In order to get a feel for the kinds of characters one would find in The Big Wedge, I created several sample characters intended to represent the kinds of NPCs characters may come across and interact with. Each character is a different species, which also served as a means of establishing design parameters for the different kinds of Kin found there.
Teddy the Sanitation Worker Pigeon
For Teddy, I started with the concept of a rough-and-tumble saxophone player moonlighting as a garbage man to make ends meet.
One idea I wanted to play with across all of these characters is an mix between grounded real-world problems and absurdist fantasy elements. For Teddy this manifested as his substance abuse issues, which led to his wife divorcing him, but the substance in this case is breadcrumbs. Additionally I wanted to play on images of pigeon nests, as urban pigeons are notoriously bad at nest making –
images courtesy of reddit – r/Damnthatsinteresting
Ernesto the Taxi-Driving Rat
Ernesto is the picture of the dad who stepped up – raising three kids as a single dad isn’t easy. He has familial connections to the Rat Mob through his cousin, and used to work as a getaway driver when they needed someone to fill in – because of this, he is perfectly suited for taxi driving in the Big Wedge.
Everything he does, he does for his kids – prioritizing their happiness over his own, driving to pay bills while attending night school to become a computer programmer.
While creating the side character of Chet – the man his wife cheated on him with – I wanted to begin to introduce the Pigeon/Dove question, which I will elaborate on further in a later post on Bird Kin culture.
image courtesy of amazon – OTONOPI
Clarence the Cockroach Exterminator
Clarence the Cockroach Exterminator was a character I was very excited to work on. I myself keep Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches as pets, and I am overall a big bug fan, so when it came time to create a roach character, I knew I had to have some fun with it. The idea of a pest control company run entirely by roaches, specifically German Cockroaches, one of the most prolific pest insects on the East coast where I live inspired this character.
Additionally, I wanted to expand the Mob lore established in Ernesto’s backstory, so I came up with the idea of a mob sponsored exterminator, who doesn’t realize he has any mob involvement. Any position like a cleaner, exterminator, or maintenance worker is going to have access to information those in power want to get their hands on, so what if Clarence saw something he wasn’t supposed to see while tenting the mayor’s house?
image courtesy of Economy Exterminators – German Cockroach Extermination
image courtesy of Aztec Pest Service – Do-It-Yourself German Roach Treatment
Special thanks to Owen McElhiney, without whom many of these narrative elements would never have come to fruition.