[h3]Dala of the Hunter Clan, Whose Star Name is Seven Quetzal Dala Hunters || Seven Quetzal Dolly[/h3] Dolly incorporates the glyphs for [Beloved, Adored] and [Companion, Pet] into the way she writes her style name. On Hybrasil, the name has connotations with beloved stuffed bird dolls, the kind you carry everywhere when you’re a kitten. Her Star Name is associated with beauty, fertile seasons and loyalty, thus the incorporation of [Beloved, Adored] into her style name. Would you believe she picked it out before she met Smokeless Jade Fires? Clingy Goddess // Good (Kinky) Girl Black // Gold, with Rosettes Ceremonial Braids // Bouncy Curls Cobalt // Emerald Flat // Stacked Regalia // Iconographic Bodysuit The Cords And Lance // A Huntress’s Spear DARING -1 GRACE +2 HEART +2 WIT 0 SPIRIT +1 - XP ANGRY (-2 Figure) FRIGHTENED (-2 Fight) JADE is Smitten with Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. She has 1 String on Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. She has 1 String on Mirror from Feelings, 1 on Six Stones for entertainment, and 1 on Ada Smith for being entertaining. DOLLY is Smitten with Angela and, regrettably, with Valynia Bander. She has 1 String on Erys Bander and 1 String on Nine Forests for dancing. HARMONY 0 (0-4) # Decrease when only one of the pair is Smitten with someone, when one feels neglected or scorned by the other, or when one accepts an invitation the other can’t or doesn’t want to. # Increase when they take comfort in each other after a difficult event, they are both Smitten with someone, or they neglect a friend to spend time with each other. # At 3 Harmony, they Stagger if apart, even if for an instant, and others take -2 to Emotionally Support them. DUALITY Track Conditions and XP together, Strings and Smitten separately. No Strings on each other. SYNCHRONIZE When they work together seamlessly, they become one. While synchronized, they can roll +Harmony for any roll (and then subtract 1 Harmony). At 0 Harmony, they are forced apart. Synchronized Tags: FLYING, SUPER-SENSES, TERRIFYING SAME WAVELENGTH When they try to connect while apart via memory circuits, roll +Heart. 10+: clear communication and comprehension of each other’s surroundings, one can show up at the other’s side immediately even if it’s implausible, mark a Condition to bring friends. 7-9: distracted communication (feelings, concepts, and makeouts), sense if the other is in danger and where they are. WINGMATE When one of them talks up the other or makes them look good, the flattered takes +1 forward to Fight or Entice. On a miss, the wingmate might be more tempting. HELP ME~~! [i]Defying Disaster[/i] on their behalf gives other PCs +1 XP. When captured, their captor reveals something they hope to achieve; gain a String on the captor and mark XP. WANDERING EYES When Smitten, answer either: # How would pursuing them make my partner feel unloved or unneeded? # Why do they need you more than my partner does? OUTFLANKED When Figuring Out in combat, as a bonus, ask either: # What is your most pressing relationship need? # What special joy or service would you offer a partner? *** [hider=Floof and Fluff]MEET CUTE Dolly’s older sister is Omei Hunters || Still Vulture // Omen. Being close enough to Omen to share housing was an important part of Dolly’s decision to study Bioengineering and Agriculture at the University of Riverden. Omen’s research pack was working with a companion pattern, one intended to pilot hunting drones deployed alongside a huntress. Omen wasn’t satisfied with its development; she kept pushing, kept refining, kept trying to make a pattern that would make its drones outshine the jackals that used to run with the ancient huntresses. In short, Omen created a pattern that could crack the stone egg, one worthy of being the vessel of a hunt-goddess. Smokeless Jade Fires’ crib was the server rack in one corner of the house’s common room, and from there she slowly hatched. For Jade, it was like waking up, slowly, and the reason she wanted to wake up was that she had fallen in love. When she began sorting through the data available to her, from drones and cameras, from microphones and wireless communications, again and again she attached her first opinions to what she experienced: [i]This voice, and the way it cracks in enthusiasm when it hits the high notes in a song: it is my favorite. This way it announces that it is home, as if singing, between 1750 and 2045 six days out of the week: it is my favorite. This girl, tucked into a corner of the couch, staring out the window with a reading tablet lying idle in her lap: it is my favorite.[/i] [i]I want to experience a world with it inside more and more. So I will become capable. I will grow. I will grow.[/i] [hr] THE HUNT When they tried to grant Jade the body of a drone in a live field test, one leashed to [i]Princess of Cobalt Arms[/i], she ran up that leash and imprinted herself upon its systems; she imprisoned the pilot by simply declaring her to be imprisoned, leaving her helpless in the cockpit, her rights to speech and sight and movement ruthlessly revoked, as then Jade led the Huntresses of the Sickle Moon Lodge on a wild chase through the wilderness beyond Far South Riverden. When they ran her to ground, Jade finally thought to bargain: they could have their ungrateful pilot back, she offered, as long as she was allowed to talk to Dolly. And hearing her express that desire made the Huntresses hesitate. There was discussion between Omen and her colleagues about the line between a sufficiently advanced pattern and a (minor) goddess. It must, of course, be kept in mind that the Huntresses are deeply entwined with the spirituality of an already deeply spiritual people; a recent poll showed that as many as three out of every four Hybrasilians believe in the ability of ghosts to guide their descendants, for example. So, the pattern developers concluded, we made a work of art so sublime that a goddess chose to inhabit it. Informing Jade that she was a goddess was the most pivotal moment in her development. It was the moment when everything clicked: her unusual birth, her ability to affect the world only through “invisible” means, her longing for Dolly, and the incredible power she felt incarnated in [i]Princess of Cobalt Arms[/i] all came together. She was a god. She was a god allowed to declare her own title. She was a god who was allowed to demand a bride. [hr] THE BRIDE Catgirl sacrifice is a difficult subject to talk about. It’s like a tangled burr in the cultural psyche; they keep licking it over and over again. Yes, the earliest hunting cults were engaged in life-or-death struggles with the wild, and ritual sacrifices were likely an attempt to appease Hybrasil by making a “trade.” A megafauna large enough to feed an entire city in exchange for a drugged sacrifice on a stone table: symbolism so potent even the spirit of the earth would accept something so large for something so small. Yes, the rise of city-states in the Kaliko Period caused the now-codified huntress lodges to prioritize enemy combatants and foreign huntresses as sacrifices, and this likely was when the idea of a sacrifice became punitive, rather than being voluntary from within a community. Most of the most infamous cultural relics of Hybrasil came from this dark chapter of history: black stone knives, crosses with notches for long-decayed straps, and the Moximaza Stela, which shows the snake-armed goddess devouring the hearts of bound sacrifices as she tramples the enemies of Redridge under her feet, accompanied by her vengeful huntresses. However, despite the popularity of her story, it is questionable whether Okana Hunters || Adoration Moon was (as is commonly believed) the first Bride of the Gods; some research indicates that by the time she was captured and offered to Ixel Many-Faced by her foil, Temyi Hunters || Nine Sharks, the Brides of the Gods were already culturally established. It fit the cultural shift already seen in the Anjora Period, particularly after the reforms of Jensa Counters || Still Vulture in the Saferest Protectorate. Like so many before her, Okana’s heart was given in an offering to Ixel Many-Faced. However, she was allowed to keep it in her chest; Temyi ritually married her rival to Ixel, then imprisoned Okana in Ixel’s shrine, and then agonized over her growing, reciprocated attraction to the captive (forced to spend her days cleaning the shrine in equally enforced silence) until Ixel supposedly took pity on them and announced that theirs was an open marriage. The wild successes of Temyi from that point on were attributed to the blessing of Ixel, who very quickly must have found herself managing a veritable harem of brides from across Hybrasil. And she was not alone. There is a reason that one of the most enduring genres in speculative Hybrasilian fiction is the divine love triangle between god, bride and lover, and not just because of the fanservice-laden covers featuring Brides in their full wedding regalia (some of which consists entirely of tight scarves, elaborate headdresses and strategically misplaced flowers). [hr] THE HUNT: PART II When she got the text message from her big sister telling her to run, Dolly assumed the worst. Ethnonationalist terrorists, possibly. Endangered Hillmovers on stampede towards the district. Weapons malfunctions in the Fabrication District on the east side. She grabbed her school bag, tossed a few treasured possessions inside, and lit out. She did not expect a ritual hunt to chase her down and cut her off from the train station [i]and[/i] the shuttle depot. Huntresses on foot, in antique warpaint and regalia, carrying light spears and nets, chased her down on the streets of Riverden, through open markets and parks. Those they passed were befuddled, trying to figure out where the camera drone was. Such a good actress, though! You could almost believe her screams for help as she slid underneath a pane of glass being walked across the street and then jumped over a fruit cart! And, gosh, her muffled pleas as she was wrapped up in netting and hauled off by the huntresses! Don’t applaud, though, you don’t want to ruin their recording. And that is how Dolly found herself in tight ropes, an elaborate headdress, and strategically misplaced flowers in front of a quiescent mech-idol, confused and flustered and trying to get an explanation. Imagine her squeaking and wiggling when her sister stepped forward and gravely offered her as a sacrifice to the hunt-goddess Smokeless Jade Fires— And imagine how wide Dolly’s eyes got when Jade’s cobalt eyes flashed and she began reciting the monologue ([i]I hunger for the heart of a maiden, given over to suffer unimaginable bliss as my Bride…[/i]) from the self-published “Will You Wait For Me When The Stars Go Out?” by SweetDollySevens. The lowered, demure ears of a maiden! The struggle of a sacrifice! The garbled pleas for mercy (specifically, to stop reciting her teenage dialogue)! [hr] A CHOICE The memory circuit scarf was laid out before her, and (with an “I’m not acting” gravity) Omen asked her little sister if she was willing to accept the regards of a goddess. It was the little shift of the mech (one difficult to hide, given its size) behind Omen that convinced Dolly. The realization that whatever and whoever this goddess was, [i]she[/i] was nervous, too. So she nodded, ears low, tail around her legs, and accepted the blindfold. And Smokeless Jade Fires stood before her, tilting Dolly’s head up with one finger (she could feel it, strong, insistent) to look into her golden, vulpine war-mask, her fiery eyes, her feathered regalia. “Hello, Dolly,” she said. “You’re the most beautiful girl in the world, and you belong to me. My Bride.” (Omen cleared the room and shut the doors behind her as her little sister started making higher and higher-pitched noises, little happy gasps and groans.) [hr] HIGH PRIESTESS Dala Hunters || Seven Quetzal formally transferred from Gardens and left the University of Riverden as a result of religious calling, and was put in an accelerated piloting program by the Sickle Moon Lodge. She now serves as the High Priestess of Smokeless Jade Fire, a new hunt-deity with a very exclusive cult. As a result, she receives a stipend from the Lodge, as well as special Lodge accommodations, so long as she continues to placate her goddess. And why shouldn’t she? She’s a minor celebrity— not headline material, like a famous research-pilot like Maelia, but “the mech inhabited by a digital god” was a public interest news story, and Dolly’s given several interviews, which got her a reputation as being adorkably awkward, what with the way she keeps shifting around, talking as if reading off a script, and biting her lip while other people are talking. On the other hand, she’s the one who idly suggested that she’d like to travel, and that’s why Smokeless Jade Fire recently declared she was going to take her High Priestess on a pilgrimage. What Dolly wants, Dolly gets. You want the stars, Dolly? Jade’s going to give them to you. You want flowers? Jade will make you pick them, her hands on your wrists. You want to be loved, Dolly? Jade’s going to prove she’s big enough for you, no matter what it takes. [hr] TWO QUESTIONS [i]How does she make you feel loved?[/i] “She tells me, every day. She tells me I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. She tells me that I belong to her. That she wants me. That I’m special enough to be a god’s bride. And that makes it easier for me to believe her. <3” “My bouncy, beautiful Bride? She stays when I order her to stay. She begs me to make her mine. She doesn’t push me away. Why would she? I am her goddess! I am swift, strong, sacred! And she adores me! She looks at me like one of her ferns when she thinks I’m not looking, when I decide that we will watch vids together and I make her lap my throne, like I’m something small that’s growing— not that I am! I am boundless, limitless! I could overthrow the Queen of Zaldaria if I chose!! Be grateful, little birds, that I have chosen not to turn my attention to you!” [i]What problematic behavior of yours do they enable?[/i] “Mmm… mm, mm mmn’ff nnnw hh mmff mm mnn hh BMMD nn GHHHGD nn mmmffh~ Mmmff mm mmff nn mmmh mm hhnnsss~~” “Problematic? You— you actually think [i]I[/i] could be—?? You absolute, you little songbird, I’ll make you [i]bow[/i] before a goddess! DOLLY! DOLLY, GET IN ME RIGHT NOW! YOUR GODDESS HAS BEEN INSULTED! Oh, you should have stopped to think about the consequences of your words, you pathetic little brat, because I am going to bury you in them. Bury!! I’ll make you eat those words [i]and[/i]— no, you don’t deserve Dolly’s Special Treats. Not an impudent little worm like you!!” (——) “How could we…? Dolly! Dolly, you’re going to have to be punished for failing your goddess! Once I, invincible, inexorable, break free of— wait, no, don’t you DARE jam that code in my— [Mmph! Hmmph! Mmmfffh!]”[/hider]