[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

[bryant]

Spirit of the Century (which is cool, buy it if you like pulp gaming) has an interesting character generation system that reminds me a tad of Lexicon. Hm, Wikipedia has failed yet again; there's no page for Lexicon. That one, I might actually fix. Anyway.

Spirit's character generation is a group activity that ensures pre-play connections between characters. I think it can be played out in blog entries. Let's try it.

Comment here with:

A concept. Pulpy concept. It's the 30s.

A name. Pulpy name. You know.

Then write up your character's youth, from birth to age 14. (You were born in 1900, by the by.) Talk about your character's family's circumstances, the size of your character's family, how well he or she gets along with his or her family. Where is your character from? What region? How was he or she educated? What were your character's friends like?

Also, write down two Aspects which are tied into the events of the character's childhood or the character's upbringing. What's an Aspect? It's a tag that helps explain who a character is; it's stuff you wanna see in the game. "Aspects can be relationships, beliefs, catchphrases, descriptors, items, or pretty much anything else that paints a picture of the character." Quick Witted, "You'll Never Catch Me Alive," Raised by Wolves, Champion of the Golden Temple, etc., etc., etc.

Comments

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

Lara Laramy, secretary for a private investigator.

Lara is the daughter of immigrants who moved to the states from Eastern Europe while she was still a girl. Born in Poland, her family name is really Laramzeski but was Americanized by her parents when she went to school. Her family lived in the city in Poland and her first few years were spent in the fractionalized and poor areas of a city undergoing industrial revolution. The only child of an uncharacteristically small family, Lara spent a lot of time on her own finding entertainment in her own imaginings. Her infancy and first five years passed with the kind of erratic ups and downs that come of living hand to mouth. When her father had work, and pockets were flush, food was plentiful and the mood within the apartment was one of ease and cheer. When her father was unemployed, the hollow ache of an empty stomach was a constant reminder and life within their small apartment was tense and fraught with argument.

When Lara was five, her parents had managed to scrape up enough money to buy steerage on a ship going to the Americas. "The streets are paved with gold," her father boasted to his friends. The crossing as cramped and lacking much in the way of ammenities. As third class steerage passengers, Lara only managed to glimpse the ocean vistas on brief visits above decks when the fashionable passengers were unlikely to be offended by the sight of the poor. While many others found the seemingly featureless expanses intimidating or alarming, Lara thrilled at them. The ship reached New York harbor and Lara's first view of her new world was a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty through a porthole.

Life in New York City was not quite the egalitarian paradise her father had expected. The streets were not paved with gold. Sometimes, one could barely see the cobblestones for the muck. They ended up in a poor, Polish neighborhood while both her parents worked in one of the many factories. Although her father became rather embittered to find their circumstances not much improved, her mother was determined to see that Lara had a chance for something more. She worked two jobs to make sure that Lara could be educated in a private academy for girls. At the age of 7, Lara moved into the boarding school in a much swankier section of town. As part of her tuition, Lara had to help in the kitchens for meal times, and between that and her education, she quickly found all of her time swallowed up. Although her mother managed to visit every month, she only saw her father at holidays. This isolation from her family allowed her to see just how much all the working was wearing them both down. Determination was Lara's keyword and she set her nose to the grindstone, intending to make the most of this education her mother had bought for her.

The next seven years were spent in intensive lessons in deportment, as well as a more progressive education in bookkeeping, literature, history, and science. Lara grew into a lovely, polished young woman with barely a trace of her original Polish accent. She took care in her presentation, making sure her sable hair was carefully coiffed and that her appearance offered no opportunity for complaint or objection. Though she had the same education as the monied girls who attended the academy, she was never allowed to forget that she was a pretender only gaining the veneer of the well-to-do. Lara, like the few other scholarship students, was isolated from becoming true friends with most of the rest of the student population. She did manage to form a close friendship with another scholarship student, a Russian girl (Anna) with claims of distant royal blood, and with a regular student (Merilee) who was the daughter of a railroad tycoon out west. Thick as thieves, the three of them were constantly into some trouble or another, but as they all excelled in their academics, and Anna and Lara were scrupulous about seeing to their duties being complete, and with Merilee's father's money to smooth over ruffled feathers, the girls managed to remain at the Academy.

Aspects:

"Determination Can Buy What Money Can't"
Adaptable

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

I suppose that could really be:

Lara Laramy, Girl Friday :)