Document Q, Part 4
The Nature of Character Traits
Document Q continues below. First, let’s look at those Traits your character has.
Think of them as kind of like traits you find in characters in fiction. Where are they strong; where are they weak; what makes one character likeable, and another one punchable. Who deserves a happy ending, and who deserves to be fed through a woodchipper.
The five Principia Canonica Traits are Archetype, Identity, Strength, Weakness, and Drive.
Archetype
The character’s Archetype describes the role the character plays in the narrative, for example a Caregiver or a Truthseeker.
Identity
The character’s Identity is how the character sees themselves: a Dogged Reporter, a Steadfast Cop, a Meddling Busybody, a Stalwart Fighter, and so on.
Strength
Your character’s greatest asset in the struggle to confront the instability in the story. It could be Too Stubborn To Know When He’s Beaten, or Leaves No Stone Left Unturned.
Weakness
Something about the character that holds them back. When a Weakness is invoked, the character is drawn to confront it, staging a struggle to grow beyond this limitation, such as Too Proud For Her Own Good or Won’t Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, or Has To Be Seen To Be Right or even Let Justice Be Done, Though The Heavens Fall.
Drive
Lastly, your Drive is what pushes you through your limitations. Engaging your Drive brings you to face the obstacles and confront them. Examples - Leave No Men Behind, or Family Comes First, or There Must Be A Better Way.
You, The Player
You get to choose your character’s Traits. They can fit the theme of the story being told, or they can be core facets of your persona which you bring from story to story, facing different challenges each time - political intrigue in one, a medical emergency in the next, a daring romance in the next, a murder mystery running throughout the entire story arc.
My character Maven is an example.
Archetype: Nexus of Chaos. Maven stirs up stuff wherever she goes, putting a spoke in the most carefully-laid plans.
Identity: Former soap star with a shady past. The Child of Tuuren, the only survivor of a devastated world.
Strength: Situational awareness. Maven’s OODA loop is always on, thanks to what feels like a lifetime of Adjutant training.
Weakness: Addiction. She is always either on the verge of quitting or freshly quit, and her cravings are seemingly unending.
Drive: Act, don’t react. Maven attracts trouble in some form or another, and she’s not any kind of passive observer - when it comes for her, she faces it head on.
You’ll notice that I haven’t listed any of her advantages - her headcomp, her psychic powers - because ultimately, what matters is that Maven carries mystique around with her. Even when the stories are told in the first person, Maven only lets on hints here and there as to her past, her possible futures - whichever direction she steers her personal light curve towards at any given moment. Whatever trouble she faces, Maven hits it with her personality, her experience, her knowledge. She thinks tactically. She plans strategically.
She puts herself into the situation. Not her technical advantages. Maven is a person, not a collection of powers.
Back to Document Q.
Last week, you were caught in the rain, being led to what looks like a limo. Corporal Benton has commandeered your ride, but three mystery aerial contacts have been picked up, approaching your twenty, fast, in attack formation.
You watch Benton gun your car into motion, throwing up spray from the tyres as he turns around and drives back down the road.
You hardly have time to look at your benefactor before those contacts are upon you, three actinic beams lancing down from bright points far above. For a moment, they circle the cars you are standing next to: but then they move, as if they’d caught a scent, and speed directly towards the distant car.
A huge blaze of orange light emerges from within your vehicle, as it seems to explode from within.
‘My stuff,’ you say, as you watch the bright beams vanish and the three points seem to dance about one another in what looks like a victory dance before speeding off back the way they came.
‘What?’
You look at your benefactor. ‘All my stuff was in that,’ you say. ‘My clothes, toiletries, my ID …’ You glance inside the waiting limo, where Rex is already curled up in the well of the passenger area.
‘At least your dog is okay,’ the wise voice says. Footsteps approach, and a shadow emerges from the darkness into the headlights. It’s Benton.
‘I made it out before they got the car,’ he says, handing you a holdall. ‘I saw this on the passenger seat. Thought it might have been important. I’m sorry I couldn’t save anything in the back.’
You open the holdall. All your journalistic gear is there - microphones and voice recorder, cameras, lenses, rigs, stands. Your purse, containing your ID and press card. ‘Everything important, yeah,’ you say, looking at the burning hulk of what was left of your car, your home, undergoing some bizarre change as you watch. Metal doesn’t dissolve into light like that. As you watch, the vehicle just seems to disintegrate into some sort of dust, scattered across the road, the flames already dissipating.
‘What sort of … of weapon does that?’ you ask. In reply, your benefactor attaches something cool to the side of your neck, just over your shoulder. You try to turn and ask her what she just stuck to your body, but waves of dizziness and lethargy begin to flood your consciousness. In seconds, your consciousness goes dark.