absentwizard
05-02-12, 12:33 AM
Name: Iila Kitty Cenata
Job: Field Librarian, Wanderer
Race: Lifedrinker, formerly Human
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Golden Blond
Eye Color: Slate Grey
Hgt/Wgt: 5'2" / 106 lbs
Languages: Tradespeak, High Elven
Weapons: A Book
Armor: None
From: The Red Forest, Raiaera
Description
Short and scrawny, she has the look of someone who had spent her growing years constantly just outside of malnutrition. Her hair certainly has recovered, flowing gloriously to a point just above her ankles. It is an unusually vivacious thing that glimmered in the light and danced in the slightest breath of wind. Comparatively, her slate grey eyes are dead things that drank in light and gave back little. They are perpetually half-hidden behind unadorned eyelids of the same peach-porcelain complexion as the rest of her triangular face. Except for the thin, faintly reddened lips, of course.
Most of her hair is kept back with a wide black headband with equally wide white frills. It is decorated with twenty-three crimson left primary feathers from songbirds, arranged into a double spiral that extended over her bangs. Her sidelocks emerge as two neat tails, bound up in helices of thin fabric strips of every color. Fortunately, the eyebrows did not deserve a paragraph unto themselves and were only slightly pencilled.
Her body is unremarkable save in its lack of things. It lacks voluptuousness. It lacks musculature. It lacks scars. It lacks hair. It lacks the things that suggested that it had been living and suffering the elements and hazards of the world. The pale figure seems more the sort of thing that an immutable doll might have.
She is a harmonious meeting of motion and stillness. Whether sitting or standing, she embodies a kind of quiet solidity usually found in the meditating enlightened, the happily stoned, and the peacefully sleeping. Her gait flowed from step to step, always toe-first. Her long, slender fingers moves with a darting swiftness that mimic wrens in spring.
Personality
Emotionally, she is low-key out of situational incompetence; the long years spent alone in the woods with only herself for company did not help matters. She has a very dependable tendency to freeze up in unfamiliar situations, when surprised, or when doubting herself. Combined with politeness through upbringing, she collapses easily under social pressure. That is, unless someone decides to do something unwise like injuring her dolls, calling her 'Kitty', cutting or pulling on her hair, or calling her old.
Mentally, she has a strict, if ill-considered, divide between categories of "us" and "them" in order to allow for coexistence between her motherly nature towards some life and callous cruelty towards others. This is someone who will carefully nurse an ill bird back to health, provided that the bird had built a nest inside her eaves, and at the same time wring the neck of the same kind of bird on the next tree over for its feathers. When a move from "them" to "us" happens, she tends to be profusely apologetic about anything that might have happened before. When a move from "us" to "them" happens, she tends to entirely ignore any prior history.
She doesn't hold grudges because the concept of revenge really never took root. Alternatively, she is always holding a distrustful grudge against everyone whom she considers as "them", starting with being inconsiderate of their feelings and extending right up to violence. Lying is a disturbing and alien concept to her, again due to spending long times around company with whom she shares all thoughts and feelings directly.
She is obsessed with her dolls and treats them like beloved children. Damage or destruction of the dolls, while upsetting, is not a cause for despair because she understands that the consciousness persists through her soul and that a new body was a perfectly sensible continuation of the old one. A sure sign that she likes someone is that she has made a doll in that someone's likeness; this is usually done after obtaining a small piece of that someone and signifies wanting that person to be a part of her from now on.
Generally, she gains sustenance from feeding off of the thousands of small deaths that occur around people; insects killing each other and bacteria fighting for space. She doesn't eat carbohydrates because she has no gut flora and experience indigestion every time. Her favorite food is active-culture yoghurt, because it feeds all of her hungers at once. She prefers clear, distilled liquors and fruit-fermented alcohols because of the lack of complex sugars.
She can't hold her liquor. When she's drunk, she mopes wordlessly about her lonely upbringing while looking incompetently for acceptance and snuggles. Usually, her dolls work very hard to chaperone her in this state. Fortunately for them, the tiny capacity means that another drink or so sends her directly to candles-out.
History
One clear summer night under a gibbous moon, Iorea Cenata came out of the Red Forest. She had been pacing restlessly for nearly a month now in her little cottage; but tonight was finally the night that the Sieverts baby was born. The magician felt in her bones the need for someone to carry on her legacy. It wasn't as if she was going to pass on of old age anytime; constantly soaking in the life force of the world did wonders for the skin and everything else. What Iorea felt was wanderlust, which was dangerous in of itself, and it simply wouldn't do to accidentally end the line of Yustea Cenata. She returned to her cottage with the entire crib in tow because she had neglected to prepare one and it wasn't as if the Sieverts will be needing it now. The divinations were clear on the natural talent of this child and by magician logic that meant the cottage deserved her crib more than her parents did. Besides, what kind of parent names a daughter 'Kitty'?
Iila Cenata grew up entirely unaware of her origins and absolutely doted upon by her step-mother. The two lived together in their cottage in the woods. It was one that was quite free of the usual nuisances like great big wolves, who knew the resident magician as "She Who Must be Avoided", mischevious fairies, who knew the resident magician as "Prank Only Once A Year Out of Respect for Tradition", or trolls, who knew the resident magician as "Auuugh!" On the occasions when Iorea had to go out and leave Iila home, she left a veritable battalion of small clay birds warmed in the oven. This only sounds non-threatening to people who have not had the unique experience of being dive-bombed by flaming, runny clay from a avian re-enactment of the Apocalypse in miniature.
In the best traditions of home schooling, Iorea taught Iila the important subjects first and the civilized subjects second. Important subjects like distinguishing between mushrooms that made passable stew and mushrooms that made passable rat poison. Civilized subjects like how to read and write and count to however many seeds mum had just scooped from the bag. Most importantly, Iorea taught the Cenata arts of lifedrinking and manipulation of life energies. This required a great deal of object lessons in order to imprint and Iila had, by the age of six and the medical standards at the time, died more times than all the plague victims in the next two village over put together. Iila talent showed quite early on, because she stopped dying after that early age.
In retrospective, Iorea might have decided to hold off on the whole magic business for a few more years. All the physical trauma had left Iila's health an anemic, asthmatic wreck. The sudden and permanent disappearnce of all the happy little microbes that lived in Iila meant that suddenly she could no longer digest cake; she was upset for months about that. Finally, the mental trauma meant that she both unafraid of death and a little afraid of buckets. There was always a bucket at hand for handling death-related messes.
By her tenth birthday, Iorea was taking longer and longer trips away and Iila sorely felt three things missing in her life. Item the first: she had nobody to play with and needlework was incredibly boring. Item the second: her hair, which had achieved lengths and volumes one usually associates with small canoes, was incredibly difficult to brush and manage by herself. Item the third: The mischevious fairies were starting to figure out that Iorea wasn't around half the time and started pranking the cottage. So, Iila opened the Seven-Colored Grimoire and started putting its knowledge to practical use.
It was an immensely satisfying moment when her first doll, Zanhae, went out and beat one of the strongest ice fairies senseless with the second-best broom. When Iila had four, Iorea gave her permission to go to town for the first time on an errand. For the first time in eleven tears, Iila saw someone other than Iorea. As instructed, she did not stare and went about her business as quickly as possible.
Iorea left the cottage and the Grimoire to Iila when she turned fifteen. There were no post-cards from mother travelling the world because there was no post-service to Iila's Cottage. Every few weeks, the town would receive a visit from That Girl With the Dolls Who Lives Alone In The Forest, who would always visit just the Sieverts General Store and Pritchart's Apothecary before leaving again into the woods. Nobody tried to question her anymore, because she wouldn't answer, and that's just the Way Things Were.
Like her mother before her, Iila didn't change noticeably in the subsequent decade. Her world was her dolls, the cottage, and the forest. On eight separate occasions, she came across someone else in the woods. Half of them were hunters, whom she avoided as best as she could. Three of them looked lost and were rather surprised when a small doll walked out of the bushes and put on a brief pantomime show about which way they should go. There was one man who had managed to break a bone. He was rather surprised to be lifted bodily off of the ground by many small, soft hands and carried into the cottage.
During the month of recovery, Iila did not say a single word to her houseguest. She did not look at him each time that he thanked her; she wasn't taught about those things. She did not react when the inevitable invasions of privacy occured; she wasn't taught about those things. She did not thank him when he tried to help out around the cottage; the dolls dogpiled on him for stepping on their turf. Eventually, he left to return to his family.
Three years later, the same man banged frantically on Iila's door. A mob was coming, he explained, because three cows were stricken simultaneously with fever and surely the witch was to blame. They knew where the cottage was because he had told his story, three years ago. There was time enough for Iila to gather up all the things precious to her. She watched from the trees as her cottage was burned righteously to the ground. It has been twenty-eight years. It was time to go.
When the mob returned, they came across the barn where the sick cattle were waiting to die. Outside it, a small doll stood and waved sadly at them. Inside it, they found their golden-haired accused kneeling over the third of the cows. The other two were already lowing happily away at the hay stack. She stood. The last cow stood. Iila gave a look towards the crowd, their torches drooping, and beckoned for Zanhae. Together, the two vanished into the night.
What would Iorea say? She needed to find mother. Mother would know best what to do. She was out in the world somewhere, alive. Iila knew this because she kept aways the locket of mother's hair with her.
Skills
Literacy: Read and write in High Elven.
Sewist: [A] Specialize in doll-making and clothing
Spellcraft: [A] Particularly in small details
Puppeteering: String marionette only
Herbalism: [B] Specializes in medicine
Education: [B] Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry
Carpentry: [C] Specializes in small, intricate pieces
Wilderness Survival: [C] Specializes in fieldcraft and temperate forests
Housekeeping: [D] The cottage didn't fall down because of her management.
Trapping: [D] She only knows how to hunt birds, fish, and small animals by setting simple traps and nets.
Martial Arts: [E] Soft style. She does not have the body strength to make it effective.
Athletics: [F] It is more of a hundred-yard stroll for her.
Cookery: [F] Eating her cooking may very well void your life insurance
[B]Abilities
Lifedrinking [Magical] - Lifedrinking is the innate magic of stealing the life force from others and merging with one's own. It is conceptually similar to vampirism except it directly attacks the soul. At her level of power, she is not capable of directly attacking anything bigger than an inch or so with her lifedrinking abilities. This limits her targets to creatures like the bedbug that chose the wrong bed to infest. However, she is capable of capturing fleeing life force set free by other causes nearby, such as after she or someone else stabs the squirrel with a kitchen knife. While is not necessary to kill anything, only injure it, killing does provide the power much more quickly.
There is no sensation by anyone else from free-capture. Being directly attacked brings a sensation of drowsiness and tiredness; one just wants to give in and go take a nap.
The direct-attack maximum creature size is the cube of her level, in inches. When concentrating, she can make direct attacks at a distance equal to the maximum creature size. The direct-attack is automatically attempted on physical contact with a valid target. She may activate or suppress this ability as thoughtlessly as blinking.
The direct-attack intensity is equivalent to draining 0.5% of remaining life-force per second for every level that she has. The strong-willed and strong-souled can resist the tearing at the soul for a time. She may reduce down this ability as thoughtlessly as blinking.
The free-capture radius of effect is equal to the square of her level in feet. This effect captures life-force lost within the radius unless the cause of the loss was another type of life drain. It is dangerous to leave her in an infirmiary. She may activate, suppress, or resize this ability as thoughtlessly as blinking.
Life force drunk in can be stored, used to heal the self of moderate wounds, or used to power magic. She has chosen the medium of her hair. With a little concentration, she can reverse the effect to heal others of moderate wounds at the expense of herself. Excess life force is stored with her hair as a medium, prompting growth. Expended storage go limp, bleach, and creep back as split ends.
Animate Doll [Magical] - The reason why all of her dolls have her hair for hair, other than practicality, is that this is the source of their link and of their animating power. At her current level of power, these fabric dolls have her physical strength and speed as well as the mental faculties of about a six-year-old. Of course, given their small size, this makes them disproportionately strong and tough. At higher levels, they will be more numerous, stronger, faster, smarter, tougher, and gain a variety of abilities such as flight and limited magic use. She is able to maintain 2 plus 2/level active dolls at one time.
She is constantly in empathic communications with her dolls. With a little concentration, she can communicate with them telepathically. With more concentration, she can share the senses of and exactly control the actions of one doll. This is dangerous, not physically but mentally, if that doll receives injuries while being possessed. Dolls interact with others through a combination of pantomime and writing, as they are currently mute.
Her dolls are a jealous sort and often feud with each other in a competition for attention from their maker or the coveted spots in the lap, on the shoulders, or on top of her head. At the same time, they love each other very much, since they're technically the same person as their master and as each other. Actual severe injuries are rare given just how little damage bashing a soft doll's head with a frying pan does. Sharps are universally understood to be taboo in The Game.
Deconstructed dolls' personalities merge with and disappear into her own soul. These are called up again when a new body is made. Generally speaking, the temporarily inconvenienced doll is most upset about the inconvenience.
When constructing dolls, she usually murders one or more small animals in the process in order to fuel its life. She could also fuel it with some of her own life force, since this is what is actually happening. Theoretically speaking, she could also staple a lock of her hair to anything and animate it, but traditions and obsessions die hard. It has to be a doll and she really has to have made it herself.
Ribbon Casting [Magical] - The ribbons tied into her hair are embordiered with the runes and tracings of a fairly obscure field of magic. The principle is more similar to casting from a wand than from a book or a scroll. There is no reading involved and the ribbon itself functions as a consumable focus for the spell. Generally, she powers the spell using either personal or stored life force.
Her ribbon magic is not currently well-developed and usually manifests only minor effects such as a dim light, keeping a cup of tea warm, or warding away sleepiness. The most important use of it is to alleviate her asthma attacks after onset. Theoretically, the complexity of the spell only depends on how much inscribed ribbon she has and the power of the spell only dependent on her reservoirs. But fireballs aren't traditional.
Afflictions
Autoimmune anemia - Hemoglobin concentration 70% that of healthy human of this age and gender.
Asthma - Mildly persistent and lung function at 85%
Equipment
The Cenata Grimoire - Contains an extensive stock of Life Magic and Ribbon Magic spells and theory, of which Iila had not mastered even a tenth.
Six dolls - Zanhae (red ribbon, black eyes, blue dress), Fenlaid (red, green, blue), Sanai (yellow, green, green), Minya (yellow, blue, white), Ira (black, green, black), Valiae (red, yellow, black)
Several changes of clothes
Pendant with Iorea's hair
More ribbons than you can shake a fist at
Sewing kit, cloth supplies, trapper's kit, knives
A big, light pink parasol
Job: Field Librarian, Wanderer
Race: Lifedrinker, formerly Human
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Golden Blond
Eye Color: Slate Grey
Hgt/Wgt: 5'2" / 106 lbs
Languages: Tradespeak, High Elven
Weapons: A Book
Armor: None
From: The Red Forest, Raiaera
Description
Short and scrawny, she has the look of someone who had spent her growing years constantly just outside of malnutrition. Her hair certainly has recovered, flowing gloriously to a point just above her ankles. It is an unusually vivacious thing that glimmered in the light and danced in the slightest breath of wind. Comparatively, her slate grey eyes are dead things that drank in light and gave back little. They are perpetually half-hidden behind unadorned eyelids of the same peach-porcelain complexion as the rest of her triangular face. Except for the thin, faintly reddened lips, of course.
Most of her hair is kept back with a wide black headband with equally wide white frills. It is decorated with twenty-three crimson left primary feathers from songbirds, arranged into a double spiral that extended over her bangs. Her sidelocks emerge as two neat tails, bound up in helices of thin fabric strips of every color. Fortunately, the eyebrows did not deserve a paragraph unto themselves and were only slightly pencilled.
Her body is unremarkable save in its lack of things. It lacks voluptuousness. It lacks musculature. It lacks scars. It lacks hair. It lacks the things that suggested that it had been living and suffering the elements and hazards of the world. The pale figure seems more the sort of thing that an immutable doll might have.
She is a harmonious meeting of motion and stillness. Whether sitting or standing, she embodies a kind of quiet solidity usually found in the meditating enlightened, the happily stoned, and the peacefully sleeping. Her gait flowed from step to step, always toe-first. Her long, slender fingers moves with a darting swiftness that mimic wrens in spring.
Personality
Emotionally, she is low-key out of situational incompetence; the long years spent alone in the woods with only herself for company did not help matters. She has a very dependable tendency to freeze up in unfamiliar situations, when surprised, or when doubting herself. Combined with politeness through upbringing, she collapses easily under social pressure. That is, unless someone decides to do something unwise like injuring her dolls, calling her 'Kitty', cutting or pulling on her hair, or calling her old.
Mentally, she has a strict, if ill-considered, divide between categories of "us" and "them" in order to allow for coexistence between her motherly nature towards some life and callous cruelty towards others. This is someone who will carefully nurse an ill bird back to health, provided that the bird had built a nest inside her eaves, and at the same time wring the neck of the same kind of bird on the next tree over for its feathers. When a move from "them" to "us" happens, she tends to be profusely apologetic about anything that might have happened before. When a move from "us" to "them" happens, she tends to entirely ignore any prior history.
She doesn't hold grudges because the concept of revenge really never took root. Alternatively, she is always holding a distrustful grudge against everyone whom she considers as "them", starting with being inconsiderate of their feelings and extending right up to violence. Lying is a disturbing and alien concept to her, again due to spending long times around company with whom she shares all thoughts and feelings directly.
She is obsessed with her dolls and treats them like beloved children. Damage or destruction of the dolls, while upsetting, is not a cause for despair because she understands that the consciousness persists through her soul and that a new body was a perfectly sensible continuation of the old one. A sure sign that she likes someone is that she has made a doll in that someone's likeness; this is usually done after obtaining a small piece of that someone and signifies wanting that person to be a part of her from now on.
Generally, she gains sustenance from feeding off of the thousands of small deaths that occur around people; insects killing each other and bacteria fighting for space. She doesn't eat carbohydrates because she has no gut flora and experience indigestion every time. Her favorite food is active-culture yoghurt, because it feeds all of her hungers at once. She prefers clear, distilled liquors and fruit-fermented alcohols because of the lack of complex sugars.
She can't hold her liquor. When she's drunk, she mopes wordlessly about her lonely upbringing while looking incompetently for acceptance and snuggles. Usually, her dolls work very hard to chaperone her in this state. Fortunately for them, the tiny capacity means that another drink or so sends her directly to candles-out.
History
One clear summer night under a gibbous moon, Iorea Cenata came out of the Red Forest. She had been pacing restlessly for nearly a month now in her little cottage; but tonight was finally the night that the Sieverts baby was born. The magician felt in her bones the need for someone to carry on her legacy. It wasn't as if she was going to pass on of old age anytime; constantly soaking in the life force of the world did wonders for the skin and everything else. What Iorea felt was wanderlust, which was dangerous in of itself, and it simply wouldn't do to accidentally end the line of Yustea Cenata. She returned to her cottage with the entire crib in tow because she had neglected to prepare one and it wasn't as if the Sieverts will be needing it now. The divinations were clear on the natural talent of this child and by magician logic that meant the cottage deserved her crib more than her parents did. Besides, what kind of parent names a daughter 'Kitty'?
Iila Cenata grew up entirely unaware of her origins and absolutely doted upon by her step-mother. The two lived together in their cottage in the woods. It was one that was quite free of the usual nuisances like great big wolves, who knew the resident magician as "She Who Must be Avoided", mischevious fairies, who knew the resident magician as "Prank Only Once A Year Out of Respect for Tradition", or trolls, who knew the resident magician as "Auuugh!" On the occasions when Iorea had to go out and leave Iila home, she left a veritable battalion of small clay birds warmed in the oven. This only sounds non-threatening to people who have not had the unique experience of being dive-bombed by flaming, runny clay from a avian re-enactment of the Apocalypse in miniature.
In the best traditions of home schooling, Iorea taught Iila the important subjects first and the civilized subjects second. Important subjects like distinguishing between mushrooms that made passable stew and mushrooms that made passable rat poison. Civilized subjects like how to read and write and count to however many seeds mum had just scooped from the bag. Most importantly, Iorea taught the Cenata arts of lifedrinking and manipulation of life energies. This required a great deal of object lessons in order to imprint and Iila had, by the age of six and the medical standards at the time, died more times than all the plague victims in the next two village over put together. Iila talent showed quite early on, because she stopped dying after that early age.
In retrospective, Iorea might have decided to hold off on the whole magic business for a few more years. All the physical trauma had left Iila's health an anemic, asthmatic wreck. The sudden and permanent disappearnce of all the happy little microbes that lived in Iila meant that suddenly she could no longer digest cake; she was upset for months about that. Finally, the mental trauma meant that she both unafraid of death and a little afraid of buckets. There was always a bucket at hand for handling death-related messes.
By her tenth birthday, Iorea was taking longer and longer trips away and Iila sorely felt three things missing in her life. Item the first: she had nobody to play with and needlework was incredibly boring. Item the second: her hair, which had achieved lengths and volumes one usually associates with small canoes, was incredibly difficult to brush and manage by herself. Item the third: The mischevious fairies were starting to figure out that Iorea wasn't around half the time and started pranking the cottage. So, Iila opened the Seven-Colored Grimoire and started putting its knowledge to practical use.
It was an immensely satisfying moment when her first doll, Zanhae, went out and beat one of the strongest ice fairies senseless with the second-best broom. When Iila had four, Iorea gave her permission to go to town for the first time on an errand. For the first time in eleven tears, Iila saw someone other than Iorea. As instructed, she did not stare and went about her business as quickly as possible.
Iorea left the cottage and the Grimoire to Iila when she turned fifteen. There were no post-cards from mother travelling the world because there was no post-service to Iila's Cottage. Every few weeks, the town would receive a visit from That Girl With the Dolls Who Lives Alone In The Forest, who would always visit just the Sieverts General Store and Pritchart's Apothecary before leaving again into the woods. Nobody tried to question her anymore, because she wouldn't answer, and that's just the Way Things Were.
Like her mother before her, Iila didn't change noticeably in the subsequent decade. Her world was her dolls, the cottage, and the forest. On eight separate occasions, she came across someone else in the woods. Half of them were hunters, whom she avoided as best as she could. Three of them looked lost and were rather surprised when a small doll walked out of the bushes and put on a brief pantomime show about which way they should go. There was one man who had managed to break a bone. He was rather surprised to be lifted bodily off of the ground by many small, soft hands and carried into the cottage.
During the month of recovery, Iila did not say a single word to her houseguest. She did not look at him each time that he thanked her; she wasn't taught about those things. She did not react when the inevitable invasions of privacy occured; she wasn't taught about those things. She did not thank him when he tried to help out around the cottage; the dolls dogpiled on him for stepping on their turf. Eventually, he left to return to his family.
Three years later, the same man banged frantically on Iila's door. A mob was coming, he explained, because three cows were stricken simultaneously with fever and surely the witch was to blame. They knew where the cottage was because he had told his story, three years ago. There was time enough for Iila to gather up all the things precious to her. She watched from the trees as her cottage was burned righteously to the ground. It has been twenty-eight years. It was time to go.
When the mob returned, they came across the barn where the sick cattle were waiting to die. Outside it, a small doll stood and waved sadly at them. Inside it, they found their golden-haired accused kneeling over the third of the cows. The other two were already lowing happily away at the hay stack. She stood. The last cow stood. Iila gave a look towards the crowd, their torches drooping, and beckoned for Zanhae. Together, the two vanished into the night.
What would Iorea say? She needed to find mother. Mother would know best what to do. She was out in the world somewhere, alive. Iila knew this because she kept aways the locket of mother's hair with her.
Skills
Literacy: Read and write in High Elven.
Sewist: [A] Specialize in doll-making and clothing
Spellcraft: [A] Particularly in small details
Puppeteering: String marionette only
Herbalism: [B] Specializes in medicine
Education: [B] Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry
Carpentry: [C] Specializes in small, intricate pieces
Wilderness Survival: [C] Specializes in fieldcraft and temperate forests
Housekeeping: [D] The cottage didn't fall down because of her management.
Trapping: [D] She only knows how to hunt birds, fish, and small animals by setting simple traps and nets.
Martial Arts: [E] Soft style. She does not have the body strength to make it effective.
Athletics: [F] It is more of a hundred-yard stroll for her.
Cookery: [F] Eating her cooking may very well void your life insurance
[B]Abilities
Lifedrinking [Magical] - Lifedrinking is the innate magic of stealing the life force from others and merging with one's own. It is conceptually similar to vampirism except it directly attacks the soul. At her level of power, she is not capable of directly attacking anything bigger than an inch or so with her lifedrinking abilities. This limits her targets to creatures like the bedbug that chose the wrong bed to infest. However, she is capable of capturing fleeing life force set free by other causes nearby, such as after she or someone else stabs the squirrel with a kitchen knife. While is not necessary to kill anything, only injure it, killing does provide the power much more quickly.
There is no sensation by anyone else from free-capture. Being directly attacked brings a sensation of drowsiness and tiredness; one just wants to give in and go take a nap.
The direct-attack maximum creature size is the cube of her level, in inches. When concentrating, she can make direct attacks at a distance equal to the maximum creature size. The direct-attack is automatically attempted on physical contact with a valid target. She may activate or suppress this ability as thoughtlessly as blinking.
The direct-attack intensity is equivalent to draining 0.5% of remaining life-force per second for every level that she has. The strong-willed and strong-souled can resist the tearing at the soul for a time. She may reduce down this ability as thoughtlessly as blinking.
The free-capture radius of effect is equal to the square of her level in feet. This effect captures life-force lost within the radius unless the cause of the loss was another type of life drain. It is dangerous to leave her in an infirmiary. She may activate, suppress, or resize this ability as thoughtlessly as blinking.
Life force drunk in can be stored, used to heal the self of moderate wounds, or used to power magic. She has chosen the medium of her hair. With a little concentration, she can reverse the effect to heal others of moderate wounds at the expense of herself. Excess life force is stored with her hair as a medium, prompting growth. Expended storage go limp, bleach, and creep back as split ends.
Animate Doll [Magical] - The reason why all of her dolls have her hair for hair, other than practicality, is that this is the source of their link and of their animating power. At her current level of power, these fabric dolls have her physical strength and speed as well as the mental faculties of about a six-year-old. Of course, given their small size, this makes them disproportionately strong and tough. At higher levels, they will be more numerous, stronger, faster, smarter, tougher, and gain a variety of abilities such as flight and limited magic use. She is able to maintain 2 plus 2/level active dolls at one time.
She is constantly in empathic communications with her dolls. With a little concentration, she can communicate with them telepathically. With more concentration, she can share the senses of and exactly control the actions of one doll. This is dangerous, not physically but mentally, if that doll receives injuries while being possessed. Dolls interact with others through a combination of pantomime and writing, as they are currently mute.
Her dolls are a jealous sort and often feud with each other in a competition for attention from their maker or the coveted spots in the lap, on the shoulders, or on top of her head. At the same time, they love each other very much, since they're technically the same person as their master and as each other. Actual severe injuries are rare given just how little damage bashing a soft doll's head with a frying pan does. Sharps are universally understood to be taboo in The Game.
Deconstructed dolls' personalities merge with and disappear into her own soul. These are called up again when a new body is made. Generally speaking, the temporarily inconvenienced doll is most upset about the inconvenience.
When constructing dolls, she usually murders one or more small animals in the process in order to fuel its life. She could also fuel it with some of her own life force, since this is what is actually happening. Theoretically speaking, she could also staple a lock of her hair to anything and animate it, but traditions and obsessions die hard. It has to be a doll and she really has to have made it herself.
Ribbon Casting [Magical] - The ribbons tied into her hair are embordiered with the runes and tracings of a fairly obscure field of magic. The principle is more similar to casting from a wand than from a book or a scroll. There is no reading involved and the ribbon itself functions as a consumable focus for the spell. Generally, she powers the spell using either personal or stored life force.
Her ribbon magic is not currently well-developed and usually manifests only minor effects such as a dim light, keeping a cup of tea warm, or warding away sleepiness. The most important use of it is to alleviate her asthma attacks after onset. Theoretically, the complexity of the spell only depends on how much inscribed ribbon she has and the power of the spell only dependent on her reservoirs. But fireballs aren't traditional.
Afflictions
Autoimmune anemia - Hemoglobin concentration 70% that of healthy human of this age and gender.
Asthma - Mildly persistent and lung function at 85%
Equipment
The Cenata Grimoire - Contains an extensive stock of Life Magic and Ribbon Magic spells and theory, of which Iila had not mastered even a tenth.
Six dolls - Zanhae (red ribbon, black eyes, blue dress), Fenlaid (red, green, blue), Sanai (yellow, green, green), Minya (yellow, blue, white), Ira (black, green, black), Valiae (red, yellow, black)
Several changes of clothes
Pendant with Iorea's hair
More ribbons than you can shake a fist at
Sewing kit, cloth supplies, trapper's kit, knives
A big, light pink parasol