# Your longest serving character?



## Roc (Jan 24, 2013)

By that I mean, which of your characters is the oldest? Which did you create first? What character has appeared in all your plots? 

My oldest character is called Tariana. She has long, frizzy blonde hair, a rare quality in my world.

Sharing time!


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## Ireth (Jan 24, 2013)

Not my oldest, but my longest-running character would probably be Vincent Hawk. His very first incarnation was in a pseudo-crossover-fanfic RP back in 2007 or so; I took V and gave him a past and a name, originally Vincent Broderick. When I joined a completely-unrelated fantasy RPing group in 2009, I brought Vincent over, stuffed him in a blender with the Phantom of the Opera, and got Vincent Hawk: music teacher, off-Broadway actor and martial artist. I gave him a long-deceased wife named Christine, a daughter named Ariel, and a girlfriend named Diana (who later became his second wife). Later on, my GM dumped magical powers on him as well.

When that RP died in 2010, shortly before I was to introduce Vincent's brother Dom, I teamed up with a former group member and we made our own version of the same setting, salvaging some of our old characters and adding new ones. Around 2011 I started working on _Winter's Queen_, starring Vincent, Dom and Ariel in a different setting and plot. WQ soon spawned a sequel, and that's in progress as well. The spinoff RP is still going strong, with a variety of plots and characters, including altered and crossed-over versions of ideas from WQ, just for fun. Some of the ideas that were changed and explored in the RP have been fitted back into the novel, mainly involving more minor Fae characters.


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## Roc (Jan 24, 2013)

I think Tariana was created around that time.

I'm curious as to your rank...Istari. What does that imply?


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## Ireth (Jan 24, 2013)

Roc said:


> I think Tariana was created around that time.
> 
> I'm curious as to your rank...Istari. What does that imply?



I dunno what it implies, but the image of the Ring is misleading. XDD The Istari are good, not evil. Also "Istari" as a rank is grammatically incorrect alongside the other ranks -- Istari is plural, whereas Istar is the singular. /nerd


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## Roc (Jan 24, 2013)

I guess it's saying you're one of the Istari, just like Obama is one of the presidents. 

Although, you're the only one of that rank I've seen.


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## Ireth (Jan 24, 2013)

Roc said:


> I guess it's saying you're one of the Istari, just like Obama is one of the presidents.
> 
> Although, you're the only one of that rank I've seen.



Well, a few others have it, it's just covered up by their moderator-ness.


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## Wanara009 (Jan 24, 2013)

I worked with a lot of continuity, and every single one of them got a 'veteran', so to speak. However, I had three characters that make the most appearance and has the distinction of being amongst the first I created once I started writing seriously (characters I made before that points [mostly wish-fulfillment inserts of myself and my friends] are purged from my Characters Database and are considered my old shame)

The first character I create after purge is _*Raden Patah Hadiningrat*_. He's a 'canon immigrant' that first appeared in an unrealized project I titled "Naga Keraton" (a martial-art comic set in an alternate world where T. Roosevelt won that third presidency, thus changing the whole timeline). 

He's main traits are blindness, skill in martial art, reputation as an competent leader popular amongst the tradesmen and scholars and soldiers but despised by clergymen and craftsmen and farmers, being _so_ unpopular in nearly all minor countries bordering his own that he is basically demonized as a Genghis-Khanesque warlord out to destroy the world, being a closeted asexual, and insanity. Though the last is debatable: is he _really_ insane, only _believe_ that he is insane, or _pretending_ to be insane? 

The second oldest character is _*Prasetya Gatot Guntoro*_ and _*Dewi Tetuka*_. They're 'recycled characters' ala _Tezuka Star System_ that appears in many of my projects. In all incarnations, Prasetya is 'gentle, caring giant' while Dewi is the 'ferocious, jealous giantess'. They are also always appear as a married couple (or at least engaged) in all of their incarnation.

Fun Fact: The idea of Prasetya and Dewi actually came from one character. Prasetya is my interpretation on the Indian version of Ghatotkacha while Dewi is the gender-bent interpretation of the Javanese version of the character.

Before 2008, every single one of my character are wish-fulfillment for me and my friends, so I will be thrown the the 12th circle of hell before I admit having anything to do with them anymore


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## Feo Takahari (Jan 24, 2013)

Well, my oldest four characters who I keep saying I'll using in something, eventually, honest! are four mercenaries who're each parodies of a different variety of Mary Sue. Kyle's the physically and morally perfect prince (who's racist, sexist, and not nearly as bright as he thinks he is), Gail's the selfish, whiny sorceress with a tragic backstory (who rapidly discovers that her actions have consequences), Frederick's the seer who intervenes whenever the story needs to be railroaded towards a happy ending (and keeps making things worse), and Rose is the weak, clumsy noblewoman who gains an unusual magical ability and becomes an incredibly powerful warrior (at the cost of her identity and her self-respect.)

My oldest characters who I've actually used, and intend to use again, are Meg and Nika. Meg used to be the chief assistant in a Tyrant's personal research labs, conducting painful and frequently lethal experiments on political prisoners, until rebels killed the Tyrant and threw her into her own testing pits. Nika's a pickpocket whose life Meg once saved, half Meg's race and half the race of the Tyrant's soldiers, currently trying not to get killed by racist rebels. The experiment conditioned Meg to follow and defend someone, and she gets Nika to agree to be her commander, but Meg winds up giving Nika orders more often than not. Hilarity ensues.


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## CupofJoe (Jan 25, 2013)

I have one Character that has never made it out of First Draft Hell but I have been writing on and [mainly] off for 20+years...
*Rick Blade* - A Private Eye in the near future when cybernetics and on-line realities are commonplace. He is forced out of the Greater London Police for not wanting the "mods". He is currently the lead partner in a small detective agency where the Senior Partner was just murdered and another Partner seriously injured. He is overweight, has had several failed relationships and now lives with a full body change transsexual. He drinks and smokes too much. He started off in his late 30s and is now in his late 40s.
[There are so many flaws and clichÃ©s with Rick and the world he inhabits, that I think he is close to unusable but I still love him and keep on trying]


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## WyrdMystic (Jan 25, 2013)

My oldest character is 3 years old now - he's the antagonist, a human twisted by magic that hides in shadows, becomes them and tries to influence the actions of others to get what he wants.....not saying what, sorry!


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## JCFarnham (Jan 25, 2013)

I tend to drop most of my characters after their individual projects are done with (finished, grind to a halt, forgotten about, etc.) so I don't technically have a longest "serving" character. I used to roleplay a lot on message boards back in the day and had thousands of chracters... one of them qualifies no doubt but I can't say I remember many, if any, of them.

One I do remember _circa 2008_, who I've been threatening to bring back, is *Fion**n Murphy* the 30-something year old Irish immigrant with serious anti-social personality disorder along with just horrid behaviour toward most people. She was originally part of a superpowered rp, and had a set of mutations based on absolute stealth (soft foot falls, odourless, being able to dampen senses...) Now I think about it, she may in fact make a return as an antagonist in my on-and-off fictional superhero universe "Nightingale" (once a comic script/screen play, but now I plan to rewrite it in prose after being exposed to the Wild Cards universe.)

I'm loving the idea of recycled characters though! I may come up with a few myself as a little easter egg _ala_ Sid of Final Fantasy fame.

Oldest character from a continually worked upon piece? That would be someone from _Blitz_ my 2011 NaNo attempt, the likeliest contenders being either the mechanic, Myra Millar, or the "Dusker", Seth Noble.


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## J. S. Elliot (Jan 25, 2013)

I have a couple characters that fall under this bracket. Since my first fanfiction, six years ago, I've kept the main characters active and been developing and redeveloping them. Selena Raho, and then the half brothers Kenneth (Kent) and Kain Sigurd. The main cast is actually about six people, but only recently have I started working on an original-verse for their story. Like with Ireth, I have several RPs on the side with them, and one of them tops five hundred pages. It's currently in the middle of a reboot, which looks like it'll easily double the length. ^^


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## Zero Angel (Jan 25, 2013)

That's an interesting question! Especially if you tend to cannibalize old works.

The first "novel" I wrote was called Vengeance. Originally it was a comic book co-created with a friend of mine, but he eventually dropped out and I switched it over to the novel format (they were supposed to be simultaneous, but oh well). Anyway, in there I had a character named Alexander who was a member of a race of "guardians" descended from a lunar species that had forcibly migrated to Earth. 

The character eventually crossed over into the first short story written in WotA as a mysteriously powerful half-elf that was hiding his guardian-ness, the big change being that guardians in this world were dragons. I eventually abandoned this short story (read: set it about 40 years later into the timeline and went back to work on what I found more interesting) and the character came along as well, although I had to change his name because by this time the protagonist's name was Alastair, which is the Scottish variant of Alexander. Finally, the character became a recurring character in those stories (although I'll avoid sharing the name to avoid spoilers). 

He's about 13 years old in our world (i.e. created circa 2000). 

In terms of ACTUAL age of characters, the primary antagonist of the multiverse is 30 billion years old.


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## Aravelle (Feb 12, 2013)

My first character is... wait for it.. Aravelle. She was used in an MMORPG, and was essentially a Sue [her looks didn't help, straight black hair, blue eyes, large bosom, hourglass figure]. She was a vampire mermaid healer good with potions and an archer. Now.. she's a sassy dyslexic nymphomaniac who loves the colour blue.. but still just as pretty. XD I don't even know her race anymore, since I've scrapped every potential story she was going to be in. She will still probably be a mermaid, if not that some sort of non-human. We will see.


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## Anders Ã„mting (Feb 12, 2013)

Er, what do you mean by "serving"? 

I mean, I don't keep a certain number of reusable characters, I make new ones for every story.


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## TheTdroid (Feb 13, 2013)

My entire world is rather young, only a year old, and there are two characters who can compete for the oldest, in the sense of when I created them; Serenus, the Priest of Etram, and Samuel Octavien, a nobleman with a lot of strings attached.
If by age itself, it is definetly Samuel Octavien, and he seems to have a hand in most everything of importance of what goes on.


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## Nihal (Feb 13, 2013)

I mostly do it with game characters. When I play a RPG and it's dropped I end getting haunted by my characters. They never met their full potential, this unfinished feeling really bothers me. I eventually end reusing them in a new game - changing a bunch of traits -, or, in some few cases, in stories.


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## Thaumicist (Feb 14, 2013)

My first character ever was called Marindana, and starred in a completely weird fantasy story I wrote when I was eight.

My longest continuously serving character, both all-time and current, is one Zeth Reza, ne Zephyr Wyrd (don't look at me like that - I was twelve). He will shortly be six. He's gone through shades of snarky, shy and psychopathic in his time and has fulfilled such narrative roles as love interest, really really reluctant antihero, and murderous revolutionary leader.

Zeth's never been an MC. He's a quiet sort. So quiet I forgot about him until just now, in favour of his good friend and partner Arin Kett, nee Ariel Wyrd, who marched into my head as if she owned the place, broke a valuable crystal decanter, knocked on the inside of my skull, and demanded to be written, immediately, please, I haven't got all day and I've parked the flying castle on double yellow lines. Over the last five-and-five-sixths years she's ditched the flying castle for a poky flat, traded her upbringing as the rebellious eldest sprog of a jarl for a childhood of grinding poverty, and acquired an off-screen persona even more insufferably hammy than her written one used to be. It's not writer's block: it's Arin going on strike.

All of which explains why she blocked my view of Zeth there for a bit.


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## Zero Angel (Feb 14, 2013)

Thaumicist said:


> Over the last five-and-five-sixths years...



Nice fraction use!


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## Androxine Vortex (Feb 14, 2013)

My oldest character is Androxine Xetrov (guess what that spells backward?) He was originally designed to be my Warhammer 40k space marine chapter master but decided to take that storyline and set it in one of my own worlds and expand on it.


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## PlotHolio (Feb 15, 2013)

I tend to create a bunch of first names, last names, and character archetypes. I mix and match them accordingly.


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## Bman10119 (Feb 15, 2013)

My longest running character is Johnathan Frostblade, who was the prince of a small human kingdom in his own story, before enlisting into an organization dedicated to maintaining peace throughout the kingdom, and his story explored a group of countries that opened a portal to hell and released demons upon the land. This was eight or nine years ago when I was in middle school. Since then everytime I write any form of story in a fantasy setting I somehow have him cameo into the story. My first (and so far only) completed story had him acting as a mentor and trainer for a small group of heroes that go up against an invincible undead warlord serving a madman bent on destroying the world in the name of one of the gods. I have yet to decide how I want to portray him in my current WIP, but he will make some form of appearance. I really loved the invincible undead warlords character too. His name escapes me because its been a while since I've touched that story but I loved the hero cursed to serve whoever holds the relic he's bound to for eternity in misery without the woman he loves. But other than that I don't recycle characters usually. At least I try not to. Sometimes I guess it could slip into my writting.


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## Nihilium 7th (Feb 15, 2013)

My longest running character is Enki Brennhelm, a type of sprite called a Seelie. He was created in a series of short stories I made as a friend and adviser to the main character both of whom are important characters in my current (and first) novel. Enki serves as the teacher and mentor of Azrelan (son of the main character from my short stories). He is very old by mortal standards but because of his Seelie blood he has the appearance of someone in their early thirties and the energy of someone in their mid-twenties. He loves poetry and uses it whenever he can, which makes his companions uneasy since he is famous for killing an army of giants by reciting a haiku. He has many friends in many places and twice as many enemies.


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## glutton (Mar 24, 2013)

Rose the Iron Flower, who I've written multiple novels and over a dozen short stories about, and written stories about her from age 8-40. She's a 6' 240-250 pound scar-covered woman who is arguably the greatest warrior in her world. She is as strong as the strongest man on her continent, wields a 30 pound (yes I do know how ridiculous that is), super thick and wide sword with an alchemically treated lead core and wears armor heavier than a normal woman, killed over 100 men singlehandedly at age 15 and slew a 100 ton ancient dragon at 17. Over the course of her life she kills tens of thousands, but feels guilty about the men she slaughters because she knows most soldiers aren't actually 'evil'. Still she does it though to defend her country and innocent people. She also can shrug off massive injuries and does things like rip the leg off a god's monstrous champion. I think of her as basically a she-Beowulf with more modern sensibilities.


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## Geek000 (Apr 29, 2017)

D&D anyone?


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## Geek000 (Apr 29, 2017)

D&D anyone?


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## Vaporo (Apr 29, 2017)

Couldn't resist.


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## YoShoKenDai The Dragon (Apr 30, 2017)

My longest running character would be Tyriem No'mahr...The planets first savior...he lives a sad unforgiving existence.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Apr 30, 2017)

Would have to be the MC of my big project that's on hold, except she's evolved so much i don't even know that she's the same character...Since 2012, maybe? I've not been around as long as y'all have. 

Next to her, probably her tiny asshole dragon that rides on her shoulder and sets fire to everything that displeases him.


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## Reaver (Apr 30, 2017)

Vaporo said:


> Couldn't resist.



LOL! Thanks for this Vaporo! It made my day.


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## Insolent Lad (May 1, 2017)

My longest running character is...me, in that there is a bit of me in every story I write.

The longest running in my head, that is, the one conceived furthest back but not written about until later, would have to be Michael Malvern, castaway in an 'alternate' South Seas, in my Malvern and Mora books. He didn't have that name way back when I first thought of him but it was pretty much the same guy. Artist and former boxer, seeking to lose himself in an unspoiled paradise, a la Gauguin, but, well, finding himself instead.


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## Vaporo (May 1, 2017)

Since people seem to be responding, I suppose I'll join in as well.

My longest running character is, Ekla, queen of Antisa. It would have been my former main character, Agder, but lately it's been looking more and more like I've accidentally written him out of my story in favor of a different main character. So, this surprises me a bit because Ekla was not originally meant to have a very large role. She's a totally different character than I originally imagined, going from a soft-spoken diplomat to a lazy, incompetent, off-with-their-heads queen.


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## Simpson17866 (May 4, 2017)

A few years ago, I came up with a few of D&D characters for no real reason: I had a Dire Werewolf Human Paladin named Rilaina, a Half-Orc Ranger-Paladin named Krailik, and a Human Vampire Wizard who called herself "Nemesis." They lived in a modern-esque world, but one that functioned according to standard D&D rules instead of "D&D modern," just with a few stylistic differences.

I later came up with an original, publishable Urban Fantasy world, which I did not *initially* like as much as my previous D&D fantasy world but which I came to love so much more. Nemesis was the first character that migrated into my original world a little over a year ago, and a few months ago I also came up with a book about Krailik and Rilaina.


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## Tom (May 5, 2017)

Decided to jump on the bandwagon! My oldest character who is still in use is Tomrin. I first created him 7 years ago, and his original version bears almost no resemblance to what he's like now. He started out a classic Farmboy Hero, but gradually evolved into a more nuanced, emotionally complex character who has a lot of anti-hero elements in his arc. However, despite the many alterations he's gone through (some good, some bad, and a few downright ridiculous), he's always kept his core attributes--optimism, sense of duty, and bravery bordering on recklessness.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (May 5, 2017)

My longest serving character has existed for...maybe even ten years, I'm not sure. Funnily enough, this character has only recently gained a name! Though they've looked mostly the same all these years later: a mysterious looking being, sharp eyes like a cat's, a blue scarf covering their face, wearing a long, flowing cloak, and while their giant claw for a left hand hasn't always existed, it does now: a cosmic wizard.


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## pmmg (May 5, 2017)

This is hard to answer, cause I am never really sure if I am done writing any of them. The first one I used in a story was an antihero. That would be going back many years, more then a decade or two perhaps. The one I use most frequently is not my first story character, but is one that has been in my head for even longer. I only kind of resurrected them when I started writing. So we'll say maybe 20+ years on that one.


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## SaltyDog (May 5, 2017)

My longest running character is a tough old general named Tal.  He's human, and is a very good leader, albeit a quirky one as well.  He's actually a pretty interesting character though...and a critical part of my plot.  I've only been using him for about a year and a half.


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## Antaus (May 10, 2017)

The single oldest character I have is Simon Michael Tanaka. I created him when my age was still in the single digits (currently 37) and I was drawing stick figures. At first his name was just Simon, and he battled other stick figures with stick swords. Many characters have come and gone over the years, but he's still there. As I got older and matured, so did my stories. Now the stick figure has become the President/CEO of the multi-national corporation known as Tanaka Industries and one of the richest men on my fictional Earth. He has a wife and five children, two of which are mutants, as the story setting is a modern day mutant saga.


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## Lisselle (May 19, 2017)

I created the two main characters in my Trilogy in 1988, when I wrote the first draft of a few chapters and outlined a World which would become the place I prefer to exist in now! (Just kidding- sort of.) I was in my late teens and when I wasn't reading I was writing or teaching myself Tolkien's Elvish.


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## ArbridanianQueen (May 25, 2017)

My oldest character is Prince Farrian (formerly Prince Frederick). He's been with me since I first had the idea for my main world oh...10+ years ago. He's changed a lot since my 15-16 y/o brain first came up with him, but he's still a fairly optimistic young man with a heart of gold.


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