Bhaskara, very good!  I go double-check the arcs when I get back to my books so I can reward appropriately.

And we shall need a Path of Suns thread with the current Sooth Card!

Hi everyone...  again.

Here is my first go at a character sentence and one that seems to round out the current group.  Jonah is a Bizarre Ardent of the Order of the Vance who Warps Time and Space.  He is more physically inclined than the average Vislae, and very much so for the average Vance.  That said, he is odd and that infuses much of his personality from the clothes he wears to his propensity for collecting (note not stealing).  He is on one hand a hoarder, but on the other he is remarkably organized.

Anyway that is the really short version of him.  I’m leaning towards His initial arc being completing a great work.  I have some ideas for that, but it could definitely be directed in a way that would make him fit in or be useful to the party if that would help.

Have you ever played Invisible Sun before?

Yes I have.  Honestly the character is mechanically done and I’m mostly looking for feedback and ideas to get him to fit nicely into the group.

Awesome.

Okay, so my first question for you is "what does Jonah do when he's working, and what does he do when he's not working?"

Jonah doesn’t actually “work” all of his funds come from investments, generally ones that seemed foolish at first sight but which always seem to work out.  He always seems to be on the look out for what he refers to as “apples” but he disdains the fruit and refuses to explain more.  He occasionally works for pay when either his personal research interests (which no, you wouldn’t understand) align with what others might want or need and he will Infrequently sell some of his found items for a bit of cash.

As for personal free time, he mostly wanders and collects things.  Much of his time is spent in the Celestial Bazaar rummaging through shops and stalls.  There is no overall theme for his collection and few of the items make it past the foyer of his home, but he has a bit of everything...  Art, skills, small rocks, thoughts, books, clothing, anything that tickles his fancy.  Much of the rest of his time could be described as college student-esque going to classes on the Vancian campus, sitting in prosodies and cafes thinking, carousing though mostly awkwardly.

You say he's physically inclined... Is there a particular expression of that? Is he rather passionate about a given sport or group of sports? How does his ability to warp space and time play into his day to day and how he arranges his home or impact his work as it clearly seems to when it comes to his investments being initial duds and later successes?

How is he bizarre as well beyond just an unusual fashion sense?

He would never play a sport.  Pointless really running around after a ball or some such when, for all intents and purposes the field may as well be a single point in space and the game a single moment of time.  No he’s much more inclined to climb a mountain or hike through a sun.  To use an example from shadow he sees himself a sir Edmund Hillary type.  He would also likely walk (Jog)anywhere in Satyrine rather than take any other form of transportation.He is tall and lean, but beneath the suit and tie quite fit.

Jonah is working to refine his control over space and time. Strangely, he has found it quite easy to sequester small pockets of space for use as storage.  His handbag is one example and anyone who knows him has seen him pull impossible items from within.  He seems to overprepare and the bag is usually full of a large amount of junk just in case.  His house is another.  A single door into an elaborate multidimensional space of his own creation.  In his every day activities his relationship with time and space manifests in slight stutters of form as he skips over some intervening space and or time (no mechanical effect yet).  It gets worse when he hurries which is most always.

Jonahs weirdness manifests in a few ways...  I mean first he is just an awkward dude with weird taste.  The time and space thing puts a lot of people off especially because he struggles to work in the terms of most people. He has been known to wish people a good tomorrow or to have a good yesterday,  oh and never ask him for directions.  He can find his way but relating that, no.  There is a bit of weirdness with mirrors though no more quirky than other vislae though he’s quite sure it is caused by warping of time and space though some days maybe the other way around. He displays some Obsessive Compulsive-like behavior as well.  It isn’t actually that, but a shadow psychiatrist would definitely consider the diagnosis.  Really, it’s just him trying to perfect time at least from his point of view,  he will even have the same conversation with people over multiple times (record is 23) to make sure it goes right.  Think ground hog day without the resets.  The compulsion that he does have is his collecting even he couldn’t tell you why he gathers most of the things that he does.  He does have two rules to “keep his habit from becoming a problem.”  First, nothing from his collection can go beyond the foyer of his house unless he intends to keep it.  This works pretty well as he knows that most of his objects are with him only temporarily.  The second rule is that when he can’t keep a clear path from the front door to the hallway door he has to sell some of his collection or at least get rid of it.

I can keep going but a lot will make more sense when revealed in play.

Why does he collect things?  What need is he fulfilling their?

How is Jonah's relationship with the Order of Vislae? Is he seen as a bit of a nutty professor or eccentric researcher?  So mad he has to be a genius?  Or more of an exceedingly quirky guy that managed to just pull it out of the bag (sometimes literally) at the last moment?

He collects things for two reasons,  the first being he wants to be prepared for anything and the second because the object speaks to him though generally not literally.  Is trying to create the magical equivalent of what people now call every day carry.  The trouble is, with the variety of things that can be done by magic and the various counters to them what you need is effectively infinite.  That doesn’t stop Jonah from trying to be prepared for all events.  The things that speak to him are things that he often thinks might be useful in the future, but then once he gets them home are probably at best a nick nack and at worst junk.  Those items go to purgatory in the foyer until he gets back to dealing with them.

I think jonahs relationship with the Order would be akin to a PhD student who had completed all the coursework and most of his thesis, but then just kinda lost steam and focus.  They keep him around because he can be given the shit work teaching basic boring classes or doing tedious tasks for higher members of the order and doesn’t mind because it keeps him from finishing his real task and he knows that if he complains too much someone might point out that he has real work to be doing.  I hadn’t considered it till now, but maybe the work he is trying to finish is something related to him trying to finish whatever he is doing in the Order (likely developing or modifying a spell) originally I was thinking it might have to do with his house which I’m still open to.  To give some more depth to his relationship with the Order, I’m sure that there are some instructors who think Jonah is a waste of their time because of his distraction and likely don’t like him for that though I would guess his immediate supervisor probably loves him because he is willing to do anything.

So I'm not sure I'd call this the main plot line, but as things stand two of us have had people we are attached to abducted by the Abnormous.

Currently, we are collecting supplies to build a weapon, so that we may follow up a lead at Zeros.

How might your Collector have an arc tied to that?

Something with Demons in general, the Abnormous specifically?

I actually think ideally my arc shouldn’t be connected.  It would be far better to connect us with pc bonds.  I mean Jonah is easy to get involved in your schemes if you are going somewhere interesting or searching for something.

I think Tryv is PC bondless at this time.

Unfortunately Tryvv hasn't posted in a month and hasn't logged in in over two weeks, so that might not be something we can do at the moment.  We could also allow Jonah to develop a bond with Bhaskara or Everly over time - since you guys are currently looking for a great deal of information and items, it's entirely possible that we could have someone point you in Jonah's direction for something you need.

I could definitely see someone pointing in his direction for having something effectively “random” or even suggesting that he might know where to...  etc.  honestly, he’s easy to get involved.  If he doesn’t have it and knows where to get it he would just suggest going to get it (which might need assistance from other PCs). It is my full intention to have him become a useful person to have along even if starting vislae seem less expert than is useful. He does have access to the the Vancian libraries though so that’s a thing.

Useful how?

In reply to Bhaskara Kohli (msg # 85):

Good at finding things and going places.

I can absolutely see how that would be useful, but the question I'm trying to pose to you is "why do we know he's useful?"   Like Bhaskara definitely needs to find things right now, that is a damn good skill to have.  Why does she know you?  Why does she know you're good to help?

Were we Shadow Freinds?

Maybe Bhaskara has something you want, and thus an Unrequited Bond?

Were we Students together?

Were we Friends From the Past who just happened to bump into one another?

Maybe Bhaskara stole a Mentor Spirit from you with a bit of magic gone awry, and now is trying to make it up to you.  Or maybe you accidentally destroyed the Secret of Speaking to Spiders moments before they could learn it, and now owe them?

What is the connection?

Aah, didn’t realize you were asking about bonds.  To reply to some of your suggestions since everything gives insight to character.

Were we Shadow Freinds?   Definitely not for reasons that are my own.

Maybe Bhaskara has something you want, and thus an Unrequited Bond? I don’t know anything about her.  Maybe?  Well, probably.  Everyone could have somethingJonah wants.  That’s how he looks at it by the way not some sort of leading statement.

Were we Students together? No.  I’m a Vance, you’re a Goetic it just won’t work out.

Were we Friends From the Past who just happened to bump into one another? Absolutely possible, though I would ask how they met?  Before the war perhaps?  What do we remember of each other if that’s the case?

Maybe Bhaskara stole a Mentor Spirit from you with a bit of magic gone awry, and now is trying to make it up to you.  Or maybe you accidentally destroyed the Secret of Speaking to Spiders moments before they could learn it, and now owe them?  Jonah isn’t a spirit kinda guy so I doubt it’s much of part A.  I suppose he could have destroyed a secret you were looking for, but I don’t know why and I don’t love the idea Of a chance accident.  Everything happens for a reason...

Honestly I find friends from the past to be most interesting. I like the idea of someone who knows Jonahs house and maybe even drops by unannounced and just lets themselves in.  That said I can work on many other things.

Alright!  I'll talk backstory, so you actually have some meat to grab onto.

So, before the War, Bhaskara was an amateur Goetic, a fledgling just coming into their magic.  That didn't stop them from becoming an active participant in the War, summoning and allowing themselves to be possessed by Demons of the Red in order to turn themselves into an agent of war and destruction.  Their skills as a Goetic flatlined, because it doesn't take that much skill to let a much more powerful Demon take the reins.  They lost more and more of themselves to it, memories mostly, and eventually fled to Shadow when they realized that even if they won, most of their soul wasn't going to come through.

When they returned to the Actuality, they were horrified to discover that they were no longer in control of themselves.  They were a puppet to an Arch Demon of the Red named Kiitral.  They would likely still be Kiitral's play thing had they not had a chance encountered with a Truespider named Raajathamos.  Raajathamos reached out through the web and touched their mind, and Bhaskara found themselves free of Kiitral's influence.  Yet there were new voices in their mind, chittering voices that speak madness, words they cannot understand.  So Bhaskara has sought out any rumor of Raajathamos, and seeks to aid anyone who they perceive as a friend to Spiderkind.  They are trying to build Connections to the Truespider, and thus right now are seeking a Spider who was taken by the Abnormous.

Does that give you anything to grab onto or should I keep going?

Well I saw that post and then promptly forgot to go back to it...  Better late than never

Perhaps they did know each other before the war...  Jonahs memories from before shadow are spotty at best though that can be said about his more recent memories from a certain point of view too.  Perhaps he and Bhaskara were co-conspirators (aquaintences and friends) before the war.  They met by chance, just out for drinks with other students and colleagues, perhaps took up some revolutionary cause together and then the inklings of the war began.  Like a good patriotic son, Jonah intended to fight for the cause even if now he can’t quite remember what it was.  He was there one of the first times Bhaskara summoned a demon, he was even brought along to help with his ability to warp time and space.   He was horrified with what he saw and left without any notice, fled to shadow.  Perhaps Bhaskara even thought he was dead killed by the demon.

On his return from shadow, he reclaimed his house, It miraculously having survived the war.  He didn’t think much of finding his old companions until one day one of them found him.  He returned home to find Bhaskara in his house, going through his things in an attempt to reconcile her past maybe?  It wasn’t like old times, but perhaps the new will be better.

Everly is something of an interesting creature in her own right since, well, she's trapped in an interesting dilemma of doubting the authenticity of her own identity in part because of the nature of her home, the Ever House, being decorated with various pictures of women quite like herself... but just different enough to be a different person. And the house having a reputation of always having some kind of Madame Everly residing there. She's certain of some aspects of her persona like having lost her arm during the War and building a replacement for herself and knows she's had some relationships from before... It's led to a strange footing in her social life where everything is met with internal questions and uncertainty even as she goes through the apparent motions of her 'role' in everything like a precious little doll.

Past that she has her reputation as an excellent metal worker and clock-maker with a particular specialty and fame when it comes to making prosthetics for those who've lost a limb and need a replacement but may not be able to get back the flesh through one means or another.

In reply to Jonah Ophidon (msg # 90):

That works!

Sounds like Friends From the Past.  So we need to pick a group we both have a connection with.

If your memory is hazy, then you're pretty sure Bhaskara is radically different than they were before the war.  Not traumatized and nihilistic, but certainly a little dissociative?  They burn with a desire for something, but what exactly isn't clear.

Whatever it is, they seem very, VERY interested in their new friends.

I don’t have a name off the top of my head but maybe it’s the revolutionary organization that I mentioned earlier?  I’m thinking they are still militant...  perhaps akin to a militia in the United States now?  Or maybe more like a group of agitators before ww1?  The communists/socialists/fascists of the actuality.

I doubt Jonah would maintain any sort of membership though he would still know the old conspirators and, while not part of the movement, would still have access of a sort.