Sloan the Golurk

Subject: Sloan the Golurk Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:28 pm

» Name: "Sloan"
» Species: #623 Golurk the Automaton Pokémon
» Gender: Non-binary (Sexless)
» Role in IO: Teacher [Performing Arts/Expeditionary Studies]

» Natural Feats:
BIG WOOSH - Golurk can fly at Mach speeds. (Can host classes in sky dungeons.)
Best Friend - Good at following orders.
LARGE MAD - Should the seal on Sloan's chest ever be removed, they will rage indiscriminantly and apparently lash out with the power to level towns.
No Guard - All moves targeting Sloan will hit reliably (cause he bigg), and all moves used by Sloan will hit reliably.

» Level: 77
» Ability: No Guard
» Moveset: [Note: I have provided a full 6 attack moveset in order for diversity in teaching capabilities.]
- Magic Coat [Tutor]
- Substitute [TM]
- Round [TM]
- Psychic [TM]
- Earthquake [lvl 54]
- Phantom Force [lvl 76]
(Their first four moves should be used most, and should generally be used passively. They rarely attacks, but when they must the latter two are their preference (though they can be and are encouraged to be used passively if you can find uses for them).)

» Personality: Sloan is incredibly helpful and amicable. Maybe too much so. They had to receive direct orders from both their coworkers Yamini and Lennox directing them to cease taking requests from students too seriously, which caused quite a few delays in the running of classes before working itself out. Now Sloan is the epitome of a happy, efficient leader - or at least they seem to be. It's easy for everyone to read these emotions into the large golem, but in truth they are not truly "feeling" emotions as much as they are merely "emulating" emotions most suited to their current role as a teacher. Regardless of that, Sloan tries as hard as they can to be polite, helpful, and to see everyone go home at the end of the day with a smile on their face. They enjoy cataloging information and ideas in artistic ways - given the tools, they even draw! They are strictly pacifist unless there is absolutely no other option for them. Since their arrival nobody has ever caught them attacking anything - yet at the same time, they seem to protect the school grounds by chasing stray feral pokemon away!! They are quite intimidating naturally.
Sloan is also unfortunately a bit of a social ditz, largely due to their nature as an automaton. They will often miss pieces of things spoken to them completely unless a direct request or inquiry is presented to them, at which point they will cheerfully react. They are very quiet when they are not otherwise preoccupied in this fashion. They can often be caught staring into space at seemingly inconsequential things, walking slowly and erratically about the school grounds, playing with the materials used for construction on the school grounds... it's a bit dubious. They don't have much to say about it when questioned, other than "logging" or "processing." They sometimes say odd, mildly dubious things that don't tie into the conversation quite right, making the conversation seem, for that moment, confusingly disjointed. They occasionally comment on feeling melancholy, but cannot describe definite reason why when questioned. Artists, right? (...Right??)
...Students and faculty sometimes say they can hear odd sounds or feel eerie feelings when standing idly near Sloan for too long... but surely there's nothing to it. Right...?

NOTES FOR ROLEPLAYING THIS NPC:

> Nice. Nice all the time. Nice, nice, nice person for days. Sloan is essentially "coded" to be a helpful protector, in a metaphorical sense. They are akin to a nice adult trapped in a kid's mind. They aren't easily phased emotionally, but they can get off-track in their head if asked something they don't understand or don't have a direct answer to.
> Sloan does not feel emotion themselves, outside of a dedication to their directives and an sense of fufillment when a student has been helped successfully. They do not get mad or scared when confronted, they simply ponder whether they should respond aggressively or dismissively in their current situation. They do try and guess at the disposition of other pokemon, based on basic context clues, and they are intrigued and eager to understand what they missed when they guess wrong.
> They often act quite stilted and blocky when communicating normally, much like a slow artificial intelligence. They will pause before beginning to speak, and sometimes they will parrot words other people use to address them in unfitting ways. Their learning process is very experimental and they may try things that seem wrong just to understand why they are wrong - or right, in some cases. They are not a computer, and they do not have code.
> Sloan responds to all pronouns equivalently, and they refer to others strictly by their names as Sloan knows them or "you." They have no concept of gender.
>Sloan is naive, but they generally trust academy members over all else due to the academy being their responsibility. When it comes to a stranger or the academy, Sloan will sell the stranger for one corn chip. Even if the stranger is friendly, or has been acquainted with Sloan.
> Sloan effectively has no memories before their arrival at the academy (outside of a nigh encyclopedic knowledge of items, species of trees, types of terrain, ect.). If you do find yourself in a situation where Sloan might have an older memory pop up, their description of the event should be as vague and short as possible. They might remember short, fleeting snippits of being in an empty field alone with smoke, discovering a new flower, their shadow on the clouds as they fly... Nothing descriptive that might tie them to having been at a particular place at a particular time. These snippits might hint at ominous things if you so wish, as long as they are not specific ominous things. The far-off cry of an unidentified pokemon, a shadow with no owner passing over the grass in front of them, the distinct feeling that they were missing something while sitting alone somewhere, ect. Things like that are fine. It is up to the headmaster(s) to reveal more about Sloan's memories should it be absolutely necessary.
> Sloan is very comfortable with artistic feats and creating things "just because," even though they as a character are very methodical and logical. They see it as their job to capture and share information, so they are just as interested in capturing the "unreal" and the things they cannot see or understand as they are at logging physical information. They also take great interest in discussing the emotional expression of others, and they will try their best to form an empathetic understanding of other's feelings.
> Sloan is very intelligent and has a lot of information stored about most common items and pokemon, but they cannot recall this information by themselves in their own head. They must see or hear a description of that thing before they can identify and present information on that thing.

» History: The only part of the pokemon called "Sloan's" backstory that can be reliably confirmed are the events following their crash-landing in Pecha Forest 3 weeks ago. Recent arrival Yamini Varsha had exeperienced the crash, stating that "she heard a few loud noises above her, wind whistling, branches crunching, and then BOOM." The large golem landed directly in front of her, completely disabled and seemingly without power. She only left them long enough to summon a fellow pokemon from the nearby academy to help her bring the unliving clay body back to the school grounds for examination. It remained unresponsive despite multiple attempts to revive it, until Yamini noticed that there had been damage done to the pokemon's infamous seal. Being well-accustomed to working with glyphs and her hands, the medicham took the time to repair the seal. All at once, life returned to the golurk and it stood, generally unphased and remembering nothing of the incedent. Nothing at all, in fact.

The golurk's true name was never found. "Sloan" was the closest translation Yamini could make of some of the glyphs marking the golurk's body, and they just seemed to contentedly accept the title. Despite having no personal memories, it was found that Sloan had an impressive ability to identify things presented to them (berries, sticks, orbs, ect.), as well as considerable intellect in how to use those items. It was decided that, considering the Academy had a sizable amount of open space, Sloan would be allowed to stay there while it was decided what exactly to do about them.

Sloan quickly took to the academy as if it had always been their home. It was found that Sloan would do things whenever things were asked of them, and they would share their extensive knowledge whenever asked (and whenever the golurk actually recognized something). They seemed naturally inclined to keep things clean and safe. During the night, they took up patrols around the previously unwatched academy border. They seemed to have a very colorful personality despite having no memories. They could crack jokes, sing, build structures... they were even caught making various paintings of a stick, explaining that they were drawing the stick over and over to emulating falling through space. It wasn't long at all before Sloan knew the academy and it's inner workings so well that they were dubbed an official staff member, and with some difficulty they would be trained to be an actual teacher.

Sloan's true history would never be recovered. The pokemon who found them could only speculate what such a time-weathered Golurk had gone through to cause them to crash-land in a forest. Sloan's discoverers shared a few popular theories. One speculated Sloan was a guardian of the strange mansion in the south, and their investigative/expressive nature was due to the fact that their original purpose had been to study and guard the only true path through the house. Others speculated that they were actually some kind of scout or guardian from far away that lost power while flying - due to sabotage or poor resource management - and just kept going until smacking into the forest made them stop. Some of the more creative pokemon suggested that Sloan was some kind of spy sent to collect information on the area for dubious purposes. They would hotly debate whether or not "sleeper Sloan" was still an active danger or not until more rational pokemon who were sick and tired of the antics asked them to "please just stop." During one of these discussions, Yamini would point out Sloan's damaged seal and how they had not woken up until the object in question had been properly fixed and reapplied. Knowing a bit about golurks and their function, she suggested that the damage they had discovered may have been enough to unleash the incalculable energy stored within Sloan. Based on the ways the seal had been just barely knocked around, Yamini reasoned that they had likely done it to themselves accidentally somewhere. Somewhere, she reasoned, there was doubtless a massive scar of evidence ripped into the dirt somewhere. One they would likely never find, completely lost in some irrelevant place.

Watching Sloan ambling about the courtyard without a care in the world made it pretty obvious that that had indeed been the case. In all truth, they had left behind an ordinary life because of one unforeseen mistake.

Regardless of any concerns shared about Sloan's semi-mysterious origin, it seemed that - realistically - the pokemon that had come before "Sloan" was gone. Whatever exactly that meant. Sloan's behavior and dedication made it evident that, truthfully, the ties to their past were irrelevant. They were Sloan now. The only way to look was forward, and the only thing that really mattered now was keeping that little seal exactly where it belonged.

» Justification: NPC teachers are crucial for the academy to be able to provide the most opportunities for classes possible. They also represent my experienced members of the community, which even characters who are teachers may feel comfortable attending class with.
Additionally, the NPC teachers provide an opportunity for other members to contribute to holding classes even if they do not have a character they wish to submit to the academy/they do not wish to create a character strictly to be a teacher at the academy.

Subject: Re: Sloan the Golurk Mon Oct 21, 2019 9:07 pm

Approved!