Surprise! Earlier in the month, I missed two days, and I quickly remedied the situation and posted the Day 9 post two days late. And now, 19 days late, here is the post for Day 10 of RPG a Day 2025. The prompt is ‘Origin.’
For Day 6, on the topic of Motive, I wrote about the Central Casting books by Jennell Jaquays. So for today’s prompt, I decided to grab my copy of Central Casting Heroes for Tomorrow (which I erroneously called Heroes of Tomorrow on Day 6) and roll up a character’s origin.
Here are the results. First, there are the results of the rolls on the random tables in the books as per the Character History Worksheet. I realized I didn’t write down the rolls; apologies, but you have the results of those rolls here. For all the names used, I generated them using online random generators.
After that, there is the origin story for the character based on the results in the worksheet. I did not create any corresponding character in a specific system. However, I’d like to invite our readers to make one based on the character story provided here. If you share your character in the comments or send it to me through social media, email, or tag me on your post, I will write a follow-up post collecting the characters you create. I’d love to see what you create based on the character origin in this post.
One last thing before getting to the point of this post. I said I would not use AI-generated art for these posts, but after completing the character’s origin today, I had an idea of what he looked like and used Gemini, Google’s AI, to create the character portrait at the new depth of his story. I know this can be a controversial topic, and I support real artists creating genuine art; I don’t spend my money on AI-generated content. So I apologize in advance for using the AI-generated portrait.
And now, without further ado, here is the origin of my sci-fi character:
Central Casting Character History Worksheet
Player Name: Roberto (Sunglar)
Name: Davian Othvad-Case
Sex: Male
Die Roll Modifiers
p. 13-14 Future History Modifier (FutMod): 12 (Imperial Space)
- Name: Old Ascendancy of Dothe
(102A) Tech Level Modifier (TekMod): 13 (modified to 4 see event)
(102B) Culture Modifier (CuMod): 2 (modified to 10 see event)
(103) Social Level Modifier (SolMod): 2
(105) Birth Modifier (BiMod): 20
(749) Title Modifier (TiMod): 3
Future History:
(101) Race: Human
(102A) Tech Level: Second Stellar Age: Mixed Technology; high and low-level technology intermixed (changed to Renaissance, see event)
(102) Education Points: 36 (spent)
(102B) Culture: Barbaric
(103) Social Status: Poor
(103) Literacy Chance: 80% (literate)
(749) Nobility Title (if any): None
(104A) Legitimate Birth? Yes
(104B) Family: Two Parents
- Father – Jariden Othvad-Horris
- Mother – Kasra Case-Jayla
(104C) Siblings: Three
- Oder brother – Anedre Othvad-Case
- Younger brother – Ayaan Othvad-Case
(104C) Birth Order: Second
(105A) Home world: Racial Home, Glacial World
- Driebos
(105B) Place of Birth: In a bar, in a prison
(106) Unusual Births: Nothing
(107) Notes about Parents: The head of household had one job, guide/pilot, had a patron, the grandfather, who was of well-to-do social status. The father was chosen at random for this job; he traveled widely with the patron and learned about the galaxy alongside him.
- Grandfather – Cavir Case-Koltn
(208 – 211) NOTES & EVENTS
Age – Event or Note
- [N] 1-12 – Patron: a female of extremely wealthy social status; secretly a notorious crime figure, on one hand, an evil figure of the underworld, while publicly known for philanthropic works, interested in exploration and adventure. The character was selected to be prepared for a special task (GM determined); learned a craft (baking)
- Name: Zenia Riccia, High Priestess of the Banking Conglomerate
- [D] 1-12 – Developed a jaded taste for expensive and possibly exotic pleasures.
- [R] 13-18 – Family upheaval: parents split up, character stayed with mother. Three years later, the parents remarried.
- [R] Adulthood / 25 – His homeworld secedes from the “empire”, and aligning against the government in power, the resulting war devastates the planet. Planet tech-level falls from the Second Stellar Age to the Medieval. Culture becomes Dynamic.
SKILLS
Skill Name / Rank
- Cooking (Gourment) / 1
- Craft (Bake) / 3
- Literacy / 3
- Partying (hobby as a profession) / 5
- Social Dancing (formal and informal) / 2
- Skiing / 3
- Survival (R) / 3
- Survival (U) /1
- Survival (W) /2
- Weapon Use (Gun) / 3
OCCUPATION(S)
- Above average education (3d6 Education Points)
- Hobby practiced as an occupation (consuming passion +2 Rank), Partying (Rank 5)
(312) PERSONALITY
- [N] Studious, studies often, pays attention to detail (Driving)
- [D] Tactless, speaks before thinking (Weak)
- [R] Exotic Personality Trait – [N] Know-it-All (has a 10% of really knowing anything) (Weak)
- [R] No personality trait develops
Alignment: Neutral
Attitude: Self-Centered
Attribute Modifiers & Age
- Starting Age: 30
- +1 to Strength & Constitution
- 50% Starting money, problems borrowing money
Davian Othvad-Case, the Gentleman Raider
Davian Othvad-Case was born on the ice moon Driebos, in orbit around the gas giant Erabos, during the Second Age of Conquest, following the fall of the Stellar Concord and the breaking of its territories into warring factions. The colonists of Driebos settled on the galactic frontier, seeking to escape the wars that would follow them to the fringes of known space. Hardy pioneers, they benefited from the Concord’s technology in taming the ice world. Still, they maintained the old ways of their ancestors, organized in clans led by the strongest and most capable warlords. A technologically advanced society that extracted exotic gases used for non-Faster-Than-Light (FTL) propulsion systems from Erabos, but mined the frozen oceans of their homeworld by hand in their wind-propelled sled-ships. A high-tech society embracing ancient traditions considered barbaric by the far more advanced and powerful stellar potentates, the Old Ascendancy of Dothe.
During Driebos’ foundation and growth as a trade center in the fringes of colonized space, the Old Ascendancy of Dothe was involved in a series of wars with its rivals in their sector of space. Davian’s father, Jariden Othvad-Horris, was a poor street urchin in the moon’s main spaceport. He broke into the ship of a well-to-do pilot and hyper-route scout who took pity on him. Instead of handing him over to the authorities, the pilot gave him a job on his ship.
Jariden trained under Captain Cavir Case-Koltn, learning to pilot the ship and explore new hyper-routes lost after the fall of the Concord across the Dothian sphere of influence and beyond, seeing the greater galaxy, and falling in love with his patron’s daughter. Cavir disapproved of Jariden’s courting his daughter, Kasra Case-Jayla, and dismissed him from his post, forbidding Kasra from communicating with him. Kasra renounced her father’s clan and eloped with Jariden. Davian’s older brother, Anedre Othvad-Case, was born soon thereafter.
Banned from the Astral Scout Guild by his former patron, Davian’s grandfather, the influential Captain Cavir Case-Koltn, Jariden became a black-market navigator in less reputable gas haulers, his job often taking him away from Driebos, his family living in poverty, for Davian’s mother, Kasra, was too proud and obstinate to ask for help from her father.
Jariden was on one such journey away from home, Kasra pregnant with her second child, when the Old Ascendancy of Dothe finally turned its attention to Driebos and conquered the moon, annexing it to the Ascendancy. While Jariden desperately tried to return home, unable to break the Dothian blockade of Driebos, local clans and families who refused to submit to the invader’s will were rounded up to resettlement camps, where Kasra worked as a waitress in the bar serving the prisoners. Davian was born in the back room of the bar, as his brother Anedre helped his mom with the delivery.
When Jariden was finally able to return home, his family had been relocated from the more hospital equatorial zone of Driebos to the inhospitable northern hemisphere. Banned from practicing his trade, Jariden worked as a laborer for subsistence wages in the construction of the Dothian orbital citadels from which the conquerors ruled Dreibos. At the same time, his wife cared for their growing family.
Life was hard for Davian’s family, and when his younger brother, Ayaan Othvad-Case, was born, his parents were unsure how they would feed their three children. However, a visiting Dothian philanthropist, Zenia Riccia, High Priestess of the Banking Conglomerate, took an interest in young Davian after seeing him participate in the traditional war dance with the other children of his class. Insisting to his parents that she could offer the boy an education and opportunities they could not, Davian’s parents reluctantly handed their second-born son to the High Priestess.
Unknown to Davian’s parents, Zenia Riccia was secretly the head of one of the largest Dothian criminal syndicates, controlling the drugs pushed on the poorest inhabitants of Driebos to keep them docile and easily controlled by the Dothians. The High Priestess also chose Davian, for her seers had foretold he was destined to find the lost hyper-route to the Stellar Concord’s lost throne world.
As a young child, aboard one of the orbital citadels, Davian received an education unlike the one he would have received on the surface settlements on Driebos. While he enjoyed ostentatious and exotic pleasures growing up, he was never allowed to forget that he was not a Dothian himself. Davian was studious, and while he excelled in core subjects, he showed talent for crafting culinary delicacies and for his dancing abilities, which were in full display in the lavish events at the High Priestess’ estate.
He proved so adept in the courtly skills valued by Zenia Riccia’s courtiers that Davian became the apprentice of the High Priestess’ Master of Revels. The young man was known as the gentleman artiste, renowned for his talent as well as his wit. Ready to engage in the most intricate performative dance, as well as to verbally spar with the most experienced courtier with cutting wit and deep knowledge unusual for his young age.
When Davian was allowed to visit his parents before his rite of adulthood, he found a family in ruins. His oldest brother was addicted to hallucinogenic drugs, his parents separated, and his younger brother was involved with the resistance movement fighting the occupation of the Old Ascendancy of Dothe.
Experiencing firsthand the conditions that his people experienced under Dothian rule changed Davian. He returned to working for the High Priestess, becoming her Master of Revels, where he coordinated lavish events and grew as a renowned reveler among Dothian high society. However, he used his influence and position to help his family. His older brother recovered from his addiction, his parents reconciled, but his younger brother left the home and joined the underground resistance.
Davian’s secret sympathies drew him closer and closer to the resistance, eventually feeding information and secrets to the movement through his brother, while continuing to work for Zenia Riccia.
When the Driebos resistance rose against the Old Ascendancy of Dothe, Davian openly helped them and betrayed the High Priestess, killing her as the orbital citadels fell from the sky. The rebels’ triumph was short-lived, as the Dothian retaliation was swift and brutal. The Ascendancy bombarded the moon with powerful weapons, killing the inhabitants en masse. The survivors were plunged into a pre-industrial age, and the Old Ascendancy of Dothe quarantined the system.
With most of his family dead, his homeworld in ruins, and disenchanted with the outcome of the failed rebellion, Davian Othvad-Case escaped the system blockade and joined a crew of raiders and pirates, harrying the Old Ascendancy of Dothe space lane, where his old fame precedes him. The military commanders who hunt for him and the captains he preys upon call him the Gentleman Raider.
