About my character

Behold, the power of cringe.

I've been asked where my character is from so many times over the years. And for characters such as this, it's a multi layered question which requires several directions of explanations. I could just say he's an OC. He certainly is. But he's also technically from something. I could just say my D&D character. Which is close to what he is, but he's actually from Pathfinder. And of course those who know what kinda activity pathfinder and D&D are will go on to ask questions like what class he is, what kinda campaign he's from, and so on. So, I might as well leave this here. How deep you want to go depends on your level of curiosity.

What is your cosplay from?:

It's my Pathfinder RPG character.

What's Pathfinder?:

I usually just say D&D because more people have heard of that franchise and can associate it to the activity of tabletop roleplaying than if I said pathfinder. Pathfinder is basically a spin off of D&D, and thus is basically the exact same kind of activity of nerds rolling dice. But I digress. If you know what it is, you already likely know where it came from, and if you don't, you probably didn't come here for a tabletop gaming history lecture.

What is he?:

He's a freelance adventurer in a world where most adventurers sell their freedoms and join guilds for security. Thus why I roam around panhandling for quests.

No, I mean what class/race is he?:

Half elf, Ranger.

Who is he?:

My character's name is Tobias Wren.

What's his back story? (Nutshell version):

Was born to a high elf adventurer mother and a human bandit father. It was mutual, and she stayed with them for a few years, before disappearing one night. Leaving the young half elf to grow up in the outlaw life. He of course grew rebellious and soft around adolescence when he started to connect to people more, so he followed in his mother's footsteps and left to employ what he had learned in order to help people rather than rob them. His half elf connection helped to connect him more intuitively to nature, and so he kinda fell into the ranger vocation. Although he has never been formally trained as one. Though he has never been pardoned for the crimes of the life he was born into. And thus despite using the fake last name "Wren", he is very cautious around institutionalized orders, and thus his apprehension towards joining official adventurer guilds. Since in his setting, most guilds have somewhat of a monopoly on quests, it limits the kind of work he is able to pick up. So he does most of his work for rural peasants who can't really pay very much, and may not have the resources to send a request to the cities.

What's his personality like?:

Introverted, but confident. He's careful and somewhat meticulous, but a man of decisive action when swift action is required. He learned how to read rather late in life, and only because he started to realize just how practical of a skill it was after becoming an adventurer. Since he's somewhere on the asexual spectrum, a lot of jokes and references go way over his head. Hence why he has trouble interpreting quests like "Get Laid by a hot chick" and will find a flaming chocobo cosplayer to lay him down on the grass. In spite of this his introversion, he knows that it helps business to be well liked and affable, thus will generally emulate the archetype of a heroic adventurer. (And because behaving as such helps convey to those who interact with me what I'm doing when I walk down a hallway looking for traps, or boisterously saying "My, you sure look questworthy, sir knight!" or why I bow down to every princess, noble, or king and utter "Milord/Milady!") Despite being a driven worker of course, he is a very lazy person in his downtime. He's neutral good of alignment, with chaotic tendencies from his early life, and lawful tendencies from the man he wants to be remembered as.

I was cosplaying my fairy OC and tried to talk to him, when he ran away screaming. What's with this?:

If you've ever tried to interact with him when wearing a fairy cosplay, then you may have noticed his nervous apprehension or seen him back away slowly while saying "Not like this, not like this", let's just say that he has a phobia of the goodly folk. The fey take fascination of half elves in his world. And this fixation doesn't exactly show bias towards their well being. One of Tobias's eyes is actually fake. He can still see through his real missing eye when he dreams. And it sits on a shelf of an otherworldly cottage belonging to a being who abducted him as a child. Not all fey creatures scare him of course. If you don't want to scare him, just let him know that you are from the mortal world or the woodland realm to disarm him. (After all, fairies in his home setting could be one of two types. Lucid and Dreaming. Lucid fairies are born of nature, and thus can actually comprehend or even relate to mortal existence. Dreaming fey are born of the... other place. And they merely emulate caricatures of certain beings that they have no ability to understand. If however you do want to scare the hell out of my character, just say something along the lines of "We have come to honor the bargain." or even worse; "Madam Duval told us we'd find you here." And then walk towards him as if your limbs were being manipulated by puppet wires. You'll get to see my full sprinting speed. ; )

Alternatively walk towards him like this.

But we could find out more about that whole thing if I ever decide to go into more detail about his backstory. I might even reveal his character sheet one of these days.