Ikselam/JenCircle

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Jen's Circle

This Circle was inspired by a character Quendalon made up, even though the only thing he ever wrote about her (to my knowledge) was that she invented some artifact firewands. It also includes my concept for a First-Age Solar survivor who isn't a superbadass monster.


This one is recent. Like, early November 2003

Forex Jen - a pyromaniacal DB outcaste, shamelessly stolen from Quendalon. I should check and make sure this is okay. Jen likes fire, and blowing stuff up. As detailed by Quendalon, she has invented several types of artifact firewands. I am thinking that I might make up some new ones for her personal arsenal. \\ Jen is a little crazy, and more than a little swashbuckling. She's also incredibly smart. She is probably between 75 and 100 years old. During this period, she's had a surprisingly small number of romantic partners (small as in one or two), due in part to her upbringing -- her parents were extremely committed to one another, so her concept of what love should consist of is fairly exacting, and she thinks of sex as an expression of love. She is also just very picky. That said, she does kind of like Rat.

Rat - Jen's quasi-boyfriend, an aptly-named Lunar. Hm, thought: maybe his Totem is not as obvious as all that. I have a good hyaena Tell in mind (the distinctive laugh).\\ Jen does not know that Rat is Exalted, at least at first.

Jei Pen-Yen - a First Age Solar, who just recently came out of suspended animation. My original concept had her being kind of a stereotypical retiring damsel, but I have since begun to think that it would be much more entertaining if she was self-confident and somewhat wanton -- something like a modern Dynast. This version of Pen-Yen uses the Savant background from Sidereal (which is great because it means I have something rational to cram all her background points into!), and tends to think that people who know less than her about First Age stuff are simpletons. This aggravates Jen to no end, since she is in fact a super-genius. Pen-Yen may start with a Dynastic ability spread.


Jen and Rat come from Gem. As our story begins, Gem has been destroyed. I will need to come up with an entertaining, never-before-seen story for how this comes about. Or just say that it was the Locust Crusade. Our intrepid heroine and hero discover Pen-Yen while fleeing the destruction. What are they up to now? Who knows? But it surely involves explosions!


12/2

I've been toying with angsty backstory ideas for Jen. I figure she probably Exalted when her dad was killed in a firedust explosion in his workshop; this would give a great semi-twisted rationale for why she's so into explosive ordinance.

I'm also thinking of making her a member of a mildly heretical, somewhat persecuted Immaculate cult called the Society of the Crane. In a nutshell, these guys believe that when reincarnation occurs, Essences get divided into two parts (yin and yang portions, if you will) and placed in two different people; spiritual advancement is impossible unless one seeks out the person who carries the other half of one's Essence. Thus, Harmonious Cranes, like their animal namesakes, mate for life. If I end up using this, Jen's mom will have died in childbirth, and her dad will have never remarried. If I really wanted to put the screws on, Jen could have had a traumatic experience with romance (like, I dunno, lighting up at a really inopportune moment and incinerating her first lover). This not only provides for a mildly interesting character quirk, makes her quasi-relationship with Rat more angsty, and gives her another reason to not get along with Pen-Yen, it also explains why she doesn't live in the Realm: even if she was approached by Dynastic "recruiters" (as she surely has been at some point), one who strongly believes in the rightness of strict monogamy is unlikely to really groove on Dynastic culture.

There's more to Rat than I've written down here, but although I have a strong sense of his appearance and personality, it has yet to fully coagulate into specifics.

Pen-Yen has an artifact which helps her with Sorcery.


12/3

Somewhere along the line I decided that Jen should be a cocaine addict (makes a great pick-me-up for those all-night inventing sessions). I also came up with a distinctive appearance gimmick for her, which is good because I had't really gotten beyond "Gangly. Kind of wild-eyed." Anyway, she has black hair which is orange at the roots; it's not dyed, it just grows out that way. The point of this is that it evokes smoldering coals.


Notes/Comments

Forex Jen lives! Feel free to use and abuse her as you would; I've never fleshed her out in any way for my game, and I may well steal your own ideas for her development. - Quendalon

I'm going to make up an artifact flamethrower for her, unless you beat me to it.\\ _Ikselam