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[voicetested]

Character
Character Name: Alalia Ridgeley
Canon: Original canon - "Intonate"
Canon Point: During her initial investigation with Aster Anwick. She's awakened to her magic but has yet to make any significant progress in her investigation.
Type: OC
Age: Twenty-three
History/Key Points: I’m doing this in bullet points but it’ll probably be maximum tl;dr anyway and for that I can only apologize.

♪ Intonate takes place in the country of Adryae, a faux-European country in a fantasy setting. Magic is incredibly common in this world and is deeply intertwined with magic. While humans cannot naturally channel it directly, it's common for them to make use of external instruments and weapons to do so. Humans with a naturally higher affinity for magic tend to be born with a reddish tint to their eyes and hair.

♪ Back while Adryae was still young and lacked a formal order of knights, it was common for bands of adventurers to travel the country, dealing with disturbances and threats, backed by their guilds. Once such group of adventurers was headed by a girl whose name has mostly been forgotten. Referred to as the ‘Siren’, she displayed an unheard of affinity for channeling magic which she was able to do just with her voice and without any external influence.

♪ As the Siren grew more powerful, her control over her magic grew even less so. While she was initially unconcerned, viewing it as a simple growing pain of her magic, she was eventually proven dreadfully wrong. Her powers grew wildly out of control to the point of taking on a will of their own and in her attempts to wrestle them back under control, the Siren’s was very nearly destroyed. But with her incredible powers still existing, the Siren was unable to actually die and found herself stuck in a painful limbo between living and death. Unable to pass on but still lucid enough to be aware of what had happened, she suffered immensely.

♪ Recognizing her pain, the band of adventurers she had traveled with (who had all loved her devotedly) reformed themselves as an order dedicated to studying the Siren’s magic in the hopes of quelling it and finally allowing her to pass on in peace. Though years passed and the order grew in power and influence. Eventually, they came to merge with and essentially take over the upper echelons of the Adryian Royal Guard which afforded them all the power and influence they would need to continue their work. Despite this, they were unable to unravel the Siren’s magic and finally kill her.

♪ Over the years, the Siren’s powers continued to run out of control and through a disaster that nearly destroyed the northern plains of the country, proved that they may eventually be dangerous not just to herself but to Adryae as a whole. Spurred on by fear, the Royal Guard decided that the only thing truly capable of destroying the Siren was her own magic. The Royal Guard begin planning to pass a portion of her magic onto another person and eventually use that person as a weapon against the Siren.

♪ Through a dangerous magical ritual, the Guard were able to separate a portion of the Siren’s magic and pass it onto someone else. The knight they chose, Lillian Ridgely, was thought to be the best match for the Siren’s powers. But the ritual went disastrously wrong and Lillian, unable to handle the strain of taking off the Siren’s power, was nearly killed. Because of the damage done to her in the process, she was unable to continue her duties in the Royal Guard. Lillian gave up her title and retired to a far off town in the hopes of being able to start anew.

♪ With her went Isak Ricstrede, a knight who had taken part in the ritual and had been scapegoated as the one who caused its failure. He was "assigned" to care for Lillian as she recovered in what everyone involved knew was essentially a forced retirement to punish him for his failure.

♪ Predictably, the two of them fell in love (though Isak was still motivated by guilt) and eventually married. Some time after their marriage, Lillian gave birth to twin daughters, Alalia and Elodie. The two girls were born with red hair that was surprisingly long and already growing. After some confusion, Lillian and Isak realized that despite the former’s body seeming to reject the Siren’s magic, she had managed to pass it down to her twin daughters.

♪ Still suffering the effects of the ritual, Lillian was adamant in her refusal to allow her daughters to be involved in the Royal Guard, in fear of them being hurt or worse. Though initially agreeable, Isak was torn between respecting his wife’s wishes and his duty to the guard. Eventually, he chose to betray Lillian and exerted his influence to have Elodie taken from her care, to be raised by the guard as a weapon against the Siren. Upon his return to the Guard, he is ‘rewarded’ for his so-called loyalty with a promotion and becomes Captain of the Guard.

♪ Still too weak to stop or pursue him, Lillian spent much of Alalia’s early life as a caring but distant mother, more preoccupied with her desire to rescue Elodie and one-up Isak. When Alalia was four, she chose to leave her in the care of a friend of hers, the knight, Edric Erimkahn. Fully transparent in her intentions, Lillian made him promise that Alalia would be discouraged from the Guard as she grew up, to prevent her from suffering the same fate as Elodie. Edric recognized the value in Alalia as a backup, however, and lied to ensure that Lillian would trust him with Alalia. With that, Lillian essentially disappeared and Edric does not hear from her again.

♪ Left in Edric’s care, Alalia grew to admire the Royal Guard and eventually expressed the desire to become a knight herself. With his blessing, she began training at a young age and was eventually knighted at the age of twenty-three, alongside several of her fellow trainees.

♪ She is still relatively new when she is approached by an old friend of hers, Aster Anwick, to investigate a string of disappearances in the adventurer community. Several teenagers with magical proficiency have simply vanished into thin air. Their disappearances all happen during their travels which lead a majority of people to chalk them up to accidental deaths in the field. Aster Anwick suspects otherwise, especially with them all being magically proficient but she doesn't have any evidence to back up her suspicions. Aster requests Alalia as a guard while she conducts her initial investigation into the disappearances. Her intention is to bait Alalia into being curious enough about the disappearances to start pushing for the guard to investigate them too.

♪ The two stop off in Talmsworth, a small adventurers community to begin tracking a lead on one of the most recent disappearances, a young boy with a particular flair for composing charms and spells. Just as they begin their investigation, Talmsworth is assaulted by a creature that came waltzing out of everyone's worst nightmares. While initially mostly confused, the monster becomes hostile once it sees Alalia and goes berserk. She's unable to do any harm to it until her desperation to live causes her to awaken to the Siren's power and using that magic she is able to kill the creature.

♪ Shaken and confused, Alalia and Aster conclude that this cannot be a mere coincidence and decide to investigate the source of both the disappearances and the attack on Talmsworth. This is pretty much her canon point.

Personality:

Alalia is, first and foremost, a knight. Having trained since she was a little girl to join her country’s order, she’s had the attitudes and conduct of its military drilled into her head and finds the habits and behaviours born from it tough to break away from. Having been taught all her life that a knight must be cool-headed and a good authority figure, Alalia tried to fit herself into that mold as well. She’s rather married to her own self-perception of being cool-headed and rational and makes active efforts to keep up this kind of front. This is particularly pronounced around strangers. This can make her overly formal and a little stiff, unintentionally rebuffing people with her attempts to remain ‘professional’. It’s not that she’s cold or unfriendly exactly, but she struggles with coming down from her position and engaging people on a more equal level. This is less of a problem for her with fellow knights, even those from other orders or countries, as she tends to feel an instinctive kinship with them that helps to strike up a much faster rapport.

When Alalia’s walls are down and she’s less focused on being herself rather than simply a knight, she allows much more of herself to come forward. The quickest way to do this is usually to just take her down a peg and let her reactions tell the whole story. After all, under all her posturing and training, Alalia is still only in her twenties and she can be just as prone to the same foibles as other people her age, especially when it comes to recovering from losing her cool. Under all her attempts at cool rationality, she actually has a rather short temper and is prone to being short and snappy when she’s appropriately irritated. She’s also not above holding grudges and is in fact terrible about holding onto slights. This is worsened by the fact that Alalia is blunt and doesn’t care much for softening her words. For better or for worse, she’s unafraid to be open about her opinions regardless of any offense or conflict that they might cause. When she's being "professional" this manifests in biting passive aggression. When she's more relaxed she doesn't even pretend to bother with the "passive" part.

Alalia is also an incredibly determined person – if there’s something that she wants or needs then she’ll do absolutely everything in her power to get it. If she’s knocked down, she’ll stand back up. If she’s pushed away, she’ll just push back even harder. As expected of someone who’s been in combat training since she was a young girl, she’s disciplined and dogged in her pursuit of her goals. Failure just isn’t a word in her vocabulary. While this is admirable, it’s also one of her biggest faults. Her determination easily becomes stubbornness which can feed further into tunnel vision, especially if she has a defined goal to push herself towards.

She’s never cruel in the pursuit of her goals and never goes out of her way to bring harm to anyone to further her own agenda. But when she’s full fixated on something, she has a nasty habit of dismissing the trials and suffering of others as less important than her own. While she’ll never just up and ignore someone who asks for her help, situations that otherwise would have gotten her riled up in righteous indignation won’t inspire the same level of passion.

Alalia isn’t just or even primarily her worst traits, however. Despite trying to present herself as being completely self-sufficient and independent, Alalia is at her best when she is around other people. When she’s isolated, she gets caught up in being the kind of person she thinks she should be as opposed to who she is which brings all her flaws into glaring view. When she has friends by her side, they’re incredibly effective at not only bringing her down a peg or two but also coaxing her better qualities out of her. And she’s less intent on being cool and professional, Alalia’s real self shines through.

She’s compassionate and can be generous, with a strong sense of justice and a rock-bottom tolerance for bullies and those who take advantage of weak or helpless people. In short, she's naturally chivalrous -- what one would expect from a knight. She can be quite crass when she’s not putting thought into what she says and she’s got a terrible sense of humour – shitty puns and slapstick absolutely slay her (though she does her best to pretend otherwise). She’s not above poking fun at herself and her own severity either. She'll play along and be the bad cop for someone or she'll deadpan lighthearted insults about how she'd sell her best friend to Satan for a single corn chip. She doesn't often feel comfortable letting herself act like this so consider yourself lucky if you ever hear Alalia Ridgely's One Allotted Actual Joke for the month.

What’s most important about Alalia though is that she’s loyal. It takes a bit of effort to worm your way into her affections, but once you’re there, you’re there for life. She’s fiercely devoted to the people she considers “hers” and will always believe the best of them, even if circumstances suggest she should be suspecting the worst. When Alalia loves, she loves incredibly fiercely and will put every ounce of energy into making that evident. When you have her trust you have it for life and god help you if you betray it.

Gem: Selenite, on root chakra – in the small of her back. Selenite is said to aid in activating dormant abilities from past lives and to aid in insomnia and restlessness which all seems to fit in nicely with that big ol worldbuilding screen. Also I think the name’s pretty. Come at me.
Power Considerations:

♪ Mirror Move: Alalia can summon a single copy of herself, ala Holopearl. The Copy!Alalia is a literal mirrored version of herself right down to using the opposite hand to wield her sword and looks washed out and desaturated. She also cannot speak. While this copy can summon and use the same weapon as Alalia, it cannot use any of her powers and can be destroyed very easily. Alalia can only summon one at a time.

♪ Intoner Mode: (muffled this silence is mine in the distance) Alalia gains a buff to her physical abilities (strength, speed and resilience) when she hears music. This effect comes into play more extremely if Alalia herself sings. She cannot yet buff herself to superhuman standards and the effect immediately disperses if the music or song is stopped.

♪ Fire Aura: Alalia's body is surrounded by an aura of intense heat that serves dual offensive and defensive purposes. The heat she produces is enough to immediately leave a bad burn if she touches skin directly and generally be painful and uncomfortable to be subjected to. Alalia can only use this power once a day and will be feverish following its use until she's able to get some rest.

Extra: I’d like to tell you that I chose her gem location because it’d look nice, but it’s actually just because I wanted to give her a tramp stamp gem and so it'd look like she was pulling a sword out of her butt. There. I said it.

Writing Sample: Cosmo TDM, waving sords around w Hallelujah on my musebox