Character Profile / Mel Alvus

This is the first of a series I’m planning for the newest D&D campaign I’m a part of. The first is of course my character, Mel Alvus. Much of the work featuring Mel is heavily influenced by Cyberpunk 2077’s concept art: strong, bold colors, deep shadows, and a sort of intentional roughness around the edges. 

I wanted to invoke a retrofuturistic energy into Mel’s character and background. Her style, body language, and color palette are all intended to evoke an image of scrappy competency, warmth, and just a bit of bite. Mel is learning skills in bee husbandry, engineering and technical fields, and views these skills as art forms. She also has a strong personal interest in the history of racing. The typographic and color choice you’ll see in work featuring Mel will probably bear some influence from classic NASCAR and racing posters, sci-fi, cyberpunk, and dystopia genres. Some of my favorite artists whose work had an influence on this piece:

Max Frorer | Artstation

Nelson Tai | Artstation

Tano Bonfanti | Artstation

Many of these characteristics will probably flow over into other characters from the Arcane Algorithm universe. Some characters will be a while, since the posters will involve the collaborative efforts of myself—the artist—and my fellow players—the creators. (Give me a bit—I’ll probably eventually do an infodump on Arcane Algorithm, a D&D campaign that a good friend of mine is running. A lot of my art will probably be from this universe/campaign.)

Characteristics worth noting from the inspiration pieces I pulled: neon colors, especially pinks, yellows, and cyans; bold graphics; high contrast; blocky, angular, all-caps typography; dynamic posing; asymmetry. I tried to capture some of these in Mel’s poster, and some will almost certainly come out in future work.

And now, to the juicy stuff. Following, you’ll find a character profile of Mel.

Profile: Mel / Melly / Melissa Alvus

Species/Race: Lightfoot halfling

Pronouns: they / she

Age: 26

Height: 3′ 11″ (note: this is freakishly tall for a halfling. Don’t call Mel short or they’ll get revenge)

Weight: 45 lb

Gender: Dyke cowpoke

Origin: Nightside City, Puck, Federal Lunarian Worlds

Occupation: cybeekeeper (current); freelance commercial starship mechanic (current); mercenary (past); dragship race pilot (past); moonrancher (past)

Affiliations: Intergalactic Keepers Guild; P-CITI Alum; ITAB (interstellar technicians accreditation board) registered and licensed mechanic; LDOT (lunarian department of orbital traffic) SCDL-C/P

Notable Possessions: cybeekeeper hook of her own design, nanobeehive, gutted refurbished megacorp cargo carrier, laser pistol, the honey buzzards legendary dragship

Physical Description

Think neon space cowboy, but make it beekeeper, and throw in some cybernetic flair and fringe for good measure. Mel initially tends to come off as an aloof, intimidating and cool cowboy, but they’re really too honest and (deep down) caring for that to work long-term. Between their inclination towards a friendly demeanor and the dad jokes, they rarely successfully convince anyone that they’re properly “cool”. Mel carries a bit of a world-weary weight on their shoulders, despite their young age. (Spoiler alert, it’s the Trauma + the Eldest Daughter Syndrome™). They like to joke that their near-permanent eyebags are “#designer” and “above the average person’s means”.

Mel has ashy brown, curly hair that she usually keeps in a practical ponytail or braid. Right after a fresh trim, it’s short enough that it tends to fall out of any attempt at styling in bits and pieces throughout the day. Mel’s skin is a pale, peachy pink, with warm red undertones, freckled with dark spots from solar exposure. Her right eye is a light, honey-golden brown. Her left eye once matched, but since the accident Mel’s left eye has been replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic of her own construction. She can customize the color, but prefers to keep it a golden-yellow to resemble her meat eye. For reasons Mel has yet to discern, her cybernetics have caused the hair on her left temple to turn a platinum silver.

Mel has a slight southern drawl resulting from their rural farmer’s upbringing. They carry a collapsible shepherd’s hook upon which a small lantern containing worker bees generally tends to hang. Their clothes are mostly practical, except for their fringed leather jacket. They wear a pair of well-broken in work pants, cowboy boots, and a belt with a nanobee-embossed buckle. Favorite colors to wear: Browns of any warmth or brightness, orange, gold, copper, greys, blacks, and blues. They tend to stick to complimentary color schemes and either  uniform/monochrome or very high-contrast palettes. Jewel tones are typically reserved for special occasions. The have a few heavily embroidered fancy suits, chaps, and nice cowboy hats that they like to pull out for dress-up type events. They have a few more understated hats that function as “travel hives” for their cybees; when they aren’t wearing one, the hive moves to the jewel-like retreats tied to Mel’s hook, or to the shelter of Mel’s spaceship, Skeletore. Mel usually has a few nanobees that hang out/hover around their ears, sometimes perching on their head or their shoulders. They try to carry a flower or two in their shirtpocket for their companion bees to nap in.

Personality

Mel has two sides.

One side is just like the slow drip of honeycomb on a sweltering southern summer day: sweet and warm with an embrace that comforts like home-cooked food after a long day of hard work. This side represents Mel’s best qualities: their responsibility, honesty, and hardworking nature, with a tendency to crack jokes so sincere, you laugh at them even when they’re bad.

Mel’s darker side comes out less often now than it used to, but it certainly hasn’t disappeared. This is the side that she’d rather remain hidden from the scrutiny of others: the sting of an angry hornet, the stifling heat of the midday molasses sun, the dry whip of dusty desert wind and the sharp, angry prickle of electricity across cracked skin.

Mel talks low and slow with a slight moon-farmer twang. Almost unflappable–they’ll take anything in stride and can roll with the punches. They’re a huge nerd and love to tinker; during their dragship racing era, Mel was always in the hangar working on the ship. Now, most of that creative energy is directed towards the upkeep of and improvements of their cybernetics and their connection with their hive. Mel also keeps several ongoing projects maintaining their ship Skeletore. They’re also interested in the history of racing, particularly NASCAR, and they love watching re-runs of the ancient Earth NASCAR races.

Mel used to love getting a little bit reckless and wild—they had a stubborn streak that got them n’ Beau into more than a few scraps with other locals during their adolescence. They still tend to be a bit of a thrill-seeker, though they typically look for their thrills in semi-controlled environments. They often sought out release (and reward money) in the form of pit boxing, and at one point they were a decorated fighter. Nowadays, they try to keep their thrill-seeking desires under wraps, though they’re known to seek out the occasional pit fight to let off some steam.

Thoughts

Mel is, by far, the most fleshed out character I’ve ever created for a TTRPG campaign. This is only natural, I guess—as I gain more experience with the medium, I’m becoming more comfortable crafting the elements I want to explore in the story. It helps to have a really exciting, sprawling space opera setting as the sandbox I get to play in. It feels like it was custom-made to check off all the boxes of my favorite types of stories. There’s a reason some of my favorite stories are The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir and the Cosmoknights graphic novels by Hannah Templer.

I have to admit, one thing I struggle with a bit in TTRPGs is the somewhat intimate emotional moments they can come with. The kind of unguarded sincerity that’s required to really make those moments work is something I have a hard time allowing myself to give. I’ve definitely noticed that my discomfort with roleplaying has impacted the amount of story my characters get, so it’s something I want to challenge myself with in this campaign.