Category: Monsterhearts

How would you create a young John Constantine type character? Would you shoehorn him into an Infrnal Skin, because he’s had problems with demons and addiction, or would you create a new Skin altogether.

For those unfamiliar with the Hellblazer character he’s essentially an occultist who, in attempting to save the world and his own soul will frequently use others, as bait, as distractions, as long as the ends justifies the means. He’s clever, he knows his stuff, but he’s a poisonous little viper that will bite you if it saves his own skin. He has elements of the trickster, and although arguably a good guy he’s, well, a selfish one, who looks out for himself before others (and saving the world may well be just a means to saving himself in the long run).

That’s broad brush-strokes, I suppose – more details can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constantine

In short, however, he spent his teenaged years as a rebel, a runaway  and a punk – at heart he’s a charismatic charlatan and a man who lives by his own rules – there are elements of the Infernal in there, but it’s unlikely he’d ever bow down to a demon unless he had no other option…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constantine

A friend of mine, upon hearing about a bunch of us playing Monsterhearts, was looking through the Skins to see what would be a good match for him as a teenagers (as a few of us seem to have drifted towards familiar territories in selecting our own Skins).

He was keen to find something that was selfish. I’m not sure exactly how he quantifies selfish, but he saw the Harpy skin and stressed “not bitchy selfish”. Are there any good selfish Skins floating around out there? Something like a fae but with less adherence to promises and contracts perhaps?