Unfinished Library Application
Oct. 26th, 2025 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bestofallPlayer Name: Kathryn
Player Contact(s):![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
yawningdodo
Are you over 18? Yes
Do you have any other characters in game?: No
Who invited you?: N/A
Character Name: Festival
Canon: Original (homebrew tabletop RPG world using some elements of the Golarion setting)
Canon Point: One month past the end of the campaign
Age: 30
History: (cw body horror; suicide)
In his first life, Festival was a covert bodyguard to the king of the city-state Boywold. As court jester, he was able to maintain a presence at court functions, an arrangement which also suited his flamboyant personality. When a warlord known as Spineripper the Merciless threatened the region Festival did something very brave and very foolish: he abandoned his post, assassinated the warlord, and attempted to usurp his place. He successfully impersonated Spineripper long enough to convince the horde to return south, but was discovered by one of Spineripper's lieutenants and executed in secret, lest the truth about their leader's ignominious death become known.
That should have been the end of Festival's story. As a good and faithful worshiper of Cayden Cailean, the god of ale and freedom, Festival was granted entrance into one of the heavens...only to be ripped from it a few hundred years later when a desperate mage exhumed Festival's body from Spineripper's supposed grave and forced a resurrection upon him. Festival was informed that after two previous attempts by great heroes had failed, he and seven of history's greatest monsters had been brought back to life to deal with a world-ending threat in the form of a mysterious expanding red dome that had absorbed great swathes of the countryside and several cities--and it quickly became clear that the mage believed Festival to be Spineripper.
Rather than reveal the truth and risk being discarded back to the afterlife before he could help, Festival once again donned the mantle of Spineripper, this time taking his place among a murderer's row of tenuous allies. Through a series of investigations, the group discovered that the red dome was a prismatic sphere created by a silver dragon known as the Lord of Icy Mists who had been implanted with a mind control device by a rogue angel named Avanostrix. The dragon had fought the mind control and killed himself by growing a gem inside his brain that could be combined with seven rare artifacts to counteract the magic powering the sphere, thus leaving behind a failsafe.
Over the weeks that followed, Festival tried and often failed to rein in the worst impulses of his unrepentantly evil traveling companions. He saw and did many terrible things in the name of the greater good, up to and including using a magical device to cut out and replace his own beating heart in order to provide one of the necessary artifacts: a Pure Heart. While his fear that the others would turn on and kill him once his secret was known proved unfounded, it only became more difficult for him to exert any degree of influence over the group. Fortunately, by this point they all agreed that the world would not be worth living in if they did not put an end to the threat they had been resurrected to counteract.
With the gem fully powered, the group was able to enter the ever-growing red sphere and found an eerie, unnatural world of law and peace inside where every single animal, plant, and person absorbed into the sphere had been remade into perfect, idealized, mind-controlled duplicates--including the heroes who had gone before them. Forced to fight those heroes, Avanostrix, and even the goddess Vildeus herself, Festival and the others were poised to lose everything until one of their number successfully identified and destroyed the artifact used to conjure the demiplane in which they stood, cracking the sky open and bringing the demiplane down around them. Festival would have been content to die in that moment based on what he'd been through and the promise of heaven awaiting him. He was, however, rescued by one of the few party members to have made inroads toward redemption, as most of the party teleported successfully away.
They quickly parted ways after that and Festival returned to Boywold; though all the people he had known in his life prior to resurrection were long gone, he wished to help the influx of refugees from the lands ravaged by the sphere, scout out and train the next generation of heroes, and ingratiate himself with the court in order to keep an ear out for news from throughout the lands in case any of his former traveling companions made trouble. With many of them now reformed (or at least having fulfilled or lost their various needs for vengeance), Festival hoped to finally know peace.
[Expanded History with a greater level of detail for reference as needed]
Is this character an AU? What type?: No
AU History: N/A
Personality:
Festival is pure-hearted, a creature of true good and charity at his core. He's also an inveterate liar and an impulsive fool.
After all he's been through, Festival is keenly aware of both his ability and his duty to protect others from great evil as well as unreasoning forces of supposed good. He abhors slavers and bullies of all kinds and has proven himself willing to put himself in harm's way to protect those who can't protect themselves. Beyond wanting people to be safe, Festival also believes in the right to to happiness--and he wants to be happy himself. He loves music and entertainment of all kinds, thrives in chaotic and boisterous party atmospheres, and (as a worshipper of the "Drunken God" Cayden Cailean) considers the consumption of alcohol a literally holy pursuit. Festival has always indulged in the things he finds pleasurable with no shame or compunctions and believes that everyone has the gods-given right to do so, so long as their desires do not hurt others. However, once he believes someone to be of evil intent, Festival generally draws his conclusions from there without digging any deeper. He has an unfortunate tendency to act on stereotypes and incomplete information, and holds grudges.
As a rule, Festival does not think very far ahead at any given moment. He lives in the here and now; while he's quick on his feet and can occasionally be clever, he tends to choose and commit to a course of action quickly, usually without thinking it all the way through to the endgame or taking heed of danger, and is just as quick to suddenly abandon a strategy in favor of something equally rash and grandiose as it occurs to him. He is also accustomed to being liked, and inclined to go to inappropriate lengths to grab people's attention and show off.
Finally, thanks to a mix of fake-it-till-you-make-it philosophy and his work as a guard pretending to be a mere court jester, Festival is rarely inclined to tell the truth about himself. Instead, he'll take on whatever guise seems most useful or convenient at the moment, or at least fail to correct others' assumptions about him. Sometimes this is as grandiose as taking on the identity of a warlord; many times it is as minor as allowing someone to assume he's more simple-minded than he really is. Most of all, he is loathe to reflect too deeply on his own feelings or to talk about them with others, choosing instead to appear happy and try to fool even himself. Also, one of his favorite pastimes is to draw someone into a nonsense argument purely for the sake of verbally running in circles and monopolizing their time for his own amusement.
Powers and Abilities:
[General Notes: In terms of tabletop mechanics, Festival is an illusion-focused level 20 Sound Striker Bard in the Pathfinder roleplaying system. The list below is simplified and in some cases nerfed via the omission of certain abilities and spells.]
Bardic Performance
Through the power of music, Festival can generate various magical effects on himself and the people around him. These effects include frightening opponents, inspiring courage and great deeds in allies, magical healing, and causing physical damage to people and objects with the sound of his voice. At its extreme end, he is capable of causing someone to literally drop dead of either joy or sadness in response to his musical performances.
Illusion Spells
Illusions are Festival's specialty; the false images, sounds, and smells he's able to generate are highly convincing. These include vocal alterations, such as the ability to make himself louder, to project his voice and perform magical ventriloquism, or to make himself sound like another person. He can also project images into minds; these visions are typically something nightmarish and intended to incapacitate. He can disguise himself and others; beyond the ability to take on the appearance of another person, he can give himself an air of authority, disguise his aura as that of another person, or make himself invisible. He can create a backup singer by making a shadowy duplicate of himself. Finally, he is highly competent at general illusions, able to create phantom sights, sounds, smells, and even thermal effects; these can be created on the fly and allowed to dissipate, but he is also able to create illusions that are activated by specific events or actions, and he's able to create permanent illusions.
Freedom Spells
Festival has no great talent for escape work, but he has a few tricks up his sleeve. He is able to open any imprisoning bond with a knock of his knuckles, though doing so makes a very loud sound. Similarly, he is able to throw off mental effects and enchantments by letting loose a primal scream. Finally, he is capable of short range teleportation, able to move himself and allies up to about a city block.
Other Spells
Like most magic users of his world, Festival has picked up a variety of helpful spells. He is able to detect the presence of magic and to dispel it to a small extent; lift small objects by pointing at them; perform small prestidigitations that include magically cleaning, heating, or adding flavor to materials; speak and understand languages; conjure musical instruments; conjure a shadow horse to carry him; and see things that have been made invisible.
Notable Omissions:
Unlike most bards, Festival has made a point of never learning any spells or performances he views as mind control; according to his personal code of ethics, mind control is a form of slavery and to be abhorred. He does not know even the most basic suggestion/charm spells and effects, let alone spells that would allow him to directly command another person.
Physical Abilities
Festival possesses retractable claws on both hands and feet, which make him an excellent climber but do little to aid him in combat. He sees well in the dark, has excellent reflexes, and can be very stealthy when he so desires. He's trained in sword fighting, but does not particularly care for it as an actual form of combat.
Inventory:
[Please let me know which items will be confiscated by the Librarian or simply would not be brought along. I've trimmed down and simplified the ridiculous amount of items on his original character sheet to the following, but recognize that he still has a frankly ridiculous amount of powerful toys and gee-nifties. I would be particularly open to his armor, weapon, and/or protective enchantments being confiscated if appropriate; these are things he would keep on him but not things necessary to my enjoyment in playing him. Formal item names and links to magic item descriptions provided solely for reference; in DWRP play I prefer to describe effects and visuals rather than referring directly to Pathfinder mechanics.]
Mundane Items:
Magic Items:
Sample: TDM Top-Level with Replies
When presented with a choice, is the character more likely to stick with tried and true methods? Or make something new up on the fly?
Festival is more likely to make something up on the fly, leaping into action with half a plan or on vibes alone. However, in the sense that a lie is always his first resort, he does have a tried and true approach to many problems.
What is more important to your character, preserving the past or forging a future?
Festival's eyes are on the future--the past is lost to him and can't be changed, and dwelling on all the wrong that's been done in the world and all that should have been only leads to heartache.
How does your character influence their own story? What about the stories of others?
In many ways, Festival is a classic heroic type: he is driven by the desire to help others, stamp out evil, and generally do good in the world; all his influence over his story and those around him come from that foundation. At the same time, Festival is paradoxically egoistic and self-effacing at the same time, often emphasizing and seeking praise for his looks and his abilities as a performer while concealing the role he's played in things that really matter, such as saving the world.
Are you alright with your character’s canon being used as a Recommended Reading?: Yes, assuming this is applicable to OCs. I am happy to have his expanded history, linked above, used as a recommended reading, or for the Pathfinder source books to be recommended readings.
Player Contact(s):
Are you over 18? Yes
Do you have any other characters in game?: No
Who invited you?: N/A
Character Name: Festival
Canon: Original (homebrew tabletop RPG world using some elements of the Golarion setting)
Canon Point: One month past the end of the campaign
Age: 30
History: (cw body horror; suicide)
In his first life, Festival was a covert bodyguard to the king of the city-state Boywold. As court jester, he was able to maintain a presence at court functions, an arrangement which also suited his flamboyant personality. When a warlord known as Spineripper the Merciless threatened the region Festival did something very brave and very foolish: he abandoned his post, assassinated the warlord, and attempted to usurp his place. He successfully impersonated Spineripper long enough to convince the horde to return south, but was discovered by one of Spineripper's lieutenants and executed in secret, lest the truth about their leader's ignominious death become known.
That should have been the end of Festival's story. As a good and faithful worshiper of Cayden Cailean, the god of ale and freedom, Festival was granted entrance into one of the heavens...only to be ripped from it a few hundred years later when a desperate mage exhumed Festival's body from Spineripper's supposed grave and forced a resurrection upon him. Festival was informed that after two previous attempts by great heroes had failed, he and seven of history's greatest monsters had been brought back to life to deal with a world-ending threat in the form of a mysterious expanding red dome that had absorbed great swathes of the countryside and several cities--and it quickly became clear that the mage believed Festival to be Spineripper.
Rather than reveal the truth and risk being discarded back to the afterlife before he could help, Festival once again donned the mantle of Spineripper, this time taking his place among a murderer's row of tenuous allies. Through a series of investigations, the group discovered that the red dome was a prismatic sphere created by a silver dragon known as the Lord of Icy Mists who had been implanted with a mind control device by a rogue angel named Avanostrix. The dragon had fought the mind control and killed himself by growing a gem inside his brain that could be combined with seven rare artifacts to counteract the magic powering the sphere, thus leaving behind a failsafe.
Over the weeks that followed, Festival tried and often failed to rein in the worst impulses of his unrepentantly evil traveling companions. He saw and did many terrible things in the name of the greater good, up to and including using a magical device to cut out and replace his own beating heart in order to provide one of the necessary artifacts: a Pure Heart. While his fear that the others would turn on and kill him once his secret was known proved unfounded, it only became more difficult for him to exert any degree of influence over the group. Fortunately, by this point they all agreed that the world would not be worth living in if they did not put an end to the threat they had been resurrected to counteract.
With the gem fully powered, the group was able to enter the ever-growing red sphere and found an eerie, unnatural world of law and peace inside where every single animal, plant, and person absorbed into the sphere had been remade into perfect, idealized, mind-controlled duplicates--including the heroes who had gone before them. Forced to fight those heroes, Avanostrix, and even the goddess Vildeus herself, Festival and the others were poised to lose everything until one of their number successfully identified and destroyed the artifact used to conjure the demiplane in which they stood, cracking the sky open and bringing the demiplane down around them. Festival would have been content to die in that moment based on what he'd been through and the promise of heaven awaiting him. He was, however, rescued by one of the few party members to have made inroads toward redemption, as most of the party teleported successfully away.
They quickly parted ways after that and Festival returned to Boywold; though all the people he had known in his life prior to resurrection were long gone, he wished to help the influx of refugees from the lands ravaged by the sphere, scout out and train the next generation of heroes, and ingratiate himself with the court in order to keep an ear out for news from throughout the lands in case any of his former traveling companions made trouble. With many of them now reformed (or at least having fulfilled or lost their various needs for vengeance), Festival hoped to finally know peace.
[Expanded History with a greater level of detail for reference as needed]
Is this character an AU? What type?: No
AU History: N/A
Personality:
Festival is pure-hearted, a creature of true good and charity at his core. He's also an inveterate liar and an impulsive fool.
After all he's been through, Festival is keenly aware of both his ability and his duty to protect others from great evil as well as unreasoning forces of supposed good. He abhors slavers and bullies of all kinds and has proven himself willing to put himself in harm's way to protect those who can't protect themselves. Beyond wanting people to be safe, Festival also believes in the right to to happiness--and he wants to be happy himself. He loves music and entertainment of all kinds, thrives in chaotic and boisterous party atmospheres, and (as a worshipper of the "Drunken God" Cayden Cailean) considers the consumption of alcohol a literally holy pursuit. Festival has always indulged in the things he finds pleasurable with no shame or compunctions and believes that everyone has the gods-given right to do so, so long as their desires do not hurt others. However, once he believes someone to be of evil intent, Festival generally draws his conclusions from there without digging any deeper. He has an unfortunate tendency to act on stereotypes and incomplete information, and holds grudges.
As a rule, Festival does not think very far ahead at any given moment. He lives in the here and now; while he's quick on his feet and can occasionally be clever, he tends to choose and commit to a course of action quickly, usually without thinking it all the way through to the endgame or taking heed of danger, and is just as quick to suddenly abandon a strategy in favor of something equally rash and grandiose as it occurs to him. He is also accustomed to being liked, and inclined to go to inappropriate lengths to grab people's attention and show off.
Finally, thanks to a mix of fake-it-till-you-make-it philosophy and his work as a guard pretending to be a mere court jester, Festival is rarely inclined to tell the truth about himself. Instead, he'll take on whatever guise seems most useful or convenient at the moment, or at least fail to correct others' assumptions about him. Sometimes this is as grandiose as taking on the identity of a warlord; many times it is as minor as allowing someone to assume he's more simple-minded than he really is. Most of all, he is loathe to reflect too deeply on his own feelings or to talk about them with others, choosing instead to appear happy and try to fool even himself. Also, one of his favorite pastimes is to draw someone into a nonsense argument purely for the sake of verbally running in circles and monopolizing their time for his own amusement.
Powers and Abilities:
[General Notes: In terms of tabletop mechanics, Festival is an illusion-focused level 20 Sound Striker Bard in the Pathfinder roleplaying system. The list below is simplified and in some cases nerfed via the omission of certain abilities and spells.]
Bardic Performance
Through the power of music, Festival can generate various magical effects on himself and the people around him. These effects include frightening opponents, inspiring courage and great deeds in allies, magical healing, and causing physical damage to people and objects with the sound of his voice. At its extreme end, he is capable of causing someone to literally drop dead of either joy or sadness in response to his musical performances.
Illusion Spells
Illusions are Festival's specialty; the false images, sounds, and smells he's able to generate are highly convincing. These include vocal alterations, such as the ability to make himself louder, to project his voice and perform magical ventriloquism, or to make himself sound like another person. He can also project images into minds; these visions are typically something nightmarish and intended to incapacitate. He can disguise himself and others; beyond the ability to take on the appearance of another person, he can give himself an air of authority, disguise his aura as that of another person, or make himself invisible. He can create a backup singer by making a shadowy duplicate of himself. Finally, he is highly competent at general illusions, able to create phantom sights, sounds, smells, and even thermal effects; these can be created on the fly and allowed to dissipate, but he is also able to create illusions that are activated by specific events or actions, and he's able to create permanent illusions.
Freedom Spells
Festival has no great talent for escape work, but he has a few tricks up his sleeve. He is able to open any imprisoning bond with a knock of his knuckles, though doing so makes a very loud sound. Similarly, he is able to throw off mental effects and enchantments by letting loose a primal scream. Finally, he is capable of short range teleportation, able to move himself and allies up to about a city block.
Other Spells
Like most magic users of his world, Festival has picked up a variety of helpful spells. He is able to detect the presence of magic and to dispel it to a small extent; lift small objects by pointing at them; perform small prestidigitations that include magically cleaning, heating, or adding flavor to materials; speak and understand languages; conjure musical instruments; conjure a shadow horse to carry him; and see things that have been made invisible.
Notable Omissions:
Unlike most bards, Festival has made a point of never learning any spells or performances he views as mind control; according to his personal code of ethics, mind control is a form of slavery and to be abhorred. He does not know even the most basic suggestion/charm spells and effects, let alone spells that would allow him to directly command another person.
Physical Abilities
Festival possesses retractable claws on both hands and feet, which make him an excellent climber but do little to aid him in combat. He sees well in the dark, has excellent reflexes, and can be very stealthy when he so desires. He's trained in sword fighting, but does not particularly care for it as an actual form of combat.
Inventory:
[Please let me know which items will be confiscated by the Librarian or simply would not be brought along. I've trimmed down and simplified the ridiculous amount of items on his original character sheet to the following, but recognize that he still has a frankly ridiculous amount of powerful toys and gee-nifties. I would be particularly open to his armor, weapon, and/or protective enchantments being confiscated if appropriate; these are things he would keep on him but not things necessary to my enjoyment in playing him. Formal item names and links to magic item descriptions provided solely for reference; in DWRP play I prefer to describe effects and visuals rather than referring directly to Pathfinder mechanics.]
Mundane Items:
- Lute (good craftsmanship)
- Juggling equipment: several sets of colorful balls; a set of clubs; a set of torches
- Three sets of colorful clothing: one for hot weather, one for cold, and one for temperate
- A traveler's handheld mirror, made from polished steel with no glass
- A ragdoll that looks like a knight in spiky armor
- Rope (50 feet)
- Flint and steel
- Non-magical earrings worn in three sets of ear piercings
Magic Items:
- Handy haversack (a normal-looking leather backpack that can hold 100 cubic feet of materials but never weighs more than five pounds--and containing most of this stuff at the time of his arrival)
- +4 Shadow Leather Armor (light armor with a high-level magical enhancement to protect its wearer, as well as a magical effect that dampens sound and makes the wearer less conspicuous when trying to hide)
- +2 Agile Rapier (this rapier is magically enhanced to enable a dextrous fighter to cause significantly more damage than he would with a mundane weapon)
- Bracelet of Second Chances with five beads remaining (a string of magical beads that allow the wearer to escape particularly grievous harm from an attack, but which do not fully prevent injury)
- Robe of the Resplendent Thespian (a magical garment that disguises his armor as regular clothing and provides both resistance to magic and a boost to overcome others' resistance to his magic)
- Ring of Protection +4 (an enchanted ring that makes blows more likely to glance off rather than land--this is a high-level version of the item)
- Cap of the Free Thinker (this floppy hat's magic can be called on once per day to help make him more resistant to mind-affecting magic)
Sample: TDM Top-Level with Replies
When presented with a choice, is the character more likely to stick with tried and true methods? Or make something new up on the fly?
Festival is more likely to make something up on the fly, leaping into action with half a plan or on vibes alone. However, in the sense that a lie is always his first resort, he does have a tried and true approach to many problems.
What is more important to your character, preserving the past or forging a future?
Festival's eyes are on the future--the past is lost to him and can't be changed, and dwelling on all the wrong that's been done in the world and all that should have been only leads to heartache.
How does your character influence their own story? What about the stories of others?
In many ways, Festival is a classic heroic type: he is driven by the desire to help others, stamp out evil, and generally do good in the world; all his influence over his story and those around him come from that foundation. At the same time, Festival is paradoxically egoistic and self-effacing at the same time, often emphasizing and seeking praise for his looks and his abilities as a performer while concealing the role he's played in things that really matter, such as saving the world.
Are you alright with your character’s canon being used as a Recommended Reading?: Yes, assuming this is applicable to OCs. I am happy to have his expanded history, linked above, used as a recommended reading, or for the Pathfinder source books to be recommended readings.
