Lillian Sesthal

General

While not an RoG approved profile in any way, this serves as an in-depth list of every change, every acquired ability and skill and piece of equipment over 10 levels.

[Link to last profile: 'Pupil of the Evenfall']

Additions marked by a ' + ' Edits are in 'Blue'

Name: Lillian Sesthal

Titles and monikers: Lil, Lily, Lollipop, Kid

Age: 17

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: 64 lbs. (Change in body composition, not anorexia)

Class: 'White Widow'

Occupation: Freelance librarian, Matriarch of the House of Sora, Ghost Scholar

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. Ever since leaving Fallien, the girl has been gaining more confidence on an almost day to day basis, and is now capable of speaking her mind to those she has learned to know. The girl, however, still has a tendency to make a mockery of herself in front of strangers. Her travels also seem to have stirred a side of her personality that few have ever seen, so unnervingly cold and remote that some would think her possessed. The girl, however, seems oblivious to the surfacing of this strange behaviour. She is no longer as naïve as before, and her many losses and hardships have made her wary of taking risks or embroiling herself into the business of others.

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. Recently, she has discovered budding curve in her silhouette, and her face is slowly taking on a more adult appeal. Lately, she favors wearing her hair in a loose fishtail braid. Oddly, even though she feels and looks healthier than ever, the girl has measured an unexplained loss in body mass after weighing herself, which has left her quite perplexed. It now reaches a limit that, to any other human, would be considered life-threatening, as her feathery weight is far past emaciation according to the Aleraran Body Mass Index. Lillian is extremely concerned, for though she may see or feel no deterioration, she now knows for a fact that her physiology is changing at its very core.

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, Drow, Dwarven, Dheath and even Daemonic. 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’.

Parallel Processing

Though it is not an ability Lillian can make use of whenever she wishes, it can manifest in stressful situations that require quick thinking. When it does activate, she is able to manage multiple streams of thought, which substantially accelerate the speed of analysis and problem-solving. Since she is not used to it, continuous use of this ability may eventually cause a painful, painful headache.

[Acquired in 'Into and Out of Hiding']

Night Vision

Either because of her years spent in dimly-lit libraries or her apocryphal lineage, Lillian possesses a highly-developed vision, come night time and dark places. This allows her to see further and clearer what others would wholly omit. However, her daytime vision is no better than any common human’s, and in very bright times, it may become worse.

Bladed Weapons Proficiency

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 by far more apt, capable of standing her ground against adversaries approaching expertise using blades, with perhaps the slightest of edges. Also, she has extended her martial understanding to other similar bladed weapons, such as knives, daggers, dirks and the like, which she can also throw with impressive accuracy.

Flexible Weapons Proficiency

After months of adventuring in the real world, she realized that to survive, words and daggers were not always the most useful tools. Lillian was often in hackles when she found herself unable to reach distant targets with bladed weapons, and she realized that willingly disarming herself with the throw of her dirk was more detrimental than beneficial in the long run. Because of this, she chose to make an innovative use of her web-weaving abilities: by affixing magical threads to her weapons, she could substantially increase the range of her attacks, without risking the potential loss of her scarce arsenal. With time, she became quite a legend with her control of a flexible weapon, to the point that she can rely on it and it alone against large groups of armed professionals.

[Acquired in 'What Happens Now?']

Unarmed Combat Proficiency

Lillian is less than an amateur in hand to hand combat, though that is due to a lack of practice rather than knowledge. She knows of multiple combat techniques but, due to her natural frailty, lacks the strength and body mass to execute them correctly. While she is sometimes unable to throw a straight punch or kick without tripping herself, she would be able to execute deadlocks and grapples, were her physical attributes somehow enhanced. This is all, obviously, irrelevant if her strength remains as abysmal as it usually is. However, using her dexterity and reflexes, she has become apt at redirecting the force of blows aimed at her: while she may not avoid the hit itself, she can use the inertial moment to execute a counter-attack.

Abilities

Uncanny Hodgepodge

In the slew of books she has read came the occasional grimoires and 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 wishes, the spell backfires in the most unpredictable ways. Repeated failures have shown that the most likely form of the aforementioned flops is a weak bolt of lightning that descends from the sky to strike her.

White Widow

The very first set of magical powers produced by the Welkin Body. Through assimilation of Giant Spider blood, Lillian has given birth to a unique form of magic: it revolves around the creation of black threads that can be controlled through sheer will as long as they do not stretch over forty feet in length. They have the tensile strength, shear strength and special properties of Prevalida. Weaker threads can be created in greater numbers and length depending on their exact strength. When weaved beyond their maximum functional length, they become as inert as any other inanimate object. (Half of the weaker threads in her possession are automatically upgraded to maximum strength at the end of a quest. As such, it would take two quests to convert all of them.)

[Acquired in 'The Demon and the… Librarian!?']

• Formula Shift

By slightly altering their formula, she can make her threads highly-adhesive, change their color for purely aesthetical purposes, or choose to make them either reactive or conductive to magic. Reactive threads can blow up when struck by powerful magic, while conductive ones can be imbued or safely fused with magical energies of her own or those of an ally (if a thread conducts magical fire, it will become a fire thread, et cetera). After the spell’s effect ends, the thread automatically vanishes.

• Web Therapy

Lillian's most prominent use of these threads is the weaving of an impermeable web that accelerates the rate of healing when applied to a wound. By feeding energy into the damaged tissues, the web precipitates cellular division without the risk of long-term degeneration of cells. The web remains affixed until it is fully healed, and is quite useful in stopping hemorrhages, as it stems the flow of blood. Surface wounds like scrapes and cuts take only an instant, while clean fractures and burns take seconds, although those require much more energy from her. Lillian can now treat very serious injuries, or attempt to heal lethal wounds with a high success rate, but the exact efficacy of the spell depends on her mindset while sewing the magic into a web. These healing properties can be infused in both active threads (still connected to her body) and inert threads (disconnected from her body).

[Acquired in 'The Demon and the… Librarian!?']

• Seamstress of the Sinister

No longer is Lillian limited to weaving only strings and webs. During her years of indiscriminate reading, the librarian has come across much knowledge concerning various forms of craftsmanship, notably that of tailoring and its multiple branches. After hands-on application of her knowledge by practicing every morning, Lillian has become more adept at complex weaves, though she has only recently crafted crude pieces of clothing using her abilities. These items born of her magic usually have no ability, save for their similarity in appearance and properties to spidersilk. However, with more time and effort (a day of assiduous work for lesser than masterwork items of clothing), she would be capable of producing quality textiles of the same strength as her current black threads, while losing little to none of their flexibility. Anything of weaker strength would take from a few hours to half a day. When left untouched for twenty four hours, the fabric becomes as any other non-magical material, which means that Lillian can no longer make it disappear; as such, it can be enchanted. (Either she can weave two jackets or four shirts of this material in every quest, or spin the equivalent in silk cloth for future use. Must be requested at the end of a quest. Can be sold.)

[Acquired in 'Saved']

Gargantua’s Might

The second power produced by the Welkin Body. By sipping the blood of a red-eyed mercenary named Godhand, with his permission that is, Lillian has, on top of gaining nigh-immunity to his specific pheromones (and resistance to similar particles), made his sheer physical strength into her own. Though upon the first use of her newfound might, her body was capable of the same extraordinary feats as the man, she is no longer capable of drawing from it at the same level of potency. Under its influence, she can lift up to X pounds and can, with effort, bend Mythril; in this state, her running speed is X times that of the average person, and she will also gain impressive stamina. Lillian can emulate the mindset needed to call upon this power with a good success rate. Otherwise, it usually activates under situations of high emotional stress or duress and at varying degrees of effectiveness, and is most likely to manifest when her life is endangered. When in this state, dark red rings form around her irises.

Summary: Temporary Wx Average Person's Strength, Xx Average Person's Speed and Agility, Yx Average Person's Endurance.

[Acquired in 'Blood Red Blossoms']

• + Soma of the Behemoth

In a subconscious effort of counter-balancing the self-destructiveness of her strength, Lillian’s body has adapted by unnaturally enhancing its base constitution. As such, when Lillian makes use of her earth-shattering strength, her muscles and bones reactively become extremely hard, allowing her otherwise frail body to withstand the immense stress and high-velocity impact of her own attacks. This also provides her greater defense against blunt damage, though her muscles are still very susceptible to piercing and slashing attacks. An interesting corollary of this ability is that her constitution is heightened even in her normal state, albeit to a much lesser degree. Moreover, she now permanently maintains a fraction of her unusual power, due to a bleed-through effect from repetitive use of her full-fledged strength. This allows her to lift, without much effort, heavy objects that would give a pair of average men some difficulty.

Summary: Permanent 3x Average Person's Strength, 1x Average Person's Endurance, 3x Average Person's Resistance, 4x Average Person's Speed and Agility

Elder Vespers

Of the many ancient houses of magic, Shadows were the first to have been forgotten, though some would argue that their fall into oblivion was a deliberate act. After all, light has been the bellwether element of the past few eras, and as such no secret has been able to slumber in its heart. Shadows, on the contrary, have harboured the mysteries of the world ever since they vanished from the minds of each and all; in secrecy lies their power, their ineffable importance. Still, an exception was made: Lillian, as a gift for her help in returning a swarm of shadow beings to their realm, received the Treatise on the Spawns of Shadow, which allows those with the affinity to summon such creatures. The librarian managed to call upon Shalim who, after much persuading, finally decided to teach her the fundamentals of ancient Shadow Magic, the Elder Vespers.

[Acquired in 'A Study in Black']

• Shalim, the Child of Dusk

The very same being that she helped in the library of Ankhas, Shalim is a small and swarthy creature that stands at barely two feet tall, with short and somewhat stubby limbs. Its head is rounded, large and disproportionate to the rest of its body, tapering out slightly at the back. It has two wide, glowing white eyes and does not seem to have a mouth. Rather than being bound to Lillian, it acts as the girl’s teacher in the Elder Vespers. It is a powerful being, but it will not fight for Lillian nor will it obey her should she order or command it to do anything (as such, it cannot be used in battles and it will only use its spells for training demonstrations or story-related purposes).

• Shadow Twist

The bare bones of the Elder Vespers consists in manipulating natural shadows to one’s will, for doing so awakens their latent magical properties. Right now, Lillian can only draw from shades within a twenty-foot radius. With them, she has learned to shroud her body, inanimate objects and/or other living beings, making whatever is underneath substantially more unnoticeable than it already is and much harder to focus on in or out of combat. She can otherwise create intangibles tendrils that are able to substantially drain away a person’s vitality upon contact. She can make seven tendrils at most that each stretch to a maximum of twenty-five feet, or a single tendril that can span a little over seventy, though this distance can be increased in conjunction with other shadow spells. The shadow tendrils can only be disconnected from her body if imbued onto an object, and anything that touches the object will see its life drained as well.

• + Crown of Sheol

The grand purpose of the Elder Vespers is not only to conceal, but also to preserve. In light of this, Lillian was taught how to mold the shadows in her vicinity into a protective shroud that can dampen the effects of any non-physical assault, from magic to various types of radiation (thermal, light, even nuclear to some extent). Though it does not provide any manner of immunity and does not last indefinitely, most harmful forms of sorcery and technology aimed at her will see themselves attenuated. When subjected to intense flames, she will not immediately feel the heat, an when she does, the effects will be mitigated. Focused forms of energy will not pierce through her, but be momentarily diffused by the shroud, giving her time to escape. All in all, this defensive ability allows her a greater chance to survive situations that otherwise would have made short work of her.

+ Bardic Repertoire Since her enrollment at Istien University in the Empirical Major, Lillian has learned much about her musical talents. She has found herself a rather adept vocalist as well as a skilled flautist, but her understanding of the theories and practical applications of song-magic is what she developed the most during her short tenure there, before being evacuated during the siege of Eluriand.

• + Melody of the First Revelation

The first melody learned by students of the School of Ost’Dagorlin in the fledgling Empirical program. It requires precise notes balanced with emotionality, and upon its successful playing, the song-mage’s natural affinity will manifest. Most create sparks of fire, small waves of mist, sudden breezes or a weak quake in the ground, consistent with the basic elements. Some, however, can manifest their affinities in the crackling of lightning, a halo of light or the flicker of shadows, amongst others. Lillian’s affinity manifests in animating shadows in a way that reflects the heart of their owners. Other than being an interesting parlor trick, however, it has no direct practical uses.

• + Wilwarin’s Signature

Under the tutelage of High Bard Orophin Súrion, during their sojourn in the forest of Timbrethinil, Lillian learned her first offensive song-magic from the School of Ost’Dagorlin. By playing the rapid melody without mistake, she can summon a swarm of sorcerous butterflies; their wings glow an ethereal blue, and their flutter is accompanied by a sound much like the crackling of electricity. In large numbers, they are small and individually deal medium shocks, but they are larger in small numbers and can stun as well as cause a notable level of pain by electrocution. The effects of the song are best with a flute or when sung, but a very small fraction of the its potential can be used with finger snaps or hand claps.

[Acquired in 'Horrors in Timbrethinil']

• + Flute Concerto for Wirilómë

Though well aware that she only plays the part of the soloist, Lillian has composed a complete concerto for the strangest of accompaniments. In playing it, an innumerable swarm of dark blurs are summoned, shaped vaguely like scuttling spiders with threads of mist and shadow trailing from their incorporeal bodies. Lillian does not control them individually, but they all respond to simple directives: search and relay. As extensions of her mind, they allow her to see and hear beyond the limits of her senses by relaying simply information (geographical coordinates with her as the point of origin, outlines of what they can see, snippets of sounds) that her brain overlaps to process something much more accurate. As such, within a radius of 90 feet, topographical mapping, basic trap detection and improved searching are all made possible. Lower numbers of spiders allows for a greater range (up to 1000 feet), but with inversely proportional levels of definition. The concerto must be played to the end for an entire swarm of spiders to work until dismissed, but a few seconds of the music or finger snaps can summon up to ten. As a note, being incorporeal, they cannot physically attack, but they can interact with other shadows, be they natural or magical.

+ Planar Weave

The third power produced by the Welkin Body. By lapping specks of blood belonging to Mathias Vinkuzri, Lillian has found herself gifted with abilities similar to his planeswalking. She now possesses a hyper-sensitive spatial cognizance, allowing for her to be aware of weaknesses and distortions in the fabric of space, as well as sensing the presence of those using similar powers, allowing her to track them to some extent by locating their residual energy or metaphysical footprints.

[Acquired in 'Magnolia in the Mold']

• + Spider's Burrow

Lillian can tavel long distances almost instantaneously by creating a wormhole of sorts on the ground: it will open as long as she has a clear picture of the location as well as general knowledge of its geographical position on Althanas. It can draw in objects as well as willing people by using ethereal webs that dematerialize matter upon contact. Jumping into the wormhole bypasses the process altogether, making this method faster, albeit much more uncomfortable. Lillian can effectively burrow to a different continent, but such a distance can only be traveled twice per day. She can however make up to five burrows a day within the same continent, with a cooldown of at least 2 hours between jumps. She cannot yet travel to other dimensions. Short-range burrows are impossible, making this ability completely worthless in combat.

[Acquired in 'Magnolia in the Mold']

• + Knapsack Universe

Using this power, Lillian can weave a pocket dimension in her knapsack, allowing greater volumes to be carried inside its limited space. This, however, also applies to any type of container from scabbards to pockets, which allows her to store a rapier inside a dagger sheath. The volume of the pocket dimension is six times greater than that of its physical container, and objects within it weigh a quarter of what they should. She can create these easily for small containers, but the time requirements and difficulty grow almost exponentially for larger physical volumes. Lillian uses this mostly to carry all of her belongings with her, as she spends most of her life on the road.

• + Divination Principle

Lillian and Mathias both can sense one another, somewhat like a compass point permanently pointed in the direction of your counterpart. If either of them focus on one another's location, they can skein a vision of the other's location by a form of scrying or divination. This allows them to travel towards one another, wherever they are. She will also be able to sense those with whom she develops a similar bond, potentially allowing her to travel to them in the same manner. Time is a crucial ingredient in the use of this principle, and divining a true vision of another’s location is no exact: as such, she still has difficulty using it correctly.

[Judge Bonus Acquired in 'Magnolia in the Mold']

+ Stygian Arcana

The fourth power produced by the Welkin Body. By drinking the astral blood of a Forgotten One, the Necromancer Xem Zûndalon, Lillian has gained her darkest power yet. When activated, her newfound knowledge of Necromancy allows her to understand the ebb and flow of life, and thus to alter its path and direction in certain spells of her own that deal with this cycle, or to bolster them with the sacrifice of her or a willing donor’s lifeblood. Moreover, this power provides her with a heightened resistance to magics of rot and decay or the draining of life, though in no way is it even close to an immunity. When in this state, her eyes are overwhelmed by a vitreous black, and those attuned to sorcery may notice a dark aura exuding from her skin.

[Acquired in 'Dawnbringers']

• + Queen’s Aegis

Using this magnified form of her resistance to the black arts, Lillian is capable of commandeering a spell pertaining to life cast in close proximity, such as necromancy and many certain of healing. Once the hijack is performed, she can either dispel it, counter it back, or redirect it to a tertiary target. This, however, tires her greatly, and she usually reserves it for magic that can surpass her necromantic resistance. This can only be performed twice in a battle and/or twice in a day.

[Acquired in 'Dawnbringers']

• + Sanguine Magnetism

Though currently underdeveloped, this ability allows her minor control over not only blood, but any physical essence that is deeply linked with a living being’s life-force, such as ichor and liquid mana, among others. Any blood within her line of sight can be summoned to her, be it spilled or dripped, though it must be fresh to a certain degree (clotted blood works to an extent, by dry, old blood does not). Once manipulated, however, the cells will remain everlastingly fresh and will never go stale. Her manipulation of blood resembles telekinesis, though she cannot move blobs of blood very quickly yet, and the maximum volume she can manipulate at once is three liters. For now, she cannot drain blood from an open would, only what has already been spilled. Moreover, given time and focus, she can make cultures from blood samples, effectively cloning the cells. As such, blood samples she possesses can be increased in mass and volume as a spoil request, unless the increase is used solely for storyline purposes.

[Acquired in 'Dawnbringers']

Equipment

Lillian Sesthal: Equipment

Lillian carries a knapsack in which various odds and ends can be found: food rations she has learned to bring along ever since she was 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), a fountain pen and a set of pencils. Moreover, her house is riddled with weapons of her father’s making, notably the tulwar made of an unknown metal he wielded decades ago as an adventurer. Otherwise, she has only the clothes on her back, that is to say a white dress; it was sewn by her mother as a gift for her eighth birthday, which was incidentally the last one they spent together.

History

Lillian Sesthal: History