(no subject)

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Galla (Amaia)
CHARACTER AGE: 99, but appears to be in her mid to late 60s
CANON ORIGIN: Original
CHRONOLOGY: Post-apocalypse, waiting for the world to be habitable
CLASS: Hero and Mentor
HOUSING: Open to any housing situation, especially if there are a bunch of dumbass youths around

BACKGROUND:
Galla's world is one where the industrial revolution has yet to happen outside of a few select cities in the most advanced countries and where magic is as real as anything else in our world. Gods are a fact of life here, although there is still significant debate among the populace of the world about whether they exist or are exceptional mages scamming the populace or are in fact what they claim to be. To be clear though, they're real.

Galla's home country, Hydra, is one of the most inhospitable places on the continent and is home to the most stubborn and determined people there are. The Hydran people have a close and personal relationship with death and worship The Pale Maiden, the goddess of death, decay, and new growth. They believe strongly in the gods and are suspicious of most (they made the dangerous country they live in, after all), but are truly devoted to this goddess of loss. They find solace in the cycle of life and death, and consider dying in battle or in defense of their home or loved ones to be the greatest honor. They wear scars from battle and dangerous hunts like badges of pride. They view death as an integral part of life and, though they will fight fiercely for their life in order to continue to support and guard their families, consider it an honor to die and make room for new generations. They are, in general, a stalwart people who are very suspicious of outsiders and quick to resort to aggression or outright violence if they feel slighted or threatened. This is the culture that Galla was raised in, and while parts of it resonated very strongly with her, she was very much an aberration among her people in other ways.

Galla was born and communally raised in a village outside the closest thing to a capital that Hydra had. She was taught their customs and was especially devoted to The Pale Maiden. Her parents had died when she was young, and so she took exceptional comfort in the cycle that the goddess represented. She became one of the very few priestesses of the death goddess when when hit puberty, and she took her faith with her throughout the entirety of her life no matter what other path she was walking at the time.

One of these paths was her decades spent traveling the world. Although she loved her home, her people, and her patron goddess, Galla became intensely curious about the outside world after moving to her nation's capital and finding the library (sic: a house with a few shelves of books) there. She badgered the keeper into teaching her to read and devoured the different texts which showed her glimpses of foreign cultures and lands and animals, and she was enamored. She made the decision to begin a nomadic life to experience all the things she'd read about and left her home country when she was just 17.

She spent the first few years of her travels running around and doing every exciting thing she could think of, trying to experience all the things she'd read about. She made most of her most important lifelong friendships and relationships in this timespan, adopting a few siblings and meeting a handful of people who would become regular lovers of hers over the years. She established some initial contacts in different countries who she would return to in the future and become lifelong friends with. It was an exciting time of her life when she was truly stretching her metaphorical legs and finding what she wanted in the world.

In her mid-20s she began to feel the itch of desire for a greater purpose. She wasn't ready to give up her travels yet, but she wanted to do something more meaningful at the same time. Ultimately she made the decision to begin to catalogue her journeys and discoveries to send her new knowledge back home where it could benefit her homeland. She began pushing herself even further in her explorations, often getting herself in over her head in risky situations. Once, she'd sought out a dragon's lair and spent weeks on the run from the beast who was outraged that its home had been trespassed on. Another time she found herself caught in the thick of a battle between a coastal country's naval fleet and the pirates that had declared war on them, and she then decided to stay there to help the friend of a lover make it through alive. Situations like these usually came about because of her own foolish recklessness; something she'd yet to grow past at the time. Key words, at the time.

Galla did grow over the course of her travels, and as she neared her 40s she began to make trips back to the Hydran capital herself. She was beginning to feel that itch to do something greater with her life again, but it took some years before she made her next decision. She remembered her love of her country and her people, and returned home in her mid-40s to establish the country's first formal school in the nation's capital. She had assistance from the library's keeper and her own adopted siblings in teaching the handfuls of students they got, and even had occasional guest speakers when her lovers or other foreign friends would come to visit.

The school offered a range of education with the overall goal of either preparing students to return to their own towns and villages to put their teaching to use improving the quality of life in their homes, or in preparing students to begin their own travels outside of the country. As such the curriculum was heavy in applicable trades like medicine or construction, and also had strong courses in the cultures and societies of foreign countries. She wanted her people to be even more effective at living in the swamps and to be armed with the ability to go outside of it, and she was able to see a fair amount of success in the students that were able to graduate from her school.

She also was able to set up a few consistent lines of communication with a handful of countries—3 or 4 that her closest friends called home. The communication was more for sharing news between countries than anything else. She didn't have the ear of any foreign rulers or dignitaries. She just had an eye on some of the public affairs of other lands which, for Hydra, was a first. It was through these lines of communication that she first learned about the oncoming apocalypse. In Galla's late 60s, word began to come through her contacts that droughts were spreading, crops were failing to grow, and the climate in every other country was becoming hotter and hotter. Then, after communing with The Pale Maiden, she learned that the end of the end of the world would arrive before the year was out.

But!! There was a plan among the gods. They each sent their high priests and priestesses to spread the word about the coming apocalypse, and to call for the people of the world to gather in the foothills of the largest mountain range on the continent. The Pale Maiden had never had a high priest, and she chose Galla to spread her word throughout Hydra (who otherwise would have had no one to instruct them.) Galla returned to Hydra and marched from one end of the country to the next spreading information about the apocalypse and the gods' request. She paused in the capital for several weeks to pack up all library and school supplies, and to give people time to gather there and prepare for the march to the gods' meeting place. She wasn't able to convince everyone to join her, but she did lead a group of several thousand people out of Hydra and to the designated mountain range.

When they met with the evacuees of other countries, Galla took it upon herself to lead interactions since she was the most experienced with other cultures and was able to both understand the motivations of foreigners and to advocate for the needs and wishes of her people. It's thanks to her that they were able to keep a relative peace with others while they waited on remaining evacuees to arrive and for the gods to finish their preparations.

Finally, after several months of waiting, the gods revealed that they had prepared an underground stronghold to weather the apocalypse in. They planned to stay underground for several years while the world above them was destroyed. Then, when the apocalypse passed, they would recreate life on the surface and allow the people to return to a renewed world. They would also graciously halt the passage of time for the populace, meaning that none of them would age as long as they were in the stronghold even though time outside would continue as always.

Unfortunately, turns out you can't just outlast a true apocalypse even if you're a god. The apocalypse had occurred because the sun goddess had effectively gone supernova, and there's just no undoing that. So, several years underground turned into a decade, and then into two, and by the time Galla is pulled into the world of Mask or Menace, she and the people of her world will have been underground for over 30 years. In this time, Galla has continued to act as the leader of her people. She manages negotiations with people of other countries, relays information from the gods, and when there's a significant problem (a cave in or other disaster), she frequently leads the efforts to deal with the issue.

PERSONALITY:
Galla is, first and foremost, a citizen of Hydra down to her core. She shares the level of stubborn determination that people of other countries would call mad, refusing to back down unless the odds are against her are truly overwhelming—and sometimes not even then. This was definitely born from over-confidence in her youth, but old age has worn away the arrogance and left behind a woman who is very keenly aware of her limits and capabilities. When she sets her mind to do something, she's very sure she'll succeed in it regardless of how reckless it might appear to someone who doesn't know her.

Of course, at her age most of the risks she takes on now are political in nature. She does miss the heat of battle like nothing else, but there is seldom reason for her to do more than help fill the ranks on a hunting trip. Instead she takes her risks in negotiating with representatives of other countries to try to get the greatest benefit for her people. She's a very shrewd negotiator and, though she has become skilled at compromise and listening to what people want most, always has the needs of her people as her first priority.

And, while she's devoted to her people, she's got an even fonder place in her heart for the youths. Although she hasn't led a school in years, she's still eager to offer guidance and support to her peoples' children when the opportunity presents itself. It's common to find her taking a break from her duties as a leader to deal with some squabble or other concern of local children. She has a patience for them that she doesn't grant to adults and is much more willing to hear out whatever naive commentary they have on the world. She'll carry on patient discussions with them for as long as she can spare the time for it.

When it comes to adults, however, she has little patience for naivety or arrogance and is quick to scold people for foolish ideas, or even to shut down a conversation entirely if it's going nowhere. This will be less of an issue for some time after her arrival in game however, because she's going to need time to adapt to the modern world and re-assess what is and isn't naive or arrogant in this world. She's always aware of new experiences and is willing to adapt her expectations as a result of them; it's the biggest part of what has made her so successful in her dealings with foreigners in her home world.

All this aside, Galla is a fiercely loyal friend. Her devotion to her lovers and the family she's chosen for herself throughout her life is unparalleled. She would give her life for any one of them (if she ever felt it was necessary), and is always happy to support them in whatever they're doing in life, whether it's calling them out on being dumbasses or offering a stoic shoulder for them to cry on. She's not always the best at dealing with complicated emotions, but she does her best.

Finally, it is worth noting that Galla has a fierce temper. In her near century of life she's had a long time to learn restraint and to become skilled at keeping her anger in check, especially when she's in formal talks or negotiations. But, she is still quick to let loose with a string of curses, and it's not unheard of for her to lash out and wollop some poor fool with her staff if she's pushed too far.

POWER:
Maiden's Touch is a power set she received from The Pale Maiden as high priestess. It's got 2 parts: decay and growth. She can inflict decay or rot on organic matter, including living creatures. The rot is localized to the spot she touches, but can spread if left untreated. Basically will become a case of gangrene if the damaged area isn't healed with someone else's power or amputated, or repaired if it's a building or other non-living thing that's affected.

With growth, she is able to speed the natural processes of growth or healing in organic life. She can cause plants and insects to grow and reproduce at a rapid rate in a localized area (contained to a 10 foot space around her), and she can also speed the natural healing process in living creatures. This healing boost cannot regenerate lost limbs or other bodyparts, and does still leave a scar. It's just normal healing sped up to a just a minute or two.

Apothecary's Staff is an intricately carved walking staff that Galla received near the end of her traveling days. It was a gift from a close friend of a naval officer that she'd helped guard in battle, and it's filled with a number of small compartments and reinforced with metal and a little magic to prevent it from breaking easily. The different compartments are filled with fine needles and dried and powdered herbs that she can use in combat. The items that will be available from the staff include:

A fast acting paralytic that can paralyze the limb of a grown adult for 20-30 minutes depending on tolerance levels.
A numbing agent that can be paired with the paralytic for emergency field surgeries
A powder that induces sleep
Antidotes for each of these
One that has a calming effect, commonly used in the aftermath of battles or other traumatic events to help soothe panic. Also used recreationally when Galla just wants to have a good time.
Fine needles that can be used to administer a dose

The staff has 5 additional compartments that can be filled after she arrives in Mask or Menace. Anything else that she adds to the compartments after arriving here will have to be manually refilled, while the items listed above will regenerate in the staff (which is a non-canon addition, but I prefer not having to seek out sources for the basic set of herbs she has.)

Earth Magic is just what it sounds like. Galla is capable of summoning crude barriers of dirt or stone, launching stones through the air, creating very localized earthquakes (limited to an area about the size of an average parking space), and opening up small pits (also limited to parking space size, depth ranging from 8-12 feet).

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: Are there really people out there able to read this?
I still find that a little difficult to believe, but even so... I suppose I just need to have a little faith.

In any case, I'm hoping that someone will have some good suggestions for me. I'd like to learn more about this world. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. The kind of place that it's hard to picture anyone even dreaming up, but here it is!

I've already given up on the idea that this is some fever dream, so I'd like to know where the best libraries this world has to offer are. A school would do too. If there are any willing to take on a student at my age, that is.

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: TDM

FINAL NOTES: