Iris Pires
Jun 30, 2017 0:59:17 GMT -7
Post by serp on Jun 30, 2017 0:59:17 GMT -7
Name: Iris Pires
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Occupation: Surveyor (former accountant trainee)
Face Claim: Dark Souls - Fire Keeper
Appearance:
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 96 lbs
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Usually blindfolded
Iris is a woman of average height and somewhat malnourished appearance. She wears her hair messy and doesn't use makeup. Her clothes are simple and functional, perhaps a bit worn out. However, her posture is good and she speaks in an educated manner. Her default expression, voice, and mannerisms give an impression of emotionlessness. She keeps her blindfold on at all times to hide her mutation.
Talents:
Personality:
Iris comes across as quiet, thoughtful, and socially awkward. She also seems unhappy more often than not. She has difficulty getting motivated, although she will go out of her way to help people in need. On the other hand, she doesn't seem to care much about her own comfort or safety.
She clearly lacks practice dealing with other people, and the blindfold hiding half her expression doesn't help matters. She tries to be considerate, but she simply lacks the skills to carry a conversation or lift someone's spirits. To avoid making things more awkward than they need to be, she prefers to speak only when spoken to and give one-word answers where possible. Any further social interaction makes her uneasy.
Iris feels that life should be spent helping other people. However, she also has developed somewhat of a cynical, judgmental streak. This means that she likes people as a whole, but she'll easily find reason to dislike any individual in particular. Iris herself is no exception to this rule - she has a deep sense of self-loathing and blames herself for all her problems. She's also inclined to take the blame for other things that aren't really her fault, and go to great lengths to try to make them right. She considers even people she dislikes to be more important than herself.
She doesn't enjoy much, these days, and the only reason she gets out of bed each morning is because she feels obligated to. Even the simple pleasures of life like eating a good meal have lost their luster for her. She does like reading (and anything else that intellectually stimulates her), but it's been a long time since she's had a chance to enjoy that. In general, she's relatively content when things are orderly and predictable.
Her foremost dislike is injustice. She prefers to follow the rules and feels that people who break them deserve whatever they get. Seeing people do evil things and escape punishment is bad, and seeing good people victimized by evil things is even worse. She also dislikes and somewhat fears the Twilight Jungle itself, especially now that she has to deal with it after avoiding it for most of her life. Finally, she dislikes it when people are overly nice to her, because she feels that she doesn't deserve it.
Magic Name: Antikinetic Gaze
Magic:
Iris's eyes can produce a field that resists movement. While active, this causes anything in her field of vision, especially whatever she's focusing upon, to move more slowly than it otherwise would. The change in speed is limited to 20% at most, but this can be enough to make a fall less painful or allow an extra fraction of a second to dodge a charging beast.
Targets of the power will find that all of their movements are slower. Although Iris needs to see something in order to target it, any attached or internal parts are affected as well. This means that people targeted by the power will find their breathing slightly difficult, and they'll feel a chill as their internal processes are slowed even on the molecular level. However, the effect is too small to actually be dangerous by itself.
The effect is strongest at arm's length and drops off to less than half within a city block or so. The power shuts off when she blinks, and it takes her a moment to direct it again afterward. She needs to see a target well enough to focus on it in order to target it with her power, so anything that interferes with sight acts as a defense. Size, distance, speed, camouflage, and darkness all fall within this category. Against a crowd or swarm, she can only focus the full extent of her magic on one target at once. Furthermore, her control over her power is less precise than that of most magic users, so simply creating a chaotic situation where she needs to worry about accidentally hitting her allies will also make it difficult for her to use her magic effectively.
As Iris's magic is channeled through her eyes, the mutation affects her eyes also. Although it's impossible to definitively discern her as a magic user as long as she's wearing her blindfold, the effect is quite obvious otherwise. Iris's eyes have been replaced with deep pits of shadow in which multicolored geometric shapes twirl slowly in place, speeding up whenever she draws upon her power. Her vision is perfectly healthy, and the shapes tilt and shift in whichever direction she looks.
History:
Iris Pires was born an only child into a loving, albeit somewhat absentee, family. Her father was a skilled surveyor without any magic powers. Her mother was a tram engineer who specialized in emergency repairs. She grew up surrounded by her parents' books, and she learned a love of knowledge at a young age.
When she was 7 years old, her father disappeared into the Twilight Jungle, never to return. This left a powerful impression on Iris of what happens when people break the rules, and it also left her with even less parental attention. One of the Pires household's neighbors, an energetic old man named Mr. Shepherd, stepped in to fill the void. Mr. Shepherd was a government accountant who worked from home, writing up cost/benefit analyses for the city planning department, so he had no trouble watching the young Iris while her mother was off handling various emergencies.
Given her upbringing, it was no surprise to anyone that Iris began to show a good head for numbers and a strong sense of civic duty as she grew up. She dreamed of using her talents for the good of the city. Her mother and her teachers were supportive of her ambition, and as she entered her teenage years, she was delighted to be apprenticed to Mr. Shepherd on her path to becoming one of the many guiding forces behind the city's development.
However, shortly after her 15th birthday, Iris abruptly began to develop magic. Beyond feeling self-conscious about her strange new appearance, Iris herself didn't care too much about the change. The power emanating from her eyes didn't do anything to help her accounting work, but it didn't hinder it either. Magic powers were associated with surveying, but Iris had always felt a sense of animosity toward the jungle after her father's death.
The other people in her life felt differently. Almost overnight, it seemed, Iris's colleagues became cold and hostile. Mr. Shepherd was worst of all. When it became clear that Iris still wanted to learn from him, he began assigning harder and harder tasks to her, then berating her for her stupidity when she inevitably failed. His words and actions became so cruel that she even began to fear him.
She endured this treatment for almost a year. Finally, one day, in a subconscious desire to hold him back while he ranted at her, Iris activated her power. Unbeknownst to either of them, Mr. Shepherd's aging heart was already on the verge of failing. The small push from Iris's magic was enough to break its rhythm and set it to spasming. Mr. Shepherd fell, clutching his chest, and within moments he was dead.
Iris was despondent after accidentally killing the only true father figure in her life, and she would have accepted any punishment the courts set out. She was surprised, almost disappointed, at how lenient they were. A judge ruled that the issue was a civil matter, not a criminal one, due to Iris's obvious lack of harmful intent. The primary concern, he said, was ensuring that no further harm was done by her apparent inability to refrain from using her magic.
To this end, he ordered that Iris wear a blindfold whenever within a set radius of any other human beings, even while in private. In effect, this meant she could never take it off, since the only places sparsely populated enough would be the wasteland, where Iris's magic would cause her life to be drained even faster than that of most people, and the jungle, which was illegal to enter anyway.
The judge even ordered that Iris be provided with a room in a somewhat-less-densely-populated part of the city (a spot on the inner edge where nearby rapid jungle growth had been scaring people away) in order to minimize the risk to the general populace. Iris gladly took this option in order to escape the disappointment her mother couldn't quite conceal.
The real punishment was the exemption Iris was given from her remaining years of education. She couldn't be allowed endanger other students by sharing a classroom with them, of course, and continuing her apprenticeship with a new master would be an exercise in futility. Iris knew better than anybody else that the loss of efficiency from working while blindfolded would outweigh whatever benefit she could bring the city with her talents.
So, Iris wasted away in her new, unlit room, her time divided between sleeping and brooding, her mind running again and again along the same dark paths. She began eating less and less. Life had lost its joy for her. She refused to remove her blindfold, even to read her beloved books, because she felt that she didn't deserve to. She walked and spoke only when necessary to obtain food and other essentials, although even that much began to feel like more effort than it was worth over the long months and years as she reached adulthood.
Finally, Iris traveled to the edge of the city and walked into the wasteland, ignoring the shouted warnings behind her. She counted her footsteps, and once she was sure she had traveled far enough for it to be allowed, she removed her blindfold. As she blinked in the first light she had seen in years, she contemplated walking further into the endless desert until it claimed her.
Before that, she looked back at the city one last time. It seemed small and fragile, a tiny citadel struggling against forces that seeked to consume it from every side.
In that moment, she was struck with a sudden realization. Her magic could be used to help that city. More importantly, it should be used to help that city. Mr. Shepherd must have seen it - it's why he pushed so strongly against her continued studies. The judge must have seen it too - it's why her punishment had been so light, and why he had set her on the edge of the jungle.
It was all Iris's own fault. If she had become a surveyor instead of selfishly clinging to the mundane life she had wanted, then none of this would have happened. As she thought down these lines, Iris's feelings were complicated. On one hand, she was dissatisfied at living in a system that allowed people like her to escape justice merely because they had useful abilities. But on the other hand, was it really her place to defy it? Mr. Shepherd had died in the process of setting Iris on a path toward helping people. For Iris herself to die now seemed like it would be killing him all over again.
With that, Iris's mind was decided. Mr. Shepherd was only one of countless unknown heroes who had spent their lives trying to give people like Iris a chance at happiness. Iris herself may have squandered that chance, but she would do her best to pass that will on to the rest of the city. As she put her blindfold back into place and headed back toward the jungle, her mind was already filled with thoughts of the training she'd need in order to carry out her duty to the fullest.
PASSION: 10
BRAVERY: 14
FRIENDSHIP: 11
Skills:
Ward
Attribute: 14
Function: Bypasses Injury obstacles
Easy Ward
Attribute: 11
Function: Bypasses Injury obstacles
Special: Iris consumes only 4 energy on the turn this is used
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Occupation: Surveyor (former accountant trainee)
Face Claim: Dark Souls - Fire Keeper
Appearance:
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 96 lbs
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Usually blindfolded
Iris is a woman of average height and somewhat malnourished appearance. She wears her hair messy and doesn't use makeup. Her clothes are simple and functional, perhaps a bit worn out. However, her posture is good and she speaks in an educated manner. Her default expression, voice, and mannerisms give an impression of emotionlessness. She keeps her blindfold on at all times to hide her mutation.
Talents:
- Mathematics - She has some training on the practical parts (compound interest, integration of variables over time) and is naturally talented at mental math.
- Memorization - She can't usually read notes she's written down, so she's had to develop this skill quickly.
- Smelling, listening - Long periods of visual deprivation have helped her focus on her other senses.
- Studying - Iris is naturally bookish and retains read information very well.
- Discipline - She's good at tolerating boredom and monotony.
Personality:
Iris comes across as quiet, thoughtful, and socially awkward. She also seems unhappy more often than not. She has difficulty getting motivated, although she will go out of her way to help people in need. On the other hand, she doesn't seem to care much about her own comfort or safety.
She clearly lacks practice dealing with other people, and the blindfold hiding half her expression doesn't help matters. She tries to be considerate, but she simply lacks the skills to carry a conversation or lift someone's spirits. To avoid making things more awkward than they need to be, she prefers to speak only when spoken to and give one-word answers where possible. Any further social interaction makes her uneasy.
Iris feels that life should be spent helping other people. However, she also has developed somewhat of a cynical, judgmental streak. This means that she likes people as a whole, but she'll easily find reason to dislike any individual in particular. Iris herself is no exception to this rule - she has a deep sense of self-loathing and blames herself for all her problems. She's also inclined to take the blame for other things that aren't really her fault, and go to great lengths to try to make them right. She considers even people she dislikes to be more important than herself.
She doesn't enjoy much, these days, and the only reason she gets out of bed each morning is because she feels obligated to. Even the simple pleasures of life like eating a good meal have lost their luster for her. She does like reading (and anything else that intellectually stimulates her), but it's been a long time since she's had a chance to enjoy that. In general, she's relatively content when things are orderly and predictable.
Her foremost dislike is injustice. She prefers to follow the rules and feels that people who break them deserve whatever they get. Seeing people do evil things and escape punishment is bad, and seeing good people victimized by evil things is even worse. She also dislikes and somewhat fears the Twilight Jungle itself, especially now that she has to deal with it after avoiding it for most of her life. Finally, she dislikes it when people are overly nice to her, because she feels that she doesn't deserve it.
Magic Name: Antikinetic Gaze
Magic:
Iris's eyes can produce a field that resists movement. While active, this causes anything in her field of vision, especially whatever she's focusing upon, to move more slowly than it otherwise would. The change in speed is limited to 20% at most, but this can be enough to make a fall less painful or allow an extra fraction of a second to dodge a charging beast.
Targets of the power will find that all of their movements are slower. Although Iris needs to see something in order to target it, any attached or internal parts are affected as well. This means that people targeted by the power will find their breathing slightly difficult, and they'll feel a chill as their internal processes are slowed even on the molecular level. However, the effect is too small to actually be dangerous by itself.
The effect is strongest at arm's length and drops off to less than half within a city block or so. The power shuts off when she blinks, and it takes her a moment to direct it again afterward. She needs to see a target well enough to focus on it in order to target it with her power, so anything that interferes with sight acts as a defense. Size, distance, speed, camouflage, and darkness all fall within this category. Against a crowd or swarm, she can only focus the full extent of her magic on one target at once. Furthermore, her control over her power is less precise than that of most magic users, so simply creating a chaotic situation where she needs to worry about accidentally hitting her allies will also make it difficult for her to use her magic effectively.
As Iris's magic is channeled through her eyes, the mutation affects her eyes also. Although it's impossible to definitively discern her as a magic user as long as she's wearing her blindfold, the effect is quite obvious otherwise. Iris's eyes have been replaced with deep pits of shadow in which multicolored geometric shapes twirl slowly in place, speeding up whenever she draws upon her power. Her vision is perfectly healthy, and the shapes tilt and shift in whichever direction she looks.
History:
Iris Pires was born an only child into a loving, albeit somewhat absentee, family. Her father was a skilled surveyor without any magic powers. Her mother was a tram engineer who specialized in emergency repairs. She grew up surrounded by her parents' books, and she learned a love of knowledge at a young age.
When she was 7 years old, her father disappeared into the Twilight Jungle, never to return. This left a powerful impression on Iris of what happens when people break the rules, and it also left her with even less parental attention. One of the Pires household's neighbors, an energetic old man named Mr. Shepherd, stepped in to fill the void. Mr. Shepherd was a government accountant who worked from home, writing up cost/benefit analyses for the city planning department, so he had no trouble watching the young Iris while her mother was off handling various emergencies.
Given her upbringing, it was no surprise to anyone that Iris began to show a good head for numbers and a strong sense of civic duty as she grew up. She dreamed of using her talents for the good of the city. Her mother and her teachers were supportive of her ambition, and as she entered her teenage years, she was delighted to be apprenticed to Mr. Shepherd on her path to becoming one of the many guiding forces behind the city's development.
However, shortly after her 15th birthday, Iris abruptly began to develop magic. Beyond feeling self-conscious about her strange new appearance, Iris herself didn't care too much about the change. The power emanating from her eyes didn't do anything to help her accounting work, but it didn't hinder it either. Magic powers were associated with surveying, but Iris had always felt a sense of animosity toward the jungle after her father's death.
The other people in her life felt differently. Almost overnight, it seemed, Iris's colleagues became cold and hostile. Mr. Shepherd was worst of all. When it became clear that Iris still wanted to learn from him, he began assigning harder and harder tasks to her, then berating her for her stupidity when she inevitably failed. His words and actions became so cruel that she even began to fear him.
She endured this treatment for almost a year. Finally, one day, in a subconscious desire to hold him back while he ranted at her, Iris activated her power. Unbeknownst to either of them, Mr. Shepherd's aging heart was already on the verge of failing. The small push from Iris's magic was enough to break its rhythm and set it to spasming. Mr. Shepherd fell, clutching his chest, and within moments he was dead.
Iris was despondent after accidentally killing the only true father figure in her life, and she would have accepted any punishment the courts set out. She was surprised, almost disappointed, at how lenient they were. A judge ruled that the issue was a civil matter, not a criminal one, due to Iris's obvious lack of harmful intent. The primary concern, he said, was ensuring that no further harm was done by her apparent inability to refrain from using her magic.
To this end, he ordered that Iris wear a blindfold whenever within a set radius of any other human beings, even while in private. In effect, this meant she could never take it off, since the only places sparsely populated enough would be the wasteland, where Iris's magic would cause her life to be drained even faster than that of most people, and the jungle, which was illegal to enter anyway.
The judge even ordered that Iris be provided with a room in a somewhat-less-densely-populated part of the city (a spot on the inner edge where nearby rapid jungle growth had been scaring people away) in order to minimize the risk to the general populace. Iris gladly took this option in order to escape the disappointment her mother couldn't quite conceal.
The real punishment was the exemption Iris was given from her remaining years of education. She couldn't be allowed endanger other students by sharing a classroom with them, of course, and continuing her apprenticeship with a new master would be an exercise in futility. Iris knew better than anybody else that the loss of efficiency from working while blindfolded would outweigh whatever benefit she could bring the city with her talents.
So, Iris wasted away in her new, unlit room, her time divided between sleeping and brooding, her mind running again and again along the same dark paths. She began eating less and less. Life had lost its joy for her. She refused to remove her blindfold, even to read her beloved books, because she felt that she didn't deserve to. She walked and spoke only when necessary to obtain food and other essentials, although even that much began to feel like more effort than it was worth over the long months and years as she reached adulthood.
Finally, Iris traveled to the edge of the city and walked into the wasteland, ignoring the shouted warnings behind her. She counted her footsteps, and once she was sure she had traveled far enough for it to be allowed, she removed her blindfold. As she blinked in the first light she had seen in years, she contemplated walking further into the endless desert until it claimed her.
Before that, she looked back at the city one last time. It seemed small and fragile, a tiny citadel struggling against forces that seeked to consume it from every side.
In that moment, she was struck with a sudden realization. Her magic could be used to help that city. More importantly, it should be used to help that city. Mr. Shepherd must have seen it - it's why he pushed so strongly against her continued studies. The judge must have seen it too - it's why her punishment had been so light, and why he had set her on the edge of the jungle.
It was all Iris's own fault. If she had become a surveyor instead of selfishly clinging to the mundane life she had wanted, then none of this would have happened. As she thought down these lines, Iris's feelings were complicated. On one hand, she was dissatisfied at living in a system that allowed people like her to escape justice merely because they had useful abilities. But on the other hand, was it really her place to defy it? Mr. Shepherd had died in the process of setting Iris on a path toward helping people. For Iris herself to die now seemed like it would be killing him all over again.
With that, Iris's mind was decided. Mr. Shepherd was only one of countless unknown heroes who had spent their lives trying to give people like Iris a chance at happiness. Iris herself may have squandered that chance, but she would do her best to pass that will on to the rest of the city. As she put her blindfold back into place and headed back toward the jungle, her mind was already filled with thoughts of the training she'd need in order to carry out her duty to the fullest.
PASSION: 10
BRAVERY: 14
FRIENDSHIP: 11
Skills:
Ward
Attribute: 14
Function: Bypasses Injury obstacles
Easy Ward
Attribute: 11
Function: Bypasses Injury obstacles
Special: Iris consumes only 4 energy on the turn this is used