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Handle: Nemo
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Over 18? Yes.
THE CHARACTER
Character Name: Sandra the Unseeing
Series: Pyre
Canon Point: Following the fifth Liberation Rite
Character Age: ~870
Background:
The Wiki for this series is legitimately useless, though there is the Book of Rites—the in-game codex, written in character. The entries Emperor's Fall, Living in Exile, Rites of Flame, and On Commonwealth most detail the world and its history, but are lengthy reads. I leave them for reference, but I'll summarize as much as possible here.
Pyre takes place in a land known as the Downside: a vast, unforgiving wilderness where criminals and enemies of the Commonwealth are cast into exile. They can earn their freedom back by participating in sacred Rites, learning penitence for their misdeeds and becoming enlightened.
Rites are sacred battles designed by the Eight Scribes—the original exiles of the Downside whose status has been elevated to mythical and religious proportions by oral history—and are participated in by the nine triumvirates of the Downside. Each of these triumvirates was founded by a Scribe, with the exception of the Nightwings, which were originally designed in the Scribes' own image and are given infinite favor in the Rites, to serve as the adversary by which all are judged. When the stars align, the triumvirate who has garnered the most favor ascends Mount Alodiel to face the Nightwings in a Liberation Rite for a chance to return the worthiest of their fold to the Commonwealth in glory.
Sandra was exiled 837 years ago. She is a former member of the Sisters of the Arch, an order of assassins rigorously trained from childhood to become adept killers. Members of this order pursued Soliam Murr—despised Emperor of Sahr (now the Commonwealth after his exile) and first of the Scribes—into the Downside in an attempt to murder him. Upon locating him, Sandra, misreading his learned humbleness and mercy for deception, jumped the gun and struck him down, an error leading to her unit's capture by his fellow Scribes. As punishment, she was blinded and her order was banished to the Beyonder Crystal to form the tenth and disgraced triumvirate: the Beyonders. Until the Rites come to a close, Sandra the Unseeing is beholden to the Rites and duty-bound to train members of the Nightwings with her Sisters.
Personality:
Immortal is as much a personality trait as it is a state of being. Especially when one is subjected to eternal servitude and entrapment in a featureless void. Sandra is ancient by all human standards, exiled from time itself by a man she had set out to murder and his band of merry holy men, and for it she has become a tired, lonely, blasphemous, and incredibly bored cynic. Be it through some combination of just enough stimulation, a powerful will, and sheer spite, she has not been consumed by the madness of isolation, but her timelessness has unsurprisingly become an enormous part of her character.
She is not an entirely baleful, joyless spirit, however. She is still perfectly capable of cracking wise, jabbing and japing at the world around her, and even if it originates from a hopeless place, she is most taken to laugh at her own particular predicament rather than to openly despair. She has, for the most part, made peace with her eternal life by this point; the fact that she has been doomed to watch mortals live their lives and die, and her fellow immortals become sick of her and each other, doesn't seem to phase her any longer.
Really, it's something much worse than this typical immortal fate that has left the most impact on Sandra. Since her banishment, she has suffered an endless loop of living out her own usefulness. Placed into an object and given a single function, she is a tool to help others obtain their freedom, with no hope of ever being freed herself. With every cycle of the Rites she is dusted off, utilized, then placed on the shelf and forgotten until the stars align once more. It's a routine that has crippled her sense of self-worth as a human being and nurtured an abandonment complex centuries strong. Being left behind by cruel mortality is inevitable for those who cannot die. Being used and discarded without concern is another thing entirely.
Though they do sneak through in the occasional self-deprecating joke or throwaway comment, such insecurities are heavily censored by the aloofness she conducts herself with. Thanks to her upbringing and general jaded outlook, never does she betray any specific emotional extreme. Her demeanor is that of a drill sergeant with none of the bark and all of the bite, quick to coolly discredit, insult, and snipe; even the rare compliment is inevitably backhanded. Due to her sheer superiority to everyone in her craft—not just perceived, she has had over eight hundred years of experience in the Rites—her alpha nature is well deserved and well worn. Despite her tendency to withhold praise, however, she is definitely not above manners. Being under the thumb of nigh deities with the power to make her sentence an even more miserable one, as well as being completely subject to the world around her as an inanimate object, Sandra has long since come to know her limits in terms of propriety when she is not in the midst of training.
And even if all bets of kindness are off when cracking the whip, she is a perfectly graceful loser as well, since her purpose is to train triumvirates in the ways of the Rites, her defeat and acknowledgement is integral to their progress. This proves that while Sandra is a brilliant fighter and tactician in her own right, she is also an impeccably effective and observant coach, capable of tailoring her level and style of play to remain challenging for individuals and groups, while still making it possible for them to succeed and grow. Whether it is by design or how she has grown into her role as a teacher, Sandra is incredibly harsh, but incredibly fair to her students, no doubt a major factor in why the Nightwings so consistently reign superior in the Rites.
These traits, however vital to her personality as a whole they might be, are more indicative of the object she has become, rather than the woman she is beneath. Despite her efforts to keep relationships strictly business-related and her conduct poised, she positively craves personal attention and small-talk, as one would expect from a human sentenced to solitude and nothingness for nearly a millennia. The Nightwings' Reader in the story of Pyre is the first of their kind to really exhibit any sort of genuine interest in her wellbeing between use of her services, and she exhibits equally genuine gratitude for the simplest inquiries and compliments. She is happy to chatter away, act as a confidant, and work her lighter woes off of her chest, albeit in excruciatingly small doses.
As needy as she might be, her reasons for remaining reserved are two-fold: that she may face divine retribution for straying too far from her duty, and that she is simply sick of allowing herself to form fleeting, often unrequited feelings of camaraderie for her charges that will—without fail—forget of her. When such feelings begin to arise and she begins to draw close, she is quick to snap and become especially icy, curt, and sharp, refusing to delve into any discussion outside of her parameters until she is ready to approach it on her terms.
Conducting her business as intended, she predictably has an appreciation for interest, enthusiasm, and subservience in her Trials, drinking up titles such as Your Highness bestowed with a quiver of fear. Within reason, she also expresses fondness for the laid back, and free spirits, so long as they're eventually compliant. Stubbornness, on the other hand, provokes her ire, such conduct reminding her of her stodgy keepers of old. While she trains her charges with the same brutal efficiency which she was subjected to in her life before exile, the student has obviously become the master, and she does not tolerate the return of such rudeness. She views innocence and naivety as something to be quashed under heel, though not without heart. Less that she believes those sorts are weak and foolish for it, more that the sooner they wise up to reality and the world's cruelty, the better off they and their companions will be.
All in all, Sandra is the epitome of a product of her circumstances. A veritable poster child. Throughout her harsh assassin's training in life, into her eternity of servitude, her existence has been nothing but business. It is obvious that her (relative) friendliness does peek through between her challenges, and it is something that she is perfectly capable of, even if—for a myriad of reasons—she has staunchly denied herself any feeling in excess. But without the influence of the Rites, it is something that can be coaxed into the light. All that it will take, ironically, is even more time.
Powers/Abilities:
• Wraith: Sandra is a spirit, encased within the Beyonder Crystal. However, she is able to produce an incorporeal apparition of herself, tethered tightly to the Crystal, for better consultation with those outside.
• Assassin: Before her entrapment, Sandra belonged to a strict sect of mercenaries and assassins, and possesses the expected skill set. Swift, silent, cold, cunning, and able to kill without remorse... Not that her current state permits her to any longer.
• Blindsighted: Before her expulsion, Sandra was stricken blind, though she persists in her training nonetheless, and has had nearly a millennia to adapt. She is extremely attuned to her other senses, and still exhibits incredible spatial awareness and agility.
• Reader: In addition to her physical senses, Sandra has also, over time, gained the abilities of a Reader due to her centuries of exposure to the Book of Rites. She is, to an extent, capable of sensing individuals' presences within proximity to the crystal, as well as gleaning glimpses of their true natures, intentions, histories, and surface thoughts. A permissions and opt-out post will be provided for such information.
• Tactician: After so many centuries of conducting Rites, Sandra is a master of small-scale strategy and combat, lightning quick to read the strengths and weaknesses of her opponents as well as her allies, and to seek out every possible outcome and its path of achievement.
• Mock Trialist: As is the key function of the Beyonder Crystal, Sandra is capable of summoning people's spirits into the crystal with her for a brief spell. Here they can face her in challenges of her own design and faux Rites.
Power Nerfs (if applicable):
I don't believe the Beyonder Crystal's power would fall under altering reality or time, as it only alters the perception of both for the consenting party and not the world around them. No physical displacement occurs to the participants' bodies, they only experience it mentally. It's short, unobtrusive, and it's something that allows her to interact with characters in a unique way, so I hope to keep it, but please feel free to negotiate.
Inventory:
• One Beyonder Crystal: a volleyball-sized orb of translucent green glass that shimmers and hums, etched with celestial markings. Less of a possession, more of a vessel.
• A small bolt of fabric upon which the crystal usually sits.
• A copy of the Book of Rites, to which she is invariably tied. On its own, it possesses no magical power, it is merely a historical account and guidebook.
Incentives:
The guaranteed safety of the Nightwings' Reader. As well as eventual release from captivity within the Beyonder Crystal, and being returned to her physical state. This is an enormous character point, though, so while she would and I do want it as an incentive, I would ask, do not hand this out for some time.
SAMPLES
A TDM top level with threads
Additional chit chat
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