Chiaroscuro - Scuro
From Changeling Venue
| Seeming | Elemental Manikin |
|---|---|
| Court | No Court |
| Freehold | Open Road |
| Player | Jacob Helmer |
Contents |
Overview
Alias(es): None
Real Name: Unknown
Age: Unknown (20?)
Concept: Treasured
Entitlement: None
Physical description:
Relevant Mechanics: Vainglory 3, Striking Looks x4 (Total x8)
Character Information
Known History
Basic Timeline:
Current Activities: Seeking a home away from Kyra because their clarity suffers brutally in close proximity of one another.
Merit Details: Vainglory 3, Striking Looks x4 (Total x8)
Background:
Magatha, the Goblin Queen was our captor. She took us as children. She was cruel, and terrible, and beautiful, and generous at times, but her capricious nature made her unbearable. Only my lover, my sister, my twin, made existence worth suffering. Only our hands, tied by ribbon and bound by terror, allowed us to survive Magatha's cruelty. Our world was a marble pedestal, no larger than a bed, sometimes in garden, sometimes in foyer, sometimes in the ballroom. We slept together, ate together, clung to each other in comfort, glass against glass, silver against silver, one body beside the other, knowing something was wrong and that cold glass should not give such comfort.
Magatha replaced our flesh with smooth cold glass, and our hearts with wind-up crystal, ticking away the fire of our life's blood
though we could never know how long. We were too young then, to remember. Are we children still, or are we ancient? What time
passes in those Arcadian Halls? Magatha made us more surely than human parents had made us flesh, and the glass and performance was
daily our price for bread. She made us beautiful. Beautiful beyond beautiful. She made us what art can only exist on living
palette in the world of Faerie and told us we were trash. Magatha the Beautiful, Magatha the Cruel, told us we were not worth her
effort, or her time. Magatha the Wicked told us how her toys had always been such successes, and complained of the poor quality of
material she was offered to work with. Magatha the Vain told us of her skills and her triumphs, of clockwork soldiers and Iron
Knights, of Wooden Horses and dancers made of spun crystal. Magatha the Vile told us of her broken attempts, of her soldiered joints
and her gemstone eyes, shattered and tossed in a heap for such poor performance as we offered her.
We would cry, silvered tears of liquid crystal, our spirits shorn by her sharp tongue and our will crushed beneath the merciless lash
of her voice. We would perform, shameful of our half-finished fate, of our clumsy motion, for all the visitors of Magatha's court.
She would berate us even then, and our sorrow and shame would entertain The Others, whose tinkling laughter would punish us as keenly
as the pealing of bells, shaking our sheer flesh and leaving us aching at every joint, our crystal hearts painfully compressed within
our breasts. Magatha honed and sharpened us, working us diligently, until the day of the accident. All we had known was each other,
our labors, our intimacy. We hardly needed to speak to communicate, and lost in her glassy eyes I could forget for a time our
imprisonment.
I dropped her.
Or she me, I can no longer remember. Only the fleeting feeling of joy at her touch, at our cooperation, and then the sheer terror as
a grip slipped, and smooth glassy flesh found no purchase. I staggered, she fell, and her arm was cracked from elbow to shoulder.
Delicate filigree, our only cloth, sheared away from delicate skin, sticking out gruesomely from her smooth lines. I had no facility
to repair her. Magatha found us that way, crouched over her weeping, and went into a rage. Her talons stripped much of the silver
from my flesh, and not a scratch she made hurt my heart as much as my broken Chiaro, my other half, the light of my shadow. She was
taken away, and I was for the first time left alone. I cried out to her, and she to me, promising to return, to find me, and I
likewise to her. Magatha's Chatelaine informed me before Magatha taunted me with the news, that my sister, my lover, my twin, had
been sold away.
I had heard that Magatha the Goblin Queen had labored a day with her own hands to repair the damage I had done, and that my sorry
hide would be worked much harder to repay her for her labor. Further, I would never see Chiaro again, she had been sold away to be
the statuary of some Other Gentry. That simply would not do. That night as my Keeper slept I fled, tinkling feet cracking as I ran
for the first time in my life. My muscles of glass and silver were made to bear the weight of my partner, to hold aloft my lover and
myself as we performed, dancing in summer, acrobatics in autumn, still as statues through the winter, fornicating in spring, for the
amusement of countless Others. They served once more to allow me to flee from Her service, racing into the shadowed lands beyond her
borders and diving into the thickets, the Hedge. Briars reached for me, but turned away at the touch of glassy flesh, finding no
purchase. I was well made, and driven by fear and concern, and today I have flown free of Magatha's grip.
But for how long? How far can the Others be behind me?
Motley
Allies
Please Sign your links if you are an ally of Chiarascuro.
Chiaroscuro - Kyra
Ryhos Whately
Fragile
Schide
Mallory Schadenfreude
Enemies
Character Inspirations
Chiaroscuro is the interplay of light and shadow, an artistic term describing what makes a particular piece attractive. Chiaro
(kyra, or Kyrao) is the female half of a pair of identical Manikins, made to serve as living art by Magatha the Goblin Queen, a lofty
title for a gorgeous creature who excels at the crafting of superb magical ornamentation in the lands of Faerie. Scuro (Skee-uro)
is the male half, who will be played by me. These characters are meant to start off with that tragic unfulfillable love that
permeates fairy stories, the night and day, summer and winter, earth and sky dynamic that says that they can never truly touch. The
goal is to highlight and punctuate the alienation that Changelings suffer when the come back to a world that is not made for them.
They are designed to be 'damsels in distress' that are too beautiful and helpless to fend for themselves. They were made to look
pretty, and they have nothing else to rely on. They should be expected to fail virtually every resistance test they're required to
make, and to avoid having to make them like the black plague. Their response to combat is to edge as far away from the conflict as
possible, then to hold absolutely still and be non-threatening. Their elemental birthright gives them surprising resilience for
creatures made of glass, but solid glass is a lot harder to damage then people credit it for.
Goals:
- Highlight the loss of clarity in this pair if they are allowed to touch each other for more than a few moments. As they touch their clarity falls rapidly away while they become lost in each other.
- Highlight the utter lack of humanity in the pair. They are compassionate and gentle and sweet, but they can't so much as tie shoes, much less read or know what a sign means when it says 'don't walk'. Even as play continues and they begin to become competent
in acting with the human world, their emotions are skewed and their take on everything they see is terribly literal.
- Be the bait. With high Wyrd and no useful abilities (and never /taking/ useful abilities) they should be fantastic bait for any
group that wants to take them. They cannot defend themselves, and so they remain ambling plot-hooks for storytellers, and
interaction points for the other Changelings. They should be considered valuable works of art by The Others, but helpless children
by The Lost.
- Fall in love... again. One of them is Spring affiliated, and begins to take joy in the freedom from the Others. The other is
Winter affiliated, and lives in perpetual fear of being retaken. (which is which will be decided when I find the other player) They
grow enormously attached to anyone who shows them kindness or affection, having only experienced that through the other half of the
pair while imprisoned in Faerie, and they cannot distinguish camaraderie from love, or lust from love, or passing fancy with love, or
amiable friendship with love. They should be lovable, and utterly unconcerned with societal definitions of propriety.
Soundtrack
Enya - Book of Days
A Perfect Circle - Counting Bodies Like Sheep
Sarah McLachlan - Possession
Quotes
Rumors
- Not only are they still loyal to the Gentry, but the crystal hearts of Kyro and Scuro allow Magatha the Maker to scry through their bodies and latch contracts on any who are reflected in their pristine surfaces.
