B|t|B – My Writing Hurdles #2 – Multi-Class

Hello my fellow bookworms and page turners, here we are again and this time at the second major hurdle of my current project.. it is of course my characters traits and skills. Once I wrote out the plot and began writing hacking away at the keyboard. My main characters quickly became ridiculously over talented so much so that the character is very un-believable. Not to mention the amount of gear he would have to lug about with him.. I mean.. look at this silly sketch I made to demonstrate (my character is not a platypus it just elevates the silliness of the multi-class).

Now I may have gone to the extreme a little, depicting a Wizard, a Rogue, a Warrior, and a Ranger. But with my characters skill set needing to be so broad, without giving too much away its the creation story of legendary steampunk-esc magical thief.

In order to do this he would need a plethora of gadgets gizmo’s and magical appliances. Carting all that stuff around, wouldn’t be light weight or incognito, I needed a way to make this possible, a magical “Mary Poppins” bag was my first thought, but that’s far to over done, and would be very impractical when being chased or needing to do something quickly fumbling around inside it, I looked to Batman and his utility belt, it could work but I felt like using this concept felt too much like cheating.

I pushed it to the back of my mind as I was going to visit a friends house in Leeds for the weekend, we had a drink, and sat and talked a good while about old times and new, and then it struck me like a lightening bolt while talking about how we met at university, when he came into my room on a unicycle while juggling.. JUGGLING BALLS! there small & Compact, light and non encumbering especially if they are mounted onto a belt or in some kind of fashioned holder. and so i created the idea of a series of magical gear sphere’s  each having its own unique property! only problem now is deciding which abilities are worth having! here are a few of my brainstormed idea’s thus far:

1. The ability to summon a familiar, to scout and infiltrate area’s through vents or cracks
2. The creation of a smokescreen to distract or hide
3. The creation of a knock-out gas to incapacitate enemy’s
4. The magical unlocking of any lock, Magical or Otherwise
5. An ability projects a perfect magical holo-camoflage making the user appear and sound to be someone else entirely
6. The ability to create some king of grappling line or magically float in order to avoid floor sensors or to pass above guards.
7. The ability to communicate with animals, and allow them to aid you  Horses / Dogs
8. The ability to make a temporary barrier or shield
9. The ability to cloak temporarily
10. The ability to duplicate any object

As you can see my mind is now teaming with idea’s its just a case of whittling down the most important ones especially as I hope to introduce more “orbs” as the story progresses, and hopefully into other stories so long as I finish this one first!

I would love to know what you think of my idea’s, sometimes I keep thinking I am going around in circles and not making any progress.. spinning my wheels as it where!  I will keep at it and I will finish this though.. I hope!

Until next time, read more books!