J. Smith

Played By: Esjitu (written works only)

Race: Human?

Age: Unknown

Gender: Male

Element:

Residence: Traveler, never stays in any one place for long

Alignment: Neutral Balance

Occupation: Adventurer, Researcher, Author

Smith is a tall, young-looking man with short black hair. Since his bangs always seem to obscure his eyes, no one has a really good idea of what he looks like. He usually wears a pair of round goggles on his head, a scarf around his neck, and a red jacket with torn sleeves, as well as fingerless gloves on his hands.

Smith is an adventurer, researcher and amateur author whose hobby is traveling across IGNOLand to study and hopefully unravel its many mysteries. Smith has authored various texts on such topics as IGNOLand's ancient cultures, mythologies and monuments, stating that the only thing he enjoys more than the thrill of his adventures is sharing the knowledge with others.

He has an upbeat and outgoing personality, often helping others in need that he may come across on his adventures. Though he isn't in it for the money, it's occasionally hard to think of him as 'selfless' either - when it comes to his research, he's more than willing to endanger others and tends to be quite relentless when it comes to pestering for interviews. Still, Smith has a good heart and does want to enrich the lives of those around him by spreading knowledge whenever he can. In the end, he at least means well.

The inspiration for Smith's character was twofold. First, while I had written the Christmas Story prologue as a means of tying together the various bits of updated canon on Santa and Krampus, I had chosen to do so from an in-universe perspective as a 'book' that would exist in IGNOLand itself, written by an in-universe author. I thought this would make it a little more entertaining and also account for the deliberate vagueness of the whole 'since no one was there to witness it, no one REALLY knows if it's true' angle, rather than if I had written it as a dry and 100% factual account. For the things in IGNOLand that are meant to be mysterious and unconfirmed in-universe, I believe this format is more suitable than just having the IRL creator sit down and spell out the truth, then turn around and say 'but nobody in-universe knows all this stuff you just read is true'. Thus I began to feel like writing future guides on such things from the same in-universe perspective.

The second came from my reading of Okayado's Monster Girl Report (NSFW) which is a sort of precursor to the manga series Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou. Despite appearing chibi for 99% of the one shots, I thought John Smith's little adventurer outfit was cute. This sparked the idea in my head that a researcher character could be interesting, traveling around IGNOLand to study its races and cultures (probably not by having sex with them) as well as other mysterious things like the elemental temples. Of course since IGNOLand is also a very dangerous place, he'd also need to be able to defend himself - therefore he's also your standard Wandering RPG Adventurer character, always traveling the land and bedding down at the local inn rather than staying in one place for too long.

I decided to combine these two concepts into one, and the result is J. Smith. Now any guides written for the site that warrant vagueness (which are numerous, since as a member-driven RP community our canon is always evolving and changing, and things are often retconned to fit those changes) can be written from an in-universe perspective by Smith, who has traveled the land and studied the things he writes about first-hand. For the more ambiguous things, maybe all he has to go on is scant amounts of evidence or hearsay from the locals. Maybe he's even got a bit of a tendency to stretch the truth when the facts are limited, and throw in some ideas of his own, not unlike a certain tengu. This way I can get away with things that may otherwise be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in a fun and immersive way.

Smith has a knack for scoping out interesting information in his travels. He has discovered many ruins, ancient artifacts, and even uncommon tribes of peoples in IGNOLand in this fashion. He is an ambitious researcher and writer, even if his skill itself is somewhat amateurish and lacking in that certain stiff, professional academic quality (which is why IGNO University refuses to house his works in their academic library). His drawing ability is also somewhat poor, but since he (for whatever reason) does not seem to own a camera he tends to do all his own illustrations for his various works.

As an adventurer in the dangerous IGNOLand, Smith needs to be able to defend himself when necessary. He travels armed with a sword and shield which he uses as his primary means of combat. He also has his large travel backpack full of adventuring supplies, which may also include things like potions of various effects, simple traps, throwable explosives, a grappling hook, and just about anything else you can imagine which he may use for improvisational combat situations. He also has basic (but not especially masterful) control of his Lightning element.

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