Your unusual character concepts?

[Danikat.8537]

Just for fun what's the most unusual character concept you've come up with, or source of inspiration for a character?

This has got to be my most unusual: Lyolyok.

She's not obviously a weird character and actually inspired by Lyo-Lyok from The Sword in the Stone and/or The Book of Merlin (the short story was moved during a re-write), and since a lot of sylvari culture is inspired by Arthurian legend that kind of makes sense. So what makes it unusual? Lyo-Lyok is a goose. Not a person turned into a goose by a curse or disguised as a goose, she's an actual goose (specifically a greater white-fronted goose). Arthur meets her during one of the times Merlin turns him into an animal so he can learn about other ways of living.

First challenge for me was the colour scheme. I tend to use a lot of bright colours for my characters, even the two who wear mainly black and white use Shadow Abyss and Celestial. Here I tried to replicate an actual white-front's pattern as much as I could. The fact that I'd decided to make her a guardian (for reasons explained below) made it tricky, but luckily the sylvari Arborist armour looks a bit like feathers. Then I used Silver Lead Glossy Black and White to try and mimic the colour scheme.

The other challenge is that Lyo-Lyok is very much a pacifist. She finds the concept of war both amusing and appalling and refuses to believe there's ever a good reason to kill your own kind, and is totally confused by the idea of trying to divide the world up and say "this bit is mine and you can't come in".

I briefly considered trying to stick to non-combat options but ultimately she's a glorified key-runner, so I decided it wasn't worth it (although I might revisit the character later on and try that). Instead I compromised by making her a guardian with lots of healing skills and picked The Shield of the Moon and "All Things Have A Right To Grow" as her biography questions, along with the Cycle of Dawn because 'talkative, empathic, diplomat' fit her perfectly.

It was surprisingly challenging to adapt the character, but it was fun doing it and she's quite fun to play too (very different from my other guardian - a hyper-mobile asura). Still seems a bit weird to play a tree based on a goose though.

[Vavume.8065]

You should probably have used ashen or a brown tone as the skin color though, because I've never seen a goose with that much green.

[jojo.6354]

She's beautiful!!! love the colour scheme, it's especially strange for slyvari >: )! I've never heard about that goose character so its rad to see someone get inspo from something older /o/!