Re-designing Serenity

[Serenity]

Hey all! I'm back after a fairly long hiatus and I think I'll be making the splash and transferring to Balmung once I get my computer fixed. In keeping with the fresh start idea, I want to re-imagine my character and was hoping I could run my bare-ones list of ideas past people to see what people thought and to maybe see if anyone has any exciting thoughts as to how to flesh my ideas out. 

Here's what I have so far:

 

TRAITS :

- adept at magic, low physical aptitude

- Skittish, shy and cautious of others

- prone to the suggestions of her summons, may act out of character

 

 

BIRTH :

- Female Seeker of the sun, born S'Reyne Teh to S'Teh Nuhn and T'rehza Surche. 

- Unwanted from birth due to the scandal of her dual tribe birth, was left mostly alone and shunned by her father. 

 

CHILDHOOD :

- shunned by the tribe for her magical aptitude and evasive nature

- pored over any piece of magic related literature she could find

- practiced mostly with the elements of fire and air

- her loneliness and desire for companionship caught the attention of a pair of voidsent imps

- imps took the form of fire and wind elementals

- called those elements her friends, RED and GREEN (will come up with names later) 

 

TEENAGE :

- rebelled against her tribe, found out truth about her birth

- father recognized the two voidsent, argued with Serenity about it

- father banished her from tribe

- Took the name "Serenity" and gave up her true name. 

- Serenity wandered, strengthening her ties with the pair as she traveled. 

- arrived in Lisa Lominsa and enrolled in the Arcanist guild

- spent years manipulating her elements in conjunction with the summoning practices of the guild. 

 

YOUNG ADULT :

- voidsent began causing hallucinations and weaving their dark suggestions to Serenity. 

- Would randomly find herself coming to in precarious situations; stealing, trickery, indecent acts, etc. 

 

 

 

 

So yeah, this is what I have so far. I know it's bending the rules of summoning but I would like to keep that part of her. At any rate, let me know what you think, please!

[Kilieit]

I think the main thing I'd ask you to bear in mind is that, as it stands, characters might not react well to the summoned creatures. There are three things which I can think of which the average joe might be aware of as "summon-able":

• carbuncle;
  
• voidsent; and
  
• primals, and egi of primals.
  

 

Unless the creatures look like carbuncle, people are potentially gonna be a bit edgy around them...

 

Which... I mean... I'm not all that up on my SMN lore, I gotta admit, but I'm somewhat under the impression that a major, unavoidable part of being able to summon egis (i.e. personifications of elemental magic) "safely" (i.e. without undergoing what would essentially amount to just a primal summoning ritual...) was having been present at the defeat of the corresponding primal in the past, allowing you to "bathe in their aether" at the moment of their demise.

 

Sidestepping this limitation seems like it could have major issues if you ever try to RP your character with another character who is a Summoner - since you'd essentially be suggesting that the hard work and danger that character went through was meaningless.

 

It sounds like your character is something of a pariah from what would normally be her support network, yes? And she imprinted the roles of friends/family upon the elements she was able to manipulate, personifying them? How strong is her attachment to the idea of these personified elements?

 

Would she be lonely enough (and therefore dedicated enough) to, say, go through the hassle of making contact with the Sons of Saint Coinach, the danger of signing up to fight manifestations of Ifrit or Garuda, and the hard work of subsequently obtaining a soul stone and becoming A Summoner (capital job title letters) - in order to achieve her goal of giving form to these elemental companions? (Bear in mind she must either have the Echo (completely possible), make stringent and expensive preparations (supported by fanon if not canon), or be really lucky in order to avoid tempering at the hands of either of these primals.)

 

 

Or - as an alternative - could these simply be personalities/traits that she impresses onto certain custom geometries of carbuncle? Because I don't know how far along the "average person <-> hero of Eorzea" scale you're aiming for, but if it's closer to the average person end, then that's an option.

 

Creating custom geometries seems to involve a large amount of study and just flat out intelligence, as well as contacting other scholars to troubleshoot and receive input on the direction and purpose of the geometry, but if your character has been a hard-line student of arcanima for years then this might not pose so much of a problem. It certainly doesn't require any "super-human" traits like killing a Primal does.

 

 

Of course, there's always the "darker" option - that she thinks she's given her friends sentience, but actually what she's done is welcomed voidsent (probably imps, possibly succubi or dullahan... etc) to occupy whatever forms it is she's created for them. She remains unaware of this until much later. There's plenty of examples citable of lonely, determined, powerful people trying to solve problems for themselves and ending up summoning a voidsent instead. But that puts a completely different spin on the storyline for your character and may not be what you want.

 

 

Last alternative I'll suggest because I think it's cute - mammets. Mammet hearts lend rudimentary sentience to mechanical creatures like, well, mammets, but also larger magitek chassis, and fanon has them providing similar services at the core of various cyborgs, puppets, and marionettes. Could becoming a mammeteer (rather than a summoner) be something closer to what your character would wish to achieve?

 

...I have to admit, the idea of a sentient wind-up Ifrit or Garuda is really, really cute. I mean, have you seen how fluffy the wind-up Garuda is? It's so fluffy.

 

...anyway.

 

 

As a genuine question that I hope might help you get a better handle on this: how far is your character willing to go to bring her companions into the world, as it were?

 

If volunteering for deadly expeditions and contacting esoteric scholars was what it took to give form and purpose to the friends she's imagined for herself, would your character undergo it? What about learning to create or maintain complex magitek devices? Pouring over books to try and understand why the geometry she's spent weeks working on still won't bring a functional carbuncle into the world?

 

Because the answer to that question means a lot when it comes to your character's underlying temperament. And if she's more content to take the "easy way out", or doesn't want to risk herself, well... do you want Voidsent? Because that's how you get Voidsent. (Or, y'know, just straight-up Primals.)

The unfortunate references: Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard); Azys Lla MSQ.

 

I mean, this also could also be a storyline you could run with other players - i.e. she starts out having these desires, and sets out to bring them into fruition with the help and input of the people you meet. But that depends on whether you feel like roleplaying her "going without" her companions or not.

 

I don't know what purpose the summoning thing is serving to you as a player. Why is it a concept you're so fond of? What about it makes it so immutable from her character concept? That might help people make meaningful suggestions about fleshing it out, rather than just taking stabs in the dark like I have been here

 

I hope something I wrote was helpful, at the least...

[Serenity]

Wow Kilieit... That was a lot to digest. I guess what I'm looking for I'd to convey that one of her major character flaws would be that constant yearning for companionship. I suppose after looking at your descriptions, the voidsent or the custom carbuncle could work, but either way, she'd still need the summoner stone in order to have them around. I'm not exactly looking to follow the lore 100%, but the closer I can stick to it the better

[Serenity]

Ok after some thought I did a little editing and changes. Would love more input from anyone who wishes to share!

[Kodie]

Sounds pretty good so far, the Voidsent pretending to be elementals is intriguing, now does she know they are voidsents, or have they been tricking her all this time?

[Serenity]

Sounds pretty good so far, the Voidsent pretending to be elementals is intriguing, now does she know they are voidsents, or have they been tricking her all this time?

 

It would be utter trickery, she'd be under the impression that they were her friends and would have only ever seen them as RED and GREEN

[Kodie]

I think that would make for a good story, hope it works out!