#niosiki cranta

[angrennufuin]

Beach behavior post

Reminded of this idea by Jules, but the initial twitter thread is from June 2021:

How do your characters feel about the beach? What do they wear? What do they do when they're there? Do they get sunburned or tanned or actually wear enough sunscreen like some kind of monster? Gimme the beach takes!

Sûl has an enormous sunhat and spends most of her time under a giant beach umbrella wearing impractical Haute Couture swimsuits with filmy coverups and ogling beachgoers. She still gets horribly sunburnt and has to spend the following day lying in a dark room and wincing at sudden movement.

Lin has already made friends with the nearest beach volleyball team, tried unsuccessfully to surf, swum out inadvisably far and got slightly mesmerized by the pull of the ocean's vastness, caught a sheepshead fish and screamed but cooked it anyway. She's having a GREAT time. (Linmir tans shockingly dark and her hair bleaches shockingly white. She wears luridly patterned bikini tops with men's swim trunks and open Hawaiian shirts.)

Nee has gone full tidepool science and is collecting samples and shells and stuff. She wears watersocks or flippers, one of those giant goggle masks that go over the nose, and an incongruously frilly one-piece; she keeps excitedly pointing out interesting organisms she spots while swimming. She tans! But she wears a LOT of sunscreen, because she once read an article about skin cancer and has been paranoid since. She keeps wrestling her drow friend, Lylah, into putting more sunscreen on.

New kids coming in separate addition! Ah, 2021, having only 3 characters... What a time.

[owlbats]

7, 36, 47!

7. Describe your character’s current appearance: clothes, armor, scars they’ve picked up along the journey, etc.

Nee is 3'5" (#gnomeproblems), with brown skin and wavy light yellow hair that she pins back with a wooden barrette that belonged to her dead mother. She wears layers of earth tones, mostly! Here's my old ref image:

Since I drew this, her hair has grown out a fair bit and her clothes have gotten tattery, but she has a nice winter cloak now! She also has three deep scars along her forearm because all mirk characters must be scarred a seahag grabbed her.

36. What would be your character’s theme song/favorite band/favorite genre of music?

Theme song: here, have her playlist. Band/genre: viking metal, probably.

47.How did your character spend their childhood? Where did they grow up/who were their childhood friends?

She grew up ON THE STREETS of the nation's biggest city, vehemently avoided joining a gang, developed a hatred of dirt, picked the wrong disgraced academic to try and fleece for coppers, got adopted by said academic for the purposes of My Fair Ladying the local wizard academy, and accrued a horrible amount of debt/nearly killed herself ensuring that graduated first in her class. She graduated second. She's still mad.

[angrennufuin]

How did everyone get their names?

Asa/Asafoetida: a spice that's kind of stinky but tastes good, which is what the amorphous cloud of fairies that raised Asa thought of their new baby. Asa's last name is Lurk because they live in a swamp.

Aysel: means moon flood. Her parents thought it sounded pretty, and it reminded them of the full moon's light pouring over their rocky little island. Her second name (mostly another personal name than a surname) is Cemre, which refers to the warming of air/water/ground in spring - she was an only child born after her parents had been trying for a long time.

Hongyan Sinistile - the witch that cursed him is Fantasy Chinese and thought it would be funny to name a goose-turned-human a poetic name for wild geese. The Wizard he later met and imprinted upon gave him a surname, which he keeps as a great gift.

Linmir Celemariel: See here. Celemariel = a matronymic, and Linmir is, loosely, "jewel of the marsh," which her mother thought was poetic and was also kind of a dig at her human father: a beautiful gem of a child from a kind of boring man :)

Nee/Niosiki Ilfrith Lindwill Taithion Gnolmes Hirilorn Cranta: I used to have reasons for each of these names and I have forgotten all of them. I believe each grandparent donated one? Gnolmes is because I gave her high int/investigation, and my DM joked that she was "kind of a Sherlock Gnolmes." We started this game in 2017, man.

Rosenrot: her parents had a brick-red baby and went OH, ROSE-RED, LIKE THE FOLKTALE :) and devoted zero further thought to it. She does not have a last name because her parents did not have a recognizable trade and because generally if you say "Rosenrot, you know, the tiefling -- the red one, not the green one" people know who you mean

Silence/Mystra Keep Not Silence: Mystra-related names are traditional for planestouched kids in her family, which has a higher-than-usual rate of planestouched kids. [See here] for other Zarielin family names; they're usually Even Worse.

Sûl: that's a pseudonym babey! It just means wind, bc they're as free-spirited and graceful as the wind ;) It is their current name with friends but not with Friends™ (clients); they're supremely uninterested in telling anyone the name they use with their family.

I try to make names make sense with where a character is from, what kind of society they live in, and what their parents would have wanted to name them (or what name they would have picked for themselves, if applicable), but sometimes it's gonna be a little weak. Especially if I'm working with something other than Elvish. x)

[angrennufuin]

From softest landing to taking it the hardest: amount of dramatics after being broken up with?

Sûl gets "broken up with" on the regular because her relationships are all more or less business transactions, so while she may performatively rend clothes, fling herself dramatically onto couches, etc., she's generally quite fine with it. If someone she actually felt strongly about broke up with her, she would feel worse but absolutely would not tell anyone. So probably softest landing here.

Asa ... may not understand the difference between romantic and platonic relationships? They would cheerfully part ways with you, but they would throw your shit out the window and/or sell it to the pawn shop for three buttons and a poptart.

Aysel can hold a grudge like nobody's business, but has a religious devotion to change and endings as parts of life, so she's pretty philosophical about breakups, apart from the occasional ill-advised challenging-someone-to-a-duel.

Rosen would just get depressed, I think! For, like, months. If she ever manages a proper relationship and not a ... whatever weird thing she had going on prior to disappearing into the woods for seven years, it would be pretty serious and she would not take the ending well.

Nee gets mad and even. With pyrotechnics. Once she's caused massive property damage, she's probably going to be fine with you though!

Silence: this would be her first heartbreak, and as such there will be storms of terrible teenie tears, tantrums in the arms of 2-4 older siblings, probably a few wild-magic related mishaps. Full of sound and fury & signifying ultimately nothing, though said older siblings might make things slightly difficult for the unfortunate ex.

Linmir pretends not to be dramatic but she's the one who did the breaking up and her subsequent dramatics included: running halfway across the continent, joining the mafia, joining a death cult, refusing to speak of her ex or have another relationship for ten fucking years, and generally being a nightmare about things. Can you fucking imagine what she'd be like if someone broke up with her.

Hongyan is in love with a married(?) man(?) who may or may not be deceased(?) or a work of fiction(?) and has centered his entire human existence and understanding of morality around this person. He's absolutely going to cause a scene when it's made clear to him that they're not going to both become geese and live goosely ever after with ten million goslings.

[angrennufuin]

Nee & Oz || 13. Hair Kiss

Titanomachy campaign Context note: Nee and the party ranger, Oz, have kissed a few times but have not had a Relationship Talk on account of being chased across the countryside by hags

The hand posture is the same as it is for Lightning Bolt, but with the wrist at a forty-five degree angle. “Which,” you explain, “should alter the duration radical to make it a series of bursts rather than a straight beam. No more catching you guys in the trajectory. I sacrifice a little on the average impact, but I think the specificity really outweighs that.”

“Huh,” says Oz, peering at the blasted trees you just practiced on. “Just from a minor pose change?”

You wave your hands dismissively. “And a chunk more raw power to fuel it. About one point five times more, so I can’t cast it as often, but it’ll hit like hell when I do. Are you impressed? You should be impressed. I couldn’t do this level of spell three months ago. I’m trying to fix the collateral damage problem we keep having on this team. Because friendly fire sucks, and I am a benevolent god of the arcane. Although, maybe if I mess with it some more, I can get more targets--”

Something warm presses against the top of your head, where your hair is cropped short. Something like a pair of bearded lips, maybe. 

“What!” you say, almost dropping your wand. You spin around to goggle up at him. “What!!”

“I’m impressed,” he says, peaceably. “If you’re not going to burn yourself out using this instead of the other one.”

“You--!” You’re still stuck on him kissing your head, actually. Otherwise you’d give him what-for about how you know your own limits. Your face is scorching. Oz is smirking, the tall bastard. “You! What! If you want to kiss, come down here and kiss me properly! Hey!! Hey, come back here--”

[angrennufuin]

oc ask: quality: the most capable to improvise a speech

OOH, fun one, thanks! For my sake, we're going to pretend that I'm capable of improv'ing a speech when playing any of these characters (I am not, rifp)

Sûl is a bard and they know what they're about. Really good at speeches, really good at sounding believably impassioned, actually took courses in rhetoric as a wee elfling, which you'd better believe none of the rest of these bozos did.

Aysel has a lot of self-confidence and conviction, and she's usually ready to drop a speech as long as it's about something that matters to her. More inclined to speechify than Sûl, and is only at #2 instead of #1 because she's 20 years old to Sûl's entire century, and she absolutely does not have formal training.

Nee can drum up a pretty good academic lecture, but my high school speech teacher would kick her ass for her manifold and egregious digressions. God forbid she have to talk about her feelings!

It gets pretty grim from here on out. Silence rambles easily but not very coherently; she uses a lot of filler words and teenie slang, and only makes it above the halfway mark in this list because she's not bothered by public speaking much! She's used to being in the public eye and only really gets nervous when she feels like her chaos magic is under scrutiny.

Linmir is NOT comfortable doing any kind of public speaking, but she can stumble through a speech if she feels strongly enough about a topic. She had to do a bunch of big speeches in the campaign and was awkward about it but didn't actively die. So we'll count that as a win.

Asa doesn't speak overmuch and doesn't care to. They don't really know what a speech is, in the sense meant in this ask. They're just going to make 3-5 loud declarations that roughly relate to each other and then wander off to do something else.

Hongyan struggles with words also. He throws fits when he can't wrangle them into line for a simple conversation! So speech attempts would likely end in sorrow for everyone.

Rosen is terrified of public speaking: does not want to do it, does not want to think about it, this is the nightmare scenario, please leave her alone. She's fine with conversations, even with strangers, but girl's got baaaad stage fright

[angrennufuin]

Laughter

Silence: extremely loud and undignified gurgling giggles. Snorts frequently. VERY high-pitched.

Sûl: Beautiful, elegant, cascading laugh. Very ladylike. Sounds fake but weirdly isn't? She's just Like That. (Sometimes she ohoho's).

Linmir: often says "haha" out loud instead of actually laughing. When she does laugh, it's a dry, kind of nervous chuckle. Very few things get her to outright belly laugh, so she usually ends up coughing.

Nee: high, wild, mildly unnerving cackles. The closest on this list to my actual laughter. Veers into the witchy and eldritch as she gets more hysterical, but do NOT tell her this.

Hongyan: honk.

Asa: raspy little chuckles like falling leaves, almost silent

Rosenrot: remarkably pretty laughter, very clear and bright. Prone to hiccups when she gets going too much

Aysel: watch this space. Probably another witch cackle!

[angrennufuin]

But wait, I have more: trust in others

MOST TO LEAST TRUST IN OTHERS: shocking no one, most of these adventurers have trust issues.

Silence is a naïve baby and nothing (permanently) bad has ever happened to her. She trusts and loves everybody around her, unless she is actively feuding with them, or her older half-sibs have convinced her they're evil and deserve to be punished.

Asa cannot conceive of people behaving in a manner inconsistent with Fae Rules. What do you mean people actually lie? Sounds fake.

Rosenrot has lots of faith in humanity, but she has that faith mainly because she's going to do everything herself, so she doesn't have to rely on anyone! It's fine!

Aysel is even more grimly determined to be independent than Rosen, and less fond of people as a whole. Orphan gang rise up.

Hongyan believes most people when they talk to him/doesn't really know what lying is either, but he's also inclined to be suspicious and occasionally bite strangers.

Linmir has some pretty chronic issues with trusting others, especially in intimate relationships, but she gets points for wanting to get better and actually, actively working on said issues. We're all very proud of her, but sometimes she wakes her girlfriend up in the middle of the night and says "OKAY IF YOU'RE GOING TO START MIND-CONTROLLING ME INTO BEING YOUR KILLING BLADE, COULD YOU PLEASE WARN ME FIRST, I'D JUST LIKE TO KNOW."

Nee is that EXTREMELY STUBBORN AND SUSPICIOUS measuring tape mark from Mary Poppins, embodied. She assumes most people are out to get her or are making fun of her, and she only bothers to work on this when it actively saddens her Lawful Good teammates.

Sûl, who works for a spy guild, whose pseudonyms have pseudonyms, who plays a slightly different version of herself with every Friend* she spends time with, who has told exactly one of her party members her home address... does not have much trust in others, no.

[angrennufuin]

For OC ranking: empathetic!

In glaring contrast to the last list, Rosenrot gets to be top of the ranking here! She genuinely feels for you! She is holding your hands tenderly in hers! She is looking at you with her enormous brown eyes! She is playing 4D chess to figure out what you need Right Now and how she can get it for you!

Nee, gruffly. She has a good heart and a good-hearted boyfriend to help her when her moral compass gets a little profit-centered. She's gonna be crabby about it and she might not express it well, but she does understand feelings.

Linmir has been an anxious fuck-up for thirty years and spends a lot of time thinking through how everyone around her is or might be feeling about any given thing. Her intuitions on the subject are usually decent, if a little paranoid, and she does her best to say and do things that will genuinely help. Which is better than everyone lower on this list.

Silence is seventeen years old, which makes one a little self-centered even before you factor in the "only child of wealthy guildmistress" component. But she's trying to learn empathy, even if right now that mostly manifests as bursting into tears when faced with someone else's problems.

Sûl is empathetic in the sense that they do often understand how people feel, but do not often share those feelings. They cultivate a very aloof and insouciant persona that is helped along by genuinely not having many people that they're close to; beginning to feel empathy or sympathy for their newfound friends alarms and slightly disgusts them.

Aysel is young and brash and also doesn't have many friends. She understands the basics of empathy and caring about others, but hasn't had much practice and at her current state of character development, does not care to.

& 8. Hongyan and Asa trade off who's more empathetic depending on the day, and neither is very empathetic. They each have a given Most Important Person they're obsessed with but don't really understand, and a gaggle of party members that they regard as wayward children. They and Sûl get lumped in the "didn't get raised right and don't know how to be a person quite yet" box, although both Hongyan and Asa consider themselves well brought-up, for a goose and a fairy's child specifically.

[angrennufuin]

For the oc ask thing: potential for chaos

Hongyan and Asa get to tie for first place, because Asa was Raised By Fae and Hongyan is a horrible goose. Hongyan's first instinct is to make a nuisance of himself and Asa is both mischievous and also not super aware of what constitutes prosocial behavior. We should all be glad they exist in different universes and will never meet (or will they)

Silence. Through no fault of her own, she is a wild magic sorcerer and her estranged dadmom is a luck goddess. So whenever something unusual or chaotic is going to happen, it will happen to Silence. Two weeks ago she tried to blow up a golem and somehow lost her shadow and ability to cast a reflection instead; we await the day she accidentally polymorphs into a sheep.

Nee. High-level casters always have a high chaos potential, imo, and Nee's propensity for chain lightning doesn't help.

Sûl, mostly in the "made out with someone unexpected" way but sometimes in the "blew up a bank" way.

Aysel. She would LIKE to be higher on the list but alas, she is baby (level 3)

Rosenrot and Linmir (paladin crew!) are simply not inherently chaotic. They are out here keeping oaths and being nice to people. Mad lasses, truly.

[angrennufuin]

Movement and posture headcanons: Nee

Based on this meme:

Again, a twitter import.

⋀: stands with feet apart and legs braced, taking up as much space as possible. Center of gravity low(er than just her short-stuff default), shoulders squared. Posture fucking immaculate.

♚: when sitting, she crouches over whatever she's doing like the feral child she is. Shoulders hunched, arms protectively shielding her food/book from prying eyes

☞: talks FAST. Shitty gutter accent that she's painstakingly converted to shitty academia accent. Trips over her words sometimes, esp. when THOUGHTS TOO FAST WORDS TOO SLOW. High & relatively sweet voice, tending toward shrillness. Soprano probably.

➔: walks like a particularly pissy New Yorker. Very fast. Uses elbows liberally. Charges to her destination like a bullet from a gun.

♞: sprints on sheer adrenaline until her reedy nerd legs give out and she eats shit. No form, flailing limbs.

♐: rarely physically fights, so this is about magic! She uses magic as a release of stress and tends to go big or go home - fire spells, lightning spells, big flashy things that annihilate a lot of enemies at once. The relief she feels is partly from the magic but also partly from clearing obstacles in one hit! It gives her a sense of accomplishment and tidiness.

How this shakes out in fighting style: Nee plants her feet, squares her shoulders, and throws herself at the problem. Her gestures are sharp & efficient without many flourishes (unless she's trying to upstage Leif), and her hair Ghibli-puffs with arcane energy (& rage). A lot of her verbal components are screams or swears, esp for the attack spells!

... Also she casts in Gnomish unless she really wants the target to know what she's saying abt them.

♫: Nee does not allow herself a lot of frivolous fun, but she loved folk dances when she was a wee orphan & deliberately carved out time in her busy wizard college schedule to learn all the new dances and use them. She's got a lot of verve and energy in her motions!

☾: prefers to sleep with her back against a wall or against an ally. She doesn't have much trouble snatching naps whenever, but does tend to sleep lightly and toss around a fair bit unless she's sharing a bed. Chronic blanket thief when she IS sharing a bed. Snores squeakily.

☻: unused to physical affection and awkward at implementing it, so she just tucks her face in someone's shoulder/stomach (depends on height), squeezes as hard as she can, maybe thumps them on the back, and then disentangles herself asap. Like a very affectionate mugging.

◆: often kisses on an impulse and misjudges the required velocity; might accidentally headbutt her partner. Rather unfortunately bitey. Technically very skilled (she read a book about it!) but terribly embarrassed about the whole sitch. Inclined to flee afterwards.

[angrennufuin]

The Birthday Post

I think astrology is fun but I don't know much about it, so I gently massage these to give characters birthdays!

Linmir:

♐☀️ Sagittarius sun

♏🌙 Scorpio moon

♋↗️ Cancer rising

"An adventurous voice of reason who needs to put themself first" / "you think you're a psychologist but really you're a codependent trainwreck"

Birthday: December 13, St Lucia's Day. St Lucia is associated with the color red and bringing light into the dark/blindness vs vision, which I think is Lin-appropriate. Pre-Gregorian winter solstice, too!

Sûl

♓️☀️ Pisces sun

♎️🌙 Libra moon

♏↗️ Scorpio rising

"A mystical flirt who needs to learn trust" / "you think you're a work of art but really you're a calculating oversharer"

Birthday: March 5th, National Absinthe Day AND Learn What Your Name Means Day

Nee

this one is still up in the air!

♍☀️ Virgo sun

♈🌙 Aries moon

♌↗️ Leo rising

"A critical thrill-seeker who needs to release perfection"/"you think you're top dog but really you're a girlboss know-it-all"

[owlbats]

i knooooooow nothing about your D&D characters so, 100! 28! 12!

Omg, thank you for asking! I only have two characters total, so l'll do the main campaign one: Niosiki "Nee" Cranta, gnome wizard with a chip on her shoulder.

100. What, currently, is your character the most curious about?

She wants to know how the party rogue suddenly sprouted eerie magic powers. (Hint: it's a warlock pact.)

28. What is currently motivating your character to stay with the party?

Nee went from being a loner orphan to a loner hypercompetitive wizardry student! She has literally never had friends or family before; even though the party has only been traveling together for a few months, they've already been consistently kinder to her than anyone else has ever been. She's having Family Feelings and isn't sure what to do about it but gruffly support them.

12. What is your character’s current goal, summed up in one sentence?

Pay off her student loans; prove the rich kids from her school wrong.