mollymauk tealeaf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
viciousmaukery) wrote2019-08-01 10:10 pm
viciousmaukery) wrote2019-08-01 10:10 pm
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OOC INFO;
Player Name: Effy
Contact Info:ineffabilities, Discord: foggytealeafs#7641, ![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
robbstark
Current Character: Robb Stark from ASOIAF
IC INFO;
Character Name: Mollymauk Tealeaf
Canon: Critical Role (Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein)
Canon Information: Molly's wiki page and a description of Critical Role.
Canon Point: post-episode 26, "Found and Lost"
Age: this is tricky considering Molly's technically only existed for two years, but physically he's somewhere in his early to mid-twenties. I'd say 22.
God Houses: Njord would catch Molly's interest first, because Molly is almost literally made of bullshit—before episode 14, his backstory was just a bunch of lies, and he has no qualms about telling more lies and more stories, believing that the truth only hurts people. Better, then, to make up something that could push them to be better, to take a better path than what they're on—that's part and parcel of why he tells fortunes.
Sigyn would also appeal to Molly, because he's canonically stated that his underlying philosophy is "leave every town better than you found it", and he always does his best to live by that. He's not the most compassionate member of the Mighty Nein, but he is the one who will overtip and overpay. Also, he died to try and keep his friend Beau from getting herself killed so. Welp.
Honir would also interest Molly, because he has never actually been tied down to one home. As a carnie and an adventurer, he's never had a permanent home address, and he often seeks out new experiences with gusto, always aiming to fill up the emptiness that he is secretly utterly terrified of.
Of these houses, it's actually difficult for me to say what Molly would select. Still, I think he'd choose Njord in the end, because he loves a guy who loves his baldfaced bullshit. Sorry, Honir and Sigyn.
Personality:
The first thing most people would think of, if they were to clap eyes on Mollymauk Tealeaf, would probably be holy shit, this guy's an ostentatious eyesore. The second thing, once he opens his mouth, might possibly be holy shit, this guy's full of bullshit.
And honestly, Molly himself would cheerfully confirm that, yes: he's full of bullshit, and he likes it that way. He says so himself in episode 14 ("Fleeting Memories"), countering Nott pointing out that his bullshit isn't who he is by claiming "it is exactly who I am". And that's actually true, because Molly's entire persona was constructed because he has no memory of the man he used to be before he woke up in an unmarked grave somewhere. You could say that Molly's all bullshit, spun expertly by someone trying desperately to put together a sense of identity, but—and this is a point that he emphasizes when he explains his backstory to the Mighty Nein, fourteen episodes after he first meets them—Molly's identity is completely independent from Lucien, whoever he was, because Molly makes damn sure of it, having spent the past two years forging his own identity. Molly is a completely different person to that guy, and that means he has substance beyond the bullshit that comes out of his mouth. But boy, is that bullshit an integral part of him, to the point where he is automatically suspicious of the truth—notably, he thinks that "truth is vicious, truth thinks you owe it something," and Molly is not interested in owing such a vicious thing anything.
Molly, essentially, grew up in a carnival. That's all he's really known, and so much of his personality has been shaped that way because of his time there. He's, obviously, an ostentatious person, someone who's very aware of his appearance and chooses to make himself as loud and showy as possible, from the colorful coat to the tattoos to the jewelry dangling from his horns, because if people are going to be looking at him, then he may as well give them a show. He's someone who likes to chase after pleasure, especially when life is disappointing, and goes after new experiences, good and bad, with great enthusiasm. He's also something of a showman, which is evident not only in his bedazzling appearance, but also in how he carries himself: he projects himself as someone who's very confident and self-assured, and most insults slung in his direction, as he is a purple horned man dressed to stand out, tend to slide off him like water off a duck's back. He's very theatrical and dramatic, and when given the chance to show off he's as extravagant as possible, as best exemplified in episode 12 ("Midnight Espionage"), where he's asked to create a distraction at the hospital and proceeds to go all out, vomiting on the orderlies and claiming to be possessed. He also lies a lot, to the point where it's noticeable in a party full of bad liars—when first asked about his swords, he first claims that they're activated using the bloodline of his family who used to be priests for a demon, then when called on that, amends his story to say that they were "less the priests and more the sacrifices". He's spent two years talking up the circus and making it seem bigger and more fantastic than it is, he's gotten very good at spinning some bullshit and making it look like gold, but once people start poking around at his stories, they tend to fall apart fairly easily. Not only that, but he can sometimes come off as more of a used-car salesman than anything, trying to convince people of his point of view but not quite managing to get them to look past the sheer force of his general demeanor.
Another thing that Molly learned from the circus is the value of trust and of being able to make judgments in the heat of the moment. In contrast to his mistrusting companions, Molly's trust is comparatively easy to gain, as he believes that when it comes to people that can't be trusted, you just have to trust them where you can and not trust them where you can't. He isn't naive, he knows that not everyone he meets and not everyone he befriends is worthy of trust, but he extends at least a probationary measure of trust anyway. It's easy for him to care deeply about someone, especially a friend of his, and once he's befriended someone, even if he doesn't trust them, he does his utmost to do his best by them. He doesn't care about their pasts or what they've done, he makes his judgments based on what he's seen of their actions in the present day—he doesn't give a shit that Yasha's from the country that's at war with the Empire they reside under, he just cares that she is his friend. He's very loyal to people once he comes to trust them, and in fact tries to do things for the betterment of the group, even if some of those things can be a little iffy, as we see when he charms Nott into telling him and Fjord why she tried to steal Fjord's letter of recommendation into the Soltryce Academy. That having been said, just because Molly's trust is easier to gain compared to the rest of the Mighty Nein, that doesn't automatically mean he trusts or even likes someone, especially if they're outside of the group that he belongs to as they're liable to screw up the already-existing group dynamic: when he meets Kiri the kenku NPC in episode 20 ("Labenda Awaits"), he displays a mild annoyance towards her and mentions that he's not quite thrilled about "new people". He's also suspicious of groups within groups, as such a thing is liable to cause friction within the larger group, so he's somewhat suspicious of Caleb and Nott, who were a close-knit pair of small-time criminals before they met up with the rest of the Nein. Still, Molly is very willing to die for these people, when push comes to shove—episode 26, "Found and Lost", is his last episode, and he spends it chasing down the slavers who stole half the party. At the end of it, he dies in order to make sure that Beau is safe.
Molly is very quick to judge others, as well as very observant. His habit of snap judgments is a skill he's picked up in the circus as a fortune-teller, having had to make them based off of what he could cold-read off a person's body language and general attitude to make up the fortunes he tells them. It's also helped him survive, since a lot of people don't take too well to tieflings where he's from, and in his work as a promoter he needed to be able to judge if someone would be receptive to him and to his pitch or if they would respond less than favorably. However, this quick judgment of Molly's isn't always the most flexible, nor is it the most accurate. His first impression of Beau, for example, was not the most favorable, and the two of them have often taken jabs at each other, although Molly is finally starting to warm up to her at his canon point and has always been loyal to her despite disliking her, as she is part of the Mighty Nein. His impression of Nott also seems to be one where he sees her as younger and more immature than she actually is, to the point where he tells her that "you're not as smart as you think you are" and tries to impart good life lessons to her, although he does care about her a lot.
Being a carnie, of course, Molly's idea of good life lessons, and indeed of morality in general, does not totally line up with the norm. He's fine with stealing things, but he stresses to Nott that she should only steal from "grumpy people" (and Beau), and pins Caleb to a wall in order to dissuade him from trying to hide loot from the rest of the party. Molly's inclined towards making people happy and steering them onto the right track, and to that end he tends to use his fortune-telling to steer people onto the right path, overpay for goods and services, shield a small dwarven girl from the sight of her guardian monster's head being carried by two of the Mighty Nein, give bandits a gold coin in order to find a better career path, and even try to impart practical advice onto a little goblin rogue. However, he's not quite as inclined towards following the law, especially not the Empire's laws, and indeed actively tends towards breaking it. His idea of fairness does not tend to take rules provided by higher authorities such as the government into account—instead he operates from his own personal convictions, informed by his time in the carnival. His player, Taliesin Jaffe, has said that Molly's the center of his own little moral universe—from Molly's point of view, if it's bound to make somebody happy or better their lives in some way and if he personally believes it to be right, then it's the right thing to do. This is also why he's very liberal with charm spells like Charm Person, even using them on Nott or Fjord on separate occasions, as morally iffy as some people may find it. He is also a deeply petty person—although he won't kill someone for being smarmy towards him, he will be smarmy right back if not even smarmier, and if a bully decides to pick on him, it's only fair if he blinds them for a couple of minutes and is a party to terrifying the everloving hell out of the poor bastard.
Molly is also incredibly open to new experiences. Like. A little too open, maybe. Having been Molly for only two years so far, a lot of the things that most people may take for granted is actually new to him, and he likes experiencing them for himself, good or bad. He's something of a hedonist, buying drugs in episode 4 for "when life is disappointing" ("Disparate Pieces") and trying them out with Beau in episode 16 ("A Favor In Kind"), as well as trying out some carnival games and enjoying the simple strawberry that he gets when he wins one in episode 17 ("Harvest Close"), and hiring two escorts for a full-release massage in episode 18 ("Whispers of War") when he gets the chance. He's a big believer in the YOLO philosophy, and lives his life as well as he can and as happily as he can, letting most insults and instances of disrespect pass him by with a cheery claim of having heard much worse, and amusing himself often. Whenever he gets the chance, he takes the path with the more interesting and new experience, accepting the risk that comes with it as worth it, especially if reality at the moment sucks. And he's not a great big fan of having to face cold, hard reality and truth. Especially not if that truth has teeth and comes dragging his past with it.
And boy does Molly not want to confront his past. While he's generally a carefree individual given to amusement, he displays an uncharacteristic nervousness bordering on a legitimate panic attack when his past as Lucien comes back around to haunt him. Molly doesn't want to know who he was and why he ended up in the dirt two years ago, and when Nott keeps pressing on it when he reveals his backstory, he snaps at her by pointing out that maybe "he was a goblin hunter. Maybe he ate them. Raw." The idea of even encountering something that Lucien knew doesn't make Molly feel good because the guy is dead, from Molly's perspective, and screwed up his chance to such a point that he got buried in the dirt. Molly doesn't see the need to dig him back up, because he's already built up his own identity, his own life, outside of whatever Lucien's life was, and while he's happy enough to keep on using the blood hunter abilities that Lucien apparently learned, he doesn't care to learn more about how he came about them. As far as Molly's concerned, what works works, and he doesn't need to go poking around into his own past to gain an insight into how. This is also why he doesn't generally see the need to learn about other people's pasts, beyond maybe the basics if that's needed. Again, Molly really does not care about someone's past (beyond some curiosity if they pique it just right), just their actions in the present.
Summing up, Mollymauk Tealeaf is a liar and a carnie, who lives in the present, doesn't care about his past, and tries his best to be a good, if shady, person.
Writing Sample: Mask Or Menace inbox thread with Darin Altway.
Player Name: Effy
Contact Info:
ineffabilities, Discord: foggytealeafs#7641, Current Character: Robb Stark from ASOIAF
IC INFO;
Character Name: Mollymauk Tealeaf
Canon: Critical Role (Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein)
Canon Information: Molly's wiki page and a description of Critical Role.
Canon Point: post-episode 26, "Found and Lost"
Age: this is tricky considering Molly's technically only existed for two years, but physically he's somewhere in his early to mid-twenties. I'd say 22.
God Houses: Njord would catch Molly's interest first, because Molly is almost literally made of bullshit—before episode 14, his backstory was just a bunch of lies, and he has no qualms about telling more lies and more stories, believing that the truth only hurts people. Better, then, to make up something that could push them to be better, to take a better path than what they're on—that's part and parcel of why he tells fortunes.
Sigyn would also appeal to Molly, because he's canonically stated that his underlying philosophy is "leave every town better than you found it", and he always does his best to live by that. He's not the most compassionate member of the Mighty Nein, but he is the one who will overtip and overpay. Also, he died to try and keep his friend Beau from getting herself killed so. Welp.
Honir would also interest Molly, because he has never actually been tied down to one home. As a carnie and an adventurer, he's never had a permanent home address, and he often seeks out new experiences with gusto, always aiming to fill up the emptiness that he is secretly utterly terrified of.
Of these houses, it's actually difficult for me to say what Molly would select. Still, I think he'd choose Njord in the end, because he loves a guy who loves his baldfaced bullshit. Sorry, Honir and Sigyn.
Personality:
The first thing most people would think of, if they were to clap eyes on Mollymauk Tealeaf, would probably be holy shit, this guy's an ostentatious eyesore. The second thing, once he opens his mouth, might possibly be holy shit, this guy's full of bullshit.
And honestly, Molly himself would cheerfully confirm that, yes: he's full of bullshit, and he likes it that way. He says so himself in episode 14 ("Fleeting Memories"), countering Nott pointing out that his bullshit isn't who he is by claiming "it is exactly who I am". And that's actually true, because Molly's entire persona was constructed because he has no memory of the man he used to be before he woke up in an unmarked grave somewhere. You could say that Molly's all bullshit, spun expertly by someone trying desperately to put together a sense of identity, but—and this is a point that he emphasizes when he explains his backstory to the Mighty Nein, fourteen episodes after he first meets them—Molly's identity is completely independent from Lucien, whoever he was, because Molly makes damn sure of it, having spent the past two years forging his own identity. Molly is a completely different person to that guy, and that means he has substance beyond the bullshit that comes out of his mouth. But boy, is that bullshit an integral part of him, to the point where he is automatically suspicious of the truth—notably, he thinks that "truth is vicious, truth thinks you owe it something," and Molly is not interested in owing such a vicious thing anything.
Molly, essentially, grew up in a carnival. That's all he's really known, and so much of his personality has been shaped that way because of his time there. He's, obviously, an ostentatious person, someone who's very aware of his appearance and chooses to make himself as loud and showy as possible, from the colorful coat to the tattoos to the jewelry dangling from his horns, because if people are going to be looking at him, then he may as well give them a show. He's someone who likes to chase after pleasure, especially when life is disappointing, and goes after new experiences, good and bad, with great enthusiasm. He's also something of a showman, which is evident not only in his bedazzling appearance, but also in how he carries himself: he projects himself as someone who's very confident and self-assured, and most insults slung in his direction, as he is a purple horned man dressed to stand out, tend to slide off him like water off a duck's back. He's very theatrical and dramatic, and when given the chance to show off he's as extravagant as possible, as best exemplified in episode 12 ("Midnight Espionage"), where he's asked to create a distraction at the hospital and proceeds to go all out, vomiting on the orderlies and claiming to be possessed. He also lies a lot, to the point where it's noticeable in a party full of bad liars—when first asked about his swords, he first claims that they're activated using the bloodline of his family who used to be priests for a demon, then when called on that, amends his story to say that they were "less the priests and more the sacrifices". He's spent two years talking up the circus and making it seem bigger and more fantastic than it is, he's gotten very good at spinning some bullshit and making it look like gold, but once people start poking around at his stories, they tend to fall apart fairly easily. Not only that, but he can sometimes come off as more of a used-car salesman than anything, trying to convince people of his point of view but not quite managing to get them to look past the sheer force of his general demeanor.
Another thing that Molly learned from the circus is the value of trust and of being able to make judgments in the heat of the moment. In contrast to his mistrusting companions, Molly's trust is comparatively easy to gain, as he believes that when it comes to people that can't be trusted, you just have to trust them where you can and not trust them where you can't. He isn't naive, he knows that not everyone he meets and not everyone he befriends is worthy of trust, but he extends at least a probationary measure of trust anyway. It's easy for him to care deeply about someone, especially a friend of his, and once he's befriended someone, even if he doesn't trust them, he does his utmost to do his best by them. He doesn't care about their pasts or what they've done, he makes his judgments based on what he's seen of their actions in the present day—he doesn't give a shit that Yasha's from the country that's at war with the Empire they reside under, he just cares that she is his friend. He's very loyal to people once he comes to trust them, and in fact tries to do things for the betterment of the group, even if some of those things can be a little iffy, as we see when he charms Nott into telling him and Fjord why she tried to steal Fjord's letter of recommendation into the Soltryce Academy. That having been said, just because Molly's trust is easier to gain compared to the rest of the Mighty Nein, that doesn't automatically mean he trusts or even likes someone, especially if they're outside of the group that he belongs to as they're liable to screw up the already-existing group dynamic: when he meets Kiri the kenku NPC in episode 20 ("Labenda Awaits"), he displays a mild annoyance towards her and mentions that he's not quite thrilled about "new people". He's also suspicious of groups within groups, as such a thing is liable to cause friction within the larger group, so he's somewhat suspicious of Caleb and Nott, who were a close-knit pair of small-time criminals before they met up with the rest of the Nein. Still, Molly is very willing to die for these people, when push comes to shove—episode 26, "Found and Lost", is his last episode, and he spends it chasing down the slavers who stole half the party. At the end of it, he dies in order to make sure that Beau is safe.
Molly is very quick to judge others, as well as very observant. His habit of snap judgments is a skill he's picked up in the circus as a fortune-teller, having had to make them based off of what he could cold-read off a person's body language and general attitude to make up the fortunes he tells them. It's also helped him survive, since a lot of people don't take too well to tieflings where he's from, and in his work as a promoter he needed to be able to judge if someone would be receptive to him and to his pitch or if they would respond less than favorably. However, this quick judgment of Molly's isn't always the most flexible, nor is it the most accurate. His first impression of Beau, for example, was not the most favorable, and the two of them have often taken jabs at each other, although Molly is finally starting to warm up to her at his canon point and has always been loyal to her despite disliking her, as she is part of the Mighty Nein. His impression of Nott also seems to be one where he sees her as younger and more immature than she actually is, to the point where he tells her that "you're not as smart as you think you are" and tries to impart good life lessons to her, although he does care about her a lot.
Being a carnie, of course, Molly's idea of good life lessons, and indeed of morality in general, does not totally line up with the norm. He's fine with stealing things, but he stresses to Nott that she should only steal from "grumpy people" (and Beau), and pins Caleb to a wall in order to dissuade him from trying to hide loot from the rest of the party. Molly's inclined towards making people happy and steering them onto the right track, and to that end he tends to use his fortune-telling to steer people onto the right path, overpay for goods and services, shield a small dwarven girl from the sight of her guardian monster's head being carried by two of the Mighty Nein, give bandits a gold coin in order to find a better career path, and even try to impart practical advice onto a little goblin rogue. However, he's not quite as inclined towards following the law, especially not the Empire's laws, and indeed actively tends towards breaking it. His idea of fairness does not tend to take rules provided by higher authorities such as the government into account—instead he operates from his own personal convictions, informed by his time in the carnival. His player, Taliesin Jaffe, has said that Molly's the center of his own little moral universe—from Molly's point of view, if it's bound to make somebody happy or better their lives in some way and if he personally believes it to be right, then it's the right thing to do. This is also why he's very liberal with charm spells like Charm Person, even using them on Nott or Fjord on separate occasions, as morally iffy as some people may find it. He is also a deeply petty person—although he won't kill someone for being smarmy towards him, he will be smarmy right back if not even smarmier, and if a bully decides to pick on him, it's only fair if he blinds them for a couple of minutes and is a party to terrifying the everloving hell out of the poor bastard.
Molly is also incredibly open to new experiences. Like. A little too open, maybe. Having been Molly for only two years so far, a lot of the things that most people may take for granted is actually new to him, and he likes experiencing them for himself, good or bad. He's something of a hedonist, buying drugs in episode 4 for "when life is disappointing" ("Disparate Pieces") and trying them out with Beau in episode 16 ("A Favor In Kind"), as well as trying out some carnival games and enjoying the simple strawberry that he gets when he wins one in episode 17 ("Harvest Close"), and hiring two escorts for a full-release massage in episode 18 ("Whispers of War") when he gets the chance. He's a big believer in the YOLO philosophy, and lives his life as well as he can and as happily as he can, letting most insults and instances of disrespect pass him by with a cheery claim of having heard much worse, and amusing himself often. Whenever he gets the chance, he takes the path with the more interesting and new experience, accepting the risk that comes with it as worth it, especially if reality at the moment sucks. And he's not a great big fan of having to face cold, hard reality and truth. Especially not if that truth has teeth and comes dragging his past with it.
And boy does Molly not want to confront his past. While he's generally a carefree individual given to amusement, he displays an uncharacteristic nervousness bordering on a legitimate panic attack when his past as Lucien comes back around to haunt him. Molly doesn't want to know who he was and why he ended up in the dirt two years ago, and when Nott keeps pressing on it when he reveals his backstory, he snaps at her by pointing out that maybe "he was a goblin hunter. Maybe he ate them. Raw." The idea of even encountering something that Lucien knew doesn't make Molly feel good because the guy is dead, from Molly's perspective, and screwed up his chance to such a point that he got buried in the dirt. Molly doesn't see the need to dig him back up, because he's already built up his own identity, his own life, outside of whatever Lucien's life was, and while he's happy enough to keep on using the blood hunter abilities that Lucien apparently learned, he doesn't care to learn more about how he came about them. As far as Molly's concerned, what works works, and he doesn't need to go poking around into his own past to gain an insight into how. This is also why he doesn't generally see the need to learn about other people's pasts, beyond maybe the basics if that's needed. Again, Molly really does not care about someone's past (beyond some curiosity if they pique it just right), just their actions in the present.
Summing up, Mollymauk Tealeaf is a liar and a carnie, who lives in the present, doesn't care about his past, and tries his best to be a good, if shady, person.
Writing Sample: Mask Or Menace inbox thread with Darin Altway.
GOD POWERS
Level Two: Helping Hand: With a thought, a wave of healing energy rolls off of you, and up to 6 creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you find their lesser wounds healing. Alternatively, the healing can be focused on a single creature; while the spell would not regrow lost limbs or return them from death, mending broken bones or repairing internal damage becomes possible.
Level Three: Bloodbending: Your mastery over blood grants you the ability to control another creature for a measure of time. Choose one creature that you can see within 60 feet of you; if they cannot resist, the blood circulating through their veins bends to your will for the next 10 minutes. You can freeze them in their tracks through paralysis, or command them to move how you'd like, though fine motor function such as picking locks is not possible. This spell has no effect on a creature more than twice your size, or anything that does not have blood to control. If you take damage while controlling another being, or if that being falls unconscious, the spell ends early; otherwise, you can choose to end the spell at any point before those 10 minutes are up. If the creature you are controlling falls unconscious, the connection between your blood and theirs ricochets back to you, rendering you insensate for 1 minute.