Real life OoTS

[Valwyn]

What do you think the Order (and other characters) would be in real life? Personally, I'm thinking something like:

Roy: professional athlete (with a university degree, probably an architect)
Haley: con artist
Elan: musician (probably the singer/guitarist in a small band)
V: theoretical physicist
Durkon: priest/doctor
Belkar: cat-loving violent chef and/or serial killer
Tarquin: CEO of a multinational company (or rather the guy who manipulets the CEO/Empress)

What could the others be? Celia and V's mate should be obvious, but what about Xykon or Nale?

[JackRackham]

What do you think the Order (and other characters) would be in real life? Personally, I'm thinking something like:

Roy: professional athlete (with a university degree, probably an architect)
Haley: con artist
Elan: musician (probably the singer/guitarist in a small band)
V: theoretical physicist
Durkon: priest/doctor
Belkar: cat-loving violent chef and/or serial killer
Tarquin: CEO of a multinational company (or rather the guy who manipulets the CEO/Empress)

What could the others be? Celia and V's mate should be obvious, but what about Xykon or Nale?

I don't know, I see Belkar as more of an old-timey gangster type, or maybe a soldier ("You mean, I can kill all the people I want, as long as everyone else agrees?"). Now Nale, Nale would be a serial killer. Also Thog, but a different sort of serial killer.

I could see Elan with his own kid's show (probably on basic cable or public access). Something with singing puppets.

I think the real-life equivalent of a d&d fighter would be some sort of blue-collar worker, but I could see Roy as an athlete that's just way smarter than he needs to be.

You're take on Vaarsuvius is right on, and I can't think of an alternative for Durkon either.

Xykon would be a dictator of somewhere, and Redcloak would be the fiery revolutionary that helped him gain power (anti-imperialist).

PS: The RC/Xykon one is not intended to reflect my opinion of revolutionaries, dictatorships, or imperialism, nor is it supposed to reflect the d&d-style alignment of any of those groups.

[veti]

Roy: professional athlete (with a university degree, probably an architect)
Haley: con artist
Elan: musician (probably the singer/guitarist in a small band)
V: theoretical physicist
Durkon: priest/doctor
Belkar: cat-loving violent chef and/or serial killer
Tarquin: CEO of a multinational company (or rather the guy who manipulets the CEO/Empress)

I think Haley is too - 'nice' is the wrong word, perhaps 'moral', to be a con artist. More likely she'd be in some sleazy but perfectly legal profession, like marketing or PR. Or a journalist.

Durkon is not really interested in medicine, and he's too introverted to make a passable priest. I'd peg him as another scientist of some sort - maybe an astronomer, or a meteorologist.

Belkar: gangster, surely?

[The Fury]

I could see Elan with his own kid's show (probably on basic cable or public access). Something with singing puppets.

Elan would be... Mister Rogers!

[Mike Havran]

I see Roy as some investigator or detective (along with the paladins), but athlete is also a good pick.

Agree with Elan as musician and Vaarsuvius as a physicist.

Durkon would have his own microbrewery.

Haley would do PR for a casino.

Belkar would be a lower-down mobster.

Nale would get himself killed while drunk driving.

Redcloak would lead a cult or somesuch.

Tarquin would be a CEO or a politician.

Shojo would be politician as well.

[The Pilgrim]

Roy: Professional football player with a MIT's Ph.D.

Durkon: Prophet of the Muscular Christians

Haley: Wanted worldwide for bank robbery, grand theft auto, pickpoketing, breaking and entering, shoplifting, fraud, money counterfeiting... she then discovered government Politics and understood she had been wasting her entire life.

Elan: Canadian Pop Singer who prevented Justin Bieber from becoming popular.

Vaarsuvius: Wanted by the International Criminal Court on account of 1,481,190 charges of Genocide. A witness reported: "I knew that fella was bad news after I saw it talking to the birds"

Belkar: Waiting in the Death Row

Xykon: Chairman of the International Monetary Fund

Redcloack: Leader of a terrorist organization, trying to enforce some just cause by all the wrong means.

Tarquin: Puppet Master of several Banana Republics. On a long-run plan to become the President of the United States.

Malak: Former Waffen SS leader, Tarquin found him hidden in one of his puppet banana republics. Wrote his memories under a pseudonim, being so succesfull that "Hannibal Lecter" never made it to the mainstream.

Nale: Became a credited conspiracy theorist after attemping to expose his Father's plan. Leader of the "Elan Bieber Hate Club"

Thog: Thrown out of the WWE, now works as a Disco Bouncer. Everyone loves him except those who had their teeth evicted for attempting to enter his pub wearing jeans. So, you know, nothing unusual.

Sabine: Porn Star, famous for her role in Black Emmanuelle and other sexploitation films.

Lord Shojo: Running Las Vegas

Lord Hinjo: Has not figured out yet what went wrong in Vietnam

O-Chul: Who do you think Chuck Norris is?

Miko: Killed JFK for being a traitor

IFCC: Mortgage Bankers

Qarr: Professor of the Austrian School of Economics

MitD: Has not come out of the closet yet. If you know what I mean.

[Tass]

I think Haley is too - 'nice' is the wrong word, perhaps 'moral', to be a con artist. More likely she'd be in some sleazy but perfectly legal profession, like marketing or PR. Or a journalist.

She'd definitely have been running some cons in her time, just like she has in the real OotS. But now she is trying to better the world somehow with her sneaky ways. Journalist trying to expose the amoral corporation might be just right.

[Valwyn]

I could see Elan with his own kid's show (probably on basic cable or public access). Something with singing puppets

You know, since Nale would be Elan's evil opposite, maybe he'd be working in the adult movie's industry? (Hopefully as a director or writer, though he'd probably be an actor just to mess with Elan's public image). Or maybe as a pimp, with Sabine as his favourite girl.

Lord Shojo: Running Las Vegas

I could totally see him doing that.
Hinjo would probably be a cop turned politician who has no idea about just how far his uncle's casino business go.

[King of Nowhere]

Miko: Killed JFK for being a traitor

You made my day

[Copperdragon]

Roy: A soldier who went to some fancy academy and is a studied officer (Master's Degree) on his way to become Colonel in a few years. Right now, I see him as Captain or somesuch. He'd surely be Army of some sort, not Navy or Airforce. Something as USMC would be possible as well, but I don't know if they have studied officers.

Haley: I'd go for some sort of athlete who started to do burglery and had friends who are Con Artists and she helped out "once in a while". I think this is pretty straight forward, even if the "professional athletic burglar" is already more fiction than "RL". But I'm pretty sure those exist as well (specialists who pick high profile targets), even if they are rare and the dumb "let's just go there and break the window open with an old screwdriver" burglars are much more common.
A more realstic profession would probably that she'd be involved in some fancy scheme were a worthless company is sold to investors. More a "high level scam" than actual burglery. Crime from the office and telephone and her atheltics is pure hobby.

Elan: A singer and musician. Maybe some sort of low-level or under-mid-level actor who's starring in small to medium-sized theaters as lead and in minor roles in a large theatre.

Belkar: A murderer who found his home as muscle for some criminal organisation. He'd not be the type of serial killer who runs around on his own as the times where you can stab people in a tavern and simply walk out of the town are over for ages.
He'd probably be on the payroll of some group and they'd "let him loose" when someone needs to get killed or othervise hurt. Apart from that, he'd live a nice life with booze and whores and would be involved in the occasional fight and stabbing (until he one day gets caught). So RL Belkar is probably in jail with a "life" sentence on his back.

Durkon: This is a bit tricky as there's no "spells you get by being convinced of something". So if we remove the spells, he'd probably be someone who's working for an NGO in "bad parts of the world" and helps people with a hospital and all kinds of other stuff.
I really can see him driving with some convoy into [current crisis] where he starts to unpack the goods (food, medicine) etc. He'd still be very fond of beer.

Vaarsuvius: Again, we get no spells. Apart from that, I could think Vaarsuvius to be some sort of highly nerdy engineer who found his/her niche in the weapons industry. I can very well imagine how that character develops tank guns and keeps rambling on a very technical level how this power (gun, finished tank, ship, whatever) is going to beat anyone else's power.

---

Tarquin: CEO at iFruit Inc or GenTech. Probably also for some Defense Tech Company. Or he might be some dicator in some faraway country, starting as agent of a secret service (think CIA or somesuch) in the late 70s who now is doing stuff "on his own over there".

Nale: Serial robber. In the cell next to Belkar for the last couple of murders he committed in his last (failed) province bank robbery (and for those before that as well).

Xykon: Again, he has no spells. But I see a very, very successful and charismatic con artist. Probably some sort of marriage swindler who's waiting for rich ladies in Monaco and takes cash by the 10s and 100s of thousands.

Sabine: Attached herself to some sort of rockstar or other rich people whose life is Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll and exploits the hell out of them. That works very well until she's 35 or so, then she's ugly and burned out and unhappy for the rest of her life.

Recloak: Works very high in sales for some more or less shady, but still big company. He's the guy the CEO sends if you want to make that billion-heavy aqusition or merge and only knows that it does work but does not want to know that exact how it all happened (and why the own company got the clearly better part of the bargain). Redcloak is not the leader himself. And of course he's pretty evil, but thinks it's "all worth it for the own company".

---

Hinjo: If Durkon works for some NGO, then Hinjo is his boss. Maybe he's somewhat high with the UN or something and coordinates the "creation of a better world".

Shojo: He started out as the heir to some big company and for the first decades spends his life partying and wasting away the money Dad made in decades. Then dad dies and the son grows into it. He's still some sort of partyman, but he is ages and manages to hold the company afloat. As long he's there, it is not noticed that he might manage it, but only barely and his unorthodox ways in leadership seem fancy, but are actually more a problem than an asset. Yes, the company works well but without all that chaos a "good" leader would get under control it could make easily 20% more and the employees in all parts would also be much happier (especially the vice presidents).

Miko: Totally misguided and overzealous policeforce. You really don't want to get a speeding ticket from her and she does not understand why she did not get promoted but keeps transferred from one small station to the next. She'd be the reason the police has a bad reputation in your area.

Celia: No difference, but without the wings. A bland and boring normal person. Simple as that. If RL-OotS gets into action, she'd also be the "normal" person that is sucked into all it - and then gets out again before she is changed. She's the contrast to the "adventurers" who accept their fight-driven life. I see now reason why she cannot also be lawyer.

Thog: Probably the same as Belkar, but working for some sort of gang. The people like him because he's fun and not hitting them when they give him icecream and booze. He likely gets killed rather soon, but until then he's really something you don't want to meet. He carries an UZI at all times.

MitD: Just the same. Some mysterious creature in the Darkness. When it comes out, magic is going to flow back into our world and we can kiss "RL" goodbye! :D

[Vinsfeld]

If I'm a physicist, does that mean that, in Oots world, I'd be V?

[Kish]

Only if you're also genocidal...

...but you probably would be a wizard, if "translated" there. If you were just transported there with your current real-world life experience intact, you would probably be an Expert with all your skill points in useless-in-that-world skills.

[Rakoa]

Some damn hilarious stuff

You mind if I put some of those in my signature? You did quite well. :D

[The Pilgrim]

You mind if I put some of those in my signature? You did quite well. :D

No, I don't mind.

[Warren Dew]

Tarquin: CEO of a multinational company (or rather the guy who manipulets the CEO/Empress)

I'm thinking the right parallel would be dictator of some medium sized authoritarian country, or more accurately, the guy in charge of the Army, which has the real power that keeps the dictator in place or decides to replace him.

[Valwyn]

Probably true. I guess I imagined them in a simplified way, as in, they all live in the same city and would have urban/civilian lives.

[warrl]

If Elan's running a puppet show, I think Thog would love to be his largest puppet.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Thog's like 16. I suspect he's in a Juvenile Detention facility that caters to the developmentally disadvantaged. Worry about what happens when he turns 18 and is kicked loose.

Vaarsuvius is a theoretical physicist whose people skills makes Sheldon Cooper look suave and urbane. In a fit of temporary dementia, she got married, buy soon divorced once sanity returned.

Durkon's a cubicle worker, the ultimate company man. Signed on just out of school, knows the company's business better than anyone, but is so bland he keeps getting passed over for promotion. He's deeply respected on the net for his blog page, the greatest on-line resource dedicated to beer, ale, lagers, pilsners, mead, etc in the known universe.

Belkar's a career criminal, in and out of prison thanks to plea deals reducing murder to manslaughter. Behind bars, he indulges in his second favorite pastime by working in the kitchen. Just who takes care of his cat when he's locked up should maybe be looked into by someone.

Roy's a professional athlete, and a smart one. He's saving and investing his paychecks and slowly building a roc-sized nest egg for his eventual retirement. He also is guardian for his bratty teenaged party girl sister.

Elan is a low level entertainer because he simply doesn't have the wherewithal to get any higher. He never reads contracts before signing or checks up on his 'friends' and 'managers', and probably is only kept from starving by the Acting Guild's minimum fee standards. He has talent and looks, and could go the distance if someone would slip him Sandra Levy-Berlowitz's card.

Haley is a career criminal, having focused on robbing 'deserving targets'. Wanted in multiple countries for a laundry list of charges that'd fill half a ream of paper if printed double-sided. Is maybe starting to reassess her life, or maybe it's the start of another con.

Nale ticked off the wrong person with his inept master-planning, and now occupies a comfortable position under an on-ramp in Jersey.

Tarquin is a 'business executive' who frequently engages in less-than-ethical maneuvers with certain cohorts for excessive financial gain, generally involving mergers, acquisitions, divestments and hostile takeovers. Married repeatedly, always with a pre-nup that leaves the soon-to-be ex-wife with little more than the clothes she's wearing. Unaware that a short fling with a bartender he picked up at a party resulted in twins. His only friend is M. Alec Schwatzmantel, a cold-blooded, blood drinking snake of a guy who leaves a trail of slime behind him, pale like he hates the honest light of day, with a smile that makes a shark look like a guppy...Heck, let us summarize, he's one of the pre-eminent examples of the Evil Corporate Lawyer this side of the devil himself.

[Copperdragon]

If I'm a physicist, does that mean that, in Oots world, I'd be V?

No. Spoken in math terms the relation is not bijective.

[Tragak]

Redcloak: brutal commander of an ICE division who stays popular by keeping the citizens terrified of immigrants
Miko: one of Redcloak's extra-brutal goons

Tarquin: advisor to the heads of all Five Families under various aliases.
Kubota: (figure)head of one of the Five Families
Haley: Criminal Informant giving the FBI evidence against the Kubota Family; loves counter-scamming people who try to scam her
Shojo: Haley's law-enforcement handler; somewhat too lenient about the scams she commits against other criminals

Malack: manager of a Hostel-type kidnapping ring that sells murder victims and crime-scene-cleanup to high-paying psychopaths
Xykon/Belkar: Employees of Malack; Dahmer/Gein/Lector type psychos that like making food and leather clothing out of their customers' "left-overs"
Sabine: after getting money from her johns, she drugs them to get even more money from Malack
Nale: Sabine's boyfriend, insists on excessively complicated measures for S to hide from the police
Thog: Nale's drug-addicted younger brother, constantly in and out of juvie

Roy: 4-Star General, brilliant tactician
Durkon: army doctor, extremely devout, friendly with the chaplains

Elan: kid's show host

V: Mythbuster

[davidbofinger]

• Roy Greenhilt: Policeman, sergeant in the early books and rising gradually to head of the major crimes squad.
• Elan: Singer, Model, Actor, Author, UN ambassador like Jolie/Shakira/whoever.
• Hayley Starshine: Professional jewel thief until she robbed Elan's home and spent four hours talking to him, now steals from the rich to help third world poor.
• Durkon Thundershield: A protestant missionary bringing medical services and beer to the heathens.
• Vaarsuvius: Applied physicist, Cambridge (could be the one in the US or UK). Created the black hole that ate Tunbridge Wells but nobody can pin it on her.
• Blackwing: The research assistant who tries to keep Vaarsuvius sane.
• Belkar Bitterleaf: The specialty hit, he doesn't work for anyone full-time but several criminals use him when they want someone dead. Living on borrowed time. Kills randomly to stave off boredom when business is slow.
• Tarquin: Chief of the Armed Forces of Belarus. Wait, of Kazakhstan - Belarus was last year. Plans on putting the Soviet Union back together in such a way that the US never notices it's happened.
• Malack: Leader of a cult that seems tolerable on the surface but actually does horrible things to some of its lower-level followers.
• Xykon: Mad scientist, still deciding whether to destroy the world when he died and had his brain uploaded into SkyNet.
• Redcloak: Insurgent leader who became a ruler, like Fidel Castro but offering hosting services for bodgy internet companies like Xykon.
• Miko Miyazaki: I was thinking: soldier wanted for murdering civilians in Afghanistan or Iraq. But the suggestion of Miko on the grassy knoll is too good to leave so I guess she murdered people in Vietnam instead and killed JFK because he didn't support the troops in Vietnam with nuclear weapons.
• Nale: Laughably incompetent spy thrown out of an intelligence agency for too many dumb plans.
• Sabine: Met Nale while starring in a honeypot that was supposed to trap him. Several intelligence agencies have her on their books but probably even she doesn't know where her loyalties lie.
• Thog: Mentally handicapped man forced to fight for one side or the other in Yugoslavia in 1990s, extraordinarily violent.
• Celia: Prestigious family - wealthy but no longer hugely wealthy. Lawyer, clerked for member of the Supreme Court as a student.
• Monster in the Darkness: Mk 1 "Bolo" robot tank. Notionally under control of SkyNet.
• Soon Kim: Winston Churchill (unbreakable determination)
• Girard Draketooth: Charles de Gaulle
• Dorukan: J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Kraagor: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (died before war ended).
• Lirian: Let's admit I've been making this rubbish up for a while and none of it makes sense...

[Aolbain]

• Lirian: Let's admit I've been making this rubbish up for a while and none of it makes sense...

Oh good, I was starting to worry. Spot on for the rest though. Someone should write that fanfic.

Same goes for the Pilgrim.

[Jormengand]

They're all in the army.

Roy is like a general or somesuch, Haley is a sniper, Durkon is a medic, V is a grenadier, Elan just does parades where he's part of the band, and Belkar's That One Soldier who just goes berserk and shoots everything.

[Tragak]

They're all in the army.

Roy is like a general or somesuch, Haley is a sniper, Durkon is a medic, V is a grenadier, Elan just does parades where he's part of the band, and Belkar's That One Soldier who just goes berserk and shoots everything.

Nonsense, V would be a Stealth Bomber Pilot in that scenario.

[Jormengand]

Nonsense, V would be a Stealth Bomber Pilot in that scenario.

Maybe. I think V would prefer to be able to watch himself blowing up the enemy directly.

[Warren Dew]

Probably true. I guess I imagined them in a simplified way, as in, they all live in the same city and would have urban/civilian lives.

Political director for a corrupt mayor or representative, then. Heck, he could be the party boss, thus controlling corrupt politicians in three jurisdictions!

[stsasser]

Roy Greenhilt: Traveling sales rep for Bludem Jeans with memberships to three different gym chains.
Elan: Rich webcomic creator.
Xykon: Egomaniacal actor.
Hayley Starshine: Runs a talent agency. Xykon is her top-earning client.
Durkon Thundershield: Owns Durkon's Bar & Grill. Sympathetic, helpful bartender that sings baritone in the choir on Sundays.
Belkar Bitterleaf: Cook at Durkon's Bar & Grill.
Thog: Bus boy, bar-back at Durkon's. Kills flies and fries them on the grill when nobody is watching...giggles while doing so.
Vaarsuvius: Physicist/mathematician that is all about the shortcuts. Cold fusion crank. Roulette system inventor.
Blackwing: Subscriber and practitioner of V's roulette system. Homeless now.
IFCC: Oil Companies. Raise gas prices based on V's cold fusion newsletters, no matter what V says is going to happen...giggle while doing so.
Tarquin: COO of Bludem Jeans.
Malack: Fashion designer. Created Bludem Jeans' wildly-successful BoConstrictor line of men's jeans. Now owns MaLaX brand-reshaping apparel for plus-size gals.
Redcloak: Runs private capital group that owns Bludem Jeans among other corporations. Secretly wants to be a webcomic creator.
Miko Miyazaki: Middle school vice-principal. Students, parents, teachers, janitors; they all hate her.
Nale: Dead. Choked on a boneless while eating boneless chicken.
Sabine: HR sexual harassment counselor at Bludem Jeans.
Celia: Attended too many raves. Now a defense attorney who takes payment in product from dealer clients.
Monster in the Darkness: network admin.

[NZNinja]

Tarquin would never be a CEO; he'd be a COO or CTO, with Malack as CFO. They'd be making billions through insider trading that always traces back to the CEO - and conveniently transferred to a different major corporation just before the SEC arrives with the handcuffs; jobs they got with letters of reference from high ranking executives at other major corporations who are busy doing the same thing - aka the other members of Team Tarquin.

[Shred-Bot]

Tarquin would never be a CEO; he'd be a COO or CTO, with Malack as CFO. They'd be making billions through insider trading that always traces back to the CEO - and conveniently transferred to a different major corporation just before the SEC arrives with the handcuffs; jobs they got with letters of reference from high ranking executives at other major corporations who are busy doing the same thing - aka the other members of Team Tarquin.

That is a good point! Team Tarquin would probably negotiate contracts that pay them more than their patsy CEOs and all sit on each others' companies' boards of directors, but none of them would actually be CEOs.

And for some reason Malack as a CFO makes me giggle... my company's CFO certainly is a nasty bloodsucker so it's strangely appropriate.

[Steward]

Gritty police procedural drama

Roy - serious by-the-book cop
Elan - cowboy / ditz cop
Belkar - over-the-top violent / corrupt cop
Vaarsuvius - snarky crime lab tech
Durkon - grizzled police lieutenant or captain
Haley - recurring likeable defense attorney
Celia - tough no-nonsense prosecuting attorney

Nale - ritualistic serial killer with issues from the ritualistic serial killer-themed episode

Redcloak - sardonic and elegant mob boss from the Mafia-themed episode

Miko - officious but inept Internal Affairs detective from the episode where one of the protagonists is falsely accused of corruption

Thog - mentally-challenged defendant from the courtroom-focused episode where the accused killer is more sympathetic than the victim

Xykon - the teflon villain from the episode that deals with political corruption; the protagonists are able to nail his lieutenants and henchmen but Xykon will walk away grinning smugly because he knows he's tied up all of the loose ends ("Power is power...")