Annotated 2-13
Here is our first encounter between the people who would become the series’ power couple. Their romance would stay right at the heart of it for most of its run and outlast or outshine any others. And it’s about as far from “love at first sight” as we could make it. She doesn’t even notice him. He looks at her and sees nothing more than the potential for a quick buck, a potential he has to pass up until he’s sold his current wares.
The reader would have no reason to suspect them as a future couple more than any other heterosexual pairing at this stage, and I’m not sure we did either. In fact, the early material more often paired Byron with Frigg (the fighters) and Syr’Nj with Gravedust (the thinkers), and Best will catch the eye of both female adventurers who travel with him. But it was clear that we were going to get the group together by the end of this chapter, so it was probably good that the plot had some near misses like this one and Best-Bandit to keep y’all guessing.
In name and appearance, Tignos is a nod to Tim Gunn from Project Runway, though to be honest, the real Tim Gunn would probably be repulsed by the idea of hawking just one monochromatic raw material instead of the craft of high fashion. Still, we make the best of the jobs available to us. And I wanted my imagination to have a fingerhold on him if we ended up using him again, and “planting” a source of real-life inspiration in him is one way to do that.
Ya need to learn how to diversify dude.
Was Jasp (on Tignos’ sign) a currency created out of convenience that was eventually forgotten and replaced by the Rald while writing, or should we assume that Jasps are another form of currency like silver to Ralds’ gold? I just don’t remember jasps ever coming up again.
I mean, in the early game.some green-quality vendor gear will probably run you 1 or 2 ralds, so making transactions in smaller denominations makes sense. Once your are dealing with government contractors and world bosses you tend to stop counting your change as closely.
I know we were talking at one point about ralds, jasps, and saphs. I think that got simplified as time went on and we never really got into the weeds of the Gastonian monetary system.
… Huh. It only just occurred to me that ‘rald’ must be short for ’emerald’. I got jasp(er) and sap(p)h(ire) immediately (upon rereading, I don’t know if they struck me on first reading), but rald just flew over my head.
(Probably because the only Emerald to appear in Steven Universe showed up for all of a minute…. Hush.)
Did you guys ever do Play-by-Post (PbP) roleplaying?
Byron’s little soliloquy here reminds me of something I would write in such a game when I’m trying to introduce my character and give an idea for their characterization without actually having them participate in the roleplaying going on. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I can’t say I ever did… had to look it up, in fact! Phil might’ve, he was always more of the gamer between us, but if so, he never mentioned it.
Byron’s narrative here seems to me to be more about setting than character. He is talking about his drinking habits and frustrations, but mostly about the economic situation he’s facing. I don’t know where the boundaries between setting and character are in the games you play, but maybe that’s something to think about.