Exit Void: Application
Jan. 9th, 2012 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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CHARACTER NAME: Lirael
SERIES: Abhorsen, by Garth Nix
Wikipedia article
Book reviews
The powers and outlook of an Abhorsen, if she was a D&D class.
CANON POINT: After the book Abhorsen, by about a month, plus time spent at The Devil's See.
AGE: 19
APPEARANCE:
Small and slight, with dark hair and very pale skin, Lirael is not an unattractive young woman-- but she tends to walk with her head down and all that long hair hanging in her face, hiding her expression. Even when she pushes it aside, revealing dark eyes and a round, slightly shining rune on her forehead, she looks shy and nervous-- up until there's some kind of danger revealed, anyway, and then she can look as determined as any warrior, or a mystery can bring out focused curiosity. She dresses in an old-fashioned way, in a lightweight tunic of scale male, made out of magic-forged ceramics, a rose-colored surcoat with silver and gold embroidered stars and keys, and a ruddy leather bandolier across her chest. From seven pouches extend the handles of seven bells, each one slightly bigger than the other, and at her right side hangs a curved short sword. She is missing her right hand entirely.
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY:
Lirael spent several months at The Devil's See, where she met a few of the current characters at Exit Void (Hadesu, Anders, probably more...) and took over the operation of the hospital, with help from other island residents. Her stay there didn't alter her personality much at all, in general, but it did open her up a little to making connections with other people and give her an education about the peoples on other worlds and how different their lives-- and, in fact, their magic-- were. After being forced to make public network posts, heal others she had never met before, and even organize an attack on a collection of kidnapping mermaids, she isn't quite as shy, though she still isn't at all good with people, and prefers not to speak if she can get away with it. Probably the most important change is that upon her arrival at Exit Void, she now knows how to use technologies like computers, though cell phones will be new to her.
PERSONALITY:
Lirael grew up in the Clayr Glacier in the Old Kingdom, not knowing her father and barely remembering her mother, feeling vaguely abandoned by the lack of both. While her earlier childhood was relatively happy despite this, playing with all the younger children, taking lessons, and anticipating the day when she would join the ranks of the future-Sighted Clayr, she still stood out from her peers in many ways. It was around when she turned eleven that she realized how different she really was: in appearance, she was pale, dark-haired, and slight while her cousins were tanned, blonde, and beautiful; in interests, she thought about death and darkness and was serious in nature rather than sunny and cheerful; and in powers, for all the other Clayr had the Sight, the magical ability to see into the future. Lirael, despite doggedly growing older while the Sight woke in her younger peers, never had it. That was the start of her first spiral into depression, and of her feelings of worthlessness. Without the Sight, she was not a proper Clayr; without the Sight, she didn't belong, and she had no way to relate to anyone around her.
On her fourteenth birthday, still without the Sight, Lirael's depression and morbid nature led her to nearly kill herself, stopped partly by fear, partly by chance, and partly by a lack of proper opportunity. While she got herself help from the Clayr who caught her at her not-quite-death, a new job as a Third (and later Second) Assistant Librarian in the Great Library of the Clayr, and eventually a new friend in the Disreputable Dog, it didn't make her feel any more accepted, and her low self-worth never rose. She didn't speak to anyone but the Dog, avoided social gatherings, even avoided making eye contact and took to hiding in her own long hair, so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone who had the Sight or who might take her for as alien as she felt. She fell to such levels of asocialness that her shyness is now ingrained in her. Large groups of people and strangers make her severely uncomfortable, unless she has a job to do among them.
Lirael is a very serious person, taking duty and responsibility seriously, and is very practical-- and she doesn't really take teasing well, either. On the rare occasions she even realizes she's being teased and doesn't simply take the joking seriously, she is likely to get flustered and exasperated with the teaser-- even when her dearest and only friend, the Dog, teased her it put her on edge. Knowledge is important to her, as a Librarian and a clever girl, and she's perfectly happy to spend most of her time either reading or exploring when she doesn't have something else to do to keep her busy. She still doesn't think much of herself, though, no matter how learned she might be: all her life, she has considered herself less important than the other Clayr, and if ever a need should arise for a sacrificial lamb to protect the greater good, she automatically assumes it should be herself. After an adventure dealing with a Stilken-- a Free Magic creature of terrible hunger-- that she accidentally set free from its binding magic, she learned how to be brave, and often took it upon herself during the course of her years as a Third Assistant Librarian to rid the Great Library of potentially dangerous creatures, so as to protect the other, proper Clayr from them. Given how dreadfully curious she is, as well, she wound up in that position rather often while poking around the Library.
Only recently in her life has she ever been given a purpose outside the life of the Clayr, a reason to live as it were. A month and a half before her move out of her world, she was sent away from the Clayr Glacier where she'd lived all her life, out into the Kingdom itself, to save a young man from himself and stop the end of the world... though all she knew at the time was she was out in the world, alone, facing more monsters than she could imagine, with a new ability as a Remembrancer-- a "gift" on her nineteenth birthday that the Dog led her to find-- and a very whiny Prince she didn't know how to talk to.
Thankfully, from him she learned of (and read) The Book of the Dead, was given the bells of the Abhorsen-in-Waiting-- weapons with which to fight the Dead and Free Magic creatures-- learned the identity of her father, the previous Abhorsen, and of her calling: to put the dead to rest, to protect the living, to walk the path she is set. Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker? as The Book of the Dead asks. She can, when under the office of that calling, act with confidence and deal with confrontation, showing the strong will all Abhorsens are born with, but it's still such a new thing to her that she always falls back to her old ways in times of stress.
At the end of that "adventure", Lirael and a small group of friends, family, and magical beings of various kinds vanquished a great evil on her world, the Bright Shiner known as Orannis the Destroyer: a manifestation of all that is evil and bitter and destructive in the world, with the power of a sentient atom bomb. They defeated this evil, with unexpected help and unexpected loss, and Lirael hardly had the chance to recover before she was off again on another adventure-- this time to another world entirely, of The Devil's See, and then Exit Void.
ABILITIES:
~Death: As the daughter of the previous Abhorsen, Lirael can sense the presence of death, whether it be recent or aged, and the undead. She can also enter Death, as if it were a separate plane of existence, made up of a flowing River that carries souls to the world beyond. When her spirit is in Death, her body is still in Life, frozen in place-- literally: her body becomes covered in frost, and a chill fog rises around it. The longer her spirit is in Death, the more the frost expands.
~Bells: As part of her office as Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Lirael has a leather bandolier of seven bells that is worn across the chest. When rung, these bells have particular spell-like effects, particularly on the undead and creatures of magic, but also to some extent on the living. The bells can be rung more than one at a time-- but only if one has two hands. They require willpower and focus to ring properly, as the magic that made them gives them something of a mind of their own, or else the effect of the bell might harm the ringer, usually in a form related to the bell's power. Each bell has a name and a power:
* Ranna (the smallest) brings sleep, stillness, and peace. It is the most forgiving of all the bells of an inexperienced or clumsy ringer, and is the least likely to cause a bad effect if wrong poorly, though at times it might make her sleepy to ring it, as well as whomever it is supposed to be affecting.
* Mosrael wakes the dead, pulling the spirits into Life as long as there are bodies or spell-space prepared for them, while sending the ringer's spirit into Death, instead.
* Kibeth creates movement to the ringer's will, but is also tricksome and can make the ringer walk, as well, whether in a straight line, in a circle, or even in a jig, sometimes disrupting her concentration or just being annoying.
* Dyrim can restore speech to the mute, or still speech in one who speaks too freely, with some other subtle usages also aligned with communication, such as the revealing of secrets or even the reading of minds.
* Belgaer affects the mind, both restoring memories and independent thought in someone without either, or erasing them, and covers the lifting of bindings. It is perhaps the most dangerous of bells to ring without enough focus and attention, as it can damage the ringer's mind, and it likes to hear the sound of its own voice.
* Saraneth binds the dead or-- more rarely-- the living and forces them to follow the ringer's will, but it can also scatter the will of the ringer if rung without the proper focus and willpower. It is the best friend of an Abhorsen.
* Astarael (the largest) sends all who hear it into Death, and while it is not necessarily permanent, it is usually permanent for the ringer, meaning ringing Astarael is usually tantamount to suicide and thus is not done except in dire need.
~Charter Magic: Blessed by the magical Charter at birth, Lirael can mentally access the never-ending flow of that Charter-- structured, ordered magic-- and cast spells by stringing together symbols: drawing them, saying their names, or even infusing the marks into a whistle.
~Remembrancer: As both a Daughter of the Clayr and an Abhorsen, after exploring a cave underneath the Clayr Glacier and finding The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting, Lirael has both that book always on her person and a small, hand-held mirror called the Dark Mirror through which, if she stands in the river of Death and donates a drop of her own blood, she can see into the past. The further back in time she wants to see, the further into Death she must stand.
~Charter-skins: As a benefit of studying the book In the Skin of a Lyon, Lirael can create a Charter-skin, or a magical "fabric" that, when she fits herself into it, lets her "wear" a shape not her own. Creating skins takes at least four hours of spell-work, each skin can only be used once, and she can only wear a skin for a maximum of two or three hours before it starts becoming uncomfortable and fraying at the seams. The shapes she can make are that of a barking owl, a russet bear, and an ice otter.
~Sword: Lirael has an enchanted sword, made by her nephew Sameth for her use and balanced for the left hand, and knows fairly well how to use it... however, she is also missing her dominant hand, and though she's been working on training it up, she still isn't as proficient as she would like to be.
~Healing: While living at The Devil's See, Lirael learned a lot about healing, herbs, and fixing up broken bodies, both with magic and mundane methods. She may not be at the level of a doctor of a healer mage, but she's good for first aid and many other emergency treatments.
POSSESSIONS:
~Her mail, surcoat, bells, and sword
~The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting
~A stuffed baku
~A half-grown calico cat named Ellemere
~A pocket-full of Charter-spelled slips of paper
CHARACTER NAME: Lirael
SERIES: Abhorsen, by Garth Nix
Wikipedia article
Book reviews
The powers and outlook of an Abhorsen, if she was a D&D class.
CANON POINT: After the book Abhorsen, by about a month, plus time spent at The Devil's See.
AGE: 19
APPEARANCE:
Small and slight, with dark hair and very pale skin, Lirael is not an unattractive young woman-- but she tends to walk with her head down and all that long hair hanging in her face, hiding her expression. Even when she pushes it aside, revealing dark eyes and a round, slightly shining rune on her forehead, she looks shy and nervous-- up until there's some kind of danger revealed, anyway, and then she can look as determined as any warrior, or a mystery can bring out focused curiosity. She dresses in an old-fashioned way, in a lightweight tunic of scale male, made out of magic-forged ceramics, a rose-colored surcoat with silver and gold embroidered stars and keys, and a ruddy leather bandolier across her chest. From seven pouches extend the handles of seven bells, each one slightly bigger than the other, and at her right side hangs a curved short sword. She is missing her right hand entirely.
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY:
Lirael spent several months at The Devil's See, where she met a few of the current characters at Exit Void (Hadesu, Anders, probably more...) and took over the operation of the hospital, with help from other island residents. Her stay there didn't alter her personality much at all, in general, but it did open her up a little to making connections with other people and give her an education about the peoples on other worlds and how different their lives-- and, in fact, their magic-- were. After being forced to make public network posts, heal others she had never met before, and even organize an attack on a collection of kidnapping mermaids, she isn't quite as shy, though she still isn't at all good with people, and prefers not to speak if she can get away with it. Probably the most important change is that upon her arrival at Exit Void, she now knows how to use technologies like computers, though cell phones will be new to her.
PERSONALITY:
Lirael grew up in the Clayr Glacier in the Old Kingdom, not knowing her father and barely remembering her mother, feeling vaguely abandoned by the lack of both. While her earlier childhood was relatively happy despite this, playing with all the younger children, taking lessons, and anticipating the day when she would join the ranks of the future-Sighted Clayr, she still stood out from her peers in many ways. It was around when she turned eleven that she realized how different she really was: in appearance, she was pale, dark-haired, and slight while her cousins were tanned, blonde, and beautiful; in interests, she thought about death and darkness and was serious in nature rather than sunny and cheerful; and in powers, for all the other Clayr had the Sight, the magical ability to see into the future. Lirael, despite doggedly growing older while the Sight woke in her younger peers, never had it. That was the start of her first spiral into depression, and of her feelings of worthlessness. Without the Sight, she was not a proper Clayr; without the Sight, she didn't belong, and she had no way to relate to anyone around her.
On her fourteenth birthday, still without the Sight, Lirael's depression and morbid nature led her to nearly kill herself, stopped partly by fear, partly by chance, and partly by a lack of proper opportunity. While she got herself help from the Clayr who caught her at her not-quite-death, a new job as a Third (and later Second) Assistant Librarian in the Great Library of the Clayr, and eventually a new friend in the Disreputable Dog, it didn't make her feel any more accepted, and her low self-worth never rose. She didn't speak to anyone but the Dog, avoided social gatherings, even avoided making eye contact and took to hiding in her own long hair, so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone who had the Sight or who might take her for as alien as she felt. She fell to such levels of asocialness that her shyness is now ingrained in her. Large groups of people and strangers make her severely uncomfortable, unless she has a job to do among them.
Lirael is a very serious person, taking duty and responsibility seriously, and is very practical-- and she doesn't really take teasing well, either. On the rare occasions she even realizes she's being teased and doesn't simply take the joking seriously, she is likely to get flustered and exasperated with the teaser-- even when her dearest and only friend, the Dog, teased her it put her on edge. Knowledge is important to her, as a Librarian and a clever girl, and she's perfectly happy to spend most of her time either reading or exploring when she doesn't have something else to do to keep her busy. She still doesn't think much of herself, though, no matter how learned she might be: all her life, she has considered herself less important than the other Clayr, and if ever a need should arise for a sacrificial lamb to protect the greater good, she automatically assumes it should be herself. After an adventure dealing with a Stilken-- a Free Magic creature of terrible hunger-- that she accidentally set free from its binding magic, she learned how to be brave, and often took it upon herself during the course of her years as a Third Assistant Librarian to rid the Great Library of potentially dangerous creatures, so as to protect the other, proper Clayr from them. Given how dreadfully curious she is, as well, she wound up in that position rather often while poking around the Library.
Only recently in her life has she ever been given a purpose outside the life of the Clayr, a reason to live as it were. A month and a half before her move out of her world, she was sent away from the Clayr Glacier where she'd lived all her life, out into the Kingdom itself, to save a young man from himself and stop the end of the world... though all she knew at the time was she was out in the world, alone, facing more monsters than she could imagine, with a new ability as a Remembrancer-- a "gift" on her nineteenth birthday that the Dog led her to find-- and a very whiny Prince she didn't know how to talk to.
Thankfully, from him she learned of (and read) The Book of the Dead, was given the bells of the Abhorsen-in-Waiting-- weapons with which to fight the Dead and Free Magic creatures-- learned the identity of her father, the previous Abhorsen, and of her calling: to put the dead to rest, to protect the living, to walk the path she is set. Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker? as The Book of the Dead asks. She can, when under the office of that calling, act with confidence and deal with confrontation, showing the strong will all Abhorsens are born with, but it's still such a new thing to her that she always falls back to her old ways in times of stress.
At the end of that "adventure", Lirael and a small group of friends, family, and magical beings of various kinds vanquished a great evil on her world, the Bright Shiner known as Orannis the Destroyer: a manifestation of all that is evil and bitter and destructive in the world, with the power of a sentient atom bomb. They defeated this evil, with unexpected help and unexpected loss, and Lirael hardly had the chance to recover before she was off again on another adventure-- this time to another world entirely, of The Devil's See, and then Exit Void.
ABILITIES:
~Death: As the daughter of the previous Abhorsen, Lirael can sense the presence of death, whether it be recent or aged, and the undead. She can also enter Death, as if it were a separate plane of existence, made up of a flowing River that carries souls to the world beyond. When her spirit is in Death, her body is still in Life, frozen in place-- literally: her body becomes covered in frost, and a chill fog rises around it. The longer her spirit is in Death, the more the frost expands.
~Bells: As part of her office as Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Lirael has a leather bandolier of seven bells that is worn across the chest. When rung, these bells have particular spell-like effects, particularly on the undead and creatures of magic, but also to some extent on the living. The bells can be rung more than one at a time-- but only if one has two hands. They require willpower and focus to ring properly, as the magic that made them gives them something of a mind of their own, or else the effect of the bell might harm the ringer, usually in a form related to the bell's power. Each bell has a name and a power:
* Ranna (the smallest) brings sleep, stillness, and peace. It is the most forgiving of all the bells of an inexperienced or clumsy ringer, and is the least likely to cause a bad effect if wrong poorly, though at times it might make her sleepy to ring it, as well as whomever it is supposed to be affecting.
* Mosrael wakes the dead, pulling the spirits into Life as long as there are bodies or spell-space prepared for them, while sending the ringer's spirit into Death, instead.
* Kibeth creates movement to the ringer's will, but is also tricksome and can make the ringer walk, as well, whether in a straight line, in a circle, or even in a jig, sometimes disrupting her concentration or just being annoying.
* Dyrim can restore speech to the mute, or still speech in one who speaks too freely, with some other subtle usages also aligned with communication, such as the revealing of secrets or even the reading of minds.
* Belgaer affects the mind, both restoring memories and independent thought in someone without either, or erasing them, and covers the lifting of bindings. It is perhaps the most dangerous of bells to ring without enough focus and attention, as it can damage the ringer's mind, and it likes to hear the sound of its own voice.
* Saraneth binds the dead or-- more rarely-- the living and forces them to follow the ringer's will, but it can also scatter the will of the ringer if rung without the proper focus and willpower. It is the best friend of an Abhorsen.
* Astarael (the largest) sends all who hear it into Death, and while it is not necessarily permanent, it is usually permanent for the ringer, meaning ringing Astarael is usually tantamount to suicide and thus is not done except in dire need.
~Charter Magic: Blessed by the magical Charter at birth, Lirael can mentally access the never-ending flow of that Charter-- structured, ordered magic-- and cast spells by stringing together symbols: drawing them, saying their names, or even infusing the marks into a whistle.
~Remembrancer: As both a Daughter of the Clayr and an Abhorsen, after exploring a cave underneath the Clayr Glacier and finding The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting, Lirael has both that book always on her person and a small, hand-held mirror called the Dark Mirror through which, if she stands in the river of Death and donates a drop of her own blood, she can see into the past. The further back in time she wants to see, the further into Death she must stand.
~Charter-skins: As a benefit of studying the book In the Skin of a Lyon, Lirael can create a Charter-skin, or a magical "fabric" that, when she fits herself into it, lets her "wear" a shape not her own. Creating skins takes at least four hours of spell-work, each skin can only be used once, and she can only wear a skin for a maximum of two or three hours before it starts becoming uncomfortable and fraying at the seams. The shapes she can make are that of a barking owl, a russet bear, and an ice otter.
~Sword: Lirael has an enchanted sword, made by her nephew Sameth for her use and balanced for the left hand, and knows fairly well how to use it... however, she is also missing her dominant hand, and though she's been working on training it up, she still isn't as proficient as she would like to be.
~Healing: While living at The Devil's See, Lirael learned a lot about healing, herbs, and fixing up broken bodies, both with magic and mundane methods. She may not be at the level of a doctor of a healer mage, but she's good for first aid and many other emergency treatments.
POSSESSIONS:
~Her mail, surcoat, bells, and sword
~The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting
~A stuffed baku
~A half-grown calico cat named Ellemere
~A pocket-full of Charter-spelled slips of paper
