Ataraxis
12-13-06, 10:10 AM
Name: Lillian Sesthal
Titles: None as of yet
Age: 16
Race: Apparently human
Hair: Soft and glossy strands of sable silk
Eyes: Eerily blue and frighteningly clear, with a sinister glow
Height: 5’ 4”
Weight: 98 lbs.
Class: None as of yet
Occupation: Librarian’s assistant
Personality
Lillian is as quirky as teenage girls can get: her world is a world of books, and even when confronted with reality, she acts as if she were still trekking the Mountains of Zaleiya or enduring the blistering cold of the fictional ‘Steppes of the Ice-Veiled King’. Of course, she is kind and sympathetic, but her shyness tends to overshadow her better qualities; she did live in seclusion for the greater half of her life. She is prone to awkward comments, and could potentially halt the most heated debates with a single sentence. Still, beneath her cheerful countenance lie constant bereavement for her late parents and a longing for a place she could truly feel at home.
Appearance
Lillian is of an average stature, standing at an unexceptional height, yet her lissome figure and comely features are more than enough compensation. An inkfall of darkness tumbles down onto her shoulders, framing her delicate visage, stark white save for florid hues upon her cheeks and the rosy lushness of her lips. She habitually dons an immaculate gown, its hems adorned with soft frills, and is shod in common, auburn ankle boots. However, what clash most with her debonair aspect are the twin pools of coruscant ice that compose her unsettling gaze, eyes that seem to peer deep into one’s mind to find its darkest secrets.
History
When the nights wore on and weighed upon her infant’s heart, Lillian would bumble over her modest bunk, clamber upon the bedrail and peer through the small window above. A squint of the eyes was all it took to pull the little girl from her worldly abode, through the glassy scope and into the infinite skies of Fallien. Oft was it all-black and dull to her venturesome mind, but she cherished the times wherein the blazon of dark wore myriad pinpricks of soft white and sparkling blue. Then, her little heart would grow and beat like a festive tambourine at the sight of the desert’s treasured jewel, glowing bright and white as if nurtured by the quiet moonlight; it was the Mother’s Keep, pure and radiant in the dead of night. Lillian would stargaze until the sun dragged itself from the horizon; the image would fade and push her from the ledge of dreams, only to have her wake in the filth-ridden reality of the Outlander’s Quarters.
The girl had grown in the nest of crime, faced with threats upon her life at every waking hour. Her father, a retired warrior turned iron and glass smith, was adamant on her never crossing the bounds of their walls while he was away to craft and barter his wares. She was left to herself, under the watchful eye of her seamstress mother, and turned to the only pastime within her grasp: reading. ‘The Tacky Tales of Tom Tabletop’ were the first stories to ever grace her eyes. With time, she had devoured every piece of her mother’s collection, and had moved on to worldlier scripts, such as ‘The Past of Fallien: After Vadhya’. Needless to say, the fledgling girl had no real understanding of the region’s history, what with being five years old and all.
When she reached a shortage of things to read, she promptly asked her father if he could provide her with more. The man, intrigued, wondered why she could not simply go through them again, since she couldn’t possibly remember the contents of over forty tomes. To his utter and complete befuddlement, she recited obscure passages from ‘The Fallen Rose and the Laughing Corpse’, amusing quotes by Tom Tabletop and facts pertaining to Fallien’s history he himself was not aware of. She had committed everything to memory.
“Plus, I already cycled through them thrice, and didn’t learn anything new.”
Something was strange. Instead of evincing pride and joy in the light of her prodigious mind, his faces had turned livid, and little life remained in such frost-bitten features. Later, her parents had made her swear to never speak of this again, but at least agreed to purchase new books for her when they could from the Outlander’s Quarter’s only library, ‘The Blades of Knowledge’. Though the ordeal had seemingly passed over her them, Lillian could sometimes hear her mother weep at night, calling out her name with much despair.
Why was her soul drawn to Jya’s Keep? She had no wishes of becoming a priestess, and was certain they did not need her; even if they did, how could a foreigner even wish to become a aspirant Jya when she could not even cross the borders of Irrakam’s vestibule? For years had her parents asked for an Exit Pass, but the authorities were stubborn and denied them access to the mainland. No, she was drawn not by eminent titles or wealth and a livelihood, but rather the very beauty of the Keep itself, its magnificent exterior and the feeling that ‘it’ was her home. As much as she loved her parents and this shack they called their own, there had never been a sense of belonging. Worse was when she realized, as she grew older, that the Keep was not the object of her desire either, but a mere simulacrum of what haunted her dreams.
The Exit Pass came, but her parents never returned. They had gone to map their route out of the Quarters, but Lillian had never caught sight of them afterward. ‘We’ll be back in an hour or so’ was all that they said. The hour had stretched to two, then ten and a day. The day had grown to two, then ten and one does not need to further explain how time wore on and how they would never come back. Long did she sob in her dusty old room, thinning and enfeebled by starvation and sorrow.
With time, the grief of abandonment had receded, though it never waned nor faded. It was a method of self-preservation, for she would have died had she not suppressed it. Recalling the name of the library that had produced her precious leather-bound friends, she garnered every once of courage she had and valiantly rushed out of her house, bolted aimlessly through the winding and torturous paths until she jarred into a wall. Providence had blessed her, for the first thing she saw as her eyes unsealed was the moon, shining over the signboard of the ‘Blades of Knowledge’. A jingle sounded ahead as the entrance creaked open, and an elderly man, staggering over the sill with his short legs and worn cane, stared at the girl in confusion.
“Whaaat? Is it daaay yet? No, it doesn’t seem so. Then whaaat aaare you doing here, child? We aaare closed for the night. Or haaave you come seeking employment?”
Skills
Eidetic Memory – Lillian has, quite simply, the ability of total recall. Everything she has ever seen, read, heard, touched or lived through is permanently engraved in her memory, and these memories can be accessed as easily as if they were recent and fresh in her mind. This has allowed her to memorize countless books, be they about nonexistent adventures or cold hard facts relevant to Althanas. This allows her to assimilate information and learn at insane rates, and has already served her well in learning various languages such as Elven, Salvic, basic Drow and basic Dwarven. Alas, with the gift of perfect memory comes the curse of never being able to forget, and so she lives on, unable to break free from the sorrow caused by her parent’s departure.
Speed-Reading – The average person reads a little below a hundred pages per hour or more than a page per minute, whereas Lillian can read with full comprehension by simply glancing at a page, technically taking no more than a minute to read through a hundred pages; regrettably, the speed at which she turns pages is on par with that of any commoner, and she is just as prone to paper cuts as the next girl. Still, she would rather take her time and to fully appreciate a novel, and knows better than to skim over the poetic ‘Anthologies of Gwylliam Winterdell’.
Uncanny Hodgepodge – In this slew of books came the occasional grimoires or scrolls of magic. The ink had been washed away in most, while the contents were utterly false in others, but sometimes she stumbled upon the fragments of the keys to unlock powerful magics… but that was what she had, fragments of different keys. With only pieces of knowledge, she did not possess the full understanding of elemental, portal or ethereal magic, but she had glued a key nonetheless, and opened the most bizarre of doors. Whenever she calls upon preternatural forces with her patchwork magic, anything can happen, from bursts of cold fire to gusts of stunning wind, but more often than she would wish, the spell backfires in the most unpredictable ways.
Poor Swordsmanship – Her father never let himself rust, and his hand had never weaned from the cold warmth of his blade’s haft. In the Outlander’s Quarters, the weak often fell prey to predators, and with a wife and a daughter, he could not allow himself any rest. One day, worry had overtaken him, and he decided to teach his little girl how to defend herself with a sword. She had learned the basics, but was still at a tender age and was utterly incapable of lifting a sword and putting to practice the theories she had been inculcated. Now, Lillian is more capable, but still has to seriously train if she is to become in any way effective with a weapon in hand.
Equipment
Casual clothing, no armor, though a small glass dirk as hard as steel does hang from her waist. Lillian caries knapsack in which various odds and ends can be found: food rations for when she is too afraid to walk back home, a few blankets, a change of clothing, a wool cloak for outerwear and, obviously, her ‘books of the moment’. She also carries a blank diary (she had thought of writing entries, but realized it was too much of a hassle) and a set of pencils. Moreover, her house is riddled with weapons of her father’s making, notably the ‘Tyrfing’, the steel short sword he wielded decades ago as an adventurer.
Other Notes: This is obviously a very basic starting character. I plan on having her grow a lot, and I decided it would be best for her to start out fresh and weak! What objectives she may have, I leave it for my upcoming Solo, which will occur before the IMC quest by Rajani.
Titles: None as of yet
Age: 16
Race: Apparently human
Hair: Soft and glossy strands of sable silk
Eyes: Eerily blue and frighteningly clear, with a sinister glow
Height: 5’ 4”
Weight: 98 lbs.
Class: None as of yet
Occupation: Librarian’s assistant
Personality
Lillian is as quirky as teenage girls can get: her world is a world of books, and even when confronted with reality, she acts as if she were still trekking the Mountains of Zaleiya or enduring the blistering cold of the fictional ‘Steppes of the Ice-Veiled King’. Of course, she is kind and sympathetic, but her shyness tends to overshadow her better qualities; she did live in seclusion for the greater half of her life. She is prone to awkward comments, and could potentially halt the most heated debates with a single sentence. Still, beneath her cheerful countenance lie constant bereavement for her late parents and a longing for a place she could truly feel at home.
Appearance
Lillian is of an average stature, standing at an unexceptional height, yet her lissome figure and comely features are more than enough compensation. An inkfall of darkness tumbles down onto her shoulders, framing her delicate visage, stark white save for florid hues upon her cheeks and the rosy lushness of her lips. She habitually dons an immaculate gown, its hems adorned with soft frills, and is shod in common, auburn ankle boots. However, what clash most with her debonair aspect are the twin pools of coruscant ice that compose her unsettling gaze, eyes that seem to peer deep into one’s mind to find its darkest secrets.
History
When the nights wore on and weighed upon her infant’s heart, Lillian would bumble over her modest bunk, clamber upon the bedrail and peer through the small window above. A squint of the eyes was all it took to pull the little girl from her worldly abode, through the glassy scope and into the infinite skies of Fallien. Oft was it all-black and dull to her venturesome mind, but she cherished the times wherein the blazon of dark wore myriad pinpricks of soft white and sparkling blue. Then, her little heart would grow and beat like a festive tambourine at the sight of the desert’s treasured jewel, glowing bright and white as if nurtured by the quiet moonlight; it was the Mother’s Keep, pure and radiant in the dead of night. Lillian would stargaze until the sun dragged itself from the horizon; the image would fade and push her from the ledge of dreams, only to have her wake in the filth-ridden reality of the Outlander’s Quarters.
The girl had grown in the nest of crime, faced with threats upon her life at every waking hour. Her father, a retired warrior turned iron and glass smith, was adamant on her never crossing the bounds of their walls while he was away to craft and barter his wares. She was left to herself, under the watchful eye of her seamstress mother, and turned to the only pastime within her grasp: reading. ‘The Tacky Tales of Tom Tabletop’ were the first stories to ever grace her eyes. With time, she had devoured every piece of her mother’s collection, and had moved on to worldlier scripts, such as ‘The Past of Fallien: After Vadhya’. Needless to say, the fledgling girl had no real understanding of the region’s history, what with being five years old and all.
When she reached a shortage of things to read, she promptly asked her father if he could provide her with more. The man, intrigued, wondered why she could not simply go through them again, since she couldn’t possibly remember the contents of over forty tomes. To his utter and complete befuddlement, she recited obscure passages from ‘The Fallen Rose and the Laughing Corpse’, amusing quotes by Tom Tabletop and facts pertaining to Fallien’s history he himself was not aware of. She had committed everything to memory.
“Plus, I already cycled through them thrice, and didn’t learn anything new.”
Something was strange. Instead of evincing pride and joy in the light of her prodigious mind, his faces had turned livid, and little life remained in such frost-bitten features. Later, her parents had made her swear to never speak of this again, but at least agreed to purchase new books for her when they could from the Outlander’s Quarter’s only library, ‘The Blades of Knowledge’. Though the ordeal had seemingly passed over her them, Lillian could sometimes hear her mother weep at night, calling out her name with much despair.
Why was her soul drawn to Jya’s Keep? She had no wishes of becoming a priestess, and was certain they did not need her; even if they did, how could a foreigner even wish to become a aspirant Jya when she could not even cross the borders of Irrakam’s vestibule? For years had her parents asked for an Exit Pass, but the authorities were stubborn and denied them access to the mainland. No, she was drawn not by eminent titles or wealth and a livelihood, but rather the very beauty of the Keep itself, its magnificent exterior and the feeling that ‘it’ was her home. As much as she loved her parents and this shack they called their own, there had never been a sense of belonging. Worse was when she realized, as she grew older, that the Keep was not the object of her desire either, but a mere simulacrum of what haunted her dreams.
The Exit Pass came, but her parents never returned. They had gone to map their route out of the Quarters, but Lillian had never caught sight of them afterward. ‘We’ll be back in an hour or so’ was all that they said. The hour had stretched to two, then ten and a day. The day had grown to two, then ten and one does not need to further explain how time wore on and how they would never come back. Long did she sob in her dusty old room, thinning and enfeebled by starvation and sorrow.
With time, the grief of abandonment had receded, though it never waned nor faded. It was a method of self-preservation, for she would have died had she not suppressed it. Recalling the name of the library that had produced her precious leather-bound friends, she garnered every once of courage she had and valiantly rushed out of her house, bolted aimlessly through the winding and torturous paths until she jarred into a wall. Providence had blessed her, for the first thing she saw as her eyes unsealed was the moon, shining over the signboard of the ‘Blades of Knowledge’. A jingle sounded ahead as the entrance creaked open, and an elderly man, staggering over the sill with his short legs and worn cane, stared at the girl in confusion.
“Whaaat? Is it daaay yet? No, it doesn’t seem so. Then whaaat aaare you doing here, child? We aaare closed for the night. Or haaave you come seeking employment?”
Skills
Eidetic Memory – Lillian has, quite simply, the ability of total recall. Everything she has ever seen, read, heard, touched or lived through is permanently engraved in her memory, and these memories can be accessed as easily as if they were recent and fresh in her mind. This has allowed her to memorize countless books, be they about nonexistent adventures or cold hard facts relevant to Althanas. This allows her to assimilate information and learn at insane rates, and has already served her well in learning various languages such as Elven, Salvic, basic Drow and basic Dwarven. Alas, with the gift of perfect memory comes the curse of never being able to forget, and so she lives on, unable to break free from the sorrow caused by her parent’s departure.
Speed-Reading – The average person reads a little below a hundred pages per hour or more than a page per minute, whereas Lillian can read with full comprehension by simply glancing at a page, technically taking no more than a minute to read through a hundred pages; regrettably, the speed at which she turns pages is on par with that of any commoner, and she is just as prone to paper cuts as the next girl. Still, she would rather take her time and to fully appreciate a novel, and knows better than to skim over the poetic ‘Anthologies of Gwylliam Winterdell’.
Uncanny Hodgepodge – In this slew of books came the occasional grimoires or scrolls of magic. The ink had been washed away in most, while the contents were utterly false in others, but sometimes she stumbled upon the fragments of the keys to unlock powerful magics… but that was what she had, fragments of different keys. With only pieces of knowledge, she did not possess the full understanding of elemental, portal or ethereal magic, but she had glued a key nonetheless, and opened the most bizarre of doors. Whenever she calls upon preternatural forces with her patchwork magic, anything can happen, from bursts of cold fire to gusts of stunning wind, but more often than she would wish, the spell backfires in the most unpredictable ways.
Poor Swordsmanship – Her father never let himself rust, and his hand had never weaned from the cold warmth of his blade’s haft. In the Outlander’s Quarters, the weak often fell prey to predators, and with a wife and a daughter, he could not allow himself any rest. One day, worry had overtaken him, and he decided to teach his little girl how to defend herself with a sword. She had learned the basics, but was still at a tender age and was utterly incapable of lifting a sword and putting to practice the theories she had been inculcated. Now, Lillian is more capable, but still has to seriously train if she is to become in any way effective with a weapon in hand.
Equipment
Casual clothing, no armor, though a small glass dirk as hard as steel does hang from her waist. Lillian caries knapsack in which various odds and ends can be found: food rations for when she is too afraid to walk back home, a few blankets, a change of clothing, a wool cloak for outerwear and, obviously, her ‘books of the moment’. She also carries a blank diary (she had thought of writing entries, but realized it was too much of a hassle) and a set of pencils. Moreover, her house is riddled with weapons of her father’s making, notably the ‘Tyrfing’, the steel short sword he wielded decades ago as an adventurer.
Other Notes: This is obviously a very basic starting character. I plan on having her grow a lot, and I decided it would be best for her to start out fresh and weak! What objectives she may have, I leave it for my upcoming Solo, which will occur before the IMC quest by Rajani.