nonsequitur

~ Welcome to Smile Asylum ~ - Home of the Magically Insane!

That works for me. I think I have a way to fit in pyrokinesis, but I'll finish up the CS first.

Monty Python's D&D Innkeep

Name: Devon Masentir

Age: 30

Sex: Male

Race: Human

Class(lol): Mercenary/Beekeeper

Bio: Devon grew up in a family with a long history of selling honey and beekeeping. As the only son he was expected to take over from his father eventually and was trained for this purpose. When war broke out with a neighbouring kingdom his parents were killed in the first few months of fighting, their business was looted and he was forcibly conscripted. After the war there was no market for honey so he joined a mercenary guild to ply his trade. His most recent assignment was to an adventuring group which needed an extra fighter; a village they stopped at asked him to take care of a bee infestation. When he went to investigate he found a hornet nest in addition to the beehives; he managed to remove them successfully and got the party wizard to enchant them into small stones and spell them to not sting him, planning to remove the pellet enchantment on the bees and start his own hive once he got back to the guild.

Picture or description of character: (no scarf)
His arms are dotted with scars from old bee stings and he wears leather armour. The bee stones are kept in a fur pouch he wears around his neck, cushioned to prevent the enchantment from dispelling through excessive force. The hornet stones are set into his gloves or kept in his best pocket.

~ Welcome to Smile Asylum ~ - Home of the Magically Insane!

Two questions:

-How related does the power have to be to the cause of insanity? I want a pyrokinetic character but he's never had his family burned down in a house or anything like that.

-Are combined powers allowed? Like switching between intangibility and shooting lightning, for example.

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Are you still accepting?

Character Name: Senris Fragard

Species: Ystra (Shadow-Touched)

Species description:

"Ystra" is a catch-all term for the scattered tribes which live in the Changing Lands, areas with exceptionally high levels of ambient magic typically located between cities and kingdoms. The abundant magic tends to affect people's perceptions and at extremely high concentrations of magic, similarities in its composition between different Changing Lands allow people to cross over. As a result, it is extremely easy to get lost in a Changing Land. Because of this, a significant percentage of the Ystra consists of escaped slaves, persecuted minorities and their descendants. Over the generations, the Ystra have acquired a resistance to magic, making them immune to any attempts to warp their bodies and slightly resistant to attempts to warp their minds. They are equally immune to healing spells, and all of the tribes have a detailed understanding of herbs and natural remedies as a result.

The high magic levels in their environment seem to have affected their own magical abilities. A notable percentage of the Ystra have the ability to sense the flow of magic, allowing them to predict magical opponents in combat by sensing the spells they will use; a much smaller number can redirect it as well. In others, it appears to have woken the darkness in their hearts and given it a voice, granting them control over darkness and shadow and a voice or voices which tempt them with evil thoughts. Strangely, their presence also negates most attempts to control their minds through magical means, though most tribes are uncertain why this is so.

Noteworthy Abilities / Limitations:

+Navigation: Senris is talented with a map and has an excellent sense of direction. He is also familiar with the locations of magical spots leading to other places in the Changing Lands.
+Botany: Senris has a comprehensive knowledge of edible and medicinal plants and how to gather them.
+Perfect night vision: an effect of his shadow-controlling powers
+Immunity to mind control: as a result of being Shadow-Touched.

=Shadow Control: limited to twisting shadows to better conceal himself.
="Many Voices": Even for the Shadow-Touched, Senris has an unusually high number of mental voices; around twenty or so. He can use them to augment his own speech, the combined effect of which is enough to momentarily stun most enemies. However, he is not completely immune to his own power, and a full-strength shout would almost certainly disable himself along with his opponent.
=Combat: He has had basic combat training, mainly in effectively wielding an axe and rudimentary strategy. He is also fairly competent with a bow and arrow.

–Bloodlust: As a result of the large number of mental voices he has, Senris has an unquenchable desire to kill. This makes him exceptionally ferocious in combat, but it also makes him reckless: his defence becomes sloppy, and a calmer opponent could easily take advantage of an opening. This loss of control distresses him more than the murderous urges themselves.

Background: Before he was born, his parents' tribe fifty miles south of the Ruins of Ahya and bordering the South Spires was conquered by the Lene, a large tribe located on the Eblistan Plains which sought to unify their neighbours against the city-dwellers. As a boy, Senris accompanied his father on hunting expeditions and helped his mother at the medicine women's hut, where he learned most of his skills in botany and archery. When he was ten his Shadow-Touched nature and bloodlust became apparent and he was sent to train as a warrior, raiding villages and warring with other tribes. His teachers wanted a fighter who commanded the darkness to enshroud their troops and broke their opponents' will by their viciousness and mental attacks. Instead, Senris's darkness-control was too slight to direct and his bloodlust was more to his own detriment than his opponents. At twenty, he was never able to rise higher than a foot soldier. During one war against another tribe he got separated from his group, ending up in an area unfamiliar to him.

Appearance: Senris is 5'10", which is slightly taller than average among the Lene.

Image

A version of events

Once there were two brothers. Many things about them are no longer clear and the entire truth about them cannot be spoken, but like most brothers, one was older and one younger. One was tall, with fire in his eyes and starlight in his hair; the other is not spoken of.

Together they shaped the world, though it is no longer clear which parts each brother created. This is unimportant.

Eventually one of them stepped back and surveyed all they had made. It was a beautiful world, populated with every manner of creature they could design. But, he felt, there was something missing.

The other said, there are none like us in this world we have created. We shall make it so.

Both felt it was good, and set about endowing a number of their creations with wisdom, though which brother awakened which race none can say. This is irrelevant.

When they had awakened all the intelligent races the fiery-eyed brother was satisfied, but the other was not. The intelligent races thought like the brothers did, he said, but they could not do all that the brothers could do. Only when they had power like theirs could they be considered equals.

The first brother objected. With such power the intelligent races might find a way to live forever, as they themselves did, and might in time create their own worlds with their own intelligent races. They would surpass him, and he could not abide that.

The other disagreed, and when his brother's mind turned to other matters, he gave a third of his power to the intelligent races, allowing them to shape their world themselves. When the first sibling saw this, he was filled with rage and cursed his brother. His anger gave his curse form and speech, and it wormed into his mind.

The brother who'd been cursed struggled for three days and nights, his essence bleeding out into the lands he passed. Though its voices tore into his being, they were of his brother, his other half, and he could not drive them away.

At the end of the third day, nearly overcome by the madness and anger of the curse, the cursed brother sundered himself with one last effort of will. His essence and parts of the curse scattered into the lands he'd passed, and they have remained there since.

Of course, what is torn may well be mended, given time and effort to gather the pieces.

Hope this doesn't clash with the established lore. I also had an idea for a healer who turned to necromancy, but I wanted to see if this was acceptable first.

A Town on the Edge of Nowhere

Despite careful scrutiny of the map he'd gotten from the counter, Sebastian hadn't been able to find any church along Locust Street. In the end he'd ended up wandering the surrounding area hoping to catch a glimpse of a clock tower or steeple. Antigonish seemed to have decided to follow along for whatever reason, keeping pace with him as a shadow or skulking around behind him.

After several minutes of this Sebastian had almost given up on finding the church, only to look to his left and see it, clear as day. He didn't know how he'd missed it before. Probably all the winding roads.

He shrugged and went in.

There was a decent spread of food on the table, though he had to wonder at some of the options. Why would a church group provide raw meat and mice as refreshments?

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Antigonish standing near the mice, head tilted almost quizzically. He grinned to himself. He had to admit, he'd never wondered what the shadow ate. It followed him nearly all hours of the day and night so he'd assumed it didn't need to. But he didn't know where it went when he wasn't looking; it could've been hunting for a meal for all he knew.

It's nice if you want to meet new people, he thought at it. But make sure they can see you too or you'll never get anywhere.

There was no response, of course.

A lot of the people from breakfast were here too, the messy girl (who'd changed her clothes and was no longer as messy) introducing herself as Tallah. Well, there was his conversation starter right there. His interaction with Parker had gone okay. This should be easy enough.

He walked towards the group.

"Hey!" He smiled at Tallah. "The deacon talked to you at breakfast too, right? Did you bring a friend?"

A Town on the Edge of Nowhere

It's fine, I think PMs are a better idea. And with that, I'm ready to skip.

A Town on the Edge of Nowhere

I was hoping to wait for LetterA, but I'm ready for a timeskip too.

A Town on the Edge of Nowhere

"I'm Catholic," the woman said as she glanced in the direction of the exit. She seemed to realise something. "Wait. My name... I'm Parker. I meant, I don't know if I should go to his church. Which is Presbyterian. Because I'm Catholic..."

It looked as though Parker was as awkward as him. That thought made Sebastian feel a bit better and he smiled slightly, trying to reassure her.

After a pause she added, "I'll probably go, too."

"Great!" He grinned at her. "I wouldn't worry too much about denominations if I were you. My parents are Evangelicals. Besides, it's all the same God, right?" And it doesn't mean people will be nice... His smile began to feel forced. He looked away.

"I'm gonna go get a drink." He set his half-eaten bagel back on his plate and made his way to the buffet spread, returning with a glass of iced water. Had that been too abrupt? Parker hadn't looked all that comfortable when he was talking to her; had she actually wanted to be left alone and was simply being polite? Unconsciously, he pressed the cold glass hard against his palm as he drank.

Somewhat half-heartedly, he asked, "Are you doing anything later?"

Character Age

As a teenager, I have to agree with most of this. Playing a character of that age means I can draw directly from my own experiences and emotions when considering how they would react to situations (accounting for personality differences, of course) instead of also having to consider how age and experience would affect an older character's decisions and thoughts. I don't want a thirty year old man having the mindset and inner monologue of a teenage girl, for instance.

My oldest character was probably around 44. My youngest was 11. Quite a few of my story protagonists are teenage girls, though, and they tended to age up as I did.

Also, IMO it's slightly easier to get characters in that age range to do something interesting, on the grounds that it was a spur-of-the-moment decision/they didn't know it would result in things happening/they were driven by their emotions.

A Town on the Edge of Nowhere

Yeah, I just thought it was funny.