In the quest to build an accurate and believable persona within the SCA (no, that's not an oxymoron, but close) I've given up on the Icelander. Just won't work.

My interests are the tournaments of the middle and late 14th century, and may extend later to 15th century tourney (although that's not an issue now). I love recreating, as best I can, the early forms of pas d'armes, and I belong to a tourney company for that express purpose. Now, I need a believable persona.

I propose this:
Jehan du Poitou, who in 1354 lives in his family holdings and birthplace near Poitiers.
Esquire to a retainer of the Lusignan house.
I expect to reside near my birthplace, or in Cyprus, depending largely on who at the moment controls Poitou.

It sounds like you have the makings of a winner. What I try to do at this point is re-construct a skeleton outline of the personas life - even to beyond where you might be inclined to take it - into old age and death.

For example, I am toying with how and when Stephen Philpot dies - either at Nancy in 1477, or have him survive the battle as many Burgundian Noblemen and men at arms did through the intervention of Nicolla de Montefort by capture. That would be kind of neat, as Louis Onze kept some of them imprisoned for up to two years before their release - especially if they refused to enter his service. If I go for that option, I have the bitter old man scenario serving the dowager Dutchess Margret, her step daughter Mary of Burgundy (dies in a fall from a horse), Maximilian during the late 70's and through the 80's in his struggle for the low countries with Louis and his successor. Maybe I could die ten years later at Stoke with Martin Schwartz during the dowager dutchesses bid to oust Henry VII - I am a diehard Yorkist. Or I could die a bitter old expatriate exile in Ghent (c 1500 - 03) with little money and few friends, and both families I've served extinct, their enemies ascendant.

Another thing to do if you are interested in developing the persona is to try to reconstruct incidents from childhood. We all have anecdotes we can relate from our youth, and they are important to have if you want to develop a first person impression. A book I highly reccommend, and I think is vital to your setting a background for your persona is "Through a Distant Mirror - the calamitous 14th c," by Barbara Tuchmann. She follows the century by following the life of the lord of Coucy - a person who would be beyond your station, but barring the interaction with the Royal families of England and France, the types of incidents for a French knightly family would be similar. The King of Cyprus would fill the role of the French or English monarchy for your persona, especially if your family are his retainers. The book also covers every major event of the 14th c. in France and England that you should be familiar with.

Some things to think about - Which Pope do you follow? How did the Black Death affect your family? What is the condition of your families manor? The province you are from was ravaged during the Hundred years war quite thohroughly I believe. By working out the answers to these sorts of questions you can develop a rich persona that is very believable (avoid fantastic incidents) and is fully developed rather than two demensional.

Good luck with your persona development. I think you are well on your way to an interesting and believable one.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bob Hurley:
...but be gentle, I'm a frail little flower

---

you too, eh?

My advice to you...keep it simple. No need to do the typical SCA thing (hey, I did it too, but then I Got Better (tm) )

most people now and then lead very boring lives. They'er born, they live and die, and all that in a pretty small geographical area.

Most folks in the SCA want their persona stories to be fantasy novels with themselves as the hero(ine). Just like most people who do past life regressions arent just pig farmers from Iowa.

so far it sounds good. You got a name and a birthday. You got a home town and a profession. Dont worry about much more than that right now...the rest has a habit of filling in as you go.

think about the real world people you know. How much do you know about them? not much above the name, profession and maybe home town.

________________________________________
Most folks in the SCA want their persona stories to be fantasy novels with themselves as the hero(ine). Just like most people who do past life regressions arent just pig farmers from Iowa.
__________________________________________

I have a friend who swears that he believes in past lives because he had a "regression" done that consisted of "See this well? I dug this well, I lived by this well and when it dried up, I died." I find that a bit more believeable than all the Cleopatras and Napoleons out there :-)

My SCA device failed to pass (conflict, not poor heraldry), and that gave me the impetus to make the change.

Jehan didn't work well, since we have a good many locally with similar names (I naively thought it was pronounced Je-han, not Zhaun. Glad my Old French dictionary arrived, thanks Ann-Marie). Gaston it is.

I'm enjoying the flack I'm catching over choosing a French persona (really! if the French really lost the Hundred Years War, why do they still speak French?) Lemonade from lemons, I suppose.

Seriously, congratulations on the change. Enjoy your new lease on life!

Speaking of AM, she's here for the weekend and we have lots of recipe testing to do so I'd better skedaddle. We have a cookbook to work on! (No snails though)

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bob Hurley:
Pity, that. I rather like snails.

---

best excuse I know for eating large amounts of garlic butter. Also VERY amusing to the locals when they watch you try to eat them (the little buggers are slippery even with the special tongy things....)

quote:

---

Originally posted by hauptfrau:
"I lost"???

As in the snails won? Did you flip one across the room into someone's (well bred) lap?

---

actually, what I was trying to say in my horrible high school french was "I lost it". yes, I was attempting to fish up the shell to dump the lovely garlic butter onto my bread and SQUITCH! it lept up and disappeared somewhere....I looked in vain and distinctly heard our table neighbors giggling quietly.

the waitress (probably the owner/cooks wife) came to take my plate and with the one empty shell hole I looked up at her plaintively and said "j'ai le perdue!". She chuckled and suggested that it happens all the time....

who says french people are standoffish? I found them delightful and to have the patience of saints....

*sigh*....I wanna go back!!!! did you know that for only $3000 I can spend five days in a medieval chateau in Burgundy at the la Varenne cooking institute taking classes and eating three star french food?

too bad I gotta work for a living...

quote:

---

Originally posted by hauptfrau:
Maybe you should learn how to deal with snails before heading off to la Varenne....

Gwen

---

Gaston de Poitou is (has become) a squire to Sieur Jehan, who is a retainer to King Pierre I of Cyprus, and as such is now (1362) touring Europe hosting and fighting in tourneys, which are being held in order to attract knights, squires and men at arms to hear preached a Crusade against the Turk.

Est-ce que ceci pourrait probablement être le même homme qui m'accuse de donner un coup de pied son chien il y a une année?

Bob, I am glad to see a Frenchman. My dear friend and companion at the faires did remark to me that the worst thing about going to the events is all the bad attempts at contrived British accents. Always fun to go to an event and loudly shout "BOOOH!" at the jousting Englishmen! And, of course, cheer for the Frenchies.

--------------------

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenna:
Anne-Marie, great point:
My SCA persona is pretty simplified too, and believe me it will flesh out over time.
Brenna

---

I used to play with the Landsknecht group at Southern Faire (California). During our pre-Faire rehearsals, we would be asked questions about our personas -- and we had to say something! Sometimes, bits of our persona would be made up instantly by our subconscious...great fun!

Irmele

On the whole you've got a pretty good start here, I'd say. A good framwork on which to hang any further researches. Well done.

quote:

---

I'm enjoying the flack I'm catching over choosing a French persona

---

Yeah, you end up taking a lot of grief for it. But in the end it's worth it, really. I mean, *we*, the French are the cradel of civilization, and the pinnacle of culture, everyone else copies *us*, so it's just jelousy, right?

quote:

---

(really! if the French really lost the Hundred Years War, why do they still speak French?)

---

This is a joke, right? You're joking? I've had this discussion with people, having to explain how utterly wrong they are about that...

Anyway, I hold lands in Poitou, east of the Vienne, and south of Lyssac, so we're practically neighbors. Bring your dogs and come hunt some time.

Ta

Morgan de Villarquemada

--------------------

Ta

Adhemar