Character Profiles

Song Profile – Mogo’s Mead

Kris Takahashi Character Profiles 1 Comment

These days, saying you like one type of music is like saying you like one type of video game. It’s just not possible. And as time goes by, the choices are only getting more diverse. It seems like every day the industry invents a new genre or I am discovering an old one. Every day is a buffet.

New Wave? Why not, I like the 80s. Math rock? Sure, I can add and substract.  EDM? Sounds future, gimme. Chiptune? It’s on like Kong, Donkey. Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 in G? Hell yeah, that’s my jam. Gimme gimme gimme.

The same isn’t true for karaoke. For me, karaoke songs have to fit a strict, authoritarian guideline. It has to be dorky, fun, and so pop the speakers are fizzing . Karaoke is not the time to be singing Stairway to Heaven or some depressing song about drug addiction or showing off your inner hipster. You sing songs you wouldn’t be caught dead listening to on the street, because all the good songs make for poor karaoke music.

Karaoke is the bizarre anti-verse where every day is backwards day.  It’s a place where Backstreet Boys >>>>> The Smiths, where Vanilla Ice >>>>> Wu Tang Clan. The closest you can come to merging good and good karaoke is Joseph Gordon Levitt singing the Pixies’ Here Comes Your Man, and even then that movie is kind of depressing (there’s also this, but this song is so old it’s automatically cheesy). If I had to take a guess, I’m not sure if there isn’t a more perfect karaoke song than this one, because it has just the right amount of dorkiness, energy, good vibrations, and as a Japanese song it manages to do so without a whole lot of irony. It’s a song I would never listen to willingly but I would dial up every time I stepped into that box.

That’s how I feel about Mogo’s Mead. A lot of the songs on the 3DNPC soundtrack fill me with feelings, especially with regard to certain quests and the like. But if I were a resident of Tamriel, I wouldn’t dare karaoke anything save Mogo’s Mead. Even A Warrior’s Life, a song that is tailor made for a drunken male chorus, is a song about the dead and loved ones lost. It’s got an element of buzzkill.

Mogo’s Mead, on the other hand, is guaranteed happiness. It’s written and composed by Arisen1, and it’s her writing that keeps it free of all the cumbersome, dour tripe that are a staple of my song lyrics. It’s light, feathery, and pure pop.

It’s a good time, and when I listen to it, I can’t help but have one.

Character Profile – Amalee

Kris Takahashi Character Profiles 2 Comments

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I can’t remember the last time I listened to live music. It was in some dark, ramen-scented catacomb in downtown Kichijoji that seemed too clean to be credible, as if the performances were meant to be observed rather than absorbed.

I was there to see a friend’s band, only they weren’t up just yet. Holding their place in line was a girl with a bowl haircut, a polka dot dress and candy-striped stockings. While she looked like a pop star, she kept this mean-ass guitar slung over her shoulder like a guard dog, and I felt like if I reached out to touch it it’d bite me.

So I kept my distance as the lights dimmed and the crowd gathered around her. She said a few words and backed off the mic, waiting for the chatter to fall to absolute zero. Then she went to work, strumming her tiny fingers across those taut steel fangs. And when she played, I got all sorts of feelings. Even if the music was bad.

I like to think that same combination of electricity and magnetism flows in Amalee. She’s got charm and she’s got style, but she’ll bite your finger off if you wag it at Dibella. She’s not the most technically sound bard, but she’s got passion and drive and hope and belief and that makes up for any notes she misses along the way. You could say the science of Amalee is a cluster of positively charged protons, and that pure energy will force you to have a good time, even if you’re a negative person like me.

For whatever reason, I don’t remember hearing my friend’s band play. The lasting memory from that night was the girl in the polka dot dress. But the best part wasn’t even the music. It came before she began her set, when she stepped up to the microphone and made a request. When she was done rocking the joint, and you were done smashing that beer can on your forehead, she asked that you place it in the appropriate, recyclable bin.

I thought that was kind of, well, neat.

Character Profile – Moris the Draugr

Kris Takahashi Character Profiles 3 Comments

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People sometimes tell me Moris sounds too young. It mostly has to do with his dialogue. Moris tells us he’s getting old. He can’t swing Ebony like he used to. I can’t deny this truth. But while Moris implies he’s an older man, that doesn’t mean he should sound feeble. Old doesn’t mean crotchety. Not all old men have punk kids on their lawns and onions on their belt. Because the word old isn’t always reflective of one’s age.

Take sports for example. Ballplayers are considered old if they’re on the wrong side of thirty. Veteran athletes routinely hear people twice their age tell them they’re too old. That they should retire. It’s even worse for tennis players who become old in their mid-twenties, and female gymnasts who can’t even get past puberty – because nature, ever so capricious, robs them of the balance and elasticity required for their sport.

Even in the same field, the effects of time will vary from person to person. A basketball player who depends on his leaping ability will see his value diminish much more quickly than a long range shooter. Similarly, it’s likely a mage or an archer would be a useful party member well into their fifties and sixties, whereas a two-handed warrior would start to feel the effects twenty years prior. The erosion of one’s strength and recovery time can be fatal for someone who fights nose to nose with his enemy.

Of course, there are ways to combat the effects of aging. Some use PEPs (performance enhancing potions, hardy har har). Others use guile. But Moris only knows how to fight one way. The Gods gave him two hands, and he has them both on his weapon, not some sissy stamina potion. And if he did have to cheat – whether through alchemy or magic or making reference to your untied shoes – there isn’t a potion in the world that would recover his pride.

It’s that same pride that keeps him trapped in the walls of the Nightgate Inn, where time has become both his friend and enemy. He thinks he needs it to heal, but every day he gets better his skills get worse. And the truth is, his physical wounds are all but gone – it’s his confidence that has yet to recover.

It probably never will. And that may not be such a bad thing. Moris isn’t an old man, but he is an old warrior. And old warriors, Draugrs in particular, tend not to remain among the living.