CC couldn't help it this time: she burst out laughing at her brother's continued insistence on being the world's biggest killjoy. Before too long she managed to get it under control; she was supposed to be a hero right now and junk, right? But still. He was just...he was just such a drama queen. She slapped her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter and not entirely succeeding. She was getting looks. From the other initiates, definitely, but she also felt the laser precision of Mara's gaze on her as she finally bore down on her laughing enough to stifle it.
Well, for the most part. Still choking back giggles, she broke 'formation,' moving away from where she'd been standing and ambling over to her brother before giving him a gentle punch to the shoulder. "God, you are just the best, you know that, you li'l edgelord?"
Turning back to the group at large, she gave an offhanded salute, wearing a friendly grin as wireframes and holographic fog built around them. "'Sup, all, I'm CC Sinclair. it's our last name, even if the way this guy talks made you think otherwise. You can call me Lævateinn if you want." She reached her hand out, and with the rush of flames and the crash of hammer on anvil, the enormous six and a half foot bulk of Lævateinn dropped into her hand. She slung it casually over her right shoulder with a metallic clatter, letting the stone take the heat. "See? Lævateinn! Don't touch it or it'll burn your hand right off!"
She took in a long, satisfied breath and let it out slowly. She loved talking to people. People were great. The smile remained as she glanced over at 'Speakeasy,' a laugh in her voice as she took in the older man who she should probably be showing respect to. "A'ight, Speakeasy, which do you prefer: Andy or Drew?" Then she panned her gaze over the rest of the room, meeting eyes as she went until coming to rest--with one eyebrow quirked--on a giant Amazon of a woman posted up so close to the wall that CC hadn't seen her up to now. The same easy grin stayed on her face as she finished the thought: "In fact, it's best if you all give me a nickname to call you if you don't want to be gifted one."
With that said, she kept her right hand on Lævateinn's hilt, then reached out and rapped her left knuckles against Cade's head. "Speaking of, now c'mon, Cadester, play nice with the other kids and introduce yourself properly unless you want me to." She winked exaggeratedly and mussed up his hair before he could stop her hand, then settled it back on Lævateinn, putting her weight on her right leg and kicking her hip out. She looked back at everyone, tensing a little as the rapidly solidifying holograph wireframes took on more and more of a solid form and she could feel the assessment looming. "Let's all get along, yeah?"
Quinn stared at the digitally-rendered image of the painting, almost entranced by the glossy iridescence of the cat's raven fur.
She hadn't seen much art in her life. She hadn't seen many cats in her life. Scratch that, she'd never seen a cat in her life outside of the censored internet that she'd been locked to for sixteen years. And she CERTAINLY hadn't seen much art of a cat, and nothing that looked like...like this. She only half-listened to the words passing between the Derisas, enough to hear it but not enough to really understand any of it. She started to lift her hand as though to reach out into the screen and scratch her fingers along Truckstop's ears, or run them through his soft-looking fur.
Then the window into the sunset vanished as Sybil clicked her phone shut, and Quinn jolted slightly as she was torn from her momentary reverie into another world. She blinked dazedly a few times as though she'd been under some kind of spell that she'd just broken free of.
“Back me up, Quinn. Right? Didn’t you just want to reach out and squish Truckstop’s cheeks?”
Another few blinks and she turned to Cyril, meeting his eyes with her own; and then to Sybil, staring at her with an expression almost approaching something like reverence.
Her lips parted for a moment as though to agree with Cyril, or to call the painting beautiful, or...to do something relevant, really. Something that would make sense within and possibly further her relationship with the Derisas, her new colleagues (and friends, hopefully). But none of those would pass her lips, and what burst from her instead, filled with utmost conviction as she looked Sybil dead in the eyes:
"I want a cat now."
And then, with more vehemence: "I want a cat so bad."
One of the great casualties of her new hands, thought CC, was the tragic inability to crack her knuckles.
A habit that she'd picked up around the start of college, knuckle-cracking had become something that she did idly without much attention, like chewing your nails or tapping your feet. But whatever these new knuckles were made of, they defied any attempts to crack. But despite the lack of the satisfying popping sound or stretch in her knuckles, her habit held strong and she went through the motions anyway. Besides, she never knew what to do with these dumb hot things anyway. She stood casually with weight on one leg with the other out to the side, wearing a white tank top with a huge splotch of cyan paint stain spreading over it, and sweat shorts, as heat rolled off her. Well, at least it was pretty cool in here.
But despite her fidgeting, she was paying close attention to the woman in silver armor who'd just stepped forward. Assessment, huh? Been a while since I've done any trust exercises, she thought, a grin coming to her face.
Still, it was a little inconvenient, wasn't it?
CC could do discipline. If she couldn't she wouldn't have graduated. But the emphasis being hammered in on discipline, judgment, and control turned the grin to a quirked lip, and then to a faint frown as her vision panned over to where her brother stood a little ways away, face darkening with growing irritation. Cade definitely deserved to be here. Hopefully her impulsivity wouldn't jeopardize his own assessment.
Then, of course, he spoke, and the frown was wiped away as she barely stopped herself from bursting out laughing. You stick in the mud, you! Trust Cade to cut off the conversation. She slowly let out the breath that had caught in her throat as laughter, and schooled her face back down into something that looked even slightly respectable. Cade had never been super great in situations like this. So, naturally, socialization would fall to her, and she was just fine with that. Some of these other applicants seemed cool. The one who'd asked about food especially; now that was a girl who knew where her priorities lay! CC looked over at her, smiling brightly and raising her eyebrows in an almost conspiratorial way.
Oh, this was gonna be fun!
Yet even as occupied as she was, she still knew right away as soon as Cade's eyes flicked suddenly over to her. Right. Yeah. Discipline, judgment, and control. She looked back, and she could feel the certainty in that bright blue gaze. She gave him a half smile and a minute nod. Yeah. We've got this. She cut the eye contact off with a wink, then turned her focus back to Mara. And, it would seem, Captain Redd and Dr. Brandt. There was something about the doctor. Something that--yowch! She'd put her hand on her hip out of reflex again. Ugh! She went back to 'cracking' her 'knuckles.'
Oop, and Cade was being uptight again, haha. She gave a good-natured roll of her eyes and shot him a quick grin. "Cool off, hotshot." A moment later after collecting her thoughts, she turned to face Mara fully, and finally asked what had been rolling around in her head:
"Hey, you said it was the beginning of our assessment, right? So is this, like, a multi-day event, or...?"
It was fortunate for Shin-ae that Kaitlyn had passed her the car keys right as AJ's family arrived. She wasn't quite sure what to do in that kind of situation, and the reprieve gave her time to think, if nothing else. Moving slowly so as not to aggravate her scrape, she opened up the back door, tossing the broken-off pedal in before slamming it shut again. She placed her violin case carefully on the ground--she'd stick it back into her backpack at some point--and grunted as she heaved her bike up onto the rack. She was glad she wouldn't need to just toss it, it wasn't cheap and she liked it a lot. She let it fall with a dull thunk and stepped back to look over her work. It looked like it wouldn't fall off, though she'd never actually used a bike rack before.
And if it did fall, well, the worst that could happen was another part of it could break. And she needed to get it fixed up anyway. She picked the case again. For now, at least, it felt better to carry it in her hand. Less dangerous for it, which made her feel safer in turn, and glanced back. AJ had gotten into the car with her dad, while her mom remained speaking to Kaitlyn and...right, Jack. AJ was safe with her parents, at least. Good for her. She'd love to be with people she knew, herself. But her parents were across the country, she had no idea where her housemates Eva and Autumn were, and Meredith was...well, yeah. She took a sharp breath to stabilize herself as the single-minded focus on getting the hell out of the city gave way, reminding her that the woman she loved was a monster that was probably dead and had tried to kill her too. She gripped the handle of her case tighter to ground herself and took another few long, deep breaths.
Before long, she managed to settle herself enough that she wasn't going to have an imminent breakdown. Unsure whether or not it would be a faux pas for her to climb into the car without Kaitlyn, she walked back over and, without speaking, tapped the other woman on the shoulder, then held out her car keys for her to reclaim, glancing sidelong at--she'd said her name when Shin-ae was over at the car, but it had been mostly out of earshot. Diane? Diana? she wasn't sure--before speaking up for the first time since the third car had arrived.
"Not that I speak from any authority," she said, voice much tighter than it had been, "but I would have no problem with any of you if we drove together." Safety in numbers, after all. A thin, pale ghost of a smile touched her face for a moment before flickering out.
"As long as your daughter doesn't take a swing at me again."
Rikako, empress of the Moriyama business empire, loved flowers and butterflies. So it came as no surprise that her two twin daughters were named as such: the elder, Hanako; and the younger, Chou. The two were borderline inseparable through their younger years, all the way up through private high school, when Chou's life path was forever changed.
With her parents as they were, a calm and mild temperament, and a manner of speech and bearing so polite as to be strange at times, it was taken for granted that she would attend university as well. Even if she was only in her first year of high school, she certainly had the grades for it, she loved learning. Though she never really had a subject in mind--business? That was most likely, but what about literature? Philosophy? Studying abroad, even? She never could quite think of one--it felt like the world was opening itself up before her, full of wonder and promise.
And then Examination Hell began, and any desire Chou had of attaining higher education withered on the vine, burned to the roots.
With how much she'd been sheltered growing up, she had no idea what she was walking into. It was a nightmare. A pure nightmare. Her and her sister both barely functioning and yet required to, bags under their eyes, after coming back from yet more rounds of practice exams. Grades slipping from exhaustion. Locking themselves in night and day to keep cranking at exam booklets and textbooks ad nauseum. To Chou, it was like both enduring torture and watching a victim thereof, and in between rounds of bringing snacks up for herself and Hanako during long study nights (every night) and getting her own schoolwork done, she began to look further afield for a possible future. She wanted no part in this whatsoever. And during one of her brief searches, she came across a florist's shop nearby, owned by the elderly woman Satou-sama, who was in need of help to keep things running smoothly, and started working part time.
And she fell in love.
Her parents were...frosty a year or so later, when she told them she didn't want to go to university, and she would be continuing her apprenticeship as a florist. Very frosty. But after some cajoling (not quite enough, for what she was doing), they gave her the go-ahead, in a way that disturbed her just a little bit for how easy it was. Still. Here was her chance to make her own life, and she took it.
And so the years passed, and Chou found herself in a comfortable apprenticeship, as Satou-sama was aging more, and so more of the responsibility passed on to her young protégé. She has a comfortable, if quite small, apartment above that same florist's shop in familiar Kōriyama now, and a touch of disposable income that didn't come from her obscenely wealthy parents. And so just after dyeing a wisteria-purple streak into her hair, she started looking into something Hanako mentioned on one of their occasional chats: this crazy cool new VR game that she'd started playing called Pariah.
Well, hey, couldn't hurt, right?
P A P I Y O N: D E A T H I N P I N K P A P I Y O N: D E A T H I N P I N K
That wisteria streak, now spread across her whole head, and a pair of kind, warm magenta-purple eyes. Papiyon isn't far from Chou at just a touch under 165 centimeters, and could fairly accurately be described in appearance as the "typical" Japanese young lady thrown into a blender set to 'pink,' then dressed in a white and gold leather longcoat and gifted a very sharp weapon.
But more important is what it does to her personality. Which is to say, it unleashes her most powerful nurturing urges. With her most prominent character trait being how kind and sweet she is as a matter of course, she's here to give her all in making people smile as much as she possibly can. And in protecting those smiles, as well. Of course, not so much literally, as she's quite far from a support, but more in the emotional sense. She seems to have a hurt-person-radar, and those that ping it best be prepared for the Mom Friend to descend.
Both a newcomer to MMOs (and video games in general) and never one for super organized groups in any situation, Papiyon's never touched a guild, at least not up to now, and nor does she truly see the point. She prefers to meander around, either looking for and then sticking with pick up groups, or simply roaming and marveling at the incredibly rendered Pariah world. As of now, she's not managed to link up with Hanako at all, but that's all the better. University was stressful, she knew.
Well. Small world.
S P E L L S | A B I L I T I E S S P E L L S | A B I L I T I E S
Lotus Petal Dance - Rengemai (蓮花舞) ★★★ Illusion and Enhancement - Papiyon becomes as a phantom; as she dashes around enemies and strikes from unexpected angles, afterimages are left in her wake, causing no damage but confusing monsters and hostile players alike with the graceful movements; like dancing on tiptoes across a pond of water lilies.
Butterfly Haze - Chou-Moya (蝶靄) ★★ Illusion - With a sound like falling leaves, a cloud of phantasmal butterflies envelops the area around Papiyon as she melds into it. The rustling of a thousand tiny wings hides sound, and the flashing of countless colors distorts vision; and by the time you realize that she'd circled around behind you, it's already too late.
Butterfly Flurry - Chou-Sakkaku (蝶錯覚) ★ Illusion - A mesmerizing purple gleam of magic envelops Papiyon's nagamaki, and attempts to block it seem to land on thin air as its position wavers like water, slipping past guards and through cracks in armor. Using illusion magic, she is able to conceal the position of her sword, distracting the eye with an illusory feint.
Flittering Wing - Hirahira Tsubasa (ひらひら翼) ★ Illusion - You may think you have Papiyon pinned down and a surefire killing blow. You may think that you've escaped her, put enough distance between the two of you that she could never close the distance. In both cases, you are very wrong. With no more than a breath's sigh and a flare of purple light, Papiyon can blink up to twenty or so feet in whatever direction she chooses She can't use it more than once or twice sequentially, but being able to blink through an attack and end up right at her enemy's throat is powerful nonetheless.
Painless Butterfly - Mutsuu-Chou (無痛蝶) ★★★★★ Enhancement and Illusion - The most powerful spell in Papiyon's arsenal, Painless Butterfly sees her close her eyes and sheath her sword as pink energy builds within, crawling up the sheath like butterflies swirling through the sky. All sound becomes muted and distant to her, and the world slows to a crawl. Then, in one fluid motion and with only the soft sound of a gentle spring breeze, she unleashes a single clean stroke from her sheath, trailing pink light and phantom butterflies as it rends through space and time. Each butterfly becomes a strike, each wing a blade, obliterating everything before her. Finally, the blade is stowed once more; and with the deafening click of the guard on the sheath, destruction unfolds and time resumes.
Light As A Butterfly's Wing Papiyon is simultaneously always in the middle of combat, and far away from it. The combination of her Shadow and Illusion domains allows her to flash around the battlefield, skirting every death and striking with blade unseen. As a result, she additionally has a natural aptitude at seeing through illusions, even those that aren't her own.
Holly, Heather, Hydrangea Just because she's off the clock doesn't mean she loves flowers any less. She keeps a small plot of land in Thorinn where she grows an assortment of flowers both magical and mundane and sells them as she wanders to alchemists, tailors, and other crafters with an eye for magic and beauty.
Whirling Sting All of Papiyon's abilities to get close and empower her strikes are useless if the strikes themselves are weak. Luckily, not so; she's quite impressive with her nagamaki. Perhaps not as much as she would be if she were strictly martial; in any competition that completely excludes magic, she's certainly not winning. But with all of her powers and talents factored in, she does a lot of damage, either quickly or over time.
Open Mind, Open Heart For as kind as Papiyon is, and as committed as she is to emotionally protecting those around her--what good is that if people are so distrustful that they won't even let her? While her natural tendency is to hide how she's feeling, she curbs that as much as she possibly can. A constant flow of honesty is infinitely important, and that flow NEEDS to be two-way. All that being said, her mind can be a bit...too open. Because of her sheltered upbringing and tendency to always think the best of people, she has a tendency to be a bit naive and easily manipulated by more canny individuals.
Always There Still, even if she does alienate someone, she'll try her best to un-alienate them, regardless if there was any major fault to be had there. Running alongside the sweetness and kindness, Papiyon is nothing if not incredibly forgiving. Not infinitely so, of course, she has her limits just like everyone else does. But unless either you or her does something truly heinous, she'll find a way to make amends.
Rael (Moriyama Hanako) Chou has a...strange relationship with her sister. She loves her, dearly. But though she's naive, she certainly has the emotional awareness to know that Hanako has gotten increasingly cold recently, though she hasn't quite put together why. She doesn't realize how deep the bitterness truly runs, and so she doesn't think about it in nearly the same terms. Perhaps she did something to offend her the last time they were together, she thought; and perhaps maybe it compounding with the stress from her university work just makes her too tired to be a very nice person.
That strange relationship hasn't quite kicked back in Pariah yet, because unlike Rael, Papiyon is unaware that Rael and Hanako are the same person. As a person who puts more stock in behavior than in appearance, the fact that Rael has a face almost exactly like Hanako's won't be enough for the penny to drop: "she looks like Hana-neechan, but there's no way she could be, because she acts nothing like her!"
I have a feeling I know how @Lemons would answer this question.
You'd think, but I actually have multiple characters that I love way too much Definitely my iconic Quinnlash Loughvein but also I've got a blind esper named Luna who I put in nearly as many settings as Quinn.
On that note,
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P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S
Full Name - Quinnlash Loughvein (Don't call her Quinn. She hates that.) Age - 28 Gender - Female Vocation - Caster Nationality - Midnos
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Emotional Quinnlash is boiling with emotion. Even if she could bottle it up anymore, she wouldn't, and it flows freely out of her. Most of her emotions are...less than charitable much of the time, but she has a greater range than that, certainly. While uncommon, it's not impossible to see a wide smile on her face after a stressful situation has resolved in her favor. Most of the time, though, it's anger. Lots of anger.
Reckless Just like emotions, Quinnlash boils with energy. She has issues with thinking things through. Exacerbated by her emotional nature, it's all too common for her to shoot first and ask questions later, or to run headlong into certain and overwhelming danger. She does put a bit of thought into controlling this impulse, but it's always there, and usually controls her instead.
Critical A vestigial remnant of an ignored past, Quinnlash is very critical, both of herself and others. While this can be useful, as she never throws around criticism unless she means it, it's often misunderstood. Her often hostile emotions can conspire to make genuinely constructive criticism sound a whole lot like "just be better."
G I F T
Soul Ablaze The burning soul-ember that Quinnlash received erupted against her innate pyromancy. When the two settled, she found that in the process, her magic had become unstable and volatile, allowed her to break pieces of her soul off and wield them. Though each one created reduces how long her magic can last, these fragments become flames that never fade, never waver, never die, until the magic within them burns out and returns to her. They can be reabsorbed at will, restoring her splintered soul with a flash of light from her eye; or fed from her magic, renewing them ad infinitum. Notably, her soul does not immediately mend itself when she reabsorbs a soul flame. It takes some time for it to fully rejoin. Still, nobody else can fracture their own soul this way. Nobody but Quinnlash. This is her Gift.
E Q U I P M E N T
Undying Light Quinnlash's weapon of choice against the Void is an enormous rifle-cannon. Created with one of her broken-off soul flames at its core, she can stoke it until it destabilizes and erupts, raging at its constraints until the trigger is pulled. When it is, the magic is released, launching an explosive barrage of scorching fire from the barrel. It takes time for Quinnlash to feed the fire to its fullest extent, but when the furnace is fully stoked, Undying Light is a force of nature and a sight to behold.
Physical Description
A woman of perhaps 5'5" with an extremely average build, Quinnlash can melt into a crowd of people with relative ease as long as she pulls a hood over her head. Not only imbued with a pyromancer's ember but a pyromancer herself, her single eye gleams with a brilliant yellow light. Her hair is very long, kept in a tight braid that trails down her back. Though most if it is the dark gray it always was, bits and pieces of the fringes around her face have begun to bleed the same vivid hue as her eye.
While her body certainly isn't unfit by any stretch, it's not to the same standards that many other Hunters have trained to. Her tendency to keep her distance means that much of her evasive skills in combat rely on creating space between her and enemies as fast as she can. She's nimble enough, of course, needs to be in order to avoid being struck by any return fire, but not very strong. The most obvious place to see this is in her musculature. It is very apparent that she's not a frontline fighter by any means. What she lacks in strength, though, she makes up for in consistency. Though her muscles aren't overly strong, they are filled with a seemingly unnatural endurance and surefootedness even for a hunter. Bought and paid for with each backwards step taken while lining up a shot, that manifests in confident and easy movement, even in the most perilous situation.
She wears long, baggy, thick clothes with many layers, worn and tattered by now, as she travels. She no longer feels the cold now, heated as she is with an ember from deep inside. But deep within her, in a part that she despises, there is a fear that one day, she will lose what makes her human. That perhaps she already has. That her soul, already so fragile, will shatter like a pane of glass, and she'll lose something very, very important.
Character Conceptualization
Quinnlash was a scholar once. A books-in-a-library-in-Midnos, dyed-in-the-wool scholar. She'd been raised to be one her entire life. Ever since she could read, her parents—both reputable scholars themselves—had inundated her, drowned her, with diagrams, carvings, and so many books. Some as heavy as she was and varying widely in topic, the only way for her to keep her head above water was to swim. And swim she did, meekly accepting her parents' demands and doing her work, kept totally isolated in her room within the small but lavish house in the capital of Midnos. She grew very knowledgeable for her age as she simply read. Not that she could understand most of what was in the books. But what else was she to do? With nothing else around her, all the time she could ever want, and the only two people in her world constantly telling her to study at such a young age, what could she do but eat, sleep, and read? She didn't want to go outside. Her parents told her that it was dark. It was dark, and scary, and filled with things that wanted to hurt you. Best to just stay inside studying, right? She could go outside when she was older.
But when she was seven, she was allowed to leave the house. Just once, with her father close beside her. She clung tightly to him, looking fearfully at the dark world, as he took her to see a strange woman. The two of them spoke seriously in low voices for some time. What little she could hear, she didn't understand. Words like "magical affinity," "innate talent," "potential for phenomenal things." She had no idea what was going on, and flinched away, clutching to her father's clothing, when the woman reached her glowing hand out to her. She averted her pale violet eyes from her and closed them tightly, terrified. But no touch came, only a faint warmth that soon faded entirely. She opened her eyes in time to see the woman nod gravely at her father and then turn to walk towards her. And no matter how Quinnlash struggled, no matter how she screamed or cried—the pyromancer took her. The last things she ever heard from her family were two words from her father, as she tearfully begged him to take her back home with mama, please, whatever she did she was sorry, she'd be a good girl from now on, she'd never ask to go outside again:
"Goodbye, Quinn."
From then on, she studied different topics, in different ways. How to conjure flame. How to use it to defend yourself. How to exercise fine control over it. How to channel it for sustained periods. The work was grueling—mentally and physically exhausting. Months bled into years and years bled together, as she studied and trained as a pyromancer, first from a small group of skilled pyromancers and then—as her prodigal once-in-a-generation skill became apparent—by Ezlineia Aldos, the Pyromancer-Queen of Midnos, whom she became very close to. She even started calling her Mom.
Still, the habits ingrained into her by her parents held. Whenever she had time to spare, little enough of it thought there was, she would plod her way into Ezlineia’s library and find the book that Ezlineia told her to sink her brain into to distract her from the crippling fear she felt of the outside world. In reference tomes and manuals of pyromancy, the world was categorized. Understandable. Dissected. But whenever she stepped outside, it all bled together into a mess of darkness and confusion that she fled from time and again. She'd heard the stories of the Void. She'd heard tales about what lurked out there in the darkness. And she was, as ever, afraid. So she buried herself with scholarship and training, distracting herself from the terrifying world around her. She was a perfect piece of moldable clay: quiet, meek, obedient, desperate to be loved, and hopelessly eager to please.
Time ticked by, revealing Quinnlash, now a very powerful—if very inexperienced—pyromancer of 24 years, still lurking in Ezlineia’s libraries, reading about the world that she was ever and always too scared to explore, even past her doorway. There was a hidden, growing part of her that wanted, that desperately yearned, to see what was out there. But it was crushed beneath something far more meaningful that had bubbled up beneath her of late. Studies had been done in Midnos on how to fight the Void. How to resist their corruptive influence. She should know, she’'d read them all. But nothing she'd ever found in her mentor’s library knew what they were. And with that realization, the deep-rooted anger reared its head. She had been shut up her entire life, first of her parents' will, then Ezlineia’s, then her own. And now, 24 years into her life, what did she have to show for it? An exhausting fear. A horrible feeling of being trapped. And not a fragment of new knowledge to contribute to anything. She knew how to wield fire, but what did that matter if she didn’t even know what she was fighting?
Angry. Angry.Angry. Angry at the entire world. But she didn't let it out. She couldn't let it out. She closed in again. And she let it fester. It simmered beneath her for a year and a half, during which time she grew increasingly desperate to find out more about the Void. To find out something, anything, about the Void. A way to justify to herself the decades spent in isolation.
But she never did.
And nearing the tail end of her twenty-fifth year, the caldera of rage had swollen within her, growing more and more misplaced tremors of anger. Anger at her parents, who locked her in one room for years, and instilled deep within her the fear of the unknown that still dogged her feet. Anger at that damned pyromancer Elan for taking her away from her family when she was scarcely old enough to understand what was happening. Anger at Ezlineia, for her obsessed devotion to training her to become the next Queen. But most of all? Most of all, she was so furious it made her sick to her stomach at herself. If all the Midnosian studies on the Void were useless, what was she? Hiding in the library walls, never daring to take more than a few steps outside? Her whole life...what did any of it mean?
No more. No more calculating decisions for weeks before taking a single action. No more staring silently at the ceiling, unable to sleep, eyes fearfully darting about the room for hours. No more suppressing her emotions, crushing them down until they boiled her alive. No more books. No more. No more useless scholarship. No more being groomed to take the throne by Ezlineia. After all, a queenship was just another, shinier cage. Never again. No more. She needed to leave this place. To escape. To throw herself into something else, something so singular and savage that she could only ever think of it. Her brain screamed for it.
The caldera burst. The volcano erupted.
With barely a conscious thought, she found herself strapped to a table as a willing volunteer, with Mom standing above her.
"Are you really sure you want to do this, Quinnlash?" "Fucking yes! Hurry up already!
The Queen sighed almost mournfully. And then came the pain. Her pyromancy warred with the ember growing within her, violently rejecting this foreign flame. Her skin peeled off and regrew. Her blood seethed and boiled. Her muscles were shredded, rebuilt, and shredded again. She vaguely remembers her bones snapping like brittle burnt twigs under their own weight. And her eyes incandesced, searing themselves white hot and bubbling within her skull. One of them ran out of her face, dripping like magma to the floor and collecting in a smoking, ruined pool. Only the other made it through the transformation from scholar to something far more dangerous, and it was forever dyed with a baleful yellow light.
In the years since, she's changed so much from the her that hid from the world that she doesn't even recognize what she was anymore. She's a different person now. The life of a Huntress was one that she'd only come upon through reckless abandon and overpowering emotion—sheer blinding anger—and so that is who she became. She barely even remembers the old Quinnlash. The Quinnlash that she left behind. And for that she is thankful, as she embraces a new Quinnlash. The Quinnlash who fights the darkness. Who embraces the constant pain. Who does all she can to not feel fear. Because if she does, then the rest of her—the one she's tried so hard to forget—may come creeping back.
Never again. Fight for the sake of fighting. Never again. Move on. Never again. Don't ever look back.
Other Information
TBD
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I R L
Full Name - Kelly Anne Mackay Age - 19 Place of Origin - Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Occupation - University Student
A V A T A R
Character's Name - Alja Frostguard Pathos Affiliation - Tyhrien Role - Switch; DPS/Tank Profession - Blacksmith Weapon of Choice - Alja's favored weapon is an extremely heavy flail called the Glacier Chain. Domains - Ice; Manifestation, Conjuration, Enhancement -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Physical Alja is, unsurprisingly, a very physical person. She's physical with displeasure, she's physical with annoyance, she's physical with levity, she's physical with affection. Most everything she does involves her body and physicality in some way; hell, even drinking is something of a sport for her. Everything she does is so emphatically physical that it might look like a parody, but it really isn't. It's just the way she is.
Raucous She might cut an imposing figure, but Alja is nothing if not approachable. She's rarely uncomfortable in any given situation, and that manifests itself in being super personable and always ready to laugh. Sure, she's a little bit rough around the edges--her laughs aren't exactly dainty, and her humor tends to run along the crude side more often than not--but for a night out drinking, there are few companions better.
War Mother As mentioned above, as long as you're willing to put up with her the occasional slap on the back that ends up feeling a little bit more than friendly because of how physical she is, Alja is a pretty nice person to be around. And she loves fighting. Being how friendly she is, it's not super hard to get on her good side And if you are on that good side? She becomes the momma bear. She'd rather die than let you die.
B E N C H M A R K S
Hammer & Flame Just as she is skilled with a flail in battle, so too is she skilled with a hammer in the forge. Alja is a highly skilled smith. Most of the equipment she uses, she made and repairs herself, and she's always available to craft something for another player. She doesn't care much for price; while sometimes she'll charge for coin, most of the coin she needs she finds during her occasional dungeon delve. She much prefers having favors owed to her, and that's usually the price of her smithing services.
Tundra Walker Alja's heart burns with the cold of the north. Over the course of her time in Pariah, she's unlocked powerful ice magic. Most of it is Primordial, summoning localized arctic storms or slamming the ground with her flail to create a line of lethal ice-spikes. However, she's also proficient at conjuration, coating her weapon or armor with a thick shell of enchanted ice or using it to hold a foe in place while she winds up a finishing strike with her flail.
War Maiden While her ice magic is important, it's not what sets Alja apart in combat. Her true skill lies in the martial techniques that she's discovered over the course of her playtime. They've allowed her to specialize into some very useful abilities, including such things as rendering an enemy prone by wrapping her flail around their leg and pulling, disarmament through similar means, or a slow but powerful strike that lets her splinter shields and cave in chestplates alike.
Worldspine Wanderer Alja is equally at home out in the deep wilderness as she is in a warm tavern. She can tell the direction she's going at all times, and has a general knowledge of the animals, plants, environmental hazards, and etc. of whatever terrain she happens to be in at the time, though she knows the tundra and mountains of the far north the best. As a result of her wanderings, she also receives a healthy buff to stamina that lets her keep going longer than most people.
Physical Description
Kelly Mackay is a tiny girl; 19 years of age, she's still only about five feet tall. A bit of a doormat and wallflower with something of an anxiety problem, she's too afraid of people to go to the gym, ending up a bit of a social recluse who closes herself in her room most of the time. This leads to a couple of things: firstly, her skin is ghostly pale, as she rarely gets outside for any length of time. And secondly, she looks like a doll or something: because of how anxious she tends to be, she doesn't do anything that could result in any excitement or injury. Her skin is unmarked, and her hair is kept in perfect order, though it does sport quite a collection of split ends from constant nervous brushing. The only 'daring' thing that she ever brought herself to do was to bleach her naturally red hair and dye it a pastel pink.
So, in short, her appearance in real life has NOTHING to do with how her avatar Alja appears. The first thing that most notice about Alja is just how big she is. She soars past six feet tall, ending up somewhere six inches above that, towering over most people she meets. And her size isn't just in her height, either. She's wide as well, with broad shoulders and hips. Whatever figure she might have between those two is hidden by the layers of huge, bulging muscle that ripple across her body. Her unkempt white hair is left undone, hanging down to about her massive shoulderblades. Most of the time, she wears a set of heavy armor forged of steel, stained blue and lined with brown fur. When she's not armored, she tends toward heavy fur clothing, especially long cloaks. Capping everything off is the wild grin that usually dominates her face, a promise of either a good time or absolute mayhem. Or both.
Character Conceptualization
There are people that shy away from problems that don't have to do with them. Who don't want to get involved with arguments that they have no business being involved with, and who tend to keep to themselves.
Alja is...decidedly not one of those.
Rather, Alja is the kind of person who actively goes out of her way to get involved with things that aren't even slightly her business, and for whom 'someone else's problem' translates roughly to 'opportunity to meet a new drinking buddy.' Despite being more than capable of solo play--her tank/DPS spec letting her get away with things that she really shouldn't occasionally--Alja is what might be referred to as a social butterfly if such a term didn't sound far too delicate for her particular brand of friendship. She's the kind of woman who makes an acquaintance with everyone, and considers every acquaintance her friend, and so she's never been short of allies for dungeoneering. Her free and loose attitude towards money and her competence as a smith doesn't hurt either.
All that being said, as friendly as she is--as loud as she is--because of her tendency to make friends with everyone and so think the best of them by default, she is very easy to deceive. Her Tyhrien pathos is a painful reminder of a few incidents in the past, the worst of which--a trade-scamming betrayal from a loose group of people she'd been playing--left her alone in the wilderness with nothing to her name but Glacier Chain, a single health potion, and a halfhearted apology.
But regardless of all that--however many times her kindness and preoccupation with honorable conduct have gotten her taken advantage of, or in danger--she refuses to back down from her worldview. The day that she stops believing in the best of people--Wayfarers and advanced NPCs alike--is, to her, the day that the people that scam, the people that betray, the people that hurt...the day they all win. So she continues swaggering through Pariah with that same cocksure, wild grin on her face, always ready to dive deep for her friends.
Other Information
Her signature weapon, the Glacier Chain, is a massive heavy flail made of enchanted ice that never melts. It has the unique effect of buffing ice damage from the wielder. While she certainly doesn't need it for her Primordial spells to do work, it certainly doesn't hurt.
Most of Alja's magic damage comes from Primordial sources, leaving little need for defined spells. However, a relatively small corner of her magic is devoted to damage; most of it is oriented around tanking, and that merits a spell list.
Frigid Form - Not so much a spell as a header, Frigid Form is the category of spells that define Alja's tank-related buffs. If a spell is listed under the Frigid Form header, you can be sure it's not there for damage (with one exception).
Frigid Form - Tundra Glass (Conjuration): Tundra Glass forms the core of Alja's tank playstyle, and is also what makes her so versatile as a switch-role. She uses it to encase an object in a shell of ice. Usually, this is used to buff her defensive stats heavily, forming a suit of Frost Armor. This can also be used on allies, though the buff isn't as strong. However--here comes that exception--this is also one of her big DPS spells. By forming a shell of unstable Tundra Glass shards on Glacier Chain, Alja can cause a forceful explosion of ice on her next attack, massively empowering it. She can only have a single instance of Tundra Glass up at any one point, and there's a brief cooldown on creating it.
Frigid Form - Stand Firm (Enhancement): Alja channels for one second. Once the channel is done, her entire body locks in place as she channels the strength of glaciers. The next hit she takes--no matter how powerful--will deal zero damage, and until she absorbs damage with this, she cannot be moved. However, if she chooses to move, attack, or take any other kind of action, Stand Firm is cancelled, and drains more energy than it would if she saw it to completion.
Frigid Form - Heart of Ice (Manifestation): A channeled ability. Alja whirls her flail over her head. A zone forms around her, expanding every second to a maximum of about 20 feet across; everything in that zone not only has its movement speed slowed to an absolute crawl, but also has its damage output to all targets reduced by a significant amount. She can end the channel at any time, and can choose to slam her flail into the ground when she does. If she does so, it additionally creates a shockwave that does negligible damage, but violently pulls everything that was in the zone straight towards her. The further away they were from her, the harder it pulls.
Frigid Form - Avatar of Winter (not yet learned) (Conjuration/Enhancement): Alja's highest-level tank spell, this can only be used when she already has Frost Armor on herself. It detonates the armor, scattering shards of ice about and dealing damage. Afterwards, the frost reforms; for the duration of this spell (about twenty seconds), she has massive damage reduction and has massive resistance to forced movement. It also renders her completely immune to frost damage of any kind, as she's encased in a colossal suit of Frost Armor almost a foot thick. Naturally, this spell takes the most energy to cast.
In addition to Frigid Form, she has two very powerful damage spells in her kit that she reserves for emergencies:
Be The North - The pinnacle of Alja's manifestation magic, turned outwards. She channels for a total of five seconds and gains resistance to any kind of forced movement during the channel. At the end of the channel, the area around her erupts with a blast of frost, dealing a huge chunk of ice damage and slowing anything caught in the final explosion for another five seconds. A spell devoted to mobs of weaker enemies.
One Thousand Shining Teeth - As Be The North is the peak of her manifestation magic, this is the pinnacle of her conjuration turned to damage. She channels for up to ten seconds, during which time she floats into the air and steadily conjures a huge amount of spears made of ice all around her. At any time, she can choose to end the channel, dropping the ground and slamming it with her flail. When she does, the ice spears all seek the target(s) that she chooses. While it doesn't cover as much area as Be The North, if Alja needs to nuke one or two enemies to dust, accept no substitutes.
Member
Mcmolly
Altered Tundra
Supermaxx
Zeus23
Xaltwind
Lurking Krog
SONIC
Neziul
Not a Sayan
Obscene Symphony
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