My original plan was to begin playing Sorcerer and finish in, say, three sessions. Not wanting to waste precious time on imagining fresh new character concepts, we selected three characters described in The Dictionary of Mu.
The difficulty with selecting these ready-made characters, however, is that you don't get the satisfying sense of authorship that comes with making stuff up on your own: whatever happens, is ultimately happening to someone else's toy.
So we customized these characters through some directed questions. I wrote the questions based on the Price (what the character has given up in order to achieve sorcerous power), Past (what the character does day-to-day), and then something that interested me about the character.
The Khan-of-Khans
According to the prophecies, what impossible task will the Khan-of-Khans perform?
To wield the Witch King's sword--stolen ages ago from the Lady in the Silt--and unite the People.
According to the prophecies, what is the trait of the Khan's virtue?
Never gives up hope. Unafraid to fail. Whatever will keep despair at bay. "The persistence of a million raindrops on stone. Eventually water will find its way through. Flow like water."
According to the prophecies, how will the Khan's people fail him?
They will not go far enough. Some will fall to the Witch King's lies. Some will give in to despair. They will say, "This is good enough. Let us go this far, and no further."
The Witch-King of Stygia
Scott described the current Witch-King as a lowly warlock in the Stygian Towers, who posed as a concubine to get close to the reigning King and murder him/her--side-stepping the power-hungry High Warlocks who were busy jockeying against each other. After months of numbing sexual degradation and twisted emotional relationships, the concubine strangled the Witch-King and took the throne.
Who was your most trusted ally? How did he/she betray you? What was the punishment?
Scott immediately suggested, sort of tangentially, that maybe the Witch-King is a post you ascend to upon slaying the old Witch-King, and in the process you undergo a metamorphosis into a hermaphrodite and the magical sword adds the dying Witch-King's soul to its archive of souls.
But, in answer to the question: maybe someone who's been close to you, lowly. So low that they could never possibly hurt you. Except now he or she has. Appointed to concubinage, he or she is now infatuated with one of the other High Warlocks.
What broken promise to your people do you regret most?
Regrets that they're still hanging on the edge of the wasteland, that all his efforts to put down anything permanent, in terms of infrastructure, has been thwarted by the power plays and in-fighting and keeping people in line. "You will immediately begin construction on a new stupid monument! Forget the other stupid monument from last week."
Also, may regret trying to seduce the Damsel Messiah, rather than bargaining with her when she took the throne of Hy-Brasil.
Why is there not yet an heir?
There's no official successor; the successor is one who takes it. The Witch King wants to throw this off, and father an heir. The warlocks want to prevent this, as it would screw their chances of promotion-through-murder.
But the idea that they *must* fight to ascend--maybe that's a lie the Witch-Kings perpetuate to keep them all the underlings busy.
Nimrote the Huntsman
Nimrote was brought to this ritual combat ground, a crossroads in the desert, not yet Black Rock. Taken there as a gladiator against the demons and monsters. He keeps winning and winning, and eventually goes up against the rulers: he transcends being a gladiator. As he got better and better as a gladiator, Black Rock whispered to him in his dreams, as he would be better to serve its needs than these guys: they had no vision. It helped out by leaving the pens unlocked, etc. In this carnage, as he led the revolt against the masters and spilling their blood for Black Rock.
How did you come to be so scarred that no one can bear to look upon you?
Self-destructive ritual over himself: mastery, rejection of the whole social structure. Destroying superficiality: the demon soaks up his own blood, giving it a taste of his own blood but not giving it everything. Wearing a hunting mask--cutting off strips of his face every time he deals with the demon?
How did joy leave your life forever? Or, Why is the demon the only thing in your life?
Religious conversion. Marr'd is a horrible place, all of these awful beasts to begin with. He's doing them honor, bringing them to a higher plane, a Darwinian perfection. A greater purpose has come to him: a knowledge that through destruction, there will be a greater monument to them than allowing these dying breeds to peter out. A Valhalla type of thing.
What is the fiercest beast you have ever hunted, and what happened?
He killed God-Maggots feasting on a forgotten titan's corpse, in hopes of retaining some of the essence of the God Thing. He later imprisoned the half-human squatters dwelling in the god's bones, and forced them to fight to the death.
