Skell aka Red

Name:
Skell


Nickname:
Only affectionately called Red


Age:
Actual age is 19. She’s been told she looks her age or older, but never younger.


Gender:
Female


Species:
Human


Position:
Neutral


Powers:
Skell is usually a noncombatant character, as her main interest is to expand her knowledge; however, she’s noticed in order to excel further in her Nobody studies, she must try and immerse herself within their society:

Stealth: Ability to navigate visually unnoticeably with the aid of a necklace she wears, an eye dangling from the chain; however, it only masks her physical being, and not her sounds, fragrance, et cetera. Prolonged use of it depletes her energy. Invisibility can be rid of if Skell is touched, even slightly, by someone else who is not cloaked. Can cloak more than one person if in contact before invisibility entered.

Fire Magic: Through her father’s mentorship, Skell can conjure bowling ball-sized fireballs from her palms. They can easily be dodged, and if hit only singe. Ability can last three posts. Cool down time necessary is mirrored by usage time.

Fire Magic Deflection from Enemy: When manipulating fire from an enemy, depending on the strength of the enemy, the duration of her ability is very short due to the conflicting force. Two post max duration, until she gets stronger. Cool down time is double the deflection duration.

Imagination (General): Both her notebook and her paintbrush are necessary for this move. By running her paintbrush across an image in her notebook, within time the image materializes. This is not limited to materializing sketches of people or monsters; but the more complex the image, the longer it takes to materialize.

Imagination (Possibilities): Skell is able to conjure:
-- the common, lowest level Dusk (relative to her level)
-- the common, lowest level Heartless (relative to her level)
-- Twinblades for battle
-- a basic shield for battle
-- people whom have given her consent, whether intentional or by mistake (for Canon and Original characters, respective user will be contacted beforehand for permission)
-- A vivid or familiar world.
Note: dream states do not allow Skell to draw something she may conjure. It must happen when she is awake.

Imagination (Battle): If about to engage in battle, only twin blades have been found successful in being materialized for an unknown reason. Can be conjured within same post, and lasts until the end of battle. Skell cannot produce a forcefield or indestructible wall of any sort for protection.

Imagination (Out of Battle): Conscious creations can maneuver on their own on the side of Skell, and can more easily be terminated if they have an actual, living counterpart. Cannot be conjured in battle, but if it finds itself in a battle situation it will battle, although at a much weaker strength than an original. Can be terminated by forceful touch, and not a simple brush. (for example, if a preexisting person is materialized and were to battle its existing model, it would have 75% of the skill its existing model has in battle). Original creations are no stronger than Skell is physically in battle. Thus, if Skell is physically or mentally weak, her creation will be as well. Materialized people take two posts and last until erased or forcibly struck against. Materialized original creatures take one post and last until erased or forcibly struck against. Unless Skell is extremely weak mentally or physically, Skell should be able to materialize drawings with her paintbrush.
Just as drawings have imperfections, so do her materializations. Nothing is impenetrable nor immovable.

Paint it Read: Her paintbrush is the closest thing she has to a weapon, as it contains magical qualities, such as allowing her to hear from those who wish to contact her, and vice versa. Details of the paintbrush below.

Paint a Seen: With the paintbrush, she can paint a picture of what she sees or has seen before, without it being in her hand. It can also serve as her teleportation device. For teleportation, it is best if she has been there before, but if not she can work off a photograph. Details of the paintbrush below.

Cure Magic: Running her paintbrush over an injury heals most wounds and burns. Cannot reattach limbs nor heal deep punctures – although can treat the latter minimally. Details of the paintbrush below.


Weapon:
Paintbrush: The paintbrush does not need to be held in order to be used. In fact, it can travel through the air on its own, containing a persona of its own sometimes. It can paint in thin air a clear picture or phrase, which replicates itself into a notebook that Skell keeps in her pack. It can be used to communicate with others; their words or their thoughts – the latter in only dire or intimate situations, and only if desired. The paintbrush, as Skell knows of now, cannot be used to harm. It can also help heal minor injuries, and treat more severe ones. If out of her sight, Skell cannot summon her paintbrush; it must return on its own due to it may be in use by someone who wishes to send Skell a message.

Notebook: Necessary to produce weapons of battle, and other drawings into tangible, and sometimes conscious, items.

Dagger: Just small enough to fit in a sheath fit inside the calf of her boot. There for emergencies. When it punctures, it merely puts the victim to sleep, and does not kill them.

Evil Eye Necklace: Given to her to rid of the evil eye in society, Skell has found that it takes its purpose to an inconceivable level by being able to cloak her, although it’s physically draining.


Picture:



Appearance:
Skell is petite, standing at five feet tall. She’s slender, and said to have a dancer’s physique. She has medium-length, thick, black curly hair, and deep, almost black-brown eyes. She wears a creme, short sleeved and slightly-above-the-knee high dress, but is most commonly found wearing a bold red, knee-high coat over it. She also wears black stockings and boots, which come up to the knee with laces and a slight heel. Skell is known to have a variety of scarves because she gets cold easily, most commonly wearing a red one. Her fingernails are a bold red in color, matching her coat; however, her hands she hardly shows anymore due to black wrist-length gloves she wears for protection from her experimentation and learning of fire magic.


Personality:
Skell is a usually rational and deductive person, greatly enjoying the thrill of a game, puzzle, riddle. Because of this interest, she is very inquisitive in her actions. Despite her scholarly ambitions to learn more about the wonder that is a Nobody – a soul that lives and behaves, but yet has no heart – she is compassionate and warm at heart. But due to the nature of her study, trying to study beings who do not feel, she feels her emotions will only get in the way of her getting closer to learning about a Nobody society. Therefore, she attempts to not let her emotions get the best of her, and remains reserved for the most part. Skell feels as though she was born in the wrong city, because the empty and quiet streets of Twilight Town do not excite her, seeing herself more as a city girl, enjoying a fast-paced life. Sometimes her level of interest in Nobodies makes her believe that she should have been born one, but thinks it is too dangerous to even consider when she is in her right mind.

Skell also does not mind company, and is in fact welcoming to most, but can fair just fine on her own. To people she trusts, she is very loyal; however, in the face of excelling in her studies, her judgment may become foggy. And just as she gives people the benefit of the doubt, people have noticed her to be wholly respectful and true to her word.

In her spare time, she tries her best to submerge herself in the arts, another thing she can get overly excited about.

Original World:
Twilight Town

Current World:
Twilight Town (as she is not confident in her supposed conjuring of dark portals from much reading of scriptures)


History:
Ever since Skell first stumbled upon a Dusk when she was 17, and her eyes dwelled on the interesting notion of a “Nobody,” she has had an obsession with discovering more about them. Unknowledgeable of what they were, Skell asked her father about them, who responded with limited information. The idea that someone can cease to have a heart, but still exist, is intriguing to her. Even more so is that, if they can exist without a heart, then maybe there is a way to live as humans do – to live as though they are not “heartless.” In trying to conduct her own research and study, she found she really only encountered a race known as Heartless, and only ever observed them from afar. She deduced that the Heartless must be a connection between Humans and Nobodies, in that Heartless were no where near human or humanlike, but are manifestations of pure darkness.

So, for at least a year, Skell has been lurking around Twilight Town for the mere sight of a Heartless or Nobody. She hoped to conduct actual case studies as her curiosity peaked, and her knowledge became vaster. It wasn’t until she saw, for just a split second, a figure in a black trench coat disappear into a dark portal that she knew she had spotted a Nobody. This sighting was like a drug to Skell, as she felt driven to pursue this curiosity more. In order for Skell to learn more about Nobodies, and to test her theories about the heart, she needed to get closer to them. To be able to interact with them, talk with them if they could. She needed to learn to live as they do, to find a way to submerge herself into their culture and society... if they truly had one.

She went to her father to see if he knew of any possible way to get more in tune with Nobodies, which he promptly turned down, claiming it was all dark magic. But Skell’s curiosity, getting the best of her, didn’t allow her to stop there. She would look into her father’s old scripture books, and go to him for questions, sure not to ask about dark magic in a blunt way. As much as he was unwilling about propelling Skell’s interest in darker wonders of Nobodies, he loved seeing her happy. It started with him teaching her how to harness the energy within her heart, and from there she was able to learn how to conjure fire. He said it would be a long time before she could do more than conjure it – manipulating took practice and a greater will of heart. She could do it only all right, and even then it was draining.

As her interest heightened still, her father presented her with a paintbrush and a notebook. He showed her that the notebook was endless, and that there would always be a new page, and of all the things she’s drawn she could easily find at will. This notebook, however, would act uniquely to her and her willpower, such that no one else could view her work without her willing. The brush and notebook, he explained, were purchased from a peddler many years ago, when he was younger and more of a self-proclaimed artist himself. He bought them with innocent, artistic ambitions in mind, but soon set it down once he realized what he could do with them. He perceived it as some dark magic, but trusts that his daughter will utilize them for the sake of knowledge.

Yet with all the help from her father, Skell never uttered a word to him, nor anyone else, about the dreams she’d been having. Nobodies, dancing around in her brain. After the sighting with the dark portal, she proceeded to see cloaked Nobodies in her dreams. Some days, they were very clear. Some days she could make out faces in, and upon waking up she’d draw them down in her notebook. After her father gave her the magical paintbrush and notebook, she’d attempt to materialize them. They never worked, even though she felt as though she saw them enough. Dreams weren’t enough.

Skell knew she needed to get closer, and in order to do that she needed to self-improve. She worked on containing her emotions, for if she is to serve almost as a spy in a society of Nobodies, surely she cannot let her emotions get a choke-hold on her.



Role Playing Sample:

(I know roleplaying is in 3rd person, but I felt this would also help to understanding the personality and psyche of my character).

Everyone thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy for a while, too. Thought I had read just a piece of well-written, convincing fiction. Until I saw it happen…

The body being engulfed by a swirling orb of darkness... it was like nothing I had ever seen before. It seemed so unreal, just like it was out of a work of well-written fiction. I knew no one would believe me then, no. But I didn’t care. I still don’t care. It’s intriguing to me, and I need to figure out why.

Why? Why is it that I find this cloaked figure to be so captivating? So alluring? So curious? Why is it that after I saw it, I had nearly a hundred images immediately beginning to swirl in my head? Out of my pencil came nearly a dozen faces of creatures resembling the Dusks – as my father called them – and more of that hooded man. I didn’t know anything about these, these things, but wanted to know so much about them. I’d show those drawings to my friends, family, and ask them, “Does this look familiar to you?”

“No, but you’re improving in your work. Too bad life as an artist won’t get you anywhere, but that imagination might.”

I digress.

Since the day I saw the trenched figure and the swirling, dark window, I was known as the girl who drew, read, and tinkered. If people talked to me, I’d gladly engage, but I wouldn’t delve into details.

“Hey Skell, so what’re you up to nowadays?”

“Oh, you know, just trying to educate myself.”

“Still drawing?”

“Yeah, and reading. Hey, mind if I ask you something?”

“Well, sure.”

“What would you say if I told you we could exist without a heart?”

“Well, then I’d say we’d all be your uncle.”

They’d chuckle. I’d smile just to humor them. But I knew I was alone in this mission. Or at least, of people I could find.

One day my father surprised me with a gift. He presented me with a paintbrush and notebook that he purchased in his younger years from a merchant. I could draw familiar things to me, and with a stroke of my paintbrush they’d materialize right before my eyes! And it even had a mind of its own sometimes! A cute thing to see, a hovering paintbrush, painting my thoughts out in front of me. I brought it to my father and asked him to think of something he wanted to tell me once I got in the other room. I opened my notebook once I was there, and before me words started to scrawl themselves onto the page. I went back to him and showed him the page, to confirm, and he could only look at me in bewilderment. We also found it worked the other way around – if I wrote something in the notebook, the paintbrush would replicate it on the air in front of him.

But of course there were limitations. I couldn’t, for example, bring the figures I had seen in my dreams to life, but I could duplicate myself. It was uncanny, how lifelike it was. My father couldn’t tell us apart, and it retained my fear of deep water. I found I could touch my replica without it disappearing, but a punch would make it disappear, without any harm to myself. Also, with a wave of my hand and my will, my replica would disappear. I found that smaller, lifeless objects were easier to materialize than conscious or humanlike drawings.

I soon learned how to manipulate fire; yet why I couldn’t summon it is beyond me.

I keep a record of all my work in preparation for seeking out the Nobodies. The visual progress is exciting – yet I don’t know enough. I need to learn more…

I need to test my hypothesis: if they lack a heart, can they not feel as well? Or is that just confirmation bias they may be living under? I need to find out more about Nobodies and that cloaked figure, and somehow submerge myself within their society. Become one of them undetectably, without losing my own heart nor being targeted. And maybe, if I can become their friend… now wouldn’t that be something great!


Questions/Comments/Suggestions?

All right! Third time's the charm. :)