The People in my Head - Lady Penthesilea
Let me introduce you to some of the people in my head. Most if not all of the ones I intend to showcase here on LiveJournal are ones that have a) been around for a while and b) appeared in more than one incarnation, so to speak. I'll discuss their initial inception and the various transformations they've gone through over the years.
I've been creating characters in one form or another since earliest childhood, when I bestowed personalities on my stuffed animals, but the more protean ones didn't start to surface until I discovered roleplaying games in my college years. So I'm going to start with one of those (first in a series, collect them all!)...
Lady Penthesilea (or “Lady Pen,” as she came to be known most familiarly) was in origin an early Dungeons & Dragons character of mine, probably created in the late 1970s. She was also one of the first to get involved in a long-running, well-thought-out campaign, which was perhaps why she was able to take on a life of her own-which included a life outside of adventuring-and later to resurface in two different incarnations.
As a D&D character, Lady Pen was an outstanding example of making creative use of limited resources, and even more, making character count more than numbers. Her original scores were generated in the days when you made do with 3D6 and let the pips fall where they might. Her surviving character statistics give her highest score as 14 (Intelligence), and I’m not sure but what that and some of her other stats may have been raised a point or two in the course of the campaign. I must have used her in a couple of one-shot games before she entered Salvatore Capaldo’s epic AD&D campaign, since she was already at third level at that point and had accumulated a few items that had to be accounted for. Between us Tory and I came up with a backstory for her that would weave her into his world. At this time her family background emerged: she was the only child of a widowed nobleman of ancient lineage but no great wealth (her “genteel poverty” gave her the necessary excuse to become a mage and go adventuring). I had known since the moment I created her that she had red hair, and that she was a lady.
Not long after she entered the campaign and joined the other player-characters in a battle against one of the main villains of the piece, Lady Pen acquired (or was acquired by) the mysterious Blue Rose, a magical flower that became iconically associated with her ever afterward. It afforded her certain magical protections and also a weapon of last resort, since it bore a number of thorns that contained a poison which she was now immune to, but which was no-nonsense lethal (as in “no saving throw”) to anything else. It was with one of these thorns plus an Invisibility spell that she managed to kill an evil sorceress who was threatening to destroy the world. (We saved the world on a semi-regular basis in the course of that campaign … it was that kind of game.)
At the same time these epic events (and others) were going on, Lady Pen did something even more unusual for a D&D character at that time. She fell in love with and ended up marrying one of the chief NPCs in the game, a high-level Ranger named Menelon. (This despite the protests and attempted interference of a number of the other player-characters, who didn’t think Menelon was good enough for her.) Not only did she marry, become Baroness and Consul in her own right with a District and a new city to look after, she got pregnant and bore twins. None of these responsibilities prevented her from sallying forth seven years later to help battle the forces of evil once again. Meanwhile Lady Pen’s voice began to emerge not only in game sessions, but outside them. Several diary entries of hers suvive to this day, as does some correspondence between her and Menelon and between her and one of the other player-characters, the dwarf king (by that time) Dinadur.
Fast-forward to 1994. Tory Capaldo’s D&D game is far in the past, and I’ve just acquired a brand-new RPG: Castle Falkenstein. I’m in the process of familiarizing myself with the game system by the tried-and-true method of generating some characters. And I start to wonder what Lady Pen would look like as a Falkenstein character.
Well, obviously she’d still be a mage. Looking for an Order to put her in, I selected the Druids since she was already associated in my mind with the natural world, both plants and animals, and also that red hair made it almost certain she was a Celt. Scottish, I decided. Her name would be Lady Penthesilea Glendenny, the only daughter of a widowed Earl. The blue rose pendant was a legacy from her deceased mother, possibly having magickal properties. As for her romantic life…
That’s when the past reared up and bit me. In her previous game, Lady Pen had fallen in love with one of the most powerful NPCs available. In this one…
…she turned around and informed me that she was in love with Auberon, High King of the Faerie and Lord of the Seelie Court. And that he returned the affection. It was at that point I realized that I could probably never use this character in an actual game. I could hear the hypothetical Host’s reaction all too clearly. “She’s Auberon’s lady-love. Right. Get out of here, you munchkin…”
So the Castle Falkenstein version of Lady Pen remained in my head, but by no means did she remain idle. The story of her relationship with Auberon didn’t ever burgeon forth into a complete work, but I did eventually write several segments with the overall (somewhat inevitable) title of “Immortal Beloved: Scenes from a Romance.” As it turned out, the two of them didn’t consummate their mutual passion (despite an early attempt by Auberon) until Lady Pen had been married to a Templar mage named Sir Gavin Maxwell, borne and raised two children, Hector and Valeria, and been widowed. After which, inspired by a consuming interest of my then four-year-old son, I sent her down with the Titanic (but not permanently) and left her at last accepting Auberon’s offer to pass the rest of her existence with him in the Faerie Veil.
Jump forward another ten years or so, and I’ve joined an online freeform roleplaying game set in the English Regency, more or less inspired by Georgette Heyer and her literary descendants. (And keep this setting in mind, because we’ll be coming back to it several times in the course of this series.) I’m already playing around with a male character or two and I decide it’s time to bring in a female … so why not try out a Regency version of Lady Pen?
Several of the elements from the Falkenstein version can be brought forward into this setting. The basic family situation, in which Lady Penthesilea Glendenny is the only child of a widowed Earl (in this case the Earl of Carnock rather than Moriston, as in the previous version) of ancient lineage but no great wealth, works fine for the Regency romance genre. She can still be a Scotswoman, particularly since this gives her possible connections with other players’ characters who also happen to be Scots. However, since the main point of the game is to have one’s characters get into romantic relationships with other people’s characters, she can’t start out with a pre-existing attachment. Therefore she’s single, and Sir Gavin Maxwell becomes the late husband of Lady Pen’s Aunt Hippolyta (who usually goes by “Polly” to her family). Major Sir Hector Maxwell becomes Pen’s cousin, and his sister Valeria vanishes into obscurity. Lady Maxwell is left sufficiently well off to hire a house in London for the season and invite her brother and niece to share it with her…
Obviously this version of Lady Pen can’t be a mage (it’s not that kind of a game), but since we are in the Romantic period with its increased interest in the supernatural, I was able to go so far as to give her a touch of second sight-which proved to be a useful plot device at various points in the game. I also made her a poet, with an interest in traditional balladry à la Sir Walter Scott-also very much in period. Of course she retained the blue rose pendant as a legacy from her mother. I established existing friendships for her with two of the other female characters in game, and before long-lo and behold!-she attracted the romantic interest of the Earl of Warwick (no, not that one), son of the Duke of Richmond (no, not that one either). By the time the game fizzled out, they were engaged to be married.
So what are the constants of this character? Her looks and personality have remained the same. Despite the distinctive red hair she is not fiery in temper, but has always been distinguished by her courage, empathy, resourcefulness, and a personal sense of honor and responsibility. Her initial family situation has stayed the same. She forms strong friendships as well as romantic and marital ties. And she is never less than a lady.
Hopefully I got the "cut" function to work this time.