Character History Preliminary Voting

Sorry for the delay on getting the new thread up; however, this thread will still only be open until next Monday. You all know the rules: bold your top two favorite ideas. The three submissions with the most votes will move on to the final voting.

First, our concept: (Click to View)

Code:

The Implacable Experiment

This character is an individual who has had close contact with the Empire after being used for human (or esper) experimentation in the Magitek Facility and has taken on a grotesque appearance. This character is aware of their disturbing appearance and their primary drive is to seek vengeance against those who have wronged him/her and to see that they are brought to justice.

This character would work well in FF6 as they would serve to show the more cruel and inhumane side of the Gestahlian Empire, especially when you consider how much Terra's past is lacking in filling in the darker parts of the Empire's history. This character would also ideally have a somewhat strange fighting style which would vary from the other characters, they also by merit of being a Magitek experiment could have a natural magic learning list.

Here are our options for the 15th Man's (or woman, it sounds like) history:

"Miranda Captured" by Lockirby2, Current Votes: 3 (Click to View)

Code:

Gender: Female -> There's 10 male characters in FF6, and 3 female ones. My OCD is telling me to even out these numbers . Furthermore, this character would serve as sharp contrast to pretty much every other female character in video games (especially FF) who are ridiculously fan-servicey.

Hometown: Miranda

Backstory: This character, [name], started out as the leader of a small group of elite forces that were the defense of Miranda before the Imperial Army took over the cities on the southern continent. This small force was able to fend off the more numerous opposition for quite a while before General Celes was sent to torch the city. With the power of Magic, something this small force was not trained to deal with, Miranda was quickly taken. However, [name] survived, and Celes was so impressed with her tactical and fighting ability that she took [name] to the empire to be magically augmented (The original plan was to use a Slave Crown to control her if she decided not to co-operate). However, unbeknownst to everybody involved (even after all of these events unfold), Kefka decided to have a little "fun" with the conversion process, causing many physical deformations to occur. The failure of this augmenting horrifies Celes, partly because she feels responsible for it, and it disillusions her to the empire. She helps [name] to escape, but is branded a traitor for it. [name]'s story picks up when the party meets her, which will be determined later.

Pros:
-Explains why Celes became a traitor, and gives [name] a connection to at least one party member. It is a fairly deep connection, too, as there are a decent amount of both positive and negative emotions flowing between them.
-Sets up a scene where Kefka reveals that he was the one who tampered with the augmenting process. This will also give [name] a personal hatred for Kefka, and not just the empire.
-Definitely shows the cruelty of the Empire, which is what we were going for.

Cons:
-The elite group defending Miranda had no presence in the original story.
(it's harder to see cons in your own stuff )

"The Desertion" by Tin Man, Current Votes: 2 (Click to View)

Code:

Gender: Doesn't really matter. I personally feel that this character might be better as a male, but like LockKirby I find the lack of females in this game, and the general fan-servicey treatment of female characters in FF games to be a bit strange.

Hometown: I was also thinking Maranda.

Backstory: This character will have been conscripted into the Gestahlian Empire's Army after the occupation of Maranda. After being forced to serve as a soldier this character begins to become guilt ridden and tries to escape. S/he is caught attempting dessertion and is taken back to Vector to serve their time in other ways. While there the character undergoes a drastic and experimental form of Magitek augmentation by an ambivalent Cid under the hostile supervision of Kefka. The party may encounter this character a couple times before s/he is recruited, but at least one encounter in the Magitek facility seems like it would be required, most likely with them discovering and releasing him/her from the facility.

Pros to this story:
-Displays military occupation by the Gestahlian Empire as being much more disruptive and evil to people's lives.
-Shows how the Empire creates consequences and punishments for those who oppose them, and how heavy handed they can be. This also serves as a foil to show how noble the Returners cause really is.
-Makes Cid's turning on the Empire seem less capricious and sudden, also allows for exploring his character more as he may be wracked with guilt over his part in ruining individual's lives and using his discoveries to propagate the banality of evil. (This also leads into a potential WoR sidestory.)

Cons:
-May require making a few extra sprites and events to display the past events.

"Iron Thamasan" by daemoth, Current Votes: 0 (Click to View)

Code:

Hometown: Thamasa

Acting as a scout for the Thamasian, she joined the empire when she heard the empire "found" magic. Thinking her village could be in danger. However, she was caught spying on the research and was one of the first to be experimented on. Because of her Thamasian origin or Kefka's need for vengeance, it didnt go as planned. The first encounter with the party could be as she escape, and she would just plow through the party and just leave.
But she would reappear when Kefka attack Thamasa. The party would then learn that her life is linked to her magic (0 mp = death?).
Also, a deformed character is a good pretext to have an hidden identity...

"The Betrayed young citizen" by Madsiur, Current Votes: 3 (Click to View)

Code:

Gender: Female.

Back history: This daughter of a South Figaro sailor was raised by a lonely old woman from Vector after the boat transporting her and her father sunk near the Southern Continent. She was then taken prisoner by the Empire in her teenage years after the old woman died an that Emperor Gestahl adopted a secret law to capture homeless [and unwanted] citizens for Magitek experimentations. During her captivity, she developed her hate towards the Empire that she was considering once her second home.

Possible encounters: She might have been in contact with Cid and/or Kefka and/or Celes during her captivity. She might also have been in contact with some Espers and talked with them. This all depends on how we want to develop her back story and the game events.


Pros:
- Rich backstory and relations with the actual characters of the game if we want any.
- Explain well why the character feels doubly betrayed by the Empire and explain her hatred.

Cons:
- Might require a lot of event creation, but isn't this the goal of this hack? ;)

submission by Astaroth, Current Votes: 0 (Click to View)

Code:

Gender: female

hometown: Zozo.Gender: female
hometown: ZoZo

Backstory:
Her parents were poor and thus she was sold to a group of shinobi. She was a gifted child who trained many years to become a ninja.
The emperor feared the power of the ninja so he sent troops to eradicated everyone of her tribe. The sole survivor was her and she was tortured to know more about her power. Seeing the potential to use her as a weapon, she was infused with magitek but something went wrong. The body reacted to the magic and left her body marked with magical burns. She lost her memory after the incident and Ghestal used her as personal assassin.
Seven years before the events of FF VI she poisoned the king of Figaro, father of edgar and Sabin. She spied and killed for the emperor many months until she met with a man who call himself Shadow. She trained him to become the perfect assassin until one day she remembered what the empire had done to her tribe.
special ability: experts in seduction and poison, spying, stealth.

pros:
- Some backstory of Edgar,Sabin, Shadow
-Kunoichi are cool! lolllll

cons:
- complicated story and require making events.

One last note: can I get those with submissions to nail down the open-ended details left in their submissions? Just go ahead and post them here and I will update the submission. None of the details were particularly earth-shattering in terms of the idea itself, so I would prefer to not have to have more discussion later about the details. So anyone with unspecified genders/hometowns, please make a final selection.