If you work in a creative field, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Inspiration can strike anytime” at least a million times. When it came to the creation of a character named Mars Deathstyle, inspiration was a handicapped match in which my opponents were Diablo II and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. You see, Mars is a dual class character. He’s a barbarian (Diablo II) slash Jedi consular (Star Wars: KOTOR II). If we need an official name for his combined character class, it would be a shaman since they’re basically primitive wizards.
Mars Deathstyle was the voice of reason character in a 2006 dark fantasy movie script I wrote called City of Darkness. The movie was about an ongoing war between the light paladins (followers of Luther) and dark paladins (followers of Quinn). Apparently, being the voice of reason in this movie script is a 24/7 job, because the main characters changed alignment every five pages. There was one character who went from a light paladin to a dark paladin to someone completely neutral. The other characters were no more decisive.
When you’re a staff-wielding badass barbarian wizard like Mars Deathstyle and you have to preach a message to these indecisive bastards, how do you do it without going insane? You’d truly have to know something that the main characters don’t. That secret ended up being Luther and Quinn purposefully pitting human warriors against each other for their mutual amusement. The whole war was one big sham. Imagine that: war isn’t the answer after all.
Okay, so you have access to this very dark secret, now you have to get your message out to the participants of this war. The only problem is, the followers of these two “deities” are paladins and paladins are known for being devout zealots. Mars would have had a better time rehabilitating members of the Westboro Baptist Church. The stronger the zeal, the taller the task.
To do Mars’s job of convincing people they’re wrong, you have to have a certain set of skills. These skills include, but are not limited to powerful voice inflection, research of facts, natural charisma, and resources to spread this message where a booming voice isn’t always enough. To my surprise, Mars was actually able to put an end to this war with these things alone.
Ergo, the next time he gets used in a story of mine, he will be known as a wise peacekeeper. The only time when he’ll use his combative magic is if his life is being threatened. And trust me, with a last name like Deathstyle, you don’t want this crotchety old man throwing a fireball or a lightning bolt at you. Mars may be close to the retirement age, but his career is far from over.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking at the barrel of an ArmaLite. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days keeping out of trouble like the soldiers say. I don’t want to spend my time in hell looking at the walls of a prison cell. I don’t ever want to play the part of a statistic on a government chart. There has to be an invisible sun. It gives its heat to everyone. There has to be an invisible sun. It gives us hope when the hope is gone.”
-The Police singing “Invisible Sun”-
No comments:
Post a Comment