(no subject)

[spellslots]

IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Taako
Canon: The Adventure Zone
Canon Point: Midway through the final boss battle of the final ep, after being knocked unconscious by John

In-Game Tattoo Placement: Back of the neck - similar to this but with only one antler; he's an incomplete set without his sister and I wanted the tattoo to reflect that
Current Health/Status: Not great! At his canon point he's just been knocked unconscious during the final boss fight, mostly due to fire damage, so he'll be a slightly crispy boy
Apparent Age: early 30s
Actual Age: woman laughing alone with salad dot gif. General fandom consensus is all over the place, I go with 300 based on the fact he's definitely an adult for an elf (100 ) but isn't 'old', and his creator has used phrases like "you have to go a long way back to get to anything resembling a childhood"
Species: Elf, roughly as per D&D 5e canon

History: Balance Arc outline and Taako's page
Hometown/World: An unnamed world with striking similarities to Fearun, though with far more technological advancement and notably, a purple sky with two suns. He's spent the last decade in the actual Fearun (on Toril), though again there are some differences from the standard D&D world. Things like elevators, trains and moon bases exist, while things like racism and misogyny don't. It's a pretty ok world.

Personality:

I have a beating heart! I’m multidimensional! I’m a fully realized creation! FUCK!

For a canon that originally started as a complete joke, Taako manages to be a fairly well rounded character. He is, at best, an asshole with a heart of tarnished silver rather than gold, but we try not to hold that against him. The problem with summing up Taako is that there's two slightly different versions of him, due to the decade he lived without his memories. Taako-with-Lup and Taakoo-without-Lup are similar, of course, but they're also distinct people. He's softer with Lup, more open, more assured of himself because no matter how hard life got, there's always one person who loved him and stuck by him. Without Lup, he's distant, catty, and slow to trust.

At his canon point, Taako has only just regained his memories of Lup. This doesn't erase the ten years he spent not knowing she existed, meaning that he's sort of got a lot going on with regards to his personality and he's got a lot of healing to do. That said, there are traits about Taako that are bone deep; he's selfish, he's smart (despite protests otherwise), he's got a big ego but not a whole lot of self-worth, and sometimes, when it counts, he can be kind. With or without Lup, they ran away from home at twelve and were forced to survive without help from anyone, leading him to become a little more selfish, a little more pragmatic, because if it's a choice between himself (and his sister) starving or a stranger starving, he'll choose the stranger. There's a hint of kleptomania that plays into this, where he takes whatever he can because there's no certainty in any situation, it could change at any moment and he'd rather steal gold along the way so that when it does go tits up, he won't be left without a back-up plan.

But his selfishness extends to others, in its own way. It can be a task in and off itself for Taako to start caring about people, considering how many barriers he tosses up to stop people from getting in; a likely side effect of a century where every single person they met was doomed, a set of circumstances that affected Taako deeply. (He wants people close, he's just terrified of losing them.) But once he does start caring, once people are his, he'll go to significant lengths to keep them safe, both from physical harm and emotional distress. When Magnus is offered the chance to give up his quest for revenge, Taako encourages him to take it, to let go of the past that's hurting him and move on. When Lup is plagued by guilt over the magical items they created, Taako does his best to reassure her that she isn't responsible for the deaths caused by the item, that she couldn't have known how bad it would be. Despite not liking to put himself in harm's way, he'll risk his life to help the people he cares about, because losing them is as bad as dying.

Taako is the sort of friend you want to call if your car breaks down at three am, because even if he'll whine about it the whole time and demand that you make it up to him, he'll show up, without fail.

The other big contradiction with ya boy is his ego and self-worth, because he has a whole lot of one and not that much of the other. When it comes to certain things, Taako knows he's got this in the bag. He's confident about his appearance and his cooking skills, and tends to act like he's the most important person in the room at any given time. But he's also constantly doubting himself and his abilities. This is more obvious when he doesn't have memories of Lup; he frequently calls himself stupid despite the fact he comes up with some of the most creative solutions to their problems, and he often seems worried that he'll only be kept around as long as he's useful. The over the top bragging covers up his insecurity.

His sense of humor and laissez-faire attitude are another way to cover up any negative qualities he thinks he has about himself. Taako is quick to make jokes, both to dismiss serious situations and to draw attention from them, and as a way to keep closed off from people. Going in for a slightly mean joke is a sure fire way to stop people from thinking he likes them too much, and if he can use a joke to brush off his own emotions before people catch wind of them, that's even better. More often than not, Taako doesn't seem to take anything seriously, and while sometimes that's true, more often it's a cover to avoid too much scrutiny.

He's someone who's caught between what he wants and what he thinks he can get, and most of the time he takes the easy way out so he doesn't risk losing too much, whether that's a friend, or pride, or straight up gold. With or without Lup, that's just how Taako operates. It's safer that way.

Personal Moral Codes:

Sometimes there aren't good decisions. Sometimes there's just decisions.

On his character sheet, Taako is listed as Chaotic Good, though in practice he leans closer to Chaotic Neutral. His moral code tends to revolve around himself and the people he loves; he's willing to leave an entire world to be destroyed in order to save Lup and will pretty much kill without hesitation if it means saving himself/his family. He's been open to the option of genocide if it meant stopping their enemy from becoming stronger so they could save more lives in the long run. He describes himself as pragmatic on occasion, when it comes to moral choices, as long as it involves strangers and not anyone he cares about. In a prisoner's dilemma, he chose to betray the other party in order to save himself.

This isn't to say he's completely callous, if he feels like something is wrong by how own standards, he'll step in so long as it isn't too risky. He's stepped in to free a slave, to solve a murder, to help save a city, the world, the universe. By his own definition Taako isn't a good person, but that doesn't mean he sometimes won't do the right thing. The compulsion is certainly there, he seems to know what is and isn't the moral choice, but he's willing to do the wrong thing in order to stay alive, even if that means living with the guilt.

But he also knows that things aren't always clear cut. The Adventure Zone is all about choices, and sometimes there isn't a right choice, sometimes you have to make yourself a third option.

Insecurities/Personal Demons:

I'm worried no one else will have me

Boy's got abandonment issues out the wazoo. His biggest fear is being alone, he's desperate for connections to people, and seems to constantly worry that he needs to be useful in order for people to keep him around. This is more prominent during the initial part of the Balance campaign, where he's forgotten about Lup and has a life behind him that seems so much emptier than it should be, despite the fact he knows he's been alone the whole time. There's an empty spot in his heart where Lup should be and it carries over to the rest of his life; instead of growing up with unconditional love from his sister, he was alone. Instead of having a century growing closer to people he came to consider family, he has nothing.

This isn't helped by his overall trust issues, the two play into each other significantly, because he's scared to let anyone too close lest they leave him (as Sazed did), especially when it comes to feelings. He doesn't want to get close to people and start caring about them only for them to abandon him, which people tend to read as him being aloof and closed off, so they don't get too close to him in return. Self-fulfilling prophecy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This ties into his other One Fear which is his friends getting hurt or dying, he's willing to go to extreme lengths to save them, especially Lup. After believing her dead, he gives up instantly, no longer caring whether the universe ends or if he dies with it, because it doesn't matter without Lup.

Taako's also troubled by what happened at Glamor Springs, he's got a lot of guilt about the people that died and has barely cooked since the event for fear of hurting someone else, despite it being something he loves a lot. The fact Glamor Springs wasn't his fault has helped alleviate some of that, but he's got plenty of guilt about all the other shit they've done to make up for it.

Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses: Taako is a level 16 D&D wizard, though they don't abide to D&D rules 100%. He doesn't seem to need prepared spells, instead just going with whatever is most narratively satisfying, though he sticks to wizard spells at least (as opposed to warlock or cleric spells). Most spells require components/gesture/words to be cast, but Taako rarely needs components and has cast spells while paralyzed from the neck down, so this typical D&D weakness doesn't apply to him. He is limited by spell level and spell slots, meaning that he can only cast a certain number of spells per day, which is outlined here, and any spells that need to be maintained can't be stacked. What he does need is focus, to cast a spell, so if he's rattled for any reason, he won't be able to cast.

Like traditional D&D, he is reliant on dice rolls, something that I tend to incorporate into my gameplay when it fits. No spell is a certain success, a bad roll from him or a good roll from an opponent can make even the most powerful spell ineffective.

As a transmutation expert, he also has access to a transmutation stone, allowing him to do certain extra things that a regular wizard can't, including bringing someone back to life. This is limited to once per day, and he needs a free eight hours to prepare a stone.

Honestly, wizard magic doesn't come with a real weakness, per say, the downside is namely in the fact that they tend to be weak physically. Taako has a grand total of 49 hit points, less than usual after he traded away some of his life force in Wonderland. By comparison, their fighter has around 120, so Taako is very much the glass cannon of the team. He hits hard, but he can be taken down easy. He wears no armor, isn't very good with a sword (he can use one, just not very well) and also recently lost some of his dexterity, meaning he can't get out of the way of attacks as easily. If someone wants to take him down, all they need is to get in a few good hits before he can cast too many spells.

That said, he will keep going until he's knocked out because apparently everyone in this universe has a super high pain threshold. This dipshit got an entire washing machine dropped on him and kept on trucking. He had like four hit points left, but he kept going.

On the general side of things, Taako is a very good cook. It's been his lifeblood for a long time and it was enough to help him save the entire universe, even though he was a little out of practice. As part of the IPRE, he has some general knowledge of science and a whole lot of arcana knowledge, though he tends to underestimate himself on this front.

Also he stopped learning math about seventy years ago, so there's that.

Ability/Power/Magic Warping: As discussed in FAQ response, Taako's access to the ethereal plane will be warped, as will any attempts to teleport, the latter will more frequently result in his ending up lost in the forest, so he'll quickly wise up to not using it.

Since his primary spells are combat based (evocation), I'm going to work in blow back more often than not, namely with the area of effect on spells catching Taako or allies in them, despite his best intentions. Any straight up and down transmutation will be on the fritz, similar to how it is in the prequel episode, in which he can't seem to control what things turn into, or he'll alter things without planning to. Technically this isn't possible for a wizard in D&D, but since it's happened in canon I'm going to use it here. Any conjured creatures/items could turn against him or go wrong in the conjuring process, e.g., Faithful Hound might result in something closer to a hellhound that's out for blood. Illusions can function in the same manner, where the final image is much more than whatever Taako planned. And attempts at divination will show him things he doesn't want to see. He barely uses abjuration spells and they're mostly about protection, so they might just not work as effectively? I can't think of a good way to warp that school of magic.

Since necromancy and enchantment fit with the theme, I'll likely keep those spells as is.

Edited: I initially forgot to touch on the transmutation expert part of his magic. Polymorph is a shapeshifting spell he can access once per day, I'm gonna play this the animorphs way where he'll have to struggle a bit to retain his identity rather than losing to the animal instincts. If use of the transmutation stone comes up I might contact you guys on a case-by-case basis since it's fairly high level magic and could have some interesting side effects depending on what's done with it.

Inventory:
1. The umbra staff, this will count as his weapon
2. An outfit, including the wizard hat
3. The cloak in the linked picture, this gives him 1 armor and allows him to breathe underwater
4. A red IPRE cloak
5. Bureau of Balance bracer; this is magically locked onto his arm and cannot be removed
6. His spellbook, he needs that for magic

Writing Samples:
1. sometimes you gotta have big emotions at your boyfriend from the future
2. other times you just gotta fight some monsters

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Justine
Player Age: 25
Player Contact: batsecretary

Other Characters In Game: None
In-Game Tag If Accepted: Taako : Justine
Permissions for Character: here
Are you comfortable with prominent elements of fourth-walling?: I'm okay with it

What themes of horror/psychological thrillers do you enjoy the most?: For psych horror I'm into stuff that leans on people questioning their perception/reality. With general horror I like subtle stuff over heavy gore, scary things that lurk and wait rather than jumping out immediately. I'm pretty into cryptid stuff and nosleep/SPC.
Is there anything in particular you absolutely need specific content warnings for?: Same as permissions post, self-harm and pedophilia
Additional Information: I don't have a cool gif sorry