Post by Animaux on Jun 2, 2006 5:44:09 GMT -5
How exciting! Here is my original character, who I have had in mind for several years now. Her history and personality are not totally set, and I may be editing this slightly, but this is as close as I can get right now (without playing her a bit first!).
Name: Callia “Cal” Grandchamps
Codename: Animaux
Affiliation: X-Men
Age: Technically 13, but her life cycle is shorter than most humans, so she is effectively about 17
Height: 5’3”
Weight: 225 lbs
Hair Color: Blonde, straight and down to mid-back
Eye Color: Light blue, with slightly vertically slit pupils
Appearance:
Cal weighs an unusual amount for one of her height, especially unusual because it does not show; rather than being fat, she is extremely internally dense.
Outwardly, she is tan-skinned (her skin and hair are nearly the same color) and fairly muscular. Her figure is boyish, with a small chest. She usually carries herself leaned slightly forward, as if she were ready to leap on all fours at any moment (and indeed, she sometimes does). She never wears makeup, but she could almost be a model; her bone structure is well-defined, she has a fairly square jaw, high cheekbones, and large eyes with long eyelashes.
Cal wears simple clothes in natural fibers which she can exercise in. Her preferred colors are tan and brown, but she also wears green, white, black, and blue to match her eyes. She generally likes her shirts skin-tight and her pants slightly loose. She has no problem with wearing leather, and has a bone ornament of unknown origin which she wears on a sinew thong around her neck. She also has no problem with exposing skin, and particularly likes to walk around naked, although this is often discouraged by others.
Powers and Abilities:
Animaux, as her mutant name suggests, has the power of therianthropy, or animal shapeshifting. She can take the form of any species of mammal which exists on Earth, but she cannot shapeshift into different human forms. Just as she only has one human form, she has only one appearance for each species of animal (her zebra always has a particular stripe pattern, for instance).
Animaux can become even a shrew or a blue whale – the smallest and largest mammals – but her capacity to change size is limited. Her body is extremely dense, so it can spread to a less dense but much larger size, or it can condense even more to become smaller, but this range is not infinite – her mass is fixed. The smallest she can become is about the size of a golden retriever, and the largest is a medium-sized horse; so her shrew is quite large and her whale is quite small. Her particular favorite forms are horse, golden retriever (her only domestic dog form), tiger, and dolphin.
Her shapeshifting is usually a quick process, depending on how much she has to change; it takes a maximum of about five seconds.
In any animal form, Animaux retains most of her human mind, but does gain the senses and the instincts of that particular animal. Her human form has superhuman hearing, sight and smell, as well as incredibly sharp reflexes. While transformed, she can only make the sounds which her animal form is physically capable of making; sometimes this can be adapted into crude speech, but it depends on the animal, and generally it is so frustrating to try that Animaux prefers to stick to that animal’s natural sounds.
She cannot partially transform at this time, although she believes she may be capable of it in the future; but she is still learning about her powers. She cannot bring her clothes with her, either, so when she transforms into an animal they are left behind, and when she tranforms back into a human she is naked.
Professor Xavier believed that due to her animal connection, her life would be shorter than that of most humans. He predicted her lifespan to be about 60 years. She ages quicker than other humans, and at technical age 13, looks and acts about like a 17-year-old.
Personality:
Cal has a strangely shifting personality, probably due to her connections to so many types of animals. Generally, she is quiet and pleasant, with a sharp sense of humor and a slight prankster streak. She can, however, be gruff and territorial, lazy and aloof, or energetic and aggressively friendly. Her ability to form friendships or romantic attachments is patchy, particularly because of her unstable history, and she does not yet have any close friends. As she matures further in a safe environment, her true character should come into focus.
She is not particularly intelligent or adept at problem-solving, but her instincts are extremely sharp and she often has gut feelings about situations which prove accurate.
She likes to climb on things.
She also enjoys taking naps in patches of sunlight.
History:
Cal is French Canadian, the illegitimate daughter of a reclusive trapper and the Canadian mutant Narya, or “Snowbird,” from the Canadian mutant team “Alpha Flight.” Because her mother was half Inuit goddess, Cal is one-quarter supernatural, which gives her her mutant powers. Her mother was also able to animal shapeshift, although Cal’s powers are slightly different.
Cal did not know her mother, who in the panic of youth, abandoned her after birth at her father’s cabin in the Quebec wilderness. She was left with only her name, a bone necklace, and her latent mutant powers as a memento of Narya. Her father raised her without love, valuing her mostly for her ability to work trapping and skinning animals, which he encouraged her to do with the help of a hard stick. She had no friends, no socialization, and only a pet retriever dog for company.
Like many mutants, Cal’s powers manifested themselves at puberty, but this for her occurred at around age 9. She was checking her father’s traps one day in the forest and, rounding a tree, saw her beloved dog dead in the iron claws of one of the traps. Her memory of the experience was dim, but as she threw herself at the body in grief, she found her hands transformed into paws and her face lengthened into a muzzle. Howling, she ended up running blindly into the forest, and she never returned to her father.
She travelled for three years from settlement to town to city to town, scavenging for food in various animal forms and fighting her growing urge to become feral and permanently adopt an animal’s life. One day, she was scavenging as a burly raccoon in a suburban house’s trash cans when she overheard a news report on T.V. about political mutant/human issues. A description of Xavier’s school particularly perked up her ears; she had heard rumors of others like her, but never met any. The concept of a dreamlike place which she could really call home lodged in her mind, and could not be shaken.
Library raids at night provided her with newspaper clippings and maps; her animal forms provided her with endurance; and finally one day last year, she found herself at the gates to the X-Mansion.
It was Storm who answered the door and welcomed her into the school. Unfortunately, she had little time to settle in before the havoc of Jean’s discovery and the Brotherhood’s attack on Alcatraz rocked the mutant world. The newly arrived Animaux was in no position to help, so she faded into the background as Xavier’s school plunged into disarray. Even when Storm vowed to keep the school alive, Cal felt as if her world was not yet steady, and she has not yet allowed herself to really form attachments to the only place that has ever welcomed her.
Sample Posts - The first, from her time as a nomad:
Cal was a fairly pretty tabby cat, but she was really gigantic – as large as a medium-sized dog. The old woman on the porch was clearly intimidated by her, and held a broom shakily in one hand, but there was the plate of ground chicken in her other hand.
Darned, thought Cal, mustering up courage, if I’m going to let that grub go.
She stepped quietly and slowly up the porch steps, yellow eyes fixed on the plate. When the human did not move, she lifted her gaze to the old lady’s face. Her ears went forward and her toungue shifted in her mouth. Cat-Cal smacked her lips once or twice, and with a great effort she formed her lips into a word.
“Haalllooo,” she yowled as pleasantly as she could.
As the screen door crashed and bounced in its frame, Cal happily nosed her way into the pile of chicken, carefully trying to avoid the broken pieces of porcelain beneath.
This, she thought between mouthfuls, had better last me a few days, eh?
And, because I couldn’t resist:
Dawn broke in a mist over the trees, casting a cold dim light on the walls of Xavier’s mansion. Out on the verge of the driveway, a figure materialized, stumbling slowly onto the wide path.
The deer made her way slowly towards the building before her. Her thin flanks heaved and her mouth was specked with foam; but she was almost there.
She wove unsteadily forward. Her eyes closed and stars flashed beneath her lids. Only her cloven hoof hitting a concrete step stopped her in her tracks.
The mist began to clear as the deer climbed the steps to the front door. Her nostrils flared and she forced her eyes to open.
There was the silver X. Had she actually made it?
The deer pressed her nose into the doorbell, and faraway, muffled, a chime sounded like a spark of hope.
She folded herself wearily down onto the concrete. With an exhausted last burst of energy, Cal transformed into the shape she had not taken in many months – her golden, naked, human self – and waited with pounding heart for someone to open the door.
Screenname(s): I’m known by a few names online, usually Anna or Annafantasia, but also Roxanne and Sundrop in certain communities ; )
Email: littlelemming3@hotmail.com
IM: littlelemming3
RP Experience: Ponies of the Caribbean (2001?-2002), Celebrate! ‘03 (2003-present)
Name: Callia “Cal” Grandchamps
Codename: Animaux
Affiliation: X-Men
Age: Technically 13, but her life cycle is shorter than most humans, so she is effectively about 17
Height: 5’3”
Weight: 225 lbs
Hair Color: Blonde, straight and down to mid-back
Eye Color: Light blue, with slightly vertically slit pupils
Appearance:
Cal weighs an unusual amount for one of her height, especially unusual because it does not show; rather than being fat, she is extremely internally dense.
Outwardly, she is tan-skinned (her skin and hair are nearly the same color) and fairly muscular. Her figure is boyish, with a small chest. She usually carries herself leaned slightly forward, as if she were ready to leap on all fours at any moment (and indeed, she sometimes does). She never wears makeup, but she could almost be a model; her bone structure is well-defined, she has a fairly square jaw, high cheekbones, and large eyes with long eyelashes.
Cal wears simple clothes in natural fibers which she can exercise in. Her preferred colors are tan and brown, but she also wears green, white, black, and blue to match her eyes. She generally likes her shirts skin-tight and her pants slightly loose. She has no problem with wearing leather, and has a bone ornament of unknown origin which she wears on a sinew thong around her neck. She also has no problem with exposing skin, and particularly likes to walk around naked, although this is often discouraged by others.
Powers and Abilities:
Animaux, as her mutant name suggests, has the power of therianthropy, or animal shapeshifting. She can take the form of any species of mammal which exists on Earth, but she cannot shapeshift into different human forms. Just as she only has one human form, she has only one appearance for each species of animal (her zebra always has a particular stripe pattern, for instance).
Animaux can become even a shrew or a blue whale – the smallest and largest mammals – but her capacity to change size is limited. Her body is extremely dense, so it can spread to a less dense but much larger size, or it can condense even more to become smaller, but this range is not infinite – her mass is fixed. The smallest she can become is about the size of a golden retriever, and the largest is a medium-sized horse; so her shrew is quite large and her whale is quite small. Her particular favorite forms are horse, golden retriever (her only domestic dog form), tiger, and dolphin.
Her shapeshifting is usually a quick process, depending on how much she has to change; it takes a maximum of about five seconds.
In any animal form, Animaux retains most of her human mind, but does gain the senses and the instincts of that particular animal. Her human form has superhuman hearing, sight and smell, as well as incredibly sharp reflexes. While transformed, she can only make the sounds which her animal form is physically capable of making; sometimes this can be adapted into crude speech, but it depends on the animal, and generally it is so frustrating to try that Animaux prefers to stick to that animal’s natural sounds.
She cannot partially transform at this time, although she believes she may be capable of it in the future; but she is still learning about her powers. She cannot bring her clothes with her, either, so when she transforms into an animal they are left behind, and when she tranforms back into a human she is naked.
Professor Xavier believed that due to her animal connection, her life would be shorter than that of most humans. He predicted her lifespan to be about 60 years. She ages quicker than other humans, and at technical age 13, looks and acts about like a 17-year-old.
Personality:
Cal has a strangely shifting personality, probably due to her connections to so many types of animals. Generally, she is quiet and pleasant, with a sharp sense of humor and a slight prankster streak. She can, however, be gruff and territorial, lazy and aloof, or energetic and aggressively friendly. Her ability to form friendships or romantic attachments is patchy, particularly because of her unstable history, and she does not yet have any close friends. As she matures further in a safe environment, her true character should come into focus.
She is not particularly intelligent or adept at problem-solving, but her instincts are extremely sharp and she often has gut feelings about situations which prove accurate.
She likes to climb on things.
She also enjoys taking naps in patches of sunlight.
History:
Cal is French Canadian, the illegitimate daughter of a reclusive trapper and the Canadian mutant Narya, or “Snowbird,” from the Canadian mutant team “Alpha Flight.” Because her mother was half Inuit goddess, Cal is one-quarter supernatural, which gives her her mutant powers. Her mother was also able to animal shapeshift, although Cal’s powers are slightly different.
Cal did not know her mother, who in the panic of youth, abandoned her after birth at her father’s cabin in the Quebec wilderness. She was left with only her name, a bone necklace, and her latent mutant powers as a memento of Narya. Her father raised her without love, valuing her mostly for her ability to work trapping and skinning animals, which he encouraged her to do with the help of a hard stick. She had no friends, no socialization, and only a pet retriever dog for company.
Like many mutants, Cal’s powers manifested themselves at puberty, but this for her occurred at around age 9. She was checking her father’s traps one day in the forest and, rounding a tree, saw her beloved dog dead in the iron claws of one of the traps. Her memory of the experience was dim, but as she threw herself at the body in grief, she found her hands transformed into paws and her face lengthened into a muzzle. Howling, she ended up running blindly into the forest, and she never returned to her father.
She travelled for three years from settlement to town to city to town, scavenging for food in various animal forms and fighting her growing urge to become feral and permanently adopt an animal’s life. One day, she was scavenging as a burly raccoon in a suburban house’s trash cans when she overheard a news report on T.V. about political mutant/human issues. A description of Xavier’s school particularly perked up her ears; she had heard rumors of others like her, but never met any. The concept of a dreamlike place which she could really call home lodged in her mind, and could not be shaken.
Library raids at night provided her with newspaper clippings and maps; her animal forms provided her with endurance; and finally one day last year, she found herself at the gates to the X-Mansion.
It was Storm who answered the door and welcomed her into the school. Unfortunately, she had little time to settle in before the havoc of Jean’s discovery and the Brotherhood’s attack on Alcatraz rocked the mutant world. The newly arrived Animaux was in no position to help, so she faded into the background as Xavier’s school plunged into disarray. Even when Storm vowed to keep the school alive, Cal felt as if her world was not yet steady, and she has not yet allowed herself to really form attachments to the only place that has ever welcomed her.
Sample Posts - The first, from her time as a nomad:
Cal was a fairly pretty tabby cat, but she was really gigantic – as large as a medium-sized dog. The old woman on the porch was clearly intimidated by her, and held a broom shakily in one hand, but there was the plate of ground chicken in her other hand.
Darned, thought Cal, mustering up courage, if I’m going to let that grub go.
She stepped quietly and slowly up the porch steps, yellow eyes fixed on the plate. When the human did not move, she lifted her gaze to the old lady’s face. Her ears went forward and her toungue shifted in her mouth. Cat-Cal smacked her lips once or twice, and with a great effort she formed her lips into a word.
“Haalllooo,” she yowled as pleasantly as she could.
As the screen door crashed and bounced in its frame, Cal happily nosed her way into the pile of chicken, carefully trying to avoid the broken pieces of porcelain beneath.
This, she thought between mouthfuls, had better last me a few days, eh?
And, because I couldn’t resist:
Dawn broke in a mist over the trees, casting a cold dim light on the walls of Xavier’s mansion. Out on the verge of the driveway, a figure materialized, stumbling slowly onto the wide path.
The deer made her way slowly towards the building before her. Her thin flanks heaved and her mouth was specked with foam; but she was almost there.
She wove unsteadily forward. Her eyes closed and stars flashed beneath her lids. Only her cloven hoof hitting a concrete step stopped her in her tracks.
The mist began to clear as the deer climbed the steps to the front door. Her nostrils flared and she forced her eyes to open.
There was the silver X. Had she actually made it?
The deer pressed her nose into the doorbell, and faraway, muffled, a chime sounded like a spark of hope.
She folded herself wearily down onto the concrete. With an exhausted last burst of energy, Cal transformed into the shape she had not taken in many months – her golden, naked, human self – and waited with pounding heart for someone to open the door.
Screenname(s): I’m known by a few names online, usually Anna or Annafantasia, but also Roxanne and Sundrop in certain communities ; )
Email: littlelemming3@hotmail.com
IM: littlelemming3
RP Experience: Ponies of the Caribbean (2001?-2002), Celebrate! ‘03 (2003-present)
Nothing jumped out at me, and I love the way you write. If we can get another crashing lights scene I will be the happiest GM alive ^_^