dragonswag (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonswag) wrote2012-09-28 08:51 pm
dragonswag) wrote2012-09-28 08:51 pm
[ TU SHANSHU APP ]
Player Information:
Name: Madi
Age: 18+ XXX all the way baby
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
runawayballista
Game Cast: Mandorallen (inshiningarmor; http://tushanshu.dreamwidth.org/11330.html
Already a member? List character names and accounts, plus a link to their AC post (if you have one) or last AC thread.
Character Information:
Name: Lina Inverse, aka Bandit Killer, Dragon Spooker, Enemy Of All Who Live, THE LIST GOES ON OK
Canon: Slayers (anime canon)
Canon Point: After the end of Evolution-R?
Age: 19
Reference: http://kanzaka.wikia.com/wiki/Lina_Inverse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Inverse
Setting: The world of Slayers is at a glance a pretty run-of-the-mill, medieval Europe-inspired swords’n’sorcery setting -- sorcerers, mercenaries, and bandits abound, and the heroes spend an awful lot of time on the road, traveling through forests and mountains to get to their destination.
The world in which Slayers takes place is actually part of a multiverse. A dimension known as the Sea of Chaos surrounds and anchors the four universes that arose from it; these universes are all adjoined to the Sea of Chaos and run parallel to one another. The creator of all life and these universes is known only as the Lord of Nightmares, who dwells in the Sea of Chaos. The universes are collectively known as planes, and the one in which Slayers is set is known as the Red Plane. With each of these physical worlds, there also coexists a spiritual plane known commonly as the astral plane; all beings technically exist on both planes at once, although the size of their presence in each plane differs between different kinds of beings.
The multiverse is home to two opposing forces which are in constant conflict with one another: the mazoku and shinzoku, which are roughly akin to demons and gods (particularly when viewed through the lens of the Red Plane’s setting), although they take different forms depending on the plane. The ultimate goal of mazoku is to destroy all existence, whereas the shinzoku seek to protect it. Each plane has a ma-ou and shin-ou, a demon king and a god king (more or less) who are the original and leading mazoku and shinzoku on each plane. The ma-ou of the Red Plane is known as Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu, and the shin-ou opposite him is Flare Dragon Ceifeed.
HISTORY
An overview of the history of Lina’s world is necessary to understand it. As is the case in all planes, Shabranigdu and Ceifeed have been in constant conflict since the moment of the world’s inception. Approximately 5000 years before the events of the Slayers series, their conflict came to a head. The result was twofold: Ceifeed succeeded in splitting Shabranigdu into seven pieces, sealed into human souls in the hopes that they would degrade and eventually disappear with reincarnation. However, this came at the cost of his own being. He used the last of his power to create four subordinate shinzoku, known collectively as the Dragon Kings. While it appeared that Ceifeed ceased to exist after the conclusion of the conflict, many believe that pieces of Ceifeed’s spirit still inhabit human souls, resulting in people with extraordinary magical power known as Knights of Ceifeed. Lina’s older sister, Luna Inverse, is suspected to be such a Knight.
Prior to this event, however, Shabranigdu had also created five powerful mazoku which serve directly under him: Chaos Dragon Gaav, Beastmaster Zelas, Deep Sea Dolphin, Dynast Grausherra, and Hellmaster Fibrizo; each of these high-ranking mazoku created other mazoku, also of considerable power, to serve directly under them. 4000 years later, the growing conflict between shinzoku and mazoku resulted in another war, known colloquially as the War of the Mazoku’s Fall, although this one had much larger immediate consequences for humanity. During this war, Aqualord Ragradia, one of the four shinzoku left behind, was killed, but was able to seal Gaav into a human body before he died. The remaining four subordinates of Shabranigdu set up a barrier around a large peninsula, which became known as the “Inner World”, which kept out the remaining three shinzoku and their influence, but it also served as a barrier for humanity, effectively cutting off a portion of human civlization. The barrier was anchored at four points by Ruby-Eye’s subordinates, where they remained for several centuries, and was also responsible for the unusually high development of magical ability in humans inside the barrier. This large peninsula, sealed within the barrier, is where Lina and her companions are from, and where the majority of the series takes place.
Roughly a thousand years later, when Lina was about sixteen years old, Gaav had regained most of his power as a mazoku and turned against the rest of his race, no longer interested in their goals of destruction. This created a massive conflict between himself and Hellmaster Fibrizo, who dragged Lina into the mix for a number of self-serving reasons -- mainly that his intention was to use her to destroy all of existence. Fibrizo killed Gaav himself, and then lured Lina to his current base of operations to try and tempt her into using the Giga Slave in the hopes that she would lose control of it, and the world would be obliterated by its massive destructive power. And Lina did lose control of the Giga Slave -- but when she did, the Lord of Nightmares didn’t destroy the world, but Fibrizo himself, since he so desperately sought destruction, and she decided to spare the world. With Fibrizo’s death, the mazoku barrier vanished, giving the peoples of the Inner World access to contact with the human civilizations of the Outer World from which they had been cut off for a thousand years.
Shortly thereafter it was proven that shinzoku and mazoku could, under certain circumstances, travel between planes of the multiverse. Shinzoku who served the shin-ou of the Black Plane, Night Dragon Vorfeed, descended to the Red Plane as part of a plan to summon their plane’s ma-ou, Dark Star Dugradigdu, to the Red Plane so they could destroy him. His arrival, however, did not go terribly as planned, and when he instead fused himself with one of Gaav’s former disciples, it was only through the combined effort of Vorfeed’s shinzoku and Lina and her companions that they were able to defeat him and banish him back to the Black Plane.
Nowadays in the Red Plane, everything is business as usual. The kingdoms of the Inner World continue to communicate with the civilizations of the Outer World, although humanity is still reeling from the upset to their world that has been delivered. The shinzoku, however, seem largely indifferent to the affairs of human beings, and time marches on as always. Currently, the human society of the Inner World is concerned primarily with the return of the kingdom of Taforashia, whose people had been magically frozen during an epidemic until such time as a cure was found.
RACES
Humans are by far not the only creatures to inhabit the Red Plane. As previously mentioned, shinzoku and mazoku are both present, although the mazoku are far more prevalent, especially inside the barrier. However, humans appear to be the most populous for the most part, at least in the parts of the world that we’re shown in the series. For the most part they seem to be organized into kingdoms and city-states, of which there are several in the Inner World, in a fashion heavily inspired by medieval Europe and the swords-and-sorcery genre in general; although there are conflicts between the different nations from time to time, the atmosphere in human society is generally peaceful.
In addition to humans, there are a number of sentient non-human entities that coexist along with them, such as elves, fish people (precisely what it sounds like), and beastmen, although they tend to stick to their own communities. There is also a colorful variety of monsters, such as orcs, trolls, dragons, and the like that tend to live in the wilderness, although it’s not unheard of for rather sinister persons to gather an army of monstrous henchmen to do their bidding.
There are also several races of sentient dragons, divided into different tribes, who serve the shinzoku of the Red Plane. They are not shinzoku themselves, but each dragon tribe appears to pay tribute to one of the four remaining shinzoku (the golden dragons seem to exclusively worship Firelord Vrabazard, for instance). They appear to be of the same stock as non-sentient dragons, although the latter are not organized into tribes and they don’t tend to affiliate with one another. After the erection of the mazoku barrier, all but a handful of the sentient dragons were stuck in the Outer World with the shinzoku.
There exist a number of beings, sentient or otherwise, that are not of natural origin. Chimera experiments, the practice of using magic and technology to combine several different beings into one, are far from unheard of, and there are quite a few magically-animate things such as golems inhabiting the world.
MAGIC
There are three main schools of magic widely practiced by humans in Lina’s world: white magic, black magic, and shamanism.
The source of white magic isn’t very well understood, but it is widely practiced in the Inner World. It largely includes defensive and healing spells, with a few offensive spells that do things like dispel undead creatures.
Black magic draws its power directly from mazoku, either from the race as a whole, or specific mazoku in particular (although if that mazoku were to perish, any spells directly drawing on its power would then cease to work). Most black magic spells are offensive and destructive in nature, although curses and spells that summon mazoku also fall into this category. The Dragon Slave draws power directly from Ruby-Eye himself, and is the most powerful black magic spell available.
Shamanistic magic is an umbrella term for spells that draw power from the basic elements of nature; they are divided into the five categories of fire, earth, water, air, and astral shamanistic magic. Astral magic, unlike the other elements, does not really affect the physical world, but rather primarily targets beings residing on the astral plane, so its effects may not be immediately visible to humans. Astral spells are especially effective on beings whose astral bodies are larger than their physical ones, such as mazoku or shinzoku, and can even kill them in this way (their physical bodies, in contrast, tend to be of little consequence when it comes to taking damage); however, for a human being, whose astral body is considerably smaller, the most that a direct hit on the astral plane will do is cause some significant mental disorientation.
There is a fourth category of magic as well, known as holy magic. Similarly to black magic, it draws its power from shinzoku; however, this magic was lost to human society after the mazoku barrier was erected, cutting out all influence from shinzoku. The sentient races of dragons who serve the shinzoku are the only known current practitioners of holy magic.
Additionally, there are two spells that do not fall into any of the known categories of magic, and Lina is the only known caster of these spells. The Ragna Blade and the Giga Slave call directly on the Lord of Nightmares for power, and as she is neither shinzoku nor mazoku, these spells exist outside of currently defined categories of magic.
The use of magic energy for spell casting follows a pool and bucket model: using magical energy for casting spells is similar to drawing a bucket from a pool full of water. A person’s pool capacity is the total amount of magic energy they can expend before they are totally drained, and can be expanded via magical training. Bucket capacity, however, is usually fixed at birth, and is the amount of magic energy a person can gather and expend at once. More powerful spells have a larger minimum bucket capacity, so a person with relatively small bucket capacity will only ever be able to cast weak, low-level spells.
Personality: Lina is quite the volatile sorceress, and she has a hair-trigger temper. Depending on how she’s feeling at the moment, just about any negative remark might set her off -- especially if it’s with regard to her lack of development in the lady department. Once she’s lost her temper, she’s liable to set someone on fire or level an entire village. As one might expect, she boasts quite a bit of self-confidence, just about to the point of arrogance -- but the bravado is all part of her charm! A lot of her claims are exaggerated, but she’s just as much earned the rest of them with her sheer skill. She’s tenacious to a fault, and isn’t likely to give up even in the face of overwhelming adversity, or, as luck would have it, death. She’s been described by allies and enemies alike as greedy, impulsive, and reckless, but despite all that, she’s surprisingly cunning. A shrewd businesswoman (although some might just call her greedy), she’ll never let go of any money she doesn’t strictly have to, and she drives a hard bargain -- and she’s much more perceptive than she usually lets on. She’s great at thinking on her feet and making snap decisions when it comes down to it.
Lina’s conscience, though, might be called questionable at best by those who consider themselves of high moral character. While she does things that could be considered just in a certain light -- such as killing bandits, monsters, and other threatening figures -- her motivations are often selfish greed or because she’s been given no other option, and even when this isn’t the case, she’s likely to let others believe that it is. She sees no qualms with killing bandits and taking their stolen treasure -- after all, a girl’s gotta eat, right? And what other payment is she going to receive for doing these great deeds to society? She’s pretty okay with manipulating people to certain ends, even her friends, to get them to play along in her schemes, and she clearly has no problem using vastly destructive spells at the drop of a hat. Lina, it seems, is always in it for herself, and unabashedly displays her most selfish and greedy side when the money comes out.
Despite all that, she’s not all bad. Even with her front of bravado and recklessness, she does have some sense of responsibility -- casting the Giga Slave, a spell so dangerous and difficult it could easily take the whole world out with its casting, is no light matter, and something she’s only resorted to a handful of times, and only in the direst situations. And despite her bandit-killing vice, she’ll protect the lives of her friends and innocent people to the end. The fact is that she does care a great deal about her companions, but it tends to only come out in serious situations. And although it’s embarrassing as hell for her to admit, Lina does have a soft side, and she’s a bit of helpless romantic when it comes down to it. She’s also quite a natural leader with her never-say-die attitude, and is excellent at motivating people -- in all sorts of ways.
Lina’s favorite things in life are food and treasure -- with obscure magical knowledge coming up close in third. She’ll toss a Fireball at anyone who gets between her and a good, hot meal, and to say that she’s a glutton is putting it lightly. Despite her all-for-me attitude, Lina seems to get along well with her traveling partners for the most part, until a conflict of interest arises -- and even though they may complain about how greedy and mean she can be, they never abandon her in a real pinch. Lina must absolutely have her own way, and she’ll claw, bite, and Dragon Slave her way to the top if necessary. Just as she’s likely to never give up in the face of adversity, she’s reluctant to admit defeat in an argument. There are only a few things that truly terrify her -- slugs, the deaths of the people she cares most deeply for, and even the slightest mention of her older sister.
When Lina arrives on Tu Vishan, she’ll throw a fit at first -- still a bit confused and disoriented, she’ll demand to no one in particular, in increasingly whiny tones, that she be returned to her world at once because if she doesn’t get back, Gourry’s gonna eat all the food!! However, once she calms down and hears the explanation, curiosity will take over -- and hey, if time’s stopped back home, then what’s to worry about, right? Lina will be pretty confident she’s not dying, so she’ll be content to explore this new place and feed her ravenous appetite for more knowledge, and if the locals want to dote on her and put her up in this gorgeous suite, who is Lina Inverse to say no to that? She might do a little crime fighting of her own from time to time, but this is a chance for Lina to explore some exciting new territory, even if she will get a little lonely for her companions.
Appearance: http://quizilla.teennick.com/user_images/P/PenguinFighter/1064893443_FolderLina.jpg
She stands pretty short at just shy of 5’, although the hair probably adds a few inches.
Abilities: Lina is an exceptionally powerful and skilled sorceress -- one of the most powerful human magic-users alive, if not the most powerful, with the possible exception of her older sister, Luna. She has an unusually large magic capacity for a human being; her bucket and pool capacity are both extremely high, which means that not only can she cast spells that require a lot of magical energy to be used at once, but it also takes quite a bit before she’s exhausted her magic reserves. Although she has spells in her repertoire of white magic, shamanism, and black magic, she specializes mostly in the latter. Lina has a preference for spells that make things go boom, and her two “signature” spells are Fireball (a fire shamanism spell) and the Dragon Slave (the most powerful black magic spell in existence, which borrows power from Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu himself, and unamplified, can easily level a sizable village in one hit). She tosses these spells around rather effortlessly, owing to her large magic capacity.
Lina is also the only known caster of the spells of Ragna Blade and Giga Slave, which fall into no existing categories of magic, as they involve the Lord of Nightmares, the creator of the multiverse that Lina’s plane exists in. The Lord of Nightmares is chaos itself and is the most powerful being in the multiverse, and therefore trumps all demon kings and gods. The Ragna Blade draws upon her power similarly to the way black magic works, but the Giga Slave, a spell of her own invention, actually summons the Lord of Nightmares to the plane in person, so if the caster were to lose control of the spell, they would be consumed by it, and the entire world would be at the mercy of the Lord of Nightmares. Because of her capricious nature, it could easily mean the destruction of the entire world. Lina didn’t learn the true nature of the Giga Slave until after she’d already developed it and cast it once, but since then she’s been incredibly reluctant to use it again. Even retaining the spell within her control, though, the Giga Slave contains enormous destructive power. The Ragna Blade is considerably less dangerous, but it takes an enormous amount of magic energy to sustain, and Lina can only maintain it for a short time before she’s totally drained.
In the department of non-magical things, Lina is deceptively clever. Despite her short temper and her tendency to play dumb when the moment suits her, she’s an intelligent and well-educated young woman. She’s very learned on lore, history, and magical theory, and if there’s a legend of significance somewhere, Lina probably knows of it. Not only that, but she knows how to manipulate a situation to her gain, and she can make snap decisions with a clear head when she has to. She’s also an incredibly shrewd businesswoman, even if she’s largely motivated by greed.
Inventory: Short sword, a small pouch of gold with a few magical trinkets, Demon’s Blood Talismans (a set of four talismans that are linked to each plane’s ma-ou that serve as magic amplifiers)
Suite: Fire Sector, 3F. Lina’s got a flair for the dramatic, and she needs to have every luxury at her disposal!
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: The first thing Lina realizes is that she’s damp. Not damp, soaking. Totally soaked through. For a fleeting moment, she wonders if the maps she bought last week will have survived the water damage. They’d better, she thinks. She paid at least twice what they were really worth because they were pressed for time, and they haven’t paid for themselves yet.
The second thing she realizes is that somebody’s got their hands on her. Several somebodies. She can feel a number of hands on her arms, pulling at her shoulders and her cloak, dragging her onto land. She doesn’t think, just yet, about why she might be dragged onto land, or why she’s soaked through in the first place -- she flails violently, jerking away from the helpful kedan with a yelp.
“Hey!” she snarls, scrambling quickly to her feet -- but as soon as she tries to get up, she’s suddenly keenly aware of how weak she feels. What did she do, cast a Ragna Blade while she was out? Her legs wobble a little and her voice falters, but she manages to get to her feet, throwing an accusing finger at the small group of kedan that has staggered back. They seem off, somehow, and even a little disoriented, Lina’s sharp eye catches a few things about them that don’t seem quite human. Maybe somebody’s chimera experiment gone wrong? No, it’d be more obvious. This is definitely a brand of creature she doesn’t have any experience with. “Who said you could touch me, huh?! I didn’t give anybody permission to get their filthy hands on me!”
The kedan scurry back a few steps, trying to get themselves a safe distance from Lina’s vengeful wrath. Lina glances at her surroundings briefly and determines quickly that this isn’t any place she’s ever seen. She and Gourry definitely weren’t anywhere near water last she checked, which really begs the question of how the hell she even got here -- and where Gourry is. She lifts one hand, flexes it a little. Sure, she’s feeling drained, but that doesn’t mean she can’t manage a little light show.
Lina takes a half step forward, giving the kedan a wicked grin, and a shimmering little ball of light appears in the palm of her raised hand. “I don’t know who you are, where this is, or what the hell’s going on,” she says, a little snarl still snagging in her voice. “So this is what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna explain to me what the hell happened, and I probably won’t punish you for laying your grubby hands all over me. So snap to it! Make with the answers!”
Network: [ the video feed shows Lina looking right back at the screen with a dubious expression on her face, as though she’s unconvinced that this terminal thing actually works. ]
Well, this thing doesn’t look like it’s powered by magic, but it’s definitely not like any machine I’ve ever seen. Where’s Zel when you need him? I guess I’ll just have to trust that it works.
[ And then her disposition shifts a little. Lina draws herself up, smiling winsomely at the screen, hands clasped in front of her. ]
Well! Who cares about that anyway, right? Since I’m in a totally new world and none of you have probably heard of me, I guess it’s up to me to enlighten you all! Standing here before you is none other than the world’s most beautiful, intelligent, magnificent sorcery genius extraordinaire, Lina Inverse, at your service!
Name: Madi
Age: 18+ XXX all the way baby
Contact:
Game Cast: Mandorallen (
inshiningarmor; http://tushanshu.dreamwidth.org/11330.htmlAlready a member? List character names and accounts, plus a link to their AC post (if you have one) or last AC thread.
Character Information:
Name: Lina Inverse, aka Bandit Killer, Dragon Spooker, Enemy Of All Who Live, THE LIST GOES ON OK
Canon: Slayers (anime canon)
Canon Point: After the end of Evolution-R?
Age: 19
Reference: http://kanzaka.wikia.com/wiki/Lina_Inverse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Inverse
Setting: The world of Slayers is at a glance a pretty run-of-the-mill, medieval Europe-inspired swords’n’sorcery setting -- sorcerers, mercenaries, and bandits abound, and the heroes spend an awful lot of time on the road, traveling through forests and mountains to get to their destination.
The world in which Slayers takes place is actually part of a multiverse. A dimension known as the Sea of Chaos surrounds and anchors the four universes that arose from it; these universes are all adjoined to the Sea of Chaos and run parallel to one another. The creator of all life and these universes is known only as the Lord of Nightmares, who dwells in the Sea of Chaos. The universes are collectively known as planes, and the one in which Slayers is set is known as the Red Plane. With each of these physical worlds, there also coexists a spiritual plane known commonly as the astral plane; all beings technically exist on both planes at once, although the size of their presence in each plane differs between different kinds of beings.
The multiverse is home to two opposing forces which are in constant conflict with one another: the mazoku and shinzoku, which are roughly akin to demons and gods (particularly when viewed through the lens of the Red Plane’s setting), although they take different forms depending on the plane. The ultimate goal of mazoku is to destroy all existence, whereas the shinzoku seek to protect it. Each plane has a ma-ou and shin-ou, a demon king and a god king (more or less) who are the original and leading mazoku and shinzoku on each plane. The ma-ou of the Red Plane is known as Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu, and the shin-ou opposite him is Flare Dragon Ceifeed.
HISTORY
An overview of the history of Lina’s world is necessary to understand it. As is the case in all planes, Shabranigdu and Ceifeed have been in constant conflict since the moment of the world’s inception. Approximately 5000 years before the events of the Slayers series, their conflict came to a head. The result was twofold: Ceifeed succeeded in splitting Shabranigdu into seven pieces, sealed into human souls in the hopes that they would degrade and eventually disappear with reincarnation. However, this came at the cost of his own being. He used the last of his power to create four subordinate shinzoku, known collectively as the Dragon Kings. While it appeared that Ceifeed ceased to exist after the conclusion of the conflict, many believe that pieces of Ceifeed’s spirit still inhabit human souls, resulting in people with extraordinary magical power known as Knights of Ceifeed. Lina’s older sister, Luna Inverse, is suspected to be such a Knight.
Prior to this event, however, Shabranigdu had also created five powerful mazoku which serve directly under him: Chaos Dragon Gaav, Beastmaster Zelas, Deep Sea Dolphin, Dynast Grausherra, and Hellmaster Fibrizo; each of these high-ranking mazoku created other mazoku, also of considerable power, to serve directly under them. 4000 years later, the growing conflict between shinzoku and mazoku resulted in another war, known colloquially as the War of the Mazoku’s Fall, although this one had much larger immediate consequences for humanity. During this war, Aqualord Ragradia, one of the four shinzoku left behind, was killed, but was able to seal Gaav into a human body before he died. The remaining four subordinates of Shabranigdu set up a barrier around a large peninsula, which became known as the “Inner World”, which kept out the remaining three shinzoku and their influence, but it also served as a barrier for humanity, effectively cutting off a portion of human civlization. The barrier was anchored at four points by Ruby-Eye’s subordinates, where they remained for several centuries, and was also responsible for the unusually high development of magical ability in humans inside the barrier. This large peninsula, sealed within the barrier, is where Lina and her companions are from, and where the majority of the series takes place.
Roughly a thousand years later, when Lina was about sixteen years old, Gaav had regained most of his power as a mazoku and turned against the rest of his race, no longer interested in their goals of destruction. This created a massive conflict between himself and Hellmaster Fibrizo, who dragged Lina into the mix for a number of self-serving reasons -- mainly that his intention was to use her to destroy all of existence. Fibrizo killed Gaav himself, and then lured Lina to his current base of operations to try and tempt her into using the Giga Slave in the hopes that she would lose control of it, and the world would be obliterated by its massive destructive power. And Lina did lose control of the Giga Slave -- but when she did, the Lord of Nightmares didn’t destroy the world, but Fibrizo himself, since he so desperately sought destruction, and she decided to spare the world. With Fibrizo’s death, the mazoku barrier vanished, giving the peoples of the Inner World access to contact with the human civilizations of the Outer World from which they had been cut off for a thousand years.
Shortly thereafter it was proven that shinzoku and mazoku could, under certain circumstances, travel between planes of the multiverse. Shinzoku who served the shin-ou of the Black Plane, Night Dragon Vorfeed, descended to the Red Plane as part of a plan to summon their plane’s ma-ou, Dark Star Dugradigdu, to the Red Plane so they could destroy him. His arrival, however, did not go terribly as planned, and when he instead fused himself with one of Gaav’s former disciples, it was only through the combined effort of Vorfeed’s shinzoku and Lina and her companions that they were able to defeat him and banish him back to the Black Plane.
Nowadays in the Red Plane, everything is business as usual. The kingdoms of the Inner World continue to communicate with the civilizations of the Outer World, although humanity is still reeling from the upset to their world that has been delivered. The shinzoku, however, seem largely indifferent to the affairs of human beings, and time marches on as always. Currently, the human society of the Inner World is concerned primarily with the return of the kingdom of Taforashia, whose people had been magically frozen during an epidemic until such time as a cure was found.
RACES
Humans are by far not the only creatures to inhabit the Red Plane. As previously mentioned, shinzoku and mazoku are both present, although the mazoku are far more prevalent, especially inside the barrier. However, humans appear to be the most populous for the most part, at least in the parts of the world that we’re shown in the series. For the most part they seem to be organized into kingdoms and city-states, of which there are several in the Inner World, in a fashion heavily inspired by medieval Europe and the swords-and-sorcery genre in general; although there are conflicts between the different nations from time to time, the atmosphere in human society is generally peaceful.
In addition to humans, there are a number of sentient non-human entities that coexist along with them, such as elves, fish people (precisely what it sounds like), and beastmen, although they tend to stick to their own communities. There is also a colorful variety of monsters, such as orcs, trolls, dragons, and the like that tend to live in the wilderness, although it’s not unheard of for rather sinister persons to gather an army of monstrous henchmen to do their bidding.
There are also several races of sentient dragons, divided into different tribes, who serve the shinzoku of the Red Plane. They are not shinzoku themselves, but each dragon tribe appears to pay tribute to one of the four remaining shinzoku (the golden dragons seem to exclusively worship Firelord Vrabazard, for instance). They appear to be of the same stock as non-sentient dragons, although the latter are not organized into tribes and they don’t tend to affiliate with one another. After the erection of the mazoku barrier, all but a handful of the sentient dragons were stuck in the Outer World with the shinzoku.
There exist a number of beings, sentient or otherwise, that are not of natural origin. Chimera experiments, the practice of using magic and technology to combine several different beings into one, are far from unheard of, and there are quite a few magically-animate things such as golems inhabiting the world.
MAGIC
There are three main schools of magic widely practiced by humans in Lina’s world: white magic, black magic, and shamanism.
The source of white magic isn’t very well understood, but it is widely practiced in the Inner World. It largely includes defensive and healing spells, with a few offensive spells that do things like dispel undead creatures.
Black magic draws its power directly from mazoku, either from the race as a whole, or specific mazoku in particular (although if that mazoku were to perish, any spells directly drawing on its power would then cease to work). Most black magic spells are offensive and destructive in nature, although curses and spells that summon mazoku also fall into this category. The Dragon Slave draws power directly from Ruby-Eye himself, and is the most powerful black magic spell available.
Shamanistic magic is an umbrella term for spells that draw power from the basic elements of nature; they are divided into the five categories of fire, earth, water, air, and astral shamanistic magic. Astral magic, unlike the other elements, does not really affect the physical world, but rather primarily targets beings residing on the astral plane, so its effects may not be immediately visible to humans. Astral spells are especially effective on beings whose astral bodies are larger than their physical ones, such as mazoku or shinzoku, and can even kill them in this way (their physical bodies, in contrast, tend to be of little consequence when it comes to taking damage); however, for a human being, whose astral body is considerably smaller, the most that a direct hit on the astral plane will do is cause some significant mental disorientation.
There is a fourth category of magic as well, known as holy magic. Similarly to black magic, it draws its power from shinzoku; however, this magic was lost to human society after the mazoku barrier was erected, cutting out all influence from shinzoku. The sentient races of dragons who serve the shinzoku are the only known current practitioners of holy magic.
Additionally, there are two spells that do not fall into any of the known categories of magic, and Lina is the only known caster of these spells. The Ragna Blade and the Giga Slave call directly on the Lord of Nightmares for power, and as she is neither shinzoku nor mazoku, these spells exist outside of currently defined categories of magic.
The use of magic energy for spell casting follows a pool and bucket model: using magical energy for casting spells is similar to drawing a bucket from a pool full of water. A person’s pool capacity is the total amount of magic energy they can expend before they are totally drained, and can be expanded via magical training. Bucket capacity, however, is usually fixed at birth, and is the amount of magic energy a person can gather and expend at once. More powerful spells have a larger minimum bucket capacity, so a person with relatively small bucket capacity will only ever be able to cast weak, low-level spells.
Personality: Lina is quite the volatile sorceress, and she has a hair-trigger temper. Depending on how she’s feeling at the moment, just about any negative remark might set her off -- especially if it’s with regard to her lack of development in the lady department. Once she’s lost her temper, she’s liable to set someone on fire or level an entire village. As one might expect, she boasts quite a bit of self-confidence, just about to the point of arrogance -- but the bravado is all part of her charm! A lot of her claims are exaggerated, but she’s just as much earned the rest of them with her sheer skill. She’s tenacious to a fault, and isn’t likely to give up even in the face of overwhelming adversity, or, as luck would have it, death. She’s been described by allies and enemies alike as greedy, impulsive, and reckless, but despite all that, she’s surprisingly cunning. A shrewd businesswoman (although some might just call her greedy), she’ll never let go of any money she doesn’t strictly have to, and she drives a hard bargain -- and she’s much more perceptive than she usually lets on. She’s great at thinking on her feet and making snap decisions when it comes down to it.
Lina’s conscience, though, might be called questionable at best by those who consider themselves of high moral character. While she does things that could be considered just in a certain light -- such as killing bandits, monsters, and other threatening figures -- her motivations are often selfish greed or because she’s been given no other option, and even when this isn’t the case, she’s likely to let others believe that it is. She sees no qualms with killing bandits and taking their stolen treasure -- after all, a girl’s gotta eat, right? And what other payment is she going to receive for doing these great deeds to society? She’s pretty okay with manipulating people to certain ends, even her friends, to get them to play along in her schemes, and she clearly has no problem using vastly destructive spells at the drop of a hat. Lina, it seems, is always in it for herself, and unabashedly displays her most selfish and greedy side when the money comes out.
Despite all that, she’s not all bad. Even with her front of bravado and recklessness, she does have some sense of responsibility -- casting the Giga Slave, a spell so dangerous and difficult it could easily take the whole world out with its casting, is no light matter, and something she’s only resorted to a handful of times, and only in the direst situations. And despite her bandit-killing vice, she’ll protect the lives of her friends and innocent people to the end. The fact is that she does care a great deal about her companions, but it tends to only come out in serious situations. And although it’s embarrassing as hell for her to admit, Lina does have a soft side, and she’s a bit of helpless romantic when it comes down to it. She’s also quite a natural leader with her never-say-die attitude, and is excellent at motivating people -- in all sorts of ways.
Lina’s favorite things in life are food and treasure -- with obscure magical knowledge coming up close in third. She’ll toss a Fireball at anyone who gets between her and a good, hot meal, and to say that she’s a glutton is putting it lightly. Despite her all-for-me attitude, Lina seems to get along well with her traveling partners for the most part, until a conflict of interest arises -- and even though they may complain about how greedy and mean she can be, they never abandon her in a real pinch. Lina must absolutely have her own way, and she’ll claw, bite, and Dragon Slave her way to the top if necessary. Just as she’s likely to never give up in the face of adversity, she’s reluctant to admit defeat in an argument. There are only a few things that truly terrify her -- slugs, the deaths of the people she cares most deeply for, and even the slightest mention of her older sister.
When Lina arrives on Tu Vishan, she’ll throw a fit at first -- still a bit confused and disoriented, she’ll demand to no one in particular, in increasingly whiny tones, that she be returned to her world at once because if she doesn’t get back, Gourry’s gonna eat all the food!! However, once she calms down and hears the explanation, curiosity will take over -- and hey, if time’s stopped back home, then what’s to worry about, right? Lina will be pretty confident she’s not dying, so she’ll be content to explore this new place and feed her ravenous appetite for more knowledge, and if the locals want to dote on her and put her up in this gorgeous suite, who is Lina Inverse to say no to that? She might do a little crime fighting of her own from time to time, but this is a chance for Lina to explore some exciting new territory, even if she will get a little lonely for her companions.
Appearance: http://quizilla.teennick.com/user_images/P/PenguinFighter/1064893443_FolderLina.jpg
She stands pretty short at just shy of 5’, although the hair probably adds a few inches.
Abilities: Lina is an exceptionally powerful and skilled sorceress -- one of the most powerful human magic-users alive, if not the most powerful, with the possible exception of her older sister, Luna. She has an unusually large magic capacity for a human being; her bucket and pool capacity are both extremely high, which means that not only can she cast spells that require a lot of magical energy to be used at once, but it also takes quite a bit before she’s exhausted her magic reserves. Although she has spells in her repertoire of white magic, shamanism, and black magic, she specializes mostly in the latter. Lina has a preference for spells that make things go boom, and her two “signature” spells are Fireball (a fire shamanism spell) and the Dragon Slave (the most powerful black magic spell in existence, which borrows power from Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu himself, and unamplified, can easily level a sizable village in one hit). She tosses these spells around rather effortlessly, owing to her large magic capacity.
Lina is also the only known caster of the spells of Ragna Blade and Giga Slave, which fall into no existing categories of magic, as they involve the Lord of Nightmares, the creator of the multiverse that Lina’s plane exists in. The Lord of Nightmares is chaos itself and is the most powerful being in the multiverse, and therefore trumps all demon kings and gods. The Ragna Blade draws upon her power similarly to the way black magic works, but the Giga Slave, a spell of her own invention, actually summons the Lord of Nightmares to the plane in person, so if the caster were to lose control of the spell, they would be consumed by it, and the entire world would be at the mercy of the Lord of Nightmares. Because of her capricious nature, it could easily mean the destruction of the entire world. Lina didn’t learn the true nature of the Giga Slave until after she’d already developed it and cast it once, but since then she’s been incredibly reluctant to use it again. Even retaining the spell within her control, though, the Giga Slave contains enormous destructive power. The Ragna Blade is considerably less dangerous, but it takes an enormous amount of magic energy to sustain, and Lina can only maintain it for a short time before she’s totally drained.
In the department of non-magical things, Lina is deceptively clever. Despite her short temper and her tendency to play dumb when the moment suits her, she’s an intelligent and well-educated young woman. She’s very learned on lore, history, and magical theory, and if there’s a legend of significance somewhere, Lina probably knows of it. Not only that, but she knows how to manipulate a situation to her gain, and she can make snap decisions with a clear head when she has to. She’s also an incredibly shrewd businesswoman, even if she’s largely motivated by greed.
Inventory: Short sword, a small pouch of gold with a few magical trinkets, Demon’s Blood Talismans (a set of four talismans that are linked to each plane’s ma-ou that serve as magic amplifiers)
Suite: Fire Sector, 3F. Lina’s got a flair for the dramatic, and she needs to have every luxury at her disposal!
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: The first thing Lina realizes is that she’s damp. Not damp, soaking. Totally soaked through. For a fleeting moment, she wonders if the maps she bought last week will have survived the water damage. They’d better, she thinks. She paid at least twice what they were really worth because they were pressed for time, and they haven’t paid for themselves yet.
The second thing she realizes is that somebody’s got their hands on her. Several somebodies. She can feel a number of hands on her arms, pulling at her shoulders and her cloak, dragging her onto land. She doesn’t think, just yet, about why she might be dragged onto land, or why she’s soaked through in the first place -- she flails violently, jerking away from the helpful kedan with a yelp.
“Hey!” she snarls, scrambling quickly to her feet -- but as soon as she tries to get up, she’s suddenly keenly aware of how weak she feels. What did she do, cast a Ragna Blade while she was out? Her legs wobble a little and her voice falters, but she manages to get to her feet, throwing an accusing finger at the small group of kedan that has staggered back. They seem off, somehow, and even a little disoriented, Lina’s sharp eye catches a few things about them that don’t seem quite human. Maybe somebody’s chimera experiment gone wrong? No, it’d be more obvious. This is definitely a brand of creature she doesn’t have any experience with. “Who said you could touch me, huh?! I didn’t give anybody permission to get their filthy hands on me!”
The kedan scurry back a few steps, trying to get themselves a safe distance from Lina’s vengeful wrath. Lina glances at her surroundings briefly and determines quickly that this isn’t any place she’s ever seen. She and Gourry definitely weren’t anywhere near water last she checked, which really begs the question of how the hell she even got here -- and where Gourry is. She lifts one hand, flexes it a little. Sure, she’s feeling drained, but that doesn’t mean she can’t manage a little light show.
Lina takes a half step forward, giving the kedan a wicked grin, and a shimmering little ball of light appears in the palm of her raised hand. “I don’t know who you are, where this is, or what the hell’s going on,” she says, a little snarl still snagging in her voice. “So this is what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna explain to me what the hell happened, and I probably won’t punish you for laying your grubby hands all over me. So snap to it! Make with the answers!”
Network: [ the video feed shows Lina looking right back at the screen with a dubious expression on her face, as though she’s unconvinced that this terminal thing actually works. ]
Well, this thing doesn’t look like it’s powered by magic, but it’s definitely not like any machine I’ve ever seen. Where’s Zel when you need him? I guess I’ll just have to trust that it works.
[ And then her disposition shifts a little. Lina draws herself up, smiling winsomely at the screen, hands clasped in front of her. ]
Well! Who cares about that anyway, right? Since I’m in a totally new world and none of you have probably heard of me, I guess it’s up to me to enlighten you all! Standing here before you is none other than the world’s most beautiful, intelligent, magnificent sorcery genius extraordinaire, Lina Inverse, at your service!