Where did they come from?

31 Aug

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I got asked the question, where do you get the idea for Shani and Pania and why put them in the drop back of the old west. Admittedly, both characters began in table top role play and evolved into RPG games like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, then into MMO’s like Guild Wars and CoX.

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Pania pretty much kept with her bardic aspect (it was only recently that paladin/sorceress was added to the mix). Shani had always been a rogue in one aspect or another (her current aspect on a Neverwinter Nights server is bard/red dragon disciple).

When I began playing pnp, Shani was always just a quick roll and away we went. I developed slight aspects as we went, such as voice, accent, along with her comedic aspects as well.

Pania was different. I created her as a first edition bard (while playing 2nd Ed, Skills and Powers, Combat and Tactics). So, she went levels of rogue, fighter and druid, then became a bard.

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The idea for writing them together in stories began as a pair of traveling minstrels in a way, that would meet adventure and tell tales of it. That idea stuck, but the backdrop always had some problems. It wasn’t until playing CoX (both Shani and Pania had gone through Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Guild Wars, Neverwinter Nights 2, and CoX) and a short stint on NWN, that it came to me to drop them in the wild west. Pania had already made her mark, so to speak, as a gunslinger. And Shani had that Arkansas drawl. So putting them into the wild west would be interesting.

Since then, I’ve developed a few other wild west backdrops (one I started posting) and it’s been a lot of fun compared to keeping them in a pure fantasy setting.