{"id":34667,"date":"2019-05-20T06:30:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-19T18:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=34667"},"modified":"2019-05-15T21:59:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T09:59:21","slug":"non-player-characters-in-the-wall-of-night-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2019\/05\/20\/non-player-characters-in-the-wall-of-night-series\/","title":{"rendered":"“Non Player” Characters In The Wall Of Night Series"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

The Wall Of Night series<\/p><\/div>\n

“Player” vs “non player” characters are a roleplaying (i.e. roleplaying game) term. Broadly speaking, “player” characters are those developed (i.e. “rolled up” since dice—or more correctly, die—feature in this process) and then played by the participants in the game. “Non player” characters, aka NPCs,\u00a0 are usually those generated by the Game Master to help along whatever campaign she or he is running.<\/p>\n

In writing terms, I tend to think of those characters that exist in present time and are alluded to by others, but never actually appear in the action of the story, as “non player” characters. And yes, I persist in this mental categorization even though I know non player characters are frequently (if not always) part of the action in roleplaying games.<\/p>\n

For me, it’s a useful piece of writerly shorthand, especially as the term does encapsulate the part such characters occupy in the story—an important aspect being that they are not just “names off (stage)”, but their existence has a bearing on the storyline.<\/p>\n

Examples that I can think of, off the top of my head, include Elite Cairon of the Shadow Band, Onnorin of the Derai House of Adamant, and the River trader, Gray Taan.<\/p>\n

As a writer, though, I believe it’s important that non player characters (as opposed to mere “names off”) should still convey a sense of personality and well, character…<\/p>\n

Here’s a snippet for each for the three I’ve mentioned so you can decide for yourself whether I’ve hit the mark:<\/p>\n

\"\"

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Elite Cairon:
\n<\/strong>And Elite Cairon? she wondered. For nearly five years I\u2019ve been working the River every summer and hunting down trails that always came to nothing\u2014yet he is an Elite of the Shadow Band, with its network of listeners and agents. All along he must have known.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Bastard, Malian thought, entirely without surprise.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"daughter-of-blood-by-helen-lowe\"

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

Onnorin of Adamant:
\n<\/strong>…Rook could not help admiring the ensign\u2019s courage in refusing to forswear her mission, despite the punishment meted out. She<\/em><\/span>
\nreminded him of Onnorin, who had taken more than one beating, during their growing up together, that a lie would have prevented.<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Gray Taan:<\/strong><\/span>
\nAsantir paused. \u201cI learned later that the trader, Gray Taan, was famous. As soon as I entered, he said he had something that might interest me.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDid he know the swords\u2019 history?\u201d Kalan asked, curious now.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

She shook her head. \u201cOnly how they came into his hands, amidst an array of weapons of dubious provenance\u2014his<\/em><\/span>
\nwords\u2014in a tinker\u2019s wagon. Too rich and too foreign for easy sale, the tinker had told him, and that he had been thinking<\/em><\/span>
\nof melting them down. … “<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Player” vs “non player” characters are a roleplaying (i.e. roleplaying game) term. Broadly speaking, “player” characters are those developed (i.e. “rolled up” since dice—or more correctly, die—feature in this process) and then played by the participants in the game. “Non player” characters, aka NPCs,\u00a0 are usually those generated by the Game Master to help along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,51,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-the-characters","category-epicfantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34667"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36689,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34667\/revisions\/36689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}