#it came up briefly in zimri's case because we have a party member who ISNT from ustalav at all | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

isaacathom · 1 year

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anyway i had thoughts about what 'home' means to my ttrpg ocs

For Naielle, she would answer quickly and confidently. Her home is her house back in the Sylvian Empire, on the grounds of the university her family run. And if you didn't know anything about Naielle, and didn't stop to wonder why she's here if she knows exactly what home means to her, then thats an easy answer.

But it's not. Because while it is true, Naielle isn't lying when she says that, she also knows its a lot more complicated than that. Cause like, sure, thats home. Can she be there? No! She's been exiled from the country for a count of treason she did technically commit, she KNOWS that her mothers fucking pissed about the entire thing and would be extremely unhappy to ever see her again, that it'd just be ungodly awkward even if she was legally able to go back. It's more the idea of a home, frozen in time at some point before her exile, which she knows won't be like that when (if) she goes back.

But it'd be able to get Naielle to admit that. If she had to, she'd swap her answer from her childhood home to the house of her fiancee, but she would not move it out of the empire. In spite of everything, she considers that home. Like, she's been in Welvarend for nearly two decades, has been on this expedition fleet sent by Welvarend for a half year, you'd think she'd have some loyalty to that country to consider it home? And yet the moment the fleet admiral is like 'hey go steal gunpowder so we can have a weapon against the sylvian empire, who are objectively being greedy shitheads' Naielle goes haha! no. Now thats more complicated anyway but she fundamentally considers herself to be Sylvian, whatever that means. That it's not about the government, but the people, and the land, or whatever. That's home. Her current address (the house of a cousin) is a house, sure, maybe a home, but not her home.

Whether she continues to think that as time goes on, and especially if she gets a chance to do a little teleporting 1-2-3 and visit her fiancee very sneaky like, that's up in the air. But she currently considers the Empire home.

Florian's in a... similar-ish boat? At least when it comes to an allegiance to a home that's broader in scope that just 'physical building'. He's a loyal Temerian boy. Temeria is his home. That's very unfortunate given he's living in the canon of the witcher 3 and haha! lol.

But when it comes to something more specific, he wouldn't be able to give an answer. Not without a significant amount of prodding, and a few leading questions, or just pissing him off enough that he gives up and just says something to get you to go away. Because while he has an "address", a "place of residence", he hasn't been there in at least 4 years. And, unlike Naielle, that is by choice. He wants nothing to do with it. He wants nothing to do with the place, or the people there. He's seen enough of those interior walls for a fucking lifetime.

He figures at some point he would have to go back, if only to tell anyone who cares that he doesn't want to be the Count after his father kicks the bucket, but he's also half figured he'll predecease his father on account of profession, so he hopes he doesn't have to.

But then what is home to Florian de Kasimir? There's no place that suffices. While he's loyally Temerian, is that the place or its people? A vibe? Can a vibe keep you warm and fed? What does it mean for Temeria to be his home, especially when it is being crushed under the heel of an empire, and when he knows he can't do anything about that?

So he wouldn't be able to give an answer. Because he thinks of a home as a place. A physical location, safe from the elements, where you want to be. And there's no permanent location that satisfies those requirements for him. Which is where it becomes necessary to prod him, to guide him towards a recognition that home needn't be a location - it can be a person, or several people.

At which point you can, eventually, get the answer that if he must say that somewhere or someone is his home, then it would be wherever his friend Zeke goes. Because Zeke's one of the people who never gave a shit about who he was and why, only what he did. Zeke's his fucking guy. I can't even tell you if Florian means that romantically or what, because he would have a lot of difficulty articulating that and would probably just default to 'brothers', not that he knows what that really means lmao. Florian would find the entire discussion deeply frustrating. Too heady and high minded for him, he'd think.

Zimri... well, Zimri's complicated, but not because of how they'd answer the question. Because for Zimri is really simple - Lepidstadt. Their home is Lepidstadt, up in northern Ustalav, in a little bookstore nestled into a busy street. Their home is the book wagon their family would take on a circuit through the country side to visit the many small towns. Their home is with their family :)

Which raises a very important question - why the fuck aren't they there?

And the issue is that Zimri doesn't know the answer to that question, due to amnesia. Zimri hasn't got any clue what motivated them to leave Lepidstadt and come south to Thrushmoor, or what motivated them to buy and then close a bookstore, despite owning their own shop being something they want. Zimri hasn't got a fucking clue what's going on.

But what are they gonna do about that? Nothing. They're off on a quest to save the world. And hopefully, in the course of that quest, they can wrench some of the answers back from the person who took them.

What do they assume is going on? Not sure. Zimri probably assumes that something came up at home - maybe financial difficulty forced some changes, an opportunity came up for Zimri to strike out on their own that they took in order to help everyone out? And then with the bookstore closure, well, context suggests that Zimri decided working for Lowls was more important than the bookstore, which they find... hard to believe, personally. Zimri can't really square that one away. Maybe it was financial, the business wasn't good enough but Lowls paid well enough to keep the candles lit, as it were. Sure. But they would like to know what actually happened, what they were actually thinking as these situations arose that forced their hand.

Which will be fun. Especially since I know what the answer is to why Zimri left Lepidstadt.

And the best part is I don't think Zimri's answer to where home is would change with that knowledge.

#dnd stuff #part of the bit is that the nature of campaign means leaving whatever home is anyway #so this sort of thing doesnt come up much #it came up briefly in zimri's case because we have a party member who ISNT from ustalav at all #and was understandably fucking baffled to discover thats where they were when their last memories are of *brevoy*#whereas the rest of the party are nominally locals c. 5 years ago when the memories cut out. or smth #florian alludes to his home being shit and laments the fall of temeria but getting the alt answer out of him? lol #naielle having her lil conflict might come up IF her actions re: [redacted] ever come to light #because like hey naielle! why the fuckd you do that! and she has many reasons but one is '... its my home? sir?'#Naielle Odelia

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