Allemande
04-09-10, 08:05 AM
“She's got the boogie fever
She likes to boogie down
She's got the boogie fever
I think it's going around.” – The Sylvers
Name: Eva Williams
Race: Human
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Skin Color: Pale
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Height/Weight: 5’8”, 119 lbs
Languages: Tradespeak
Class: Necromancer / Dancer
History
There was a monster in her closet. Five year old Eva stayed awake every night and stared into its red eyes. Her parents, with the kind of stupidity that only adults are capable of, didn’t see the monster. Nor did they see the changes that came over Eva in the weeks and months that it tormented her, at least at first. Once bright-eyed and cheery, she became irritable and introversive and fell into a deep depression. Deep bags grew under her eyes from sleep deprivation, and her complexion became ashy. Every night she clung to her stuffed animals and prayed dearly for the sun to rise. Who she prayed to wasn’t exactly clear—she no longer believed in the gods her parents told her about. They were probably like the fat man who supposedly brought you presents on Winter Solstice, just a lie told by adults to make them feel better about themselves.
When she could no longer fight and she fell asleep, the monster whispered things in her ear.
Her parents grew worried. The changes in their daughter were evident now, even to their eyes. They were wealthy Scara Brae nobles, though, what were they supposed to do? They were busy. If Eva wanted to play a game, they were busy. Oh how she grew to hate that word! An endless chain of nannies and nurses looked after her, and they were kind enough, but for them, taking care of her was a job and nothing else. They didn’t actually care.
So when Eva’s parents did notice some of the symptoms of her illness, they did as they had done throughout her entire life: they hired someone else to deal with it. She probably just isn’t stimulated enough, they said. She is a very bright girl, they agreed (bright in the way they considered themselves to both be, of course). She just has an overactive imagination, they said. She really just needs the company of some girls her own age, they decided. So they sent her to a dance class, pink tutu and all.
There were six other girls in the class, none of which she befriended. The other girls thought that Eva was…strange. Maybe a little bit scary. While other girls played with dollhouses, Eva read lengthy encyclopedia entries about obscure and horrible tropical diseases.
The only person in the class that she really connected to was the teacher, and the reason for that was that Eva really excelled at dancing. No matter how complicated the routine was, Eva learned it with extreme (almost frightening) concentration. Soon she was dancing with girls twice, and then three times her age. Her parents fawned over the little dance prodigy, but despite the new attention, her depression and darkness only deepened.
The monster still haunted her ever night. On average, she probably only got one or two hours of good sleep a night, sometimes less. Her parents dismissed stories of the monster completely, saying that she was far too old for such childish games (she was now almost ten). Eva told her dance teacher of her problem, and the teacher, a kindly woman by the name of Ms. Fields, was more sympathetic. Ms. Fields suggested that she use the same concentration and focusing exercises that she did when dancing to try and get to sleep. The monster couldn’t be real, after all, could it? Could it? It couldn’t be.
That night, Ms. Fields was up late pacing in worry over the little girl who had come to her after dance class. There was something in the girl’s eyes that made her very, very worried. After that day, however, a change came over Eva. She seemed less tired, less sad, and more…normal for a girl her age. Her dancing only improved, and more rapidly than ever before. Her parents noted the change and rejoiced. Maybe she’d just grown out of the age where she was afraid of monsters in the closet.
Of course, that wasn’t true. She’d simply befriended the monster.
A few weeks after that came her eleventh birthday. Her parents got her a pet bunny rabbit, which she doted over. It grew sick and died only two months later, though, and she was devastated. They buried Bunbuns in the garden behind their estate and held a miniature funeral. Her parents reassured her that it wasn’t her fault, and sometimes things just die, but she refused to accept it. For seven days she mourned, and on the seventh night at midnight, she snuck out of the house out into the garden.
The next day, Bunbuns was alive and hopping around the kitchen. It couldn’t be the same rabbit, though, could it? Could it? It couldn’t be.
For the next few years, Eva’s life was divided in two. During the day, and endless series of dance lessons and recitals. At night, she practiced magic with the monster—who she was now old enough o know wasn’t a monster after all. He was a demon, and he was there to help her train. She’d been born with a great gift, the monster explained, and it’d be a shame if she didn’t exploit it! Eva agreed. The creature that had once tormented her became her mentor, teaching her all sorts of dark magic and similar practices.
Soon her day-life and night-life began to merge together. Her dance lessons certainly applied to her use of dark magic, and she learned to weave something of a spell over her audiences in the day. The strain of her double life was almost too much, and she grew tired and depressed once more. That didn’t seem to matter, though. If anything, her magic and dancing both improved as her mental state deteriorated.
Another curious incident happened sometime after her 13th birthday. Her parents tried to take her to church for a wedding, and just as Eva was walking in the doors of the cathedral she swooned and collapsed and had to be taken home.
By the time she was nineteen, Eva’s education in dancing and necromancy and their strange intersection was almost complete. Local powers, both good and evil, began to take notice. A burly priest arrived at their house one day, saying that he’d been getting odd signs of dark energy coming from their estate lately. Necromancy, actually. Her parents, confused, welcomed him to search and said that they had nothing to hide. Eva, on the other hand, was terrified. She stormed to her room and flung open her closet to warn the monster there of the danger.
The closet was empty. Eva had a sudden moment of clarity, of (possibly divine) inspiration, and she realized that there had never been any monster, no bogeyman, no demon. As with every child, it was an invention of her own.
“Hello Eva,” the priest said. Her parents stood behind him with their arms crossed, looking worried and distant. “I should let you know that exorcism is a painful process, but a swift one. You’ll feel much better afterwards.”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t let you!” She shouted and flung her arms forward, and then spun around and tapped her feet on the floor in a brief and staccato dance. The priest only looked confused, but Eva’s parents lunged forward and grabbed him. Their eyes were bright red. Her control over them was brief and limited, but it was enough for her to escape out the window.
She ran and ran out into the countryside, away from the life she had always known and the parents she had loved (despite their neglect and indifference). She would never inherit her parent’s fortune, or become a famous and successful dancer…but for some reason she was happier now than she ever had been in her life. She had battled with the darkness inside her for as long as she could remember and now, to be able to simply accept it as a part of her was wonderful. More than that, controlling her parents like that had made her feel powerful. Strong. It was a good feeling, to be able to control like that.
Where she would go next she didn’t know, but at least now she had freedom. Sure, she might be an outcast from society, hunted by all the forces of good and without a friend or possession in the world, but what did that matter? She could dance solo for awhile, that was just fine, and who knew what the future might bring…
Appearance
Dancing is intense exercise, and it has made Eva flexible and physically fit. Her body is lean and muscular, with little fat at all. She’s also fairly tall and slender, with long limbs proportionate to her body and long, thin fingers. She doesn’t look overly skinny, though, just tall and thin.
Her facial features are considered pretty by most, in a very traditional way. She has large, round icy blue eyes, petite facial features, and long blonde hair which she typically ties up into pigtails. Her complexion is pale, which some see as a flaw, but it only serves to emphasis the pale blue of her eyes. She typically wears makeup, but if she didn’t the close observer might notice some things that are off about her appearance. There are bags under her eyes, as though she doesn’t get very much sleep at all. Her skin, normally pale, looks almost ashen without anything covering it up. There’s something about her eyes that is frightening as well, something that looks hunted…
Her clothes are always very nice and proper. She typically wears large, fashionable dresses in bright colors: pinks, purples, yellows. These dresses are frilly and pretty, and she wears them especially so that they twirl around in an attractive fashion when she’s dancing. While they’re completely impractical, they look good, and that’s far more important to Eva.
Personality
Eva is a very sweet, cheery, kind girl who gets along well with others.
Well, kind of…
She is indeed quite charismatic, and in no way does she fit into the stereotype of what a dark magician would be like. She generally is upbeat and optimistic, and gets along well with others. She’s sophisticated, well-educated and classy, and generally quite polite. Highly intelligent and perceptive, she’s able to hold her end of the conversation with just about anyone. In her adolescence, people (including her parents) often dismissed her as unintelligent without even speaking to her, just because she was beautiful and a talented dancer. Exactly the opposite is true.
On the other hand, Eva does have a deeply flawed personality. She is highly arrogant and has little respect for anyone but herself. While she does know the rules of conduct in upper-class society, she sees no reason why she has to follow them, and generally just does her own thing. She’s cynical and sarcastic at times, and considers herself “jaded” and is proud of this fact. Despite this, she struggles a lot with her morality and integrity. While a large part of her is completely self-centered, and perhaps even takes pleasure in the suffering of others, another part still wants to do the “right thing,” but can’t decide what that is. This conflict leads to self-destructive behavior sometimes, and she struggles a lot with her sense of self and what her goals in life might be. This makes her sort of unpredictable. While sometimes she’ll act in a cruel and harsh manner, other times she’ll be almost heroic. It’s impossible to say.
Typical definitions of good and evil simply don’t apply to her, or so she thinks. It’s far too complex an issue to define someone as good or evil just because they practice a specific sort of magic, after all, and actions define those things more than anything else. Most people, however, would automatically consider her to be evil, and she certainly gets along better with the darker element.
Spells
Eva’s spells are centered on death and blood. They are categorized into categories based on the style of dance she practices (ballet, tap, waltz) and each has a number of forms or position within it. This is essentially a list of the different effects that she can get through her dance magic.
Ballet of Bereavement
Ballet can be a slow and mournful dance, almost a dirge reflecting on the souls of the dead. Eva uses its forms to speak to the spirits of the deceased. For this dance to be effective, she must know the full name of the spirit she wishes to speak to, and have a part of their corpse (even just a single bone, or a bit of hair or flesh…or blood). She only can speak to the spirit for a few minutes, and it is not compelled to speak truthfully or be helpful. No one but Eva can see or hear the ghost that she summons, but they can tell that something is very strange and wrong, and see the effects of the spell on Eva. This ballet is very tiring and can only be used once per thread, and not in a battle.
- First Position: Simply breathing deeply and focusing allows Eva to clear her mind and focus on the situation at hand. This is similar to meditation or the like and allows her to control her emotions to a certain extent. Her feet are turned out and
- Second Position: Eva raises her arms to her sides, separates her feet and focuses on the spirit that she wishes to summon and speak to. Her shadow grows dark, no matter what the time of day or the position of the sun, and her eyes become foggy and glazed.
- Third Position: An unnatural dark falls over her immediate surroundings, as if night has fallen, but only over her small area. She begins to transition her feet and arms to fourth position.
- Fourth Position: A chill wind picks up around Eva as she slowly lowers one arm in front of her and places her right foot in front over her left.
- Fifth Position: Eva crosses her feet before her and lowers her other arm, and the spell is completed. She begins a complex and intricate ballet routine, and the ghost is now summoned and will dance and speak with her for as long as the spell lasts and she can continue dancing. To an observer, it seems that Eva is in a trance, dancing and speaking with herself under a shroud of darkness and with an unearthly wind blowing through her hair.
Allemande of the Afterlife
The Allemande grave and formal dance of moderate tempo typically done with a partner. Eva begins this dance alone, swinging an invisible partner about, but as she dances the magic begins to take hold. It takes a long time, but eventually a nearby corpse or skeleton will rise and “come to life” and begin to dance with her. She typically dances in this fashion in a graveyard, in which case her new servant will arise from the grave and rip itself out of the dirt. After she completes the dance, the minion will be under her control and will obey her verbal commands. As of now, she can only perform the Allemande at night, and when the dawn comes the minion will collapse and be dead once more. She can only perform this dance every once in a while, as it is extremely tiring. When the dawn comes and the spell is broken, she will have to sleep right away for a full twelve hours during the day to regain her energy.
In order for this spell to work, she must scatter a few droplets of her own blood on the grave of the skeleton or zombie she wishes to create.
The minion she controls is currently very stupid, and regains nothing of the personality or skill it had while it was alive. It will obey only simple commands, and will never act on its own.
Saltarello of Slaughter
The Saltarello is a wild, energetic dance involving a lot of hopping and jumping. When Eva dances in this way, she allows rage to fill her and focuses on the destruction of her enemies. She can only use the Saltarello on player characters with their explicit permission. The Saltarello gives her control of blood in the following ways:
- Blood Boiling: Eva can cause the veins of an opponent to scream out in horrible agony. While there is no physical effect, it feels in the opponent’s mind as though their blood is literally boiling. This effect lasts for a minute (one post or less) and the enemy returns to normal after that, although probably somewhat shaken. She cannot use this ability more than once on the same character in one thread.
- Possession: She can briefly (for a period of one post) get the bodies of other people to mimic her movements and control them. She cannot kill or force player characters to kill themselves in this way, ever. Only player characters of her level or below are effected, and only with their permission. Only weak-willed NPCs are affected. She cannot use this ability more than once on the same character in one thread.
Parlor Tricks
Eva’s most powerful abilities are activated by dancing, but there are a few simple spells that she can cast without moving her body, simply by virtue of the dark magic within her.
- Dark Orb: Similar to a simple Light spell, Eva can create a small orb of perfect darkness about a foot in diameter. No real functionality other than hiding small objects for short periods of time (although it is fairly conspicuous) and being showy.
- Doom Voice: What good is a necromancer without a frightening, evil sounding voice? While Eva’s voice is normally high-pitched and friendly, if she wants to she can enhance her voice with magic to make it sound SOMEWHAT INTIMIDATING, YOU KNOW? The only real effect at this point is creeping out nearby listeners.
Skills/Abilities
Dancing: Eva is a skilled dancer. Years of intensive training and practice have brought her to the point where she can pick up new dances with ease, make her own choreography, and begin to form her own artistic style. She is a good ballet dancer, a respectable tap dancer, and is well versed in more modern, daring styles of dance, such as exist in the dance schools of Scara Brae. It’s enjoyable to watch her dance, and she loves to perform in front of others and for herself. Note: this skill cannot be used to gain extra gold from a thread, even if she does give a public performance!
Noble Etiquette: Raised in a noble family, Eva is well versed in the laws that govern interactions in upper class society. She’s very polite and well mannered, and speaks in an obviously refined (and maybe slightly aloof) tone of voice at all times. She doesn’t, however, know the slang of the commoners, and sometimes even has a hard time understanding their accents.
Weaknesses
Weapon Combat: While physically fit, Eva has absolutely no training when it comes to hand-to-hand combat or battling with weapons. Worse than that, she’s never even really seen them used, and is much worse than the average commoner when it comes to wielding a weapon. She has no hope in hand-to-hand combat against even a mildly skilled player, and must depend entirely on her magic for self-defense.
Holiness: All things holy or religious are anathema to Eva. She cannot enter churches without fainting from dizziness. Contact with religious artifacts pains her, as does holy water. Priests and religious figures of any good denomination can generally detect her dark magic, if they are even a little bit skilled, and will hunt her down. Spells used against undead or wards against evil will work against her and her minions with extra effectiveness.
Too Bright!: The further her experiences with dark magic progress, the less comfortable Eva is in the daylight. She currently is mostly awake at night, and she wears a sunhat during the day, or tries to stay in deep shade. Her eyes are extremely sensitive to bright light. On top of that, she’s sensitive to heat and fire especially. She doesn’t deal well with hot weather, and fire magic will be especially effective on her.
The Naïve Necromancer?: Although she considers herself cynical and world-weary, Eva is really fairly inexperienced. Her childhood was relatively sheltered, as she grew up in a noble family, and she isn’t familiar with a lot of common “real life” situations. Oddly enough, she’s also fairly gullible and trusting, and she generally expects people to be good-natured unless proved otherwise.
Weapons: Eva carries an iron dagger on her person, but has no idea how to use it in combat. She uses it more frequently for blood sacrifices.
Armor: Eva wears no armor, and in fact generally chooses clothing that would be quite cumbersome in combat, like intricate poofy dresses, skirts, or tutus.
Familiars
Bunbuns: Bunbuns is a skeletal rabbit that was Eva’s first act of necromancy. She still keeps him with her, mostly as a reminder of her first real spellcasting. Bunbuns regularly follows her around, but during the day or when it’d simply be inconvenient to having the skeleton of a rabbit hopping about, Eva can temporarily disenchant him and store him in her bag. He doesn’t have any real function except as an (adorable?) little companion.
Hey, Ella again! (Nayeli and Ulysses). It's my third character, I know, but I wanted to be able to play a bit of a darker, more villainous sort sometimes. I understand that I have a bunch of spells, but I tried to balance them out with weaknesses, so hopefully it's all good. Thanks!
She likes to boogie down
She's got the boogie fever
I think it's going around.” – The Sylvers
Name: Eva Williams
Race: Human
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Skin Color: Pale
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Height/Weight: 5’8”, 119 lbs
Languages: Tradespeak
Class: Necromancer / Dancer
History
There was a monster in her closet. Five year old Eva stayed awake every night and stared into its red eyes. Her parents, with the kind of stupidity that only adults are capable of, didn’t see the monster. Nor did they see the changes that came over Eva in the weeks and months that it tormented her, at least at first. Once bright-eyed and cheery, she became irritable and introversive and fell into a deep depression. Deep bags grew under her eyes from sleep deprivation, and her complexion became ashy. Every night she clung to her stuffed animals and prayed dearly for the sun to rise. Who she prayed to wasn’t exactly clear—she no longer believed in the gods her parents told her about. They were probably like the fat man who supposedly brought you presents on Winter Solstice, just a lie told by adults to make them feel better about themselves.
When she could no longer fight and she fell asleep, the monster whispered things in her ear.
Her parents grew worried. The changes in their daughter were evident now, even to their eyes. They were wealthy Scara Brae nobles, though, what were they supposed to do? They were busy. If Eva wanted to play a game, they were busy. Oh how she grew to hate that word! An endless chain of nannies and nurses looked after her, and they were kind enough, but for them, taking care of her was a job and nothing else. They didn’t actually care.
So when Eva’s parents did notice some of the symptoms of her illness, they did as they had done throughout her entire life: they hired someone else to deal with it. She probably just isn’t stimulated enough, they said. She is a very bright girl, they agreed (bright in the way they considered themselves to both be, of course). She just has an overactive imagination, they said. She really just needs the company of some girls her own age, they decided. So they sent her to a dance class, pink tutu and all.
There were six other girls in the class, none of which she befriended. The other girls thought that Eva was…strange. Maybe a little bit scary. While other girls played with dollhouses, Eva read lengthy encyclopedia entries about obscure and horrible tropical diseases.
The only person in the class that she really connected to was the teacher, and the reason for that was that Eva really excelled at dancing. No matter how complicated the routine was, Eva learned it with extreme (almost frightening) concentration. Soon she was dancing with girls twice, and then three times her age. Her parents fawned over the little dance prodigy, but despite the new attention, her depression and darkness only deepened.
The monster still haunted her ever night. On average, she probably only got one or two hours of good sleep a night, sometimes less. Her parents dismissed stories of the monster completely, saying that she was far too old for such childish games (she was now almost ten). Eva told her dance teacher of her problem, and the teacher, a kindly woman by the name of Ms. Fields, was more sympathetic. Ms. Fields suggested that she use the same concentration and focusing exercises that she did when dancing to try and get to sleep. The monster couldn’t be real, after all, could it? Could it? It couldn’t be.
That night, Ms. Fields was up late pacing in worry over the little girl who had come to her after dance class. There was something in the girl’s eyes that made her very, very worried. After that day, however, a change came over Eva. She seemed less tired, less sad, and more…normal for a girl her age. Her dancing only improved, and more rapidly than ever before. Her parents noted the change and rejoiced. Maybe she’d just grown out of the age where she was afraid of monsters in the closet.
Of course, that wasn’t true. She’d simply befriended the monster.
A few weeks after that came her eleventh birthday. Her parents got her a pet bunny rabbit, which she doted over. It grew sick and died only two months later, though, and she was devastated. They buried Bunbuns in the garden behind their estate and held a miniature funeral. Her parents reassured her that it wasn’t her fault, and sometimes things just die, but she refused to accept it. For seven days she mourned, and on the seventh night at midnight, she snuck out of the house out into the garden.
The next day, Bunbuns was alive and hopping around the kitchen. It couldn’t be the same rabbit, though, could it? Could it? It couldn’t be.
For the next few years, Eva’s life was divided in two. During the day, and endless series of dance lessons and recitals. At night, she practiced magic with the monster—who she was now old enough o know wasn’t a monster after all. He was a demon, and he was there to help her train. She’d been born with a great gift, the monster explained, and it’d be a shame if she didn’t exploit it! Eva agreed. The creature that had once tormented her became her mentor, teaching her all sorts of dark magic and similar practices.
Soon her day-life and night-life began to merge together. Her dance lessons certainly applied to her use of dark magic, and she learned to weave something of a spell over her audiences in the day. The strain of her double life was almost too much, and she grew tired and depressed once more. That didn’t seem to matter, though. If anything, her magic and dancing both improved as her mental state deteriorated.
Another curious incident happened sometime after her 13th birthday. Her parents tried to take her to church for a wedding, and just as Eva was walking in the doors of the cathedral she swooned and collapsed and had to be taken home.
By the time she was nineteen, Eva’s education in dancing and necromancy and their strange intersection was almost complete. Local powers, both good and evil, began to take notice. A burly priest arrived at their house one day, saying that he’d been getting odd signs of dark energy coming from their estate lately. Necromancy, actually. Her parents, confused, welcomed him to search and said that they had nothing to hide. Eva, on the other hand, was terrified. She stormed to her room and flung open her closet to warn the monster there of the danger.
The closet was empty. Eva had a sudden moment of clarity, of (possibly divine) inspiration, and she realized that there had never been any monster, no bogeyman, no demon. As with every child, it was an invention of her own.
“Hello Eva,” the priest said. Her parents stood behind him with their arms crossed, looking worried and distant. “I should let you know that exorcism is a painful process, but a swift one. You’ll feel much better afterwards.”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t let you!” She shouted and flung her arms forward, and then spun around and tapped her feet on the floor in a brief and staccato dance. The priest only looked confused, but Eva’s parents lunged forward and grabbed him. Their eyes were bright red. Her control over them was brief and limited, but it was enough for her to escape out the window.
She ran and ran out into the countryside, away from the life she had always known and the parents she had loved (despite their neglect and indifference). She would never inherit her parent’s fortune, or become a famous and successful dancer…but for some reason she was happier now than she ever had been in her life. She had battled with the darkness inside her for as long as she could remember and now, to be able to simply accept it as a part of her was wonderful. More than that, controlling her parents like that had made her feel powerful. Strong. It was a good feeling, to be able to control like that.
Where she would go next she didn’t know, but at least now she had freedom. Sure, she might be an outcast from society, hunted by all the forces of good and without a friend or possession in the world, but what did that matter? She could dance solo for awhile, that was just fine, and who knew what the future might bring…
Appearance
Dancing is intense exercise, and it has made Eva flexible and physically fit. Her body is lean and muscular, with little fat at all. She’s also fairly tall and slender, with long limbs proportionate to her body and long, thin fingers. She doesn’t look overly skinny, though, just tall and thin.
Her facial features are considered pretty by most, in a very traditional way. She has large, round icy blue eyes, petite facial features, and long blonde hair which she typically ties up into pigtails. Her complexion is pale, which some see as a flaw, but it only serves to emphasis the pale blue of her eyes. She typically wears makeup, but if she didn’t the close observer might notice some things that are off about her appearance. There are bags under her eyes, as though she doesn’t get very much sleep at all. Her skin, normally pale, looks almost ashen without anything covering it up. There’s something about her eyes that is frightening as well, something that looks hunted…
Her clothes are always very nice and proper. She typically wears large, fashionable dresses in bright colors: pinks, purples, yellows. These dresses are frilly and pretty, and she wears them especially so that they twirl around in an attractive fashion when she’s dancing. While they’re completely impractical, they look good, and that’s far more important to Eva.
Personality
Eva is a very sweet, cheery, kind girl who gets along well with others.
Well, kind of…
She is indeed quite charismatic, and in no way does she fit into the stereotype of what a dark magician would be like. She generally is upbeat and optimistic, and gets along well with others. She’s sophisticated, well-educated and classy, and generally quite polite. Highly intelligent and perceptive, she’s able to hold her end of the conversation with just about anyone. In her adolescence, people (including her parents) often dismissed her as unintelligent without even speaking to her, just because she was beautiful and a talented dancer. Exactly the opposite is true.
On the other hand, Eva does have a deeply flawed personality. She is highly arrogant and has little respect for anyone but herself. While she does know the rules of conduct in upper-class society, she sees no reason why she has to follow them, and generally just does her own thing. She’s cynical and sarcastic at times, and considers herself “jaded” and is proud of this fact. Despite this, she struggles a lot with her morality and integrity. While a large part of her is completely self-centered, and perhaps even takes pleasure in the suffering of others, another part still wants to do the “right thing,” but can’t decide what that is. This conflict leads to self-destructive behavior sometimes, and she struggles a lot with her sense of self and what her goals in life might be. This makes her sort of unpredictable. While sometimes she’ll act in a cruel and harsh manner, other times she’ll be almost heroic. It’s impossible to say.
Typical definitions of good and evil simply don’t apply to her, or so she thinks. It’s far too complex an issue to define someone as good or evil just because they practice a specific sort of magic, after all, and actions define those things more than anything else. Most people, however, would automatically consider her to be evil, and she certainly gets along better with the darker element.
Spells
Eva’s spells are centered on death and blood. They are categorized into categories based on the style of dance she practices (ballet, tap, waltz) and each has a number of forms or position within it. This is essentially a list of the different effects that she can get through her dance magic.
Ballet of Bereavement
Ballet can be a slow and mournful dance, almost a dirge reflecting on the souls of the dead. Eva uses its forms to speak to the spirits of the deceased. For this dance to be effective, she must know the full name of the spirit she wishes to speak to, and have a part of their corpse (even just a single bone, or a bit of hair or flesh…or blood). She only can speak to the spirit for a few minutes, and it is not compelled to speak truthfully or be helpful. No one but Eva can see or hear the ghost that she summons, but they can tell that something is very strange and wrong, and see the effects of the spell on Eva. This ballet is very tiring and can only be used once per thread, and not in a battle.
- First Position: Simply breathing deeply and focusing allows Eva to clear her mind and focus on the situation at hand. This is similar to meditation or the like and allows her to control her emotions to a certain extent. Her feet are turned out and
- Second Position: Eva raises her arms to her sides, separates her feet and focuses on the spirit that she wishes to summon and speak to. Her shadow grows dark, no matter what the time of day or the position of the sun, and her eyes become foggy and glazed.
- Third Position: An unnatural dark falls over her immediate surroundings, as if night has fallen, but only over her small area. She begins to transition her feet and arms to fourth position.
- Fourth Position: A chill wind picks up around Eva as she slowly lowers one arm in front of her and places her right foot in front over her left.
- Fifth Position: Eva crosses her feet before her and lowers her other arm, and the spell is completed. She begins a complex and intricate ballet routine, and the ghost is now summoned and will dance and speak with her for as long as the spell lasts and she can continue dancing. To an observer, it seems that Eva is in a trance, dancing and speaking with herself under a shroud of darkness and with an unearthly wind blowing through her hair.
Allemande of the Afterlife
The Allemande grave and formal dance of moderate tempo typically done with a partner. Eva begins this dance alone, swinging an invisible partner about, but as she dances the magic begins to take hold. It takes a long time, but eventually a nearby corpse or skeleton will rise and “come to life” and begin to dance with her. She typically dances in this fashion in a graveyard, in which case her new servant will arise from the grave and rip itself out of the dirt. After she completes the dance, the minion will be under her control and will obey her verbal commands. As of now, she can only perform the Allemande at night, and when the dawn comes the minion will collapse and be dead once more. She can only perform this dance every once in a while, as it is extremely tiring. When the dawn comes and the spell is broken, she will have to sleep right away for a full twelve hours during the day to regain her energy.
In order for this spell to work, she must scatter a few droplets of her own blood on the grave of the skeleton or zombie she wishes to create.
The minion she controls is currently very stupid, and regains nothing of the personality or skill it had while it was alive. It will obey only simple commands, and will never act on its own.
Saltarello of Slaughter
The Saltarello is a wild, energetic dance involving a lot of hopping and jumping. When Eva dances in this way, she allows rage to fill her and focuses on the destruction of her enemies. She can only use the Saltarello on player characters with their explicit permission. The Saltarello gives her control of blood in the following ways:
- Blood Boiling: Eva can cause the veins of an opponent to scream out in horrible agony. While there is no physical effect, it feels in the opponent’s mind as though their blood is literally boiling. This effect lasts for a minute (one post or less) and the enemy returns to normal after that, although probably somewhat shaken. She cannot use this ability more than once on the same character in one thread.
- Possession: She can briefly (for a period of one post) get the bodies of other people to mimic her movements and control them. She cannot kill or force player characters to kill themselves in this way, ever. Only player characters of her level or below are effected, and only with their permission. Only weak-willed NPCs are affected. She cannot use this ability more than once on the same character in one thread.
Parlor Tricks
Eva’s most powerful abilities are activated by dancing, but there are a few simple spells that she can cast without moving her body, simply by virtue of the dark magic within her.
- Dark Orb: Similar to a simple Light spell, Eva can create a small orb of perfect darkness about a foot in diameter. No real functionality other than hiding small objects for short periods of time (although it is fairly conspicuous) and being showy.
- Doom Voice: What good is a necromancer without a frightening, evil sounding voice? While Eva’s voice is normally high-pitched and friendly, if she wants to she can enhance her voice with magic to make it sound SOMEWHAT INTIMIDATING, YOU KNOW? The only real effect at this point is creeping out nearby listeners.
Skills/Abilities
Dancing: Eva is a skilled dancer. Years of intensive training and practice have brought her to the point where she can pick up new dances with ease, make her own choreography, and begin to form her own artistic style. She is a good ballet dancer, a respectable tap dancer, and is well versed in more modern, daring styles of dance, such as exist in the dance schools of Scara Brae. It’s enjoyable to watch her dance, and she loves to perform in front of others and for herself. Note: this skill cannot be used to gain extra gold from a thread, even if she does give a public performance!
Noble Etiquette: Raised in a noble family, Eva is well versed in the laws that govern interactions in upper class society. She’s very polite and well mannered, and speaks in an obviously refined (and maybe slightly aloof) tone of voice at all times. She doesn’t, however, know the slang of the commoners, and sometimes even has a hard time understanding their accents.
Weaknesses
Weapon Combat: While physically fit, Eva has absolutely no training when it comes to hand-to-hand combat or battling with weapons. Worse than that, she’s never even really seen them used, and is much worse than the average commoner when it comes to wielding a weapon. She has no hope in hand-to-hand combat against even a mildly skilled player, and must depend entirely on her magic for self-defense.
Holiness: All things holy or religious are anathema to Eva. She cannot enter churches without fainting from dizziness. Contact with religious artifacts pains her, as does holy water. Priests and religious figures of any good denomination can generally detect her dark magic, if they are even a little bit skilled, and will hunt her down. Spells used against undead or wards against evil will work against her and her minions with extra effectiveness.
Too Bright!: The further her experiences with dark magic progress, the less comfortable Eva is in the daylight. She currently is mostly awake at night, and she wears a sunhat during the day, or tries to stay in deep shade. Her eyes are extremely sensitive to bright light. On top of that, she’s sensitive to heat and fire especially. She doesn’t deal well with hot weather, and fire magic will be especially effective on her.
The Naïve Necromancer?: Although she considers herself cynical and world-weary, Eva is really fairly inexperienced. Her childhood was relatively sheltered, as she grew up in a noble family, and she isn’t familiar with a lot of common “real life” situations. Oddly enough, she’s also fairly gullible and trusting, and she generally expects people to be good-natured unless proved otherwise.
Weapons: Eva carries an iron dagger on her person, but has no idea how to use it in combat. She uses it more frequently for blood sacrifices.
Armor: Eva wears no armor, and in fact generally chooses clothing that would be quite cumbersome in combat, like intricate poofy dresses, skirts, or tutus.
Familiars
Bunbuns: Bunbuns is a skeletal rabbit that was Eva’s first act of necromancy. She still keeps him with her, mostly as a reminder of her first real spellcasting. Bunbuns regularly follows her around, but during the day or when it’d simply be inconvenient to having the skeleton of a rabbit hopping about, Eva can temporarily disenchant him and store him in her bag. He doesn’t have any real function except as an (adorable?) little companion.
Hey, Ella again! (Nayeli and Ulysses). It's my third character, I know, but I wanted to be able to play a bit of a darker, more villainous sort sometimes. I understand that I have a bunch of spells, but I tried to balance them out with weaknesses, so hopefully it's all good. Thanks!