Roleplay babble: 'Stacia Venomtongue

I've been rather lax about posting here in this, the merry month of May. Been busy, I suppose; I'm likely to remain busy for a while yet.

Yesterday I engaged in my first serious act of online roleplaying over at Izland H0ppin. It was pretty fuckin' awesome, all things considered. The character I'm playing will probably get incorporated into Toggle at some point; many of my roleplay characters either originate or settle there (Tana and Neru lived in the Second Era; Vlad settled into the Fourth, and brought his god along with him; my D&D character for next year will be another Second Era personality).

Back when I first started playing D&D with my brothers, I was always stuck being one of two things: the cleric, or the kobold. And then when we started playing 3rd edition, I was occasionally allowed to play a halfling sorceress. I'm still fond of those old cleric characters- my favorite was the rogue/cleric with the sun and trickery domains. I worshipped a very confused god, used a scythe as my primary weapon, and backstabbed things to death more often than I healed them. It was good times.

Haven't gamed with my brother since first year; the mess with Alan and James came to a head, and then people got girlfriends and jobs, and the gaming stopped. It's a good thing Renegades is as awesome as it is, because otherwise I'd be quite sad. Roleplaying is what keeps me sane these days.

My Island Hopping character is Anastacia Venomtongue; she goes by 'Stacia most of the time, and doesn't tell people her last name. It raises too many annoying questions. She's a Jerren, which is a variation of halfling from the Book of Vile Darkness; they radiate evil the way orcs radiate body odor. Stacia's bluff is pretty good, though, and she isn't very evil. (The paladin in the party hasn't started throwing fits yet.) I hate the D&D alignment system; people can't be pared down to two qualifiers on a sliding scale. Stacia sees herself as a law abiding citizen of the Islands; she doesn't cause trouble, she doesn't kill people, and she doesn't cheat at cards. On the other hand, she's a drug addict, a thief, and a poisonmaker.

Stacia is a horizon walker; she lives to travel and research new places. Poison is her passion- she travels to find new poison components, and supports herself by selling the fruits of her research. She steals things when they interest her or when she's short on cash and needs to restock her supplies. She uses blue mushroom powder to increase her concentration; technically she isn't a drug addict (her fortitude save is too high), as she's very careful about not overdosing or taking too much, too often. The powder increases her intelligence and charisma, but lowers her strength, will, and constitution; when she's on it, she's brilliant, but she has a strength of 3.

Blue mushroom powder is also a mild hallucinogenic, so she tends to giggle a lot when she's on it. She giggles a fair amount the rest of the time, too; the antics of her party members amuse her to no end. When she's not higher than a kite, she's a good humored, easy going sort of person. She's polite and tends to speak formally, with a lot of pauses and thoughtful noises mixed in with her words. It's a bad habit, but it's one she's never quite been able to lose; she's slightly spacey at the best of times, in that stereotypical academic sort of way.

She's small, even for a halfling- barely more than two and a half feet tall, and very weak. She wears boots of flying to avoid being trampled, and wears sunglasses all the time, even at night. This isn't because her eyes are sensitive- it's because the sunglasses are magical. She has two pairs- one pair with round lenses, one with rectangular- and she switches between them periodically. She's got bright red hair, tied back in a high ponytail and covered by a bandana, pale blue eyes, and very fair, freckled skin. In short, she's adorable, or she would be if she smiled more often. She tends to look very serious and thoughtful, and covers her mouth when she laughs. She carries a small crossbow at all times, and is decked out in belts full of pouches and flasks. She has a pair of heavy gloves for dealing with contact poisons, and a lot of sharp and nasty looking tools for dissecting things. She doesn't wear armor; with all of her equipment, she's already bordering on encumbered, and when she's on drugs, she has to drop a lot of stuff just to be able to walk.

So yes. She's cute, she's poisonous, and she does drugs (but she can quit any time, honest). And I have far too much fun playing her, because, wow. I love roleplaying, especially with my Renegades darlings, and anyone associated with Trina. It's good times.

If Stacia shows up in Toggle, she'll probably be one of the Guild's independent contactors; they make their own poisons, but 'Stacia supplies rarer components and new toxins for the right price. And she'd be a friend of Silverlock's, because he's friends with everyone, except Greymalkin. (I should work on that plot point. Hm.)