"How Characters Were Germinated" : Lunetta [Part Two]

Since posting up my original "How Characters Were Germinated" post, I have had several people ask me "So...if you were in a nation you didn't want to play, why didn't you change nation?" and I thought - while I have explained this to some people in person, I might as well follow it up properly in writing.

Anyone who has read Lunetta's earlier pieces will know that in my first Empire game, Matthias and Reynard (played by my then-partner and a mutual friend) died in battle. To be completely honest, once I as a new LARPer had come to terms with my IC (and OC) support network being pulled from under my feet, I probably should have changed nation. I didn't, due to a number of different things.


One: Kit.
Two: Playing for the Character v Playing for the Player. (Contentious, I know)
Three: Support.
Four: A Series of Unexpected Events.

One: Kit

Myself and my partner of the time had spent a lot of time and money getting kit for me to play League. A friend of ours; an amazing seamstress, had made my dress for me, and while I probably had the stuff to make a very basic attempt at a Marcher or Navarr costume, I felt that it wouldn't look as good as the League costume that had been specially made for Empire.

Two: Playing for Character v Playing for Player

This is a contentious heading, and where people tend to fall into two very distinct groups. I play very much in the headspace of "This is what my character would do, regardless of how I feel about it as a player." I know I have friends who look at it from the opposite direction of "I play this game for fun, and therefore won't do anything that makes this game no longer enjoyable, regardless of whether my character would or would not choose to do it." This has led me into some difficult situations in the past year of playing Empire, where Lunetta has chosen a course of action I actually find very difficult to roleplay (be it PvP, or antagonistic stand-offs etc.) but it has always been in keeping with my character.

To move out of the League would have required Lunetta to feel like it was the right thing for her to do. As a Priestess of Loyalty, it felt very unlikely that Lunetta would ever turn her back on her family, her Carta and her friends - all of whom she felt loyalties to -  to go off to another nation. From an OC perspective, it felt as thought I would need to do triple the amount of work to prove Lunetta's loyalties once she had moved nation, as well, which just seemed to be more of a headache than I needed, even if it meant I was playing a nation I felt more attuned with. The only other option would have been to kill off Lunetta and start again, which would have been fine, had point #4 not made an entry.

Three: Support

This is a strange one. All of my Norwich friends were either playing Urizen (1) or Navarr (10+) [at this particular time, I believe we had no Brass Coast Norwichians as we do now.] so in theory, it would have made sense that I would have felt most supported in the Navarr (my partner had genned into Navarr after Matthias' death so I could have quite easily followed him there had I wanted to). I had made a good group of friends in my first game (the Nighthavens in Navarr notably, and Lunetta had made herself fairly well-known to her Cardinal in Highguard). But at the same time, when I had been a wreck during my first game, when I was terrified of being a lone newbie in a new group, the Carta Bellamarina had truly taken me under their wings and made me feel very much a part of the group, despite having only been with them for a day and a half. I had, inadvertently, found myself as part of a group who cared, and who really did watch out for me. Adding this to my feeling that Lunetta would not decide to leave the League due to loyalty made it very clear that Lunetta was very much a Leaguer, even if Josée was not.

Four: A Series of Unexpected Events

On the second day of my second game, my character ran a dual wake for her player's OC partner and OC friend. I had OC spent most of two or three months figuring out how it was going to go, and had (due to it being "what my character would do") handsewn a mourning veil for that event. I had not intended for my character to pick up on the reactions of one particular other character. I had not intended to get chatting to their player, and to begin writing the first of many IC letters between the games. I had not intended for Lunetta to begin to fall in love, with another Leaguer. 

I'm not sure Felix's player believes me when I tell him that Felix was one of the big reasons I stayed in the League. I'm not sure he realises how much deliberation was going on mentally during that second game of mine, as to whether to kill Lunetta off and start afresh or throw caution to the wind and see how things went. I can say, very certainly, that Felix was a massive consideration between the second and third event.

I had found myself with a character who had lost all purpose within a day of being in play. I had had IC discussions with her Cardinal regarding that, and I had been unable to bring myself to play my character the day after Matthias and Reynard died because Lunetta was "hurting too much" (my own words from that day). I had found myself struggling to find a reason for Lunetta to be in Anvil, and had had many moments of reflection on where exactly her mind was at; was she determined to enter the battlefield? Was she suicidal? Was she so caught up on Matthias and Reynard that she'd lost focus of the present? Was she just going to continue on extra fiercely?

The letters between Lunetta and Felix gave Lunetta a direction. She was helping him come to terms with the same loss she herself was coming to terms with. She was able to act as an advisor and "shepherd to her virtuous flock", in a sense, while also being a friend, confidante and listener. Knowing I was going to walk into my third event able to go searching for a character that it felt like Lunetta already knew, was a big push for me to remain playing her, and to remain playing her as League. And things just snowballed from there.

My next partner (now also sadly an ex) came to Empire (as the nation he chose to play - I did learn from my own experience!), Lunetta and Felix decided to make a goal of getting married (which I imagine was very fast to the Carta, but seemed so much longer for his player and I due to the amount of dialogue and soul-searching Lunetta and Felix had been doing in their letters) and suddenly everything just went! Lunetta changed Cartas "to prove herself worthy of Felix", they got engaged, she became part of groups within the Carta, began to make friends in a slightly different circle...

Suddenly the League game felt less oppresive. Suddenly it felt less PvP as I was with a larger group with more personalities, all (roughly) pulling in the same direction. There was no time to consider moving nations any more. There was so much to do and see that the nation itself no longer really seemed to matter, aside from that it meant everyone thought Lunetta was rich (she's a priest; yeah right!) and I get to run around in a pretty, velvet dress! The game had become a lot more personal, and far more welcoming than it had first appeared.

...And that's why, after a year and a quarter, I am still from the League. And proud of it.