queen of hearts information
Player Information
Name: Koke
Personal Journal: kokanshu
Contact Info: MSN: kokanshu@gmail.com | email: kokanshu@gmail.com | AIM: galahadfalling
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Mahalia De Luca-Serna
Age: 16
Setting: Sometime in early 1993, magic began to appear. No one knows where it came from, if it existed previously and died out, been hidden away from the general population, or just suddenly began to take root. All that was known was that children started to display the ability to do extraordinary things, to read minds or the future, to move objects, to create ice or fire, to disappear completely. The only indication that these people were any different to anyone else, aside from the abilities themselves, was a shimmer in their blood - a sheen across the surface of the liquid, much like oil.
The abilities of these children caused a panic in the people, those who called them demons, deformities, dangers. Governments across the world attempted to control the situation as best they could while they decided what to do, but they stalled too long. Vigilante groups began to form, hunting down those with the 'glitter', cutting them as a test before slaughtering them. In defence, the then called 'witches' began to fight back. War broke out. Cities were destroyed, governments fell, chaos reigned for many years.
With the population of witches growing and the Hunters becoming a more organised front, one particularly fierce battleground stretched across France, Germany and Austria, culminating in a huge battle that changed the surface of the planet. A rift was torn in the earth and the sky, shifting continents. The Hunters retreated into the South (contains lower Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia), creating a military organisation known as Prevent, spreading across the land and becoming a totalitarian regime. Forty years after this battle, and the South is a post-apocalyptic landscape, most cities destroyed and those left patrolled by soldiers, with checking gates controlling entry and exit. ID declaring yourself a non-witch is necessary for survival. Witches are hunted down ruthlessly and killed, with sympathisers, spies and rebels treated no better. The North (North America, South America, the upper half of Europe), in contrast, is witch-tolerant, ruled by a series of 'temples', priests and academics. The war is still ongoing, but has reached a stalemate due to the riftzone, and the temples nearer the rift are dedicated to training young witches to become soldiers. Refugees from the South sometimes manage to make it through to the North, but it largely soldiers crossing in from the North to fight.
The technological level of both sides has regressed slightly, with the South most effected. Most utilities, such as water and electricity are still readily available, but travel and communication are incredibly restricted, used by Prevent alone. Most people don't recognise things that we would consider commonplace, such as computers, automobiles, mobile telephones and trains. In the North, the need to rebuild after the initial war led to a focus on industry and a renewal in a sense of community, which subsequently led to less personal and working isolation and alienation by technology.
History: Mahalia's history begins with that of her parents, people from radically different lives. Petronel De Luca was the middle sibling and only daughter in a large and very well off family, living in the North. Her father's success was in academia, published many times over, with the majority of his sons intending to follow in his footsteps. Petronel was eager for her family's approval, but never managed to really excel in her studies, breaking no new grounds as her father did. Frustrated, she decided to take her interest in witches as far as she could, paying a greedy group of Northern soldiers for passage into the South. Initially bright and excited, her enthusiasm soon waned as she began to really experience what life was like there, finding herself completely unprepared and deeply upset by the treatment the people lived under once she had seen it in person. However, getting out of the South was a lot harder than getting in, despite how much money she had, and she found herself trapped there for a few years. She took a whore for company and comfort one night, but finally managed to escape from the South a few days later, only realising she was pregnant from the encounter after making it home.
The whore, Mahalia's father, was Acacio Serna. Born and raised in the South before Prevent took it completely, Acacio is not technically a witch, having no natural glitter in his blood, but a dreamchaser, a very rare occurrence in the users of a drug known as soñando. The powder gives him the ability to enter the minds and dreams of others, to shape or manipulate them, to free people from comas or trap them there forever. Viewed as holy people, dreamchasers are revered in the South and bring hope to many, but the cost of using the soñando as much as they do is their memory, and Acacio has, over his life, forgotten everything, left to travel the South with only his duty and his fear. Taking to whoring in order to earn money for his addiction and to sate his need for physical touch, anchoring against the pull of the soñando, Acacio has taken many lovers and fathered many children, but does not remember any of them.
One of Acacio's greatest loves is Jast Albrin, the augur of the wardens (Paderau is already in the game, I hope I'm okay in simply linking to her app for the background setting of their order). Jast has visited him many times, and has given him a luckstone as an earring in order to keep track of him and protect him from many of the dangers he would otherwise encounter. Already godfather to one of his children after the situation became unmanageable, Jast became a large part of Mahalia's life after visiting to sooth the baby's cries shortly after her birth. Petronel had moved into an old family cabin in the woods after her family's disdain for her pregnancy, and although determined had found herself completely unprepared for the demands of a newborn baby, especially one as fussy as Mahalia. Petronel initially threatened the young man, alarmed by his sudden appearance, but after realising Jast had soothed the baby rather than hurting her, she calmed enough to listen. Petronel clearly needed help, but was still unwilling to return to her family, and so Jast began to visit her and Mahalia as regularly as his duties would allow, and inevitably had a large part in raising Mahalia.
Mahalia grew up somewhat spoiled and cosseted. Petronel chose to homeschool her, belief in her own academic ability plus an over-protective nature caused by her time in the South, and only took her into the nearby towns when such trips were necessary. The majority of Mahalia's outside contact was with Jast, who essentially became a father to her. Growing up around his preference for speaking in birdsong, Mahalia had learnt to understand it, and use it partly herself, her progress slowing as she grew older. At fifteen, Mahalia has begun to venture out of her mother's cabin, visiting her godfather at the home he takes as well as several of Acacio's other children who live in the North, led to them by an awareness of the family gifted to her by Acacio's blood. Most recently her wandering has led her across the path of a much darker type of witch, an encounter that would have seen her gravely harmed if she hadn't been rescued by one of her godfather's friends.
Personality: Mahalia's experiences of the world have been mostly contained to her mother, her godfather and her siblings. As a result she is rather naive and idealistic, assuming the best in situations and people without caution. She knows there are dangers in the world, knows many of her siblings and her father still navigate them and live in fear, but she hasn't experienced any herself. She has a romantic view of the world, believing that fate balances itself, gives good things to those who have suffered a lot and punishes those that have been cruel. As such she always endeavours to be kind herself, has a very open and giving heart.
She can be very stubborn about her values and ideals, doesn't like them questioned or attempts to prove them wrong. As sheltered and cosseted as she has been, she can be rather prissy and fussy if teased or argued with, but it's difficult to work her to real anger, she is more likely take it as hurt if pushed that far.
In truth though, Mahalia has an awareness of her family that means she knows exactly how cruel the world and the people in it can be. Her stubbornness in her ideals is less a delusion and more determination to make the world better. This awareness also finds her berating herself often for her sheltered nature, trying to push herself to be stronger when she hasn't grown into it naturally yet, often trying to deny the need for comfort when upset, comparing herself to her siblings and the things they have experienced alone.
Above all she wants to make her parents and her family proud. Because of her mother's academic history and her desire to fully understand and sing beside Jast, this mainly comes through in the way she focusses on her studies, in the more standard subjects her mother has given her, but mostly in her learning birdsong. Despite the extent of her achievements for her age, she is always pushing herself to go further and be better, impatient with herself and frequently frustrated by her limitations.
Abilities: As one of Acacio's children, Mahalia was born with glitter, and could be a rather strong witch when compared to others in her world. However, she is still young, and has not truly been taught how to use it, her godfather's guidance focussing more on teaching her the birdsong. As a result she is mostly a lot of wasted potential.
She has an innate awareness of things around her, but it is not always accurate or clear - she can know if something is out of the ordinary, and perhaps a sense of whether it is malevolent or good-willed - but she can't tell exactly what is different about it. Her only true strengths in this awareness are with identifying things she is familiar with or are similar to things she is familiar with, her constant connection to her family and the ability to know if people that she cares about are hurt or in danger.
Any active abilities she has, she has associated with her godfather's songs, and as such has been hesitant on them because she believes they need a fully formed song and ritual to perform - and she doesn't think she knows enough yet to do either. She can give an atmosphere with her songs as they are, can sooth with lullabies and inspire bravery with warsongs.
If she had more strength, knowledge and confidence, she would be able to manipulate the environment around her in both defence and attack, and heal. As I've stated, though, she really isn't at that level yet.
She understands the songs of birds, and can sing them herself, to an extent. The best way to describe this is in terms of learning a new language. She is practically fluent in terms of being able to hear and translate, but constructing whole new sentences of her own is more difficult, plus the limitations of her physiology in making the sounds themselves.
Name: Koke
Personal Journal: kokanshu
Contact Info: MSN: kokanshu@gmail.com | email: kokanshu@gmail.com | AIM: galahadfalling
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Mahalia De Luca-Serna
Age: 16
Setting: Sometime in early 1993, magic began to appear. No one knows where it came from, if it existed previously and died out, been hidden away from the general population, or just suddenly began to take root. All that was known was that children started to display the ability to do extraordinary things, to read minds or the future, to move objects, to create ice or fire, to disappear completely. The only indication that these people were any different to anyone else, aside from the abilities themselves, was a shimmer in their blood - a sheen across the surface of the liquid, much like oil.
The abilities of these children caused a panic in the people, those who called them demons, deformities, dangers. Governments across the world attempted to control the situation as best they could while they decided what to do, but they stalled too long. Vigilante groups began to form, hunting down those with the 'glitter', cutting them as a test before slaughtering them. In defence, the then called 'witches' began to fight back. War broke out. Cities were destroyed, governments fell, chaos reigned for many years.
With the population of witches growing and the Hunters becoming a more organised front, one particularly fierce battleground stretched across France, Germany and Austria, culminating in a huge battle that changed the surface of the planet. A rift was torn in the earth and the sky, shifting continents. The Hunters retreated into the South (contains lower Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia), creating a military organisation known as Prevent, spreading across the land and becoming a totalitarian regime. Forty years after this battle, and the South is a post-apocalyptic landscape, most cities destroyed and those left patrolled by soldiers, with checking gates controlling entry and exit. ID declaring yourself a non-witch is necessary for survival. Witches are hunted down ruthlessly and killed, with sympathisers, spies and rebels treated no better. The North (North America, South America, the upper half of Europe), in contrast, is witch-tolerant, ruled by a series of 'temples', priests and academics. The war is still ongoing, but has reached a stalemate due to the riftzone, and the temples nearer the rift are dedicated to training young witches to become soldiers. Refugees from the South sometimes manage to make it through to the North, but it largely soldiers crossing in from the North to fight.
The technological level of both sides has regressed slightly, with the South most effected. Most utilities, such as water and electricity are still readily available, but travel and communication are incredibly restricted, used by Prevent alone. Most people don't recognise things that we would consider commonplace, such as computers, automobiles, mobile telephones and trains. In the North, the need to rebuild after the initial war led to a focus on industry and a renewal in a sense of community, which subsequently led to less personal and working isolation and alienation by technology.
History: Mahalia's history begins with that of her parents, people from radically different lives. Petronel De Luca was the middle sibling and only daughter in a large and very well off family, living in the North. Her father's success was in academia, published many times over, with the majority of his sons intending to follow in his footsteps. Petronel was eager for her family's approval, but never managed to really excel in her studies, breaking no new grounds as her father did. Frustrated, she decided to take her interest in witches as far as she could, paying a greedy group of Northern soldiers for passage into the South. Initially bright and excited, her enthusiasm soon waned as she began to really experience what life was like there, finding herself completely unprepared and deeply upset by the treatment the people lived under once she had seen it in person. However, getting out of the South was a lot harder than getting in, despite how much money she had, and she found herself trapped there for a few years. She took a whore for company and comfort one night, but finally managed to escape from the South a few days later, only realising she was pregnant from the encounter after making it home.
The whore, Mahalia's father, was Acacio Serna. Born and raised in the South before Prevent took it completely, Acacio is not technically a witch, having no natural glitter in his blood, but a dreamchaser, a very rare occurrence in the users of a drug known as soñando. The powder gives him the ability to enter the minds and dreams of others, to shape or manipulate them, to free people from comas or trap them there forever. Viewed as holy people, dreamchasers are revered in the South and bring hope to many, but the cost of using the soñando as much as they do is their memory, and Acacio has, over his life, forgotten everything, left to travel the South with only his duty and his fear. Taking to whoring in order to earn money for his addiction and to sate his need for physical touch, anchoring against the pull of the soñando, Acacio has taken many lovers and fathered many children, but does not remember any of them.
One of Acacio's greatest loves is Jast Albrin, the augur of the wardens (Paderau is already in the game, I hope I'm okay in simply linking to her app for the background setting of their order). Jast has visited him many times, and has given him a luckstone as an earring in order to keep track of him and protect him from many of the dangers he would otherwise encounter. Already godfather to one of his children after the situation became unmanageable, Jast became a large part of Mahalia's life after visiting to sooth the baby's cries shortly after her birth. Petronel had moved into an old family cabin in the woods after her family's disdain for her pregnancy, and although determined had found herself completely unprepared for the demands of a newborn baby, especially one as fussy as Mahalia. Petronel initially threatened the young man, alarmed by his sudden appearance, but after realising Jast had soothed the baby rather than hurting her, she calmed enough to listen. Petronel clearly needed help, but was still unwilling to return to her family, and so Jast began to visit her and Mahalia as regularly as his duties would allow, and inevitably had a large part in raising Mahalia.
Mahalia grew up somewhat spoiled and cosseted. Petronel chose to homeschool her, belief in her own academic ability plus an over-protective nature caused by her time in the South, and only took her into the nearby towns when such trips were necessary. The majority of Mahalia's outside contact was with Jast, who essentially became a father to her. Growing up around his preference for speaking in birdsong, Mahalia had learnt to understand it, and use it partly herself, her progress slowing as she grew older. At fifteen, Mahalia has begun to venture out of her mother's cabin, visiting her godfather at the home he takes as well as several of Acacio's other children who live in the North, led to them by an awareness of the family gifted to her by Acacio's blood. Most recently her wandering has led her across the path of a much darker type of witch, an encounter that would have seen her gravely harmed if she hadn't been rescued by one of her godfather's friends.
Personality: Mahalia's experiences of the world have been mostly contained to her mother, her godfather and her siblings. As a result she is rather naive and idealistic, assuming the best in situations and people without caution. She knows there are dangers in the world, knows many of her siblings and her father still navigate them and live in fear, but she hasn't experienced any herself. She has a romantic view of the world, believing that fate balances itself, gives good things to those who have suffered a lot and punishes those that have been cruel. As such she always endeavours to be kind herself, has a very open and giving heart.
She can be very stubborn about her values and ideals, doesn't like them questioned or attempts to prove them wrong. As sheltered and cosseted as she has been, she can be rather prissy and fussy if teased or argued with, but it's difficult to work her to real anger, she is more likely take it as hurt if pushed that far.
In truth though, Mahalia has an awareness of her family that means she knows exactly how cruel the world and the people in it can be. Her stubbornness in her ideals is less a delusion and more determination to make the world better. This awareness also finds her berating herself often for her sheltered nature, trying to push herself to be stronger when she hasn't grown into it naturally yet, often trying to deny the need for comfort when upset, comparing herself to her siblings and the things they have experienced alone.
Above all she wants to make her parents and her family proud. Because of her mother's academic history and her desire to fully understand and sing beside Jast, this mainly comes through in the way she focusses on her studies, in the more standard subjects her mother has given her, but mostly in her learning birdsong. Despite the extent of her achievements for her age, she is always pushing herself to go further and be better, impatient with herself and frequently frustrated by her limitations.
Abilities: As one of Acacio's children, Mahalia was born with glitter, and could be a rather strong witch when compared to others in her world. However, she is still young, and has not truly been taught how to use it, her godfather's guidance focussing more on teaching her the birdsong. As a result she is mostly a lot of wasted potential.
She has an innate awareness of things around her, but it is not always accurate or clear - she can know if something is out of the ordinary, and perhaps a sense of whether it is malevolent or good-willed - but she can't tell exactly what is different about it. Her only true strengths in this awareness are with identifying things she is familiar with or are similar to things she is familiar with, her constant connection to her family and the ability to know if people that she cares about are hurt or in danger.
Any active abilities she has, she has associated with her godfather's songs, and as such has been hesitant on them because she believes they need a fully formed song and ritual to perform - and she doesn't think she knows enough yet to do either. She can give an atmosphere with her songs as they are, can sooth with lullabies and inspire bravery with warsongs.
If she had more strength, knowledge and confidence, she would be able to manipulate the environment around her in both defence and attack, and heal. As I've stated, though, she really isn't at that level yet.
She understands the songs of birds, and can sing them herself, to an extent. The best way to describe this is in terms of learning a new language. She is practically fluent in terms of being able to hear and translate, but constructing whole new sentences of her own is more difficult, plus the limitations of her physiology in making the sounds themselves.