Siyamak

Finally, the character who is up next on my list.


Name: Siyamak (SEE-ah-mack)
Name Meaning: Man with dark eyes
Age: 12 (appears to be 30 though. You’ll see why)
Gender: Technically, Siy doesn't have a gender, but his appearance is that of a man.
Race: Phantom
Eye Color: Completely black. They look like black eye shapes on his face, because that’s all you see. No pupils or irises.
Hair Color: Technically, Siy has no hair, but what looks like his hair is dark gray.
Height: 6’2” when not possessing anything.
Weight: Varies when possessing things, but when he is not, he weighs pretty much nothing.

Weapon: Technically himself. Siyamak has the ability to possess things, living or non-living and that’s how he fights.

Armor: Usually no armor, but if Siyamak were to possess, say, an empty suit of armor, he’d have some then, haha.

Strengths: Siyamak can possess anything he wants and use what he’s possessing to his own free will. He can possess something alive or nonliving and use it to fight. When he possesses something, then his strengths can vary. If he is taking over the body of a lion, for example, he can use the lion’s claws, teeth, etc. to their strength. If he is taking over the body of a large dinosaur, he has the creature’s size and strength as his advantages. And so on and so forth. Siyamak can also fly pretty fast when not possessing something and he is very good at hiding himself from mortal eyes. Also, Siyamak cannot die. He can, however, be destroyed, which is described in the weaknesses section.

Weaknesses: Weaknesses vary. As his phantom self, Siyamak is pretty much weak to nothing, but since he cannot fight that way, that gift is useless. Siyamak gains the weaknesses of whatever he possesses. If he possesses something weak to fire, like a tree, then he becomes weak to fire. If he possesses a bird, he becomes vulnerable to electricity and so on. Another thing, Siyamak is automatically thrown out of what he’s possessing if the subject is hit. So if he were to possess his own opponent, he’d hit the opponent and immediately stop possessing them. However, possessing the opponent or any living thing is very risky because if the living thing Siyamak is possessing dies while he’s possessing it, he can be destroyed as well. As a result, he does not often do this in fear of mistakenly killing his opponent.

Skills/Magic: Siyamak, as said before, has the ability to possess living and nonliving things. It’s really the only thing he can do on his own (without possessing something) to his protection. Other than that though, he can go through walls, fly at a pretty high speed, and be tough to see at night.

Appearance: Siyamak looks almost like the silhouette of a human. He’s like a human-shaped blob of gray all over. He appears to wear dark gray long pants and a long sleeve shirt. He also looks like he’s wearing a hooded black cloak with the hood always over his head. His glowing black eyes are the only extremely visible part of his face. His feet appear to have jet black boots. This is all, as he’s nothing more than a phantom and cannot carry or have anything else on him.

Personality: Siyamak, though he looks very evil and possibly frightening to some others, is not evil at all. He merely goes about his business never bothering anybody. If he sees danger, he will defend against it, but only for his sake and the sake of anyone on his side. When Siyamak speaks, he is blunt, and when he is fighting, he does not give up easily, especially if it is for someone he cares about. He despises all who are evil-minded and dreams of a world without beings who love to make others suffer and this is because he was once evil himself. Siyamak forever regrets it and cannot let go of that regret.

Bio: Siyamak was “born” twelve years ago when he was conjured up by an evil warlock by the name of Zentar, who lived in a cave just north of a small human nation. Zentar created these ghosts and phantoms to do his evil bidding and aid with his evil plots, such as stealing, killing, or taking over a village/city/etc. Siyamak, of course, obeyed every command because all of Zentar’s creations were under his control by his magic.

“I hereby dub you Siyamak, the man with the dark eyes,” Zentar said upon the phantom’s conjuring. “Now go, my newest minion, and help your partners make me rich and wealthy! Hahahaha!”

What was unknown, however, was that Siyamak was no ordinary phantom. Somehow, he had a nature and will unlike that of any of the other ghosts and phantoms Zentar created. Siyamak’s true nature had finally shown when he was one day forced to rob a rich family’s home. As Siyamak flew about the big house undetected, the husband was walking through the halls. The phantom, using Zentar’s magic (because without it, he’d be able to do no stealing) picked up whatever valuables and money he could find. The husband appeared before him right when he had his arms full. The man attempted an assault upon Siyamak, but the magic of Zentar almost immediately murdered him. A woman, the wife, and a little girl had appeared soon after only to find the man dead. The little girl began to cry when she realized he was dead.

Siyamak did not like what he was seeing. Upon watching the little girl suffer, then realizing how she and her mother would have a trouble life without the husband’s probable income, Siyamak was able to prevent himself from robbing them and laid the money and valuables he took on the floor before them. He flew away in shame afterwards, not wanting to commit such a deed ever again. Zentar was made very angry at his minion’s actions and forced Siyamak back into his cave.

“I care not what you think of my decision!” Siyamak snapped at his old master. “One day, I shall never do your dirty work again!”

“That’s what you think,” Zentar replied as the phantom flew off.

Unfortunately, Siyamak could not easily stop committing evil crimes and break free of Zentar’s control. After trying so hard, his mind and his heart (meaning pure hearted nature, not an actual heart lol) allowed him to escape the evil warlock’s magic and Siyamak finally committed his last evil deed. He went as far away from Zentar as he could, resulting in angering the evil warlock more than he’d ever been. Immediately, Zentar sent some of his other ghost/phantom minions to begin a search for the new traitor and take control of him again.

Siyamak discovered this information when he decided to return to the human nation hoping to find some way to fight against Zentar. Unfortunately, he found two of the other ghosts and phantoms looking for him and overheard them talking about hunting Siyamak down. He immediately fled once again, but even farther away than last time. And this time, Siyamak did not return. For the next ten years, he had his own life and no one controlling him, and still does so today.

Still, as he moved on, Siyamak chose to stay out of the sight of humans and other live creatures as much as possible to avoid trouble. He could not help the fact that he looked frightening or evil and did not want to cause unneeded problems for the mortals. The only times he would ever show himself is to commit a heroic deed and show that he means no harm and never does. Still to this day, however, Zentar’s minions hunt Siyamak and would not rest until either they found him or Siyamak put an end to their plans for good.


There. I hope he makes sense.

Hello, Crystal. My name is Drammor, and I'll be assisting you with the approval of this character. I've taken a bit of time to familiarize myself with your other characters, and I've noticed that you've been in the EH long enough to be a veteran. As such, I'll be holding you to a slightly higher set of standards and quality than the new folks. So, let's get started, shall we?

This Siyamak of yours has a good character concept; it hasn't already been done three or four times in some way, so kudos for that.

After a bit of review, I've found that this character is fairly empty. Although emptiness is not an easily definable characteristic, this is one of the things that we'll be addressing through the approval process. First, you've done a lot of talking about what your character doesn't have, and I can fit everything but your character's bio onto one screen. Neither of those are good things.

I'd like you to take out the bits about Siyamak's possession being his weapon and armor, the notes on the same in his weight and height, and instead put that in his skills/magic section.

Strengths: Siyamak can possess anything he wants and use what he’s possessing to his own free will. He can possess something alive or nonliving and use it to fight. When he possesses something, then his strengths can vary. If he is taking over the body of a lion, for example, he can use the lion’s claws, teeth, etc. to their strength. If he is taking over the body of a large dinosaur, he has the creature’s size and strength as his advantages. And so on and so forth. Siyamak can also fly pretty fast when not possessing something and he is very good at hiding himself from mortal eyes. Also, Siyamak cannot die. He can, however, be destroyed, which is described in the weaknesses section.

Being able to possess anything... this statement is too vague for me, and if it means what I get the impression it does, then it's too powerful for the scope of the EH. However, I'm not going to touch on that completely, just yet. Wherein he gains the strengths of whatever he's possessing, please move that into the description of his possession ability in the skills/magic section.

I want to know if Siyamak can walk, or if he always flies. I get the feeling from this description that he's incorporeal. If he is, that's something you need to mention. How fast can Siyamak fly? You said that he's good at hiding from mortal eyes. Is this different for creatures that aren't mortal? Does mortal include people with magic? Finally, if you want a character who cannot die, that's fine.

Weaknesses: Weaknesses vary. As his phantom self, Siyamak is pretty much weak to nothing, but since he cannot fight that way, that gift is useless. Siyamak gains the weaknesses of whatever he possesses. If he possesses something weak to fire, like a tree, then he becomes weak to fire. If he possesses a bird, he becomes vulnerable to electricity and so on. Another thing, Siyamak is automatically thrown out of what he’s possessing if the subject is hit. So if he were to possess his own opponent, he’d hit the opponent and immediately stop possessing them. However, possessing the opponent or any living thing is very risky because if the living thing Siyamak is possessing dies while he’s possessing it, he can be destroyed as well.

This isn't right. As his phantom self, as in when he is not possessing something, he needs at least two weaknesses that are not directly related to or a part of his personality. Please think of something for those, and edit them in. Saying that he cannot fight on his own is not a good enough balance for invincibility.

Similar to the situation above, please move the part that says he gains the weaknesses of whatever he possesses to the skills/magic section of the character. You said that he gets "thrown out" of anything that he is possessing that gets "hit." What do you mean by thrown out? You mean ejected? If that's true, what effect does that have on what he's possessing? What do you mean by hit? Struck with a physical object? And if this is true, then wouldn't that mean that there are very, very few cases in which he'd still be in a body if it dies, thus all but annulling the next statement?

As a result, he does not often do this in fear of mistakenly killing his opponent.

This a personality trait. Please move it to his personality section.

Skills/Magic: Siyamak, as said before, has the ability to possess living and nonliving things. It’s really the only thing he can do on his own (without possessing something) to his protection. Other than that though, he can go through walls, fly at a pretty high speed, and be tough to see at night.

As is, this possession ability is too powerful. It needs limits and conditions. I also want to see a lot more detail on it. As it seems to be the entire focus on the character, I'll be satisfied for now once I see at least one complete, five-to-seven-sentence paragraph describing this power, outside of the parts that you'll be moving in from the other sections of the character. A couple of questions I have in particular are: can the possession be resisted by things, animate or not? And when he possesses a creature, what happens to that creature's mind? For that matter, what happens to a possession victim's soul?

You mentioned something again that indicates that he could be incorporeal. If he's not corporeal, then that is definitely something that you should be listing in his strengths section. If he's semi-corporeal, partially corporeal, selectively corporeal or can choose whether or not to be corporeal, then those are details that you need to address. They are also things which you might cover in his armor section. If he is incorporeal, or can be, or whatever, does that ability extend to his inventory?

Appearance: Siyamak looks almost like the silhouette of a human. He’s like a human-shaped blob of gray all over. He appears to wear dark gray long pants and a long sleeve shirt. He also looks like he’s wearing a hooded black cloak with the hood always over his head. His glowing black eyes are the only extremely visible part of his face. His feet appear to have jet black boots. This is all, as he’s nothing more than a phantom and cannot carry or have anything else on him.

I'd like to see more detail here as well. There are many different shapes of men, so please edit in some detail on what kind of person he looks like. I'd like you to expand this section, please. Start by pretending that you did not list anything about his appearance in the first eight lines of the profile, and describe those things in complete sentence prose form.

Personality: Siyamak, though he looks very evil and possibly frightening to some others, is not evil at all. He merely goes about his business never bothering anybody. If he sees danger, he will defend against it, but only for his sake and the sake of anyone on his side. When Siyamak speaks, he is blunt, and when he is fighting, he does not give up easily, especially if it is for someone he cares about. He despises all who are evil-minded and dreams of a world without beings who love to make others suffer and this is because he was once evil himself. Siyamak forever regrets it and cannot let go of that regret.

If he looks evil, then put that in his appearance section, because it is not a personality trait. From a glance, I can tell you that what you have listed in this section paints Siyamak as a very one-dimensional character. From what I can gather here, he's a reformed evil phantom that forever regrets that he was evil, and dreams of a world without evil, and dislikes evil things. If you want a good example of a personality, go check out any of Altamira's Cadenza Madrigal, Cookie's Leona D'Arcangelo, Navi007's Leonna Fallenstar, and Shrub's Khaz Serwen and Rontu Nyzento. All of those are excellent examples of characters

Okay, that looks like a good place to start, for now. Take care of those things for me, please, and then let me know by posting a reply once you're done.

Firstly, I know who you are. Second, just forget this character then. I can't take out the possession ability because it's the only thing Siyamak can do and you're telling me to remove it. Without it, he'd be useless.

I'll have to try one of my other planned characters. It's a shame too, because this was one of my few completely original characters.

EDIT: Also, I don't look at other people's characters for help, at least not the kind you're saying I should. But thank you anyway.

I haven't told you to remove the possession ability. I told you that unless the ability is limited somehow, it's too powerful for the scope of the Escapist's Haven, and must therefore be changed in some way.

Also, I'd like to know what you think is wrong with the characters I told you to reference. As far as I am aware, each of those characters was assembled by a strong member of the Escapist's Haven with a firm grasp of character construction and the facets of a good personality.

I never said there was anything wrong with the characters themselves. I said I prefer not to go looking at ANY other characters for help on my own, not just those.

I'm already familiar with some of them anyway.

Also, it's not that I don't want to make any adjustments, it's that I simply can't think of any. Sorry.

That's fine, Crystal. The creation process of a character can be a tricky thing. I know from personal experience that sometimes writing more information on a given character or its abilities can be very difficult.

Since you've said that you're no longer going to be pursuing this character, it is hereby

*Disapproved*

Have fun writing your next character, Crystal.

It isn't ever tricky for me.

Also, I'm one step ahead of you. I already have a few other character profiles finished.