Adaig

Appearence

Adaig is a young human girl, around 12-13 years old. She has a fair skin and straight, auburn hair, usually kept long. A mole exists in her right cheek, and she has freckles in her shoulders. Her eyes are naturally green, albeit her magical use has added an unnatural iridescence to them, often reflecting violets and blues when she casts magic.

She favours flamboyant, pompous dresses, particularly in greens, blues and violets. She rarely deviates from this tendency even in planes where it makes little sense, but manages to use this conspicuousness to her advantage. Though her clothes are very unpragmatic, she has little problem venturing into the wilderness, especially if she has someone to carry her around.

She carries about three main items, usually in cases hidden in her dresses: a dark, silver mask attached to a black iron rod, a drab, brown covered book with an emerald butterfly on the cover, and a purple writing quill, resembling more a dragonfly's wing rather than a feather.

Backstory

Adaig was both to aristocrats in a plane ruled by a puritanical empire. Born in a pampered but extremely strict environment, she developed quickly the impetus to read, immersing herself in fictional worlds, imagining herself living adventures far away. Her parents for the most part encouraged her to pursue her interests in literature, so long as they retained a level of control on what she could read. And, for years, she was fine with this; not much was forbidden for her to read, since her society was extremely interested in sanitation anyways. Furthermore, she was rather "well behaved", quiet, and did not express much desire to be rambunctious or cause trouble, making her the ideal little girl in her tiny little world.

One day, though, everything changed. She was reading by a bench in the massive gardens her parents owned, when a fairy landed on her shoulder. The fairy was simply curious and nonchalant about what Adaig was doing, failing to realise that the girl previously only conceived the fair folk as a legend. Excited, she quickly took the opportunity to learn more about the fair folk, in exchange for nothing more complicated than information and objects from her.

Thus, for the next year of her life, she visited the fairy glenn every dusk, where she'd exchange human goods for knowledge of the fair folk. The fairies obliged, teaching her not only about themselves and their society, but also their form of magic, integral to their culture - or so they said, at least. And so she learned, and practised in secret, loving the art to no end, not knowing exactly what would happen if her parents found out, but not particularly keen to find out. Through this, she received the quill from the fairies, and she took a fairy tales compilation book and added additional pages from other books, expanding it into becoming her personal collection, her "grimoire" of sorts.

And so this went, until a masquerade ball, celebrating her cousin's birthday. For this, she asked her parents to make her a mask, made of silver and supported by an iron rod. Finding it odd, they nonetheless didn't put much thought into it, and did as she said. When the ball took place, she used this mask, and took it to her face. Instantly, the glamour spell she desired worked, turning her into a heroine from one of her tales. The sheer euphoria at this ignited her spark, and in the midst of the ball she disappeared, flung into another world.

Finding herself in Lorwyn, she quickly understood something was wrong, and retried the spell, trying to get back home. Seeing it not working, she momentarily distracted herself by observing the fantastical fairy tale creatures around her, hoping to learn how to get home from them. Before she could make herself known, though, she came across another planeswalker. Sensing something strange about that person - who was using the glamour of an elf -, she followed her, and after a week of successful stalking by applying every glamour spell she knew, Adaig caught her in the act of planeswalking away. She succeeded in replicating the act, planeswalking first to Shandalar, and then to her homeplane.

There, she was disheartened to know that she was branded a witch, and her own parents turned against her. Seeing no other choice, she tearfully said goodbye to her homeworld, leaving her former life behind.


Personality

Adaig is a mostly calm, quiet person, though she can be quite lively and talkative if she needs to be. She cheerishes time alone for herself, indulging her creativity and introspection, often reminiscing about her experiences. In some respects, she is still the girl she has been throughout most of her life, enjoying walking about in lovely gardens, reading and the comfort of aristocracy, though she has acquired a more bold, confident streak, willing to experiment and seek what she wants. She has a love for adventure, always seeking to visit new places and learn about them, though of course not without a good measure of personal comfort, hiring staff to take care of her while she explores, either with legitimate money or using her glamours.

Because of her particular life experiences and form of magic, Adaig is quite familiar with the concept of roles, shaping society and the individual alike. She likes to muse about this subject, seeing roles in plastic and maleable but also universal terms, and she is quite content with exploring them to her whims, even if she is somewhat limited by her need for luxury.


Magic

Learning from the fairies, Adaig is a specialist in glamour, and the thin line between reality and illusion, manipulating both to the best of her capacities. In particularly, she specialises in a form of glamour through the use of stories: through her book and through her mask, she can fully assume the identity of the characters in the stories, and turn other people into said characters if she so desires. Writing with her quill, she can further reccord other tales or create her own, adding more fodder to the canon. She is also capable of other glamours, like casting illusions over places, creating phantasms and clouding a person's mind with a false reality.

Now featured in a story.

Hello! Thanks for posting. I went ahead and read this over and I have a few questions/comments.



So, this is the first thing that caught my eye. Firstly, I find this interesting. I happen to like those colors a great deal, especially in tandem. Secondly, in what way does she use this conspicuousness to her advantage? I understand that this is a 'walker bio and not a story, but it seems like this information would be relevant, yeah? Especially for a girl of her age. The multiverse, unfortunately, is a patently unkind place.

@The background: Besides a fair (ha!) amount of typos, everything here looks good - except for one thing. The planeswalker, who was also disguised as an elf or something? Yeah, what's with that? Does that go anywhere? She just sort of watches this person leave and decided, "Hey, maybe I can do that to?" and then she does and ends up on Shandralar for some reason? Before going home. It's a little incoherent. You make her sound so inquistive and insightful - this sort of seems like the sort of thing she could figure out on her own!

The concept is solid, but the finer points could use some work.

@Personality: Ok, this part I'm having trouble coming to terms with. I'll start at the top. Most of the beginning is good, indicative of how she grew up - she talks about things she's passionate about, but is general introverted. I like that. However, you mention she "hires staff" to take care of her as she explores. Um... With what money? With what income? As far as you've revealed, she is an entirely new planeswalker, not even grown at all, and with only a few illusions at her disposal. Like, I think the idea of a little primp noble girl sitting on a palanquin as she orders around a variety of servants is as amusing as the next person, but her authority as an individual ended when she left her home plane, right?

Then, there's this part:



She's twelve, right? Because this doesn't sound like any twelve year old I've ever met. I know she was tutored by a bunch of fairies that tricked her, but I don't think they magically matured her mind so that she could have a complete grasp of sociology. I think you should play up the "little girl finds wonder in everything" angle and downplay the "astute scholar and critic of social dynamics" angle.

@Magic: Again, I would like to reiterate that she's twelve, but then, we have a variety of other 'walkers who are young and capable of similar magics. (Actually, I think only Lourima comes to mind. Hm. And she more just... brute forces her way through things. Literally.) I like that a young girl has access to potent magic items such as these, but it sounds like she using them, um... too responsibly? Man, I can just imagine her getting into so much trouble with these. Like, the sort of trouble that gets little girls murdered.

I get that she learned all this from the fae, but I don't really understand how she's just uh... completely and adamantly fluent in the intricacies of glamour and mind control.

Final Thoughts: This is a solid character concept that I find intriguing, personally, but you've got a little bit of a split interest here. I think you need to focus on either making her a powerful glamour sorcereress that beguiles others into serving her, or focus on making her an innocent girl who is just trying to make her stories come to life. Both of these have a LOT of potential, but not at the same time, ya dig?

Anyway, thanks for posting!

Hi, thanks for the review! I'll further check the spelling mistakes.



It's something kind of hard to describe. I tried to show it off a bit in her little story, when her sudden appearence (plus the dogs turning into people) puzzles the guard, momentarily stunning him. I think I can summarise it as "using weirdness to build an image of yourself as fabricating the desired effect".



Even the most inquisitive need a little guidance. All she needed was sort of a confirmation of that capacity, and voilá.



Simple manipulation, plus wealth generated by illusion magic.



It's kind of a childish play thing less than a fully fledged philosophy. Note that it's a bit simplistic.

As for her talent, it will become clear once I write her experiences with the fae.

Fixed some of the typos and worded things better a bit.

Okay, yeah, this girl isn't 12 or 13. Sorry. Especially after reading the story, her actions, behaviors, and especially powers are completely incongruent with a 12 year old. Add ten years to her age, and I might buy some of this. Make her act less like a cultured and experienced person who's been around the block enough times to see what's going on? Sure. Not making her able to transmogrify anyone she meets? Well, that's probably a good idea anyway.

I mean, this ties in specifically with her story "Trouble in the Woods," but here's the thing. It's always problematic to have a "good guy" character transform into a hydra and brutally kill eleven people and give it basically no thought. But when you have a 12 year old do that? There's an entire new level of problems and associations that come along with that.

That's my opinion, anyway.

Thank you for pointing those out. Now I feel stupid for missing them.

I still feel that her worldview is sufficiently simplistic and naïve to be believable. I dunno, perhaps I was an abomination of a kid or something.