@PandaBrady For Zifran mechs, are the monster ones very organic in appearance or are the plates shaped into more artificial looks? And then non-monster ones are industrial types right?
History: Born of a fling between a male Puca and a female human, Shailagh resulted. Her mother raised her, telling her about her father when she was old enough to understand. While not in the picture, there was no ill will towards her father as it was a one night stand. Shailagh and her mother lived on a cliffside farm. Many rocks and crags needed cleared as they grew their crops, so both became accustomed to light mining. Below them, just a short walk away, was a set of waterfalls where Shailagh spent most of her time and met her companion.
Following her childhood, Shailagh ventured away to find her own path. Along the way, she encountered a circle of druids. From the age of 16 until she was 30, Shailagh trained with them and developed both her innate abilities as well as her Pneuma magic. At the end of her training, Shailagh was gifted a scroll to give to an archdruid at the center of Zifran. She traveled there immediately, presenting the scroll. The archdruid led her through a molded wooden structure where magecha stood inactive. He told her to choose the one that calls to her. As she wandered, various industrial and monster magecha looked interesting, but she heard a faint whisper pulling her towards the back. Once at the absolute back of the structure, she saw a solid wall of vines. It seemed like a dead end. The archdruid was confused as well as there was nothing there. Shailagh reached out and touched the wall. the vines immediately parted, slithering away to reveal an extremely old prototype magecha. The whispers called her to the magecha and the archdruid gifted it to her. Shailagh, along with druids from the area, set to work updating and fixing the old magecha. Most of it was actually cutting edge, even for this time. The only things they needed to do was sharpen the claws and mandibles as well as get its joints unlocked from years of disuse. Once operational, Shailagh took it and practiced with it until she and her companion worked as a seamless team within the chitin and metal confines. They worked tirelessly for 16 years to protect people and intelligent monsters alike from monsters keen on only destroying them.
Shailagh first enocountered the Valhalla Corporation on a personal mission to push back some encroaching predatory monsters. She saw a Valkyr battling some of them and charged in to assist. The battle lasted little time before the monsters retreated, thus saving the nearby people. The pilot of the magecha saw potential in the spirited half-faerie and took her to the corporate base with him. She has only just arrived and been inducted into the group, so she has not obtained a new magecha nor upgrades to her current one. She is green to the corporation and all-out war but not to piloting or fighting.
Magic:
Animal Speech: This costs no Pnuema and is always active due to her druidic training. It can be suppressed or countered as normal magic. It allows her to speak to all animals as well as animal like monsters. She can understand and be understood by them. Anyone who does not also have this ability will hear her making the natural noises of the creature she is talking to.
Fairy Trick: This spell creates minor effects for the use of tricking, misleading, or entertaining. It can cause minor things such as smells, sounds, and flavors for chosen targets. Up to 6 targets can be chosen per cast. As long as a little Pneuma is used to maintain it, the spell can last as long as desired.
Druid's Feast: Conjures up a long and flat bit of shaped wood set with various game, fruits, and veggies. They will match the game and plants of the area this spell is cast within. The meal can comfortably feed 6 targets in a single cast and provides a day's worth of nourishment. This spell costs a decent amount of Pneuma, so it is usually used if meals cannot be procured.
Fairy's Luck: This spell can alter luck for a single target. It can either provide better luck or worse luck. While it doesn't directly alter actions, the alteration of the ephemeral concept of luck does cause more mishaps to occur to those afflicted with bad luck and more fortune to those with enhanced luck. This is costly if cast on anyone but herself, causing it to cost a moderate amount. The effects last for an hour.
Shape Wood: This spell allows her to shape wood and alter its properties. The primary use is to alter wood into weapons she needs at any given time. By making it more or less dense as well as altering its base properties, she can make the weapon function as well as a steel counterpart. She can also make it springy and flexible for whips and other flexible weapons. Outside of weapons, she can similarly make wooden armor on par with steel. The limit to this spell is size. She can make full suits of armor and weapons or small objects, but anything larger would take either multiple casts or cannot be done. The largest item she has ever created took weeks and is her house.
Nonmagical Abilities:
Shapeshifting: Drawing from her nature as half-Puca, she can alter her form. It is restricted to animal, animal like small and medium monsters, and to hide her ears as normal human ears. She gains the nonmagical abilities of her form and retains her mind and personality, but she cannot do anything that the form could not.
Fairy Sense: This grants the ability to see in low and no light conditions without issue. It also gives her the ability to accurately predict the weather.
Immortal: Thanks to her fairy half, she holds the status of "immortal until killed." She does not age and will not die of old age.
Other: She is a great hunter, forager, and sneak. She also has significant experience in making clothing, components for clothing, and in both treating and creating treatments for wounds.
Short range flight: The wings can propel the magecha for short distances. It can glide for extended periods of time. The pneuma cost of this quickly adds up for flight and is moderate for gliding.
Reverse-joint Jumping: The legs are optimized for jumping and thus can use them to dodge, charge, or reach difficult positions. Though much slower than the flight, they offer far more control and longer range. It costs little Pneuma to perform a jump.
Armored Carapace: Heavily armored, thus reducing speed when not flying or jumping. Reflexes remain normal due to optimizations for melee combat. The carapace is strong against physical attacks, but it is specialized against heat and Pneuma damage.
Hardened Claws: The claws at the ends of each arm and feet are sharp and powerful, useful for ripping and slicing into enemies.
Lockjaw Mandibles: The enlarged mandibles can crush, pierce, and slice into an enemy, using some Pneuma to cause more extensive damage. They can be used to grapple a target.
Plasma Drillers: Short range plasma stream. Mounted in the lower palms. Both draw from the same source, so if one overheats, the other is disabled as part of its safety features. The plasma stream cuts through targets as well as superheats the area affected.
Marksman Heat Riveter: Modified into a marksman weapon, this rivet gun can fire out to long range accurately. Projectile travel time must be compensated. The heated rivets are armor piercing and shatter inside the target to cause secondary shrapnel damage. The rivet gun can hold a clip of 10 rivets in an internal magazine.
Malfunction 3 Heat Riveter: By exploiting a known flaw in the system of industrial riveters, the rivets can be split into smaller fragments to produce a short to medium range shotgun type of effect. The riveter has 3 additional barrels added to create more projectiles. The heated rivets are split into three pieces as they leave the barrel. While not inherently armor piercing, their heated nature allows for eventual destruction of the armor hit. This riveter can fire on fully automatic and uses a 120 round box magazine to feed into the four barrels. each trigger pull produces 12 projectiles.
Characteristics: Despite being a water fairy, the Gwragedd Annwn are actually human sized and intelligent. Donella became Shailagh's companion early on due to both spending great deals of their time beside the waterfalls that Donella lived within. Rather than Shailagh asking for the companionship, Donella instead asked. Shailagh said yes, not knowing that it meant the two were now wed, not that Shailagh was complaining. Luckily, both are polyamorous, so they are not forced to be exclusive with one another, though they hold a high preference for each other. Donella, like Shailagh, is also immortal until killed.
Personality: Donella shares many similarities to Shailagh. The main differences between the two are Donella's love of playing and singing music and her enjoyment of drawing and painting. Their personalities mesh on an almost uncanny level given the fact they essentially grew up together.
Tali grabbed a meal and was eating it rather quickly as she needed three of it. People stared and gaped, which was normal for her. After all, a woman of her build normally wouldn't eat enough to drop a grown man. She resisted the urge to make remarks or jokes about the awe, for she knew that they were her allies and deserved politeness. Her meal took relatively little time as she was not eating it for flavor. She had just wanted a hot meal that wasn't made of rations.
Upon finishing her meal, and hearing more than one thud behind her, she turned to see Lynn, one of the ones from earlier, practically floundering on the floor like a pathetic, drunken fish. Her movements were clearly not ones of an experienced drunk, so this must be infrequent or her first time. The Tyro/Lassa woman let out a small huff, some volcanic ash streaming from her nose and a puff coming from her mouth. She stood up and walked over to the poor thing, bodily lifting her up, carrying her bridal style. "Are you sober enough to tell me where your room is? Do you even have a room?"
@PandaBrady So, I reread the Zifran info and got inspiration. Could I have a Faerie of some type (undecided yet) with a monster companion as my character? Do Faeries have access to Pneuma like standard humans to use Magecha?
I'm thinking a Gwragedd Annwn (Lake Maiden, an amphibious fairy that is a beautiful woman) or a Pooka.