Question Got a character but stuck on background

I've got a character I want to use as a member of Wondercute +2 years, but I'm stuck on his back story beyond the "He manifested and now looks like this and has these powers".

The part of Talia's story I have is when she manifested she went from a cute teen girl who looks something like Sami Gayle to a blue eyed, white furred, sliver hooved, MALE "Horse" that can talk telepathically and a few other cool tricks. I'm stuck on the where s/he's from, how s/he gets to Whateley and all that fun stuff.

Suggestions?

So Talia turned into a Valdemaran Companion?

Get a six sided die. Roll for each question.

A: Where is he from?
1) East Coast.
2) West Coast
3) Fly over country.
4) Europe
5) Asia
6) Other

B: Problems getting to Whateley.
1) No problem. Smooth sailing all the way.
2) Actively persued by superhero/es
3) Attacked by H1 mob.
4) Actively persued by MCO.
5) Attacked by Supervillain/s
6) DEAR GOD WHY DOES THE WORLD HATE ME!!!!!

C: Helpful things
1) Parents bring him to Whateley, support him as much as possible.
2) Run in with helpful villain.
3) Run in with helpful hero.
4) Helped by police.
5) Calls Whateley for help, recieves it.
6) HA HA HA! You expect help!!! Oh that's rich. Here's some help, your car caught fire now you can stay warm.

Valentine wrote: So Talia turned into a Valdemaran Companion?

Yes, that was my half asleep train of thought.

Figured I'd throw in Manifesting/Astral prjection to create a rider and make it easier for the char to attend class.

Domoviye wrote: Get a six sided die. Roll for each question.


B: Problems getting to Whateley.
6) DEAR GOD WHY DOES THE WORLD HATE ME!!!!!

C: Helpful things
6) HA HA HA! You expect help!!! Oh that's rich. Here's some help, your car caught fire now you can stay warm.

Gee, your characters seem to roll those two a lot.

I play the dice as they roll.

OK, so not all of us are Domoviye, and the more random insanity and unrelated insane ideas he has to work with the better the story, some of us need a little reason for things to be as they are.

So let's try that and see what we get?

First interesting thing, the name 'Talia', is that the name her mum gave her, or the one she chose after manifesting? It sounds like her original girl's name, because Talia was the female protagonist in 'Arrows of the Queen', and not any of the companions.

So, with the name 'Talia', it's most probable that her mother loved the Valdimir stories and gave it to her, so from this we can assume that if her daughter turned into what is in effect a Valdimir Compainion, she would most probably be accepting. Also, since the father allowed the name, it is probable he too is into fantasy and is more likely to be accepting too. Another possibility is there is no father, there never has been one, allowing her mother to name her child as she likes.

OK, so first set of possible backgrounds:

1) Talia is from a single parent family, her mother loves her very much and she is very accepting her of changes, very supportive.
2) Talia is from a two parent family, very creative, into fantasy and the like, again both parents accepting.

And if you want to go a little dark:
3) Talia's mother was a single mum, she loved Talia very much, but died, leaving Talia with another relative / state institution / foster care. They are anything but happy about the changes.

OK, so much for the name, but of course, choosing the family she is with will also help decide where they live, people tend to live in areas with the same or similar attitudes as themselves. A fantasy liking, not hippy, but defiantly happy and slightly alternative mother would more likely be west coast or bigger cities type person, places where she could be surrounded by people similar to herself. As strict foster parent may be more rural. A large 'orphanage' could be run by God Fearing people in an old farmhouse run like a Dickinson workhouse up in the mountains somewhere if you want Domoviye like levels of adversity.

OK, once you have the family and the place, we then come to the mutations, which are pretty severe and hard to hide GSD. Again, where they are, and what type of family she has is pretty much going to dictate the help she'll have, and if she is going to get an easy ride or a hard one.

Loving mum, Boston home, she's basically got a pretty easy train trip in front of her, and she should arrive at Whateley with a pretty up-beat personality.

West coast, rocky mountiains Dickinson workfarm start, well, she's gonna have an adventure, and she's gonna need some pretty big help to get where she's going. Not to motion, how is it that she's even heard of Whateley? It's on open secret of a place, but it is still a secret, common people won't know of it.

Hope that was helpful.

He can NOT be a kitty-boy! That one's mine! (with ideas and suggestions from Phoenix)!!!

Domoviye wrote: I play the dice as they roll.

Domoviye, on the second die you're supposed to chose the number rolled, not everything except for the number rolled.

I'll admit sometimes I roll two or three times.

Domoviye wrote:
I'll admit sometimes I roll two or three times.

Would be better to load the dice than to try and load the roll.

No I roll two or three times to have two or three problems. Of course after the first roll if I get a 1 it's ignored.

Bah. Dice are too limited. For starters, they can only answer in integers (usually 1-6). For a TRULY random result, I look at Youtube suggestions. I really have no idea why their algorithm suggests some stuff to me... if I assign a score of "6" to "right on the money" and "1" to "no way", I sometimes get results such as "googolplex," "i" (as in sqrt(-1)) and "asparagus."

Sir Lee wrote: Bah. Dice are too limited. For starters, they can only answer in integers (usually 1-6). For a TRULY random result, I look at Youtube suggestions. I really have no idea why their algorithm suggests some stuff to me... if I assign a score of "6" to "right on the money" and "1" to "no way", I sometimes get results such as "googolplex," "i" (as in sqrt(-1)) and "asparagus."

You people have real mashable characters. So mashable that its a wonder their not stomped out of existence.

Lots of my characters are mashed and stomped out of existence, I tend to do it to an average of five characters before I'm done my morning shower.
The ones you see in print are the ones that survived.

Domoviye wrote: Lots of my characters are mashed and stomped out of existence, I tend to do it to an average of five characters before I'm done my morning shower.
The ones you see in print are the ones that survived.

Barely

Well, the problem with having a character concept that matches an existing concept like the Valdemar Companion horses is that it doesn't just sound contrived, it IS contrived. On the flip side, 'contrived' means 'made to happen by active effort' (more or less, not the Wesbster definition); therefore, it follows that it didn't simply happen, it was MADE to happen that way. So, you have your basis for the exact manifestation: someone wanted a Valdemarian Companion horse, and took steps to create one. There! You have both the reason for your character turning out that way, AND a built-in antagonist, because no one is going to go to all that effort, just to let their pet project run away.

Survival of the fittest.
Would you believe I've actually become nicer to my characters. A year and a half ago, I was an absolute sadist to most of them.

Domoviye wrote: Survival of the fittest.
Would you believe I've actually become nicer to my characters. A year and a half ago, I was an absolute sadist to most of them.

Yes Max, I believe you.

Bek D Corbin wrote: Well, the problem with having a character concept that matches an existing concept like the Valdemar Companion horses is that it doesn't just sound contrived, it IS contrived. On the flip side, 'contrived' means 'made to happen by active effort' (more or less, not the Wesbster definition); therefore, it follows that it didn't simply happen, it was MADE to happen that way. So, you have your basis for the exact manifestation: someone wanted a Valdemarian Companion horse, and took steps to create one. There! You have both the reason for your character turning out that way, AND a built-in antagonist, because no one is going to go to all that effort, just to let their pet project run away.

What someone was upset they didn't get their pony ride as a child and took it out on the unsuspecting? Maybe it was the lack of funnel cakes too....

To be truthful, when I read the original description I didn't think of Valdemar (which is natural, since I never read the books), but of MLP...

Is Talia her name before the manifestion as a male mutant? If so he needs to change it to a male name. Maybe Skif. He's one of my favorite Heralds.

Got a rough sheet and history hammered out for this char, though how much they will be spilling in story I'm not sure yet.

Code Name: Leshya'e
Real name: Talia / Traver Lackey
Cottage: N/A
Age: 14
Grade: Fresh
Sex: Complicated (Body is male, projection female, prior to manifestation was female)
Orientation: confused
Campus Job:
Affiliations: Wondercute, (Dream Team ?)

Personality:
book worm; potential Lit Chix

Back ground:
normal child hood, grew up some where where there are wild horses/Near OlymPYC base?, always wanted a horse, fan of Lackey and Southern Belle comics
manifest starts slow; eyes and hair color change, bulks up some
step 2 begins to go male, hides it as best she can, learns she can alter another's perception of her, but it isn't infallible
step 3 changes that make her look more equine begin to show, thinks she'll end up like Clavery, not happy, considers killing herself, faith prevents her?, but chooses to keep hiding
gets hard to hide his new form from parents, takes to wearing just the illusion
some how word of a young Animan on US soil gets to the right ears
Army General shows up and insinuates he's gov property some how and he needs to come with him
he panics, drops illusion and scares his parents and lets them all have it with his budding mental powers
does surprisingly well living off the land, maybe some help from native magical beings, as his form finishes shifting

How to get her to Whateley? Billy 2 Knives? Shaman who hears about a spirit horse?

After he's found learns he can still create the girl seeming, and interact through her.

Appearance:
Like a large white stallion with silver hooves and blue eyes

Projection is a slim brown haired girl (see actress who plays Nikki Reagan on Blue Bloods)

Powers:
Telepathy 6/3 ; next to Fubar he is the strongest telepath on campus. Power is much reduced when channeled through Talia

Astral Projection/Manifestation ; can create a fully solid “rider” he calls Talia who acts as his hands and eyes in places he physically can't go. Some debate if this is a true manifestation or a form of astral projection. He can feels everything she does (possibly some independent thought/action on Talia's part down the road?)

Energizer (Wiz) ; when enters school can only channel magical energies like an external energizer to power himself up and augment healing. May in time learn to cast spells. Once the teachers have some idea how to teach him without the props and gestures

Notes:
GSD (or something) has left him in the form of a horse. Has lost none of his human intelligence
Lives in a renovated stall in the school's stable

considering characters like Jana ( centaur ) live in one of the cottages, there is no reason to park your character in the stable, the cottages can handle the physical form. Most likely for your character is Hawthorne.

Minor point: Mezzo (Jana) is not a full-time centaur. She can assume several different forms, but the centaur form is the one she uses when working at the kitchens. She probably uses a bipedal form inside the cottage.

She can only hold the bipedal form for a couple of hours, the default form that she wakes up in is the centaur form.
She tells Ayla this just before she has to rush back to work in the kitchen one morning, since the kitchen itself can't handle her full centaur form. the service areas can, but the food prep areas can't.

You do know that Sir Lee created Mezzo, right?

I think you misread the passages and the Wiki entry. She can only hold her human form for limited time, before having to go back to a hybrid human-animal form. But she has several hybrid forms. There's the centaur form, which is big and quadrupedal -- but she has a catgirl and a squirrelgirl form too, for instance. Her original transformation was to a mermaid.

The reason she uses the centaur form at work is that the bipedal forms have really hairy arms, which is a problem in a kitchen. (Well, I had to retcon that in my writeup, because Diane kept showing her as a centaur in the Crystal Hall... but it ended up making sense. When I finish her origin story, sometime in 2030, you will see).

I had thought to stick them into a cot, cause hey Razor is in Twain, and he's the size of a horse, but with the whole duel genders thing and lack of hands and issues with steps...

Go with Hawthorne. Sticking her in the stables would be an open invitation to bullying, and serious self esteem issues.

Ok, you have a point there.