Background: 20 Answers (Eric)

With Eric's permission, I'm posting the 20 answers he wrote to the 20 questions I wrote. Alison's getting a post as well; if anyone else wants me to put their answers up on the board I'll be happy to do that.

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01)  Where is your character from? 
Rat enclave in El Paso.

02)  Where did they get their training or learn their skills? 
Latched onto community leaders and protectors when young.  Later took on mercenary and transport security work.

03)  What is / was their family background? 
Tejano rat-town in El Paso.  Primarily interacts with rats but plenty of opportunities for contact with other races.  Was endlessly curious in youth, partially tempered with age.

04)  What is their view of magic use and magic users? 
Indifference.  Magic is too alien to spend much brainspace on except as it relates to survival.  Ie, he’s extremely aware of the capabilities of mages--friend and foe--but neither knows nor cares how magic is accomplished.

05)  What is their view of the six major powers occupying the continental United States?

USA—Mostly indifference.

CSA—Nico spits on the ground when the CSA comes up but doesn’t dwell on it.  He thinks that’s the way of the world and generally it’s Somebody Else’s Problem.

500 Nations—Active curiosity.  Work has taken him to the border towns but he’s never been inside.

Peachtree—Active curiosity.  Has only read about it, never been.

La Republica de Tejas—No particular loyalty because it’s too big for him to adopt as “his”.

Deseret—See CSA.

06)  Have they been to another planet yet? Do they want to go some day? 
No and no.  While he finds other (bipedal) races endlessly fascinating, actually visiting another world exceeds his alien-strangeness threshold.

07)  Your character finds $500 on the ground (a windfall equal to a three months' wages for a working class laborer). There's no way to tell who it belongs to. What do they do with the money? Does this answer change if they find it by themselves or in the group?

 If there's truly no way to get it to its owner, he'd keep it without a second thought.

He's insularly loyal.  If he has embraced the group as "his", in his mind it's as if the whole group found the money.  If the group is NOT "his", then it wouldn't even occur to him to split the cash.

08)  What religion (if any) does your character follow, and how fervently?

 He regards religion and deities disdainfully, but with pragmatism, as forces that simply need to be factored in.  Like gravity, weather, or terrain.  Feels a token affinity for the Laughing Rat King as the embodiment of perseverance. 

09)  What's one of their bad habits? How about a good habit?  Has trouble looking at or acknowledging tripod Martians.  Generally welcoming to other non-human non-Skaven races.

10)  What does your character do with their leisure time?  Reads. 

11)  What would your character order at a restaurant? Does this answer change if someone else is paying for the meal? 
Vegetable and meat but no sugar.  No.

12)  Does your character have any bias against the Skaven, the Red or Green Lizardmen, against Tripod Martians (or against humans, if they're a nonhuman character)? Does your character have any prejudices against other humans if they are a human?

 No bias for the most part, though this is not due to some inherent nobility.  He merely sees supremacist views as factually inaccurate and therefore delusional and wasteful.  In his view sentient beings tend to have far more in common than not, and this commonality means they can be useful to one another.  Wealth is generated by collective effort (this does not mean that he trusts freely; outsiders must prove their value and trustworthiness).

The exception is the tripod Martians.  Their lack of bilateral symmetry makes them seem uniquely alien and unrelatable.  He can't read them and feels consistently uncomfortable around them.

13)  Where do they live when not adventuring? Is it just a rented room somewhere or an actual home?

 He has a room in El Paso, kept by family, but only checks in briefly between jobs.

14)  How does your character tend to dress when out in the field having adventures? Are their "town clothes" different from this?  Leather.  No.

15)  How does your character pack for travel or for going out into the field for adventuring?  ??? medical kit, comb, small amount of dried food and water, compass?  Not sure how detailed this should be.

16)  What is your character's education level? (It is presumed that all PCs will be literate in English without a reason for that in the back story.)  
Highly self-educated, very little formal education.

17)  What is your character afraid of? 

Space travel.  Not much else.  He doesn't expect to live to old age and finds this liberating.  He's not bold, exactly, more resigned. 

18)  Does your character owe a significant favor to anyone? Does anyone owe them a significant favor?  Feels a debt to the community elders who trained him when he was young.  Acquitted himself well on a number of security jobs and is held in reasonably high esteem by past employers.  They trust his competence and reliability but nobody owes him a great debt.

19)  What does your character want to get out of adventuring? What do they expect to get out if it? What are they afraid could happen while out on adventures? Seeks mundane knowledge, meeting travelers, books to read, news.  Sends much of his earnings home to El Paso.  (In spite of the parallel this actually wasn’t inspired by the common immigrant narrative.  I simply have a friend from El Paso and I like the idea that my rat guy is tied to his “nest”.)

20)  What, if anything, does your character consider to be a cause worth dying for? What would they see as a good death? 
Defense of the nest is the only really good cause.

21)  If your character was old enough to serve in the Civil War (1861-1874; game takes place 25 years after), what did they do and which army were they in?  Born too late to participate in the war.

22)  Does your character prefer to keep their personal money as paper or coin (both are available and accepted everywhere)? Credit when possible.  Paper when not.  Paper is quieter (and his DNA remembers that it’s fun to chew).

Bonus question #21:  What advice would you give your character if you could?  Aim for the brain.