Twik

[Twik]

Twik (Insert Banner Name Here If You'd Like) Insert Image Here (Host in our gallery, photobucket, etc) Basic Information Race: Inarta Birthday & Age : Day 31 of 496 AV (14 years) Gender: Female Physical Description Twik is about 5’2” tall, 105 pounds. She is slender and flexible, moving constantly with a restless energy. Her hair is long and a dark red color, and her eyes are a vivid green and wide set. She dresses in comfortable clothing, but is usually more or less in fashion. Character Concept Personality - Outwardly bubbly and vivacious, Twik is in reality a rather philosophical person, although she does tend towards hopeless optimism. Ethics - Twik is a kind person who is empathic to other people's trials and woes, but is disinclined to fret over systemic wrongs or ongoing tragedies. Her impulses towards doing good are emotionally rather than cerebrally driven. Her code of ethics are very situational, and she has few black and white rules such as lying or even stealing being wrong- for her anything that is done for good motives and that achieves a good result is moral. Merits- Twik is outgoing and gregarious, charismatic and easy to speak to. She is slow to anger and quick to forgive, and can keep a secret. Twik is very flexible and a good climber. Flaws- She is not above being manipulative if it suits her goals, although she is not especially malevolent about it. She can be a bit of a drama queen. Tragically ticklish and easily startled. Character History Twik was born in a set of triplets (two girls and a boy) to a commoner couple in Windreach. Sika, her mother, was a cook and her father Nelik was a fletcher who worked to supply Windreach with arrows. Twik was apprenticed to a musician at age 8 and began intensive study to learn to perform at the many festive events of Windreach. One spring when Twik was 10 she went down the mountain with some of her friends to cut wood, which they would saw into lengths appropriate for arrow making and sell to her father’s shop for pocket change. For this purpose they sought out ash trees, removed the straightest of their limbs, and collected the sap to be fermented into a mead-like drink. On this occasion something happened which Twik was never fully able to understand. Twik was cutting a low branch that she could reach from the ground, and when she looked up to wipe sweat from her brow she saw a figure standing at the edge of the clearing. The day was foggy and the sun was behind him and so that she perceived only a dark outline of some bipedal form. From that point her memories of the day became confused. The fog seemed to become dense and stringy, so that the rays of the sun had to claw their way towards her in little wads, like golden spiders moving through a ragged gray curtain. Other figures arrived, and she could see that each wore the head of some bird or other. Some perched in trees and some squatted on the ground and one or two seemed to drift through the air with an attitude of casual insouciance. They spoke to each other about her, but time had begun to move randomly and the words came both backwards and forwards so that she soon became confused. A shadow fell over her and for a moment she was lying in a cave with a pattern of crystals all around her, and then a moment later she was swimming in deep sunlit waters surrounded by schools of crimson fish that never faced away from her. The staring fish unnerved her and through dint of great struggle she surged to the surface of the water, where the wind blew through her until she dissolved like fog. The fog version of Twik found her senses had become disjointed and she perceived things from all angles at once. A voice spoke to her from far away but she could never quite hear it and often forgot to listen. Without noticing it her vision resolved back into a single vantage point, and then it became dark and she was on the Skyinarta. She found her way back up the slope of the mountain by following a set of phosphorescent footprints on the narrow trail that disappeared as she stepped into them. She felt pain in the small of her back and when she put her hands there she felt a raised welt that seemed to be some form of symbol, but for some reasons she did not want to know what it looked like and never used a mirror to see it. In three days it had disappeared. When she cautiously questioned her friends about the day’s events, none of them seemed to have noticed anything unusual, and all seemed to think that she had been with them more or less the entire day. With no other real choice, Twik wrote the experience off as a dream, or perhaps the effect of inhaling some volcanic gas. In the days and months to come however, Twik discovered within herself an instinct that allowed her to analyze and exploit the mental processes of others, sometimes even to the extent of reaching out and changing them suddenly. She found the ability quite exciting, and kept it as a special secret about which she spoke to no one. Training (Skills, Arcana, Gnosis, Lore) Archery- 10 (racial points) Mandolin- 10 (Starting Points) Singing- 20 (starting points) Hypnotism-10 (starting points) Musical Instrument crafting- 10 (starting points) Lore: Inarta music Lore: Comportment (how to dress to advantage, wear make-up, behave and so on) Gnosis Mark I- Audious (from Rhaus) Equipment and Possessions 1 Set of Clothing (cloak/coat & footwear included) 1 Water skin 1 Backpack which contains: 1 Set of Toiletries (comb, brush, razor, soap) Food for a week 1 eating knife Flint & Steel Family Heirloom- Flat backed octave mandolin House- Twik sleeps in a small room at the back of her Master’s house. Dress Deck of Fortune Telling cards Ledger 100 pinions -10 gold pinions for Deck of Cards -0.8 Pinions for dress Total: 89.2 Pinions Thread List

[Twik]

The Story of Twik's Gnosis mark

Twik had always known that there was something magical about music. How was it that one collection of sounds could have such a profound emotional impact, while another set did nothing? It defied all rationality. The question that plagued her was what exactly the nature of that magic was. How did it get into the sounds? Could it get into any sound, or were only certain tones and patterns suitable for carrying the magic?

And so, at the age of 4, Twik sat on the edge of a cliff with the world far down below her feet, listening to the cry of birds. She had a great feeling of clarity which was perhaps brought on by the fact that she had not eaten in three days. The birdsong fascinated Twik. Was it music? Sometimes it seemed to be, and other times it didn’t. When you concentrated on the sounds of an individual bird it was not all that much like music, but enough songs together very nearly was. Then again perhaps it was music made for birds and her human ears could only let her in on tiny fragments of the magic.

Twik tried to imitate the bird sounds she heard, crying back into the cool spring air with her high child’s voice. It somehow did not come out right and she thought that perhaps what she needed was to allow her body to decide what to do and not try and figure it out. After all, birds just did what came naturally, didn’t they? She emitted a disturbing array of shrieks and warbles, but the birds only fell silent at her sounds.

The reason why Twik had not eaten in three days was a comment her father had made to her several days previously. One thing Twik had always known was that she wanted to make a living by creating music, but her father had told her that this could not be- music, while pleasant, was not practical and that because no one could eat music if music was all she produced she would fall to the lowest caste and suffer the many unpleasantness’s that befell such people. Twik did not want to become a Dek, but on the other hand it did not seem unquestionably true that a person could nourish their bodies with music. Had anyone ever tried? Her parents had apparently given up on the notion without testing it, and it hardly seemed reasonable to Twik to give up on her ambitions without making an effort.

Twik had gotten through her first day on nothing but music by feigning a tummy ache, but it had been difficult because her mother kept telling her to stop singing and get some rest. Without adequate music Twik felt an intense hunger, and so when her mother and father had gone to bed out she snuck out of their home and left Windreach, descending by a narrow pathway into the mountainside below. Twik had not been out of Windreach very many times and in the dark it took her only a matter of minutes to become lost in the forest.

After the first long day and night without food the all music diet seemed to begin to work, and Twik was much encouraged. The aching in her stomach receded to a dullish feeling of emptiness and although she continued to be thirsty, it was not difficult to find streams. Hunger came in savage rugged patches, and it was not always easy for Twik to find the right music to drive it away again. By now Twik very much wanted to go home, but while she knew that the way home was upward, climbing cliffs proved tricky and after her attempts at it she always had to turn back. She did so now, climbing down from her lofty perch into the forest below.

It was then that Twik heard a new sound, one that was very likely music in some elemental form. The sound made her tummy flip, and drove the hunger right away. She stood transfixed, and a moment later the singer made its way into the clearing. It was a doggie of some sort, large and grey, and it looked at her and then shook its head back and forth as if telling her ‘no.’ A moment later it raised its muzzle to the sky and vented a long eerie wail, a song of sadness and triumph, and Twik was very much frightened and encouraged. She threw back her own head and echoed the song, but her version was thin and weak, and she ended it by coughing. More of the doggies came, and they began to pace about and make little noises amongst each other as if unsure how to proceed. And then, as quickly as they'd come, the doggies left. Twik watched them go with a feeling of sadness until a large hand fell upon her shoulder. She jumped and gave a startled squeak.

"What do you do here child?" a man said. He was a tall man with the hair shaved from the sides of his head. What hair was left was silver and black, and tied into a pony tail. The man was very old, perhaps even 20 years old, which was as high as Twik could count. He walked with a fancy stick.

"I am singing with the doggies," Twik said earnestly.

"Are you now? You came all the way down here to sing with the doggies?"

"Yes," said Twik seriously. “No. I want to see if I can ...eat music. Daddy says I can't eat music so I can't play it. I have to make arrows. So now I try to eat music, only I got losted.”

"He said that, did he?" The man laughed. "And so you came down here?"

"Yes, so I wouldn't have to eat food."

"How long have you eaten music?"

"For three days."

"Well, I think that's long enough, don’t you?”

Twik nodded solemnly in agreement.

“Come this way.”

The man led Twik through the woods, and before long they came to a game trail. Here he stopped and sat down on the stump of a tree. Twik had been watching him as he walked, and was taken by his walking staff.

“Your staff has notes of music on it. Do you eat music too? Or do you make arrows?”

The man chuckled. "There are more choices than those, child. You will find that in life you have to do a great many things. Some of them you will enjoy and some you will not. There is no rule that a person who makes arrows might not also make music. In fact, if you want to make music, you’ll need to do many things. Good music comes from a person with experiences. Do you understand that?”

Twik thought about this. “So you can make songs about what happens to you?”

“Very much like that.”

“I can’t think of a song about making arrows.”

“You haven’t made the arrows yet.” The man pointed out. Twik had to concede the truth of this.

The man laid his hand on Twik’s shoulder again, and she felt a warmth come through from it that caused her comfort so that for some reason she nearly started to cry. The man pointed down the path, where a hunter was just coming around the bend. “Tell this man your tale, and he will see you home. I must go now, but I will see you again one day.” With this, he rose, and passed away into the woods. It was not until Twik was home that she noticed the mark upon her shoulder where the man’s hand had lain.