Taug (TOOK) Maciver

Vagabond Scottish Tinker with a knack for inventing things out of scraps (4)
Former priest seeking redemption (3)
Self-sufficient outdoorsman (3)

Taug Maciver is a failed priest from Inverness-shire, Scotland who left for America when he was excommunicated from the church. He has stayed in various Scottish settlements in Appalachia and Darien, Georgia.

He works as a tinker, but is helping to fix more than people’s mechanical devices, he helps to fix their spirits.

He is currently working his way across Texas, looking for word from God as to what his path should be.

NOTE:  this is for a Ranger Company X game taking place towards the end of the US Civil War.

The Greatest American Hero

in honor of SyFy’s upcoming marathon July 4th, here is my take on Captain Crash^* himself, Ralph Hinkley.

Ralph Hinkley

A poor excuse for a super hero, but a caring man who wants to do right, Ralph tries to help the best that he can.

Clichés

High school special education teacher (4)

Inept wearer of an alien super suit [3]

Lucky Shots  [][][][][][]

Tools of the Trade

Alien Super Suit that provides a variety of powers (including flying, invulnerability, invisibility, and super speed; amongst others yet discovered)

Hooks

Ralph lost the instruction manual to the super suit so everything is trial and error (quite often error). Without the suit, Ralph has no super powers.

Tale^**

Ralph Hinkley is a teacher of special education students. Determined to get through to them, Ralph took them on a “geological survey” field trip to the desert. Coming back from the field trip later that night, the school bus breaks down. Ralph starts to walk back through the desert to get help and he encounters a swerving car driven by FBI Special Agent Bill Maxwell (Culp) that stops just in time to avoid hitting Hinkley. Maxwell insists that he could not control the car. Then two bright purple lights appear in the sky and they both jump in the car and try to get away, but the car will not start and the doors lock by themselves trapping them inside.

They are surprised to find that the lights come from an alien spacecraft. The alien tells Ralph and Bill (by way of the car radio) that they are to work together to save the world and Ralph will be given the power to change it. They are given a black case. Later Ralph opens it and finds a red suit (with cape) which endows him with superhuman abilities. Bill runs off from fear, but later contacts Ralph, leading to an awkward partnership as the two try to use the powers of the suit (which Bill calls the “magic jammies”) to fight crime.

^* that’s what we called him based on how he landed when he flew.

^**from the wikipedia article

Volo*

Volo is a raven that was raised to be a familiar for Jericho Shroudchanter.  However, Jericho chose to experiment on Volo to give him more power. He succeeded. Volo became super intelligent and able to cast spells; however in the process Jericho turned into a drooling idiot.

Cliches

hyper-intelligent, overconfident raven (4); shadow caster [2]; Magical Enchantment: speak [2] 

Hooks

Volo can only cast spells that have verbal and material components. He hasn’t figured a way to cast spells that require gestures. He also has trouble casting spells with material components as it is hard to get a hold of them.

Tale

Volo was happy to serve Jericho Shroudcaster. He does feel guilty of what happened to Jericho and is working to restore him back to normal.

——-

*Volo was designed to be used with the Something Familiar setting.

One of my favorite Risus characters:

Noble Quinn

Description: Rugged warrior in his late 30s who seems to always be concentrating on something else. He walks with a slight limp and uses a quarterstaff as a walking stick/weapon (he sometimes pretends it has magical powers too). 

Clichés

• Exiled Warrior King of Fuhsaz Seeking to Regain The Throne (4)
• Dabbler in the Magical Arts [3]
• Inventive Prankster (2)

Yes, I could have done a better job with Aragorn…see if you can name this one:

Prince bent on starting a war with Gilder (4), Hunter who can track a hawk on a cloudy day [3]

An example (time me)..

Silent Ranger (4), Friend of the Elves (3), King of Man in Denial (3)

There.  I just created Aragorn in less than a minute.  That’s part of why Risus is so cool.