'Nother head baby!

[IamLEAM1983]

What if Meris found enough reasons to spare one of her marks?

I figure around the same time she bumped into Gammell, someone fed her intel regarding a pesky Squid holding down a post in some prestigious university or a Steampunk-worthy occupation of some kind. A watchmaker, maybe. Wanting to be thorough and following her usual procedure, she'd shadow the guy for a few nights.

Thing is, while the guy is definitely a Weaver, he's so pedestrian in his routine that whoever told her he had to have some sort of agenda starts to feel pretty off-base to her. A few days later, she realizes she has to be sure. The only way to do that is to tell the guy the jig is up. To her surprise, the guy is completely ignorant of all things Dalarath and Others-worship! He checks out mentally, so amnesia or mental tampering are out of the question. What's even stranger is how he can't speak a lick of the Black Speech, but more or less learned to use his species' natural abilities on his own - which means his skill set is pretty unique.

As to what those skills would be, I'm not sure. Single-person time travel, maybe? All I know is I am not tackling another time travel RP, ever. It'd be more manageable if travel were something that happened to isolated individuals, though.

If not that, then what? Steampunk wizardry? Wouldn't that clash with Gammell? Would it bother anyone if it did, even? Maybe both. Some sort of high-magic content watchmaker?

Mostly, though, I figure he'd come from the more bubbly end of the Victo spectrum. Whoever adopted him slapped him with something that isn't quite a veil, but maybe some kind of "Meh, looks okay to me" field. People see the squid with the top hat, but they just don't give a shit. He's just another guy. So no troubled childhood, no dark past, no super-complex problems... Except maybe for the fact that the natural cleverness of Void Weaver makes him feel as though everyone's a little slow, compared to him. He doesn't write anyone off so much as he's sad when someone can't follow his torturous leaps of logic.

How's that sound?

[TennyoCeres84]

He seems alright as far as his concept goes, but what would his overall purpose in the Hope universe be? As far as his occupation, I'd steer away from the steampunk/magitech inventor. Gammell already has that covered, and where would that leave the Jabberwock (whenever he does come into play)? This is just a suggestion, but what if he was a professor of some obscure, out-there kind of mystical and advanced form of math?

He's been hired by the university to teach the gifted sorts this new branch of arithmetic so they can go on to build all these nifty machines. That would explain why he might feel everyone else around him is a little slow. That type of math is a breeze for him to understand, but it's difficult for others to grasp. He's seen as brilliant, but a little odd. How does that sound?

[IamLEAM1983]

Pretty good, and I have to admit that sleeping on it gave me some distance.

What I figure could have happened is the guy is a bit of a frustrated mathematician at first. He's come close to being a respected academic, but his theories concerning the nature of time are too out there for most folks - even in a mindset that predates Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. So, doubling down on his work as a vanilla watchmaker, he makes himself a single-person time-traveling device and starts hopping around the time stream, thinking he's really pulling off nerdy superhero stunts out of altruism, when all he really wants is recognition.

So, the more he'd jump around, the more he'd develop a set of tools for himself that don't really belong anywhere in the Steampunk or Modern Magitech categories, seeing as he's based them off of future technologies that haven't been developed yet, or applications of actual tech that were quickly abandoned. That would mean he wouldn't really tinker in Gammell or the Jabberwock's background, seeing as he's basing himself off of presently nonexistent tech trees. Being the responsible sort, he'd rig most of his tools to self-destruct in someone else's hands, to avoid a more nefarious take on a time traveler getting ahold of his toys. Aesthetically, the result would be "High Concept Sci-Fi meets Victorian Aesthetics" more than Steampunk proper.

As he doesn't work with Gammell's resources and doesn't cook like the Jabberwock, I think he wouldn't interfere with them. Now, finding out what his purpose would be might be a little trickier. I figure he normally is more of a benevolent tourist than anything else, but Meris opening his eyes as to what his heritage means could drive him to use his abilities as a means to undermine the general Void Weaver populace as well as anyone who's generally pro-Squid or pro-Others.

I figure he pops up on random campuses around the world here and there, using some of his tools in a somewhat debatable fashion - largely to freeze time between the arrival of some Physics students and their actual teacher, so he can slip in and give an impromptu lecture.

[TennyoCeres84]

I think that would work. He's not a character that would show up occasionally, but would have relevance and not take over the whole game.