Question An Idea, A Sketch, and A Character

Hi everyone! Local PNW type here and here is my rough idea for a IF I'd like to eventually write up into a sequence of stories. At the center of this lovely little bit will be a series of latent broken artifacts and the typical journey of self discovery. A good old cliche start.

The idea is to start off with a few experiences with the character who will eventually end up at Whately after either being caught by the MCO or being forced into it by a member of the Seattle Knights. She's from an area north of Seattle (Bellingham) etc. I'm no sure if I'm going to have her play hero or maybe berserk out and cause some problems. All I do know is I'd like her to get sent to Whately as a last resort.

The next part of the arc will include the building of her new life, getting use to being a Sidhe mutant and recovering her lost memories (more below). I want to include her making alliances with a team of related individuals and some who have spiritual memories linked to her.

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Here's a rough sketch

My head throbbed, it always throbbed when I saw birds. Why was it always birds? Never happened like this before and then I woke up one day and flying shapes caused me to breathe as panic descended on me. The cries of something lurking in the background, just on the edge of my hearing. I tightened my grip as walked along the roadway out on the edge of town. A small murder raven of crows flew along and landed to keep pace with me.

You'd think life of a former goth wannabe ended the dark clothes and makeup when I grew up. Oh hell no, nope, not when the paranormal follows you like a sick puppy everywhere you go. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply feeling the damp air leave a taste of petrichor in my mouth.

The sun was already taking its last dip below the horizon. I had walked out to the edge of town for a reason, and just as the birds stopped above of me they started cawing. Every single one in unison as the whispers got louder and louder and the cries became a single demand. Mists almost in cliche fashion rolled out along the road. Any of the lights trying to come on were already dimming as if on cue.

Fucking predictable. What is dead, should stay dead.

Did I mention I use to be the run of mill guy? Yup, now I'm something else. Long hair fell down the side of my head highlighted by blood red. I closed my eyes and took in breath as I grasped the air and felt a familiar heaviness in my hand. I felt her in the back of my head as I smiled. I was who I was meant to be.

"I see you Scald-Crow," a voice croaked as a shambling form started to slowly scuttle out of the mists. I think I could see worms underneath its flesh, wait not worms, squirming souls. Nightmare fuel straight out of the Full Metal Alchemist movie. Why by the gods did I have to fight otaku fanfic ripoffs?

"I see you too ugly, keep up." I drew the spear low to the ground, feeling the heft of its wooden shaft in hand, Callouses created from years of experience gripped the spear's braided handle as I smiled at the glint of its clean bronze edge.

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So the style is -rough- its gonna be snarky and biting. Reflecting the characters self destructive style.

So some facts on the character.

Name: Grainne ni Ean O Collins
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Race: Sidhe-Mutant
Powerset: Esper 2, Exemplar 3, Avatar 4, Reg 2

She wields the Spear of Lugh (as she calls it) and the Shield of Nuada (again as she calls it).

The spirt in her is a class 2 entity, and is the broken spirit of a Sidhe slain during the Sundering and then popped around various human shaman / ritualists for a few years.

Her glamour is basically effect by her moods. Its standard form is a sense of disquiet and tension that exists around her. Sit nearby her long enough and you'll just feel off. When she's happy its a bit "intoxicating' and when she's sad it feels like a negative wall. She's emotionally all over the place from all her experience and deals with a few mental issues. Memory loss and issues are likely indicative of minor depression, then there's a sense of Anxiety from her lack of understanding of the world around her.

Kind of what I got so far. :3

I think that Exemplars and maybe Shifters usually regenerate at an equivalent to a straight Regenerator one level lower. It's still good to know where your character stands on that.

One recipe for misunderstandings at Whateley is the widely-held assumption that one can just punch or kick another mutant around and they'll just heal up. If you're not a "pretty" (usually Exemplar), the odds go down. Mystics and techies may have spells and medical gear, but those things are not guaranteed to work completely or right.

"Esper" can be lots of fun, because it covers a grab-bag of useful and useless powers and curses, that can be discovered or refined in time. They aren't always kind to the mutant's own mind during that process of discovery and refinement.

Because of their natures, Sidhe like Fey don't really have Exemplar or regen status on their MID, the typical member of their race meets an equivalent of an exemplar, but they aren't categorized as one. The exception, I suppose, is that if they have something like regen that is an improvement over their species norm.

So here's her updated base stats:

Name: Grainne ni Ean O Collins
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Race: Sidhe-Mutant
Powerset: Esper 2 (Precog), Shifter 2 (War form), Avatar 4

Glamour - Empathic field that in its general state acts as a barrier of tension and fear. The field can be actively changed by the emotions of the individual at any given time.

War form - When not in her present state (which appears to be a slightly elfin auburn haired teenager), Scald-Crow appears as a woman with pure black avian eyes, chilled white skin and long feathery white hair. A mantle of black feathers hangs from her shoulders.

Spear of Lugh - The Spear of Lugh is a weapon when not in its active state appears as a bracelet on her hand, when active (done so by incanting its active state vocally) the Spear appears in her hand. A long ash hafted spear with a thick bronze head.

I'm still working on her, but effectively she's still an Avatar. Her spirit however, is kind of still in the revamp stage as I nail down a few details. I'm still liking the shredded memories, but I'm kind of thinking that it's unrelated to the 5-Fold Courts. Likely this entity is from another plane of existence one a bit like our own, but you could call the "Other World". Think stereotypical faerie realm which has a few Sidhe exiles an other nasties in it.

This includes a few entities such as Crom Cruach who wants out, and another mssed up things such s the Jotun (I plan on introducing a Freyja based character later on).

Thoughts?

I'm thinking that if Whateley offers a "Comparative Mythology" course, the class convenes at one of the combat arenas on a regular basis.

So, at age 28, Grainne's a bit long in the tooth for high school. Does she get de-aged to 14, to the point of getting a new identity with matching stats and history, or is she a new hire working at the school who has that elfy kind of youthfullness about her? It'd be kind of funny for her to be a psych nurse and dealing with a real voice in her head.

After all, in canon, Sam Everheart (Hive) gets de-aged and rebuilt MtF, but retains her identity and history. Not needing the education or powers training, she becomes a staff member. Eldritch on the other hand, needed a complete break from the past, and so has a new set of papers.

So yes, she does regress in age. I'm still kind of working it out, but the thing in her basically enacted a contract. The result was she lost some age and appears roughly as about 17 years old. Technically, by that definition her experiences might not apply.

My plan is she will eventually get shunted to Whately after a somewhat strange little arc. I have an idea for who her "spirit" is. IT has something to do with some fairly nasty "Faeries" or "Aes Dana" as they call themselves deciding to return to our realm. Think like an advanced team of somewhat alien entities, who are in part similar to what we'd call the Tuatha De Danann. One of them is this eponymous spirit and so is a few others.

She appears "Sidhe" but is kind of a different strain if you will, I got the idea from a post Kristin made.

Her main reason for ending up at Whately will be to figure out more about the actual entities wanting to "return" and get a handle on her powers. Plus, her future relationship with the rest of those like her.

NOTE: This story will have some serious magical girl influences.

Kristin Darken wrote:

"Esper" can be lots of fun, because it covers a grab-bag of useful and useless powers and curses, that can be discovered or refined in time. They aren't always kind to the mutant's own mind during that process of discovery and refinement.

I would argue that nothing in 'ESPer' is useless. Knowledge is power and most of the ESPer traits are about additional sources of information that are not available to the average person.

Knowledge is power, but there is a strong emphasis on "knowledge that can be rapidly obtained and used or abused in a 15-30 minute combat sim" over all others. That's kind of sad, as the truly powerful data are the perceptions
and observations that can be used to avoid the combat in the first place.

For many types of ESP, without experience and control, the input is likely to be "... another fine broadcast from your friends at WTMI: 'way too much information, way too much of the time'!"

An example of both situations would be a form of postcognition that informs the user of what everyone in a 30m radius has had for breakfast. Ew. Probably not going to do much to fight most teams, either. But it might come in handy for a coroner, ER nurse/physician, or CSI ... who may have skipped meds, drunk/ate something dodgy, washed down the Ambien with a bottle of vodka, etc.

YMMV, of course

Guys I love this discussion it just gets the creative juices flowing! I am so tempted to put off my next book's completion and work on this story! But I a gonna have to wait :/

Some updated notes for your thoughts if you want to give them:

Characters
Name: Grainne ni Ean O Collins (Scald-Crow)
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Race: Arcadian-Mutant
Powerset: Esper 2 (Precog), Shifter 2 (War form), Avatar 4

Glamour - Empathic field that in its general state acts as a barrier of tension and fear. The field can be actively changed by the emotions of the individual at any given time.

War form - When not in her present state (which appears to be a slightly elfin auburn haired teenager), Scald-Crow appears as a woman with pure black avian eyes, chilled white skin and long feathery white hair. A mantle of black feathers hangs from her shoulders.

Spear of Lugh - The Spear of Lugh is a weapon when not in its active state appears as a bracelet on her hand, when active (done so by incanting its active state vocally) the Spear appears in her hand. A long ash hafted spear with a thick bronze head.

Death Knell - She can sense the oncoming of death or extreme danger, this is similar to the Morrigan's supposed ability to predict the death of heroes.

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Name: Dara (War Hound)
Age: 19 (Regressed to 15)
Gender: Female
Race: Arcadian-Mutant
Powerset: Avatar 3, Energizer 1

Glamour - Those around Dara feel a sense triumph tension and unease, when she is in her "Wasp Spasm" state of an overpowering feeling of dread exudes from his form.

Energizer Abilities - War Hound collects kinect energy and is capable of adding force to her attacks when in melee combat. For ever bit of force applied to her she can return it in kind to a set point.

Twin Spears - Dara fights with two long bronze handled spears each carved with ancient Arcadian marks, one is called Boar Ripper and speaks to her as a sentient entity. The other she stole from an enemy after arriving on earth.

Some Background (Arcadians)
Both War Hound and Scald-Crow, plus the soon to be named "Witchbane" are all members of abberant Sidhe offshoot colloquially known by their avatars as "Arcadians". They first appear on earth via "the Mound" during the Iron Age and their existance might explain presence of ongoing certain cults in the world. Arcadians cannot live in our realm for prolonged periods of tie because their Sidhe based anatomy requires essence to survive.

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What I got so far I tossed up some cultural context for future plot, already tagged a few antagonists and I've been putting a team together connected to the story.

After reading more of the Merry stories I'm slowly fleshing out the more complicated aspects of the various parts of "Arcadia".

I'm honestly thinking that I might make Witchbane a Wiz 4, Exemplar 3. I'm tempted to expand the universe a bit more and the team more, but I'm not exactly sure just yet.