Name: Selma Rosmarie
Age: 17.
Sanctum City: Valentia, Venus
Description: Selma stands out without really trying. As one of the most statuesque young women you could ever meet, her tall and robust frame likens her more to a tree walking around than a teenage girl, but her goofball demeanor quickly undercuts any potential intimidation that stature may induce. Her speech patterns are more "coarse" than "rough", and a genuine frown is hard to find on her gentle features. More often it's simply the terse, grunted scowl of hard work than true displeasure. Her straight shoulder-length hair and eyes are both the color of the pines of her ancestral home, and her casual attire consists of a seemingly endless supply of loose work shirts in dark colors and long jeans. Her most prized accessories are the small, unassuming black ribbon perched in the back of her hair, and the silver pendant upon her neck.
Personality: Selma Rosmarie is first and foremost a throwback. A traditionalist raised by traditionalists, her pointedly rustic upbringing produced a girl all but convinced she'd be most at home in the thick forests and surrounded by nature rather your usual cityscapes. The family business of contributing to Valentia's agriculture is, unfortunately, as close as the towering young woman could hope to get. Her appreciation for a hard day's work, an honest character, and deep respect for innocent life permeate her to the core, plainly expressing themselves in (almost) faultless integrity, unassuming candor, and drive to protect people from any foes, be they from without or from within. While not well-read, and at times admittedly simple, she also carries with her a folksy wisdom that can only be cultivated by long days tilling what little fields mankind has left, alone with one's mind and the greenery. While technological integration is impossible to escape, she's definitely below par when it comes to utilizing it.
Her honesty is the source of her unshakable self-assurance, completely willing to speak her mind and open about all that she is. Hers is the uncomplicated pride of refusing to lie to herself, or anyone else. She likes what she likes, talks as she talks, and thinks what she thinks. You have to be strong and resilient, sure, but you also have to be true to your heart. Simple pleasures like dancing to a pleasant tune, making a friend laugh, and the rush of fighting for the good of the world are food for the soul. They deserve to be shared with any who'll have them.
Background: Selma was born at the outskirts of Valentia, to a humble family of farmers that emigrated during the First Void from the heavily wooded mountains of the Black Forest. Devastated by the loss of their ancestral home, the Rosmarie clan clung covetously, perhaps even desperately to every tradition they had— while they could no longer exactly be people of the countryside, they could remember it as dearly as possible. They dove into the role of agriculture as a means of both living off the land humanity had left, and recapturing what they could of their lives deep within the woodlands of what was once southern Germany. They did everything they feasibly could by hand, passed on old stories left behind in a single book of fairy tales, and spoke reverently of the old country, accounts from the past known by heart to each member. It was not easy to transmute a family from a forest of wood to the outskirts of one built from concrete, but they were mountain folk: hardy, rugged, and resilient enough to weather it.
In this environment, Selma was introduced very early to work on the fields, picking root vegetables come time for harvest, sorting them by hand, and resting beneath the shade of the family oak, planted and nurtured as an acorn by the first generation of Rosmaries to find safety behind the Sanctum. Her respect for these traditions is healthy and unwavering, even in the face of the confusion of her more normal peers and friends. Over the years, the family had become just about comfortably middle-class again by a combination of frugal living and a few
exceptionally good harvests after a begrudging "modernization" of their equipment. This coincided with Selma's first purchase of a phone, and perhaps more importantly her discovery of magical aptitude. Within this hardworking young woman was the potential to become one of the Ars Magi.
Her family could afford to let her take this to Nova Lux Academy now. She could go out and fight for what they had lost. Their land. Their home. The ground where they were meant to live and die. They gave her their well-wishes and unconditional support. This was bigger than them all. The big girl barely hesitated.
Armgaus Name: Verdant Moss Emerald
Gladius: A heavy, robust axe, cheekily named
'Kleinbruder'. Its weighty head is bearded, and equally suitable for chopping down trees and Voids alike, whilst its sturdy wooden handle is curved to maximize force delivery in either one or two-handed grips. Etched into the sides of the head are fullers that form a runic pattern.
Parma: Very much the same unmistakable Douglas Fir of a girl. When transformed, Selma's mistletoe eyes gain a faint, arcane luminescence, and her hair grows a truly
vibrant green. As for her attire, it hearkens to an idea of almost barbarism, tanned leathers and steel replacing the usual loose work shirts.
Elementum: Earth
Elementum Abilities: Ripper of soil, breaker of stone, maiden of mountains. The first thing about Selma is that she is
strong, large frame and a lifetime of labor bolstered by the very earth she strikes. As indomitable and everlasting as the Black Forest range her family hails from, the girl's force of will and connection to the earth manifest as seismic tremors, effectively the ability to create crevasses, violent upheavals, and even the odd localized earthquake on contact. Her bones are hard, her skin tough, and her spirit endless, she's about as easy to knock down as the Alps even when not transformed. A lifetime of feeling soil beneath her feet has given her a good sense for how it vibrates, allowing her to pick up on most land movements larger than those of a vole. Seems to have some form of kinship with all but the most violent beasts of the wild. That, or errant birds genuinely do mistake her for a tree.