Todd Walker

**Todd Walker**, also known by his online handle **Synthopy**, is a character in *Magical Girl Policy*. He is a junior at Schuyler Adamson University and a member of its nerd club SFEERS. He is the viewpoint character in the "Party" series of MGP Vignettes, which features him creating and leading a *Keeps and Kobolds* role-playing campaign with fellow club members.

## Appearance

Todd is a young man with pure white hair, a color known as "snowcapped" to Kessia City residents. He apparently has long hair, as his bangs can fall over his eyes.

## Personality

Todd is friendly and outgoing, able to integrate into his brother's college friend group as a high school student as well as draw in both new and familiar players to his own *Keeps and Kobolds* campaign, a tabletop role-playing he is particularly fond of. He initially appears as rather unconfident, but goes on to prove to himself his planning and leadership skills as he serves as Dungeon Master (DM) of his *Keeps and Kobolds* campaign.

Todd is a member of SAU's nerd club SFEERS and partakes in its tabletop gaming sector. Even before he began attending SAU, he regularly played *Keeps and Kobolds* with a group of SFEERS members. After that group disbanded, Todd made his own group and campaign as a successor to the old one.

## Biography

### Background

Four years before the start of *Magical Girl Policy*, Todd joined a *Keeps and Kobolds* role-playing game campaign led by DataMiner. Todd was a sophomore in high school at the time, but was accepted into the college-age group thanks to his brother being one of its original members. Playing as a paladin called Sir Edgewood Lightblade, Todd took part in the crew's game sessions every Saturday over the course of three years.

After graduating high school, Todd began to attend Schuyler Adamson University, sharing a dorm with Fretribution. Eventually, DataMiner, a senior at the time, became too busy to host *Keeps and Kobolds*, and after several canceled meets, officially quits as DM, ending the years-long campaign. In "Crashed Party", Todd is moping over this turn of events when Fretribution walks in and asks what's wrong. When Todd explains what happened, Fretribution suggests Todd DM a campaign of his own. Todd is unsure whether he can replicate DataMiner's DM planning and skills that made the old campaign so enjoyable, but Fretribution convinces him that his experiences likely make him better prepared than DataMiner was at the start. Todd shares his ideas for the game's world, then starts making preparations for this new campaign.

Sometime after "Crashed Party", Todd finishes setting up his *Keeps and Kobolds* campaign and finds four SFEERS members to play it in the library: AegisBloom, Hambone, Travesty, and BugReport, with the latter having played in DataMiner's campaign. After several sessions, Todd is dissatisfied with how the game is going. In "After Party", he explains why to Fretribution: while Hambone has constant enthusiasm for the game, the other three players are not very engaged with the narrative, to the point where Todd pushed back a dramatic story beat. Fretribution says Todd should add incentives for the players to roleplay throughout the game: since Travesty currently cares only for battle, he can be given a powerful cursed weapon that does something to make him engage with the plot. Todd can also fully implement a concept he had for the current campaign to take a century after DataMiner's, and including BugReport's old character as an in-story figure will draw the player's attention away from simply increasing his new character's power. And though Fretribution has no advice about the mostly silent AegisBloom, he believes she'll be more likely to actively participate if the others are into it. Todd takes note of these things as he plans the next session.

Over the course of two months, Todd puts Fretribution's advice to use and sees player motivation gradually increase. "Party Hard" opens during a battle, where it is revealed that the new axe of Travesty's golem character Rook is cursed. BugReport warns against using the axe's mysterious strength-enhancing ability since the weapon is filled with souls collected by Infarious, a demon lord from DataMiner's campaign, but Travesty decides it would be in character for Rook to pay the enhancement's price and defeats the fallen angel enemy with it. While the only immediate downside is a reduction of the Will stat, Todd forebodingly says the axe's souls have had some effect on Rook and the character takes notice of the slain enemy's evil-tainted blood. Todd does not reveal his plans for these things, but does wish to get the concerned AegisBloom's character involved when she gets the chance to heal Rook.

At some point over the following two months, the group's *Keeps and Kobolds* sessions move from the library to Todd's apartment. By this point, the players are all engaged, with the change in location especially beneficial to the shy AegisBloom. In "Life of the Party", Rook's continued use of the cursed axe has filled his body with the weapon's evil souls. The party discovers this and wants to remove Rook's axe-hand so the curse can be dispelled, but the golem refuses to part with his newfound souls and engages his comrades in battle. Todd assures the players that Travesty can create a new character if Rook is killed, but the group would prefer to save Rook, so Hambone suggests removing the axe-hand to stop the spread of souls, then taking Rook to be purified. Aegis takes charge and shares her character's knowledge of the weapon as well as nominates BugReport's thief with detaching the arm.

"Housewarming Party" cuts past the conflict with Rook, but everyone found the session extremely enjoyable. Like usual, BugReport, Hambone, and Travesty leave Todd's dorm while AegisBloom remains a little while longer to help clean the table. When Aegis is about to go, she stops herself and asks Todd out on a movie date. Todd wonders if her passive behavior during their early game sessions was because she was primarily there to spend time with him since she was too shy to ask him out. With the pair planning seeing the newest *Dustfall* movie tomorrow, Aegis leaves. Fretribution then enters the living room, having overheard the conversation and feeling vindicated that his suspicion that Aegis liked Todd was correct. Todd considers that perhaps her role-playing in the game helped her overcome her severe shyness enough to finally act on her feelings. Fretribution asks Todd to tell him about how his suggestions for the campaign worked out over a meal.

## Relationships

### Fretribution

Fretribution, or Eddie, is Todd's roommate. Though Fretribution is a fellow SFEERS member and later the president of the club, he does not participate in Todd's *Keeps and Kobolds* games. He is, however, very supportive of Todd's efforts and gives him advice to more effectively lead the players, and Todd finds Fretribution extremely good at getting him motivated in times of doubt, an ability unknowingly aided by Fretribution's aura. Fretribution had an inkling about AegisBloom's feelings for Todd long before they were revealed, but he refrained from bringing it up in case he was wrong.

### DataMiner and co.

DataMiner was the DM of a *Keeps and Kobolds* campaign that featured several SFEERS members. A high-school Todd was able to join these older peers due to being recommended by his brother, who was originally a part of the group. After three years of Todd playing, DataMiner became too busy to remain the game's DM and canceled the campaign, depressing Todd. Todd admired DataMiner's ability to carefully plan such a long campaign while simultaneously keeping the players engaged, and at first felt such a fun campaign would be impossible for anyone in SFEERS to replicate, but later managed to exceed this ideal while DMing his own campaign.

### BugReport

BugReport was a fellow player in DataMiner's campaign, with his character a mage named Alaniya. Though the rest of the group disbanded following said game's cancellation, BugReport returned to play in Todd's own campaign as a thief character. BugReport is apparently more experienced and knowledgeable than Todd when it comes to *Keeps and Kobolds*, which leads to Todd initially having a hard time getting him to care about the story and not easily overcome any obstacle thrown at the party with his powerfully tuned character. Todd manages to get BugReport invested by revealing that the new campaign is a distant sequel to the old one, and by getting the other players more involved in role-playing, BugReport's game logic-driven decisions become less frequent and prominent.

### AegisBloom

AegisBloom is a player in Todd's campaign, with her character being a mind-mender. Unlike the others, she did not appear to join out of great interest in *Keeps and Kobolds*, but rather out of an apparent desire to spend time with Todd, as she had fallen in love with him at some point but was too shy to show her feelings. As such, she was not very active in the game's early sessions and rarely spoke. As Todd incentivizes the group to roleplay more and the sessions are eventually moved from the library to Todd's dorm, Aegis becomes more proactive and speaks her mind more, culminating in asking him out on a date. Todd wonders if Aegis's newfound confidence came in part from role-playing as her character in the game.

### Hambone

Hambone is a player in Todd's campaign, with her character being a cleric. Her great enthusiasm for the *Keeps and Kobolds* game as a whole leads to her being the only player fully engaged in the game from the outset. During the period where Todd focuses on the other players in his plan to get them more involved, Hambone feels left out. Once the whole group is invested in the game, Hambone appears to remain the one with the most enthusiasm, with her alacrity and decision-making having her often assume a leadership role among the players.

### Travesty

Travesty is a player in Todd's campaign, with his character a golem rogue named Rook. He is initially only interested in the battle portion of the game and gets easily bored with the other parts. After Todd introduces a cursed axe that affects Travesty's character both in battle and in the story, Travesty begins to seriously role-play, to the point where he'll even go against what would be beneficial in-game for the sake of remaining in character.

## Trivia

* Todd's handle is spelled "Synthony" in "Crashed Party" and "After Party". It changed to the "Synthopy" spelling in "Party Hard".
* Todd's character in DataMiner's *Keep and Kobolds* campaign, a paladin named Edgewood Lightblade, is lifted from the protagonist of "Questing Solo", a short story by Taralynn Andrews that stood in for the October 2015 MGP vignette.