Because Jennings asked me - meanderings and tidbits on Drago
Where to start..
Probably at character creation I guess. For our freehold idea we (Jason, Ben and I variously also including Rhona as well) discussed a few ideas I kinda liked a Lion the witch and the wardrobe idea but instead we decided to focus ourselves on a slight modification to the idea of House Harkonnen from Frank Herberts Dune.
Drago was loosely based on Feyd-Rautha
His concept was around the concept of someone used in a similar way to how I played with action figures as a kid, having them explore the garden, fight other figures etc.
I also liked the idea of having someone from the Bosnian civil war, who may have done some naughty things there, was a bit of a nationalist but not obviously a bad guy (which saying Bosnian Serb would have done)
So he was a duelist who liked the finer things in life, looked good etc. - which made me pick Fairest, and decided on Dancer as I thought Draconic was a bit more brawler, a more all round skilled person as he'd had to cope with whatever the keeper had chucked him into, someone with tendencies towards being a nasty piece of work but also someone keen to be more than what he was and to redeem himself for past sins, which he never thought he'd manage - which is one of the sources of his sorrow (I decided on Winter so that we covered more bases for the freehold, but then we also had other folks play them too)
Stat wise as the other motley members were going for high power stats (high wyrd and mantle) I countered this by sinking myself as a more jack of all trades character with yes decent combat stats but also well rounded skills - they all made sense as things he should have and I still think he should have more skills.
I say that a lot of his motivations came from the original motley mechanic or how that was supposed to work.
That is a family bent on power, loyal to each other but happy to get a leg up over each other if they could.
As the concept turned out to be somewhat controversial in the early days, it pushed him into a greater sense of loyalty to it and duty to protect it etc.
The whole relationship with Rosie (Sally's character) stemmed from meeting the other big motley concept in Birmingham early on, and Drago having a lust vice, immediately wanting the pretty thing. That and the whole concept of marriages of alliance which were big in our concept.
From that chance meeting and scrap of character came 2 years of ic relationship which in certain different ways colours how the character reacts and has gone to this very day.
Of course since those early days a bunch of source material has come out which to an extent made him a bit of a bad member of winter. Drago is bad at hiding his love and hate being the main one.
Anyway you mentioned the costume, odd thing on this originally I hadn't envisioned him as at all gothy, I saw him as some tracksuit wearing slavic bully boy - loosely around the mold of an ex-housemate, from the joys of shared accommodation. Then for some reason, probably my being impressed at other folks costumes and so forth I decided I wanted to dress up more and black being winter court colours went for a goth look, and I had a nice day shopping in camden with folks (Jez and Ginnie I believe) looking for something that said "toy soldier". From there I expanded my wardrobe a bit to various other bits of goth stuff so I don't wear the same thing all the time - as I don't think characters would but they do need signature shit.
Him being well known.. Probably a few reasons for this, I've tended to travel a fair bit for Lost games - its something not in "my" venue so it means I have greater freedom to just play rather than avoiding plots etc.
He's mouthy in his defense of things he holds dear (its that loyalty duty thing - coming from a motley that had its back against the wall for its beliefs of conquering arcadia and killing all the gentry makes you stick up for each other and against critics at the drop of a hat) and will do so online a fair bit, Fran's winter character used to say that Drago said the things she wanted to say but couldn't - essentially having to defend his other peoples views, actions etc. made him hyper defensive and so he tends to get stuck in on arguments with other lost. Its not something intrinsic to the character but its a habit he's built up through perceived necessity. Another part to that of course is also that he's basically an extremist in a certain way - he's highly right wing in politics (pretty much a fascist) a racist and pretty homophobic (mostly these are straight background things from being a HVO soldier and from a country which isn't as liberal as Britain).
Tacked on to this is that part way through playing him I disliked the fact that he had a vice that was at that time meaningless (lust in a steady relationship) that I didn't play - so was in the process of shifting it to Wrath when things went a bit tits up - after that I decided to stick with what I had but essentially he had a bad temper.. Gets you into shit that and not being a summer courtier it isn't respected as just having a bad temper. I always felt that getting rid of it without rp however would be bad form.
Thus he's probably known for being the somewhat psycho public face of the winter court as he's happy to speak up for a variety of reasons detailed above.
For a long time Drago was a very moral character, but also one who had a very strict interpretation of what was right and wrong, and a practical sense of doing what was necessary, and duty of doing what he was told to.
I say a couple of things really impacted upon that, one being the break up of the original motley which was caused by the obvious personality clash between the summer guys and the autumn guys - which due to duty he sided with Autumn as they lead the motley but which meant he felt emotionally injured by both parties not caring about family and loyalty or in fact anyone else who was in the group.
The second would be the move to London, and that Rosie after saying he should move there so they'd be together just left immediately, and then the freehold started to go down the toilet, generally due to the Aria/Carin stuff but also due to a split between summer/spring on the one hand and autumn/winter on the other.
Bits and bobs there impacted his psyche badly and he went to a more practical just fucking solve it stance, and one of vengeance for slights.
Having had a good deal of time to mull things over (both ic and ooc) I'm currently trying to take him away from the "angry" and combat style that he's had and more back to something that is interactive and social which is one of the sides of character that hasn't seen much daylight - whether I'm successful at such with a price on his head I dunno but I'm pretty tired of the combat rat race and being a complete cock at folks and I kinda like taking him into a more socially evil pc rather than someone who kicks off at folks as that's not enjoyable for me or others. Of course this means mending relations and such like, which I think could be fun rp if people allow me to do it.
Probably at character creation I guess. For our freehold idea we (Jason, Ben and I variously also including Rhona as well) discussed a few ideas I kinda liked a Lion the witch and the wardrobe idea but instead we decided to focus ourselves on a slight modification to the idea of House Harkonnen from Frank Herberts Dune.
Drago was loosely based on Feyd-Rautha
His concept was around the concept of someone used in a similar way to how I played with action figures as a kid, having them explore the garden, fight other figures etc.
I also liked the idea of having someone from the Bosnian civil war, who may have done some naughty things there, was a bit of a nationalist but not obviously a bad guy (which saying Bosnian Serb would have done)
So he was a duelist who liked the finer things in life, looked good etc. - which made me pick Fairest, and decided on Dancer as I thought Draconic was a bit more brawler, a more all round skilled person as he'd had to cope with whatever the keeper had chucked him into, someone with tendencies towards being a nasty piece of work but also someone keen to be more than what he was and to redeem himself for past sins, which he never thought he'd manage - which is one of the sources of his sorrow (I decided on Winter so that we covered more bases for the freehold, but then we also had other folks play them too)
Stat wise as the other motley members were going for high power stats (high wyrd and mantle) I countered this by sinking myself as a more jack of all trades character with yes decent combat stats but also well rounded skills - they all made sense as things he should have and I still think he should have more skills.
I say that a lot of his motivations came from the original motley mechanic or how that was supposed to work.
That is a family bent on power, loyal to each other but happy to get a leg up over each other if they could.
As the concept turned out to be somewhat controversial in the early days, it pushed him into a greater sense of loyalty to it and duty to protect it etc.
The whole relationship with Rosie (Sally's character) stemmed from meeting the other big motley concept in Birmingham early on, and Drago having a lust vice, immediately wanting the pretty thing. That and the whole concept of marriages of alliance which were big in our concept.
From that chance meeting and scrap of character came 2 years of ic relationship which in certain different ways colours how the character reacts and has gone to this very day.
Of course since those early days a bunch of source material has come out which to an extent made him a bit of a bad member of winter. Drago is bad at hiding his love and hate being the main one.
Anyway you mentioned the costume, odd thing on this originally I hadn't envisioned him as at all gothy, I saw him as some tracksuit wearing slavic bully boy - loosely around the mold of an ex-housemate, from the joys of shared accommodation. Then for some reason, probably my being impressed at other folks costumes and so forth I decided I wanted to dress up more and black being winter court colours went for a goth look, and I had a nice day shopping in camden with folks (Jez and Ginnie I believe) looking for something that said "toy soldier". From there I expanded my wardrobe a bit to various other bits of goth stuff so I don't wear the same thing all the time - as I don't think characters would but they do need signature shit.
Him being well known.. Probably a few reasons for this, I've tended to travel a fair bit for Lost games - its something not in "my" venue so it means I have greater freedom to just play rather than avoiding plots etc.
He's mouthy in his defense of things he holds dear (its that loyalty duty thing - coming from a motley that had its back against the wall for its beliefs of conquering arcadia and killing all the gentry makes you stick up for each other and against critics at the drop of a hat) and will do so online a fair bit, Fran's winter character used to say that Drago said the things she wanted to say but couldn't - essentially having to defend his other peoples views, actions etc. made him hyper defensive and so he tends to get stuck in on arguments with other lost. Its not something intrinsic to the character but its a habit he's built up through perceived necessity. Another part to that of course is also that he's basically an extremist in a certain way - he's highly right wing in politics (pretty much a fascist) a racist and pretty homophobic (mostly these are straight background things from being a HVO soldier and from a country which isn't as liberal as Britain).
Tacked on to this is that part way through playing him I disliked the fact that he had a vice that was at that time meaningless (lust in a steady relationship) that I didn't play - so was in the process of shifting it to Wrath when things went a bit tits up - after that I decided to stick with what I had but essentially he had a bad temper.. Gets you into shit that and not being a summer courtier it isn't respected as just having a bad temper. I always felt that getting rid of it without rp however would be bad form.
Thus he's probably known for being the somewhat psycho public face of the winter court as he's happy to speak up for a variety of reasons detailed above.
For a long time Drago was a very moral character, but also one who had a very strict interpretation of what was right and wrong, and a practical sense of doing what was necessary, and duty of doing what he was told to.
I say a couple of things really impacted upon that, one being the break up of the original motley which was caused by the obvious personality clash between the summer guys and the autumn guys - which due to duty he sided with Autumn as they lead the motley but which meant he felt emotionally injured by both parties not caring about family and loyalty or in fact anyone else who was in the group.
The second would be the move to London, and that Rosie after saying he should move there so they'd be together just left immediately, and then the freehold started to go down the toilet, generally due to the Aria/Carin stuff but also due to a split between summer/spring on the one hand and autumn/winter on the other.
Bits and bobs there impacted his psyche badly and he went to a more practical just fucking solve it stance, and one of vengeance for slights.
Having had a good deal of time to mull things over (both ic and ooc) I'm currently trying to take him away from the "angry" and combat style that he's had and more back to something that is interactive and social which is one of the sides of character that hasn't seen much daylight - whether I'm successful at such with a price on his head I dunno but I'm pretty tired of the combat rat race and being a complete cock at folks and I kinda like taking him into a more socially evil pc rather than someone who kicks off at folks as that's not enjoyable for me or others. Of course this means mending relations and such like, which I think could be fun rp if people allow me to do it.