Delving Deeper: Delphine Olendra

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Welcome to Delving Deeper with Oleander Hawthorne, where we have meta game discussions about our characters, events in the game, the world, or even just to demand of someone "What the hells were you thinking!?"

In this episode we chat with the smartest person in most rooms, unwilling keeper of a brain worm, and tired babysitter of the group: Delphine Olendra.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Welcome to Delving Deeper, where we have uh metagame discussions about our characters, events in the game, the world that we're playing in, or just demand of our fellow characters. What the hell were you thinking? I feel like I'm the only one thing. That's her question for the rest of the time. And because at all times. Delphine and Oleander, we get to drinks. Cheers! So, as she's just stated, I'm Oleander Hawthorne, and today we are getting to know Delphine Olandra a little bit better. Yes. So, first things first. Delphine, I was about to say Olandra. Fun fact, we almost accidentally named our characters the same name of Oleander, completely separate from each other. Yes, RDM. I was supposed to be Delphine Oleander. Yes. Or Delphine of House Oleander. Yeah. RDM thought that that was on purpose and um so assumed that we were supposed to have a sort of connection. Instead, I changed it to Delphine Olandra of House Nereum. Nereum being the scientific name for the Oleander plant. Yes. We're a little plant-obsessed at times. So we're still connected. Yeah. Oh, also fun fact. We both painted our nails the same color, totally separately. We're human being. So, back to the interview. Back to the interview. When we were first creating our characters for this campaign, what was your original plan for your character? Okay, originally Delphine was supposed to be a very idealistic, bordering on naive, a little more innocent person, very sheltered. Um, and that's sort of how she started. She very quickly veered away from that. But that is sort of the impression she was giving to begin with. She I wanted to play a blade singer, I wanted to play a tiefling, and I thought, well, she's gonna have been born to elves if that's cool, and uh yeah. Yeah, no, very right off the bat, you were kind of dipsy isn't the right word, but um, you know, hidden the clouds, naive is definitely the impression that she gave off. And I wanna say, we probably didn't even get like three or four sessions in where she's just like, what is wrong with you guys? It was down very quick. It was really quick. So Vina's the one who's asking, what the hell were you thinking?

unknown 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Now, how, I mean, other than becoming uh severely irritated with our lack of forethought, how has your character deviated from the original plan for creation? Well, um, talking about her personally, her personality, when I actually thought about her history that I came up with and how that would actually affect a person, she was a tiefling born to a noble Elven family, to the second son of a noble Elven family, and they hid her her entire childhood. And I was like, that would do something to you, and you would probably have a whole lot of guilt, a whole lot of really deep down personal self-hatred, and it is a racist world against tiefling, so it was very much important she was kept secret, and I was like, that would probably make her very secretive, very um suspicious, very just careful, extremely careful to a fault, probably some would say. Yeah. Also, um, she is with this group at least the smartest person in the room, and like uh Oleander said, she does get annoyed with a lack of forethought when it happens over and over and over and over and over again. Yes. She will sit with decision paralysis because it is a problem. She knows all of the things that can go wrong and likely will go wrong, and so being she's just she's too smart for her own good. So then sometimes the rest of us have to put stuff in our mouth or touch the things that we're not supposed to touch. Does it have to be every day? I'm sorry. Multiple times a day. I can't pick everything up. It's like the mom who's following the kids from room to room, picking up all the mess, and I come back to the original room, and it's a mess again. I just cleaned this room. To be fair, we do touch the things we're not supposed to touch. All the time. All the time. A lot. Um, sometimes we're put in somebody else's mouth though, so it's not always our fault. Yes, sometimes. Yeah. Alright. Is there anything from your background or backstory that you want to tell people about? Something that has been revealed prior to recording or stuff that just doesn't really get talked about, but it does affect your character and that you you just want to bring that up. Well, there's a lot of things. I'll get to the one that you think I should talk about in a moment. Um, pre-recording in game when we started this game, um, the party didn't know she was the tiefling. She was gifted as a young girl when her uncle died under mysterious circumstances from her father, became the new lord, new head of the house, and their family suddenly had to be in the public eye. It was easier when he was the second son, he could just raise his daughter in secret, and nobody knew. They all thought that oh the Olandra baby was just very sickly and no one saw her. But now we have to be out in public. So when she was when that happened, her father gave her a hat of disguise, a very fashionable hat. She wears it all the time. She wears it all the time. She has about 20 hair pins in it to keep it in her head, like any good dancer would. And so the party only knew her as an elf. She presents herself in most scenarios as what she thinks she should have been born as, which is a fair-skinned, freckled, golden-eyed, fair-haired elven woman. Um, much like what her mother looks like. Um she so there was a moment in the past where Drukin died pre-recording. And it was a big moment for him, but it was a big moment for her because part of the revivify ritual was the only thing she had to give up was her biggest secret, which is that she is not an elf, she's a tiefling, and she took her hat off, and that's when everyone got to see her in her purple skin, black horned glory, still with the golden eyes, though. That's the only thing she doesn't change. And she's very beautiful. But most of the time you will hear her me saying, I um pop the hat and I'm my elfie self, and that's what she does in public. Very few people have seen her as herself. We didn't, uh, as a general rule, see her in her tiefling form for any kind of consistency until we came to Crystal Grove, which is the town that uh everybody has introduced to the party in the very first recording. However, um when we first go there is pre-recording, and we have a lot of interactions, there's a lot of anti-magic that actually forces her in into the position of being her. There's glyphs on different things that turn all magic off, so I knew that I wouldn't get into the Gilded Griffin, which is the very lovely hotel with Merv, the wonderful bell boy. He's a great bellboy, everyone should beat Merv. And then the mayor, um, Lord Gildenridge's actual mansion was also glyphs, so I knew I wouldn't get by and I had to be my her actual self, which was very uncomfortable, and she didn't really enjoy that. Leander liked it because she thinks that the Tiefling is very beautiful. Yes. Uh she's a little biased and just likes everybody to be themselves. But that's unlike her, she does does not want to be herself, you know. No, nobody does. Uh so what is prior to recording, what is your favorite moment in the game uh that affected your character's development or choices? I'm gonna talk about a thing that everyone wants me to talk about, that everyone else is talking about, which is Lord Theron of House of Valor. Everyone's talked about him. Everyone's apparently talked about him. Yeah. I don't know why. She cares about my love life. Yes. Would you like to address the elephant in the room? Which elephant? Theron. He's the elephant. No, I don't. You don't have to. She. Theron is the result, as RDM said in his video, of a very good role when I was at the ball at Lord Gildenridge's Manor, and there was a bunch of nobles there, and she was trying to see who she needed to avoid. So she I asked, Do I recognize any noble families? Because this is also the point when everyone learned that Delphine's background is nobility. Um, because I we dropped my house name to get an invite by a certain shady character. Uh to be fair, the shady character seemed very at the time he seemed good. Um Delphine might have a very hostile vendetta against him now. Very hostile. She doesn't like him at all. Um, but this other individual that she did recognize was this extremely unbelievably handsome elven lord with very pale, long hair, very clear eyes, wearing green, very exquisite doublet, and he walked up to her like the locked eyes, and I was told I recognized him. He walks up to her and he is trying to be all sweet and suave and charming, and I instantly No. She didn't get the ick, but she did get hostile. I did get hostile. She instantly, and at this point I didn't yet know who Theron was. Yeah. It was only when he separates her, and I allowed myself to be separated, that I discovered that this is my ex. And not just an ex-boyfriend, this is an ex-fiance. And we got to, I instantly make up an entire history in my head where apparently I left him at the altar. There was no physical altar. There was no altar, and he's the one who's a chicken chip first, because he couldn't handle what she really is when he found out he got afraid and she got afraid that he was afraid, and she may have left him, but they've had a lot of encounters over the while, and when we first ran into him again, it had been 20 years since they'd seen each other. And when she last saw him is when she broke the engagement, and that is also the last time she's spoken to her family because she ran away from home 80 years ago to protect them. So yeah. So she hasn't spoken to her father for 20 years, and she hasn't seen Thered until this point, until 20 years, and they're a very complicated relationship, and we had a big fight. And apparently everyone enjoyed it. Delphine didn't enjoy it, but I did. It was lovely. Okay. Are there any other um I I can think of something specific that affected a lot of your uh character development and choices. Are you talking about the worm? I'm talking about the worm. Delphine has a worm. Very, very early um on day two, actually, of campaign, uh, we were at the Academy of Magic, and we thought we were fighting, uh, we were in like a training room, like the danger room for the X-Men. And we thought it was it was meant to be illusions we were fighting, just to like see what we could do. Um, and someone had tampered with it, and they were real, and there was a real illfit, and I may have failed a saving throw. And I may have got something left behind in my head that causes some problems. It gives her a mind blast ability, but it also causes nosebleeds, ear bleeds, eye bleeds if I use it too much, massive migraines, terrible visions and dreams and nightmares, and she is afraid of what using it more will do, and her fear of that, because she knows enough about what it could do to her, is also the source of why she cautions others on what they may be dealing with, that they don't maybe quite understand that that is the source of why she's afraid for them, is because she's also afraid for herself. She projects a lot. She does, she projects a lot. She needs a therapist. Yeah. Yeah. So she's she should go therapy. Fearful for herself. So she's decided that others are losing their soul. Not I've never been afraid for your soul. I've been afraid that you don't know when it will be making the decisions for you and leading you to down a path you don't you don't intend to go. However, you have been acting as yourself. So I'm glad you're I am less than. At no point have changed who I am or shown that I am not myself. We're not talking about you. I know. We're talking about you, the fact that you can't just trust me. Trust is clearly an issue for her. Obviously. It's a tiny bit of an issue. She trusts no one. That's a little bit of an issue. Yes. She did, however, say once that I was her best friend. When uh Faron was charming you. Yes. Which he only did to make Delphine jealous, but she said it. Mission accomplished. Yes. But she said it. And she threw herself in the way of me dying once, and I repaid that, and I feel like we're best friends, even though she's trying to make Mr. Drex her best friend. Well, Mr. Drex is just really nice. We always dependable, and you know, jerking's pretty cool too most of the time. Yeah. Rule no, not so much fun. But I've never had a best friend, and I would like to have a best friend. And she called me her best friend once, and so I would like to try and hold on to that with a death grip. A little bit. I mean sh sh she would come to you for other problems. Yeah.

unknown 15:15

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Uh, what are your aspirations or goals for your Delphine campaign? Oh, I don't know what her aspirations and goals are currently. When she first left home, it was because people were getting suspicious and word got out that there was something wrong with their family, and if people found out she was a tiefling, she knew people would question her father's how he rose to be the Lord. So that's why she left when she was in her like early 20s, 20 years old. And so at that point, she just wanted to get powerful enough in magic to change herself to make her either do enough good that it won't matter she's a tiefling to the world, or make herself not a tiefling with magic in some way. Things have gotten far more complicated now, and she is just desperately trying to hold on to the world as we have it. Good and bad, basically. And we'll deal with all the other problems once we are not all dead. Yeah, it's kind of a thing. We keep almost being all dead. A lot. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. Um the aforementioned putting things in mouth and touching things you shouldn't touch. Yeah, I believe there's whole songs about it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Childhood um Elven Proverbs. Yeah. Stories, right? Don't you put it in your mouth, throw stuff in your face. So it might look good to eat, and it might look good to taste. You could get sick real quick. Real sick. Real ick. Now, what um what are the what would be the biggest influence for Delphine? Her father. She idolizes her father. He taught her Blade Song. In her eyes, he is the pinnacle of the best of the best. It's definitely her father. What was her biggest influence, and that's who she doesn't want to disappoint. And she wants to protect and she wants to go back to. Now, I haven't asked anybody else this, but I everybody has their own little things, and one of the things that I like about this lovely woman here is that she is so damn suspicious of all things, and that is not just her character. So, is that good? It's just fun. It's fun sometimes. So, our DM's not gonna watch this. And if he does, he can't use it because it's out there in the world. I feel like he would say he can do what he wants. He's a DM. He likes to say that a lot. I want you to just throw out what do you think is the funniest suspicion, funniest suspicion that you've had related to your character within our world? Funniest? Yes. Or or something that you've just enjoyed the most. What what have you in what suspicion would you like to share? Spoilers. Not not giving spoilers. Something that you just it could be super far-fetched, but I just she has come up every day. She's like, what if this? What if this? What if this? What if? What if? And I don't tell the DM half of them because I don't want to give them ideas. No, no. So I want to know one of your what ifs. It can even be one that you've shared with the rest of us, but I want I want everybody else to about my character or about the game? About your character. My character. Yes. Well, I think this is one I have shared. I suspect that. I mean, it might not be true, but I suspect that my Because Delphine doesn't know why she's a tiefling. I left that open. According to what she's always been told, and she chooses chooses to believe her family, because she's not stupid. She knows that it's likely they could be involved in why she was born a tiefling, but she was always told nobody knows. I suspect her reason for being born a tiefling is somehow connected to the events of a hundred years ago with the fall of Astan Devile, which is the previous campaign that RDM ran where he created this world. And he was the big dad, and he was defeated a hundred years ago, and she is a hundred years old. And fun fact, I was not the one who decided she was a hundred years old. Oh, yes, I forgot about that. She has the lifespan of a tiefling of an elf. Lifespan of an elf. Um, only needs to rest for four hours, but otherwise, everything else racially, she's a tiefling. Do you have any other fun suspicions that you want to share? Not about your character. About the world or anybody else? She's in a cult. Um I suspect Einar's older than we think. I suspect that. I can't without spoilers. I can't without spoilers. That's true. But I have a lot of suspicions, as she says. Yeah. She has suspicions about my granddad that I know are not true, but I really want to be a big thing. It won't be true, but I want I want her granddad to be Vecna. It would be great. I think that'd be hilarious. That it would be the funniest addition to my character. It'd be so funny. Yeah. So I love the way her brain works. She comes up with all the different what-ifs. They're very entertaining for us, and we will share those as things go along, and we don't have to worry about spoilers. Yeah. So, thank you very much for joining us for delving deeper. Enjoying a longer one because we chit-chat more. We do chit-chat more. Uh, so if you liked, or if you would if you enjoyed what I can't talk. We're professional. We're very professional. If you have enjoyed what you have been watching, give us a like and a follow, and uh maybe throw in a comment that you would uh any questions you would. What's your favorite time that Delphine got irrationally annoyed with people? That too. That happens a lot. Don't you put it in your mouth? Oh, so many times. Quit touching things. I'm a wizard, I can identify it for you. Stop it! Goodbye. She's gonna keep being angry. Goodbye. I'm just tired, I'm just exasperated.