Weekly update #35

Art

Two legged ones. One ready to be tickled and one ready to tickle.

Dev spotlight

Character workshop, part 5: How to think like a character

Motivations
What does the character want? Amnukhel has a very simple motivation in this case. She's horny and wants to bang the player character because she thinks the player character is sexy. I just have to answer the question of why she thinks the player character is hot. The human shape could be something that Amnukhel finds exciting, or Amnukhel's interest could be based on the player's fitness attribute, ("fitness" is a thing that's calculated collectively from the character's physical stats to reflect how fit the PC looks, more about it here: http://teraurge.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Attributes) which would indicate that she's impressed by the player character's physical fitness. Either one would work.

So Amnukhel would approach the player character as a possible fling in a bar. She can tolerate a boring conversation if it results her getting some, so she'd have low expectations for it and kinda "sleepwalk" through the dialogue if the player doesn't challenge her in the conversation.

Quick writing pro tip: Never make characters act against their motivations, even if it makes writing some of the scenes easier. This often means that the characters may actually act against your own planned plot because there's an unsolvable conflict of interest between the character motivations. But that's fine, just make them fight.

Background 
Amnukhel has other background characteristics that affect her behavior. She works at the tavern, so she's friends with Bykaas and feels more confident while there. Amnukhel lives in the tavern, but because she is part-time traveler of the rivers, she has a thin relationship with the people living in the village and mostly just knows them through Bykaas. One of the reasons she pounces on the player is probably the fact that she thinks they're not someone living in the village, so there are less strings attached to a one night stand.

Making Amnukhel an employee at the tavern also makes them usable as a side character for other things, so their utility as a character is not limited to this specific interaction.

The background of the character also affects what they know, and that in return affects how they think and act. In this case Amnukhel would be very sociable and quick to make friends because she has visited many places and lives her life partially on the move. She also tends to disappear quickly, and leave relationships behind. She would probably have a streak of cynical opportunism in her, which would endear her to Bykaas and make them friends.