This post has some character sketches based on a house-rule character quiz I drafted related to the physical and psychic scars of Umbra and Eidolon initiation.
Eidolon Initiation
Pick a defining quality of your character from before their Eidolon initiation, whether physical, mental, or social. Describe how the Eidolon has amplified, sharpened, and perfected this quality.
Pick a particular aspect of beauty, harmony, or order to which the Eidolon has fostered a special affinity in your character. What aspect is it and how does that attraction show up in your personality, behavior, or appearance?
Pick a habit, obsession, or pattern of behavior that the Eidolon has anchored in your personality. What are you stuck on, and how does it haunt you?
Umbra Initiation
Describe a defining quality of your character before their Umbra initiation, whether physical, mental, or social. The Umbra has consumed this part of your essence, destroying or completely warping and transforming this quality. How does this loss or transformation affect your new identity and how you deal with the world?
There's a particular sort of symmetry or order that you're least patient with, after all, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. What form of order do you find most tiresome?
Pick a particular kind of Umbral flaw you're most attuned with, easily perceiving and exploiting it. What is it? How are you most prone to meddle with it?
1. Basileus, The Unthroned, The Tyrant-Rebel
Umbral Initiation Quiz:
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The defining quality of this character was ambition, of amassing and wielding power. A close encounter with the Umbra has dissolved any notion of ambition; every tower crumbles, there is only the play of atoms and void. His ambition is been transformed into a resentment of restriction, of bondage, slavery and control, and instead seeks to put off every such attachment and live in the wilderness, close to the clashing energies of natural forces.
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He is impatient with the order of organized groups of people, command and control, masters and servants, armies and bureaucracies, and tends to act out against them.
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The Umbral flaw most attuned with is the structure of solid matter; so delicate is the balance of formed things, so easily disrupted and dissolved into the play of tumbling energy. Storms, clouds, breaking waves, falling boulders, all these are his friendly companions.
Basileus was a general and leader of men, a conqueror of much of his world. The temptation of greater power, enough to overmatch all his enemies, led him to undertake an Umbral initiation, to storm Hell, as it were, and take its fire unto himself. Yet his strongest characteristic, his ambition, was consumed. Power was no longer a prize, just a relationship to the grand cosmic flow of energies, and as much as he could shape them, they would always go their way. He threw down his throne and undid much of his work of grand empire building, leaving the lands to go their own way, until he finally retreated to the wilds, to dance with the thunderstorms and upon the crashing waves.
He still appears as a warrior, an emperor, or a ruler, perhaps to recall and reproach his past. He persists as a threat, a hanging sword haunting the ambitious who wish to reforge his empire. He is kind to wanderers who might encounter him, treating them with good humor and rustic hospitality, and severe to those who seek to exploit his power to bolster their ambitions, But lately the Stair has claimed him, and he wanders to and from his domain between whatever acts he sees fit to satisfy his distaste for compulsory organization.
- 18 PSY
- 01 STR
- 03 END
- 17 WAR
39 Attributes
50 Umbra Master
2 Domain: Omphalos of the Broken Throne (Personal, Control of Contents)
10 Warden of the Grand Stair
101 Powers, Domains, Attributes
01 Bad Stuff
2. Pipsissewa, Lady Holly-Pink
Umbral Initiation Quiz:
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The defining quality of this character was fear and hesitation; in fact, she was flung screaming in fear into the heart of an Umbral vortex. It consumed her fear and transmuted it into unflappable coolness. Pip will never be intimidated, will never quail, quake, or hesitate when others might. Deadly hostility or impending doom are sources of curiosity for her. At the same time, she is no fool, and has no love of danger for its own sake, though she enjoys teasing others who do not share her fearlessness.
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Pip is irritated by tidiness, by designed order; it seems lifeless. She's likely to move things so that they're off true, or not square to each other, or partly open. Just a deep breath and a puff of Umbra leaves things pleasantly disarrayed, and makes her feel at home.
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Pip most clearly sees the strain amongst other people, and cannot resist baiting them sometimes. But her charm tends to win them over.
Pipsissewa was the youngest and cleverest of a set of noble sisters in a wild forest domain. She feared the wilds -- storms, fires, wild animals, and the hazards of journeys -- and stayed at home by the hearth. This left her at home when a powerful wizard-lord invaded her family's lands. Taken captive, she bargained and sang songs and told stories to make herself pleasant to her captors, but when her family and their allies pressed a counter-attack, her captor threw her into an Umbral vortex as punishment for their audacity and as a sacrifice to raise more energy. Instead, her own latent powers burst forth in an Umbral initiation, consuming her fear and transforming it into a cold impulse for revenge. Coolly, she took apart the invader piece by piece, first the wizard-lord, then his men, until the remnants fled in fright. The effort left her tired and hungry, but calmly satisfied.
Her transformation has not made her more social; in fact, she tends to be impatient with her noble peers' half-hidden bickering and prideful displays. After enough cutting words, she stopped getting invitations from the proud and ambitious. Content to be friends with her true friends, even if their friendship might blow hot and cold. Being a mistress of sarcastic jibes and a casual wielder of the Power of Disorder and Dissolution who no longer feels fear can eventually make people feel creepy. That's all right, she's happy to move along and see them again someday.
- 25 PSY
- 01 STR
- 01 END
- 08 WAR
35 Attributes
50 Umbra Mistress
10 Warden of the Grand Stair
1 Gossamer World Ally. Pip can count on her family to be on her side, though she doesn't tend to stay long, since they tend to grate on one another.
2 Mentor. A traveling Lord of Gossamer spotted her potential and helped attune her to the Stair.
98 Powers and Attributes
02 Good Stuff
1. Kalokairi, The Eversummer Queen
Repeated from the earlier character entry, with Eidolon Quiz added.
Eidolon Initiation Quiz:
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Kalokairi was her title as Queen of the Summer, when she reigned over warmth, growth, blooming and fruiting. The Eidolon has strengthened her connection to these qualities. As she used the power of Eidolon to repair her domain, the Orbs of the Wheel, this connection remade the world, brighter, more blooming, each living thing seeking to flower and shine. Her strength is in healing, growth, and heartening energy.
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(Affinity)
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(Attachment)