Sabriel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bindsthedead) wrote2020-10-08 08:34 pm
bindsthedead) wrote2020-10-08 08:34 pm
Entry tags:
UPcycle app
Name: Sarah
Age: over 18
Contact info: sarahthesilent @ plurk
Character: Sabriel
Canon: The Old Kingdom series.
Canon Point: Sabriel Chapter 20, just as she and Touchstone are entering the reservoir.
CRAU, Canon AU: N/A
Character age: 18
Canon Abilities/Powers: Hoo boy. First, please note that I will be putting up a permisions post for her powers.
Sabriel's magical abilities can be divided into two categories- her necromancy, tied to her status as Abhorsen (an Abhorsen, she insists), and her Charter magic.
The Abhorsens are a magical bloodline, who carry one of the Great Charters in their blood. What Great Charters are is never exactly explained, but they are described as part of the Charter's foundation, and their destruction or corruption would weaken it. The Abhorsens have an affinity for Death, and are able to use both necromancy(a subset of Free magic) and Charter magic in their task of battling the Dead and Free magic creatures and sorcerers.
Free magic is... complicated, but the important thing to note is that it's chaotic, and that normally, it's inherently opposed to the Charter, making the Abhorsens unique in their ability to use both.
As Abhorsen, Sabriel is able to use necromancy in conjunction with Charter magic. Unlike Charter magic, necromancy relies on willpower channeled through music, and even without her bells Sabriel can exert a limited amount of influence over the Dead, and can sense the presence and relative strength of Dead, as well as sensing where deaths have happened, whether those deaths were violent, and how long ago it happened. She can also determine if a corpse has been moved from its site of death, as well as how long ago it died. Finally, Sabriel can also send her spirit into the realm of Death, leaving her body frozen solid until she comes back to it, and will be deeply confused when she can't do this anymore.
Most of her necromancy, however, is worked through a set of seven magical hand bells.
Ranna is called the sleeper, and forces the listener to fall asleep.
Mosrael is called the waker, and in her own world, acts as a seesaw, pulling the listener into Life and dragging the ringer into Death. A bell Sabriel is highly unlikely to use.
Kibeth is called the Walker, and can grant freedom of movement, or force the listener to walk where the ringer wills- including commanding a spirit to walk back into Death. It also seeks to sound on its own, and can be hard to control.
Dyrim is called the speaker, and its powers are fairly straightforward- it can grant speech to those who have lost it, or take away the capacity to speak.
Belgaer is called the thinker, and can restore free will and memories, as well as restoring the personality a Dead spirit had in life. It can also be used to erase these, shattering minds and memories. Like Kibeth, it will try to ring on its own accord.
Saraneth is called the Binder, and binds the Dead to the ringers will. This is the bell Sabriel uses most often, binding the Dead to her will to force them to truly die.
Astarael is called the weeper, and when rung, sends all who hear it deep into Death- including the ringer. This is canonly a weapon of last resort and will only be used with prior communication with the mods, as part of a plot.
Charter Magic is the branch of magic Sabriel's likely to use most of the time. It's magic that's worked through symbols- they can be spoken, signed, whistled, written, or sometimes just visualized. It can be used for a lot of things, but it has some limitations. (no teleporting beyond making small nearby objects appear in her hands, (no space/time manipulation in general) no creation of matter, no unaided flight (although some mages have created magical aircraft, Sabriel does not have the knowledge), no shapeshifting (Again, technically possible, but Sabriel doesn't have access to this knowledge, and doesn't even know it exists). Mental manipulation seems to be restricted to calming people down and suppressing- but not erasing- memories, and putting in plausible fake ones to cover them up, or alternatively, just wiping out half a day of recent memories. Finally, Sabriel has some familiarity with weather magic, although her track record of using it is... uh, mixed.
Charter Magic has other restrictions- Sabriel needs to visualize the symbols and mentally arrange them, meaning her magic isn't instantaneous- and powerful spells take some time to cast. Break her concentration and the spell will fizzle out or go out of control. Also, very powerful spells place a strain on her body- even with precautions, she'll exhaust herself after using a few, and without those precautions, she'll kill herself or be too drained to cast much magic for at least a week. Also, Sabriel can give this power to others via baptism, with the details of that discussed in the FAQ.
The spells Sabriel is most likely to use frequently include various forms of binding/warding, combat magic that includes both destructive force as well as incapacitating her opponents through either blinding, disorienting, or immobilizing them, and healing. Healing magic in the Old Kingdom universe is useful, able to purge drugs and poisons from the body as well as heal even life threatening injuries, but serious wounds require the person being healed to take a few days of bed rest or light activity afterwards, or the spell will be disrupted and the woulds will reopen.
By using Charter magic to repair the body and necromancy to summon the spirit back, Sabriel can resurrect the very recently dead to true life. In canon, she's only done this once, on a bunny, but in theory she could do it to a person- she just feels she shouldn't, as it goes against her family's philosophy of making sure the dead pass on.
Both types of magic Sabriel uses have a tendency to make technology stop working, a tendency that grows more pronounced the stronger the magic used. If people playing robots/cyborgs don't want to deal with this, I will run with an alternate interpretation- that if a character is metaphysically 'alive' magic will treat them as alive, rather than as technology. (So magic won't break them, healing spells will work on them, and they'll be able to learn how to use Charter magic).
In terms of more mundane skills, she's skilled with a longsword, and seems to have some skills related to wilderness survival, including wayfinding and some knowledge of which plants are edible or have medicinal properties. She attended a fancy totally-not-English boarding school, and thus has a thorough grounding in etiquette that she feels free to ignore unless she's in an uncomfortable situation or has been confronted with a fancy party.
What is their greatest negative emotion towards an object, situation, or person in their past?: Anxiety and fear towards her father- or rather towards the fact that he's been trapped, and is likely to die if she does not rescue him, and her growing realization that she didn't know him nearly as well as she thought she did. By her current canon point, Sabriel has learned that she does not actually know her father's name- only his title, which will pass to her when her father dies, as well as her own ignorance about the Old Kingdom and her family's role in it. She insists that rescuing her father is the main thing that matters, that everything else is just a complication, and at her current canon point is walking into a situation that she knows is a trap and that she doesn't entirely have a clear way out of simply because her father doesn't have much time left. For all that Sabriel is familiar with the realm of Death, she doesn't have much experience with people dying- only the aftermath. And she's not coping well with the possibility of her only family member dying.
How strongly do they feel about the negative subject matter, on the scale of one to ten?: A seven. It's something her thoughts often drift to when she doesn't have anything to focus on, and it motivates most of her actions. Sabriel's initial impulse when anyone calls her Abhorsen is to correct them, and when she takes on her father's role to banish a Dead creature that has been feeding on villagers, her first thought is that her father would have done better when she isn't fast enough to save someone. Sabriel clings to the idea that she can save her father, and that once freed, he will be able to set things to right. Any suggestion that she is the current Abhorsen, or that it is too late to save her father, is met with stubborn denial, with Sabriel insisting at one point that her father is a necromancer, he can't be dead. This denial and fear pushes her to the point that when she is told her father is dead and would not wish for her to bring him back, she insists she could bring him back without hesitation, even though earlier on, performing a much smaller act of resurrection on a rabbit filled her with recrimination and dread, so it's safe to say that her feelings are strong enough to push her to do things she'd normally see as morally wrong.
What is their greatest virtue?: Her determination and willpower. Sabriel is strong willed and willing to take great personal risk to achieve her goal of rescuing her father... including setting out into the unknown territory of the Old Kingdom with only the vague idea of where she needed to go. Even after facing setbacks like getting chased by a powerful monster and crashing a magical aircraft into a sinkhole, Sabriel keeps going, even when terrified or utterly exhausted. Finding out that the Dead creature responsible for trapping her father is ancient, powerful, and ultimately responsible for most of the ills that have faced the Old Kingdom for the last two hundred years frightens Sabriel, but it doesn't make her reconsider her course of action. A day or two past her current canon point, she keeps going even in the face of her own death, accepting it as a necessary price to pay.
When dealing with others, Sabriel is generally courteous, but also direct about her goals, even if they express doubts, or worry that she's about to do something dangerous. Warnings won't dissuade her, although she will listen and if they're persuasive enough, they might convince her to be cautious, or try a different route her goal. If they're not... well, she'll be polite about it, but she'll make it clear she's going to go ahead with whatever she was planning to do anyway.
How aware are they of their virtue, on a scale from one to ten?: Six. A strong will is vital to practicing necromancy, and Sabriel knows she's good at necromancy, that she possesses both musical talent and (by implication) a strong will. 'What if I just gave up?' is never a question she seriously contemplates. She understands she's not easily dissuaded and doesn't let hardship stop her. If asked directly about whether or not she's strong willed, she'd answer yes with relatively little hesitation.
But at the same time, she wouldn't put 'determined' as anywhere near the top of the list of adjectives she'd use to describe herself, just because it wouldn't occur to her without prompting. She's more aware of her doubts and fears than the fact that she doesn't let them stop her.
Items:
The bells of necromancy, as detailed in the powers section, all stored in a leather bandolier.
Her sword- it's enchanted to harm the Dead and other supernatural entities, and can also act as a focus for her magic, like a sharp, pointy magic wand.
Charter magic spell book- not inherently magical, but instead listing Charter marks and how they can be used.
Samples: here, here here and here's her top level on the TDM.
Age: over 18
Contact info: sarahthesilent @ plurk
Character: Sabriel
Canon: The Old Kingdom series.
Canon Point: Sabriel Chapter 20, just as she and Touchstone are entering the reservoir.
CRAU, Canon AU: N/A
Character age: 18
Canon Abilities/Powers: Hoo boy. First, please note that I will be putting up a permisions post for her powers.
Sabriel's magical abilities can be divided into two categories- her necromancy, tied to her status as Abhorsen (an Abhorsen, she insists), and her Charter magic.
The Abhorsens are a magical bloodline, who carry one of the Great Charters in their blood. What Great Charters are is never exactly explained, but they are described as part of the Charter's foundation, and their destruction or corruption would weaken it. The Abhorsens have an affinity for Death, and are able to use both necromancy(a subset of Free magic) and Charter magic in their task of battling the Dead and Free magic creatures and sorcerers.
Free magic is... complicated, but the important thing to note is that it's chaotic, and that normally, it's inherently opposed to the Charter, making the Abhorsens unique in their ability to use both.
As Abhorsen, Sabriel is able to use necromancy in conjunction with Charter magic. Unlike Charter magic, necromancy relies on willpower channeled through music, and even without her bells Sabriel can exert a limited amount of influence over the Dead, and can sense the presence and relative strength of Dead, as well as sensing where deaths have happened, whether those deaths were violent, and how long ago it happened. She can also determine if a corpse has been moved from its site of death, as well as how long ago it died. Finally, Sabriel can also send her spirit into the realm of Death, leaving her body frozen solid until she comes back to it, and will be deeply confused when she can't do this anymore.
Most of her necromancy, however, is worked through a set of seven magical hand bells.
Ranna is called the sleeper, and forces the listener to fall asleep.
Mosrael is called the waker, and in her own world, acts as a seesaw, pulling the listener into Life and dragging the ringer into Death. A bell Sabriel is highly unlikely to use.
Kibeth is called the Walker, and can grant freedom of movement, or force the listener to walk where the ringer wills- including commanding a spirit to walk back into Death. It also seeks to sound on its own, and can be hard to control.
Dyrim is called the speaker, and its powers are fairly straightforward- it can grant speech to those who have lost it, or take away the capacity to speak.
Belgaer is called the thinker, and can restore free will and memories, as well as restoring the personality a Dead spirit had in life. It can also be used to erase these, shattering minds and memories. Like Kibeth, it will try to ring on its own accord.
Saraneth is called the Binder, and binds the Dead to the ringers will. This is the bell Sabriel uses most often, binding the Dead to her will to force them to truly die.
Astarael is called the weeper, and when rung, sends all who hear it deep into Death- including the ringer. This is canonly a weapon of last resort and will only be used with prior communication with the mods, as part of a plot.
Charter Magic is the branch of magic Sabriel's likely to use most of the time. It's magic that's worked through symbols- they can be spoken, signed, whistled, written, or sometimes just visualized. It can be used for a lot of things, but it has some limitations. (no teleporting beyond making small nearby objects appear in her hands, (no space/time manipulation in general) no creation of matter, no unaided flight (although some mages have created magical aircraft, Sabriel does not have the knowledge), no shapeshifting (Again, technically possible, but Sabriel doesn't have access to this knowledge, and doesn't even know it exists). Mental manipulation seems to be restricted to calming people down and suppressing- but not erasing- memories, and putting in plausible fake ones to cover them up, or alternatively, just wiping out half a day of recent memories. Finally, Sabriel has some familiarity with weather magic, although her track record of using it is... uh, mixed.
Charter Magic has other restrictions- Sabriel needs to visualize the symbols and mentally arrange them, meaning her magic isn't instantaneous- and powerful spells take some time to cast. Break her concentration and the spell will fizzle out or go out of control. Also, very powerful spells place a strain on her body- even with precautions, she'll exhaust herself after using a few, and without those precautions, she'll kill herself or be too drained to cast much magic for at least a week. Also, Sabriel can give this power to others via baptism, with the details of that discussed in the FAQ.
The spells Sabriel is most likely to use frequently include various forms of binding/warding, combat magic that includes both destructive force as well as incapacitating her opponents through either blinding, disorienting, or immobilizing them, and healing. Healing magic in the Old Kingdom universe is useful, able to purge drugs and poisons from the body as well as heal even life threatening injuries, but serious wounds require the person being healed to take a few days of bed rest or light activity afterwards, or the spell will be disrupted and the woulds will reopen.
By using Charter magic to repair the body and necromancy to summon the spirit back, Sabriel can resurrect the very recently dead to true life. In canon, she's only done this once, on a bunny, but in theory she could do it to a person- she just feels she shouldn't, as it goes against her family's philosophy of making sure the dead pass on.
Both types of magic Sabriel uses have a tendency to make technology stop working, a tendency that grows more pronounced the stronger the magic used. If people playing robots/cyborgs don't want to deal with this, I will run with an alternate interpretation- that if a character is metaphysically 'alive' magic will treat them as alive, rather than as technology. (So magic won't break them, healing spells will work on them, and they'll be able to learn how to use Charter magic).
In terms of more mundane skills, she's skilled with a longsword, and seems to have some skills related to wilderness survival, including wayfinding and some knowledge of which plants are edible or have medicinal properties. She attended a fancy totally-not-English boarding school, and thus has a thorough grounding in etiquette that she feels free to ignore unless she's in an uncomfortable situation or has been confronted with a fancy party.
What is their greatest negative emotion towards an object, situation, or person in their past?: Anxiety and fear towards her father- or rather towards the fact that he's been trapped, and is likely to die if she does not rescue him, and her growing realization that she didn't know him nearly as well as she thought she did. By her current canon point, Sabriel has learned that she does not actually know her father's name- only his title, which will pass to her when her father dies, as well as her own ignorance about the Old Kingdom and her family's role in it. She insists that rescuing her father is the main thing that matters, that everything else is just a complication, and at her current canon point is walking into a situation that she knows is a trap and that she doesn't entirely have a clear way out of simply because her father doesn't have much time left. For all that Sabriel is familiar with the realm of Death, she doesn't have much experience with people dying- only the aftermath. And she's not coping well with the possibility of her only family member dying.
How strongly do they feel about the negative subject matter, on the scale of one to ten?: A seven. It's something her thoughts often drift to when she doesn't have anything to focus on, and it motivates most of her actions. Sabriel's initial impulse when anyone calls her Abhorsen is to correct them, and when she takes on her father's role to banish a Dead creature that has been feeding on villagers, her first thought is that her father would have done better when she isn't fast enough to save someone. Sabriel clings to the idea that she can save her father, and that once freed, he will be able to set things to right. Any suggestion that she is the current Abhorsen, or that it is too late to save her father, is met with stubborn denial, with Sabriel insisting at one point that her father is a necromancer, he can't be dead. This denial and fear pushes her to the point that when she is told her father is dead and would not wish for her to bring him back, she insists she could bring him back without hesitation, even though earlier on, performing a much smaller act of resurrection on a rabbit filled her with recrimination and dread, so it's safe to say that her feelings are strong enough to push her to do things she'd normally see as morally wrong.
What is their greatest virtue?: Her determination and willpower. Sabriel is strong willed and willing to take great personal risk to achieve her goal of rescuing her father... including setting out into the unknown territory of the Old Kingdom with only the vague idea of where she needed to go. Even after facing setbacks like getting chased by a powerful monster and crashing a magical aircraft into a sinkhole, Sabriel keeps going, even when terrified or utterly exhausted. Finding out that the Dead creature responsible for trapping her father is ancient, powerful, and ultimately responsible for most of the ills that have faced the Old Kingdom for the last two hundred years frightens Sabriel, but it doesn't make her reconsider her course of action. A day or two past her current canon point, she keeps going even in the face of her own death, accepting it as a necessary price to pay.
When dealing with others, Sabriel is generally courteous, but also direct about her goals, even if they express doubts, or worry that she's about to do something dangerous. Warnings won't dissuade her, although she will listen and if they're persuasive enough, they might convince her to be cautious, or try a different route her goal. If they're not... well, she'll be polite about it, but she'll make it clear she's going to go ahead with whatever she was planning to do anyway.
How aware are they of their virtue, on a scale from one to ten?: Six. A strong will is vital to practicing necromancy, and Sabriel knows she's good at necromancy, that she possesses both musical talent and (by implication) a strong will. 'What if I just gave up?' is never a question she seriously contemplates. She understands she's not easily dissuaded and doesn't let hardship stop her. If asked directly about whether or not she's strong willed, she'd answer yes with relatively little hesitation.
But at the same time, she wouldn't put 'determined' as anywhere near the top of the list of adjectives she'd use to describe herself, just because it wouldn't occur to her without prompting. She's more aware of her doubts and fears than the fact that she doesn't let them stop her.
Items:
The bells of necromancy, as detailed in the powers section, all stored in a leather bandolier.
Her sword- it's enchanted to harm the Dead and other supernatural entities, and can also act as a focus for her magic, like a sharp, pointy magic wand.
Charter magic spell book- not inherently magical, but instead listing Charter marks and how they can be used.
Samples: here, here here and here's her top level on the TDM.