Fifteen - The Characters of Christmas Past

We have been:

The Raiders of the Lost Knark

Todd, the Bored Druid

Arthad, the Black Knight

Kråkmåns Höghatt, the Faithful Dwarf

Aust Galanodel, the Visionary

Vackeria, the Wild Woman

The Sleepless Fellowship

Beo, the Absurd Hero

Ling / Ree / Arepo, the God of Paradoxes

Naseef, the Man Who Should Be Dead

Freddy the Cat, the King of Tigers

Aust Skywalker, the Last of Ban Lam

The Wizards of Jalan City

Vincent Mario Giovanni Winthrop, the Entrepreneur

Luke, the Child of Misfortune

Pervoslav, the Russian Scientist

The French Thief

The Mathematician

The Vampires of Berlin

Athela, the Beautiful Beast

Dragomir Zhukov, the Rogue

Zetha, the Doll

Ulrich, the Patriot

Plus Eddie, Mr. Crane, and many others

The Rune Pilgrims

Vesper Kite, the Hero of the Empire

Wade, the Champion of Death

Sojiro Naraku, the Lovestruck Sorcerer

Ulf, the Northerner

The Fandango Four

The Ultimate Fighter

The Hybrid

The Littlest Vampire

The Fat Ninja

The Exalted of the East

Vincent Cale, the Bronze Falcon

Zaraki Kensei, the Sword Saint

Lily, the Drug Queen

Sharif, the Monster

The Guardians of Shinwa Taizen

Song Hui, the Mistress of the Mindscape

Hyun Wook, the Hopping Vampire

David Blaze, the American Samurai

The Scions of Japan

Shinichi Kurode, the Aquacop

Magnus Magnusson, Thorboy

...and Brian.

The Blood-Bearers of Quetzalcouatl

James Fleming, the Monkey Man of Mystery

Rederick von Steinberg XIII, the Faceless Rogue

Setsuna, the Ojou-sama, and Setsu, the Godchild

The Ragnarök Renegades

Simo Pohjonen, the Finnish Sniper

Yvain the Dangerous, alias Åke Björk, the Fake

The Iron Librarian

The Protectors of Ptolus

Gell, the Paladin

Lupi, the Honourable Psycho

Storm, the Wild Druid, and Logan, the Sun's Chosen

The Agents of PSI

Assistant Director Jack Hudson, the Werewolf

Special Agent Karen Lennox, the Mage

The Hope of House Tepet

Tepet Kalyna, the Princess of Creation

Tepet Taran, her Bodyguard

The Military History Club

Lloyd Wilder, the Prince of Britannia

Cecil Darashia, the Psychic Prodigy

The Kingslayers

Gabrian De Veers, the Cold Killer

Garrus, the Iron Man

The New Kardus

Gehenna, the God of Judgement

Gwendolen, the Human

…and many, many others.

May their stories live forever, and may there be still more heroes in our future.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Fourteen - BFFs

Here are some characters whose friendships were a huge part of their greatness.

Lloyd Wilder and Cecil Darashia - The Storm 'Verse, home of these two characters, revolves around two great principles: Passion and friendship. Despite their many differences, they exemplified both. Lloyd was a kind, friendly Prince, and Cecil a fierce, dangerous pauper – but they covered each others' weaknesses, both in combat and in social situations. Though they frequently misunderstood each other and caused unintentional trouble for themselves and their friends, they always had each others' backs – because that was the very first lesson they learned on their arrival to Eisenkrone Academy.

Gabrian and Garrus - This pair of Iron Heroes complemented each other very well, despite being mechanically rather similar. Both of them were damage-sponges, capable of enduring brutal beatings – and perhaps that was the cornerstone of their friendship in a sense, because they withstood terrifying punishments for each other. Garrus carried Gabrian out of a crumbling castle after a fight against the Demon King, and Gabrian delivered the death-blow to the dragon that nearly slew his friend. Theirs was a friendship worthy of Iron Heroes – a friendship forged in iron, and tempered in blood.

The Norlanders - Hoo boy, I doubt anyone has heard of these guys before. They were a Northern team of a berserker and a warrior-poet, appearing halfway through the Fairy Tale Game I ran in D&D a million years ago. Something about these two characters just clicked with each other. They were created to be friends, and they lived up to it – right up until the bitter end, surrounded by enemies in a pitch-black cave.

Thirteen - Freaks and Monsters

Today we take a look at some seriously scary characters.

Sharif - Sharif is the first character that springs to mind on this theme. An unkillable man-eating shapeshifter with a severely disturbed mind, Sharif reads like some horror movie monster but was, in fact, a Lunar Exalt from the Chronicles of the Bronze Falcon. He Exalted due to his tenacity and perseverance in surviving a famine, but he also killed and ate his brother in the process, something which... well, pretty much broke his mind. Only very barely human in any sense of the word, Sharif remained playable because of his strong loyalty to the Solar Exalted, who perhaps, perhaps, might one day fix him. Or, you know, just unleash him upon their unsuspecting enemies. And occasionally friends.

Wade, the Champion of Death - Wade was actually a quite benevolent character, but that didn't stop him from being scary and weird. Wade had fallen in love with Death itself, and devoted his life (or weird pseudo-life, as it were) to her service, harvesting souls and bringing euthanasia to those who needed it. An Arcana Evolved Champion of Death, Wade was very, very, very good at killing stuff, but only ever did it when appropriate – a death-dealer in moderation, inhuman yet with a strong moral code. As he found out near the end of his life, his predecessor Hamadathurian had not been thus restricted.

The Littlest Vampire - I have sadly forgotten his/her name, but this character – from Trigonometry Fandango, a freeform anime-themed game – was the creepy kid-trope incarnate. A soulless female vampire, forced to reside in the body of a little boy, the Littlest Vampire was a murderous little child who specialized in slashing tendons, so that people fell over and could be properly disposed of. Although his/her team also contained no less than two super-powerful killing machines, neither of them could really match him/her in terms of cold-bloodedness.

Athela - seductive, manipulative, psychotic. Likes: Crushing peoples' will, necrophilic threesomes, stalkers. Dislikes: Water, especially in Berlin. 'Nuff said.

Twelve - The Opposite of Optimized

You are really terrible at your job.

Tepet Taran - Sure, Taran did protect his princess and did eventually deliver her to the Blessed Isle – but that didn't stop him from being terrible at his job. A Dragon-Blooded socialite whose only real reason for existing was being married off to some other important House, Taran was chosen for a super-important world-spanning covert mission solely because nobody would really miss him. He did have a few redeeming skills, sure – he knew how to parry attacks (because “Not the face! Not my pretty face!”) and he could... Hm. I guess he could also jump kind of far? Either way, he wasn't exactly the best guy to drag along on a trek through the wilderness.

Todd Ark - Todd, a member of the Raiders of the Lost Knark, was admittedly pretty okay at being a druid – but kind of awful at being an adventurer. A half-fey druid with butterfly wings and antennae, he grew up in a home with a talking stump, fairies coming to visit, unicorns grazing in the garden and all kinds of weird phenomena – yet in spite of this he had the personality of a particularly bored desk clerk. What made him bad at his job was that, being a D&D character, he was supposed to kill monsters and take their stuff – but he was far more interested in relaxing hobbies like gardening or taking a leisure trip with his yacht.

Jack Hudson and Karen Lennox - basically the worst police duo ever. They got better after they turned into a werewolf and a wizard, admittedly, but for being an FBI agent and a highly trained NYPD officer, they were remarkably bad at actually solving crimes. It's a good thing they soon moved on from crime-solving and into the more esoteric realm of... um... whatever you call all the weird stuff they did.

Almost every character by VMGW's player - I tried really hard to pick just one, but I couldn't. The defining feature of his characters seem to be “really good at lots of things, none of them applicable or relevant to the adventure”. I suppose the best exception I can think of is Vesper Kite, who actually was pretty decent at serving the Empire and the Church by being a swordsman. He, uh... ended up murdering the Pope. There were reasons.

Eleven - Powerhouses of Powerful Power

Like the fist of an angry god.

Timothy Luvenhay - Tim takes the cake when it comes to being a powerhouse of powerful power. A four foot tall speedster, Tim had pretty much every power source you could stack onto a single character in the Arcana Evolved system. He could run so fast that battlefield composition didn't matter to him at all, he could turn into lightning, he could keep fighting even while dead, and this is all on top of his swordfighting skills which were his actual signature power. Tim single-handedly defeated a Rakshasa Mage King and his unbeatable undead bodyguard in the span of three rounds of combat, something I will never forgive him for.

Mr. Smith - Mister Smith was pretty much just a straight-up attempt at playing the system in the NWoD rules if I don't misremember, but he accomplished the feat quite admirably. A super-duper-secret agent, Smith featured only for around two sessions but packed enough firepower to take out even supernatural enemies without being noticed – which is quite a feat in a system where mortals are designed to be extremely squishy, even if he didn't get many chances to shine.

David Blaze - David, from the Japanese Mutant game, wasn't intentionally designed to break the game system or anything – far from it – but over the course of his career, he became pretty much synonymous with “unstoppable in combat”. Of course, since the game wasn't heavily combat-focused, this made him more of a specialist character than anything else; he still needed his friends in a multitude of situations – but when it came to plain fighting, David was pretty much the best. Only two things ever really posed a threat to him: the symbiote super-soldier Aku-Shin Kage, and the insane vampire that lived inside his closest friends' head.

Zaraki, again - Zaraki may have been a pretty silly character, but man that guy could kill stuff. When you make a character whose highest passion in life is “swords”, and that guy also happens to be a Solar Exalt... things die. A lot.

Ten - ...instead of these comedians

Today, we take a good look at hilarity.

Mr. White - Mister White makes the list again. A rotund, fat little man whose love of money was only exceeded by his love of chicken, Mister White was a banker in a freeform Wild West game whose special talent was being able to run ridiculously fast. That was it, really. He sucked at everything from gun-slinging to surviving in the desert, and the combination of being absolutely useless and completely obsessed with chicken makes him one of the funniest characters I have ever seen.

Zaraki - Zaraki was the poster child for “one-track mind”. He cared for exactly two things – swords and womanizing – and he cared about them to ludicrous degrees. He was a Solar Exalt in the Chronicles of the Bronze Falcon, and though he had his moments in the limelight, he was primarily a comedic character. To be precise, he was an idiot. Rarely have I seen any player commit so much to a funny concept, to the degree that he actually memorized a children's book because it seemed like something his character would do. Zaraki read it to his daughter, who was a genius prodigy. She wasn't amused.

Brian Ansiell - Scion of Anansi, Brian's special power was being able to convince anyone of anything – well, that, and causing mayhem. A character with no real motivation, Brian just stumbled through life and did whatever amused him, which put him in a multitude of wacky situations. He owned a pet jaguar for a while, he became a member of the Yakuza, and he almost kidnapped a celebrity chef. I doubt he ever really knew why he did... well, any of the things he did. I guess he didn't need a reason.

Ling Tem'Enneth - Ling “died” pretty early in the Arcana Evolved game, to be reborn as Ree Kaspathodex – which was perhaps for the best, because the original Ling was batshit crazy. He makes this list because I have rarely seen a character commit so hard to always having his hit points be in the single digits. Ling fell off roofs, fell out of trees, fell into thorny bushes... I don't remember any enemies actually hitting him in combat, but then again, there was rarely any reason to target him in the first place.

Nine - A Toast To Absent Friends...

These are the characters of some of the people I haven't played with for a good long while.

Vincent Mario Giovanni Winthrop, from Mage: The Ascension. An iconic character in every way, Mr. Winthrop was a stockbroker who could manipulate time. Constantly armed with his pocket watch (except for that one time it turned into raspberry ice cream as a Paradox backlash), Mr. Winthrop was a wealthy man and linguistic genius with no real applicable skills for the adventure – trademark of his player, who seemed to make a sport out of giving his characters powers that were entirely irrelevant to the task at hand.

Naseef, from Arcana Evolved: Breath of the Ancestors. Naseef was, on the face of it, a simple humble woodsman – and though his eventual career took a very different turn, it's his initial plain nature that makes him iconic. No frills, no bells and whistles, just a straightforward everyman trying to survive in a dangerous world. He was eventually corrupted by Requiem, a sword possessed by a powerful Spirit of Death, and turned into an avatar of death itself – before being redeemed at the Tree of Life, and swearing an oath to defend humanity.

Freddy the Cat, also from Breath of the Ancestors. Freddy was a happy-go-lucky thief and master of disguises, who – perhaps unlike the other characters in the story – remained more or less himself even as he grew and changed. It is precisely this happy-go-lucky nature that I think makes him iconic to his player; even in the face of dire tragedy, he kept on smiling. While he ultimately learned a lesson about responsibility, he never ceased to be an optimist.

Aust Galanodel, from Raiders of the Lost Knark. While Aust would reprise in Breath of the Ancestors, I think I liked the original Aust just a little bit better. Aust was an idealist, a visionary, and a mad scientist. He entered the story as an elf seeking to rescue his wife, but as his need for power constantly increased, so did his addiction to it. Aust was a futurist and transhumanist – or I suppose, trans-elf-ist – and his quest for greatness is something that rings through in all characters from his player. The first Aust, with his prosthetic ruby hand and mind-rewriting powers, stands out as the best example.

Eight - Lloyd Wilder

Lloyd was a character suffering from severe Trope Overdose, and that is why I think he's the iconic character for his player. Being originally based off the Chaste Hero, he came to live and breathe heroic tropes. It's rare to see those characters done really well, but Lloyd definitely pulled it off – though, of course, much of his kindness stemmed from the fact that he was far too naïve to even realize he'd been wronged most of the time.

Lloyd was the Prince of Britannia, hidden away by his father (the Crown Prince) in a small rural village to grow up an ordinary boy. At the age of fifteen, he left his home against his father's will to join Eisenkrone Academy, to wield his extraordinary powers in service of the world. His adventures in just the first year at the academy are too numerous to recount, but after just a year and a half he had mastered the elements of Air, Water and Earth, with only Fire remaining. Lloyd may yet see a chance to master this last element – we haven't definitely ended the story of Eisenkrone Academy – and if he does, he will have to master his powers quickly. Inner Lloyd, his mysterious alter ego, is growing in power – and he is every bit as evil as Regular Lloyd is good.

Lloyd's most iconic moment, I think, is his greatest tragedy. His father, Walt, knew that his son was in danger at Eisenkrone, and travelled there to bring him home. Just as he arrived, the school was attacked by ultra-nationalistic terrorists, and Walt Wilder died defending his son. Only then did Lloyd learn who he truly was – Lloyd Pendragon, Prince of Britannia.

Seven - Vincent Cale

...on the subject of obfuscating stupidity, enter Vincent Cale. Vincent was a Solar Exalt, an archer, assassin, ostrich-riding woodsman, bumbling idiot and fantastic supreme ultimate genius. He was one of the most intelligent people in the world, but since he grew up in the forest with barely any human interaction, it took a while before his smarts manifested – and when they did, it was perhaps the most astonishing transformation of a character, ever.

The Vincent Cale that stepped onto the stage in the first session was an angry young man, seeking revenge for the murder of his father. During his journey, he learned that he was the Bronze Falcon, the reincarnated King of the East, and accepted his duties with... well, I would say grace, but Vincent was never graceful. In fact, his most interesting trait may have been his crippling inability to look or sound cool; he was terrible with words, something which his player committed to one hundred and ten percent.

What makes Vincent iconic is his smarts and savvy, coupled with his inability to apply them. Many other characters have followed in his footsteps – but Vincent's brilliant mind and terrible luck became a hallmark for his player, whose characters are often geniuses with crippling weaknesses.

Vincent was an Exalt, so it's really hard to pick just one moment from his career – but his most defining stunt ever was probably that one time where he got shot in the spine 17 times, only to perform surgery on himself, fashioning an artificial spine out of his appendix. It combines both his limitless intelligence, and his limitless lousy luck: He fired the 17 shots himself.

Six - Lupi

Lupi is a fairly recent character on this list, hailing from the latest run of the Banewarrens. A more or less psychotic halfling (culturally goblin) rogue, Lupi turned out to be some kind of psycho with a heart of gold – or at least, someone who genuinely cared about her friends and... not so much about anyone else. She managed to establish herself very well, committing violent murder and maiming during her time off, but being absolutely invaluable when actually working with her team. Aside from her supreme backstabbery skills, she saved her team mates from dozens of traps and ultimately ended up saving an entire city.

Lupi, I think, is iconic in the sense that she possessed a degree of obfuscating stupidity, which is something I've seen in her player a lot. On the surface she seemed random and insane, but there was a definite method to her madness – a tactical thinking that went hand in hand with her antics. It is perhaps telling that she was the only character to survive the adventure – and that despite being nearly mauled to death by a minotaur in the second session.

Lupi's coolest moment must have been her disappearance act at the end of the story. She gave the glory to her dead companions, and asked everyone to forget about her – and then stepped out into the city of Ptolus, and disappeared. She was an unsung hero... and perhaps that was for the best.

Five - Setsuna/Setsu

Setsuna's chronicle might have been short, but she managed to establish herself pretty well in the time she had. She was a Scion of Amaterasu, a half-goddess of the Sun, but carrying a crippling and unusual curse.

Every time the sun went down, Setsuna transformed from a gracious, pretentious Japanese lady into a seven-year-old girl, not only physically but also mentally, which effectively made her two characters in one. As Setsuna, she was smart, aristocratic and domineering – as Setsu, she was impulsive and charismatic, but also... well, mentally seven years old. Her adventures took her from Mexico City, to the underground caves of the Aztec Bat-Men, to Machu Picchu, to the icy reaches of Svalbard. Throughout all this, she had her loyal dog Kiba at her side.

Setsuna was iconic to her player in the sense that she was an oddball. The very concept itself was unusual, and very funny when combined with Setsu's deadpan attitude towards it. Setsuna was a little less comfortable with the arrangement; the concept was successful in the sense that it created a comedy relief who could still be taken seriously. I think that, perhaps, may be the hallmark of the player.

Setsu's best moment is undoubtedly when she rescued a rainbow serpent from captivity, and the grateful creature granted her one service. She immediately cashed in – spending it on a joyride across the Peruvian jungle, for absolutely no good reason.

Four - Karen Lennox

Ah, Karen. She was all over the place – I think that's the best way to describe her. Impulsive, rash, ridiculously brave, sometimes oddly brilliant, sometimes criminally insane. It goes without saying that she illustrates her player's style quite nicely.

Karen Lennox was a police officer, who first became an investigator of the supernatural and thereafter a Willworker - a spellcaster extraordinaire. She specialized in mind-magic and warping space, and many of her greatest moments revolved around Thinking With Portals. Her adventures were strange, to the point of becoming outright comic-book bizarre. She fought her own evil clone created by the Mothman, she was almost possessed by a former college professor, and she killed some random woman by dropping scuba gear from a paraglider. I don't think anything will top the sheer weirdness of that last decision.

Karen existed in a world where supernatural creatures frequently rubbed elbows, and she seemed to live by the maxim that whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you stranger. She was arguably crazy – but on the other hand, she lived in a crazy world. Her lateral thinking often backfired, but it can't be denied that some of her plans were surprisingly successful.

Her most triumphant moment may have been using the Supernal Tarot to ascend to the Mindscape, narrowly avoiding her death even when her body was ripped to pieces, and thereafter being reborn from her friend's right rib. It's a great example of the sort of mad-scientist thinking she usually deployed.

Three - Tepet Kalyna

Kalyna was iconic to her player for many reasons, but I think the chief reason is that she started as a blank slate. Kalyna was pre-generated, an ordinary, rather dull princess-type character whose only ambition in life was to marry a prince and live happily ever after. Then, the world of Exalted brutally caught up with her.

Kalyna was cast into the wilderness in the company of a total stranger, developed elemental superpowers, travelled to the ends of the earth, fought against tyrants and monsters, had a baby, and lived with a primitive tribe for three years. It's hard to imagine a more adventurous and eventful life, even for a roleplaying character, and the way she handled it was amazing and impressive. More than any other character I've seen, Kalyna grew organically. All roleplaying characters, of course, are shaped to some degree by their circumstances – but she may be the most triumphant example of such a development, and therefore, perhaps the most triumphant example of her players' style.

One of Kalyna's coolest moments, I think, was taming the Sky-Dragon in the Indicara Valley. She caught, tamed, and learned to ride on a giant pteranodon, and then used it to paradrop into a Fair Folk-infested ruined temple. The plan went off without a hitch, but even for a Dragon-Blooded hero it was pretty insane.

Two - Dragomir Zhukov

Dragomir is another case of a first character who really holds up. Even as a player grows, learns, and tries out different things, sometimes you just click right away. Dragomir emerged in the long and complex Berlin chronicle, stepping onto the stage almost by accident but remaining in the spotlight for the remainder of the chronicle. Which was ironic, because Dragomir mostly dwelled in darkness.

A Russian street-kid turned vampire, Dragomir stumbled into the machinations of the Sangiovanni family mostly because he was too clueless to fear them. After that, his unlife became one of strange irony. He tipped the scales of city-wide politics without being interested in them, and had fortune falling in his lap without knowing why. What was ultimately the strangest about Dragomir, however, was how well he always did in spite of being intentionally sabotaged by his player.

Dragomir was the first example of “helping” I've seen, a character whose player almost seemed to have it out for him – he became saddled with phobias, addictions, and obsessions, and yet in spite of his rapidly declining mental health he somehow managed to keep going. He was a great example of a character who creates conflict sometimes merely by existing – the scorpion to Berlin's toad, someone who's destructive not because he wants to, but simply because it is in his nature.

I don't think Dragomir ever reflected on his actions. His player certainly did, and that definitely makes him an iconic character.

The most memorable moments with Dragomir tend to be his failures, for some reason. I think the time he stole a sacrificial dagger out of sheer kleptomania, only to realize he'd just robbed a group of werewolves, may qualify as one of the funniest. Did I mention he had a crippling phobia of dogs?

One - Beo

We start here, at the beginning. I had already played for five years when I began running Arcana Unearthed, but Breath of the Ancestors turned out to be a very different sort of game – one that had the lofty goal of exploring the human condition. It did so partly through the story, but primarily through the characters. Beo was an interesting case.
An orphan and runethane apprentice, Beo had been forcefully transformed into a mojh, a genderless reptilian – and also carried the dormant mind of Xethar Ar'Nuade, the Sleepwalker, bound with an unbreakable rune inside him. Beo's struggle was one of freedom – freedom from Xethar, freedom from his reptilian form, and ultimately, freedom from destiny itself. A very tragic hero, Beo destroyed everything he held dear yet kept on fighting out of a sense of responsibility. Beo was, basically, the first roleplaying character I'd seen with a rich and complex inner life, one whose dulled emotions were gradually replaced with oaths and responsibilities, yet whose very fundamental struggle was one of liberation. He was a revolutionary, both in the story and in terms of how I've come to view roleplaying games.
Beo is an iconic character. He is the epitome of his creator's style, a conflicted and tragic hero whose weaknesses are far more interesting than his strengths.
Beo had many cool moments, but I think my favourite may yet be his final confrontation with the Council of Dragons, in which he denied them dominion over the world out of sheer spite. They offered him everything he wanted, but he turned them down simply because he really, really, really hated those guys – and in doing so, saved the world. Or possibly doomed it; we never actually found out.

Roleplaying Memories

So, I've been writing a little list of RPG characters that I've grown fond of over the years. Originally I was going to email them to everyone, but then I figured hey, why not post them here instead? I could space them out a little between now and Christmas, and make sort of "traditional" advent calendar - one with no story, but rather a bunch of pictures.

I'm not sure if I can think of 23 characters, so for now I'll just be doing one per day. Maybe there'll be more if I can think of them. The first entry will be posted... presently.

The Definition of Music Fan

When can you call yourself a fan of a certain band or artist? How much of their music need you have heard before it crosses from "I like these songs" to "I like this band", you think?

An Argument For Eugenics

I woke up this morning to a little informational video about introversion and extroversion. It had a few things to say about these two ends of a rather complex spectrum, but the bottom line - the idea behind the video - was that modern society is being pretty mean to introverts. Our society values traits like aggression, risk-taking, boldness, and social interaction very highly over traits like contemplation, focus and a careful nature.
I have personally found this to be true. I am far more proud of the outgoing aspects of my nature than the more abundant introspective traits. It isn't strange that it should be so. Modern society is highly based on social interaction and communication - the ability to form casual contacts is very important, and high social mobility means we must constantly adapt to new kinds of society. It is no accident that the hero of our times is the con-man, the pick up artist, the audacious social explorer.
The video I saw said that, as extroversion or introversion are part of our genes, to discriminate based on these traits it is equal to racism and sexism, and here is where I found myself disagreeing. There is a fallacious logic in racism or sexism that does not seem to apply here; race or sex is not inherently tied to behaviour. Introversion is, by its very definition. And so, perhaps, it may be argued that introversion is doomed to go the way of the dinosaurs; it is an outlived phase of human evolution. At best, it is a disability to be cured.
Should we "cure" people of contemplation, focus, and a quiet nature? Why not? The traits are far less useful than the ability to interact openly. This applies, seemingly, in all strata of society.
So here it is, then, an argument for eugenics. Introverts, including myself, are rapidly becoming fossils, remarkably out of place in the Facebook age. Evolution has a way of handling things on its own, of course - so there is no need to actually remove people from the gene pool - but when a behaviour is harmful, we also have no reason to interfere when it naturally diminishes or dies out.
Then this is the argument, distilled to its cold, Darwinian core:
Introverted people are disappearing. Let them.