Apollo (Kapidhvaja)

The Happy Human is the international symbol of Humanism

## Character creation

This is a character created for Kapidhvaja Campaign Setting. Kapidhvaja is an original creation by the author of this article (and of most of this wiki), but its intention in space and time resemble what Bruce R. Cordell’s *The Strange* calls “character player.” The lonely bio-social human within this universe found “Apollo” for a name, when he was reading Wizards of the Coast (WoC)’s *System Reference Document 5.1*, trying to find a way to be what his own higher self, the Vedic god Vāmana, has for him of a legal and ethical identity at his present level of the world where he lives. He is going to continue trying to build his life, considering which parts of his own story might survive which audiences and their policies.

> “For a potentially funky twist on the option of beginning play with an off-the-street character, your players may like the idea of playing themselves. Everything that's true of an off-the-street character is true of a player character playing his or her real-life self.
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> “Creating a character meant to be the player isn’t so much different than creating any other character. What’s important to remember is that the character created doesn’t have to exactly mimic the player; it only has to evoke what the player is like, and how the player roleplays will provide all the rest.
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> “Follow the character creation rules provided at the beginning of the <The Strange> corebook, but tell the player to choose a descriptor, type, and Earth focus most akin to what she does as her hobby, her profession, or a combination of both if possible.”
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## Rules

Apollo is going to work with four sets of rules. Articulate Christianity’s Unitarian Universalism, in cooperation with humanitarian activism, promotes the Happy Human, and Apollo likes being a happy human. Vedically the Agni level of the Agni-Brahmā-Candra-Viṣṇu ascending personality complex is best, but Apollo is still trying to do some serious justification work with the Candra level of his own higher self, so he'll see what develops in the context of trying not to offend the Vaiṣṇavas of ISKCON. In relation to Wizards of the Coast, he can occasionally reference Corellon Larethian, but he wants some of his own character creation work to still be his even if the audience pitchforks him into court, accusing the second level of what “planetovore” egotism might be; therefore, he found the name Apollo. Finally, the good folks at Monte Cook Games drew a pretty picture, but he can fend for his self if the going gets tough with these characters, Bruce and Monte (secretly the Pāṇḍavas Sahadeva and Nakula).

## Exemplars

Apparently, the two Ages, together, of Aries and Pisces here on Earth are the right season for first level to truly be first level. In order of complexity, I'm told that this exact day and age is the simplest of four exemplar-opportunity lifetimes for the true human through the course of these three thousand or so years, even though spacio-temporally this is the furthest in complexity. Two thousand years ago Jesus the Christ possessed the spacio-temporally simplest of these four “immersion points” into the universe where we live, asserting the second type of bio-social authority, which is more purely that of the Vedic god Agni, where presently an Agni-Viṣṇu medium is our Happy Human. One thousand years before then, Akhenaten of Egypt was an Agni-Brahmā type Śaiva, the third degree of complexity, and then one thousand years after Christ, one thousand years before now, a more fully brahminical lifetime witnessed the initiation of its own sampradāya, said motivation being the fourth degree of complexity in the process of virtual immersion as intra-Solar Earthly creator.

## Race and Class

If Articulate Christianity, though first level in truest truth, works with the fourth or galactic level of our universe, its Happy Human is very strongly what a human safely is. Likewise, what is the profession? We'll accept any charity given to us if it is likewise genuine. We are the meek, the humble: we *are* first level, the basis.

### Begracious Wisdom

The second aspect of judgment being Vedic (intra-Solar Venusian), Agni is the simple exemplar at mid-first level and thus the identifying soul within our Happy Human. However, our present immersion point in particular is sheltered by higher self Viṣṇu, and so the combination has to be considered. Viṣṇu is working a type of process that began with the Paraśurāma aspect of his own divinity, and so Agni within Paraśurāma’s divinity had some drama to live up to in connection with Indra’s fight with Vṛtra. The establishment of the human’s authority within his own universe was resolved with a bit of complexity that included the policing of some criminal activity in the “real world” that we've probably heard of plenty. Vṛtra is not a threat to the core of this universe any more, and so the Paraśurāma aspect of Viṣṇu is yielding to the milder Vāmana aspect. However, both are brahminical, as is Agni known to be the priest of the gods, that being a likewise brahminical function. So, the judgment of character class in this context, where we have the likes of śūdra (roguish / labor), vaiśya (bardic / merchantile), kṣatriya (martial ruler), brāhmana (ecclesiastic), and vaiṣṇava (devout) to choose from, brahminical priest is a pretty good guess.

Veda pertains to the third or stellar level of the universe, and this is where racial variation shows us being wise, gentle, human, animal, plant, mineral, elemental, and so forth, and also where distinctions between the likes of eladrin (Asian) and drow (African) are created. Agni is pretty simply caucasian, and the character player that our Apollo is trying to be is Irish and still pretty human in that context, though there could be some gentility in the design as well. We'll say that the Vedic judgment of Apollo’s race and class are as human and priestly as anyone need question, but gentle Vaiṣṇavism has been proven pretty well, just in case.

### Tel’Seldarine

Now we get to the “sun (gold) high elf paladin of Hestia” version of our friendly Apollo. This is Mercuriality: *Dungeons & Dragons*, and second level is its forte. Of the four immersive exemplars, we could consider the Brahmā lifetime to have been dragonborn and sorcerous, Akhenaten to be a gnomish wizard, Jesus to be the elven ranger, and our Happy Human to be the eladrin paladin. The racial truths are progressively milder as we work back toward what simplest of the four is, but class shows counter-adjustments in relation to governmental work. Brahmā was so caught up in motivational forces that initiating a sampradāya is all he could survive role-playing; Akhenaten was ruler amongst the wise, but Jesus fought like a ranger, though expressed the honest gentility that identifies him with the more truly elven folk. This lifetime now had to be a battle that did not even allow the face-to-face accusation of wanting governmental position, and a devout paladin might be the sole survivor here.

The choice to worship Hestia is consistent both with our Apollo’s character player astrology chart and with the Greek god’s expressed interest in the goddess. There is a connection to the relationship between Viṣṇu and Gaṅgā, and dare I mention the names Zuoken and Geshtai, which are WoC product identities. Apollo met a girl at Grace Marketplace late in 2018 when he was first homeless (again), and she made sense of some significant mythologies. As product identity Josilian Tarli of Eberron is to Viṣṇu, so is Kestia to Gaṅgā, and Clifftop is perfectly analogous to Grace, where the Anvil in Callestan district could remind one of Coffee Culture, and Morgrave of the University of Florida. However, these being instances of name usage without consent, it should probably remain loose speculation rather than assertion as if by creative authority.

### Aretê

What type of character should Apollo be in *The Strange*? If Brahmā was a strong paradox (dragonborn sorcerer) who operated undercover, Akhenaten a graceful spinner (gnome wizard) who was licensed to carry, Jesus a strange spinner (elven ranger) who led, might the Happy Human be the intelligent vector (eladrin paladin) who solves mysteries? Which way of relating to *The Strange*’s Jason Cole “product identity” is appropriate according to, as ISKCON often says, “time, place, and circumstance?”

## References

1. ↑ Cordell, B. R., and M. Cook. 2014. “Running a Strange Game.” In *The-Strange-Consumer-PDF*, 379–80. Monte Cook Games, LLC.