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03 - Manfred von Richthofen - Dragoon Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron, is today’s subject. Von Richthofen was a fighter pilot during the first World War, during which he racked up over 80 confirmed kills, a feat which earned him the title “ace-of-aces.” In life, von Richthofen was a skilled, thoughtful tactician, and, if one is being honest, a bit of a pompous twit. Still, his extreme skill earned him the admiration of allies and enemies alike. When he was eventually shot down -- and nobody gets as famous as he did without attracting some less desirable attention -- even his opponents in the Allied camp mourned his passing. In the end, it was von Richthofen’s extreme flying skill that led me to cast him as a Dragoon. Dragoons have a rather fractured history in RPGs: these spear-wielding knights have been cast as both allies and hunters of dragons, and even as thralls held in service of dragons against their will. But it was the association these spear-wielding knights carry with dragons and aerial combat that made the Dragoon a good fit for the Red Baron.

04 - Belle Starr - Rogue A rather famous outlaw from the Midwest, Belle Star was actually referred to as the “female Jesse James.” Which is bizarre, but it gets the point across. She was stylish, a crack shot, and from what I can tell, kind of violent, all of which feeds together to create a character who ends up feeling rather legendary. In RPGs, there tend to be two outlaw-style classes; Rogues and the more ubiquitous Thieves. Though similar in many respects, these classes have distinctly different focuses. The Thief’s main interest is in items, specifically relieving enemies of as many of them as possible. Conversely, the Rogue uses the same basic techniques, but with a focus on dealing damage. Where the Thief would dart behind an enemy in order to pick their pocket, the Rogue would simply plant a knife in the enemy’s back. Given Belle Starr’s violent criminal record, she seemed a better candidate for Rogue.

09 - Magogo kaDinuzulu - Bard One thing I really wanted to do with this series of characters was to show off lesser-known historical figures. I mean, everybody knows King Henry the 8th and Joan of Arc and so on, but who’s ever heard of this lady? Princess Constance Magogo Sibilile Mantithi Ngangezinye kaDinuzulu (deep breath) was born to the last king of the Zulus, Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, and was one hell of an amazing lady. In a society that treated women very poorly, Magogo not only made her own way in life even after marriage, but actually played a hugely pivotal role in preserving the art and culture of the Zulu in the early 20th century. She was a very skilled musician herself, both in European classical music and with several traditional African instruments (shown here with an ugubhu). Basically, she was seriously badass and there’s not nearly enough information about her around. Mostly a support class, Bards use their music in combat to inspire allies and discourage foes -- basically, they buff allies and debuff enemies, usually with a series of damage or effect-over-time skills, gradually weakening enemies and strengthening allies. For a long time, Bards were severely underappreciated class. Usually relegated to being that one obnoxious party member who never really added that much to combat, these days Bards can be pretty dang impressive. They’ve become the go-to non-healing support class, and sometimes even usurp the White Mage as the party healer.

10 - Edmund Beckett - Time Mage When choosing historical figures for this project, I mostly looked at the major accomplishments of the person and their personality for cues as to what class would fit them best. It’s not always an easy or exact fit, but for Edmund Beckett, it was pretty dang easy. Mr. Beckett was an architect, you see, but his most famous work was actually as part of the team that designed Big Ben, one of the most iconic and symbolic timepieces on the planet. Not only is Big Ben an easily recognizeable symbol for Great Britain as a whole (much in the same way the Statue of Liberty is for the USA), but its placement in the heart of Westminster Palace is meant to symbolize the power of the British Empire at its height. Here is time, the clock says, and it belongs to the British. And so Edmund Beckett was a cinch for the class of Time Mage -- what else would you call one of the men who captured time itself? Time Mages, as you may have gathered, are magically-based characters with control over aspects of time. Mostly used as support characters, Time Mages can speed up allied units, slow down enemies, or even stop them entirely. They usually have one or two offensive skills, but for the most part, Time Mages stick to the back. This doesn’t make them weak, of course; in some games, the time-manipulating abilities of these mages can be downright game-breaking.

11 - Chiune Sugihara - Scholar You may have noticed by now, but I have a special place in my heart for people in history who do what they think is right as opposed to what is expected of them. Well, Chiune Sugihara is pretty much the grand poobah founding member of that class, and I love him to pieces. A relatively minor bureaucrat in the Japanese Empire during World War II, Mr. Sugihara was assigned to be Vice-Counsul for his country in Lithuania. When Jews came to him seeking travel visas in order to get out of Lithuania and escape the Holocaust, Chiune blatantly disregarded orders and started handing out visas to as many people as he could. By the time the Empire pulled him out of Lithuania for his gross disobedience, Mr. Sugihara was spending upwards of 20 hours *per day* writing visas, and witnesses report he was *throwing visas out of the train windows as it pulled away.* Bad. Ass. In RPGs, the Scholar is a class that revolves around planning, tactics, and learning. It tends to focus rather strongly on rules and regulations, though the Scholar’s actual role in combat tends to swing between defense and support without any real consistency. Given that Mr. Sugihara was basically manipulating the rules to defend the defenseless, it seemed an appropriate fit.

13 - Jerry Thomas - Chemist There’s a lot of focus in history on the big players; your Generals, your Presidents, your Attillas the Hun. But history is full of people whose accomplishments never really made it out of their own subculture, but that doesn’t make them any less significant. Take Jerry Thomas, for example. A bartender in the mid-19th century, Mr. Thomas wrote a book called The Bar-Tender’s Guide, a work which more or less writes out the basic theory behind creating cocktails. That’s right, this doughy, middle-aged guy with the fancy vest basically invented the mixed drink. His inventions include the Tom Collins, the Martinez (a sort of proto-Martini), and the Blue Blazer, the precursor of all flaming alcoholic drinks. So even though Mr. Thomas never rode into war, never signed a treaty or ruled a nation, his impact on history is still felt today. The Chemist, sometimes known as the Salve-Maker or Alchemist, is one of the more basic classes found in RPGs today. Focused around creating and using items, Chemists tend to be the most basic of healing classes, with abilities that quickly outlive their usefulness. Still, in some games, with the right setups, the Chemist can become quite useful. Sometimes they even get a unique Mix command, which allows them to combine and use items in battle, boosting their healing or offensive abilities to useful levels. Though seldom a high-impact class, the Chemist remains a personal favorite of mine.

14 - Orson Welles - Orator I have to admit, there was a fair amount of competition for the Orator class. The ability to speak well has been the cornerstone of a large number of famous careers, both political and for entertainers. Orson Welles, shown here in his later, huskier years, eventually clinched it for his sheer range. Mr. Welles is perhaps best known for his broadcast of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds which made half the country crap their pants, but he also lent his voice to such bizarre endeavors as The Jack Benny Show, Macbeth, and commercials for jelly. He was even the voice of a world-eating robot in Transformers: The Movie! Flexibility tends to be the hallmark of the Orator class. Capable of a wide variety of strategies and abilities, the Orator usually uses unusual voice-based skills with effects no other class has. For example, in Final Fantasy Tactics, the Orator is the only class that can convince an enemy to permanently join your side. The Orator is actually pretty rare, with most games running out of space long before they reach this humble chatterbox. It’s a bit of a shame, as I believe the Orator brings a bit of class to any game.

So the next character on my list is actually three characters, which means a lot of extra design work. It also means it's not due until Thursday, which is kind of a big gap. So in the meantime, have some cute to tide you over. ^^b

I have to say, I'm kind of jealous of all the great monsters that are coming out of the 30 characters challenge this year. I kinda wish I'd picked a theme like that, but oh well. By way of compensation, here's one of my favorite monsters from the Final Fantasy series: the Malboro! So cute. :3

Characters #15-17 are coming along nicely, and should be done tomorrow. It's gonna be awesome. :D

15, 16 and 17 - The Marx Brothers - Mime Something big and fancy for the midpoint of the challenge, ladies and gentlemen! The Marx Brothers are, without reservation, my favorite comedians of all time. They use a brilliant mixture of slapstick, wordplay, and atrocious, paint-curling puns to create some of the most hilarious movies known to man. Their influence on comedy can hardly be overstated; I find it hard to believe that there is a comedian on the face of the planet who has not been influenced in some way by the Marx Brothers. Though mostly seen as slightly creepy, silent clowns in real life, Mimes in role-playing games tend to be massively powerful, very sought-after classes. The root of their strength lies in their ability to copy the moves of other characters, often without paying the costs associated with those moves. In fact, a popular tactic with the Mime is to have all of the characters in a party become Mimes, then have one of them cast a huge, costly, powerful spell, and then have the whole party mimic the attack turn after turn, dealing huge amounts of damage. This is the main reason I felt the Mime class was so appropriate for these three: given their huge influence, there are a vast number of comedians that could be said to be Miming the Mime. Incidentally, I based their designs on the three games which use Mimes most prominently. Groucho is based on the FFV Mime (probably the most boring Mime - they just stuck shoulderpads and a cape on the Freelancer and called it a day!), Harpo is a FFT Mime, and Chico is a FFVI Mime (aka, Gogo).

18 - Rod Serling - Illusionist

Mr. Serling struck me as an Illusionist from the very first time I saw the show he is known best for, The Twilight Zone. As a class, Illusionists specialize in manipulating the perceptions of people - basically, lying to people with magic. The most powerful Illusionists can create unbreakable visions that can transport people to another world. And this is basically what Rod Serling did. With a few words, a single script, he could transport you to a world where the sun never rises, where living slot machines stalk their victims, or where a child’s wish can change your fate. This was one of the harder designs I’ve done this month, for a number of reasons. Firstly, Ol’ Rod’s design is pretty much set in stone. That black suit, his cigarette, that cocked eyebrow, they’re all a big part of Mr. Serling’s character. Unfortunately, they’re not particularly well-suited to a fantasy design, and the fact that the Illusionist is a very poorly-defined class (visually speaking) helps not at all.

19 - Josephine Baker - Dancer Though best known as a depression-era dancer, Josephine Baker was also a civil rights advocate, member of the French Resistance, and adoptive mother to no less than twelve children. She had one heck of a life; she was born into poverty and ended up on the streets at age 12. At age 15, she joined a vaudeville act in St. Louis before moving to New York and performing in various Broadway revues during the Harlem Renaissance. By the time Ms. Baker was 19, she was the highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville, and that was far from being the most amazing thing that happened during her life. Ms. Baker moved to France and hung out with Ernest Hemmingway and Pablo Picasso. Ms. Baker owned a cheetah with a diamond collar. Ms. Baker invented the banana dance. Ms. Baker was unaccountably badass. In RPGs, the Dancer is sort of an upside-down and backwards Bard. Where Bards can heal and support, Dancers can damage enemies and reduce their stats, or even cause status effects from a distance. Usually an exclusively female class, Dancers tend to be a little rare, and useful Dancers are even more uncommon, but its always nice to see them as an option just to have something to balance out the Bard. And why did I pick Dancer for Josephine Baker? Well, besides the obvious, her danse banane hit me with some serious debuffs.

20 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin - the Cid In every Final Fantasy game, there is a Cid. Sometimes he’s a mechanic, sometimes he’s a warrior, but he’s usually connected to airships in some way. Personally, I think that’s half the reason Cid is such a well-liked figure in the series; seeing him means you’ll soon be able to skip over those obnoxious mountain ranges. But anyway, if I were to cast human history in the same light as a Final Fantasy game, Ferdinand von Zeppelin would be our Cid. The scion of a noble family, Ferdinand joined the army at a young age. His interest in airships was kindled when he fought in the American Civil War, acting as a balloon observer for the Union Army of the Potomac. The designs von Zeppelin later penned would lead to the construction of the first truly usable airships in human history. Von Zeppelin never lived to see the shutdown of Germany’s airship program due to the Treaty of Versailles, or the ultimate destruction of its PR in the Hindenburg disaster, but regardless of the fate of his particular inventions, Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s work brought forth the age of mass air transit, which was a huge factor in creating our modern world.

21 - Johnny Ramensky - Thief These days, it seems like the ideal of the Gentleman Thief is a dying breed. And so we present Johnny Ramensky, Thief-y counterpart to Our Lady of the Rogue Shotgun miss Belle Starr. Johnny here was a career criminal back in Scotland during the early 20th century, and quickly garnered the nickname “Gentle Johnny,” as he never used violence, targetted only businesses, and never resisted arrest. Mr. Ramensky was pretty dang skilled, combining his talent for gymnastics with a knowledge of safecracking that made him a master catburgler of the old school. Johnny further proved his mettle during World War II, when he became -- and this is 100% true -- a parachuting safe-cracking commando. He’d drop below enemy lines, break through Axis defenses, steal their secrets and high-tail it back home. His most amazing caper involved breaking open no fewer than 14 safes in one day, a feat that earned him some impressive commendation. As I mentioned in the Rogue entry, the Thief is the more item-obsessed of the two outlaw-style classes. Thieves specialize in jumping behind the foe’s guard and stealing them blind, sometimes causing damage or status effects at the same time. The line between Thief and Rogue is often a bit thin, just like the line between Robin Hood and common cutpurse, but given Johnny Ramensky’s disavowal of violence and warm regard towards the people who were trying to catch him, I felt Thief was a good fit.

22 - Jim Henson - Puppeteer The death of Jim Henson actually came as quite a shock to my younger self. I was barely 7 years old at the time, and so Mr. Henson’s creations were still a big, big part of my life. I think a part of me was just terrified that all of the characters he had created would simply poof out of existance along with him, but of course they didn’t. It took me a while to understand that the really great artists leave behind work that lives well beyond their lifetime, and this was true of Jim Henson’s work in a very literal sense. Puppeteers, also called Puppetmasters, are a rather rare class in RPGs. They tend to fill the same gamespace as either Monster Tamers -- sending critters into battle while they hang back -- or Black Mages -- using their creepy critters to cast offensive magic -- so Puppetmasters don’t tend to show up unless the roster of classes is genuinely huge. Mr. Henson’s design here is actually against the grain of most Puppetmasters, too, since this class tends to emphasize the creepy puppet aspect. And Muppets could certainly do creepy (I point you to the Skeksis of The Dark Crystal for examples), but Mr. Henson himself was basically a big puppy dog.

#24 - Matthew Henson - Geomancer In general, history isn’t always fair. God only knows how many significant figures in human history have been forgotten, or worse, glossed over in favor of more socially acceptable figures. Matthew Henson is a good example of this; even though Mr. Henson was indisputably the first human to reach the North Pole, for years he was ignored in favor of the more socially acceptable Robert Peary, who was credited with being the first person to set foot on the North Pole despite being unable to actually walk at the time. It’s all a bit ironic, given that Henson was first hired for his skill in seamanship and navigation, and was considered to be little more than a servant by Peary. Frankly, I’d give anything to see what Peary’s face looked like when he found that Mr. Henson was to be honored by the US Congress with a duplicate of the silver medal awarded to Peary for being the first man to the Pole, let alone the speaking tour that followed. Geomancers hold the unique and dubious honor of being both an extremely useful class and an extremely limited class. Geomancers rely on their surroundings for their attacks; a Geomancer standing on stone, for example, would be able to use an Earth-elemental attack, or an Ice-elemental attack while standing on snow or ice. Though limited in flexibility, Geomancers usually compensate for this by being well above average in attack strength, or even causing status effects with their abilities. Unfortunately, there’s a rather dangerous downside to this, in that monsters that appear in a specific area usually follow its elemental theme. Monsters found in a snow field, for example, will usually resist or absorb Ice-elemental attacks, and the Geomancer’s lack of flexibility means there isn’t normally much that can be done about it.

#25 - J. Robert Oppenheimer - Black Mage Physicist, political activist, and father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer has become a kind of modern Faust figure. Though he participated in the construction of the most destructive weapon ever used in war, Mr. Oppenheimer felt that the proliferation of nuclear weapons could be prevented by the United Nations; in fact, he believed that he could control where his invention went next, and who used it. As many inventors have found, there simply is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Black Mages tend to be the go-to damage class in RPGs, using elemental affinities and raw strength of stats to nuke enemies from afar. In general, the Black Mage can be seen as an equivalent to the Sorceror or Wizard, but much more straightforward in its approach to dealing damage. Given the way Mr. Oppenheimer’s research was applied, and his own ecclectic and often unsubtle means of expressing himself, I felt a Black Mage would be appropriate for him.

#26 - Ernst Haeckel - Druid In general, the Druid is usually presented as a weird sort of combination between the practical and the spiritual. Yes, says your basic Druid, I believe in the fundamental oneness of all things and the undying beauty and power of nature, but it just so happens that I use that belief to sic bears on marauding monsters. In the same way, Ernst Haeckel was an amazing artist, but he used his skills to describe something like 150 new species, a feat which included the majority of the Kingdom Protista. Haeckel himself was an intriguing combination of spiritual and practical. He was an expert biologist, naturalist, and physician, but was also a world class philosopher and artist. He supported the then-new theory of evolution, and yet also supported the German Romantic movement. Heck, Haeckel coined a large number of the terms we use for basic biological concepts (including “phylum,” “ecology,” and “stem cell”), and yet he founded a group called the Monist League whose only purpose was to spread his religious and philosophical beliefs. I suppose half the reason he’s included here is just because I find him an endlessly fascinating contradiction.

#27 - Irma Grese - Dark Hunter I actually waffled back and forth quite a bit on whether or not to include this particular nutjob in the project, buuuuut... Well, for a start, she’s a Nazi, and by all accounts, a rather sadistic one. But she was sadistic in such a stereotypical, almost comically Nazi way. Y’see, Irma was an officer stationed at a concentration camp, and apparently liked to wander around the place wearing heavy boots and carrying a whip. Throw in a bass-heavy soundtrack and she could’ve been a BDSM film, albeit a particularly tasteless one. I mean, her nickname was “the Beautiful Beast,” which is one step away from being a professional wrestler. Although I normally try to pick broadly used classes, in this case, the Dark Hunter was just such a perfect fit that I couldn’t help but choose it. Dark Hunters are unique to the Etrian Odyssey series, where they perform the role of status mage and debuffer, using swords and whips to inflict status effects and restrict the enemy’s movements. They have a very serious BDSM vibe, being clad in mostly leather; heck, their strongest attack -- which can only be used when the enemy is completely restricted -- is called Ecstasy. I guess that’s why it’s such a good fit for Irma here; they’re both a bit on the nose. ^^;

#28 - Peter Jennings - Scout I have a definite soft spot for Peter Jennings. When I was a kid, he was my Edward R. Murrow, the epitome of respect, trustworthiness, and class. In many ways, seeing him doing the news every night really kindled my interest in history, politics, and current events. As a reporter, Mr. Jennings was a pretty impressive guy; a high school dropout, he rose through the ranks to become one of the big three newscasters of the 1980s and 90s. Personally, though, I think the best work Mr. Jennings did was as a foreign correspondent. He cut a dashing figure in a tan vest, and his utter unflinchability was amazing. Its this skill in unfamiliar terrain that led me to cast Mr. Jennings in the role of Scout. Though more common to Real-Time Strategy than RPGs, the Scout tends to be a fast, frail character, sort of a midpoint between the Ranger and the Rogue, and often uses terrain-based skills.