Post by Talia Rosenfeld on Aug 10, 2011 23:54:54 GMT -5
Name: Talia Rosenfeld
Age: 24
Species: Human
Place of Origin (what movie or story did they come from?): A variant on the fairytale “The Cobbler and His Daughters”
Appearance: Like many fairytale heroines, the slender, olive-skinned girl is someone many people would consider a beauty, and she knows it… but she also knows how very common that is here. Personally, her favorite feature is her long, dark brown, wavy hair. When she was younger, she used to wish she had gray eyes, as the vast majority of heroines in the novels she grew up reading did, but hers are a dark hazel. For various reasons, this no longer troubles her.
Personality: If someone were to ask Talia which two things in the world she cares about most, the truthful answer would probably be love and power. Despite her strong craving for the latter, Talia cares about other people and will often go out of her way to help them. She’s a smart young woman, and has a reasonable amount of common sense, although this doesn’t necessarily mean she will always use it. When in a difficult or dangerous situation, she’s skilled at thinking of ways to get out of it, and then acting on her plans. Although not someone who could be said to “like everyone”, she gets along well enough with most people to at least be civil towards them. If she does happen to make an enemy of someone, though, she can be very unforgiving and prone to seek revenge, and that vengeance may well be much too extreme, considering her foe’s “crimes”.
History: The youngest of three children, Talia has no memory of her mother, who died when the girl was only two years old. Although the family was never wealthy, they didn’t have to worry about going hungry, either. In his own childhood, the cobbler was also lucky enough to have a mentor who taught him how to read – a skill he, in turn, passed down to his daughters. Books were quite rare in those days, however, and a family like hers could usually only afford two or three of them.
Fortunately, one of her father’s most frequent customer was an eccentric scholar who tended to buy books before he thought about such things as food and clothing, and throughout his long life, he had managed to collect what would definitely amount to a small library’s worth. And he was willing to welcome people into his home and allow them to read his books. Occasionally, when he found someone who valued and would take good care of his prized possessions, he might even lend one out to that lucky person.
By the time she was twelve, Talia had spent enough of her time in that library to become one of those people. It was not so much knowledge the girl craved as power – but she was clever enough to understand that those could amount to the same thing. Oh, true, other women might think the best way to gain power was through a good marriage. But it was impossible to guarantee such a match, and at any rate, the girl’s romantic sensibilities would not have let her seriously consider marrying a man she didn’t love.
Until, of course, her father began to have such difficulty finding work that Talia’s family could barely even afford basic necessities. All three girls did what they could to help out, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The family’s few books, of course, had to be sold.
Her father became more and more discouraged. One day, Talia and her sisters decided to cook his favorite meal for him in an attempt to cheer him up. They’d prepare the food while he was out for an evening walk, so that it would be a surprise.
But he came home with an even bigger surprise for them: he’d met a wealthy merchant who wanted to hire one of them as an assistant. To Talia, it sounded much too good to be true, but her father would accompany his child to her new home to make sure it was safe… and they couldn’t really afford to pass up this opportunity. The eldest sister agreed to be the one to go, and father and daughter set off for the merchant’s house together.
When her father returned, he reported that the “house” was actually a luxurious mansion, and his firstborn was very happy there. A few weeks later, however, the family received a note from the merchant telling them that the young woman missed her sisters desperately and wanted one of them to come and keep her company for a while. He was willing to pay for the sister to work there, too, and after a short time, she could go home again. Talia did want her sister to be happy… but she wished she could hear from her eldest sister herself. It seemed a bit strange that she hadn’t written.
The merchant had specifically requested that the middle daughter be the one sent to live with them, though, so it was her decision to make. If Talia voiced her concerns now, she knew it could appear to be simple jealousy. And she couldn’t truthfully say she wasn’t envious, even if she didn’t really trust the merchant.
When he wrote to the family again claiming that, although the others were happier now, they missed Talia and wanted to see her, she was certain something terrible must have happened to her sisters. Well, she’d just have to be more careful than they were, then, wouldn’t she? Although her father did not want her to go, she managed to talk him into it: this was her one chance to rescue the others.
The girl had been expecting an ugly, sinister old man, so she was rather surprised when she arrived at the mansion on the side of the mountain and found that the supposed merchant was actually one of the most attractive young men she’d ever spoken to. True, he did come across as dangerous, but that was intriguing, not repellant. Still, she couldn’t let that distract her; she had to find her sisters.
Hoping her fears were unfounded, Talia asked to see her sisters, but the man simply told her they were ill and not up to receiving visitors. Well, she’d expected that. What she hadn’t really expected was for him to just hand her all of his keys, tell her she could explore any house in the room but one, and then immediately leave. This had to be a trick.
Many people would have found it prudent to simply avoid the room he had mentioned, but Talia could never resist the chance to find out what was going on here.
When she opened the door to the forbidden room, she discovered a treasure that could be her undoing or her sisters’ salvation: an ancient-looking book, lying on a mahogany table. Fascinated, she picked it up, barely aware of the distant siren song of an emerald ring she simply didn’t see as the most valuable thing in the room.
And, as far as Talia was concerned, the book was every bit as much a trap as the ring. Once Talia started reading it, she completely forgot about her intention to find her sisters, intent on learning more of the magical secrets the book contained.
Until she reached a particularly dark spell in which a key ingredient was the blood of a close family member. She loved the knowledge and power these spells represented…
But she loved her family more. Remembering her sisters, she put the book back on the table, and, though with great difficult, walked away to keep looking for her missing relatives.
Less than half an hour later, she found their bodies in an underground room filled with corpses. She’d come too late… or had she? The book had mentioned “the Water of Death”, which could restore life to the recently deceased, but would kill any living person exposed to it, including the person who made it. The only way to survive was to be at the point of death while making it, then drink a few drops of the elixir.
Well. She’d decide what to do about that later. She’d been down in that room for a while, and knew the sorcerer would be back soon; it would not do to be caught making that elixir. She couldn’t help her sisters by getting herself killed without even being able to prepare the one thing that could restore them.
When the sorcerer returned, he demanded to see her hands, but they are spotless; if the book was indeed meant as a trap, it was of a different sort than the ring. Pleased with Talia’s obedience, the sorcerer announced that he would marry her. She pretended to accept his demand/proposal and even to like the idea.
For the rest of the day, he was much more attentive, and Talia worried that she might not get the opportunity to go off on her own and make the elixir. But the next day, he left on another trip. She’d have to be quick, though; he’d promised to return to her soon.
Armed with her new knowledge, Talia gathered the necessary ingredients, went to the basement, and brewed and drank a bottle of poison. Then she mixed the elixir and took a sip. By now, the poison had begun to take effect, and she used her remaining strength to sprinkle the rest of the elixir over the corpses, not entirely sure if she would live through this. She knew she was dying, and in her last moments of consciousness, she was certain she would never wake again.
Yet a few minutes later, Talia woke to find her sisters (as well as herself) weak, but alive. Her plan to get everyone out of the mansion was not, perhaps, her most brilliant idea ever; it was a mad gamble, and she could not be sure it would work.
It was all she could come up with, though, and since neither of the others had a better plan, they agreed to it, and Talia’s sisters went to hide for a little while longer.
When her “fiancé” got home, she asks him to take some “little odds and ends” to her father. After making him promise not to look in the bags, she retrieved her sisters and had each one get into one of the sacks, covering them with gold, silver, and precious gems from the sorcerer’s store of treasure. The sorcerer seemed unhappy when he learned how heavy the sacks were, but he took them anyway.
While he was away, Talia gathered more treasure – including the book of magic and a good portion of the sorcerer’s own library – and disguised herself. She was able to sneak out of the mansion and return to her father’s house, and she has not seen the sorcerer since.
In the meantime, Talia has been busy studying her new favorite book and learning more about magic. She hasn’t let anyone in her family know exactly what it is, and will certainly never leave it lying unprotected on a table. If the sorcerer wants it back, he’s going to have a hell of a fight.
Strengths/Abilities:
*Intelligent
*Resourceful
*On her way to becoming a powerful sorceress in her own right
* Genuinely enjoys helping others and is unwilling to “crush” others in her quest for power unless they’ve seriously wronged her in some way
*Because of her experiences with the Water of Death, she is usually able to interact with the dead in a way that most living people couldn’t (although, on occasion, this can also be a weakness)
*And if someone is ill or wounded, she can sense whether or not the person will be able to recover.
Weaknesses/Flaws:
* Need to know – will learn and explore even if it kills her, or possibly someone else!
*Unforgiving; vengeful. Reconciliation with her enemies would be incredibly difficult for her, even if it’s in her best interest.
* When it comes to physical fights, Talia has virtually no combat skills at all. If she can’t use her magic or her wits, she has no way to win a conflict.
* Her magical energy is a bit like a rechargeable battery; once she’s used it all, it takes time for it to build back up. (This makes the above condition more likely to occur.)
Likes:
*Her family
*Knowledge/Power
*A good book
*Magic
Dislikes:
*Being snubbed. It bothers her much more than she’d let on.
* Not being able to pursue an idea that intrigues her
*Ignorance
* Deliberate rudeness
Fears:
*Being outwitted and humiliated in some way
*Losing control over her own life
RP Sample:
See Hendrik Vanderdecken
Age: 24
Species: Human
Place of Origin (what movie or story did they come from?): A variant on the fairytale “The Cobbler and His Daughters”
Appearance: Like many fairytale heroines, the slender, olive-skinned girl is someone many people would consider a beauty, and she knows it… but she also knows how very common that is here. Personally, her favorite feature is her long, dark brown, wavy hair. When she was younger, she used to wish she had gray eyes, as the vast majority of heroines in the novels she grew up reading did, but hers are a dark hazel. For various reasons, this no longer troubles her.
Personality: If someone were to ask Talia which two things in the world she cares about most, the truthful answer would probably be love and power. Despite her strong craving for the latter, Talia cares about other people and will often go out of her way to help them. She’s a smart young woman, and has a reasonable amount of common sense, although this doesn’t necessarily mean she will always use it. When in a difficult or dangerous situation, she’s skilled at thinking of ways to get out of it, and then acting on her plans. Although not someone who could be said to “like everyone”, she gets along well enough with most people to at least be civil towards them. If she does happen to make an enemy of someone, though, she can be very unforgiving and prone to seek revenge, and that vengeance may well be much too extreme, considering her foe’s “crimes”.
History: The youngest of three children, Talia has no memory of her mother, who died when the girl was only two years old. Although the family was never wealthy, they didn’t have to worry about going hungry, either. In his own childhood, the cobbler was also lucky enough to have a mentor who taught him how to read – a skill he, in turn, passed down to his daughters. Books were quite rare in those days, however, and a family like hers could usually only afford two or three of them.
Fortunately, one of her father’s most frequent customer was an eccentric scholar who tended to buy books before he thought about such things as food and clothing, and throughout his long life, he had managed to collect what would definitely amount to a small library’s worth. And he was willing to welcome people into his home and allow them to read his books. Occasionally, when he found someone who valued and would take good care of his prized possessions, he might even lend one out to that lucky person.
By the time she was twelve, Talia had spent enough of her time in that library to become one of those people. It was not so much knowledge the girl craved as power – but she was clever enough to understand that those could amount to the same thing. Oh, true, other women might think the best way to gain power was through a good marriage. But it was impossible to guarantee such a match, and at any rate, the girl’s romantic sensibilities would not have let her seriously consider marrying a man she didn’t love.
Until, of course, her father began to have such difficulty finding work that Talia’s family could barely even afford basic necessities. All three girls did what they could to help out, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The family’s few books, of course, had to be sold.
Her father became more and more discouraged. One day, Talia and her sisters decided to cook his favorite meal for him in an attempt to cheer him up. They’d prepare the food while he was out for an evening walk, so that it would be a surprise.
But he came home with an even bigger surprise for them: he’d met a wealthy merchant who wanted to hire one of them as an assistant. To Talia, it sounded much too good to be true, but her father would accompany his child to her new home to make sure it was safe… and they couldn’t really afford to pass up this opportunity. The eldest sister agreed to be the one to go, and father and daughter set off for the merchant’s house together.
When her father returned, he reported that the “house” was actually a luxurious mansion, and his firstborn was very happy there. A few weeks later, however, the family received a note from the merchant telling them that the young woman missed her sisters desperately and wanted one of them to come and keep her company for a while. He was willing to pay for the sister to work there, too, and after a short time, she could go home again. Talia did want her sister to be happy… but she wished she could hear from her eldest sister herself. It seemed a bit strange that she hadn’t written.
The merchant had specifically requested that the middle daughter be the one sent to live with them, though, so it was her decision to make. If Talia voiced her concerns now, she knew it could appear to be simple jealousy. And she couldn’t truthfully say she wasn’t envious, even if she didn’t really trust the merchant.
When he wrote to the family again claiming that, although the others were happier now, they missed Talia and wanted to see her, she was certain something terrible must have happened to her sisters. Well, she’d just have to be more careful than they were, then, wouldn’t she? Although her father did not want her to go, she managed to talk him into it: this was her one chance to rescue the others.
The girl had been expecting an ugly, sinister old man, so she was rather surprised when she arrived at the mansion on the side of the mountain and found that the supposed merchant was actually one of the most attractive young men she’d ever spoken to. True, he did come across as dangerous, but that was intriguing, not repellant. Still, she couldn’t let that distract her; she had to find her sisters.
Hoping her fears were unfounded, Talia asked to see her sisters, but the man simply told her they were ill and not up to receiving visitors. Well, she’d expected that. What she hadn’t really expected was for him to just hand her all of his keys, tell her she could explore any house in the room but one, and then immediately leave. This had to be a trick.
Many people would have found it prudent to simply avoid the room he had mentioned, but Talia could never resist the chance to find out what was going on here.
When she opened the door to the forbidden room, she discovered a treasure that could be her undoing or her sisters’ salvation: an ancient-looking book, lying on a mahogany table. Fascinated, she picked it up, barely aware of the distant siren song of an emerald ring she simply didn’t see as the most valuable thing in the room.
And, as far as Talia was concerned, the book was every bit as much a trap as the ring. Once Talia started reading it, she completely forgot about her intention to find her sisters, intent on learning more of the magical secrets the book contained.
Until she reached a particularly dark spell in which a key ingredient was the blood of a close family member. She loved the knowledge and power these spells represented…
But she loved her family more. Remembering her sisters, she put the book back on the table, and, though with great difficult, walked away to keep looking for her missing relatives.
Less than half an hour later, she found their bodies in an underground room filled with corpses. She’d come too late… or had she? The book had mentioned “the Water of Death”, which could restore life to the recently deceased, but would kill any living person exposed to it, including the person who made it. The only way to survive was to be at the point of death while making it, then drink a few drops of the elixir.
Well. She’d decide what to do about that later. She’d been down in that room for a while, and knew the sorcerer would be back soon; it would not do to be caught making that elixir. She couldn’t help her sisters by getting herself killed without even being able to prepare the one thing that could restore them.
When the sorcerer returned, he demanded to see her hands, but they are spotless; if the book was indeed meant as a trap, it was of a different sort than the ring. Pleased with Talia’s obedience, the sorcerer announced that he would marry her. She pretended to accept his demand/proposal and even to like the idea.
For the rest of the day, he was much more attentive, and Talia worried that she might not get the opportunity to go off on her own and make the elixir. But the next day, he left on another trip. She’d have to be quick, though; he’d promised to return to her soon.
Armed with her new knowledge, Talia gathered the necessary ingredients, went to the basement, and brewed and drank a bottle of poison. Then she mixed the elixir and took a sip. By now, the poison had begun to take effect, and she used her remaining strength to sprinkle the rest of the elixir over the corpses, not entirely sure if she would live through this. She knew she was dying, and in her last moments of consciousness, she was certain she would never wake again.
Yet a few minutes later, Talia woke to find her sisters (as well as herself) weak, but alive. Her plan to get everyone out of the mansion was not, perhaps, her most brilliant idea ever; it was a mad gamble, and she could not be sure it would work.
It was all she could come up with, though, and since neither of the others had a better plan, they agreed to it, and Talia’s sisters went to hide for a little while longer.
When her “fiancé” got home, she asks him to take some “little odds and ends” to her father. After making him promise not to look in the bags, she retrieved her sisters and had each one get into one of the sacks, covering them with gold, silver, and precious gems from the sorcerer’s store of treasure. The sorcerer seemed unhappy when he learned how heavy the sacks were, but he took them anyway.
While he was away, Talia gathered more treasure – including the book of magic and a good portion of the sorcerer’s own library – and disguised herself. She was able to sneak out of the mansion and return to her father’s house, and she has not seen the sorcerer since.
In the meantime, Talia has been busy studying her new favorite book and learning more about magic. She hasn’t let anyone in her family know exactly what it is, and will certainly never leave it lying unprotected on a table. If the sorcerer wants it back, he’s going to have a hell of a fight.
Strengths/Abilities:
*Intelligent
*Resourceful
*On her way to becoming a powerful sorceress in her own right
* Genuinely enjoys helping others and is unwilling to “crush” others in her quest for power unless they’ve seriously wronged her in some way
*Because of her experiences with the Water of Death, she is usually able to interact with the dead in a way that most living people couldn’t (although, on occasion, this can also be a weakness)
*And if someone is ill or wounded, she can sense whether or not the person will be able to recover.
Weaknesses/Flaws:
* Need to know – will learn and explore even if it kills her, or possibly someone else!
*Unforgiving; vengeful. Reconciliation with her enemies would be incredibly difficult for her, even if it’s in her best interest.
* When it comes to physical fights, Talia has virtually no combat skills at all. If she can’t use her magic or her wits, she has no way to win a conflict.
* Her magical energy is a bit like a rechargeable battery; once she’s used it all, it takes time for it to build back up. (This makes the above condition more likely to occur.)
Likes:
*Her family
*Knowledge/Power
*A good book
*Magic
Dislikes:
*Being snubbed. It bothers her much more than she’d let on.
* Not being able to pursue an idea that intrigues her
*Ignorance
* Deliberate rudeness
Fears:
*Being outwitted and humiliated in some way
*Losing control over her own life
RP Sample:
See Hendrik Vanderdecken
