So last post I made up a random character in about an hour. I wound up really hating the pic and wanted to redo it. I spent hours on it, and along the way, I had to come up with a story to connect with the character so I could create her. I mean, lets be honest, this started off as cheesecake. I really didn't care and because of that it sucked. Hardcore
You can find the full explanation of the process on Deviant Art. Here I will regail you with the story.
First
THE SETTING
Some time in the near future, a flesh eating airborne virus is born called “the mist.” There are two versions of the mist pathogen a plant version, and an animal version. There are three stages, infection, growth, and consumption. In the case of animals, the infection begins in the brain. Initially, the virus takes up residence slowly, allowing the host to grow and mature. At a certain point, which is different for all individuals, the virus begins to stimulate hormone production. This causes the host to grow in mass. While stimulating hormone production the virus also stimulates cancerous growths. At a certain critical mass, the virus stops producing and starts consuming. Eventually a one to one conversion rate is reached, for every one cell there is one virus and the host eventually becomes an airborne bluish mist.
The virus takes anywhere from 10 years to 10 days to kill, but it has a near 100% kill rate. Eventually, so many had died, and there was so much virus mist that the world became covered in a 1000ft thick sheet of mist. The virus can’t survive in higher altitudes. All of the costal and plains areas of the worlds were abandoned and the survivors now reside in the mountainous areas.
In the hundreds of years that followed, the corporate entities became the governing body when governments proved ill equipped to deal with the crisis that faced them. This led to a kind of medieval pseudo governmental organization; corporate vice presidents became lords, and the CEOs became kings. During this transition they controlled and manipulated education and the media. Society regressed and what was technology and science became magic. Electricity became mana. Common knowledge became unknown and forbidden secrets. Scientists, inventors, and the technologically adept became the Magi. The Magi control all of the secrets of science and as such control the everyday workings of society. They induct anyone whom they deemed intelligent enough to deal with technological and scientific data and if the inductees don’t make it through the training, they are exiled to the mist. The Magi are funded by the CEOs, and enjoy more luxury than any one. Because of this they are really just tools of the governing body.
The world itself has long run out of oil, and as such the prevailing fuel has become water. The hydrogen in the water molecule is used for a cold fusion reaction. Though the Magi call it “mana extraction” the engines that extract the energy are called “Extractors.” Water is now the hot commodity. Ground water and rainwater are used for the things like drinking and washing. The Magi, who control and focus the weather, strictly control Rainwater. Ground water is strictly controlled by the corporate entities that pump and distribute it. Water that is used as a means of energy needs to be mined out of the mist. Now, despite our planet being over 70% covered in water, the CEOs and VPs have manipulated the information. The average citizen thinks that water is a scarce resource.
The mages, unwilling to lose what power they have, support the corporate assertion, and vehemently hunt and kill anyone who opposes this idea. Their excuse is that by encouraging the belief that water is plentiful, they are encouraging people to waste water, and this is harmful to society and tantamount to treason.
Water is mined from huge air ship powered by “magic” that Magi maintain strict control of. If the crews of any of these ships begin to hint at the possibility of water being plentiful they are quickly brought in line with the corporate mantra, or disposed of.
In recent years, population control has become of utmost concern to the corporations. They are attacking this problem by either starving whole communities of energy and food, or by selecting what they deem “unnecessary” people and sterilizing them.
This has led to an underground resistance that is attempting to fight the corporate power structure. However, they have no magi, no weapons, and are really a minor irritant to the corporate structure.
Though, the resistance may win its freedom if it can merely bide its time. Some say that the mist is clearing, even lowering. Maybe someday, things will return to the way they once were. Maybe.
THE CHARACTER
Name: Rebecca Ryan
Alias: Brigid “Bux” Kildare
Nicknames: “Buxom”, B. B. , B.K.
Age: 22
Born: 2462 Aug 15
History: She spent her early years in the care of her mother and father. Her father was a noble. When her mother passed away a local mage noticed her solving a Rubik’s cube. She always had an affinity for solving puzzles and making sense out of what most would deem as chaos. The mage noticed right away that she was very intelligent and had great potential as a mage herself. She joined the mage academy late in her life at the age of ten; she excelled skipping several years of the normal 20-year mage course. She was a prodigy and understood her lessons immediately. During her tenth year (she had only spent three years on the program at this point) she was expelled. She was expelled for assault. She beat up five boys. Though, they way she tells it, they assaulted her first. However, she had a few bruises and between her five attackers there were three broken jaws, two broken femurs, ten broken ribs, and one boy was hit so hard in the crotch a vein ruptured in his anus. Brigid was able to do this because she had, and continues to practice several martial arts. She enjoys the idea of logic applied to motion as a means of meditation and discipline. Although she is certainly no master, she can defend herself in most situations. The magistrate called her “assault” an excessive use of force and expelled her from the academy. This can be traced as the root of her hatred and dislike for both hypocrisy and authority. In order to keep academy secrets secret expulsions and their families are exiled to the mist. After her expulsion, her father was sentenced to live in the mist and supposedly died there, before she could be sent to the same fate one of the boys she attacked allegedly helped her escape. He was reprimanded, but not expelled. After arriving in the eastern territory of the northwestern continent she took up a new name and a new life. Doing odd jobs here and there for five years. At the age of 16 she wound up as a farm hand in one of the very few small towns left, above the mist. She spent the next 6 years there. During which time she took up wearing a bodice. Brigid had always had chronic back pain because of how kind puberty had been to her. And the head of the farm where she worked discovered that she had been stealing his magi created pain pills to compensate. The head of the farm didn’t want to fire her, because she worked without complaint to this point. His wife, who was a short and stocky, but very well endowed for her frame, gave Brigid a very old bodice. The antique bodice supported her endowments much better than a modern bra thanks to the strong whalebone in the bodice’s frame. It alleviated much of her back pain. When asked why she just didn’t have the magi reduce her breast size she responded, “I like who I am. The Magi do not. There isn’t a single mage the wouldn’t turn me in and even if they wouldn’t, I can’t take that chance because what the Magi authorities would do to my whole body pales in comparison to a slight back problem.”
She currently works for an airship full of water miners and mercenaries. She, oddly enough, works as the ship’s mage. She obtained the job thanks to providence. She was part of the ship’s maiden voyage as a passenger. The village in which she lived had come upon hard times, they couldn’t afford water packs to power their equipment and she decided to stow away on the ship to attempt to steal some of the water onboard. During which, the assigned mage attempted to sabotage the ship once it became apparent that the captain wouldn’t adhere to the agreements laid out in her contract. The Captain elected to take water to the small village that Brigid had come to call home before taking it to the main city. The mage protested by supposedly breaking the engine beyond all repair. Brigid knocked out the mage before he could escape, stole his matter gauntlet and before the ship plunged in to the mist was able to repair the damage done. The mage escaped from the ship once they made port, he contacted the Academy to tell them of someone who knew how to use a Matter Gauntlet, but wasn’t a member of the magi. This led to a manhunt in the village. The Captain offered Brigid an escape if she would take up the mantle of ship’s mage. Afterward, the Captain gave Brigid the honor of naming the new ship, since she would be the one taking care of it.
She named it Isbri
"Mistress of the Four Winds,
Mother of All which Dwell in the Air,
Eternal Antagonist of the Lords of Law,
She who Breathes the Life of the World,
The Bringer of Gales, Hurricanes, and Tornados."
Brigid is smart and strong, but because of her history she has some intrapersonal issues. Her years in exile caused her to avoid relationships and moving from job to job means that her ability to communicate is sub par. Her high intelligence and quick thinking means that she’s usually three steps ahead mentally of those around her. The problem is that she’s unable to communicate effectively where she is in her thought process. This leads to her dismissing others around her as intellectual infants and outbursts of anger when those around her “don’t get it.” She also conflicts with authority and tends to take any opportunity to jump ahead and ignore what the authority says to do in order to accomplish the same task more efficiently. Many employers did not appreciate this trait. This has led to several conflicts with her employers as well as the Captain on the Isbri. In fact, the only ones who ever seemed to encourage this personality trait were the old couple that ran the farm she worked on. Which is why she has such a strong attachment to them. She also has odd relationships with men and often assumes that they all have a singular intent. Though she is not above using her body to manipulate men to get what she wants, every time she succeeds she thinks less of the male gender.
The first impression most of her is almost always wrong, and she delights in proving that fact. Though this process usually alienates people, those who stick with her find her to be a loyal friend with a steadfast sense of right and wrong. She quoted Mark Twain once by saying “The mark of a true friend is someone who will stick by you even when you’re wrong, because almost anyone will stick by you when you’re right.”
Mega Kudos if you took the time read that.
Sorry, Election = shitty connection for some reason
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