Shale Application
OOC
Name: Jess
Are you over 16?: Yes
Personal LJ: mynnymac
Email: pyrefly@bis.midco.net
Timezone: US Central
Other contact: Mynnymac on plurk
Characters already in the game: N/A
How did you find us?: I stumbled upon it quite by accident...Okay, I was looking at various LJ RPGs and liked the sound of this one the most.
IC
Character name: Shale
Fandom: Dragon Age
Timeline: Immediately after Origins
Age: Shale is a golem and thus does not age; however, the method of creating golems was lost over a thousand years ago.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: Technically a warrior, Shale has no magical abilities--and with stone fists and feet perfect for punching and crushing, has little need for a weapon for that matter. However, Shale can deal damage in certain elements if particular crystals are embedded in her stone “skin,” i.e. fire crystals yield fire damage. Conversely, larger crystals will grant Shale defense in their respective elements in lieu of a shield.
How would they use their abilities?: Without provocation, Shale is unlikely to use her physical strength against anyone. Of course, Shale is anything but predictable, and “provocation” could simply equate to “boredom,” some days. Or “birds.” If there are any passengers of the avian variety aboard the S.S. Thor, please fear for their safety. Perhaps locking them away in the most secure of vaults might keep them safe. Perhaps.
Appearance: Shale is a fairly standard and impressive stone golem. That is, a vaguely human-looking statue able to walk and talk. White eyes glow out from within her head, and most of the time Shale will have a number of the crystals that alter her abilities embedded in her shoulders and wrists, concerns about how wide they make her look aside.
Background: (Hooray for exposition! And terms! Please note that this game is huge and many different paths can be taken story-wise, so I will only write what is directly relevant to Shale here.) Nearly a thousand years before the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins, golems were first created by the dwarves-specifically, the smith Caridin. At the time, both the surface of Thedas and the Deep Roads (the enormous labyrinth of tunnels connecting the dwarven cities) were being threatened by the darkspawn (monstrous humanoid creatures similar in appearance and manner to undead, who carry a sickness that corrupts and destroys everything it infects) during the first of the Blights: massive darkspawn invasions to the surface, led by a corrupt god called an Archdemon. To combat the darkspawn that were rapidly taking over the dwarven cities, Caridin created golems as the ultimate defense against the tainted creatures: they were impossible to infect and practically immortal. Unfortunately, the knowledge required to create them was lost to time, and as more and more finally fell in battle, golems became extremely rare.
It is one such creature that is encountered by the party in Dragon Age: Origins, led by the silent main character, one of the last two Grey Wardens (warriors whose sole purpose is to fight darkspawn and end Blights) in Ferelden, where a new Blight has emerged. The Warden comes across a traveling merchant carrying what he called a control rod, meant to give orders to a golem. Intrigued, the party journeys to the remote village of Honnleath in order to activate the golem. They come upon it in a small square, deactivated, frozen as a statue. Unfortunately (and quite in step with RPG luck), the command they were given doesn’t work. After liberating the town’s remaining survivors from a band of darkspawn and saving a young child from a demon, the girl’s grateful father tells the Warden the correct command, but with a warning: the statue outside went insane, killing his father, its previous owner. They would do well to forget about it and leave it there.
Not that they listen, of course.
Upon activating the golem, instead of finding a crazed killing machine, they end up face to face with a bored and bemused hulking statue. Noticing the Warden holds a control rod, Shale finds that it feels no compulsion to follow directions after it requests the Warden order it to do something. Beyond reactivating Shale, the control rod appears to be quite broken. Not only is Shale a rare golem, but now it finds itself a golem with free will, a thing unheard of. Wary of the party but nonetheless grateful for its newfound mobility, Shale decides to accompany them, at least until it can find something better to do. It might be interesting to see how long it takes for the Warden to fail on the quest to kill an Archdemon-probably not very long at all, by Shale’s estimation.
As the party journeys through Ferelden, Shale eventually divulges what little it can remember of its past. For instance, after Shale supposedly killed Wilhelm, its previous owner (Shale claims to remember nothing of the murder), it remained as a statue in the village for thirty-some years, used by the townsfolk as fodder for festival decorations. They would also attract birds to perch on the golem by luring them with birdseed (thirty years of this leading to the golem’s hatred of the beasts). Before that, Wilhelm paraded Shale about Honnleath, ordering it around simply to show off to the other villagers. And before that, Shale remembers nothing at all about its past. However, Shale makes it clear that it does not dwell on such things. For now, helping to defeat the Blight by crushing darkspawn heads seems to be a nice purpose in life.
As the Warden continues on the quest, finding allies to help fight the Archdemon, the party eventually finds their next destination to be Orzammar, one of only two remaining dwarven thaigs (cities) that hasn’t been overtaken by darkspawn. While there, they meet with one of the candidates vying for the currently vacant throne of Orzammar, and the dwarf promises aid, but only after he has been elected king (yeah, dwarves elect their king, I guess). His best bet is to win the support of a Paragon (dwarves who have accomplished some great feat and are practically revered as gods). Unfortunately, the only currently living Paragon is Branka, who took her entire house into the Deep Roads years ago, searching for some unknown treasure. She has also been presumed dead. The Warden is given a tall order: Find Branka, get her to support the dwarf as king, get dwarf elected, get dwarf’s army. So, into the Deep Roads they go, accompanied by the one family member Branka didn’t take with her-her husband Oghren. Rather the sorry drunken type after his abandonment, Oghren tells the party he knows what his wife was searching for: the Anvil of the Void, the ancient instrument created by the Paragon Caridin in order to make golems. Not only does everyone assume Branka is dead, they also think the Anvil to be nothing more than a myth now. At least the party will have plenty of darkspawn to kill while searching for two things that no longer exist!
In a twist that absolutely everyone saw coming, Branka is indeed alive, and the Anvil of the Void does still exist. Except Branka has been driven insane by her search and years underground, and has ended up sacrificing her entire house to darkspawn in her obsession to find the Anvil. And the Anvil itself is protected by a series of traps left by Caridin. The Warden has no choice but to let Branka enlist the party to survive the traps for her, and they finally come upon the Anvil, guarded by several metal golems. One of whom introduces himself to the party as the ancient Paragon, Caridin.
The method of creating golems that has been long speculated on since the Anvil was lost turns out to be quite grim; dwarven volunteers were sacrificed and put to the magical anvil, which bound their soul to the stone statue that would be their new body. Long ago during the First Blight, after the dwarves ran out of volunteers and started turning people into golems against their will, Caridin stood up to the dwarven king, and his punishment was golemhood. He pleads to the Warden to let him destroy the Anvil, which he now wishes he had never created in the first place, so that no one can put anyone else through such misery again.
After defeating a crazed Branka who’s not about to let that happen, Caridin makes one last thing on the Anvil: a royal crown for whomever the Warden chooses, thus providing the vote of a Paragon that the party needs. The ancient golem then destroys his anvil and throws himself into a river of lava…but not before giving insight into Shale’s origin. He recognized the golem’s voice as belonging to one Shayle Cadash, one of the first dwarves to volunteer for the Anvil, and the only female to do so.
Turns out Shale is female. Absolutely everyone is shocked by this, the golem included.
With one part of the mystery of Shale’s existence solved and an army gained on their behalf, the party continues on their adventure, which eventually ends with a dead Archdemon on the roof of a tower in Ferelden’s capital. Having helped save the day, Shale is ready to move on to new adventures…
…Except she is about to wake up on the S.S. Thor, so…technically, it IS a new adventure, isn’t it?
Personality: Once one has gotten over the initial shock of seeing a stone statue walking and talking, the first thing one notices about Shale is her sense of humor. Drier than the rock she’s made out of, Shale’s sarcasm is perhaps her most dangerous weapon. Well. Her most amusing one, at least. After years of being referred to as “golem” by her master Wilhelm, Shale has taken it upon herself to subject others to the same humiliation. That is, Shale abandons most proper pronouns for the impersonal “it” when she talks to or about others. If you’re lucky, she might abandon “it” after she gets to know you, replacing it with a somewhat nasty nickname. Just ask the “swamp witch” Morrigan or “drunken dwarf” Oghren. If Shale likes you somewhat (not that she would ever admit it okay), she might go the more obvious and/or less insulting route, as she did for Leliana the “bard.”
Beyond that, one will notice Shale’s superiority complex. She is a far better construct than those fleshy humans, of course, who can die with just one crush of her fist. She doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or do other “flesh-related functions” that keep them weak and squishy, either. Shale is just built better and she knows it. And she will let you know too, just in case you didn’t already.
The Big One, of course, is the “bird thing,” as the Grey Warden Alistair once put it. Being subjected to “torture” from birds in Honnleath for several decades, Shale has been left with as close to an emotional scar as she could probably get. She now prefers to take out her anger and loathing on every creature with wings she sees. In fact, she thinks that’s partly why she is so good at killing darkspawn; they remind her of pigeons.
Why should that character be in this game: N/A
Why do you want to continue their history here: N/A
For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play: N/A
Have you read up on how the game works?: Yep, the network is the FlamingFerret. You can obtain money by doing missions. Alternatively, you can beg, borrow, or steal! Or GET A JOB, you bum!
1st person sample:
[See Shale attempting to fill out paperwork.]
I fail to see the relevance of half these questions. More than half. [She glances at the next one in her other hand.] And have I not answered this one twice already? Hmph!
[See paperwork go flying and a golem stalk away. Perhaps a couple aliens or fellow refugees call after her, insisting she fill these out-they’re important! She stops not because of the voices behind her, but because she realizes she has no idea where to go next.]
[So she mutters.] Puny flesh creatures, telling me what to do. Bah! They really are the same everywhere, I suppose. [An exasperated sigh as the golem looks up, staring…into space? Literally. Oh heavens. Shale, what are you thinking about.]
Not even any pigeons for me to squish…
3rd person sample:
Shale had been right the first time, apparently. The Wardens were doomed from the start. Not because they failed to kill the Archdemon or stop the Blight, no…but they did fail to stop the world from ending anyway. So soon after victory, too. Close enough, really. And as far as she could tell, they failed to survive it themselves. How she had was obvious-she was an immortal stone golem. But she did notice plenty other humans roaming around, and she couldn’t help but think the Warden was, if not up to her caliber, at least superior to any human that she had ever encountered. So, why?
Logical conclusion: There was no logic to it at all. Survivors were random. If the world had actually, in fact, been destroyed, and she was beginning to have doubts about that, come to think of it. None of the strange flesh creatures that attempted to herd her into the line had answered any of her more direct questions. Suspicious? Ohh, yes.
The only apparent good news thus far? Shale had not seen a single being with feathers since she arrived. No more perching, hovering, defecating vermin for her, oh no! This place, whatever it was, at least had that over Thedas.
Except…killing birds was so satisfying. With no birds to crush and no Warden to follow, where was she to find amusement now?
Questions?: ...ARE there birds on the ship? I am ever so curious. For purely, ah, scientific purposes.
Did you put your character's name and fandom in the subject: Yessir! (or Ma’am!)
Name: Jess
Are you over 16?: Yes
Personal LJ: mynnymac
Email: pyrefly@bis.midco.net
Timezone: US Central
Other contact: Mynnymac on plurk
Characters already in the game: N/A
How did you find us?: I stumbled upon it quite by accident...Okay, I was looking at various LJ RPGs and liked the sound of this one the most.
IC
Character name: Shale
Fandom: Dragon Age
Timeline: Immediately after Origins
Age: Shale is a golem and thus does not age; however, the method of creating golems was lost over a thousand years ago.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: Technically a warrior, Shale has no magical abilities--and with stone fists and feet perfect for punching and crushing, has little need for a weapon for that matter. However, Shale can deal damage in certain elements if particular crystals are embedded in her stone “skin,” i.e. fire crystals yield fire damage. Conversely, larger crystals will grant Shale defense in their respective elements in lieu of a shield.
How would they use their abilities?: Without provocation, Shale is unlikely to use her physical strength against anyone. Of course, Shale is anything but predictable, and “provocation” could simply equate to “boredom,” some days. Or “birds.” If there are any passengers of the avian variety aboard the S.S. Thor, please fear for their safety. Perhaps locking them away in the most secure of vaults might keep them safe. Perhaps.
Appearance: Shale is a fairly standard and impressive stone golem. That is, a vaguely human-looking statue able to walk and talk. White eyes glow out from within her head, and most of the time Shale will have a number of the crystals that alter her abilities embedded in her shoulders and wrists, concerns about how wide they make her look aside.
Background: (Hooray for exposition! And terms! Please note that this game is huge and many different paths can be taken story-wise, so I will only write what is directly relevant to Shale here.) Nearly a thousand years before the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins, golems were first created by the dwarves-specifically, the smith Caridin. At the time, both the surface of Thedas and the Deep Roads (the enormous labyrinth of tunnels connecting the dwarven cities) were being threatened by the darkspawn (monstrous humanoid creatures similar in appearance and manner to undead, who carry a sickness that corrupts and destroys everything it infects) during the first of the Blights: massive darkspawn invasions to the surface, led by a corrupt god called an Archdemon. To combat the darkspawn that were rapidly taking over the dwarven cities, Caridin created golems as the ultimate defense against the tainted creatures: they were impossible to infect and practically immortal. Unfortunately, the knowledge required to create them was lost to time, and as more and more finally fell in battle, golems became extremely rare.
It is one such creature that is encountered by the party in Dragon Age: Origins, led by the silent main character, one of the last two Grey Wardens (warriors whose sole purpose is to fight darkspawn and end Blights) in Ferelden, where a new Blight has emerged. The Warden comes across a traveling merchant carrying what he called a control rod, meant to give orders to a golem. Intrigued, the party journeys to the remote village of Honnleath in order to activate the golem. They come upon it in a small square, deactivated, frozen as a statue. Unfortunately (and quite in step with RPG luck), the command they were given doesn’t work. After liberating the town’s remaining survivors from a band of darkspawn and saving a young child from a demon, the girl’s grateful father tells the Warden the correct command, but with a warning: the statue outside went insane, killing his father, its previous owner. They would do well to forget about it and leave it there.
Not that they listen, of course.
Upon activating the golem, instead of finding a crazed killing machine, they end up face to face with a bored and bemused hulking statue. Noticing the Warden holds a control rod, Shale finds that it feels no compulsion to follow directions after it requests the Warden order it to do something. Beyond reactivating Shale, the control rod appears to be quite broken. Not only is Shale a rare golem, but now it finds itself a golem with free will, a thing unheard of. Wary of the party but nonetheless grateful for its newfound mobility, Shale decides to accompany them, at least until it can find something better to do. It might be interesting to see how long it takes for the Warden to fail on the quest to kill an Archdemon-probably not very long at all, by Shale’s estimation.
As the party journeys through Ferelden, Shale eventually divulges what little it can remember of its past. For instance, after Shale supposedly killed Wilhelm, its previous owner (Shale claims to remember nothing of the murder), it remained as a statue in the village for thirty-some years, used by the townsfolk as fodder for festival decorations. They would also attract birds to perch on the golem by luring them with birdseed (thirty years of this leading to the golem’s hatred of the beasts). Before that, Wilhelm paraded Shale about Honnleath, ordering it around simply to show off to the other villagers. And before that, Shale remembers nothing at all about its past. However, Shale makes it clear that it does not dwell on such things. For now, helping to defeat the Blight by crushing darkspawn heads seems to be a nice purpose in life.
As the Warden continues on the quest, finding allies to help fight the Archdemon, the party eventually finds their next destination to be Orzammar, one of only two remaining dwarven thaigs (cities) that hasn’t been overtaken by darkspawn. While there, they meet with one of the candidates vying for the currently vacant throne of Orzammar, and the dwarf promises aid, but only after he has been elected king (yeah, dwarves elect their king, I guess). His best bet is to win the support of a Paragon (dwarves who have accomplished some great feat and are practically revered as gods). Unfortunately, the only currently living Paragon is Branka, who took her entire house into the Deep Roads years ago, searching for some unknown treasure. She has also been presumed dead. The Warden is given a tall order: Find Branka, get her to support the dwarf as king, get dwarf elected, get dwarf’s army. So, into the Deep Roads they go, accompanied by the one family member Branka didn’t take with her-her husband Oghren. Rather the sorry drunken type after his abandonment, Oghren tells the party he knows what his wife was searching for: the Anvil of the Void, the ancient instrument created by the Paragon Caridin in order to make golems. Not only does everyone assume Branka is dead, they also think the Anvil to be nothing more than a myth now. At least the party will have plenty of darkspawn to kill while searching for two things that no longer exist!
In a twist that absolutely everyone saw coming, Branka is indeed alive, and the Anvil of the Void does still exist. Except Branka has been driven insane by her search and years underground, and has ended up sacrificing her entire house to darkspawn in her obsession to find the Anvil. And the Anvil itself is protected by a series of traps left by Caridin. The Warden has no choice but to let Branka enlist the party to survive the traps for her, and they finally come upon the Anvil, guarded by several metal golems. One of whom introduces himself to the party as the ancient Paragon, Caridin.
The method of creating golems that has been long speculated on since the Anvil was lost turns out to be quite grim; dwarven volunteers were sacrificed and put to the magical anvil, which bound their soul to the stone statue that would be their new body. Long ago during the First Blight, after the dwarves ran out of volunteers and started turning people into golems against their will, Caridin stood up to the dwarven king, and his punishment was golemhood. He pleads to the Warden to let him destroy the Anvil, which he now wishes he had never created in the first place, so that no one can put anyone else through such misery again.
After defeating a crazed Branka who’s not about to let that happen, Caridin makes one last thing on the Anvil: a royal crown for whomever the Warden chooses, thus providing the vote of a Paragon that the party needs. The ancient golem then destroys his anvil and throws himself into a river of lava…but not before giving insight into Shale’s origin. He recognized the golem’s voice as belonging to one Shayle Cadash, one of the first dwarves to volunteer for the Anvil, and the only female to do so.
Turns out Shale is female. Absolutely everyone is shocked by this, the golem included.
With one part of the mystery of Shale’s existence solved and an army gained on their behalf, the party continues on their adventure, which eventually ends with a dead Archdemon on the roof of a tower in Ferelden’s capital. Having helped save the day, Shale is ready to move on to new adventures…
…Except she is about to wake up on the S.S. Thor, so…technically, it IS a new adventure, isn’t it?
Personality: Once one has gotten over the initial shock of seeing a stone statue walking and talking, the first thing one notices about Shale is her sense of humor. Drier than the rock she’s made out of, Shale’s sarcasm is perhaps her most dangerous weapon. Well. Her most amusing one, at least. After years of being referred to as “golem” by her master Wilhelm, Shale has taken it upon herself to subject others to the same humiliation. That is, Shale abandons most proper pronouns for the impersonal “it” when she talks to or about others. If you’re lucky, she might abandon “it” after she gets to know you, replacing it with a somewhat nasty nickname. Just ask the “swamp witch” Morrigan or “drunken dwarf” Oghren. If Shale likes you somewhat (not that she would ever admit it okay), she might go the more obvious and/or less insulting route, as she did for Leliana the “bard.”
Beyond that, one will notice Shale’s superiority complex. She is a far better construct than those fleshy humans, of course, who can die with just one crush of her fist. She doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or do other “flesh-related functions” that keep them weak and squishy, either. Shale is just built better and she knows it. And she will let you know too, just in case you didn’t already.
The Big One, of course, is the “bird thing,” as the Grey Warden Alistair once put it. Being subjected to “torture” from birds in Honnleath for several decades, Shale has been left with as close to an emotional scar as she could probably get. She now prefers to take out her anger and loathing on every creature with wings she sees. In fact, she thinks that’s partly why she is so good at killing darkspawn; they remind her of pigeons.
Why should that character be in this game: N/A
Why do you want to continue their history here: N/A
For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play: N/A
Have you read up on how the game works?: Yep, the network is the FlamingFerret. You can obtain money by doing missions. Alternatively, you can beg, borrow, or steal! Or GET A JOB, you bum!
1st person sample:
[See Shale attempting to fill out paperwork.]
I fail to see the relevance of half these questions. More than half. [She glances at the next one in her other hand.] And have I not answered this one twice already? Hmph!
[See paperwork go flying and a golem stalk away. Perhaps a couple aliens or fellow refugees call after her, insisting she fill these out-they’re important! She stops not because of the voices behind her, but because she realizes she has no idea where to go next.]
[So she mutters.] Puny flesh creatures, telling me what to do. Bah! They really are the same everywhere, I suppose. [An exasperated sigh as the golem looks up, staring…into space? Literally. Oh heavens. Shale, what are you thinking about.]
Not even any pigeons for me to squish…
3rd person sample:
Shale had been right the first time, apparently. The Wardens were doomed from the start. Not because they failed to kill the Archdemon or stop the Blight, no…but they did fail to stop the world from ending anyway. So soon after victory, too. Close enough, really. And as far as she could tell, they failed to survive it themselves. How she had was obvious-she was an immortal stone golem. But she did notice plenty other humans roaming around, and she couldn’t help but think the Warden was, if not up to her caliber, at least superior to any human that she had ever encountered. So, why?
Logical conclusion: There was no logic to it at all. Survivors were random. If the world had actually, in fact, been destroyed, and she was beginning to have doubts about that, come to think of it. None of the strange flesh creatures that attempted to herd her into the line had answered any of her more direct questions. Suspicious? Ohh, yes.
The only apparent good news thus far? Shale had not seen a single being with feathers since she arrived. No more perching, hovering, defecating vermin for her, oh no! This place, whatever it was, at least had that over Thedas.
Except…killing birds was so satisfying. With no birds to crush and no Warden to follow, where was she to find amusement now?
Questions?: ...ARE there birds on the ship? I am ever so curious. For purely, ah, scientific purposes.
Did you put your character's name and fandom in the subject: Yessir! (or Ma’am!)