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TormentedDragon -> RE: Ruins of Paxia II OOC - Accepting! (5/10/2013 14:17:50)
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So here she is. She'll be making a general mess wherever she goes.
Name: Threnody
Gender: Female
Side: Chaos
Race: Looks human. That’s what she started as, at least - who knows what she would qualify as now.
Appearance: Threnody stands at about 5’7” with a rather broader build than most women, which is easiest to see in the shoulders and hips. Moderately chesty, she keeps in shape and thus has a rather pleasing figure.
While she has a pretty face with a smallish nose, full lips, a large, almond-shaped eyes with cyan irises, very few people actually see her face, because of the mask she wears. Tear-shaped, with the pointy end at the chin, it curves to her entire face, including her forehead. White, it is featureless, save for where a slight indented line, marked in black, describes the general shape of an eye, directly over her own left eye.
Aside from the mask, her hair is the second thing most people will notice first, mostly because it is both an eye-catching amber in color, and huge. From where it meets the mask, it extends out about a half-foot from her skull (as opposed the usual fraction of an inch seen on most people), sweeping back from the mask, and extending to her shoulders and down her back, tapering to an end just below her shoulderblades. The effect is rather reminiscent of a mane.
She also wears a small silver hairpin with the image of a cello upon it to the left of her mask.
Belongings: Her usual attire consists of a long, split-tailed riding coat with cap sleeves (meaning they barely cover the shoulder), white in color, with two stripes running the length of it, both back and front, on either side of the bust. The tail of the coat reaches down to below the knee, and splits in the front to expose the legs, allowing for greater mobility and working well while on horseback. Sturdy, black leather calf boots complement her primarily brown trousers, and to complete the ensemble she has a pair of full-length, white leather fingerless gloves, with fold-over cuffs.
A white belt with a silver buckle does the duty of holding the sheathe for her sword - brown with silver decoration. The sword itself looks to be simple, serviceable steel, with a fairly simple grip, and silver decorations on the pommel and crossguard.
Aside from her usual attire, she has a few other coats that are variations on the same theme, some knives, backup gloves, combs - you know, the usual stuff. She also has a selection of earrings, ranging from elaborate dangly things to studs, all of them enchanted. Nobody’s ever been given the opportunity to figure out what the enchantment is, however, and they’ve never been shown to do anything. In reality, they simply provide a small boost to the acuity of her hearing, which she uses both in battle and out. If she blocks a blow to her rear, it’s likely because she heard it coming.
As to her clothing, while it looks like regular cloth and leather, it is not. Crafted from exotic materials via obscure and arcane methods, her clothing is extremely durable and heavily resistant to damage, and more than capable of stopping sword strikes and resisting arrows and spears. Since it lacks rigidity, it won’t do much to soften impacts, but there’s nothing quite like someone trying to stab you in the back and failing miserably.
The mask itself is also crafted from similarly exotic material using similarly obscure and arcane methods. It is effectively indestructible, as the output required to actually significantly damage the mask would of the sort that would qualify the attack as a city-killer. It is also enchanted, which probably explains how it stays on her face without any sort of strap, doesn’t get in the way of her breathing, and still allows her to see despite being completely opaque.
Secretly, it also functions as a locator for those who know what to look for.
She also has two rings, which she wears on her middle fingers. The right-hand ring is crafted from an oddly blue metal, and bears designs similar to the decorative metalwork on her sword and scabbard, though this features ram’s head rather prominently. The left-hand ring is silver, shares the same design aesthetics, featuring a horse in place of the ram.
The Ring of the Ram offers a short range buffet at the user’s will, to a maximum of fifteen feet from the ring itself. While no stronger than a punch or a kick, and limited to one blow at a time, these buffets are nevertheless extremely useful, as there’s no limit to where within that fifteen feet these buffets can be placed, or in which direction.
These buffets require both a start point and an end point, and act as an invisible fist moving upon that line - placing the start point within something solid will fail, as the buffet will expend itself immediately with no force behind it. Anything solid it connects with along the line from start to finish will receive a blow. Thus, it is impossible to punch someone directly in the heart or other such trickery.
The Ring of the Horse has a very simple job: it summons her primary mode of transport, which she calls her Noble Steed.
The Noble Steed continues to fit her aesthetic choices by being completely white, and completely smooth. Consisting of two orbs approximately the size of a man’s head linked by a concave cylinder, it features a comfortable seat, footrests, and a rigid handlebar for the hands to grasp. When summoned, it appears to rise up from the ground itself, as if the earth were nothing more than an illusory barrier. Hovering a few feet off the ground, the Noble Steed is capable of traversing most terrains, though it does, for whatever reason, require a solid surface underneath it - provided the proper precautions are made, underwater travel is perfectly feasible, and steep inclines are no obstacle.
It is quite the speedy vehicle, more than capable of matching real-world motorcycles in speed, provided, of course, that you have a clear avenue of travel. Crashing will obviously hurt. A slight hum accompanies its presence, which changes in volume and tone as it gains and loses speed.
Finally, her sword. As with all of her other belongings, appearances are deceiving - what looks to be simple steel is not. Sharp enough for any swordsman’s needs, the sword will hold its edge even in the face of the most heinous abuse, and denies rust and corrosion alike; and while it will bend under pressure, it has yet to exhibit a breaking point - there is simply a point past which it will not bend. Under normal circumstances, the sword will simply behave as a sword - should it be struck by elemental magic, however, it will take on properties related to the magic it has blocked. A firebolt, for example, might result in the classic flaming sword, or simply a very hot blade. A blast of frost would cause the sword to freeze what it touches, a lightning bolt results in an electrified blade, and so on and so forth.
Personal History: Threnody showed up in Paxia over a decade ago, and started selling her services as a mercenary to various and sundry peoples. She’s acted as bounty hunter, bodyguard, courier, consultant, tactician, and other such things, and has many contacts in many places. Her “face,” masked as it is, is well known around Paxia, and her reputation is that of a very dangerous and very useful person.
Skills, spells and abilities:
Threnody is both consummate swordswoman and an excellent shot, despite not owning a bow or actual throwing weapons, and very skilled at hand-to-hand combat. Her punches and kicks carry great force behind them, and her body has been hardened through strenuous training - nothing that people before her have not accomplished, however.
Of more import is her ability to perceive and manipulate the energies upon which magic relies, an ability rather different in nature from that of the average mage’s. Requiring extensive training to use, this ability does not allow her to cast spells or manipulate magic in the normal fashion - rather, it lets her perceive the framework that produces and sustains magical effects, and to alter that framework if she wishes. Such alterations are highly disruptive to the magical effect in question, and thus any attempt at alteration will either weaken or disperse the magic, scattering the energies that powered it, usually harmlessly.
The upshot of this most basic application of the ability is that something such as an oncoming fireball can be diminished or dispersed completely, a magical barrier weakened or shattered, a scrying spell turned into useless noise.
These alterations must be targeted, and willed, and the nature of the targeted magic can change how it reacts to such alterations. The most critically vulnerable constructs are often the most intricately complex; conjuration rituals, for example, often have exacting specifications, and are as a house of cards - a simple nudge can cause them to fail, in some cases spectacularly. Guardian effects, on the other hand, can be complex, but as they are designed to resilient, the framework is often heavily redundant, requiring multiple alterations to completely disperse. Simple constructs, such as those that simply involve a large expenditure of energy, can be quite resilient, but in keeping with their simple nature, are also easily handle - with the proper focus, dispersing the energy so that it can no longer do anything is easy to do.
A far more difficult proposition is altering an effect to do something other than originally intended, as any alteration will weaken things and lead towards failure. With intense focus and enough time, however, it is possible to, for example, alter a guardian ward so that it will no longer trigger an alarm, without completely dispelling it. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that she must know what alterations to make to a framework to get the desired result - as the methods of magic tend to differ wildly from caster to caster, this is often simply not an option.
Magical effects that are tied to physical objects are a rather different animal entirely. Rooted in something with a physical form, these effects are much more resilient, and rather difficult to alter in a permanent fashion. Focused will can disrupt them for an extended period of time, but more often than not the effects will return in anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the strength of the enchantment.
A final application of this ability is to set up an area of interference - analogous to electromagnetic “noise” that interferes with radio communication. By creating constant, small disruptions around her, Threnody can cause magic to be difficult, if not impossible, to do - a magic user’s spells will require greater concentration and energy to form, and the more complex the spell, the more likely it is to fail entirely. The longer she focuses on doing so, the greater the effect becomes - with no interruptions (even something as simple as talking to someone), she is able to make it impossible for any but the most skilled of mages to do magic within the area she has focused on within as little as five minutes. Effects brought into the area from outside the zone will suffer from the disruptions as well, possibly dispersing immediately - magical projectiles will peter out or lose their path, for example. Of course, the larger the area she wishes interdict, the more focus and energy it requires, and if she ceases to maintain the disruption, it will swiftly die off, vanishing entirely within the space of a mere three minutes. It is worth noting that even the smallest of disruptions become very swiftly noticeable.
Extended use of this ability is draining, and causes headaches. Overuse can create migraine effects, and it can be burned out, which have drastic effects on the body - vision loss, hearing loss, bleeding from orifices, vulnerability to illnesses, the list goes on. The training required to use it teaches a practitioner to see the framework of magic, to understand what they are seeing, and to understand their own limits. As with most things, proper use of it builds endurance and stamina, allowing for longer periods of use.
Threnody is, of course, an expert, so far as it is possible to be one. When focusing, her perception is wide, and not limited to physical barriers - if given the time to focus, she can “see” magic from across a city. When pacing herself, her stamina is extensive - it is rare that one needs to fully disperse magic in combat, as a reduction in its power usually allows her to dodge or avoid harmful effects through more mundane means, or to bear the brunt of it on her sword. Area interdiction is quite a bit more demanding, and decreases her proficiency in her more mundane abilities - sustained usage of it begins to exhaust her after 30 minutes if she is fighting at the same time, and keeping it up for more than an hour runs the risk of self-injury. If allowed to focus upon that, and that alone, however, she can sustain it for up to three hours, though doing so becomes rather difficult after one.
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