What inspired you to make your character(s)?

What inspired you to go the direction you did? Was there a particular character from a book or movie you wanted to emulate? Did you pick your race/class first and then build the character around that? Did you just see a piece of artwork and go, "That's cool, I want to RP something like that!"?

This is similar to Coppernut's "[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]" thread, but this is about the character itself--their personality, background, etc--rather than the race/class.

I always wanted to roleplay an orc.

Race and class came first, then eventually I started roleplaying and developed the character from there, not really knowing much about WoW lore. As I learnt more and more certain things stood out to me that I wanted to roleplay - blademastery, shamanism, the orcish relationship with the elements, honour and how personal it is to each orc.
A bit of Sam Vimes from the Discworld was thrown into the mix, especially in terms of Grim's relationship with superior officers.

For Huruma, I can't think of any particular character from fiction or people from history I was particularily inspired by. What initially stimulated me to seriously play a draenei paladin is that I was disstatisfied with how they have traditionally been portrayed in role-play in the history of this server, and I wanted to see if I could do any 'better'.

Most of my problems about this particular race-class combination centred on two main gripes:

#1 They didn't seem very magical.

Paladins to me are magical knights in the sense that they supplement their melee fighting abilities with fantastical abilities - only in the case of a paladin, these abilities are boons bestowed upon them by the divine, rather than spells that are studied and executed. Many chose to portray their paladin in humble bues, downplaying the magical aspects and prefering to highlight their knightliness - this however I thought is not the way to go for Draenei, who are at their very core a highly magical race. Besides, they don't have knights or even nobility, so that aspect of the Paladin class, which is definately present for Humans, is unavailable to us.

So, on Huruma, I decided I wanted to strongly emphasize the magical aspect, always throwing around Light-beams, cursing opponents into magical stupors of repentence, calling down massive hammers of Light from the sky, etc; all after reciting paragraph-length prayers in /y and ALLCAPS, of course. Haminess is cloe to godliness.

#2 They seemed to lack personality.

This is the big one. Oftentimes when I encountered draenei paladins I found these characters to be dull and not very compelling to interact with. So, I tried to soup up Huruma by injecting him with many quirks and personality traits to make him a little less dull. The dullness, I think, might be explained trough the fact that the "Draenei Paladin" is the most vanilla of flavors you can pick for your Draenei: it's the guy from the cinematic, and the class the draenei are most associated with. It's easy, then, to play your character as just that: only posessing the standard draenei traits and little extra.

Huruma is radically unfunny, often creating humerous situations because he treats everything very seriously and doesn't seem to understand humor or sarcasm. His zeal is also applied to routine house-hold situations: he treats the latrines with the same kind of zest as he would smite a demon, including zealous outbursts and prayers to the Holy Lightfor guidance. For me personally as a player, it's very important to have a character that can thrive both in comedic and dramatic situations; hence why this 'unfunniness' angle was needed.

Besides the 'unfunniness', Huruma is a total neat-freak and really dislikes getting his armor duty. He's also got a very short fuse and is easily agitated and annoyed (this ties in to the unfunny character - it lets obnoxious characters be properly obnoxious if they have a self-rigtheous stuck-up dreanei around that is easy to troll) and has really visably struggles with keeping his indignation in check. Huruma is also very stuck in his beliefs, not allowing any contention of his Faith.

But he is also fiercely loyal to his Regiment, very authorative and accepting of the chain of command, and highly compassionate towards the downtrotten and disposessed, even if he doesn't show it that often. I needed a character that was both zealous and could fight demons with conviction, but also work together with Death Knights and Warlocks in the Regiment - I solve this conondrum by a mixture of loyalty and respect for authority on the one hand; and fierce compassion and religious conviction that everyone, no matter how evil they seem, deserves a chance at redemption.

So as you can see, my character wasn't really inspired off of anything in particular, but was rather meticulously designed to fit a certain niche within the Wild Tempest guild and the server as whole - it is a niche I now greatly enjoy. and I enjoy watching other people appreciate it too and have fun interacting with the character.

Huruma sounds like the squidface equivalent of Grim... I've had a LOT of fun with roleplaying a miserable character with a short fuse.

This is going to be a long list, isn't it? We shall go down the line in chronological order...

#1: Delidah.
I just started role-playing, had no idea what I was doing, but I love magic and I love elves. Night Elf Mage seemed like a logical choice. Little did I know back then that Night Elf Mages are canonically stuck up stuffy dudes, not jumpy teenage attention whores. As their animations would suggest.

I had a lot of fun playing her, but she was an ill-conceived mess of a character. My petri dish to get to know role-playing.

#2: Scuzy Sunburn
Initially rolled as an ooc character to spy on my alliance friends' horde alts. She was a blank sheet that started filling when people started interacting with the character while I was lurking.

Initially she was a cruel a mana junkie, a blood knight initiate that quickly worked her way up the ranks by sleeping around and extorting people. When Thelos started writing [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], I thought it was so inspiring I decided to convert Scuzy into a true believer, and boy, was that fun!

#3: Vrachos.
Simple. "Thelos with swords".
Pretty much rolled just to role-play with Thelos.
He developed into a father figure, treating humans and the unenlightened like children that are naughty, entertaining, and eager to learn.

#4: Jahzeem
This is where I started to think about my characters beforehand a little more. I wanted a troll that was a witch doctor, a blend between the warcraft 3 horde unit, and the more recent (and more crazy) witch doctors from Diablo 3. They way he moved was inspired by Rafiki from the Lion King, which is why I immediately re-levelled him as a monk in Mists of Pandaria. It just felt right.

#5: Delidah #2: The Goblin Edition.
Pretty much the exact same character as the Night Elf, but as a Goblin her quirky attitude and hyperactive way of talking really clicked. As a goblin, she came into her own. She worked. In addition, I used a Elementium Geode pet and role-played it as an Arcane Construct that acted like a supercomputer, and executed all of her spells for her. I like to do crazy things with magic.

#6: Alph'el.
When above character died, I decided to make it a Blood Elf. Fun! It allowed me to take the magic even further, going as far as to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] about his personal research into magic. As I role-played him more, it became more apparent that hammy sci-fi was more of an inspiration then any magic, especially doctor who. He has a sonic screwdriver-type wand, travels around through space and dimensions, and has a serious god complex.

#7: Karkoom
"Huruma, but with elements"
Again, rolled and designed to role-play with my brother.

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Usually, the magic forms the base of the inspiration for the characters I play. I love magic, in all shapes and forms.

Well for me race/class came first as well as i think i only made my monk with an actual intention to roleplay somewhere along the line, others i just said "Hey i should make this one into something." Since i mainly RP two these days:

For Sieg, considering he was my main and i was new to RP, things were very random until i sorta got into more focusing on the character and his backround and so on. Mainly for him i just said sarcasm and worked from there as i roleplayed i went to make his story. I did focus a bit on his worgen side, which has a lot of potential in RP and that he tried to be adaptable, but some times that fails in some situations and i use it as a bit of comedy. While other times as well as his backgrouns has a bit of a serious tone and verious resposibilities he has to deal with.

For Ria i did do more thinking and i played around her concept, but it went randomly here and there, but as all my chars there is like a learning curve on trying to bring out their traits. Though on her she is still learning herself, being more of a fresh paladin type i started to focus on how one would go. You're new at this, you want to help anyway you can, light shall show me the way, etc.
But things aren't that simple and sometimes a ton of things are thrown at her at once, watching her cope with such, learn new things (How to use the light especially), her own made prayers even add a special touch sometimes.

I guess even as Huruma she has a good devotion to her job within the regiment, trying to prove herself sometimes and has mixed thoughts about these warlocks and Death knights serving the kingdom. She does more rely on the straight forward do good stuff to get mre in tune with the light, but also has her inner thought moments when praying and all such. And sometimes trying to understand or use the teaching Three virtues.

Areyah
Areyah is basically the following combined.

Spoiler:

JAG is perhaps the most indirect but pervasive of the inspirations. I basically grew up watching JAG, and it colored my image of the military. Where most people are interested in war movies with the enlisted troops fighting on the frontlines and storming the beaches in tanks, I was watching court dramas with staff officers doing paperwork and desk jobs (with some field work too, but desk jobs mainly). Thus my ideal kind of military RP isn't battle, it's the leadership, administration, and management of the military-industrial machine (also the discipline and protocol).

After that is Admiral Cain from BSG. She was originally the most prominent inspiration, and the one I utilized most while playing Arey on Star Wars: Galaxies, but the character has since drifted away from that. SWG version of Arey was Lawful Evil and out for revenge (she was from Alderaan), but I chose to do away with that in WoW and instead play the character as she "could have been". So WoW Arey became a (fairly) stable Lawful Good officer. WoW Arey therefore comes off more like pre-Fall Cain, rather than post-Fall Cain.

Of course, going from the above leads one with a workable but one-dimensional character. The original Arey was not an alcoholic, didn't have much of a social life, and frankly I had no idea what she was like "out of uniform". She was too "prim and proper" to the point that there was no real character there. So, I decided to go to one of my more general sources of inspiration, Evangelion (it's the reason why all of my characters are grimdark psychological wrecks), and looked into Misato. I really liked the dual idea of very professional in the workplace but breaking apart on the inside from the stress and using alcohol and sex to try and remedy that. So I incorporated it into Arey. Arey is basically an older, more professional and more mature Misato.

Game of Thrones is a more recent inspiration. When converting what was a sci-fi character to fantasy, I chose to explore the nobility angle. House Conover is very much inspired by Game of Thrones, to the point that I was playing the intro on repeat while working on the info thread for the House.

Last but not least... Areyah's last name comes from my favorite 90's cartoon, Gargoyles. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. I used it due to the fact that I used the name Canmore in SWG, so using the alias name in WoW seemed appropriate.

Drustai
Drustai's creation, which I've related a few times in the past, came about from very simple ideas. First off was that I simply liked the look of the draenei model, especially since I was using a succubus on my main toon at the time (a succubus that had the random name of Drustai) and I thought draenei looked like them. For designing her character though, well... Some background: for the years prior, I had been RPing almost nothing but submissive weaklings (characters like Saphra). By then I was getting really bored of that, and wanted to try something else. So I went the entire opposite extreme, and saw draenei as a chance to do something epic. And so Drustai was designed to be an epic character. She was a very old eredar that defected from the Legion (a decision which was later validated in lore as we see several demon defectors, yay!) and became a priest to atone for her sins. She was powerful and larger than life, and regularly involved with big magical storylines.

A significant inspiration for Drustai comes from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Drustai's genocidal hatred of the orcs in particular, though that's something I've toned down in recent years.

Oh, and of course. Snape. Snape wasn't originally an inspiration, since I knew nothing of Harry Potter when I made Dru, but as the years have gone on I've started using him more and more as inspiration for her character (alchemy!).

omg areyah is admiral cain through and through

Aneeta
My first RP char on defias Brotherhood, blood elf paladin back when they were new and fresh and everyone rolled one.I've never been very good at reading and remembering lore, so I just decided I wanted to play a bit of a white-trash type belf girl, who was more interested in fashion magazines, make up and men on motorbikes then in actual Lightwielding. She developed into a way more complicated woman through RP but died when she became too goody-two-shoes and accident prone for me to enjoy any longer.

Darilas
Another spontaneous 'that would be hilaious' idea gone haywire. I thought it'd be way too funny to play a male prostitute in Silvermoon. Back at the time, it really was hilarious (to me) , but I found out soon that other players were less tolerant of the character then I had expected, and he became the subject of massive bullying campaigns. He eventually got so sick of the constant bullying, changed career and has been developing ever since. I'm not tired of him yet, despite massive drama being an almost constant aspect of his life.

Honyos I'm currently enjoying the RP with my belf monk (yes, another belf! I find other races really hard to play for some reason, though I do try it every now and then) He started out to be a side-character to have a break of Darilas' constant drama, and at the same time finally fulfilled my desire to play (part of a) freakshow. He is a fortune teller, acrobat, magician and piercer. And again, as I play him, I find out more about him and enjoy playing something different.

Well, I made Helmut back in 2006 and he has, ofcourse, evolved and changed alot. I have always played him off as a mischievous little guy, but then I sort of was inspired by Puck from A Midsummer Nights Dream and other mythical or classical figures like that (Loki, Hermes, etc) turned him from a normal trickster into a mischievous little ass. Before this transformation he was far dumber and played off as a straight comical relief, much as a funny sidekick from any Disney movie, mostly LeFou from Beauty and the Beast. As Helmut evolved into a somewhat more serious being by being part of Military RP I started to make him a more immoral character than those who I was playing with, making him greedy, lazy and manipulative. I think that might have been an effect of me starting to love It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as all characters there are, to different extents and situations, very greedy, very lazy and very manipulative:


After this I transferred Helmut to Defias Brotherhood where I sort of revamped him again. He was no longer a comic relief. Still a funny character that could be played off for laughs, but no fool anymore. I had also started to enjoy RPing as someone with authority, which suited Helmuts personality already. So now I played him as even more greedy, selfish and manipulative. A character with a lot of ambition to make himself wealthy and powerful but who does not like to get his hands dirty. I rewrote his backstory a abit to make it that he had exploited a lot more people than before. Now, I want to try to put a finger of characters that fall into this characteristics, but I can't come up with any even if I know that I have gotten it from. If you have any idea or good suggestions, please comment about it.

Well, as Helmut gained power within both military and political rooms I have taken a bit of Kefka from FF6 and Starscream from Transformers, exept that Helmut has yet to take the step that defines them, by betrayal. The big question about Helmut is really if he will, at this point, backstab one of his superiors to take their position, as he is quite happy and enjoys his situation. He will surely try to take out someone who would danger the position he is in or higher in that field, but for now he likes his place.

Helmut is a pure opportunist, never going into something without knowing that the outcome will play off in his favor and if something would go wrong he would try to pull every string and take every chance to get out with at least nothing lost. I mean, he has "Prey on the Weak" tattooed on his arm. A despicable character who just wants more and more.

Some tropes that can fit into Helmut:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.](But somewhat not so liked by others than this one tend to be)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Of my many chars, only some had some background written down from start, or source of inspiration. I tendentially start with the usual background gives us at start, and build from it, i.e. tendentially all my worgen are Gilneans, the death knight was in Pyrewood, and so on. Luckily, that background leaves much room for interpretation and freedom in character building.

Tuomas was such a character. Was my first rp character, and most of his attributes were created more on a whim of the moment than through actual thorough thought and inspiration. I didn't want to create awkward situations making him have a family I wouldn't know if anytime available, I just made him orphan an divorced. At start the char was a sort of random adventurer, with a bad past(and there yes, in  retrospective I think I was inspired by the many werewolf stories of the protagonist killing people he cares for). What I wanted to rp was indeed a werewolf in short. A good one at that, but things went a bit awkward. With time, being almost the only rp char I rped for almost a year, the chaotic good alignment went a bit undertuned, and, though the core of the char is still the same, many more elements were added to the equation. Being a sort of shadow user was somewhat inscribed in him  as being a rogue and a worgen, but it's when he'd become a cultist hunter that I finally got the IC way to actually work that out in a believable way, especially after the whole 'to hell and back' thing. I don't overtune it anyway: it's a characteristic he has, but that he uses only when actually needing it, and still requires him some focus.
There's also the relational aspect or, better the 'I want you all in my bed' aspect. It was partly already in the char at start, in the background story, having been married 'cause he was forced to after making the woman pregnant, but he wasn't able through rp to build any stable relationship anyway, even 'cause people tended to try to kill him more often than not. When he finally got some quiet time, it was inevitable that, after everything he'd passed, he built a huge dislike for actually trusting people and so build love relationships. He could die for his friends, but he could never keep loyalty on a physical level. As for the military aspect, which has always been present, I though took inspiration by various sources, mixing them together. 'War' by Sebastian Junger was a huge one at that.

John Grenier who became in the end Tuomas' father was lightly inspired instead, in some aspects, by Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. The sense of power and authority he gives just entering the stage is amazing, and it's something that in a way, fits well a warlock, in my opinion. You don't mess up with Davy Jones, and you shouldn't mess up with a warlock: I mean, he could use your soul as a snack for his pets! But more than that, it was the sense of utter loss and then of revenge over the world that pushed him. I never liked bidimensional characters, and so my truly evil guy couldn't be one.

Decurius was my first attempt at death knight, and in all honesty I've no regrets. I never bought, at any moment, the whole 'dks can't feel' thing, nor the whole decay thing, despite I attempt to compromise(yes I know about such things most people don't, but I do, sue me), and I decided to work around those aspects to create something more than the killing machine and at the same time something less than the emotionless Terminator.
My question was: how can a person who has been stripped of his humanity and of his life, in a very radical way, try to rebuild, if he can at all? I played much over the classical stereotypes of the death knights and in general undead in literature, and completely flipped the table: undead don't feel emotions? Let's make him overemotional, unable to really control them; undead can't feel touch, flavors and so on? Let's make him yearn it so much that he would shower himself in holy water to get it back. Partly, I admit, I was inspired by the depiction of undead in Pirates of the Caribbean. The indignation and sadness that Barbossa gets to you when he can't even savor an apple is all there, in Decurius. Of course though, the char was heavily inspired in some attitudes, by Thassarian.

Grenier Blackwrath was built around the project of War Sect, project since then long dead and that I don't think I'll pick up again. I needed him to have somewhat official authority, and to be somewhat believable as a good warlock. Thus, I made him old, a bit grumpy but mostly disillusioned, and burdened by sense of guilt. Partly, I think he could be seen as a mixture of Gandalf and Sirius Black. He's old, and tends to look at other people condescendedly, but at the same time he knows he needs them, and that they hate/not like him.

In all of them, and even on my AD char, who puts this to the highest level, there's always the desire to understand and explore people in the grey area of the moral spectrum, people who has suffered much and the ways they can cope with it, right or wrong they may be.

Skarain, my ex-thief, ex-Warlock, now Rogue Arcanist was not inspired by anything. I simply needed a character to start Roleplaying with, and a Warlock happen to be lying around my character list when i read in Trade over 2 years ago that Blades for Hire were looking for Spellcasters. She later develop over the course of Roleplaying to an interesting and in-depth character.

Inran was created inspired by Draenei lore and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. I roleplayed a lot with Draenei on a time on Skarain, whose master is a Draenei (Drustai) and thus i found myself at the center of the Draenei community as a Human. The character started as a Warrior with the idea of being a Monk in the background, quarterstaff fighting and all. I later made her a Monk because Monk's are incredibly good WPvP / RBG Healers, and as the character was meant straight from the beginning for Wild Tempest i knew we would be needing Healers.

What other characters i've had have usually been made solely joining a specific guild in mind. Lealia for the Chapter. Gende for the Ebon Shroud. What they develop to over course of Roleplaying however is a entirely different story.

I Don't use external sources I just  either  roll a blank toon and give em a name and let fate decide.Or get a general idea in mmy head and do the same...i think

Bob:
My first DB toon and most  loved of all my toons.He was inspired by nothing and is just a combination of the many life shattering experiences that  happend to him.Started out as a troubled man with a past.Ofc it all went paer shaped and we were left with bob in his current prediciment

Sir Patrick Walker
Inspired by  perhaps wolfman films I suppose.Made when I "thought" I hit bottom with Bob.It was nice RPing a cold standard DK rejest that turned into a violent  uncontrolable beast when the sun set.Even  better was RPing him after the bracers went on making him his epically awesome persona known as "patty" Until ofc the lore nazis ruined it

Chareshia well this was what i would call my first majour rp toon.. Nothing realy went into inspiring her.. i just wanted to make a kind lovable toon.. Sadly she ended up perishing after a long string of a few very volatile relationships

Monrena Was somewhat bassed off chareshia yet with added mix of draenei and A tec from farscape,

Dragomir
I've been catching up on Russian movies, especially Barber of Siberia. The stereotype of 'Imperial Officer' seemed like a fun thing to do. So that was the start of Dragomir Iretongue. In fact, his very name is slavic and last name is a translation of a Russian name with the same meaning. So he was that noble with some very conservative views and a sense of duty and honour, zealous for the Alliance and zealous for the Light. Rest of inspiration is courtesy of Solomon Kane/Van Helsing/WH Witch-hunters.

Sophyra
Very complex character, with layers upon layers upon layers. It started with me wanting a Corruptor-archetype cultist. And Corruption is just so much better when you add sexual temptation into it. Then I was experimenting with human female faces and found that one that fits perfectly. Then gave her red hair. Then realized that it looks SO much better on black skin. Then I just hijacked a neighbour's name (Safinur), added a little FIRE and ended up with Sophyra. Original name was Sophyra Aldaar, but then I loved Aldaar so much that I started using it as Evil Disguise name and changed to Sophyra Ayyehide. The rest clicked into place. Exotic tanarisi sorceress, seeking power, corrupting others and making people pledge their souls.

Then came the first 'Underworld'. It just fits so well for this hedonistic, exotic woman to run a bar on the façade while covering something dark and sinister. So there was Underworld, series of regular events and casual RP in slaughtered lamb. There was everything. Succubi, dark masses, crime and fun. RP led to Sophyra getting some pretty powerful friends, and then I thought "Well, if you are a manipulator and got allies you might as well use them for something." So I decided to do a three-month long plot that culminated in perfectly executed (to a minute!) capture of the Cathedral and a demon-summoning ritual within.

When a two month long plot ends, you feel bored. So I decided to use the experience I got from writing Netherdawn Empire codex to develop demon-worship. It never came to much, but worship of this nasty Succubus Queen became part of Sophyra. Influenced the way her magic works, the stuff she does and what she tries to accomplish.

Interaction with the Dark Sphere was also very interessting. It felt right to contrast bon vivant, hedonistic, colour-loving Sophyra to the grim, dark and very austere Spherites. Then I just put it up to eleven. Most Spherites hate the Light and the Church? Sophyra thinks Light is pretty nice and even worships it (in her own twisted way. No kittens were harmed in the act of worship). Spherites care about land and prestige and stay and fight to defend Duskwood? Sophyra just runs, while leaving behind traps.

Then came the noble phase, hanging out with Dieudonnes and corrupting Genevieve. Then moving to working with Braiden.

Ishap I just started off as a normal character before I discovered RP then she just steadily became more like Skilgannon the Damned from David Gemmels books White Wolf and The Swords of Night and Day.

Virock is how I'd like to have magic, I'm bored... guess I'll go play with fire

Most(All) of my characters are actually really really bland stereotypes on the drawing board. Mostly, when I make a char, I outline what I want them to be, very roughly, and then I start playing them and develop from there based on what feels right. For this reason, all of my chars have felt very dynamic. I'll use some examples:

Kavalis
This is the char I played when I was the most involved in the general RP realm. When I made the char, I wanted him to be a Lordaeronian noble who'd had little patience for the power games of the nobility, but still, out of neccesity, developed the skillset to maneuver along the social traps that frequently appear in noble circles (think Jaime Lannister. Only I didn't know of GoT at the time, so not so much Jaime Lannister). I wanted him to have a sense of duty, but be largely selfish in his employment of this attribute. When WLK was unveiled, I decided that I was going to roll him as a Death Knight, and that I'd RP him as a living swordsman(having served in the Second War) who turned to necromancy after an encounter with the Cult of the Damned.

I didn't develop a thorough background untill several months after I started RPing him, and I never developed the character beyond this sketch outside of ingame RP.

Ixirar
The oldest RP character that I have, and perhaps the greatest example of the point I'm demonstrating. When I made Ixirar, I wanted her to be one of those really super old (Pre-war of the ancients old) night elves. I wanted her to be very conservative in terms of her view of the outside world and be very strictly anti-magic, having vowed to never let the War of the Ancients repeat itself.

Beyond this, the only character development I made before rolling the toon was that I made her a druid (I had at first planned to make her a warrior. I didn't lose this mindset for a long time, so I always RPed her as a somewhat militant druidess) and had to come up with an explanation for how she became a druid back then, as it was almost strictly male-only at the time.

The druid that I created in Vanilla is almost the exact opposite of what Ixirar is today. The only trait that I decided to keep with her is the militant attitude, almost everything else has been changed from the character concept I originally imagined.

In conclusion
I'd have loved to write paragraph upon paragraph about what inspired me to make the characters I've made over the years, but for most of my characters, the inspiration for the char I am playing today is the mistake I made playing that char yesterday. The original inspiration for Ixirar was very loosely based on Maiev Shadowsong, but it would not do Ixirar justice to mention Maiev as inspiration for the char, because today, Ixirar is nothing like Maiev. I constantly change my characters' personalities and maneurisms very violently in the initial roleplay sessions after creating them. Because of this, I guess you could say that I actually make a character, play it a little, discard it and then use that character as the inspiration point for the final char.

TL;DR:
I guess I put too little thought into my chars pre-creation to have any notable inspirations for playing the chars I play.

Varrgosh. Always enjoyed orcs. I loved Grommash Hellscream and Rexxar was a pretty curious idea, had a different account at first, with a different race and class, but through that I met Garrosh, the Mag'har, saw the Mok'Nathal culture and home. So I ended up with an orc warrior, IC Mok'Nathal. He was a massive hothead, easy to anger, easy piss off. The shortest fuse, in the shape of a raging monster. Grantedly, slightly influenced by the Hulk, minus the "I'll protect innocents in the midst of chaos".

Faralan. Saw a very simple sketch of a human with an axe. I very much so enjoy norse mythology and history. It was a very easy call.

Clay Farglade / Trave Andrew. Sophyra asked me to help him officer his guild, Chapter of Holy Anethion. He was alone with it at the time, and Horde was pretty dead to me. I went over, made some good guy warrior with a strong faith to the light. He turned out quite the womanizer however, never did plan that much. But part of him -was- influenced by Clay from One Tree Hill.

Erahn. I wanted a bad guy, but not down to the bone Emperor Palpatine evil for no reason. A criminal, poor upbringing, all the wrong circles, jail time. Dabbled in not so appreciated magic. He turned out a great character with many sides, and has always been fun to play.

A lot of my inspiration for Raen came from David Tennant's Doctor. The loneliness and the dutiful, selfless altruism. The strong moral convictions, the patience, compassion and the determination.

He was influenced very much by how I think I am/how I'd like to be, but including flaws. Aggression and jealousy at times, and the inability to deal with them. A want for acceptance under the altruism, a realist but an optimist when he needs to be.

I don't really know where the inspiration for the leadership/military element came from. I always imagined myself being a decent leader despite my social ineptitude, but ending up in the military wasn't really part of the plan, that just developed through RP.

He's changed a lot from how I made him, though. He's not really compassionate anymore, or patient, and his morals are ruined. He'd torture a prisoner or send his own people to their deaths if it was necessary. It's a shame because I liked him how he was, but it's interesting to see what he turned into.

Agathea

In one word: Witches!

I love me some witches. I've always loved every trope associated with the classical fairy tale witch - and that's exactly what Agathea is, a classic fairy tale witch, the type he would build little houses of candy out in the dark Gilnean woods in order to lure in naughty children to eat.

I try to incorperate as much witchy tropes as I can with Agathea. For starters, she's a hideous looking old hag with a crooked nose, keeps around lots of cats and even rides on a broomstick. Her magical speciality is brewing potions, which she does in an old-fashioned witchy cauldron. When she casts pells are casts ingredients into her cauldron, she always does so in a witchy, wicked rhyme a lá "By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes!"

Inevitably though whenever you play such a strong and specific character archetypes, traits that are not necessarily associated with the ones you are playing sneak in. Agathea has developed into a paranoid, scared and pathetic sort of selfish woman that will do anything to protect her own hide and increase what little power she can get her crooked fingers on. In tension with that though is her mistrust of anything that has to do with the Burning Legion and isn't proper old-fashioned Withcraft, even though she has known to dabble into Fel when things get desperate.

A funny story I like to tell about the Agathea character is the one time she crossed Sophyra and the latter send her goons at her - only for Agathea to switch out her soul with that of her cat at the last moment, leading the goons to capture Agathea's body that had the soul of her cat in her while she got away safely.That, and the Soulcookies kept in bright pink cookie jars and books you need to chain down so that they don't fly away are some of the crazy witchy things you might expect when dealing with Agathea.

Here's some music that inspires my Witchcraft:

Banjo Kazooie:

Harry Potter:

Wizard of Oz:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask:

Here's some images for good measure.

De Grote Boze Heks (Big Bad Witch, Dutch children's book):

Gruntilda (Banjo Kazooie):

The Wicked Witch of the West (Wizard of Oz):

The Witch from Snow White:

Gogol
There would never have been a Gogol without Burgen, as he reuested of me to create a dwarven political figure that could balance out the racial status quo of the time. First I had little to none insperation except your generetic ale swinging, jolly and hot tempered dwarf but with more intesne action within the Senate I confess to have been looking more and more in to Winston Chruchill for insperation.
But for whatever reason it was; time, characters in the surrounding, the politics of ours; Gogol was again forced to change and it was quite natural change this time for me having read a few books on the subject of Joseph Stalin.

Spoiler:

Krickle
I creted Krickle to help Zinkle and Jimbles start the Cartel. As with all my characters he began very much as a blank sheet; a thug with a bat. Then of course the Cartel grew and we needed competition; Krickle's Gang was started and I got to flirt with one character of my favourite actor Day-Lewis Bill the Butcher. Somewhere down the line, after the move to Stormwind and Krickle was becoming more and more obese unlogical, teaming up with Quinian; Nicholson as Francis in The Departed got in to the picture as well.

Spoiler:

Belserden

Made him at around the time of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, his random and slightly insane side very much based of Jack Sparrow, however his emotions and morale code, and humor were very much alike to my own. Plus the pirate part. (I'm not a pirate in real life)

Anivitas

My brain. I honestly can't think of any inspiration I took from anywhere for this character, at least not directly. He simply became his own being.

Eldoraz

Actually inspired from a mix of Patches from Dark Souls. Raistlin from Dragon Lance. Fasil from Highlander and a bit of arrogant wit thrown in.

Lazzarian

Based on Corbec from Taniths first and only, with the sterotye of a true paladin, however upon joining the chapter everything became a lot more darker and less clear cut.

Cool Thread.

Dreth (Aetheldreth) I wont lie, the depth of my other chars was not in Dreth. I just made a pirate cliche and let him go! In fairness he did develop into a good char but there was no great creation story.

Lexy, Lex, The Lexadin (Lexgrad) I was inspired to make lex due to Drus guide and a boredom of Dreth. At the time I was into WWE so there was some inspiration drawn from the wresteler Kane and Dath Vader (Lex looked much like Kane and it was the reason for his hair do.)

I built a big psychology around lex and stuck to it, even when it was self distructive, infact I learned from Lex never to be afraid of getting out of the trenches that RP guilds of the time were in.

I planned to make him a tragic figure but due to RP with LoD and the space pope Thelos, this developed into a redemption story.

Jarric Great fun to RP on! I based him off a useless snob from the Sharpe series and he was more for Character RP rather than a story. Still with his little quirks and manerisms he is a fun char for all. The Jarric Duel was one of my fav moments ever for what it gave birth to.

Una (Unaethralas) I played poker with Loki, Yogg Saron and Shaegorath. I won and they gave me Una.

I originally concieved Amaryl as Arthas aspiring to be Uther. Add in some basic family drama, a troubled past etc, slightly cliché, it turned into a bad-girl with a heart of gold, stock character that gained a lot of depth through years of RP.

Djego was made when I started a lvl-1 raiding guild, and our first hogger raid, turned out in to some hilariously over-sized RP. with two dramatic wipes, and a third succesfull charge, followed by a victory party, He turned into a narcissitic ego-maniacal womannizer. A character I used anonymously for a long time to poke ridiculous fun at the "Elitist Crowd" Watching how far he could go, as RPing a sleazeball, and see who'd ignore him... He gained the silly character quirks of running a hand through his greasy hair, and staring right in front him(When standing infront of nelfs, because male humans eyes are at boob level) Then I took his RP further with visiting a lot of brothels, eventually trying to start one, when prostitution was still illegal in council law, Embarrasing the shit out of Lilath and Aarian, then he turned into the boy-band frontrunner, famous person he is known today. All because of his ego and caring super-man. Also he gets punched in the nuts a lot.

I simply had a dream. I wrote Jas' story on my iPhone because I didn't want to risk forgetting it. *nodnod*