at the beginning of every little speech. This was to compensate for the emote of, "*turns to Bob*" before saying something relevant to Bob. Writing her words came very easily to me, and I never felt hindered by my rule of not using emotes. If some other player had pushed the matter, by asking her to dance, for instance, I might have allowed a simple, "*dances*", but nothing like that came up. I think the experiment was a success, but perhaps feedback from other players in the region will tell a different story.
Simeon Golestan, Puk Southern Mountains to Mulof South regions, age 23ish.
This character was inspired after I read Notes From the Underground by Dostoevsky. But I also had plans for him to become a prophet and try to develop an ingame religion by which I would use as a kind of metagaming tool to further my ideals about how Cantr should be played. He started out as a terrible cynic (after the Underground narrator) but gradually evolved during the first year of his life into a more gentle spirit. I had sketched an outline for the development of his character, his revelations and such, and made some progress in working it out in character. Unfortunately, my interest in playing Simeon tapered. He was a deep character, perhaps a little too deep for the purposes of Cantr. I think that developing a deep character requires other characters to reflect that depth, and there were only 2 such characters that knew him well enough for that. Anyway, he helped me further my ideas and experience with roleplaying in Cantr, which I appreciate.
These were my last three active characters, (one sleeper in the Seatown area), but there's one more character of mine I want to mention. My very first character was Jones Electrobyte, a philosopher type who came to settle in Siom. He died around 1100 or 1200 due to my neglect when I took a break from the game for an extended period (but you might also say it was the neglect of the Siom citizenry by failing to keep their elders fed). He left behind some of his philosophical writings, and I was just curious if any curious characters with curious players happened to take an interest in them. I think Zady knew him best, but there was also a young man named Sylvan who dialogued with him philosophically for a while.
So, if you knew any of these four characters, please let's discuss them. I'm especially interested in hearing how Leora Svensone was perceived and how the Nosse and people of Drojf are fairing.
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