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earthbones) wrote2017-09-09 11:45 am
earthbones) wrote2017-09-09 11:45 am
Entry tags:
ooc: application
PLAYER
Name: Mhairi
Age: 28
Contact: deathwailart @ plurk, bansheesquad#0389 @ discord
Other Characters:
Araceli Bonaventura |
foxsays | Original (rifter)Morrigan |
arcaneadvisor | Dragon AgeYngvi |
inagutterson | Original (native)Interests: I'd like to explore a rifter who won't fit in as easily given her views and outlook on life; on the surface she looks like any other elf but bosmer have some very different views. Someone here for combat and doing shadier things, not interested in elven artifacts but who has a more valid perspective on elven matters as well as actually caring more about their status as a rifter vs assimilating into Thedas.
CHARACTER
Name: Brónach (you need to be a tenth level friend to unlock all her titles away from Skyrim)
Canon/OC: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Canon Point: post-main plotline (sidequests etc linked in history)
Journal:
earthbones Age: 37
Canon World
The wiki tells it better but let me summarise it a bit
The Elder Scrolls is set in Tamriel with a world that combines very limited technology elements, some various medieval era elements from the real world, and high fantasy in the form of widespread magic, magical beasts such as dragons, and travel between parallel worlds, and the Imperials, an Empire not unlike the Romans. A religious world, there are two main classes of immortal being. The Aedra, one of the two groups of immortals involved in the creation of the world, with their name roughly translated into "our ancestors" and to most cultures on Tamriel they're worshipped as gods. The other group of immortals are a group of spirits called Daedric or Daedric Princes, sometimes viewed as gods or demons. Their name translates into "not our ancestors" but there are often cults all across Tamriel to them.
There are many races in this world: the cat-like Khajit and scaled Argonians, the many types of humans (Nords, Bretons, Imperials, Redguards), and then the Mer or elves. Often forgotten as elves are the Orsimer or orcs who look very different so they like the Khajit and Argonians are viewed as one of the beast races. The rest are the Altmer (high elves, gifted magic users), the Dunmer (dark elves, stealthy magic users) and the bosmer (wood elves, fine archers, scouts, and thieves). There were once the Dwemer, called Dwarves, who are long gone from Tamriel so long ago that no one remembers that they were even elves, and the Falmer, twisted creatures that desire to destroy the surface world.
Bosmer, like most elves, can live two or three times as long as the other races; 200 is old, 300 is very old, older than that and powerful magic is involved. Hailing rom Valenwood, the Bosmer live in the wilderness, and are viewed as barbarians by many due to how they decorate themselves to resemble the forest and the giant walking trees roaming their home. They're an agile and quick people, which serves them well as thieves, masters of the bow too earning them respect. However, thanks to the Altmer conducting purges in the name of expansion for their people, the bosmer have lost parts of their home to 'consolidation'.
Bosmer also follow the Green Pact where they can't eat, kill, or injure any vegetation as well as giving rise to religious cannibalism known as the Meat Mandate. Bosmer must consume the flesh of their kill – including people – within three days so fasting prior to battle is common as well as family feasts afterwards. For bosmer living abroad, these rules are relaxed since they aren't as easy to keep.
Finally, there's the Wild Hunt. All bosmer are able to do this but it's a permanent transformation into mindless, blood-thirsty monsters consuming first their enemies, then themselves. The bosmer believe that all monsters in the world were born from previous Wild Hunts.
History
(Sorry the main wiki is kind of garbage for providing a plot summary.)
Main quest
Dark Brotherhood
Companions
Thieves Guild
Daedric quests
In a part of Tamriel called Skyrim, right as civil war between the Imperials and Nord loyalists known as Stormcloaks breaks out with the Thalmor conveniently in the background, dragons rose. The leader of the Stormcloaks had recently killed the High King of Skyrim, with he and his followers wanting to secede from the Empire as well as for the most part having very negative opinions to any non-humans. Loyalists however wished to remain with the Empire, wanting that security.
However, as it was foretold that the dragons would rise, so too would a mortal born with the soul of a dragon; the Dovahkiin (Dragonborn). Someone able to defeat them. Able to defeat their leader, Alduin the World-Eater.
Raised in Falinesti, Brónach was forced to leave and found herself in Skyrim caught in a Stormcloak ambush. Instead of a new life, she got a destiny.
Fleeing a dragon attack at the execution she was taken to, she agreed to inform the nearest Jarl about the whole thing. When a dragon attacked his hold, she went along to help fight since she felt like she was owed some sort of payback but when the dragon died, she found she could shout as it had, and the mountains shook. Dovahkiin.
Instead of answering the call of the Greybeards, she decided to ignore all that, hunting and deep down wanting a family again.
Given her arrival in Skyrim, money was an issue. How do you fix that when you're a bosmer? Join the Thieves Guild. Light on her feet, small, stealthy, the work was easy. The people in the Guild were accepting of almost anyone despite the misfortunes that had befallen them, and when the truth was revealed, she agreed to help turn things around even if it meant involving herself with a daedra. Restoring the guild to what it was had become important to her along the way, she'd become invested.
Eventually, she couldn't ignore the whole Dragonborn thing. Joining the Companions to become a better warrior, Brónach finally started to learn how to fight dragons properly since she was the only damn one who could defeat them. But then there was the whole werewolf thing that happened, and given her Wild Hunt guilt? A distraction was in order. Time to maybe see about all this dragon nonsense again until infiltrating the Thalmor embassy happened.
Rescuing a fellow bosmer there hit hard. Angry and hurting, she eventually stumbled into the Dark Brotherhood and stayed. A family where you killed was familiar to her, so she proved herself. Worked hard, got even better at killing. Got revenge when Imperials burned down their sanctuary.
It was after settling her assassin family in a new home that she knew she had to go deal with the World-Eater for good. No she didn't want a damned destiny but she was the only one who could get it done so she would reluctantly, finally, get to it. After all, she was good at killing things.
There's also the quest log write-up mostly for my reference.
Personality
A survivalist, Brónach is fairly low on what you'd call people skills and prefers to avoid populated areas which is a sensible strategy for someone living in a place where you're maybe going to be scapegoated for a lot of problems. Happiest out in the wilderness, she's a very self-sufficient hunter and archer, capable of spending days and weeks without company and without complaint.
The idea of destiny doesn't appeal to her at all, she puts it off as much as possible since her life is one lived in the shadows until she really doesn't have a choice because she realises she has to do something about it. Reluctantly. Which isn't to say she'll do it badly but when you happen to be low on people skills due to avoidance of them, you might not be the one to send to diplomatic parties or war councils.
Wanting her freedom as much as possible and desiring whatever means she needs to keep it, she'll fight, murder, and steal her way to that: the Companions, the Dark Brotherhood, the Thieves Guild, all ways to utilise the skills she'd picked up and talent with the bow to make a living and keep herself alive and with the coin to get by. They all represented a sort of family too which she missed to a degree since she'd been forced to leave Valenwood behind; people united by a similar sense of purpose who don't mind getting their hands dirty when there's a job to be done are her kind of people more than your average merchant or bard going about. They're going to understand leaving murder tableaus across the country and picking pockets more than Generic Citizen #217.
If you can make peace with her blunt nature, her odd sense of humour, some of her eating habits, and her choice of work? If you're in similar sorts of work? You can be family and she'll take care of you in a survivalist teacher-friend way. She really misses family.
That said, she has little issue with betraying random people. She's done it for daedra because she wanted something. Because it was her or them. Because she's going to survive.
(Somewhere going from Valenwood to Skyrim her moral compass fell out of her pocket and glitched through a mountain.)
Brónach follows the bosmer ways as much as possible, keeping the Green Pact including following the Meat Mandate with some allowances made for bosmer living abroad. She's quiet about her faith as is expected of someone living in a time with the Thalmor cracking down on the Nords for Talos-worship but it shapes her greatly. She believes in Forest Gods, ancestor worship and the bones of the earth. The Wild Hunt where all bosmer can be permanently transformed into mindless monsters to stop invaders is something she's hugely fearful of. This is also why she reacts badly to necromancy in ways that are irrational at best since it's very much against the beliefs she was raised with.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths:
Stealth: Brónach is almost ridiculously good at sneaking, she's incredibly light on her feet and spent almost her entire life living in the thick forests of Valenwood amongst the trees with things that might kill you
Favour the bow, eh?: a very talented archer who worked hard to be a near-silent and deadly shot both as a hunter and trained assassin, this is her weapon of choice outside of her trusty dagger
Lightly armoured means light on your feet: Favouring light armour and having plenty of perks in it has given her more confidence in moving in it, aiding her stealth there
Hands to yourself, sneak thief: It's a natural talent of the bosmer to be sneakier than others and she's spent her time in Skyrim honing this to a high degree
Hunter: brilliant, amazing, ridiculous hunter. She's entirely self-sufficient and will happily spend many hours stalking game across the plains or scoping a place out, you can leave her somewhere for hours or days at a time to keep watch on a place and she won't care or get bored. She's great for that.
Poison and disease: as a Bosmer, she naturally has a 50% resistance to poison and disease - handy in Skyrim given the amount of spiders and nasty things you encounter. I think this might translate to her just being pretty hard to poison but obviously not being Blight resistant.
Fearless: in Skyrim she's fought all kinds of wildlife, vampires, werewolves, bandits, the undead and of course, dragons, so she has virtually no fear whatsoever about what she's going to fight. The closest to fear is fighting a necromancer which is more of a cultural issue and it's really a lot closer to revulsion. That and the Thalmor. But that's fear mixed with violent hatred.
Smithing: in order to make sure she doesn't violate the Green Pact, she spent a great deal of time in Skyrim learning how to smith and became goddamn good at it. Even glass and bone aren't a problem for her.
Determinator: Keeps goddamn going through the slog, seriously she will track a thing down and get the job done no matter how awful the conditions, how much pain she's in, how unpleasant the job is. Tell her and she'll do it because you're paying her or well it needs to get done and actually get done so guess what, looks like that's on her.
Generally not weirded out: Given literally everything in Skyrim from dealing with Daedric Princes, being sucked into waking nightmares, hagravens, forsworn, vampires, dragons, etc she's honestly really good at not being weirded out by anything? Her threshold is high so mentally she is damn good with what's going on. Like seriously when it comes to that sort of thing her mental fortitude is good right there.
Mammoth don't you dare: all bosmer have the ability to have an animal ally for a short period (60 seconds), subject to certain limitations
Weaknesses
Squishy: as both a Bosmer and someone who favours stealth, archery and light armour over two-handed weapons and heavy armour, Brónach isn't the strongest person in the world. (eg: even with legendary armour she will still take a beating pretty damn easily from pretty much anything in heavier gear than her)
Meat mandate: despite the rules being relaxed (which she sometimes has to deal with ie buildings and utensils made of wood) for a Bosmer away from home, she still sticks to the Green Pact and Meat Mandate as best she can meaning she does not harm any plants, vastly cutting down what she can actually eat and use ie instead of fletching arrows from branches, she would have to use bows or something else. She must also consume the flesh of all that she kills within three days and thus engages in a great deal of ritualistic fasting before going into battle. People who harm plants catch her ire. Note: I'll have an opt-out for interacting/mentions of anything like this and I'm good for IC consequences when it comes to this part of her life
Magpie: she's done a ridiculous number of quests and some not very nice things (see: Daedric quests) because the lure of gold or treasure is too much for her to resist which leads to her taking on a lot of jobs simply for the coin because she just can't help herself. Seriously, what other reason would she have for dealing with daedra she doesn't worship or for willingly continuing through crypts full of draugr deathlords?
Necromancy: so thanks to her religious beliefs, even compared to most folk, her fear and hatred of necromancy is pretty damn extreme and she's very quick to volunteer to clear out lairs of necromancers and reacts very badly to hearing any discussions of it. Will not react well to it/being around it at all, even more than regular folks would.
Dragon nature: it is the nature of a dragon (and, as they possess the soul of a dragon in the body of a mortal, the Dragonborn too) dominate and destroy and it's only through a great deal of willpower that they can overcome it. There are definite signs with her penchant for intimidation that she does feel this way.
Who am I: so Bosmer can do this thing in times of crisis called a Wild Hunt where they become a monster with no cure that rampages through Valenwood to kill enemies until they devour themselves or have to be killed by their kin, she has some fairly deep cultural anxieties regarding anything that changes her view on what she is. Finding out she's a dragonborn isn't something that ever sits so easily with her and arriving in Thedas with a chunk of weird magic in her hand probably won't really help that state of mind too much? She was a werewolf for a while in Skyrim (thanks Companions) and she's been around the Daedra more than would be recommended.
Everyone in the Elder Scrolls can technically have magic but I'm fine with nerfing that to just have the bosmer racial attribute and I'm also good with you nerfing her shouts since I'm not sure how those would work in Thedas? Dragon shouts function by vocalising the words of power to create magical effects so I'm assuming that'd have to function by her studying Thedosian magic and that certain shouts, such as dragonrend, wouldn't work at all since that involves forcing dragons to understand time. Which they can't in Elder Scrolls because they're very different but in Thedas they're mortal beings. And things like become ethereal wouldn't function at all since that…isn't a thing in Thedas. I'm good with her probably attempting to yell at a dragon and a sad trombone plays because that'd be pretty hilarious and if she actually has to sit her ass down and study them so they become some much weaker and adapted version of Thedosian spells that probably turn her hoarse after and wouldn't make her super OP then I am absolutely down for that one and having her be far weaker at them if she does attempt the shouts compared to say, a Thedas mage doing a spell? (If you want to nerf her shouts entirely I'm also good with that too, whatever works out best for de-video gaming her and balancing with Fade Rift.)
And obviously I'm fine with just making her extremely good at stealth instead of turning literally goddamn invisible because I realise Elder Scrolls is a ridiculous game and I apologise for a lot of my choices in leaving this at everyone's feet.
I'll have a permission's post for the whole Meat Mandate deal for opt-outs and it'll be warned for if/when it ever comes up in discussion. No one needs to deal with any of that mess if they don't want to and I'm happy to deal with consequences for her if/when this sort of thing does get out.
Arrival Inventory
One (1) Daedric bow
One (1) Daedric dagger
Thieves Guild Armour
Kyne's Token
Small coinpurse of gold
Small coinpurse of various gems
More mammoth cheese than you think a bosmer could fit on her person
Slightly alarming assortment of arrows scavenged from various peoples of Skyrim
One (1) falmer ear
'Human'ization
On the surface she looks human but there's the whole 'soul of a dragon' which yeah just go right on ahead and sort her out so she's fully made of the Thedas stuff people I am good with this. Also as described above nerfing/dealing with her dragon shouts and the impact of that is probably the biggest impact here since she looks like an elf. And is an elf. Just with the soul of dragon. (That she technically sold to Nocturnal that one time for the Thieves Guild quest but honestly just go right ahead and make her all normal and junk.)
Fit
I really want to have another rifter that won't be as invested in fitting into the world and who'll be more likely to cause problems. (Selfishly I'd like to play a problem elf too.) Elves, generally, in Skyrim are way more likely to be oppressed by Nords and mostly a certain group of Nord and by other elves so it'd be interesting to put her somewhere she'll have to deal with being stuck with elf prejudice and having to live in a city. Also reacting to the sort of dragons that there are in Thedas and how she can't shout at them or hang out with some of them would be fun too.
SAMPLES
one;
Complaining to Korrin and Anders that she's a better smith than your scrub level smiths, haven't even heard of tempering blades in hearts what is this?
two;
Three days spent tracking the creature. Three days with the rain finding every gap in her armour, her boots sodden, all of her cold, wet, miserable from it falling hard and horizontal to blind even Brónach's keen eyes as she kept after it. Kirkwall hadn't exactly been a welcoming place though she didn't ever expect that, hadn't expected it since stumbling into an ambush years ago but coming to this place--
Behind her someone muttered again, slipped in dirt turned to thick sucking mud that had her hissing through her teeth at them.
"You get swallowed in all that armour," she said in as low a voice as she could that still felt too loud, but this driving rain forced everyone to pitch into something shy of a shout to be heard even right next in the ear of one another, "and it'll be your own damned fault."
All that useless, heavy, clanking armour. The fit couldn't be right for the noise it made as it rattled along behind her, the ache in her jaw every single time the soldier hurried to catch up with her, to take shelter, to make camp, clumsy but at least able to take it off. Unwilling to ask her assistance it seemed. Who'd drawn lots and lost to end up assigned out here with her, split off from the rest of the camp to chase after the demon. Strange tracks, twisted animal bodies, the young soldier praying quietly, fervently and Brónach could respect that much.
"Storm Coast's meant to be the wet one," he groused back at her. Under the strange little plumed cap that seemed to just tip the rain down and under his collar, he blanched, moving with some effort to get free and catch up again as she strained her ears. Something was hissing. "You'd take me back."
"Bits of you."
If the next comment of unnatural was about the weather here on the Wounded Coast, his current company of a rifter, or how she picked out the shot to fire directly into the eye of the spindle-limbed horror that shrieked from the blow as it advanced, Brónach couldn't say but she bared her teeth in a snarl and the boy could at least draw his blade faster than he followed her.
Dragon Shouts;
Whirlwind Sprint
Dragonrend
Aura Whisper
Throw Voice
Marked for Death
Dismay
Bend Will
canon updated
New Canon Point: post-Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs, post-Civil War (Stormcloak victory)
Synopsis:
Civil War
Stormcloaks
Dawnguard; sided with the Vampires
Dragonborn
Key Character Developments: