Felt creative ...
So I wrote a new character for an online game I might play in, for kicks. It's a Mage the Awakening character:
Shadow Name: Ferrum
Name: Irene Orduño
Path: Moros
Order: Free Council
Description: Irene (ee-REH-neh) is a small Hispanic woman with arresting black eyes, usually hidden behind a fall of dark hair. Small of stature and often dressed in overalls for work, Rene is often described as “cute” until she flips her hair back and spears whoever said so with her dark and penetrating gaze. Her face is a little too sharp to be called beautiful, but on the rare occasion that she finds a reason to smile, her features soften and she looks all of eighteen again. Her hands, though small like the rest of her, are calloused from working in the shop and her arms are banded with wiry ropes of muscle. Her fingernails are cut short and usually have a perpetual rime of grease under them. When not working, she can be found in jeans and sneakers, paging through auto magazines or mechanical engineering journals.
Personality: Before her assault and Awakening, Irene was a sunny and optimistic girl, the light of everyone’s day and the joy of her entire family. Now, with her brother dead and her parents shutting down around themselves, Rene is a much different person. This person is capable and practical, with no time for nonsense. Running her father’s shop and trying to hold her family together has left her stretched a bit thin, but she buckles down, grits her teeth and does what is necessary. Rene’s anger is also something new she found about herself, snapping out at people that cross her, especially when she is stressed, which is more and more often, lately. In unguarded moments, when her responsibilities are satisfied for the moment, sometimes Rene’s old self resurfaces, especially when she’s tinkering in her garage. In these moments, she revels in the creative process and in problem solving.
Background: Irene Orduño was the youngest child in a small Mexican American family. Always bright and eager to learn, she made her parents proud by becoming the first person in the family to go to college. She’d grown up helping her father out in his auto shop, and majoring in Mechanical Engineering just came naturally to her. Life was going perfectly smoothly until the summer of her sophomore year, when she was working for her father as she did every summer.
Her older brother Renaldo, though he had a big heart and always put family first, was always getting in trouble. First he got in trouble with his parents, then his teachers, and finally the law. Rene was working on a car in the shop when a bunch of rival gang members found her brother and shot him in front of her. Not content with that, one of the bullyboys held her down, hammered her head into the concrete a few times and, as she lost consciousness, forced himself into her, laughing about the “bonus action” he was getting.
Rene woke up naked in a landscape of twisted metal and a river that ran black and viscous as motor oil, in the distance a rhythmic clanging sound echoed. On the near shore stood a figure shrouded in a cloak, gazing over the turgid river. Turning back toward the naked an shivering girl, the figure said in hollow tones, “You have a choice, niña, stay here with no clothes, no coin to pay your way, and wait for whatever may come.”
“Or,” it whispered, turning toward the source of the rhythmic clanging, “find the lead coin and your true worth.”
“The way is not easy and there will be no rest, but in the end you will truly know yourself. This, then, is the choice before you. Peace and ignorance, or knowledge and strife."
With that, the cloaked figure fell silent and continued gazing out across the river. Not being a person used to inactivity, Irene made her choice and set out across the tortured landscape.
As she walked, her feet were cut by the shards of metal hidden under the layer of rust flakes that fell like snow, her hair was caught and torn in hedges made of barbed wire, and her hands were slashed while climbing over the pitted and rusted bones of extinct mechanical creatures. All the while, the clanging sound got louder and louder, so pervasive and penetrating that Irene's head and entire body started to throb in time with it.
By the time Irene reached the source of the sound, she was covered in rust or blood, she couldn't tell the difference. Looking up wearily, she beheld a magnificent tower. The foot of the tower was made of lead, dull and gray, but each winding step up the side of the tower was a little more refined, until the top of the tower shone with an inner radiance that Irene's eyes and mind couldn't fathom what they saw. It was here, at the foot of the tower, that the clanging sound originated. Irene was somehow not surprised to see the same cloaked figure hammering at something small set on an anvil made from the substance of the tower itself.
When Irene approached the tower, the figure stopped hammering and turned around to face her, but the sound continued. Pushing back the cowl of the cloak, the figure revealed itself to be Irene, but a version of herself as strange and wondrous as the tower. He naked skin gleamed like metal polished more smoothly than any machine was capable of and stars shone in her eyes, as if they opened up into the cosmos.
Horrifically, the source of the clanging was an image reflected in the mirror skin of Irene's shining metal doppelganger. It showed Irene, bleeding on the floor of her father's garage, the clanging sound was her head being repeatedly hammered into the concrete by her rapist.
Staring at her impassively for a moment, the gleaming being finally spoke in tones that shivered and sang like a struck diamond,
"You have strong metal in your soul, niña, but it is unrefined. Impurity has been introduced into the matrix, but the mix is very delicate. Too much, and you become brittle, breaking at the first stress. Too little, and you remain soft, bending and shearing under pressure."
Stars moved slowly in the eyes of the being. It stared at her,
"The smelting process is ... difficult. There will be pain ... and it is uncertain whether the finished product will be without .. flaws. But if the formula is correct, the impurity will strengthen the matrix, resulting in ... perfection."
The metallic being punctuated the last word with a light clap of its hands, causing a ringing tone that was felt more than it was heard, a tone that seemed to last forever, hanging in the chambers of Irene's soul.
"Shall we begin?" The being held its hand out to Irene.
Irene looked at the perfection of the being's hand and then looked down at her own had, bleeding and covered in rust. She turned her gaze back toward the gleaming form, not trusting herself to speak, but pleading with her eyes. How could she mar that beauty with her blood?
The being only stared back at her, but in its eyes Irene could sense an infinite well of patience. It did not judge her or want anything from her, it only waited calmly for her response. She reached out and took its hand.
Irene's blood, mixed with the rust from the strange land, tarnish the burnished hand of her inner perfection and it nodded. Then it reached down to the anvil and picked up what it had been hammering on, an obol of lead from the foot of the tower. Turning Irene's hand over in its palm, the being placed the coin in her hand, before saying, "Some souls are flawed, and cannot be refined. They are weak and must be destroyed, returned to scrap to begin again."
The image reflected on it's skin showed Irene her rapist, only now she could somehow see inside him to his core, where his rotten and pitted soul hid like a rusted lynch pin, ready to give way. And give way it did, just as the strut holding up the frame of the car she had been working on gave way, crushing him under tons of metal, but leaving her unharmed.
A week later, Irene sat up in the hospital bed, he mother and father dozing in chairs beside her. She was Awake.
Shadow Name: Ferrum
Name: Irene Orduño
Path: Moros
Order: Free Council
Description: Irene (ee-REH-neh) is a small Hispanic woman with arresting black eyes, usually hidden behind a fall of dark hair. Small of stature and often dressed in overalls for work, Rene is often described as “cute” until she flips her hair back and spears whoever said so with her dark and penetrating gaze. Her face is a little too sharp to be called beautiful, but on the rare occasion that she finds a reason to smile, her features soften and she looks all of eighteen again. Her hands, though small like the rest of her, are calloused from working in the shop and her arms are banded with wiry ropes of muscle. Her fingernails are cut short and usually have a perpetual rime of grease under them. When not working, she can be found in jeans and sneakers, paging through auto magazines or mechanical engineering journals.
Personality: Before her assault and Awakening, Irene was a sunny and optimistic girl, the light of everyone’s day and the joy of her entire family. Now, with her brother dead and her parents shutting down around themselves, Rene is a much different person. This person is capable and practical, with no time for nonsense. Running her father’s shop and trying to hold her family together has left her stretched a bit thin, but she buckles down, grits her teeth and does what is necessary. Rene’s anger is also something new she found about herself, snapping out at people that cross her, especially when she is stressed, which is more and more often, lately. In unguarded moments, when her responsibilities are satisfied for the moment, sometimes Rene’s old self resurfaces, especially when she’s tinkering in her garage. In these moments, she revels in the creative process and in problem solving.
Background: Irene Orduño was the youngest child in a small Mexican American family. Always bright and eager to learn, she made her parents proud by becoming the first person in the family to go to college. She’d grown up helping her father out in his auto shop, and majoring in Mechanical Engineering just came naturally to her. Life was going perfectly smoothly until the summer of her sophomore year, when she was working for her father as she did every summer.
Her older brother Renaldo, though he had a big heart and always put family first, was always getting in trouble. First he got in trouble with his parents, then his teachers, and finally the law. Rene was working on a car in the shop when a bunch of rival gang members found her brother and shot him in front of her. Not content with that, one of the bullyboys held her down, hammered her head into the concrete a few times and, as she lost consciousness, forced himself into her, laughing about the “bonus action” he was getting.
Rene woke up naked in a landscape of twisted metal and a river that ran black and viscous as motor oil, in the distance a rhythmic clanging sound echoed. On the near shore stood a figure shrouded in a cloak, gazing over the turgid river. Turning back toward the naked an shivering girl, the figure said in hollow tones, “You have a choice, niña, stay here with no clothes, no coin to pay your way, and wait for whatever may come.”
“Or,” it whispered, turning toward the source of the rhythmic clanging, “find the lead coin and your true worth.”
“The way is not easy and there will be no rest, but in the end you will truly know yourself. This, then, is the choice before you. Peace and ignorance, or knowledge and strife."
With that, the cloaked figure fell silent and continued gazing out across the river. Not being a person used to inactivity, Irene made her choice and set out across the tortured landscape.
As she walked, her feet were cut by the shards of metal hidden under the layer of rust flakes that fell like snow, her hair was caught and torn in hedges made of barbed wire, and her hands were slashed while climbing over the pitted and rusted bones of extinct mechanical creatures. All the while, the clanging sound got louder and louder, so pervasive and penetrating that Irene's head and entire body started to throb in time with it.
By the time Irene reached the source of the sound, she was covered in rust or blood, she couldn't tell the difference. Looking up wearily, she beheld a magnificent tower. The foot of the tower was made of lead, dull and gray, but each winding step up the side of the tower was a little more refined, until the top of the tower shone with an inner radiance that Irene's eyes and mind couldn't fathom what they saw. It was here, at the foot of the tower, that the clanging sound originated. Irene was somehow not surprised to see the same cloaked figure hammering at something small set on an anvil made from the substance of the tower itself.
When Irene approached the tower, the figure stopped hammering and turned around to face her, but the sound continued. Pushing back the cowl of the cloak, the figure revealed itself to be Irene, but a version of herself as strange and wondrous as the tower. He naked skin gleamed like metal polished more smoothly than any machine was capable of and stars shone in her eyes, as if they opened up into the cosmos.
Horrifically, the source of the clanging was an image reflected in the mirror skin of Irene's shining metal doppelganger. It showed Irene, bleeding on the floor of her father's garage, the clanging sound was her head being repeatedly hammered into the concrete by her rapist.
Staring at her impassively for a moment, the gleaming being finally spoke in tones that shivered and sang like a struck diamond,
"You have strong metal in your soul, niña, but it is unrefined. Impurity has been introduced into the matrix, but the mix is very delicate. Too much, and you become brittle, breaking at the first stress. Too little, and you remain soft, bending and shearing under pressure."
Stars moved slowly in the eyes of the being. It stared at her,
"The smelting process is ... difficult. There will be pain ... and it is uncertain whether the finished product will be without .. flaws. But if the formula is correct, the impurity will strengthen the matrix, resulting in ... perfection."
The metallic being punctuated the last word with a light clap of its hands, causing a ringing tone that was felt more than it was heard, a tone that seemed to last forever, hanging in the chambers of Irene's soul.
"Shall we begin?" The being held its hand out to Irene.
Irene looked at the perfection of the being's hand and then looked down at her own had, bleeding and covered in rust. She turned her gaze back toward the gleaming form, not trusting herself to speak, but pleading with her eyes. How could she mar that beauty with her blood?
The being only stared back at her, but in its eyes Irene could sense an infinite well of patience. It did not judge her or want anything from her, it only waited calmly for her response. She reached out and took its hand.
Irene's blood, mixed with the rust from the strange land, tarnish the burnished hand of her inner perfection and it nodded. Then it reached down to the anvil and picked up what it had been hammering on, an obol of lead from the foot of the tower. Turning Irene's hand over in its palm, the being placed the coin in her hand, before saying, "Some souls are flawed, and cannot be refined. They are weak and must be destroyed, returned to scrap to begin again."
The image reflected on it's skin showed Irene her rapist, only now she could somehow see inside him to his core, where his rotten and pitted soul hid like a rusted lynch pin, ready to give way. And give way it did, just as the strut holding up the frame of the car she had been working on gave way, crushing him under tons of metal, but leaving her unharmed.
A week later, Irene sat up in the hospital bed, he mother and father dozing in chairs beside her. She was Awake.