Fellow autistic dexers, after much painful inner reflection, my autism has been settled. After creating a beastren fighter, I am going to make a new character: male human fighter. My first playthrough will be with him (Tormund) and will go Fighter > Warrior. After this, on my 2nd playthrough, I will pick up the current save file I have with my beastren (Guinan) who will go Fighter > Warrior(?) > Warfarer (and probably most vocations before that). It is perfect. I have it. I will commence play at once, upon Lent's glorious ending and Eastertide's beginnings, my dear brothers in extreme aspergers.
You see, my dilemma was thus: as excited as I was to play my based Not-Guin character, it felt wrong to play with a super buff hulking beast guy on my virgin playthrough (please be gentle, Itsuno). The appeal as playing MALE HUMAN FIGHTER every time is that you are just some guy. You are not super strong or magic-gifted, or etc. You are like medieval fantasy Bruce Wayne minus the wealth. You are Nameless from Gothic. Maybe you have some muscle, but you are not this hulking presence of otherworldly strength. So the fun is overcoming as a MALE HUMAN FIGHTER, as a man. Gary Gygax was infinitely monocled for this understanding. Try as I might, as exciting as the novelty was of playing as a beast race (couldn't care less about doing so in Elder Scrolls), I could not shake this feeling of playing this game the same as I do in every game. I really do make these MALE HUMAN FIGHTERS as a sort of image after myself I think, as a sort of a projection of myself into this world, to overcome. Yet, if I was to do a 2nd playthrough with Beastren, what would that be like? I want to play Fighter/Warrior NOW. But, it just doesn't seem fitting to have a Guin homage character be anything BUT a fighter/warrior character on my second playthrough. I also wanted to play the other classes, especially Mystic Spearhand. I literally paused my beastren character and just had Guinan staring off into nothing, standing still in a stream in the very first area of the game, contemplating if I should continue, reasoning that if I was to make a new character, it must be now, since the journey will be long. I ended up falling asleep, was this burden so heavy on my heart. I also second-guessed my pawn character (smoking hot human female mage). I was wondering if I should have a super squad of all beastren, as a sort of fulfilment of head-canon prophecy of this beastren whose people hated him and his pawns to be the Arisen and save all. On the other hand, having a main pawn be a human would also contribute to this in a sense and heighten the discrimination in its own way (there is that weird so-called Arisen, our own race, with his human pawn, what an outcast!). I weighed my options and sensibilities. Guinan was cool because, being a beastren Arisen, he is sort of an underdog among his people in his own right, since they hate Arisen/pawns. And he could overcome muh waycism and all that from the world that hates beastren. He is like a double-outcast. There is also the religious aspect, as his people are weird flame-worshipping pagans, and he could sort of be a paladin type. I also gave him huge beastren arms and he looks hella sick. But something was off, brothers. It felt "wrong" or "not yet/quite right" to go down this path at this time. This inner turmoil was compounded by the gravity of my choice: am I really going to delete this save file and re-roll another human? And then the news that multiple save slots dropped and I rejoiced. But all was still not squared. In my desperation, I fell to the temptation of googling. I came upon two articles: one of which articulated reasons to go with human or beastren from roleplay perspectives (it mentioned the paladin thing for beastren). And another, forgive me brothers and may glorious Elah in His infinite love have mercy on my soul, from PC Gamer, exhorting to play Warfarer on a 2nd playthrough. And this is when it hit me, like when God in His majesty created light and the world no longer had the creeping of darkness over it, or when Jesus Christ in a beam of light converted Saul into Paul: the Warfarer would be the perfect way to roleplay with a beastren, from one who is already beefy and mighty and strong, though an outcast, who will become the Beastren Arisen, who will retain the raw masculinity of a warrior-type class with armor like that, while simultaneously being a beastly jacked jack of all trades as the chosen Arisen, while still fitting into the Conan-esque archetype (Battahl seems similar to Cimmeria) of this Barbarian/Warrior hero. All of this culminating in the wicked sweet name of "Warfarer". The ultimate chosen warrior-hero. And his people's lure to magic would make sense when I make him learn Sorcerer skills and etc, to be used alongside various melee moves as Warfarer. A hero that learned all these different ways of war/warfare. An already-physically strong beast-man, tall, with long reach, who would perfect his melee prowess and branch out to incorporate and cultivate all other skills from all vocations. And, this being on the second-playthrough (as the article recommends), I can have my "brave rando who tames the world around him and ascends to his destiny" MALE HUMAN FIGHTER story as well, as I learn the game's systems, and vocations, and skills over the course of an entire playthrough. Then, on 2nd playthrough, as this game has deep combat and tons of options, I will play the Warfarer after having spent a playthrough familiarizing myself with a number of vocations already in the playthrough before. Like the beastren, I will already be "strong myself" by this time and have an edge over this world. And I will get to see the minor alternate story beats and get to see and experience everything the game has. I will get to experience and roleplay both scenarios, while keeping things exciting and fresh from a raw gameplay perspective. How fittingly diegetic! I have found it, brothers. The perfect answer to my autistic meltdown dilemma.
