Character Biography

[AliciaStorm]

@Admiralgamer

Yes they are, Bella isn’t really a fighter and is only 14, she helps Erik in any way she can and is good at causing distractions for Erik. Erik is the fighter charging in against all odds defending his country.

It is not (At least i think), I came up with it myself, its location would be in the island above himfall but unfortunately it was nearby a military battle with machines and is a pile of rubble due to a tank smashing the farmhouse and barns. Erik and Bella want to find a way to see if their home is ok but in the freezing cold months of winter and machines very good hearing they don’t want to risk taking a boat.

I think you should wait until we get a DLC with remains of the military and that is where she should find him.

Makes a lot of sense, yeah! I like the synergy/cooperation between Erik and Bella. Alicia’s a great fighter and survivor that has so far managed everything alone despite being only 16, but that’s mostly because of her military parents and the training they put her through. If she didn’t have any training there’s no way she’d survive by herself, no matter her ancestry.

I admit that Erik and Bella and the way they survive is much more realistic than Alicia! I could have done something similar for Alicia and her brother, but when I’m playing in-game I want to feel immersed in my character, the environment and what’s happening around my character and I can’t play two characters at the same time, so it felt more fitting that Alicia and her family were separated.

As for character home, that’s a pretty good idea! Personally I want an actual location in-game, a place Alicia calls home. Though she would have prepared a few camps with supplies in various locations around Östertörn so she has places to go if she needs to rest and resupply.

And yes, you’re right! I have yet to finish the base game and Alicia is still before the events of Alpine Unrest in the timeline of the game. So waiting until I finish the DLCs and until a military DLC would be better!

[AliciaStorm]

@Admiralgamer

Maybe we could make a massive story so eventually all these characters meet up?

Perhaps eventually, yes!

[Rubricmarine]

That would be a ton of fun!

[AliasDJA]

The rain at Maaskar has ended, the sky is black but the tower still burns. I thought I heard voices, the hat I couldn’t miss it. How can it be?

[AliciaStorm]

Got a question. I found Villa Skogsberget in the Forest Region; a homestead on the map, it’s a very nice house at a scenic location. It also doesn’t seem to have any in-game story associated with it; no quests, no notes or recordings from NPCs, not even any collectables. Now, I would like it to be the house where Alicia and her family lived before the machine invasion. Since it’s basically a blank slate, would that be acceptable?

[Zesiir]

As someone who’s roleplayed way too much throughout the years in MMO’s, my advice would be to make up your own location, rather than choosing a canonical one that already exists. We don’t know what’ll happen to existing locations or how they’ll change as the game develops.

That being said, you could choose an existing location, and simply call it something else. In my story
A Rude Awakening, Karl’s kids went to school in Östervik. I don’t even know if the town has a school, but it sounds plausible. Himself, he lived somewhere with his wife in the South Coast region, probably one of the smaller towns.

[Admiralgamer]

Himself, he lived somewhere with his wife in the South Coast region, probably one of the smaller towns.

But now the south coast got a revamp @AliciaStorm so there is a chance @Zesiir’s place was changed, so do what Xezr said and make one up!

[Zesiir]

Yeah, it’s highly likely his house is a pile of burning rubble right about now

Though at the time A Rude Awakening takes place, FNIX Rising hasn’t happened yet.

[NJR87]

So true, and a good advice. I had to be careful not to fall into that trap in my own story as well. Especially when considering things like the changes to the farmlands, which probably took place before the player landed at Yttervik, and more changes like that will probably be added in the future. I also tried to expand the story to an island that’s not even opened up in the game yet, but soon found myself in deep water. Chapter 2 and 3 is just done, btw. If anyone wants to read.

[Admiralgamer]

Maybe we could make a massive story so eventually all these characters meet up?

Perhaps eventually, yes!

@AliciaStorm I think we need a plan if we are going to do a big story. (Also a new topic) I think it would be best for us all to do chapters separately and then let others edit, if you want in to help make a massive story @ me here
List of people who are doing the big story so far:
@Admiralgamer

[AliciaStorm]

@Zesiir

As someone who’s roleplayed way too much throughout the years in MMO’s, my advice would be to make up your own location, rather than choosing a canonical one that already exists. We don’t know what’ll happen to existing locations or how they’ll change as the game develops.

That being said, you could choose an existing location, and simply call it something else. In my story
A Rude Awakening, Karl’s kids went to school in Östervik. I don’t even know if the town has a school, but it sounds plausible. Himself, he lived somewhere with his wife in the South Coast region, probably one of the smaller towns.

I’ve roleplayed in MMO’s for almost a decade myself, but you really do have a point! In fact, there’s a house at another location by a lake I think I like way more than Villa Skogsberget (Villa Forest Mountain, if anyone was interested); Kungsgården (King’s Garden or King’s Farm).

I know that Kungsgården is part of the main quest, but I could choose that location and call it something else like you suggested! Say it’s by another lake somewhere else in the Forest Region.

[AliciaStorm]

Yeah, it’s highly likely his house is a pile of burning rubble right about now

Though at the time A Rude Awakening takes place, FNIX Rising hasn’t happened yet.

Yeah. I’m still in the base game, so at Alicia’s current point in the timeline, Alpine Unrest and FNIX Rising hasn’t happened yet. That said, I have explored and done the base main quests in the South Coast region already and only experienced the region during its current FNIXed status. But it’s certainly not a stretch for me to roleplay that the region was not FNIXed when Alicia was there.

Also! Are you planning to write a character profile for your own character? That’d be really cool!

So true, and a good advice. I had to be careful not to fall into that trap in my own story as well. Especially when considering things like the changes to the farmlands, which probably took place before the player landed at Yttervik, and more changes like that will probably be added in the future. I also tried to expand the story to an island that’s not even opened up in the game yet, but soon found myself in deep water. Chapter 2 and 3 is just done, btw. If anyone wants to read.

Yeah, whenever I start writing a character and story in a new game, there’s always the risk of falling into a trap. That’s part of why I started this thread in the first place, and why I asked about Villa Skogsberga.

And that brings me to another question, for everyone. I’ve imagined that it’s likely that due to the current state of affairs in Östertörn, there would be non-player character survivors who would help only themselves and essentially turn bandit, either out of sheer human desperation or because they’re just bad people that decides to take advantage of the chaos. I’ve imagined that Alicia would have had to fight and kill not just machines but also some of these bandits, either due to them attempting to rob and murder her, or because she witnessed them robbing and killing an innocent group of survivors, was too late to stop it, and made up her mind to hunt down the perpetrators. Yes, that’s rather specific, I’ve been thinking about it. But my question is, would that be feasible?

[Admiralgamer]

Added Erik and Bella’s current look.

[AliciaStorm]

Added Erik and Bella’s current look.

They look awesome! If I may ask, what jacket is it that Erik is wearing?

[Admiralgamer]

Erik is wearing Arctic Jacket beige

[Zesiir]

I’ve got a few characters I can add to the thread

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Name: Rolf ‘Roffe’ Andersson
Age: 21

Background:
Born on Östertörn, but left a few years after his mother died of cancer when he was young. He and his father moved to his father’s relatives in a small village in Norrland, the northernmost parts of Sweden. They’ve lived together ever since. Both Roffe and his father are greasers, and enjoy fixing up old cars in their spare time.

In October 1989, Roffe’s old friend Sven called and invited him to spend a week on Östertörn, perhaps do some fishing and hunting in the archipelago. A month later, Roffe borrowed his dad’s old orange Ville, and drove there. Sven’s family owned a small island, so they spent their time there along with a couple other old friends from school. Roffe awoke one night during a particularily fierce rainstorm, and could swore that he heard explosions, but he was assured by his friends that it was just thunder.

When they returned ashore after a few days, everything had changed.

---

Name: Eva Lindström
Age: 25

Background:
Born on Östertörn. Had a rough upbringing, and ended up falling in with the wrong crowd in school. When the mandatory military service came, she refused and got jailed for 8 months. Once she got out, she barely found any work but managed just barely to get along. She lived with foster parents when the Machines invaded, and even had a girlfriend called Lisa. When they were evacuated, she and Lisa got separated.

Eva managed to get away, and fled to an old hideout in the woods. Once the fighting started with the Machines, she tried to find Lisa, to no avail. Eva is currently part of the Resistance, and has seen plenty of action. She’s learned to handle a multitude of weapons, and found more purpose in life than she ever had before. She still searches for Lisa, but is slowly starting to accept that they may never meet again.

---

(Story character, not playable. Contains spoilers to A Rude Awakening.)

Name: Karl Björkman
Age: 42

Background:
Born in Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. Educated in computers and programming, and has a few diploma’s in mathematics. Karl signed up with the swedish military after his mandatory service, and made a career within their computers and science division. Though the armed forces he also met his future wife, Linda. Together they had two sons, named Benny and Adam.

After a promotion, Karl started to get involved with the Documentation and Analysis Department, where he designed and coded programs for various defense projects that the military researched during the Cold War. He didn’t do all the work alone; but he made sure projects were up to snuff before they were “shipped” to active research status.

This sadly meant that he was forced to choose between family and work. After 3 years, his wife got fed up when he couldn’t give a definitive answer, and moved to Östertörn with her grandparents.

Soon after, Karl signed on with Redovisningskansli Öst.

---

[AliciaStorm]

@Zesiir
Thanks so much for posting, I really enjoyed reading about your characters! I like the short background stories you wrote, and the fact that your characters are so realistic. I do like that their names are so incredibly ordinary Swedish (I really think that’s a good thing!). I should write a short introductory background snippet about Alicia too, describing her childhood and upbringing and personality and such. Anyway! You wrote in your background for Rolf that he returned to Östertörn in 1986, and then once again a month later when he went to Sven’s family island from where he heard explosions that we know was the beginning of the machine invasion, and then he returned to shore a few days after that to find that everything had changed. But the game takes place in 1989. So you might have mistyped it!

Now, if I may, I’d like to talk about realism and…not realism. When you’re actually playing the game, are you roleplaying as well? Are you immersed in your character so to speak, as if they are the ones performing the actions on the screen and not you? This is what I do when I play; while playing the game solo, I am roleplaying as Alicia. So my main question here is; how do you deal with being outnumbered by machines, heavy combat and other things it would take an immense amount of skill and/or luck to emerge victorious from? Do you roleplay that your characters are right there doing it, thus being capable of it?

This is actually something I’d like to ask everyone in this thread, as I don’t want to fall into some sort of hole in the future. Me roleplaying as Alicia extends to almost everything I do in-game, including surviving and winning heavy combat despite being rather heavily outnumbered by, for example, Hunters and Runners. Alicia essentially has the Action Hero trope, despite her young age, and I’m wondering if all of this would be accepted. This is why I wrote the military training her parents gave her into her background, and why I have the headcanon that Alicia is descended from the Norse gods, because I needed reasons that explain how she is capable of it all, even if not all of those reasons will come up during any roleplay.

I mentioned in another post above that I don’t enjoy suspending my disbelief, and I meant it. For example, I have roleplayed in Elder Scrolls: Online for about five years, but I haven’t really played the game in around four years, solely RPing in the game instead. This is because there’s a huge disconnect between what happens during normal gameplay in Elder Scrolls: Online and my RP character there, and I have a very hard time enjoying the normal gameplay because my RP character is not the one doing those things.

[Aesyle]

how do you deal with being outnumbered by machines, heavy combat and other things it would take an immense amount of skill and/or luck to emerge victorious from? Do you roleplay that your characters are right there doing it, thus being capable of it?

This is actually something I’d like to ask everyone in this thread

I role play my chars in a way where i take into consideration one of their missions (among many), which is to test their combat effectiveness against Mark 1 machines and in turn, also evaluate the combat effectiveness of Mark 1 against Mark 2.

Before their deployment, all blueprints of Mark 1 machines were uploaded into their internal database. Due to that, i can role play with them where they know all the weak spots, blind spots, flaws etc of Mark 1 machines and can engage them in the most efficient way.

So, despite my chars (Mark 2) being always outnumbered, they are never outgunned.
Also, they are so sophisticated that when need arises, they can take on the entire Mark 1 machine armada on their own, without any outside help.

[AliciaStorm]

Thanks for the reply! And the way you’re roleplaying your characters makes a lot of sense due to what they are! Are they entirely machine, by the way? Or are they part organic? If they are entirely machine I’d assume that they would not have the physical weaknesses of an organic being, such as shortness of breath, risk of blood loss, or any susceptibility to poison gas; all of which would help tremendously. Maybe they can fake all those things though, to infiltrate better?

Before their deployment, all blueprints of Mark 1 machines were uploaded into their internal database. Due to that, i can role play with them where they know all the weak spots, blind spots, flaws etc of Mark 1 machines and can engage them in the most efficient way.

And yeah, the weak points of machines are the key to beating them. During the first weeks of the machine invasion, whenever Alicia encountered a type of machine she hadn’t seen before, she’d carefully stalk and study them, learn their patterns of behaviour, their armament and other strengths, and also identifying their weaknesses and weak points. Then she’d use the knowledge gathered to hunt and destroy solitary machines as an experiment to prove her hypotheses concerning what makes them tick, or more correctly, where you need to hit them to most efficiently make them not tick.

Alicia’s ancestry is there to explain how she has enough endurance and is strong enough, fast enough and accurate enough to sufficiently make use of the combat skills she learned from her parents and the knowledge she gathered on machine weaknesses in the field to emerge victorious in open combat despite also always being outnumbered, even when not having proper cover. Couple that with stealth and tactical planning, such as planting land mines and drawing machines into them, and always making sure to actually have sufficient cover if she has to fight a Harvester or a Tank.

Also, I want to stress that Alicia is still human and makes human mistakes! If there’s ever any RP conflict between her and any other character, a dice roll should decide what happens. Alicia could trip and fall, or something. That happens to everyone!

In my head, it all makes sense! Mostly. I just hope it makes enough sense for everyone else too. I’m primarily worried (probably too worried) that people will think she’s too skilled and that it doesn’t make sense because of her age. I worry about that despite being fully aware that our characters are in a fictional version of reality that is inherently unrealistic when compared to actual reality (because, well, it’s a video game) and that no real human of any age or experience could have that level of skill either. So at the same time that I worry, I also know that the game and its setting means age is less of a problem than I think and that I’m blowing this out of proportion. And now I think I’ve said what I wanted to say! It’s incredibly difficult for me to focus my thoughts sometimes since I have ADD, but please have patience with me!

[Zesiir]

You wrote in your background for Rolf that he returned to Östertörn in 1986

Thanks for noticing. I’ve corrected it.

Do you roleplay that your characters are right there doing it, thus being capable of it?

I’m not RP’ing when I play the game. It’s just the headcanon I have for my characters. I’d love to try at some point, though GZ doesn’t offer much in the ways of doing so.