Location: Wayfarer's Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
A lot happened very quickly.
Seele was pleased with the group that was forming around them. Alja was a wonderful presence, Kazuki, for his quietness, seemed nice enough, as did his brother. Kalie was an…intriguing person, whose dedication to her character Seele could certainly respect, and Alex—an entirely new face to her, compared to the more infamous members who she didn’t know, but had at least heard of—was delightfully chipper. She couldn’t tell how experienced he was, but she’d try to keep an eye out for him in the dungeon, just in case.
The red-haired, drink-dumping tank finally joined them—Rael, apparently—and to her surprise, she started speaking Japanese. Seele blinked, unsure if she’d even heard correctly, but, no, she definitely had. Pariah generally filtered all speech into its common tongues, one would have to go out of their way to say something in their native language. It had been a while since Missy had spoken Japanese, and most of it had been conversations with her father growing up, or his colleagues. Seele made a note to remember that for later.
The surly swordsman, Graves, came over. She gave him a smile and when he held out his fist to her, she stared at it. Oh—duh. She made to bump knuckles with him when attentions suddenly shifted.
There was commotion across the Retreat, and Seele looked around a bit blindly at first until she saw that the stoic, authoritative woman, Luci, was an utter mess of smiles and tears and screams of joy. Seele couldn’t really hear them from where she was, but she saw Luci showing off her hand to her friends, and the beaming grin on Aaginim’s face, and was able to put two and two together.
“Ohmigosh! Guys! Guys! That’s so beautiful!” She squealed, clapping her hands and bouncing on the tips of her toes. Her oversized cap bobbed atop her head like a buoy at sea.
The excitement, at least for their group, was short-lived as Alja, who was so distinctly…vertical compared to the rest of them, became suddenly and somewhat alarmingly horizontal. Seele wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at first. Clumsiness? No, that seemed out of character. Maybe just a bit tipsy? That seemed to be the growing consensus.
Graves was the first at her side, which Seele found to be an endearing surprise. As with most people who put on rough faces online, he seemed to have a softness to him. Seele found the scant remains of her worries washing away. It seemed to her that, so long as their group stayed together, they could handle whatever challenges this dungeon presented.
Location: Wayfarer's Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
Seele beamed as Benkei waved her over, and a pink-haired girl wandered off, likely to join the other group. She bowed politely, and took stock of her leader as she assumed he quickly did the same with her. Young, quite young actually, compared to most of the other wayfarers she’d seen so far. She couldn’t pin-point his age of course, due to the altered nature of Pariah’s avatars, and she supposed it didn’t matter much, either. Missy had never been the type to equate age directly with capability; so many things went into experience, and everyone was unique. If Aaginim had decided Benkei was fit to lead a group through new content, then she’d follow right along. ...sy... “It’s nice to meet you too!” she said, clasping her hands together. “Ah, a bit of the unconventional sort. Shields, buffs and debuffs exclusively. Thankfully it looks like—”
She paused as the friendly giant approached, and thankfully this time with much less urgency than before. Seele waited patiently while she discussed her role with their group leader, and offered her a smile and assuaging gesture when she apologized.
“Not at all! I’m Seele—or Missy, whichever you prefer. It’s nice to meet you! I was only going to say that I hope we have at least one more traditional healer, for the sake of making things smoother, but—and pardon me if I’m gear-profiling—you already seem to have that covered, it seems?” ... ... Seele craned her neck around Benkei to the young man accompanying him—taking note of the undeniable resemblance between them—and gave him a slight wave. Running content with newer players, Seele had developed an eye for the quiet types. Normally she didn’t like to push her way into people’s comfort zones, but with the group forming up, it seemed like a fine time to make an exception.
Location: The Wayfarer’s Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
Seele started just a bit when a rather loud, authoritative voice rose over the general clamor of the hall. The whole Retreat fell silent in a matter of moments, and all eyes went to a man that some clearly recognized, and others—like herself—had to take cues from the rest to identify. …sc…ared… Ah, she thought. That must be Aaginim. He seems charming.
Seele stood from the table and listened intently as their raid leader explained the guidelines for their event. Some of the information seemed a bit…obvious, to her, but the fact that he had to emphasize that no one should be stealing loot was inarguably concerning. She was aware that some of her potential teammates had reputations for bad behavior, but surely they’d all be willing to behave themselves for something like this. Aaginim was right, after all, if there weren’t going to be any quest items dropping inside, then there was no reason to claw over loot they could all just farm from later runs.
After the rules were established, Aaginim moved on to the part she and undoubtedly most of the wayfarers had been waiting for: grouping. Two of them, A and B. Seele smiled and listened and when he was done listing off the names, she blinked, and looked around.
Oh, right. She didn’t know any of these people. The larger of the two endearingly jovial women had called the other one "Leafy," but that was the extent of her knowledge.
A few moments passed and as the people she assumed to be group A started gravitating towards Aaginim, she waited for someone to announce themselves as group B. …don’t…
Nothing yet. Seele clicked her tongue. Oh well, fair enough. She’d been waiting on introductions until the grouping had been done, so she supposed now was as good a time as any to start being proactive.
Keeping her smile warm and welcoming, she raised a hand up into the air and gave a little wave around the room. …go… “Benkei?” she called out to the others. “Is Benkei here? Group B support, looking for my fearless leader!”
Location: The Wayfarer’s Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
Seele found herself smiling—now this girl was a breath of fresh air! Energy entirely different from the people she’d encountered so far—for the most part, though she saw a bit of the titan woman in her mannerisms—excited and ready for the adventure ahead of them. It was enough to shift the mood and shove Seele’s creeping doubts away.
She giggled good-naturedly as the unruly man fumbled his way through the conversation, still clearly aggravated by the ale that lingered. She did take note of the slight magic he employed in drying himself, though.
“Seele,” she said, nodding politely to them. “Or Missy is fine, too. I’m not picky. It’s nice to meet you both!”
Seeing as her basket had served its purpose, she took the cloth from inside and set about dabbing up the ale the new girl had splashed about in her enthusiasm. As with her cleaning before, it was mostly meaningless, but she did it anyway. Perhaps that was why people sometimes mistook her for a denizen. Not that she minded, they were for the most part a lovely folk.
“I don’t provide healing, unfortunately, but I’ve been told I’m a very reliable support. If I’m lucky enough to be grouped with the two of you, I promise I’ll do my best to keep you safe.” Mis…sy…
Location: The Wayfarer’s Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
When the mess was cleaned—as best she could clean it anyway, though she was sure the denizens would come by to do it better later on—Seele took her seat again. Her basket was empty now, her food stocks diminished, and only a few people had gotten any benefit from it. But, a few was more than none. The nearly-fight had been a bit troubling, but Seele was certain now that even if this new raid was nothing special, her fellow wayfarers would at least make it interesting. ...don’t… Part of her wanted to seek out one of those authoritative members of the raid team before things kicked off, someone friendly with Aaginim. Seele wasn’t short of confidence in herself, but in her experience it was only fair to make the organizers aware of her build before going into challenging, or even just potentially challenging content. More than once had she been placed into teams without traditional healers because the raid leaders had just assumed—rightfully, of course—that she had brought the sort of spells expected of her role. It wasn’t that she couldn’t pull off solo-supporting, she’d done it before, but something told her a fair number of these players weren’t the type to put up with “close-calls.” Better she was placed with at least one other proper healer, for tempers’ sakes. ...leave…
However, though plenty of the others had broken off into smaller conversations, Seele got the sense that things were coming to a head. The raid had clearly been put together with such haste for the purpose of being among the first into the new dungeon, and if they waited too much longer, someone else would surely beat them to it.
So, Seele decided to stay put for now. The socialite in her protested, but again, there would be much better opportunities to make new friends once the raid had actually begun, and their groups were formed. Hopefully she would come away from this with a longer friends list, but at the very least she’d get some experience with the new dungeon, which would make it easier to help others through it later. ...me…
Her stomach growled. She cast a hopeless look at her empty basket.
Location: The Wayfarer’s Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
Well this was escalating poorly.
Seele lost a bit of wind when the table lurched against her, but more importantly, the angry man’s sudden spring into action had knocked her basket and sandwiches onto the floor. She tried to snatch at them as they fell but, well, dexterity wasn’t her forte. She managed to pinch one of them by the corner though, before the stone was seasoned with ham and cheese and that tangy sauce she’d bought on her way into Thorinn from an utterly delightful denizen. Sad, but, oh well. Spilt milk and all that. She tucked the sole survivor of the sandwich massacre away and scrambled out from her position nearly under the table just in time for thunder to strike.
No, wait, not thunder—bootsteps. The woman she’d seen before, the exceptionally large one, must have stormed over the very moment things had turned sour, because she was already between them by the time Seele was back on her feet. Her chest tightened for a moment, fearing the worst, when she realized that the woman wasn’t joining in, but rather defusing, or trying to at least. Please… She had a loud voice, and so her points were just about impossible to ignore—although it seemed to Seele that the ornery man was attempting to. More than a few times on her journeys, Seele had encountered people like this woman: big, presence, big weapons, bigger hearts. Always a breath of fresh air to see players who hadn’t been jaded by their experience.
Unfortunately, the effort did little to ease the tension. Both the man and the girl were having none of it, and Seele had a sinking feeling that the Retreat was about to become a battleground.
“If either of you toggle PVP anywhere you’re out of the fucking raid!”
Or not.
The first word that came to mind when Seele saw the new trio approach was ‘authority,’ and, clearly, she wasn’t alone. Like a licked wick, the burgeoning fight was snuffed before it even had the chance to start. The tension remained, but that was expected. Seele had run more than a few raids with members that couldn’t stand each other, this was still doable even if the two of them were paired up together. It…hurts…
Either way, it was over. To Seele’s pleasant surprise, the man came back and shimmied the table back to where it had been. He seemed remorseful, or at least embarrassed. Hopefully this was a lesson learned for him, but she wasn’t about to give him some kind of lecture after all of that. Instead, she smiled and waved off his apology.
“It’s really no problem, I’ve faced greater foes than tables and emerged victorious before. Here,” she offered the sandwich, ham and cheese, last of his name. “One more for the road?”
With that settled, Seele set about cleaning up the mess her impromptu picnic had become. Sure, there were probably denizens ready to sweep and mop, but she was here, and in some way it felt a little bit like her responsibility.
Location: The Wayfarer’s Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
One or two nervous-looking wayfarers had come by to pluck from the meager stack of sandwiches, and Seele had given them smiles and encouragement as they went on their ways. There certainly did seem to be more buzz around this dungeon than she’d initially thought, but that was fine. She played this game for a challenge, she wasn’t about to back down from one now.
Eventually the inevitable happened, and someone came along who, either from intrigue or boredom, decided that conversation would pair well with the food she offered. Which was great! Granted, the man had opted to enjoy both in tandem, but there were worse things than someone who couldn’t decide between speaking and swallowing.
Seele smiled at his advice. Fair enough that he thought she was green, she was the one pitched up with lowbie food in the middle of a progression queue. He snatched up a second sandwich, and while she instinctively wanted to ask him to save some for the others, again, it was lowbie food. More for taste than stats. He must have known that too, so then he had enjoyed it, right? She supposed that was good enough.
“Ah, not my first time, no,” she said lightly. “Though I’ll admit to being newer to progression, so no offense taken! You look like you know your way around a dungeon though, maybe you could share some pointers with me? Want to make sure I’m ready as can be in case we’re—oh, hello! Would you like a sandwich?”
Seele recognized the girl again as one of the tanks with a…dubious reputation. Not a problem. Not only had she never met the girl before, but regardless of her past, Seele was always ready to offer out the hand of friendship—or in this case, the sandwich. Rain… But she didn’t get that chance. First the girl made a somewhat disparaging remark, and then without warning, she emptied her flagon over the head of her newest friend. With a hard blink, Seele leaned back in her seat and pulled the basket and stack of sandwiches to her side of the table, out of the splash zone.
Location: The Wayfarer’s Retreat -- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria
This was quite a gathering.
Seele was used to large groups. Plenty of the raids she’d participated in were full-house clears, and she’d spent a considerable amount of time around strangers, who had only really remained strangers as long as it took them to get acquainted.
Still, this wasn’t her normal gig. Seele had never trailblazed new content before. Sure, she’d never been far behind, but arriving on day one to raid alongside seasoned veterans was out of her normal wheelhouse. In a way though, it was at least a bit familiar. None of them were new, but in the same way, none of them had ever encountered this dungeon before. Progression raiding was different, but perhaps it could still be exciting.
With graceful steps, Seele entered the Wayfarer’s Retreat and surveilled the players present. Sure enough, she didn’t recognize a single one, at least from personal experience. Plenty of them she’d seen plastered on various leaderboards for all sorts of content, both PvE and—she shuddered—PvP, but as best she could recall, Seele had never partied up with any of them.
Good, she thought happily. New faces. New friends.
In the back of her mind she had doubts, still, about coming to something like this. She wasn’t normally welcome at new content, especially brand new content, and it unsettled her a bit. Already she could hear the complaints. “Where’s your off-damage?”“Wait she doesn’t even have any healing spells!”Bro if this chick doesn’t start actually playing she’s getting kicked.”
No, no. No. She was being pessimistic. Seele was more than capable of contributing to this raid, and that aside, there were likely plenty of healers as well. This was going to go just fine, and if it didn’t, she was sure they’d get it eventually.
Not far away, a few of those distantly-familiar faces were converging. She recognized a couple of them as tanks—with somewhat unsavory reputations, she thought, but oh well. Others she didn’t know at all, but they were quickly making themselves memorable. One titan of a woman was making a show of drinking and cajoling with the red-headed girl. With them was another girl who seemed to be something of a chatterbox. That was nice, Seele loved listening to people talk. All of the wayfarers here probably had mountains of stories to tell, and were she a woman with less self-control, she might have just gone around asking after all of them. Mi...ssy... But there would be time for that later, maybe even in the dungeon itself. Perhaps they’d be split into smaller groups, which would certainly make getting to know her team easier. For the moment though, she took a seat at a longer table and set down a small woven box atop it. From within she pulled a small stack of sandwiches, along with a little hand-drawn sign that said: “Lesser feasts! All it costs is a smile!”
The buffs her food offered would be negligibly-minor, and might not last very long into the dungeon if they didn’t depart soon, but she liked to offer them anyway. Food could taste just as good inside Pariah as it did outside, and while Missy herself wasn’t much of a cook, Seele…well, alright, Seele had bought most of the recipes from low-level vendors, but darned if she hadn’t put the sandwiches together herself.
Full Name – Misao (“Missy”) Ito-Walsh Age – 18 It's...dark... Place of Origin – United States Occupation – Prospective University Student
A V A T A R
Character's Name – Seele Pathos Affiliation – Drox I'm...scared... Role – Buffer/Debuffer Profession – Traveling Physician Weapon of Choice – Focus Rings Domains – Enhancement, Protection, Dark -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Forbearing Seele is the embodiment of the phrase “patience is a virtue.” She has to be, really, considering how much time she spends around newer players and rerunning familiar content. Whether someone is struggling to learn the game, or growing frustrated hitting a wall, or even being outright toxic, Seele takes it all in stride and tries her best to help the situation along. Even facing the toughest odds, you’d be hard-pressed to get so much as a defeated sigh out of her. Some people like that, other people, respectfully, can’t fucking stand it. Seele, of course, enjoys their company regardless. Missy...please... The Power of Friendship! Angel food cake is rich, and sweet, and sometimes it is just entirely too much. Seele is like that. She’s quick to make friends, and quicker to want to help those friends. She loves to talk with them, loves to be regaled with adventurous stories, and now and then she even loves to talk with them a little OOC. When it comes to most things, Seele is an open book—she finds people open up more easily that way. She won’t bat an eye if you call her “Missy” by accident, and she’s never turned away anyone who’s come to her with an out-of-game problem. Whether it’s raid bosses, homework, or trouble at home, Seele has always done her best to be supportive.
Idealistic, but not Blind While some people tend to believe that warm smiles and a bubbly personality equate to air-headedness, for all of the good and bad that Seele is, she is not naïve. Is she trusting to a fault? Yes. Does her patience render her unable to make the “hard decisions,” especially when those decisions might leave someone hurt or even just inconvenienced? Absolutely. Seele is keenly aware that supports are often seen as doormats, and can easily be taken advantage of, but that hasn’t stopped her from supporting even in the most blatantly deceptive cases. In her mind, she’d rather have faith and be wrong a thousand times than give up on someone and be right just once. Even if it’s just in a game, everyone can change, and grow, and be forgiven for their mistakes. Liar.
B E N C H M A R K S
Shackled The crux of Seele’s playstyle lies within her signature spell: The Shackles. When summoned, roughly a foot of ethereal chain binds her wrists. At first, this hampers her spell-power, but as she continues to cast, the chains will shimmer and crack. When they eventually break, the potency of Seele’s magic is increased dramatically, allowing for enhanced shields, buffs, and debuffs for a short duration. Once the effect ends, it must be started over. Larger spells quicken the chain’s deterioration, but may not be available during the empowered phase as a result. Don’t…go…
The Shield Behind You Seele won’t call herself a healer, but some of what she does could be called “proactive healing.” Seele can weave arcane barriers into existence with varying potency. Shields for individuals require less power to make effective, while larger, area-of-effect shields may take a more substantial toll.
Your Wings. Your Chains. The core of Seele’s spells are a range of buffs and debuffs. Where other casters would have made room for damage, Seele doubled down on utility. Speed, strength, spell-power, empowered weapons, she has something up her sleeve for just about all of her allies in one form or another. For her enemies, while she won’t be hurting them per se, they may find themselves struggling to hurt her party in kind. Curses of frailty, hexes to shatter resistances and bindings to anchor the feet; assailants will find their weapons brittle, their armor chipping, and their efforts dashed against the empowered might of her party. Missy…please…
The Best Medicine Is sometimes literally medicine. Seele’s life as a roaming support, especially one inclined towards aiding the newer or more unfortunate players, hasn’t yielded her much in the way of coin. She’s taken to herbalism as a means of keeping herself afloat, after all, all it takes to gather ingredients is time, and the effort to learn how to utilize them. While she has no talent whatsoever for poisons, her tinctures and salves have eased more than a handful of headaches and minor wounds. Anything much greater though, and she’ll be the first to direct you to a proper healer. It hurts…
Physical Description
Misao—though she’s gone by “Missy” for most of her life—is an unassuming girl with a prim, peppy disposition. Preferring vests and collared shirts, skirts and plain shoes, she generally wouldn’t look at all out of place at some mid-grade piano-recital, if she, you know, played piano. Tallish from her mom’s side, wiry from her dad’s, with eyes that might seem just a bit too big, and a smile near-constantly affixed to her face, if there was a single word to sum Missy up, it would be “approachable.” Mi...ssy... Seele resembles Missy for the most part, albeit a bit less well-kempt. Volumes of black hair like raven-down fall from the wide brim of her cap, all the way down to her knees, occasionally bound in tails of three or four, but most often left like a feathery curtain. Her attire strikes a fashionable line between “swamp-witch-chic” and “discount battle-mage,” with black robes and thick boots, gauzed sleeves and superfluous belts and thin ringlet strings that could not, really, be holding anything together, but which she would insist were integral regardless.
The standout to her ensemble would be the armored rings she wears on a few fingers of either hand, the catalyst for her magic and the closest thing Seele carries to a weapon. Claw-nailed, lined with runes, and marbled onyx and ivory, one might easily mistake them for jewelry. The foremost digits can be retracted, so that she can handle things without jabbing them. Missy…please…
Character Conceptualization
Seele made her debut in Aetheria a few months after Pariah Online’s launch, once the floodgates had opened and the famous and infamous wayfarers had begun chiseling out their legacies. Having always been what most people would refer to as “the mom friend,” it would have come as a surprise to no one who had known her—were she still in contact with any of them—that Missy chose to fulfil a supportive role. It hurts…
She would emphasize “support” over “healer,” as Seele decidedly doesn’t refer to what she does as healing. She supplies her allies with an arsenal of buffs, enhancements, and shields, and weakens her foes with debilitating curses, hexes and arcane devilry. “Weakens” is another important clarification to her, as Seele boasts just about no true offensive capabilities. No weapons, no fireballs or lightning strikes, nothing to directly chip away at that health bar. This was, of course, by design for her. She enjoys the challenge presented by her somewhat-inhibitive toolkit, but more than that she enjoys conquering those challenges with others—which is great, because she likely couldn’t clear any content on her own otherwise.
It took a while for her to grow into the peculiar playstyle she’d chosen, and longer still for her to convince others to give her a shot. Dungeoneers passed her by for more conventional healers, raiders would decline her applications almost instantly. She found tumultuous homes in random pick-up-groups, who were consistently surprised when she managed to get them through nearly unscathed; monsters would hardly ever scratch them, and her team found their weapons swung truer, their spells quickened. They would clear dungeons with brow-raising parses rivaling actual guilds, but when the time for glory came, Seele always stepped back and let her tanks and dps and the occasional off-healer take the spotlight and riches. Don't…go... Ironically, the home she found was in travelling Aetheria, offering aid to players and denizens who would accept her. She helped newer players transition into more challenging content, she helped moderate players gear up so that they could apply to guilds with more confidence, and a handful of times she even found herself substituting for missing supports in raids run by guilds with serious reputations. While most people had never heard of her, Seele’s name did find its way onto the short-lists of a fair number of higher-end raid leaders and dungeoneers, who knew they could rely on her to keep them up, and the enemy down.
Perpetually guildless—again, by design—Seele enjoys her humble life in Aetheria. She gets to meet all sorts of people, hear their stories and goals and help them on their way, make friends and experience Pariah’s content in fun and challenging ways.
Except for PvP. As Missy would say, “Frick PvP.” Missy…please…
Other Information
Signature
Shackled Seele’s signature spell, and the key to her somewhat strange toolkit. When cast, Seele’s wrists are bound by a pair of ethereal shackles. While chained, Seele’s spell-power is inhibited, and the effectiveness of her shields, buffs and debuffs are substantially impacted. As she continues casting however, this inhibition gradually wears off, until the chains eventually break, activating the spell’s second phase: Broken Chains.
Broken Chains For a short duration after the shackles are broken, Seele’s spell power is greatly increased, and a few of her spells become empowered, taking on new or heightened effects. As well, certain abilities can only be cast during Broken Chains and will immediately consume the effect.
Shields
Umbral Aegis Marrying her Arcane affinity for Protection with her Primordial affinity for Dark, Seele weaves a barrier of faint, deep-violet light, which can be applied to targets individually. Must be depleted or dispelled before reapplication.
Abyssal Embrace Seele’s shield takes on a vantablack shine, able to withstand significantly more damage. Additonally, a portion of the damage inflicted by Cursed Weapon is fed into the shield, not enough to permanently sustain it, but exceptional if used on a target about to do burst damage.
The Parasol Combines all active shields cast by Seele into a single barrier-dome. If no shields were active, Seele can empower it by sacrificing her own HP. This spell must be channeled, and once interrupted or depleted, it will consume the Broken Chains effect.
Buffs
Cursed Weapon Target’s weapon takes on a ghostly edge, sucking at the light as it flies. Provides a slight increase to damage that ramps up as the duration winds down. Refreshing resets the damage buff, rather than extending it.
Haint It’s there, in the corner of your eye. Something, in the dark. Affected target adopts a shadowy after-image, which will mirror their next attack.
All Your Shadows Applies Haint to all targets with the Cursed Weapon buff. Consumes the Broken Chains effect.
Thrill Moderately empowers a target’s strength, speed, agility or spell-power. Seele can further feed this buff by sacrificing some of her own respective stat.
Absolution Empowers a target’s strength, speed, agility or spell-power temporarily, equal to Seele’s own spell-power. Can only cast each buff once, and targets can not receive more than two empowered buffs each.
Debuffs
The Fivefold Path Seele applies one of five temporary debuffs to a target:
Denial Reduces target’s movement speed.
Anger Reduces target’s damage.
Bargaining Reduces target’s spell-power.
Depression Reduces target’s healing received.
Acceptance Reduces target’s defense.
Guilt Walk alone. Applies all five debuffs to a target. Afflicts Seele with empowered Acceptance, drastically reducing her defense.
Heavy Heart Seele greatly hinders a target’s movement speed. Requires her to maintain vision of the target.
The Anchor You are sinking. Ethereal chains bind the target in place. The Anchor’s strength is directly linked to Seele’s spell-power. This spell must be channeled, and Seele must remain stationary. When The Anchor is broken or dismissed, the Broken Chains effect is consumed....please...
Utility/Other
Promise Seele summons a ghostly chain, which pulls a willing target to her. Heavier targets require more effort to pull.
Don’t Leave Me Seele pulls all willing targets within a moderate distance to her. Can also be used to empower a single chain with her spell-power to attempt to pull a single unwilling target.
The Choice Seele channels to temporarily boosts a willing target’s defense dramatically, also numbing them to pain. However, the target will constantly lose health until the effect ends or is canceled. I can’t…
I Can Hear The Rain Seele additionally empowers her target’s damage, but their health drains at a much higher rate. As well, the effect cannot be canceled and must run its course, or be dispelled. Without dedicated healing, this may potentially kill her target. You have to...
Full Name – Misao (“Missy”) Ito-Walsh Age – 18 It's...dark... Place of Origin – United States Occupation – Prospective University Student
A V A T A R
Character's Name – Ciel Pathos Affiliation – Drox I'm...scared... Role – Buffer/Debuffer Profession – Traveling Physician Weapon of Choice – Focus Rings Domains – Enhancement, Manifestation -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Forbearing Ciel is the embodiment of the phrase “patience is a virtue.” She has to be, really, considering how much time she spends around newer players and rerunning familiar content. Whether someone is struggling to learn the game, or growing frustrated hitting a wall, or even being outright toxic, Ciel takes it all in stride and tries her best to help the situation along. Even facing the toughest odds, you’d be hard-pressed to get so much as a defeated sigh out of her. Some people like that, other people, respectfully, can’t fucking stand it. Ciel, of course, enjoys their company regardless. Missy...please... The Power of Friendship! Angel food cake is rich, and sweet, and sometimes it is just entirely too much. Ciel is like that. She’s quick to make friends, and quicker to want to help those friends. She loves to talk with them, loves to be regaled with adventurous stories, and now and then she even loves to talk with them a little OOC. When it comes to most things, Ciel is an open book—she finds people open up more easily that way. She won’t bat an eye if you call her “Missy” by accident, and she’s never turned away anyone who’s come to her with an out-of-game problem. Whether it’s raid bosses, homework, or trouble at home, Ciel has always done her best to be supportive.
Idealistic, but not Blind While some people tend to believe that warm smiles and a bubbly personality equate to air-headedness, for all of the good and bad that Ciel is, she is not naïve. Is she trusting to a fault? Yes. Does her patience render her unable to make the “hard decisions,” especially when those decisions might leave someone hurt or even just inconvenienced? Absolutely. Ciel is keenly aware that supports are often seen as doormats, and can easily be taken advantage of, but that hasn’t stopped her from supporting even in the most blatantly deceptive cases. In her mind, she’d rather have faith and be wrong a thousand times than give up on someone and be right just once. Even if it’s just in a game, everyone can change, and grow, and be forgiven for their mistakes. Liar.
B E N C H M A R K S
Shackled The crux of Ciel’s playstyle lies within her signature spell: The Shackles. When summoned, roughly a foot of ethereal chain binds her wrists. At first, this hampers her spell-power, but as she continues to cast, the chains will shimmer and crack. When they eventually break, the potency of Ciel’s magic is increased dramatically, allowing for enhanced shields, buffs, and debuffs for a short duration. Once the effect ends, it must be started over. Larger spells quicken the chain’s deterioration, but may not be available during the empowered phase as a result. Don’t…go…
The Shield Behind You Ciel won’t call herself a healer, but some of what she does could be called “proactive healing.” Ciel can weave arcane barriers into existence with varying potency. Shields for individuals require less power to make effective, while larger, area-of-effect shields may take a more substantial toll.
Your Wings. Your Chains. The core of Ciel’s spells are a range of buffs and debuffs. Where other casters would have made room for damage, Ciel doubled down on utility. Speed, strength, spell-power, empowered weapons, she has something up her sleeve for just about all of her allies in one form or another. For her enemies, while she won’t be hurting them per se, they may find themselves struggling to hurt her party in kind. Curses of frailty, hexes to shatter resistances and bindings to anchor the feet; assailants will find their weapons brittle, their armor chipping, and their efforts dashed against the empowered might of her party. Missy…please…
The Best Medicine Is sometimes literally medicine. Ciel’s life as a roaming support, especially one inclined towards aiding the newer or more unfortunate players, hasn’t yielded her much in the way of coin. She’s taken to herbalism as a means of keeping herself afloat, after all, all it takes to gather ingredients is time, and the effort to learn how to utilize them. While she has no talent whatsoever for poisons, her tinctures and salves have eased more than a handful of headaches and minor wounds. Anything much greater though, and she’ll be the first to direct you to a proper healer. It hurts…
Physical Description
Misao—though she’s gone by “Missy” for most of her life—is an unassuming girl with a prim, peppy disposition. Preferring vests and collared shirts, skirts and plain shoes, she generally wouldn’t look at all out of place at some mid-grade piano-recital, if she, you know, played piano. Tallish from her mom’s side, wiry from her dad’s, with eyes that might seem just a bit too big, and a smile near-constantly affixed to her face, if there was a single word to sum Missy up, it would be “approachable.” Mi...ssy... Ciel resembles Missy for the most part, albeit a bit less well-kempt. Volumes of black hair like raven-down fall from the wide brim of her cap, all the way down to her knees, occasionally bound in tails of three or four, but most often left like a feathery curtain. Her attire strikes a fashionable line between “swamp-witch-chic” and “discount battle-mage,” with black robes and thick boots, gauzed sleeves and superfluous belts and thin ringlet strings that could not, really, be holding anything together, but which she would insist were integral regardless.
The standout to her ensemble would be the armored rings she wears on a few fingers of either hand, the catalyst for her magic and the closest thing Ciel carries to a weapon. Claw-nailed, lined with runes, and marbled onyx and ivory, one might easily mistake them for jewelry. The foremost digits can be retracted, so that she can handle things without jabbing them. Missy…please…
Character Conceptualization
Ciel made her debut in Aetheria a few months after Pariah Online’s launch, once the floodgates had opened and the famous and infamous wayfarers had begun chiseling out their legacies. Having always been what most people would refer to as “the mom friend,” it would have come as a surprise to no one who had known her—were she still in contact with any of them—that Missy chose to fulfil a supportive role. It hurts…
She would emphasize “support” over “healer,” as Ciel decidedly doesn’t refer to what she does as healing. She supplies her allies with an arsenal of buffs, enhancements, and shields, and weakens her foes with debilitating curses, hexes and arcane devilry. “Weakens” is another important clarification to her, as Ciel boasts just about no true offensive capabilities. No weapons, no fireballs or lightning strikes, nothing to directly chip away at that health bar. This was, of course, by design for her. She enjoys the challenge presented by her somewhat-inhibitive toolkit, but more than that she enjoys conquering those challenges with others—which is great, because she likely couldn’t clear any content on her own otherwise.
It took a while for her to grow into the peculiar playstyle she’d chosen, and longer still for her to convince others to give her a shot. Dungeoneers passed her by for more conventional healers, raiders would decline her applications almost instantly. She found tumultuous homes in random pick-up-groups, who were consistently surprised when she managed to get them through nearly unscathed; monsters would hardly ever scratch them, and her team found their weapons swung truer, their spells quickened. They would clear dungeons with brow-raising parses rivaling actual guilds, but when the time for glory came, Ciel always stepped back and let her tanks and dps and the occasional off-healer take the spotlight and riches. Don't…go... Ironically, the home she found was in travelling Aetheria, offering aid to players and denizens who would accept her. She helped newer players transition into more challenging content, she helped moderate players gear up so that they could apply to guilds with more confidence, and a handful of times she even found herself substituting for missing supports in raids run by guilds with serious reputations. While most people had never heard of her, Ciel’s name did find its way onto the short-lists of a fair number of higher-end raid leaders and dungeoneers, who knew they could rely on her to keep them up, and the enemy down.
Perpetually guildless—again, by design—Ciel enjoys her humble life in Aetheria. She gets to meet all sorts of people, hear their stories and goals and help them on their way, make friends and experience Pariah’s content in fun and challenging ways.
Except for PvP. As Missy would say, “Frick PvP.” Missy…please…
Other Information
Signature
Shackled Seele’s signature spell, and the key to her somewhat strange toolkit. When cast, Seele’s wrists are bound by a pair of ethereal shackles. While chained, Seele’s spell-power is inhibited, and the effectiveness of her shields, buffs and debuffs are substantially impacted. As she continues casting however, this inhibition gradually wears off, until the chains eventually break, activating the spell’s second phase: Broken Chains.
Broken Chains For a short duration after the shackles are broken, Seele’s spell power is greatly increased, and a few of her spells become empowered, taking on new or heightened effects. As well, certain abilities can only be cast during Broken Chains and will immediately consume the effect.
Shields
Umbral Aegis Marrying her Arcane affinity for Protection with her Primordial affinity for Dark, Seele weaves a barrier of faint, deep-violet light, which can be applied to targets individually. Must be depleted or dispelled before reapplication.
Abyssal Embrace Seele’s shield takes on a vantablack shine, able to withstand significantly more damage. Additonally, a portion of the damage inflicted by Cursed Weapon is fed into the shield, not enough to permanently sustain it, but exceptional if used on a target about to do burst damage.
The Parasol Combines all active shields cast by Seele into a single barrier-dome. If no shields were active, Seele can empower it by sacrificing her own HP. This spell must be channeled, and once interrupted or depleted, it will consume the Broken Chains effect.
Buffs
Cursed Weapon Target’s weapon takes on a ghostly edge, sucking at the light as it flies. Provides a slight increase to damage that ramps up as the duration winds down. Refreshing resets the damage buff, rather than extending it.
Haint It’s there, in the corner of your eye. Something, in the dark. Affected target adopts a shadowy after-image, which will mirror their next attack.
All Your Shadows Applies Haint to all targets with the Cursed Weapon buff. Consumes the Broken Chains effect.
Thrill Moderately empowers a target’s strength, speed, agility or spell-power. Seele can further feed this buff by sacrificing some of her own respective stat.
Absolution Empowers a target’s strength, speed, agility or spell-power temporarily, equal to Seele’s own spell-power. Can only cast each buff once, and targets can not receive more than two empowered buffs each.
Debuffs
The Fivefold Path Seele applies one of five temporary debuffs to a target:
Denial Reduces target’s movement speed.
Anger Reduces target’s damage.
Bargaining Reduces target’s spell-power.
Depression Reduces target’s healing received.
Acceptance Reduces target’s defense.
Guilt Walk alone. Applies all five debuffs to a target. Afflicts Seele with empowered Acceptance, drastically reducing her defense.
Heavy Heart Seele greatly hinders a target’s movement speed. Requires her to maintain vision of the target.
The Anchor You are sinking. Ethereal chains bind the target in place. The Anchor’s strength is directly linked to Seele’s spell-power. This spell must be channeled, and Seele must remain stationary. When The Anchor is broken or dismissed, the Broken Chains effect is consumed....please...
Utility/Other
Promise Seele summons a ghostly chain, which pulls a willing target to her. Heavier targets require more effort to pull.
Don’t Leave Me Seele pulls all willing targets within a moderate distance to her. Can also be used to empower a single chain with her spell-power to attempt to pull a single unwilling target.
The Choice Seele channels to temporarily boosts a willing target’s defense dramatically, also numbing them to pain. However, the target will constantly lose health until the effect ends or is canceled. I can’t…
I Can Hear The Rain Seele additionally empowers her target’s damage, but their health drains at a much higher rate. As well, the effect cannot be canceled and must run its course, or be dispelled. Without dedicated healing, this may potentially kill her target. You have to...
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