* You see Ron 'the Hedgehog' Jeremy standing here flanked by two gorgeous women in all his fat aging yet still the MAN freaking glory. But wait...it isn't Ron Jeremy...it is actually a short fat darker man who looks alot like Ron Jeremy, only...bigger where it counts.*

Ha!

That's how I saw Finley in my head. He looked like Ron Jeremy with a beard, only fatter, alot less clean and if possible a bit greasier. I actually met Ron Jeremy in real life a long time ago at a strip club and after seeing him it made me realize anyone can get laid. LMAO

Anyways!

I fully expect to see alot of venom thrown my way for having such a cowardly character but after many years of playing CF I realized something. You can't please everyone. No matter what you do there is going to be a hater or haters out there, so do you and enjoy. That said...and this will get long-winded since I lived quite awhile and evolved over time, let me start at the beginning.

Finley was a placeholder character for my actual main character who was Granje (arial chaotic evil shapeshifter) who at the time was trying to be a scion and got on the bad side of Zhenyen somehow. I did my best as Granje to stick it out and hoped I could just outlive Zhenyen and try again to get into Scion.

At the same time I had applied to be one of those folks in Amaranthes RP contest as Granje hoping that could give Granje something to do. Didn't pan out and after awhile I just got real bored of flyto/murder bite bite bite without any interaction with anyone because I was in form, trying to kill someone, etc.

Finley was turning out to be way more fun to play than Granje and I decided that I would let Granje auto if Zhenyen didn't delete or something. So that was that.

In terms of his RP, I had this GREAT freaking 8-chapter role I had written and it got EATEN by CF. Bah! Didn't feel like writing much after that. Long story short Finley was an ancient duergar from the past who had gotten trapped in a magic book and was released by a librarian in the spire and decided to join the Spire in order to earn some gold and get a lay of the land. Finley was sphere Sloth and I really tried to bring some thought to the whole 'sloth' thing over time.

First I figured that for Finley being a merchant and a lover of magic, sloth basically didn't *always* mean being lazy but more in the vein of efficiency and economy. The fewer steps he had to take to accomplish his goal the better. This also played into his love of magical devices. Anything that meant he didn't have to do something but could be granted through magic was an aspect of sloth (like pouch of nourishment for example).

Sloth also manifested in Finley's utter and complete cowardice. Fighting was contrary to his nature unless there was a goal through which that fight could be accomplished efficiently and easily. Most of the times I did fight one on one (like those fights with Ruk) were me fighting as the player and not as Finley because Finley wouldn't fight unless he had a distinct advantage.

Also after awhile I latched onto this 'frog' thing which became a central part of his personality and his embrace of sloth. I actually went and read op on frogs, did you know frogs hibernate? They got this thing called 'torpor' to boot which means in certain temperatures, frogs don't move or something. Long story short Finley saw guilds, the spire, the empire as his 'lilypads' and he wasn't prone to hopping off his lilypad for any reason. He was a plotter not a mover. Think about a frog sitting on its lilypad, a fly buzzes by and snap, the only thing that moves is the frog's tongue. That was Finley. Waiting for opportunity to come buzzing by.

Strangely enough this wasn't boring because I spent alot of time talking with folks, RPing and having fun without needeing to PK alot.

Oh and I picked AP and
Tribunal for two reasons...I HATE anti-paladins and never wanted to play one again, and figured if I WAS...may as well be on a character I didn't plan on keeping once Zhenyen died, and magistrate because I didn't plan on doing much but sitting in the guild and talking people to death.

Well...my goodbyes and a few other things in the next thread...I will miss some folks, long life and all, and I said goodbye to alot of folks on their death threads so I may skip those.

Was nice to Age-death, that's how I wanted him to go :)