Cafeteria, Fortuna | In Orbit over Arish IV February 21st, 3061
"A lovely viewpoint, Ms. Holliday. I wish I was still as young and—"
Captain to exo-pilots, assemble in the hangar and prep your Frames for deployment. We got ourselves a contract. Will debrief you all when I get there.
She took a long, deep breath and let it out in a satisfied sigh, a small smile plastering itself to her face. "I would love to continue this conversation, truly. Perhaps later?" Then, shoving her tray to the side—she really didn't know how many nutrient cubes she'd eaten at this point but she really, genuinely didn't care—she shoved her chair back and stood, giving Mox a nod and then turning to William, the smile on her face growing just a little wider. "Tomorrow then, little prince!" Turning her back on them, she quickstepped over to the cafeteria door and rammed it open. The smile on her face stayed.
Inasmuch as she could really feel emotions, there was one pumping through her right now: anticipation. She hadn't been on a battlefield—a real, military battlefield (she'd been a Major, right? It was sometimes hard to remember)—in quite a long time. But still, every time she headed to where her beloved was resting, she felt her pulse quicken at the thought of mounting up again.
It wasn't long until she made it to the hangar. She'd almost run there, after all, and it was still mostly empty. Finally she reached her goal: on the far left side, two from the edge, was a monolithic beast of metal and bad news. She stroked it gently. "The joints are looking decent," she muttered to herself. "Hopefully decent enough." Last time she'd taken Perses out for a spin, she'd ended up raining hellfire with her induction cannon, missile pods, machine guns and retrofitted plasma cannon all at the same time, and the left ankle joint had broken loose. It had been unusable since. But now? Good as...well, not good as new, but good enough. Her eyes flicked up to the barrel of the Thanatos folded up on its back. "Good. Excellent."
Now all she needed to do was wait for Captain Deckard and the other pilots to get down here for briefing.
Full Name - Sansean (saun-shin) Ilietor Age - 30 Gender - Female Vocation - Caster Nationality - Scila, though now she's something of a drifter now
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Acerbic Sansean isn't exactly the friendliest woman out there. All of the diplomatic language that she once used has been firmly kicked in the face, beaten to the ground, and kicked again. She's now firmly entrenched into a woman that's at once totally blunt and extremely sharp-tongued, with no time for peoples' nonsense.
Prideful She may not be proud of what she did, but she is proud of why she was able to do it. Sansean is extremely intelligent. And she knows it. With a knack for structure and an ability to retain memory and information second to none, her intelligence and knowledge is a point of incredibly pride for her, and she has no time or patience for people who tell her they know better than she does.
Impatient "On time" is not good enough for Sansean. A leftover of her time as a figure of significant authority, she is used to telling people what to do and having them do it. She's never quite recovered after losing that ability to command immediately, and thus she has great difficulties with tolerated delays, accidental or otherwise.
G I F T
Atonement Sansean will remember what she did in Algaeon to her dying day, however far ahead that may be. She feels its burden weighing on her shoulders at every hour, and she knows that nothing she can do will ever purge that darkness. But that doesn't mean she won't try. Upon touching another being, she can burn away her Embersoul, suffering a great deal of pain and drawing closer to turning to ash. In exchange, though, she can impart the power of regeneration that the Embersoul grants her upon another. There's a harsh exchange rate, surely; the energy to repair someone else's wound or sickness is four to five times the energy it would take her to repair herself. In life, inconvenient. In battle, extremely dangerous. Still, this most unexpected power to give her own life to another is something no other hunter can boast. This is not her Gift. It is theirs.
E Q U I P M E N T
The Aschmat Grimoire A spellbook created many years ago by an incredibly powerful aeromancer, a remnant of Aschmat leaked into the book that remained by his side for his entire life, imbuing it with sentience, sapience, and a semblance of life. It can't walk, it can't speak out loud, it can't manipulate the world in any way. What it can do is magically levitate beside its wielder, psychically speak to whomever it chooses (usually Sansean at the moment), and choose whether or not to cast what spells remain within its stained pages.
Physical Description
A tall woman of nearly six feet and rail-thin, Sansean doesn't so much stand as she looms, her narrow and pale-gold eyes holding undisguised judgement for anybody that they play over. Deep green hair frames a delicate face, long strands of it falling down to her waist in front. Her mouth is forever twisted into a frown, though whether sad or irritated, it's difficult to tell. Her body, in defiance of her Hunter strength, looks soft and weak, with little discernable musculature. She stays back in fights most of the time, and until she became a Hunter she was an academic and researcher more than anything else.
Her clothing is long and baggy, usually done up in some variety of green and capped with a deep brown robe of dense fabric. Though of course she never grows cold, the rain will always be uncomfortable, and it's convenient to be able to pass as a normal human being. In addition, it serves to mask the long strings of elaborate magical formulae tattooed all across on her upper back, shoulders, and and upper arms.
Character Conceptualization
As far as cities without bias go, Scilis is not one of them
The level of anti-Midnosian and Ldranti sentiment is...unsurprising. And understandably so, really; a countrywide slavery is still fresh in their collective psyche, and the festering open wound has only been bandaged by the Void Eclipse. Not clotted, not scarred, and certainly not healed. And the Scilis that Sansean was born was barely even bandaged. The Great War was still raging under the sun when she took her first breath. It was some months before the lights abruptly went out and the tenuous peace was struck.
As Sansean grew, she was surrounded with this fierce and independent hatred. It mattered very little that she had no context whatever for it; it was impressed into her young brain the same by her parents, who had fought in the rebellion themselves. She grew up with the firm belief that Midnos and Ldrant were just waiting for the sun to rise to continue their conquest. Around this time—perhaps twelve years after the Eclipseshe took a deep interest in the natural world. With the Hearths surrounding Scilis built by this time, it was safe enough for her to poke around the strange ways life had started to adapt without a sun to guide it. As she aged, this grew into a more scholarly interest in how things ticked, how they were structured. And as her nascent pyromancy began to develop a touch more, she began to research that too; the structure of magic, and all the ways it could be bent without breaking.
Her parents took note of this eventually, and instead of dissuading it, they asked an old friend of theirs whether or not he could make use of it. At seventeen years old, her intelligence, scholarly nature, and deep interest in how and why the world around her functioned earned her a spot at a place that would define her for the rest of her life:
The Locke Institute at Algaeon.
It was an unprecedented opportunity for her. A whole world had opened up for her and she embraced it with a fervent and delighted energy, growing her understanding and skill every day she studied there. She grew through the ranks rapidly, her meticulous eye and unmatched ability to retain and synthesize information quickly catching the attention of Locke himself. And just as valued was her clinical eye and loose relationship with value and conscience. Loose enough that she barely batted an eye at the horrors of the Pit and the crushing darkness of the ember farm.
More time passed. More pyromancer children came and went. She moved up more and more until she essentially became Locke's right hand, a firsthand observer of the conditioning and a confidante of all of his strange secrets.
Which was why she raised an eyebrow when he began a project that he didn't tell her anything about. It was completely blank to her; the only context she was given was "I'll have less time. I can't tell you why." And, a good assistant, she didn't pry. Years later until he finally unveiled the project: a new Hunter procedure. It was almost finished. But even looking at the formulae and procedure, she could see a few tiny errors here and there. He handed it off to her for finalization. She toiled on it for several weeks until she finalized her edits, creating a copy for her own records, then handing it off to Locke. And when the first melter came off the proverbial production line, she beamed with a fearsome smile.
A few weeks later, though...something began to bother her. A strange, niggling feeling in her chest whenever she saw one of the children go under the hunter's knife. And another week or so later, she realized what it was.
It was her conscience.
From that point on, she played...damage control. Not around Locke; she was careful to keep her previous persona up as best as possible whenever she was with him. But whenever he was gone—and she knew—he wouldnd't return and she was safe—she would sneak in to the poor children that Locke was grooming for their deaths or undeaths. She would talk with them. Give them little bits of real food. Stroke their hair, if they let her. But as more and more fell and became melters, she was certain: she couldn't stay. She just couldn't. She went to her small room-cum-office and, with the help of a particularly compliant child who had been conditioned and, as a side effect of her stay in the pit had lost her tongue and couldn't spill a secret, she tattooed every word, ever number, every symbol of her revised Lockesian Embersoul formula across her body before taking all of her notes and and, with a brief pulse of pyromancy, setting them ablaze. Then, with nothing left to her name but her deep brown robe to hide the horror on her body, she ran off into the night.
For the next year, she wandered, an itinerant healer. Her knowledge of anatomy and the human body allowed her to be a very efficient medic. To her, it was a form of repentance: all the poor children she had sent to the gallows weighed heavily on her mind, and every life she couldn't save only brought that crushing weight down harder. No matter what she did, she couldn't purge the memories of those children screaming as forever-pain overwhelmed them for the rest of their short lives. It was a constant terrible companion that she bore quietly and painfully. And so she eventually came to a conclusion of what she needed to do to repent all those that had become hunters because of her, and she traveled to Kethiline.
As she was recovering from the procedure, a new Gift for healing and a new and burning pain fresh within her, she discovered a strange book on the library shelf. And when she opened it, it sprang into the air next to her and...began to talk. Aschmat, it introduced it—himself, or at least his old grimoire that now had a kind of life. It had been cooped up in the library for over a century, it told her. And she would give her all the power that she asked of it—if it deemed it a good idea, of course—as long as she took it away from here.
Now her lifestyle as a wandering healer has been restored, this time far more powerful with the addition of her Gift. And with ever life saved and ever burn from the Embersoul within her blood, every town saved from destruction from the fire and lightning she and the Aschmat Grimoire scoured the Void with, she felt herself drawing ever closer. Perhaps she would never truly be able to redeem herself for all the pain she caused. Perhaps it would swing ever closer, but the asymptotic graph of forgiveness of sins would never truly be crossed.
Full Name - Sozaelamine Vaega Aricia Age - 27 Gender - Female Vocation - Warden Nationality - Midnos
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Dutiful Sozaelamine—or Soza, as she's more commonly called—takes what she does very seriously. Not only as a Hunter, but as a citizen and knight of Midnos as well. And this carries over to essentially everything she feels is her duty as well. Whether it's wiping out the Void, protecting Midnos, keeping its people safe and happy (as much as possible, at least), or finding a lost child for a frantic mother, she approaches everything with the same level of focus.
Decorous Soza is remarkably well-mannered, owing in great part to how dutiful she is. She is a knight and guard of Midnos, after all; pissing people off would be quite counterproductive to her job, and it would certainly strain her relationship with her colleagues and make it more difficult to rely on them in a tense situation. She is very well practiced in reading the room, and equally well practiced in responding to the room accordingly.
Self-Aggrandizing Still, for all that she tries to work well with others and keep herself focused...she's quite heroic, don't you think? She certainly does. She views herself as a paragon of valor and Midnosian virtue, and she tends to carry herself as such. She isn't so much self-centered; after all, isn't one of the heroic virtues selflessness? But she builds herself up in her own mind, doing her best to always carry forth that knightly spirit to the point of obsession. There's no way she'll live up to Keypeir's legacy otherwise. Perhaps she never will regardless. But she needs—she needs—to at least believe it's possible, or else everything falls apart.
G I F T
Fires At Midnight The hope that she can be like her mentor burns bright in her heart. Brighter in her Embersoul. So bright that it overflows and catches the rest of her, turning her into a blazing brand against the darkness.
With a thought, she can transmute objects she's touching into flame. It maintains its shape and other physical characteristics, though it gains the intangibility of fire. It can only hold for so long, and the time grows shorter and shorter as the object itself grows larger, and she cannot use it on living things—even the Void. As soon as she releases the object, the flames die out and it reverts to its concrete form.
E Q U I P M E N T
Branding Blaze "A blade for humans, a flame for the Void."
Soza wields two weapons in her duties both as a Hunter and a Knight. In her right hand, she wields her longsword Craech, a long, slim blade equally suited to thrusting as it is slicing, and she wields it with great proficiency. However, its size and weight makes it prohibitive to use her Gift on. Thus it's usually used for mortal enemies, or for keeping space when fighting the Void so she can use her other weapon, Tein.
At first glance, Tein looks nothing like a weapon. Rather, it takes the form of a long orange ribbon trailing from her shoulder that she slides down to her wrist in combat. When combined with her Gift, though, it becomes a whirling lash of fire that she dances ever so gracefully through the Void with. There is not a single Tein; though the tattered appearance of her weapon proves this one has lasted some time, it's still a piece of cloth most of the time, and needs to be replaced regularly.
Physical Description
Slender and short—only an inch or two above five feet and not quite skinny enough to see her ribs, but almost—Advance-Captain of the Midnosian Pyromancer-Knights is not the first thing that comes to peoples' minds when they see Sozaelamine Vaega Aricia. There are people who have asked her whether or not she's playing in her daddy's armor, ignoring the perfect fit, the hand resting on the pommel of the longsword, the confidence in her stance, the hard set of her soft young face, and the glaring judgement that dances behind her brilliant purple eyes. For the most part, she wears her knight's armor; plates of intimidating metal backed by chainmail and fitting like a glove. Done up in gleaming silver-black and chased with bright orange, it truly fits her like a glove. Since her transformation into a hunter, she's foregone the helmet, letting her short, pale gray hair fall freely.
She moves with a practiced grace that shows how skilled she is, and how strong. Not a foot out of place, not a move too sloppy, she is extremely invested in being skilled and in showing how skilled she is. Tein in particular rises and falls like a dancer's ribbon, scything through Voidlings in the dozens, if not hudreds.
Character Conceptualization
There was a silver spoon in Sozaelamine's mouth from the second she was born.
The scion of the illustrious Aricia family, she truly was coddled as a child, and through many of her formative years. Her parents spoiled her rotten and she wanted for pretty much nothing at all. Instead she looked over Midema from the balcony of her parents' manor and thought of herself as the master of all she saw.
Some years went by and she got slapped in the face with a harsh dose of reality when her parents grew sick of her indolence and kicked her out of their house. Not permanently, but long enough for her to spend some time having a think about who she wanted to be instead of slacking off all day. It was the Void Eclipse, there was no room for people like that in Midnos.
In the span of one night, Sozaelamine was catapulted from the highest rung of society down to the lowest level, booted firmly into the dirt of Midema. Her only option was to pull herself out of that dirt (well, it wasn't her only option, but something inside her refused to let herself creep back to her family in failure). So instead, she did exactly as her parents wanted and started getting her hands dirty. Over the next few years, she worked odd job to odd job and began to value the freedom more than the comfort, and stayed gone. Her muscles grew hard. Her eyes grew sharp. And one day—completely by chance—she happened to run into a woman named Keypiir in all her knight's finery. She saw Keypiir, and was instantly enraptured by this member of the Pyromancer-Knights. And Keypiir, for her part, looked at this young woman—still a girl, really, only barely fifteen—and saw within her the makings of a fine knight.
And so that is what she became. Taken underneath Keypiir's wings, she steadily rose through the ranks. As did Keypiir. Ten years hence, she attained the illustrious title of Advance-Captain. Sozaelamine, of course, what thrilled for her. Over the years, the two of them had formed a very close mentor-student relationship. And even something almost sisterly.
All that changed during one fateful defense of Galah, a small settlement in the outlying regions of Midnos. The hunters were dispatched elsewhere, and so the Pyromancer-Knights stood before the Void.
Too much. Too much. They were overwhelmed quickly, and the end of the world stood before them. All of the Pyromancer-Knights retreated, with the exception of Keypiir, still fighting to evacuate all the villagers, and Sozaelamine, who stood paralyzed looking out at the horror-night.
Then Keypiir—strong, brave Keypiir—ran up to her, brandishing a blade in her right hand a flame in her left, and let a small, sad smile show. "Live, Soza. Live."
She threw herself forward.
Sozaelamine ran.
Her next dream was tormented by the images of Keypiir's last moments. She should have been braver. She needed to braver. She needed to be as brave as Keypiir. She needed to be Keypiir, to show her fortitude and bravery to everyone. She needed to destroy the Void, just as her beloved mentor had tried to do so valiantly that horrible night.
And so, Advance-Captain Aricia submitted herself to the ministrations of Queen Ezlineia, and let the flame become her. Let it forge her into a brand against the eternal night, so that one day, she can purge the cloying guilt that clings to her, and make Keypiir proud.
Full Name - Cecilia 'CC' Mayhew Monaghan Age - 24 Place of Origin - Beverly Hills, South California, USA Occupation - Burned-out Hypersuccessful Child Actor
A V A T A R
Character's Name - Vizera Aykthos Pathos Affiliation - Draethir Role - Pure melee DPS Profession - Alchemist Weapon of Choice - Dual swords Domains - Fire; Enhancement, Manifestation -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Tired Though of course CC and Vizera aren't recognizably the same person in Pariah Online, many of the personality traits she's developed from being plagued with constant watchers--parents, studio, media--carry over, and none are as prominent as how tired she seems. Not tired as in 'wants to go to sleep,' but rather, 'exhausted by the world.' She would likely be more aggressive towards people now that she can get away with it, but she's just so drained from her day-to-day life that she doesn't even have the energy for that.
Irritable Out-and-out aggression is, as mentioned, not in her wheelhouse often because of how existentially tired she is. But annoyance and irritation don't take as much effort. And she really is one of the two often; as often as she can be. It's not really that she enjoys it, but there's a certain catharsis that comes from being able to freely express her emotional state--something she can't do IRL--that she has a really bad tendency to indulge in, to the point where simply the state of being annoyed is almost an addiction.
Oh Boy, She's Got A Complex Years of guilt-tripping and near-psychological abuse from her parents--who she sometimes thinks see her more as a meal ticket to Hollywood than a daughter to care about--has really done a number of CC's psychological well-being, and this might translate the best out of all her personality traits. Most of the time, she acts like you might expect an incredibly rich, probably spoiled girl living in her parent's mansion in Beverly Hills might; self-centered, dismissive of others, and arrogant beyond belief. But this is mostly a facade--one that's so firmly entrenched in her identity through years of hiding her feelings that it remains even in the dreamscape world of Pariah. Dig a little bit, and you'll find that she's sitting on a deep, deep well of self-loathing and inferiority, all hidden behind her thin smug-bitch veneer.
B E N C H M A R K S
Heat-Drinker Vizera has a very specific manner of using her magic; her playstyle has become so hyperspecialized that she can't even use normal Primordial fire spells most of the time. All of her DPS is fueled by Heat, which she needs to acquire by using her usual damage spell, Heat-Siphon, to siphon it off enemies, dealing a little bit of frost damage and slowing in an area of effect, siphoning a bit of Heat off everyone she hits. Once she's gotten enough Heat, though, she can unleash it in several different incredibly powerful abilities that fully manifest her insanely destructive fire DPS.
Bladestorm Of course, she needs to have some way to back up her DPS when she can't unleash Heat, and between cooldown periods of Heat-Siphon. Thus, even though most of her DPS comes from magic damage--channeled through her weapons or not--she's also pretty competent as using her swords on their own. She's certainly not master at it--it's not where her damage really lies--but hey, it's something.
Alchemistress When she was first searching out a profession in Pariah, Vizera was mostly looking for something to do when something horrible had happened IRL and her hands were shaking too much for her to hold on to the handles of her swords. Over time, though, she discovered that her chosen profession--alchemy, specifically beneficial potions over poisons--really did help to calm her nerves. It's almost a meditative thing for her, and she uses it in that capacity almost more than she uses it for the pure material benefit that potions grant. She's gotten decent at it--not great, mind you--but decent.
Hit and RUN Because of her on-and-off playstyle, alternating periods of big damage falloff with absolutely absurd levels of DPS--enough to keep her on par with (or at least only slightly behind) consistent DPS builds by sheer virtue of how powerful her Heat-fueled abilities are--she can't afford to lose even a second of her main damage phases, or her overall DPS plummets like nothing else. So, she's learned to be very sparing with exactly when she decides to go in, and to invest most of her energy when her Heat isn't up not in dealing damage like a normal DPS, but rather in constant, consistent dodging.
Physical Description
Cecilia Monaghan, known sometimes as CC, has a bit of a weird appearance. She has all the makings of someone stereotypically beautiful; California-sunkissed skin, wispy hair a beautiful honey-blonde, and--one of her really big claims to fame as an up-and-coming child star--eyes that appeared more purple than blue, like the old actress Elizabeth Taylor's were supposed to be. She's 5'6" and well-proportioned, with a symmetrical face and a cute button nose. Her figure, too, is no slouch; while certainly not an hourglass, her pear-shaped hips have certainly turned some heads over the years, even before she started obsessively padding her chest to make her appearance more balanced. But the thing is...she has all these makings of a beautiful woman, but methodically and categorically refuses all of them. She spends all her time inside, ruining her complexion. She refuses to wash and brush her hair most of the time, leaving it a matted, greasy, tangled mess. As mentioned, she does her best to balance out her prominent hips with a padded bust. Her lovely face is twisted with the most unpleasant, grumpy expressions 99% of the time she's conscious. She's the picture-perfect epitome of, well, what she is: a formerly-popular child star, now long burnt out.
Vizera, on the other hand, is what CC longs to be more than anything. She's not beautiful in the same revolting 'cute' way that Cecilia has always been considered, ever since she was catapulted into fame. She's sleek. Dangerous. All of the curves in her hips that she detests are smothered, and her modest bust follows suit, leaving her a tall, thin, whiplike woman with a jagged expression on her face, halfway between a grin and a grimace. Her usual attire--board shorts and a tank top--are discarded for a long, dramatic, black trench coat, capped with a feathered hat. Of course, Cecilia is still visible underneath--her hair is the same color, and her face has the same shape, her skin is still the same tan. If you looked carefully enough, you could easily pin the washed-up child star to Vizera. But one very important thing has changed: ever since the pressure started building, Cecilia learned to hate her violet eyes. They brought her nothing but attention, and she wanted absolutely zero to do with them. This, at least, is a wish that has been granted to her by Pariah: her eyes are a merciful red-orange.
Character Conceptualization
Vizera probably doesn't like you.
Or, well, that's what she lets on. Which might make you wonder why she spends time around you, because she sticks around for some weird reason. And it probably confuses you for quite some time, since she seems to...well, she doesn't seem to have the energy to hate your guts, but she seems like she would if she did.
But then you realize a couple days in when you're on a dangerous dungeon delve that gives you literally no loot and Vizera insists on accompanying you--and you can see her resisting being closer to you when you're moving through the dungeon--that Vizera probably doesn't dislike you. Or, well, she doesn't dislike you as much as she can not dislike anybody. No, what you end up realizing halfway through this lootless dungeon after Vizera stays close to you instead of wandering off searching for whatever someone might have missed is that, past her layers of irritability, annoyance, and bullshit, Vizera is desperately lonely.
And yet--in a seeming contradiction that might leave you confused if you don't understand what's led her to that point--she really seems to hate it when attention is on it. To DESPISE it in a truly fantastical way. She'll nose into your life, sure, but if you ask her a single thing about herself, either in game or IRL, she clamps her mouth closed in record speed and moves on. The insane pressure that has been placed on Cecilia for most of her life, and certainly all of her adult life, gives her an intense aversion to being the center of attention, and this carries through into Vizera just as strongly. She's done things that some would balk at to avoid being known; she monitors her position on the DPS leaderboard OBSESSIVELY, and whenever it breaks into the top five thousand slots she goes on a rampage of terrible group dungeoneering, throwing herself into hordes of enemies without building up her Heat and barely making it out in time to be healed. She throws entire dungeon raids into the garbage for the sole purpose of making as few waves in Pariah's overall community as she possible can. After all, better to be 'that one shitty DPS that ruined our raid' than a celebrity here too; one that will inevitably burn out once again.
She also seems to be online a lot more than most people are. She'll log time into Pariah for over ten hours a day, and that's part of the reason that she's managed such a specialized build and such a high level, despite only playing for a couple months at this point.
Recently, she's found another way to avoid notice; despite her trash position on the boards, she's managed to finagle her way into a guild called the Gloro Inquisitors with a couple well-done raids, and remains near the very bottom of the guild. After all, goes her rationale, who are paid less attention than the worst members of a good guild?
Other Information
Fever Drive - Vizera's main DPS ability. Ignites her swords in fire, extending her attack range by almost double and massively empowering her movement speed, attack speed, and damage. Every enemy she kills during the duration replenishes some of her Heat. She can't cancel this ability; it continues until her Heat runs out.
Burn The Sky - A channeled ability that unleashes a huge beam of intense fire wherever Vizera directs with her hands, dealing huge fire DPS. Lasts a maximum of six seconds.
Flamebreak - The only hard CC that Vizera has access to in her kit. It has two functions: the first drains a small amount of Heat to place a Break Rune on the target, stacking up to ten runes. These last until she detonates them. The second detonates all the runes on a specific target, dealing damage--from relatively minor to the most burst damage she can pack at once--based on the amount of runes on the target, and stuns them for around a second. Best used if it's too dangerous to either go into melee range for Fever Drive, or to stay still for Burn The Sky.
Firefly - Expends Heat per second to give Vizera unrestricted flight. If she runs out of Heat during the duration, the wings immediately die, leaving her fairly vulnerable to fall damage if she's not paying close attention to her Heat.
"Yes, my father is an English teacher. Yes, he named me. No, I'm not happy about it."
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I R L
Full Name - Edgar Poe Allen Age - 28 Place of Origin - Duluth, Minnesota Occupation - Physicist with a PhD in fusion physics
A V A T A R
Character's Name - Hvitørn Pathos Affiliation - Queon Role - Magic DPS (Burst Damage) Profession - Enchanter Weapon of Choice - Crystal Focus Domains - Light; Manifestation -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Dry As The Atacama Hvitørn is the most deadpan person you've ever met. At first glance—and second, third, fourth and fifth glances—he has the emotional range of a handful of sand. Once you get past that dense outer shell, though, he has the emotional range of...a box of sand. That's not to say he doesn't experience emotion. Of course he does. But he weird way of processing it. The only way to tell if he's sad is to watch for a downward quirking of right side of his mouth. You can tell he's happy with an upward quirk instead. If you manage to make him laugh, you might hear a sharp exhalation from his nose that could just as easily be confused for frustration.
I Will Have Your Back. If You Will Have Mine. Edgar is very reliable in combat. Of course, he's a magic-user with no armor; he's not going to jump in between you and a boss to body block it anytime soon. But he holds himself to an incredibly strict standard of gameplay. Once you're partied up with him, he's a consummate professional, and he's in it for the long haul. Even when everyone's ready to throw the towel in a raid, he keeps pumping out 110%. And holds other people to that standard. He won't insult you or anything if you give up; he knows that it's more frustrating for you than it is for him. But he will remember your avatar's name. And from that point on, you might find it difficult to get him to party with you. He doesn't give very many second chances.
I Know What I'm Doing, Thank You Very Much. And just as he holds himself to a strict standard in gameplay, he holds himself to a strict standard in every other aspect of his life. Thus, he finds it very difficult to accept help. Of course, he won't let this compromise a raid or anything like that; he's not that stubborn. But outside of a dungeon, he is very invested in doing everything for himself, from managing his relationships and emotions, to managing what enchanted items he's going to sell or keep, to judging when to repair or replace pieces of equipment. It's not that he thinks other people are incompetent or stupid. He's just a very self-assured, confident man who knows he's smart, and he is certain he knows himself best.
B E N C H M A R K S
Theory of Everything Hvitørn wants to know EVERYTHING. About EVERYTHING. He wants to know how the world TICKS. And that desire to know the workings of things is what drew him to enchanting in Pariah. He finds the strict structure and nature of it endlessly interesting, and has busied himself in exploring the fascinating cause-effect sequence that governs the process of enchanting an item. He's gotten fairly decent at it, applying the same dedication to it that he did his doctorate studies. In fact, it's the first thing that drew him to the game; that almost physics-esque puzzle.
Speed Of Light Ever invested in learning more about enchanting, Hvitørn eventually ran up against the wall of required reagents, and realized and accepted that he would need to throw himself into harder, even endgame, content in order to continue his studies. Wanting to spend as little time as possible gathering and as much time as possible working—yes, he considers studying enchantments a field of study now—he adopted a playstyle that would, all things being ideal, help him acquire the necessary components the fastest. He deals massive amounts of damage from long range with light magic, and though his heavy damage spells have a high fatigue cost and he can't spam them nearly as much as he wished, they are almost instant, letting him clear rooms with a team incredibly quickly. If a full rotation can't clear a good chunk of a room or a chunk of a boss' health bar, though, he's going to have a harder time, since he has a long downtime on his major spells.
Rapid Analysis Hvitørn is smart. He's spent a long, long time using his brain and honing his intelligence, and he's incredibly proud of it. What this leads to in Pariah is an incredible ability to analyze and plan around a situation. He keeps a calm head (not that you'd notice if he didn't) and runs through his mental checklist at Mach 10, coming up with half a dozen workable plans in a very short amount of time. They certainly aren't foolproof, as he can't account for things that he has zero way of knowing, but in his firm opinion, any kind of plan—even an incomplete, faulty one—is better than flying by the seat of one's pants.
I Have No Idea How To Deal With This. Hvitørn is...bad at emotions. Not his own; he can deal with those fine in his own way. No, he's very, very bad at other peoples' emotions. His overly analytical nature is a double-edged sword that way; with the exception of his wife, if there's someone sobbing in front of him, he treats their problems as a logical problem to solve, approaching it with all the delicacy of pounding a screw into a plaster wall. And when this backfires on him, he has no idea how to deal with the ensuing emotional fallout, and the unexpected pang of self-disappointment that comes along with it.
Physical Description
Edgar is interesting among Pariah inhabitants, in that his quiet self-confidence causes his avatar Hvitørn to look exactly the same as him, with the exception of haircut and clothing. Golden-blonde hair inherited from his Norwegian mother, her incredibly fair skin so prone to burning in the sun, his father's amber-hazel eyes and six-foot lanky frame—everything about him just screams 'golden child,' metaphorically and literally. At work, Edgar wears standard laboratory protective equipment; long white lab coat over a button-up shirt, gloves, heavy trousers, smart formal loafers, and safety glasses over his own narrow rectangular wireframes. When not working, even when just walking down the street, he wears a smart, bespoke black suit in the business-casual style over any number of dress shirts, as well as black socks and more formal loafers. He really does need to be alone with his wife in his apartment to be anything less than business casual.
In Pariah, he has a similar sense of style. Close-fitting, equally-bespoke mage robes, done up in black with white trim and embroidery. He makes the concession of wearing well-tooled boots instead of his loafers. He carries his spellcasting focus—a brilliant pale yellow gemstone the size of his fist—with him at all times in a pocket concealed in his robes' voluminous sleeves. His trademark wireframe glasses remain, perched on the bridge of his nose at all times; though he doesn't need them to see as there is no astigmatism in Pariah, they're so integral to his self-image that they go everywhere with him. The only time he takes time to calmly remove them is if an enemy is closing in on him. It wouldn't do for an impertinent goblin to break them with a lucky hit, after all.
Character Conceptualization
Golden child indeed.
The middle child of five siblings—all sisters—Edgar was anything but the golden child. Quiet and unassuming since childhood, his busy, busy parents did their best, but he had the least attention lavished on him of the entire family. And you know what? He was fine with that. He was independent and driven, a model student. He didn't know exactly what to apply himself to as he aged; he enjoyed schooling well enough through middle and early high school, taking home perfect grades every time as though it were effortless. But at home, his parents were beginning to be concerned; with their daughters mostly out of the house, whether it be to occupation, college, or socializing, they realized how listless their only son seemed. But whenever they asked him what was wrong, they received a noncommittal answer as he stared off into space.
And then everything changed in his junior year with AP Physics. And he fell in love with it.
Suddenly, his home life shifted dramatically. He talked excitedly about what he was learning with his parents and his sisters, when they were home. He spent most of his free time poring over his textbook, lips quirked in a satisfied smile, as he relished the sensation of unraveling the mysteries of the universe.
With his perfect GPA and self-surety, he magnetized to MIT, voraciously consuming every single physics course they had on offer and striking a special chord with nuclear physics. He spent every spare moment studying. He aced all of his classes. And it was only in the first semester of his senior year, when he tried to talk to classmates about what he'd been studying and they looked at him like he was insane, that he realized he had...no friends.
None.
Of course, he hadn't been close to many people in high school, but he'd always had his sisters, and a couple acquaintances. But now, for the first time, he was alone. So terribly alone.
He kept working. He kept getting those perfect grades he was so proud of. But the excitability in his voice when he was answering in class was gone. He enjoyed it still, but it all felt so...hollow. He applied for grad school at MIT. Got in, of course. Kept learning. Felt hollow. Kept studying. Felt inferior. Kept moving. Felt distant. Stopped eating. Kept going. He realized he'd only lived for his studies. Ever. First grade through grad school. No friends. Not really.
Felt empty. Kept working.
Then, when he was 23, at the height of his isolation and depression, he met a graduate student of particle physics named Annalise Turner. And for the first time in his sad, limited life, when someone talked to him, he talked back to her. She was incredibly smart and liked to joke around, as little as he laughed. But, more important to Edgar, she seemed to have an inborn talent to cut through his deadpan expressions to figure out what was going on underneath. She teased him with impunity, but it was never malicious; she saw that he was incredibly alone. And she felt very, very sorry for him. They ended up spending a huge amount of time together, whether it was studying their respective fields or just...talking.
No points for guessing what happened next.
With her help and support—and eventually, her love (which he was very bad at dealing with, she laughed lightly)—he got through school. Graduated with honors when he was 27. Got a job in one of the fusion plants near Minneapolis. And then, thinking about everything that had happened in the past few years. All the new feelings that he'd experienced. All the confidence that he'd regained. And then, at the headwaters of Lake Itasca—in the fourth year of their relationship—he went down on one knee and proposed to Ms. Turner, with that same grave expression that he always wore. She gave a tearful yes.
Then told him to cheer up, and pushed him into the lake.
Some time later, after they'd been married for about a year, he heard something from a colleague. A brand-new video game made in Japan with proprietary VR technology with an enchantment system more like a science than anything else. Interest piqued, he picked up a system, and started to play it occasionally when he had time off and Annalise was busy with her own job as a professor. His colleague was right; he found the enchantment system endlessly fascinating, and resolved to spend some more time trying to figure it out. He loved physics, but he felt like he was...plateauing a bit in what he could learn. But here was a whole new world to figure out.
He couldn't wait.
Other Information
Shine - A basic damage spell. Deals a moderate amount of light damage in a moderate AoE.
Prism Burn - After a brief charge-up, fires out seven instant rays of light. They stop upon impacting an enemy. Each does moderate damage, allowing him to spread it out or focus it down on one target, but for every ray that impacts the same enemy, the next does less and less damage.
Plasma Sear - The version of Prism Burn meant for a single target. It only fires out a single ray, still stops on the first enemy hit. But does SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than even focus-firing the rays from Prism Burn. Used for quickly burning down big enemies.
Perihelion - The area around Hvitørn lights up brightly. For the duration of the effect—about six seconds—every light spell that Hvitørn casts is heavily empowered and restores a fraction of its fatigue.
Backflash - An emergency "get-out-of-dodge" spell. Deals a small amount of damage in a small cone in front of Hvitørn, but launches him backwards, letting him escape from melee combat.
Stellar Fusion - The single most burst damage that Hvitørn can actually do, and the only spell he has that isn't instant-cast. He conjures a huge ball of light, and after a lengthy channel, condenses it down to a ball about the size of a golf ball. He can hold it in that state, but it tires him out to do so, and he can't move very quickly. When he releases it, the ball streaks off at incredible speed. When it makes contact with anything, it erupts into what is essentially a sun, dealing enormous light damage to anything caught in the (deceptively small) blast. This drains an enormous amount of fatigue, and is usually preserved for the boss of a raid.
Full Name - Briddell Loethwynn Age - 45 Gender - Female Vocation - Sentinel Nationality - Scila
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Misanthropic Briddell doesn't like people. Or perhaps it would be more apt to say she doesn't like humans. Owing to what happened to her beloved children, she professes loudly and often that she absolutely loathes human beings. The world is falling to pieces, and yet still—when there are Hunters that give up everything they are to protect them—they find a way to be cruel.
Protective Briddell is not one to let others take a hit if she can help it. She's stronger, she's tougher, and the pain only stokes her Gift. She will go out of her way to leap in the way of anything that might threaten her comrades, or, if she has time, to raise a wall of earth and stone before them. And despite her distaste for humanity, she places saving lives above all other duties of a Hunter for some reason...
Kind Perhaps it's because she can't really bring herself to hate them. As deeply as she buries it, as much cynicism and anger she layers on top of it, Briddell cannot hide the simple fact that she is kind. Openly so to Hunters, a bit more...complicated for humans, it doesn't matter. It is simply who she is.
G I F T
Crisis Kinetics Briddell is a kinetic person, always physical, always moving, always striking. And her Gift fits that exceptionally well. With every strike she takes, every lash of the Void or flame that sears her flesh, her Embersoul burns that much brighter within her chest. And as it does, she strikes ever harder. With each hit she takes she moves faster and hits harder, growing more and powerful as she takes more and more hits (resetting, of course, if her Ember needs to revive her).
She can release part of this energy into brief, powerful bursts of heat from her body, dimming some of the power she gains but letting her dart across the ground, slip to the side in a quick dodge, leap into the air, or slam down with all the power of a rockslide. The sheer, shattering force this allows her to bring to bear cannot be understated. This is the source of her crushing power. This is her Gift.
E Q U I P M E N T
Fists Like Meteors Briddell is a bit of an outlier, in that she doesn't actually have a single set weapon at all. Rather, she fights almost exclusively with her geomancy. Though it's versatile, able to create walls, blades, and crushing prisons (among others), she has one very much preferred form: a pair of massive gauntlets inches thick that completely enclose her hands and forearms, ripped straight from the earth beneath her. As one might expect, they are very heavy. And therein lies her secret. She uses her muscles to pilot them, certainly, and she is very much not weak. But she commands them with geomancy as well, fighting as much with her mind as her muscles.
But even so, they remain versatile. While she prefers to keep them in their fist forms for ease of use, she is quite practiced at manipulating them on the fly. Most commonly, she disassembles them and reforges them in front of her as a stone shield, or she channels her Gift through a fist, launching a hail of deadly stone shrapnel.
All that being said, this power is worthless where there is no stone for her shape. And though that's uncommon, it certainly isn't impossible.
Physical Description
The first thing that people notice about Briddell is how imposing she looks. Nearly six feet tall and very muscular and well-built, she very much looks the part of the frontline brawler that she is. A pair of narrow dull yellow-brown eyes that show a deep dissatisfaction with the world—and beneath that, a profound sorrow—sits beneath shoulder-length hair, strands split between a rich chocolate brown and a gleaming golden-blonde. She leaves it loose-hanging and tangled almost all the time, though with some brushing and styling it cleans up rather nicely. She carries herself proudly, but the tightness of her muscles and the lines on her face show the anger that boils underneath her skin.
She dresses in a traditional Scilari style done up in black and red-brown for the most part, but has cut a great deal of her clothing down to make it both less restrictive of movement and less terribly hot around the burning heat that is her Embersoul. On the occasion that she ever runs into polite company, she carries an equally traditional Scilari shawl-robe that drapes long sleeves over her arms, but leaves her hard shoulders exposed.
Character Conceptualization
Briddell grew up in a Scilari orphanage from ten years old, one of the countless children of the Great War. The matron of the orphanage, one Ina Tamwell, is still the kindest person she has ever met. With a full orphanage—twenty children—she still managed to give them all the attention that they wanted and the food that they needed, and always had a smile ready. The orphanage, positioned almost directly on the border of Scila with Midnos, never had a vacancy; whenever a child died, was adopted, grew up, any way of leaving, there was always another to fill the gap. Despite all of her siblings vanishing, Briddell grew up as a cheerful, helpful child. She had never been close to her parents, and they certainly hadn't been close to her; all she really had from them was the name Loethwynn, and so Ina was, as far as she was concerned, her real mother. So shouldn't she help with the chores?
As she grew, that helpfulness and desire to help her mother matured into a deep sense of responsibility. Ina had put her heart and soul into raising them, and though none of her original brothers or sisters were still there, even as she aged past childhood and into her adolescence, she remained. Not out of a feeling of obligation, but a genuine desire to help her adoptive mother as much as she could. Ina wasn't getting any younger. Her strength was beginning to flag, and she could no longer give every child of war the attention they deserved.
And then, when she was sixteen years old, the sun stopped shining.
From the darkness beyond the pale came the ravening Void. And though the war came to an end, there was still no shortage of orphans. Two years later, before the Hearths had been conceived, Ina—she was over sixty by then—took a fever that would not break. And though she tried her hardest, Briddell just...couldn't help her.
With their guiding light gone, the children—some too young to realize why the sun wasn't rising anymore—began to lose that spark of hope that had always defined Ina's orphanage. So Briddell, unwilling to see them lose anymore, stepped forward. The Tamwell Orphanage became the Loethwynn Orphanage, and though she was barely more than a child herself and the days of plenty were long gone—the nice meals that Ina fed them all those years ago were nothing but a fading dream now—she gave it everything she had. It was at this time that she began to really practice her latent geomancy in earnest, determined to keep the fires of her home burning bright.
Years passed, and she came into her own as the new matron, taking a fierce pride in being called "mother." Strong and protective, she sheltered all of the children under her wings as best she could. With the advent of the Hearths, the Void wasn't so bad. Ina took care of her at the epicenter of a colossal war. There was no reason she couldn't do the same for her children. She knew, sure as she knew her own name, that this was what she was meant to do.
And then—a full twenty years after the Eclipse—a renegade group known as the Red Branch came to the border, let by a man named Fray. She didn't pay much attention to their machinations; she was busy enough as it was. But then it became worth paying attention to when the Red Branch was destroyed. Midnosian pyromancers roamed the streets of villages, burning them to the ground and stacking blackened bodies high. Fires in the night no longer brought comfort, only another threat to contend with. And the region—already under a very tenuous peace before—was destabilized completely. What knifes-edge peace there had been before was thoroughly shattered, and her beloved children were left in ever more danger. The Red Branch had ruined the land, ruined the people, ruined everything. Everybody was in danger now, and it was all the fault of Fray. And with all the chaos, she became sure that her natural geomancy just...wasn't enough. And though she spent the next five years deliberating and weighing the odds, she knew in her heart what she needed to do.
And so she left her protege, the next director of the orphanage—a girl eighteen years old now who she'd raised nearly from birth she'd named Eva, and a budding powerful pyromancer in her own right—in charge, and traveled to Kethiline. She knew what being a Hunter meant. No taste. No sleep. A soul replaced, and condemned to die. And, of course, an eternal engine of pain burning within her for the rest of however much 'life' she had left. But, if it meant she could keep them safe for one second longer...no price was too high.
Two weeks. She was only gone for two weeks. But when she came back to the region, which was only barely managing to knit itself back together in the loosest sense, she found the Loethwynn Orphanage—her beloved, and her home—in ruins.
And worse...all of the children were gone.
There was nothing left for her here. Her life—what remained of it—was shattered. The agony coursing through her was all for nothing, wasn't it? And a fierce hate for humans was kindled in her heart.
She couldn't protect the children she'd spent her entire adulthood raising. And it tore her up inside like nothing else ever could. So what was she to do, now, with a long, empty unlife ahead of her? With nothing left but the clothes on her back and the stone beneath her feet? She would travel, fighting the Void wherever she found them. And searching. Searching for anybody who had some information about her children. They couldn't all be dead. She would never believe it.
And if she ever found the ones who took them—who had taken her life and torn it to pieces—she wouldn't hesitate to bring down the mountain upon them.
Full Name - Sirona Age - 24 Gender - Female Vocation - Kind of a weird fusion of a Caster and a Warden, really Nationality - Scila
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Tranquil Sirona is a little bit strange. Where some Hunters channel their pain into rage, some throw themselves wholeheartedly into defeating the Void, and some cling to a facsimile of a normal existence, Sirona is a constant picture of perfect placidity. She moves smoothly and gracefully and very, very rarely raises her voice, preferring passive aggression to visible frustration on the rare occasion that she shows anything other than a perfect calm.
Polite And pairing perfectly with that unbreakable tranquility is an almost excessive level of courtesy. Her comrades aren't addressed by their first names, but by Miss. Miss Fray, Miss Kimnothelis, Miss Stormbrew, Miss Ice. Authority figures are referred to by Master if they don't have a title, and their full title if they do. She almost never asks for anything of others, preferring to give help instead of receiving it.
Self-Sacrificing Giving help instead of receiving it indeed. Sirona has a really prominent (and some would say problematic) habit of throwing herself under the bus for the people around her. It's unclear why she does this, why she lays her own life down in service of others. Perhaps in those moments, she throws aside whatever artifice of humanity she's build around herself and becomes the weapon she was always meant to be...
G I F T
The Flame Unburned Sirona has a Gift most unlike her sisters. Perhaps one could even call it a balancing act; the opposite of what it is to be a Melter. Instead of forcing her Embersoul to the surface, it rips the heat from her body, leaving her in a state of perpetual cold, though to others her skin is painfully hot to the touch. And in exchange? Heat cannot touch her. No matter how much heat is poured into her—fire, lava, molten steel—the most it does is to warm her skin, bringing it just slightly closer to the seething blaze of the Embersoul within her. There is nobody else like this, nobody else with this strange inversion of what it means to melt. This is her fate. This is her burden. This is her Gift.
E Q U I P M E N T
Usariom, the Scar-Crown Nobody knows why Usariom was created. Perhaps it was for ritual. Perhaps it was for torture. Perhaps long ago, there was a way to use it that wasn't so inherently destructive. But if so, it has been lost to time, and all that remains is the Scar-Crown. It binds to the wielder for life, hanging above their head like a ravenous halo, completely immovable. When the head moves, the crown moves, and the same is true in reverse. And at an unseen command, Usariom blazes to life, pouring out streams of molten steel that cascade over the body of the wielder, almost invariably killing them as it pools on the ground.
Sirona is...uniquely qualified.
There are a few ways she tends to use this. Most commonly, she lets the molten metal run down her arms, then flicks liquid flame from her fingertips. With practice, she has achieved fairly precise control of this viscous liquid, allowing her to fling her hand wide and spread the devastation in a fan-shaped spray, or to, with the precise flick of a wrist, launch of a narrow spray at a surprisingly long range.
If, however, the Void is encroaching upon her faster than she can cut down with her molten steel, she can allow Usariom to flow freely, bathing her in a veil of liquid fire before she simply walks into the shadow. This is very much a risk-reward assessment for her. Usariom's fuel is not eternal. It does have a limit, past which the molten streams will thin, then stop entirely. If she is wielding it with her flicks, then it is inconvenient, but relatively harmless. But if she's walked directly into the Void and her crown of fire flickers and fades, then she is not long for this fallen world.
Physical Description
Owing to an entire childhood spent barely escaping starvation, stealing food from those more dominant than she, and having her fingernails torn off as a result, Sirona is a short woman, standing at just a hair beneath 5'2", and less slender than she is skinny. Her eyes are piercing ashen-white-gray, and seem a bit more...glazed than most. Her hair is a wild mess of stark whiteness, and her skin is almost completely white as well. Around her head looms the Scar-Crown Usariom, a jagged tangle of black iron and silvery steel that twists above her in a sick parody of a halo. One of the most important features she displays, though—and the most damning evidence of the life that was inflicted upon her—lies in her smile. Unwavering, unchanging, unbreakable; the calm smile, perfect down to the last muscle, is forever scarred into her face, and even she can't change it.
As a general rule, she wears long black clothing, usually fairly tight, with light plating here and there. The only thing that's truly ubiquitous is a thick black cloak pinned in front with the Scilari symbol. Because of a specific incident in the pit, she is missing the last knuckle of her left pinkie finger.
Character Conceptualization
Before she had a name, before she had a life, before she had anything at all to call her own, Sirona was only "L.I.-14, Group One, Number 22."
Her childhood, if you can call it that, was a nightmare of empty stomachs and constant pain. She never learned to dominate others, to force her will upon them, the way one needed to in order to eat in the pit of the Locke Institute. She never really even learned to fight. A scared, broken shell of a child, all she could do was sit alone in the dark and cry.
And as was the way of the pit, the only thing that crying earns you is more pain. It was a vicious cycle for Twenty-Two. Crying. Pain. More crying. More pain. No matter how much she needed to, she just couldn't stop the tears. And so, the rest of the pit kids learned very quickly that Twenty-Two wouldn't—couldn't—stop them from taking whatever they wanted from her. Food. Water. Space. Fingernails. And, on one occasion, the last joint of her left pinkie. Until one enterprising youngster, L.I.-14, Group One, Number 17, came up with a brilliant idea: if this weak dumb kid couldn't stop anybody from taking from her, then she wouldn't have food. She would be desperate. So Seventeen reached out a hand to her. She would be given food. Tiny scraps of it, but enough that she wouldn't starve. And all she needed to do was everything Seventeen said.
Of course, that news didn't spread any slower than the lack of resistance. From then on, Twenty-Two was mostly left alone in her dark corner. Until some other pit kid, one with a spine, came along and gave her direction in life. Servility was as natural and necessary as breathing.
And then, when she was perhaps eight or nine, came Papa Locke.
She didn't know why she was being pulled from the pit. She didn't know what Locke wanted from her. But she knew that he saved her. He lifted her from the dark corner where she cried and let her eat real food, and sleep in a 'bed,' which she thought must have been the closest thing to perfect there could be. Whatever he wanted, she would give it to him, as natural and necessary as breathing. He was her Papa, and she was his daughter. Years passed by, and she grew more and more devoted to him. There were many words that could be used to describe her. Docile. Servile. Subservient. Compliant. Passive. Locke taught her many lessons, which were burned and scorched and seared into her mind as thoroughly as her own thoughts: be polite. Be calm. Be obedient. Be diffident.
And, above all...smile.
She was perfect, she thought. A perfect daughter. A tool. Even a weapon, said Papa, though she didn't understand how.
Undergo this procedure, said Papa Locke. And with the bliss of serving, the perfect daughter did as she was told. She was polite. She was calm. She was obedient. She was diffident. And she smiled. Even when she was strapped down, when her mind nearly shattered from the agony as liquid fire roared through her veins, as her body shattered, snapped, broke down, only to be reconstructed...still she smiled, face twisted in a permanent rictus of tranquility. Be polite.
When the procedure was over, she was...different. The pain wasn't as mind-warping anymore, but it remained trapped within her chest like molten metal. But the outside...she shivered...the outside was freezing. And she couldn't get warm. She didn't understand. It was like a switch had been flipped in her head as soon as the straps were let loose. Why Papa would do this. Why he would put her through so much pain. Why Papa hated her. And yet on the outside, she showed nothing. None of the pain, none of the heartache, none of the scorn. Be calm.
Fine. If he hated her, then she could hate him in return. No longer Papa. Just Master Locke. But before she could really process what this meant—what she would do now that Master Locke hated her, and how to live in a world of ice—she was given a strange circlet of sharp, twisted metal. Place it over your head, they said. Be obedient.
The pain only became worse. So much worse. For a moment, there was a feeling like her head inverting itself, and then a feeling of a circle of blades slicing into it. When the pain abated—though, like before, it would never truly fade—she blinked the tears from her eyes—she couldn't stop them—the circlet hung above her head, locked there for the rest of her life. As she thought of it, it began to dribble streams of liquid-hot steel. And yet nothing touched her. Indeed, far worse than the feeling of the blaze was the guilt that screamed inside her because of those tears. Be diffident.
And so she was bound irrevocably to the Scar-Crown and taken to Scilis, where she learned who and what she now was. She was a Hunter. And just like Papa—just like Master Locke said she would be, though she didn't understand it at the time, she was a weapon to fight the Void. She accepted her new duty with the resolution that she would never again obey Master Locke. He no longer owned her. She was free from his mental chains. He would never threaten her with sleeping in the pit if she messed up again. She had her own life now. And she gave herself a name. She didn't know what it meant. She didn't know if it meant anything at all. But she liked how it sounded, and she liked how it made her feel. Sirona. She was Sirona, Hunter of Scila. Hunter of the Void. She would never listen to Master Locke again.
But perhaps she isn't quite as far from him as she thinks. As much distance as she puts between them, as much as she has convinced herself she's free of him, as much as she knows she hates him...
She is still polite. She is still calm. She is still obedient to some extent. She is still diffident. She is still just a weapon. And she still can't shake that smile.
Full Name - Lili Lindholm Age - 15 Place of Origin - Germany, currently living with her mom in America Occupation - High school freshman
A V A T A R
Character's Name - Calisyra (Calla) Pathos Affiliation - Queon Role - CC support Profession - Jeweler Weapon of Choice - Tome Domains - Water; Conjuration, Manifestation, Restoration -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Unstable Emotions Calla is...well, she's a kid. Yes, she's a gifted kid, as her teachers put it, but she's...still a kid. She's incredibly excitable and has difficulty controlling herself when she gets really hyped up. But it's also not uncommon for her to break down crying, or for her to get really petulant and frustrated at little things. Though she really does try to control her emotions the best she can, she's only 15 years old, with everything that entails. If she's in a very stressful situation, it's not going to be incredibly easy for her to get a handle on herself.
You Can Do It! Though Calla's emotions are pretty unstable because of the situation that she's found herself in, her default state is an incredibly kind, empathetic individual. She's the first to cheer someone on, and usually the last to stop, usually more than is tactful. She's a fountain of endless energy, and even if she doesn't really know what to say most of the time given her immaturity—she simply doesn't have the wisdom or experience that she needs to help people how she wishes she could—she really, honestly wants everybody to be as happy as they possibly can.
Out Of Her Depth Calla is...out of her depth. And she knows it. This is not only her first MMO, but her first video game. She first picked it up after moving to America, hoping to make some new friends online. She didn't even know there was a leaderboard; she eventually stumbled into a decent-ish build after a lot of help from some nice fellow Germans that she ran into and hung out with for a while, but they stopped logging on. She still doesn't quite understand how the game works, how a raid works, or even exactly how her build works inside and out. But she knows she doesn't know what she's doing, and she takes every opportunity to improve.
B E N C H M A R K S
Surging Tides Calla's magic is heavily based around astonishingly wide-ranging crowd control. Not entirely—the people that helped her make her build made sure to impress on her the importance of having some damage and some more traditional healing in her kit for when she really needed it—but ALMOST entirely. From locking enemies in suddenly-manifested bubbles, choking off their air and keeping them still, to pulling them into the center of conjured whirlpools, she doesn't care much for doing the damage herself. She wants to make it easier for her team to.
Shining Silver Since she can remember, Calla has always had a fascination with expensive jewelry, especially stuff made of silvers and blues. She's too young back in the real world to have many accessories, and she certainly doesn't have the disposable spending money to blow any of it on expensive jewelry. No such limit in Pariah, though; her chosen profession is a jeweler, and she finds it endlessly fascinating. While it's not a bad way to make money in-game, it's also something that she genuinely loves; the more she does it in-game, the more she can see herself going into it professionally once she graduates.
Nimble Though Calla certainly isn't athletic, she isn't entirely lacking in physical skills. Her small size forms the basis of her main defensive strategy in Pariah: stay far away from the fight, and keep moving! She's surprisingly quick on her feet, quite agile and able to turn on a dime if she needs to. She can't keep it up for very long, as her endurance could not be called stellar, but it usually lasts long enough for a tank to draw up aggro and let her get out of the scrape with a minimum of damage taken.
I Could Never! Never once in all of Pariah has Calla toggled PvP. Not because she wouldn't be good at it—though, with her slower reaction speed and low DPS build, she probably wouldn't—but because she couldn't even imagine hurting another person. She is a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist. The thought of inflicting pain, whether it be physical or emotional, on another human being leaves her feeling sick to her stomach. She's never talked back to an elder (except her parents, of course, to whom she's a bratty 15 year old girl like anyone else), never insulted a classmate, never, ever, EVER gotten into a physical fight, not that she can remember.
Physical Description
Lili is a fifteen year old girl, a little bit tall for her age at five feet, four inches. As a young teenager, she's physically not fully developed, slender and petite with little in the way of curvature. A cheerful smile constantly adorns her face, and her bright blue eyes constantly glisten with a barely-restrained excitement and verve for life. Her long, wavy blonde hair, cut in messy bangs in front and about to the small of her back, is filled with flyways, untamable no matter how much she tries to control it. And she does try to control it; she is very proud of her hair, and takes exceptionally good care of it even if it won't listen to a thing she does. Though her arms are stick-thin—she doesn't much use them for anything that would build considerable muscle—her legs are quite long and powerful for a fifteen-year-old, as befits a runner for her high school's track team. She has large hands, long-fingered and delicate, and is constantly self-conscious of them. She has a long, ragged scar that runs down the back of her left arm as a result of an accident she had with a bicycle when she was twelve, and she still hates the things today.
Calla is almost exactly the same in appearance to Lili. Her eyes, her hair, her height, her build, the irrepressible excitement in her eyes, the constant smile; from the outside looking in, she's almost indistinguishable from her IRL self. There are a number of very small changes, though, each of which represents a bit of her subconscious desires. Hair straight and tamed, falling all the way down her thighs without requiring much upkeep. Perfect. Rippled scar missing, replaced with smooth, unblemished skin. Perfect. Hands small and fine. Perfect. Nothing you would notice if you didn't know her waking self. She holds herself in a very relaxed way, tapping her feet and bobbing her head to a soundtrack only she can hear and speaking very informally to everyone. She wears an elaborate robe over lightweight clothing, no armor whatsoever.
Character Conceptualization
Lili's life has been a pressure cooker from the start.
Sophia and Anton Lindholm had tried to have children many, many times. But nothing. Sophia blamed herself, and Anton blamed himself. It was a tense, stressful situation for both of them, and though neither wanted to say anything about it, it was starting to stretch their marriage.
And then came Lili. The miracle baby. Born prematurely and with underdeveloped lungs, she spent her first two years in the hospital. Her parents hovered around her anxiously and constantly, worried for their little miracle. And when she got out of the hospital and all three of them went home, they wept with happiness. Their little girl was perfect.
Perfect.
The word 'perfect' would haunt Lili for the rest of her life. The word 'miracle' came with it. Her parents were absolutely doting, and she wanted for little. Up through six years old, her life was...perfect. And then she entered first grade, and the pressure started.
Sophia and Anton never yelled at her or scolded her. They never restricted anything of hers, and they never directly told her that she'd done something wrong. But whenever—even in first grade—she would bring home a poor grade, they would go quiet, subdued. Dinner would be awkward. Lili learned very early on that if she wanted her parents to be happy, then she needed to work hard. And as she aged and learned about why she remembered the hospital, how much of a 'miracle' she was, that pressure to make her parents happier only increased.
That's not to say she wilted. In fact, she thrived under the pressure. She began to take a fierce and intense pride in how well she did in schooling very early, and she began to put that pressure on herself instead of taking it from her parents. To always get the highest score on every exam. Soon, it began to extend past grades. She began to put pressure on herself to be as cheerful as she could. To make as many friends as she possibly could. To be the best friend to them as she could be. To be...perfect.
A girl can only take so much pressure.
In her last year of middle school—the workload more than she'd ever had before, more people to make friends with, harder to be happy—she snapped. During mathematics class, she received an exam back and did worse than she thought. The next thing she remembers is being at home, in bed, with her mom Sophia hugging her and crying. Her memories of the next week and a half are hazy and fragmented at best. Her complete nervous breakdown had made her parents feel horrible about what they'd done to their daughter. Their miracle child. Even once she returned to school, people, even friends, looked at her worriedly, like she'd break if breathed on a little too hard. Her omnipresent smile was rarely seen.
And then she was offered something by her parents that would change her life. Sophia's job as a lecturer was bringing her to Boston, Massachusetts, and did she want to come along and go to school there, make new friends?
She's spent almost a year in America now, and her smile's come back. She's taken it a little bit easier, joining the track team to find even more people to interact with. She'd always enjoyed running, after all. One of her new friends introduced her some months ago to a fantastic new game on the market, and always game to try something new, she booted up Pariah. She's happy now. But still, she nurses a secret guilt. Her parents worry about her so much. She wishes she could live up to their expectations. That she could be more...
Perfect.
Other Information
Springflut (Riptide) - The only real damage spell in Calla's arsenal, Riptide blasts a high-pressure stream of water at her enemy. It's a small attack, dealing moderate damage, but with almost no AoE. She spams it whenever she can, as long as she's careful not to build fatigue too quickly.
Traumblase (Dream Bubble) - After a brief channel, all enemies around her are trapped in floating bubbles of water, suspending them off the ground and choking them off of air. It doesn't last very long and has an upper limit on the size of the bubble it can make, but it's fairly low fatigue and has no target limit. Her most common spell for raids.
Sturtzflut (Flash Flood) - A wave bursts out from Calla, dealing a little damage to enemies that it comes in contact with. Its main use, though, is safety; it knocks down and shoves away most enemies, and even staggers bosses. She can add more waves to Flash Flood, repeating the effects and dealing escalating damage, but the fatigue drain for each wave escalates as more of them are added, and she's not exactly a paragon of endurance.
Wasserwirbel (Whirlpool) - Bringing both hands together, Calla channels, creating a huge magical whirlpool at a point she can see within a couple hundred feet of her. All enemies are dragged to the center, taking moderate damage for each second they spend in the whirlpool. It's certainly possible to escape from the whirlpool, especially larger enemies, but the colossal area of effect more than makes up for it. This is a fully channeled spell with a heavy fatigue cost.
Heilendes Wasser (Healing Waters) - Though far from a dedicated healer, Calla can mend minor wounds with a gentle mist. She needs to be within ten or fifteen feet to do it, but it's a nice thing to have in her kit when the raid starts yelling at her to pull her weight. It can be self-targeted.
Regenschauer (Rainstorm) - A torrential downpour opens up in a localized area, hammering down with intense force. Smaller enemies are driven completely to the ground, and larger ones are heavily slowed. Every enemy in it has their vision completely obscured of what's outside of the storm.
She speaks with a heavy German accent that I have literally no idea how to transcribe.
Maki Kirika sniffled and wiped her nose as she stomped up the street, her dad's old trench coat—now hers, she supposed—worn over her brand-new Ishin Academy uniform. She'd been having trouble sleeping for the past couple nights. And really, who wouldn't lose some sleep if they were about to start classes at the second-ranked hero academy in the entire country? She was lucky she'd been able to sleep at all. But unfortunately, it had given her a frustratingly bad cold. And though she was nearly over it now, fever all gone and no longer coughing, she was still incredibly congested and far more sneezy than she would have liked. Which wasn't quite the first impression she wanted to make on her fellow students. She wanted to pop out in a good way, not look like a sick mess.
Well. It was better to introduce herself looking like a sick mess than looking like nothing at all. She shivered as a particularly nippy wind blew over her. It was cold today. She looked down briefly at the trench coat. Thanks for the coat, dad.
It wasn't long before she stood before the imposing gate of Ishin Academy, a crowd of people standing in front. Probably other first years. Well, time to make a first impression, hmm? An impression that people would remember. And so she marched up to the thickest part of the crowd and started to shove her way through. "Coming through! Out of the way!" Frustrated voices followed voices her and she smiled to herself. All eyes on her.
When she broke through, she sighed quietly to herself before continuing. Someone shouted behind her and she tossed a glance over her shoulder. A girl with brilliant green hair had popped out of the crowd in a similar fashion to her and she gave a little internal cringe. Was that really what she'd looked like, pushing her way through the crowd? How embarrassing.
She shook her head, throwing the thought out. No time for that kind of thing today. Just rapid footsteps as she walked quickly towards the school proper. There'd be lockers for her to stick her coat in, right?
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