Welcome to Gaia! ::

Task One: Finding a Character Idea
I will be answering my own first challenge. There are a few important things I'll have to consider in making this. The character's powers will have to be something "friendly" and not frightening (so no demon-forms). The character, too, will have to be friendly; a reserved person wouldn't be very likely to "share their gift.

Task Two: A/S/L?!?!
My initial thought was a strong, male character, so I'm going to turn that on it's head. This is going to be a very driven and strong female character. We've been doing a lot of high-school age characters, so let's make her in her mid-twenties... 26.

Now for a name... My first tendency is a male-sounding name like "Taylor" or "Kyle" (There's a girl in one of my classes with that name). Again, as an attempt to escape my internal stereotypes (why does a strong female need a male name?), I'm going to go with something decidedly more feminine. Jasmine. The fact that it conjures an image of a Disney princess makes it even better.

Task One: Finding a Character Idea

I’m following Challenge #2, so this really is about finding a power that’ll work. Now, the challenge said to create a character who grows more powerful the more injured they are. I really want to go for a less literal interpretation of this; instead of having a character whose physical or magical strength increases, I’m thinking of a character that gradually becomes a psychological terror. Here’s how it would work:

She (a woman, for now) is highly tolerant of pain; she can be stabbed a number of times and so long as the wounds themselves don’t inhibit her fighting capability, she perseveres and keeps fighting as if she weren’t in any pain. The blood that would inevitably get spilled would feed her berserker rage, and thus she’d attack more fiercely and take on a slightly diabolic appearance. The combined result is a character who seems to be immune to pain and most attacks, who barges forward as an unstoppable force, and who has a demonic determination to slaughter the enemy.

This sort of person would really fit in best with the lower-class, possibly even a street gang. At school, she probably would be in the rebel/outsider group and may suffer a bit grade-wise. In the superhero community, she could easily go either way: a rough-and-tumble villain or henchwoman, or a tragic hero struggling with life.

Task Two: A/S/L?

Age: 17; on the brink of adulthood and an upperclassman; just the right mix of maturity and rebellion
Gender: For a heavy physical role, male’s too expected; a woman would be more fun to play
Name: Mariana Ruben; Mariana’s derived from the nickname, and Ruben works on a number of levels
Nickname: Bloody Mary (come on, at least one of you saw this coming!)

Name: Mariana Ruben
AKA: Bloody Mary
Current Age: 17
Appearance: Like a good wine, she’s red, robust, and full-bodied. Her hair is naturally a dark scarlet color, though some black dye is blended in and makes it look even darker. Her hair reaches down to the bottom lip of her shoulder blades, which she always leaves exposed when she can get away with it. Her rosy, heart-shaped face is a startling contrast to her personality and deep emerald eyes. A pair of wire frames rests on her short, rounded nose and reaches back behind her voluminous hair. Her lips are surprisingly thin in comparison to the rest of her. Her body itself is bounteous, but her curves are symmetrical and flowing. An accurate comparison would be a heavyset burlesque girl from the Wild West; she’d probably smirk at the suggestion. She’s a bit tall for her age, and when angry she can seem quite intimidating.
Costume: Her style is more than a bit eccentric. At school she wears a lot of black, morbid images, leather, and spikes. It would appear that she belongs in the Goth or Punk cliques, but her animated personality would prohibit her success in those fields. She’ll usually wear this outfit around town, as well. However, when she wants to do so, she can look quite sophisticated and wear dresses that are revealing (especially around the stomach) but surprisingly classy and tasteful.

Primary Power: She’s extremely resistant to pain and can continue to fight until her body gives out. As she loses blood, her rage swells and her appearance grows slightly demonic.
Secondary Powers: Despite her body shape, she’s actually quite fit and has great physical stamina. While not exactly thick-skinned, she can take a lot of hits and can lose a good bit of blood before collapsing. She’s fairly strong, and this becomes more apparent as she goes berserk.
Weaknesses: She must walk a razor’s edge; she’ll pass out and perhaps even die if she pushes herself too far. Controlling herself and holding back is made especially difficult by her fury. What’s more, because she can’t feel pain, she can’t effectively regulate her body temperature or sense when she’s injured.

Personality: Mariana is extremely extroverted; she thrives on human contact. Her friendly, playful attitude is quite often mistaken for being intrusive and raunchy; then again, that’s not far from the truth. She favors the company of introverts and misfits, though she’ll hang out with just about anyone who can tolerate her. She doesn’t get along with buzzkillers or people who are too serious, yet she’s fine with drama queens so long as they don’t cross her. At times she can have a quick temper, but she can just as easily show her motherly side.
Biography: Mariana was born with a genetic defect; she was unable to sense pain. As such, she was always seen as being a trooper when it came to uncomfortable situations, but she was rather delicate for a long time. Her parents, a rich psychologist and a stay-at-home mother, were always concerned with her welfare and constantly monitored her to the point of smothering her. On the plus side, she was able to get almost anything she asked for, within reason; however, this was at the price of her freedom and contact with other children her age. She quickly grew to resent her parents’ overbearing nature and rebelled vigorously during early adolescence. She grew to resent her upbringing and sheltered existence, and as a result she developed an affinity to the dangerous, exciting, low-class world. She badgered her parents and insisted to be introduced into public schooling toward the end of her middle-school homeschooling. The change was very difficult; she had scarcely learned how to interact with others, and much drama ensued. Girls were socially vicious and difficult to figure out, but she got along surprisingly well with boys. She frequently got into fights, some of which escalated into violence; this earned her the respect of a local street gang who welcomed her into their fold. While becoming a terror on the streets, she built her confidence back up and began to lighten up considerably. She now goes about life taking little seriously and having fun wherever she can.

Goals/Motives: She’s highly motivated by fun and needs to be surrounded by activity and people. She’s determined to live the good life and bring people out of their shells to spend it with her. Ultimately, though, she wants to live a life free of guilt and restraint.
Vices: She steals, drinks, scraps, and gambles. She’s also a member of a philosophy-obsessed street gang called the Rhetoricians. If you don’t pay them tribute, they’ll either jump you or engage in Socratic discourse until you give in.
Other: She’s obsessed with what she calls Low Culture, which essentially glorifies the lower class.

I think I might take on another challenge soon, though maybe not play with it.... but first, I ISSUE A CHALLENGE!

4) Create a character whose powers and ambitions are surprisingly different. They can be completely at odds, like a demon-summoning goody-two-shoes or a hydrophobic water mage, or you can use your own interpretation. Pay close attention to how the character would rationalize the two halves of their identity.

I'd like to propose the idea that characters here can be used available when the thread-long role-playing feature is created.

Atrox, I LOVE the work you did with those powers. That is such a cool idea!


I thought about putting this in the character workshop and just doing a character, but I changed my mind. I want to see what other people can come up with.

From the character thread:

I am playing around with a new character idea. I don't know if I want to use her in LoSI or not, but I'm going to build her as if she were living in Delmor.

This is a really unique build for me, because I'm not usually a big fan of doing mythological characters (vampires, werewolves, etc) because not only do I think that they are super cheesy and cliche, but also because they don't tend to be done well and are just "stuck" into the setting of an RP. We had an alien in the first few weeks of the first guild, and that went pretty well, though. This spawned a character that Atrox may or may not be using later on in the guild, even. After playing around with tektek (as usual) I've decided to try one of my own.

The challenge:
If you were going to create a character inspired by a type of mythological creature, what would they be? How would you make their character circumstances "fit" into Delmor? How would you explain their existence at all? How do they feel about being a mythological creature? Do they fit in with the people of Delmor? How do they cope in their daily lives?

Step One: Finding a Character Idea
I am going to be doing a centaur build. Why? Because I love horses and I wan inspired by my avatar. She will be an outcast of society initially who slowly gains some level of acceptance (I hope...) Her father, a mad, perverted scientist who was the original resident of the seaside manor, used his DNA to breed with a horse he owned. After several failures, Epona was born. At some point it occurs to her that she is different/realizes what an a** her father is, and flees to the forest. I'd really like to play heavily with her background and origin story, because I feel like I could do a lot there (and will have t)o in order to call this a successful build. I don't want to be too cliche either, so I'd like to stay away from too much emo-ness that night come from being an outcast. In her current situation she is rather free and doesn't experience any tortured feelings until she attempts to make a return to society.

I think the reason she escapes to her forest will be this: after her father realizes what he's done (when she is about five, I think on a personal level he is a bit slow) and what it will mean for his daughter, he feels a tremendous guilt. Believing he can not love the freak that he's created, he is torn between killing her and abandoning her. His guilt overcomes him, and he raises his daughter to be as self-sufficient as possible. He hires a (likewise mad scientist) ecologist friend to teach her how to live in the wild, the names of plants and trees and animals, what to eat, how to use some things to her benefit, etc. At her final test when she is ??? years old, he sends her to the forest behind their house to try to live on her own for one weeks time. He tells her the story of her name (the Celtic horse goddess), and sends her out for the test. She completes the test with flying colors, but when she returns to her home the mansion is empty of her father's personal possessions. She finds a small pack of basic necessities by the back door with her name on a slip of paper next to it. Not bothering to look at it too carefully, she panics as to the location of her father and runs outside the property (which she has never been off) to find him. She gets to town to look for him and is mocked, shouted at, gawked at (whatever) by the locals and in shame runs into the forest by the park. For some reason no one goes after her.

Yeah, sounds like a good rough beginning to me... Will write more later.



Step Two: A/S/L?
Thanks to Maia, Epona will be living in Adohi forest. I'll be working with her a lot on this character background, because she will (obviously) be shaped by her relationship with Secret.

I can't decide if I want her to be younger than or older than Secret... I'm leaning towards younger, but due to severe depression I don't actually remember much of my adolescence and I'm not sure I could remember what it is like to be 14, much less RP it. Therefore, she'll probably wind up a little older than Secret, though Epona doesn't exactly have any social skills due to being cooped up her entire life, so age is sort of irrelevant. I'll finalize this information when I hear back from Maia. I think I'll go with older than Maia for now, though still with a childlike view of the world. I want her to have an innocence and not be cynical if I can help it. She hasn't seen enough of the world to be a cynic...


EDIT: Unless someone else posts in this thread, I'll be updating the steps within this post.



I know I’m taking some liberties here, but I wrote the character workshop (damnit). Therefore, in the case of my random brain needing to think slightly differently about this character (because the background is going to be so important) I’m going to fill out a preliminary profile first, then play with her background before finally posting the final profile. Bear with me, it’ll be OK. I think I’m going to ultimately RP her father’s side of the story during development to give me some insight into how she might have grown up. Sometimes it is best for me to immerse myself in a characters world and then figure things out from there.

First, I’ll lay down some quick facts about my character’s namesake, the Celtic Goddess Epona. I haven’t decided yet how much of it I’m going to use, but I’d like to at least spend some time looking into it. She was, obviously, a horse goddess who born when a man (who hated women) “coupled” with a mare. She was a woman who is often depicted with horses (riding them, taming them, on a throne carried by them) and is sometimes depicted as a mare with a foal. For this reason, some historians think the Celts believed she could transform from human to horse. As a goddess, her duties were to protect horses, donkeys, mules, etc (I may turn her into a protectress of deer on Delmor, not sure). She was seen as a goddess of fertility (though I’m thinking of making this Epona barren), and her main duty was to ferry souls to the afterlife (So maybe the character Epona ferries certain individuals into and out of the forest for Secret?)

Name: Epona
AKA: To be determined
Current Age: 18
Appearance: Epona is a bay centaur. Her fur is a deep brown with black legs, mane/hair, and tail. Her skin is a dark tan naturally. She has beautiful, big, blue eyes. As far as horse size goes, she is VERY tall. Her mother was 17 hands tall, and Epona inherited her height. Therefore, the top of her head is about ___ feet off the ground. She dresses in tight and functional clothing for running around the forest. Often seen carrying a staff with her.
Costume:None.
Primary Power: Epona is excellent in one-on-one, hand-to hand combat. Her height gives her a definite advantage over others, not to mention the fact that she has four legs to stabilize her (and/or kick other people with) rather than the human two.
Secondary Power(s): Epona has developed a specialty for combat with her staff.
Weakness: Epona can’t see what is coming up behind her. Her large ears have given her a decent sense of hearing, like horses, but she can’t see anything which leaves her prone to being startled. Additionally, in the chaos of a big fight she may become spooked and start tearing around trampling things accidentally. She has very little self-control in this respect.
Personality: Coming soon to a theater near you!
Biography:
Goals/Motives: Though she is at peace in the forest, she secretly desires to be accepted by a group of people. She’ll do almost anything for praise and attention. (this, I guess, would make her dangerous for a while, because whichever group got to her first and showered her with the most friendliness would have her. Ultimately, however, Epona doesn’t like hurting things)
Vices: Hmm… have to think about some of my favorite vices from when I worked at the barn. Some of the horses had some really interesting ones…
Other: Vegetarian. Hawk companion. Relation to the goddess Epona.

I think I’ll also post some basic information about horse anatomy later so that some of the terminology I use will make a little bit more sense.



From her father’s perspective:
For the purposes of this story I’m going to be calling him Dr. X

It had been ten years since he had begun his experiment. Dr. X, the brilliant geneticist, raised by poor Irish parents and receiving a scholarship to attend the greatest scientific academy in the country, had finally lived his dream. He’d pursued his dream without fail for ten years, isolated himself on Delmor with his horses and his lab equipment back in the woods. He’d had the seaside manor built under an alias and moved everything in. Filled with library after library and room after room, he wanted it to look as normal as possible. At night he would roam the halls, pretending to entertain flocks of young women attracted to the money he would garner from the eventual success of his experiment. He’d even had a ballroom built in the manor for entertaining guests after he won the Nobel Prize for scientific achievement in genetics. He sighed and pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. None of that meant a thing now.

For a decade Dr. X had thought of nothing but this project, named Epona. When he had told his colleagues that he believed he could actually create the mythological creature the centaur, he was laughed out of the laboratory and shunned from the scientific community for pursuing his ideas. Well, he had showed them! Or might have, except he was no longer certain that he could tell anyone of his project. For seven years, Dr. X had experienced nothing but failure and setbacks, until one day an ultrasound and a blood test had proved a success: the mare was pregnant. His DNA combined with that of the mare had created a successful embryo! Matching up the chromosomes had been difficult, but now the real work was to begin. He would have to observe and monitor the pregnancy and development of the foal. There was still much room for failure, but for the first time the artificial insemination had been a success. With diligent attention and study, ??? months later Dr. X helped welcome the world’s first centaur into the light. Project Epona had its second breakthrough when the baby took its first shaky steps on four awkward legs. In a few days he could begin scanning the creature to study its anatomy and bone structure, test its blood levels, observe how it interacted with its mother and the rest of the horses… There was so much to do!

Today marked baby Epona’s second birthday. She had just shocked Dr. X with the ability to speak and formed her first complete sentence. She was brilliantly intelligent for her age and agile. It appeared she had the best of both worlds. But his genetic research was over. Her mother, his favorite mare, had finally moved on, and Dr. X finally understood exactly what he’d done. He’d been so wrapped up in simply being able to create her life at all that he ignored the consequences. She was too intelligent for the horses and didn’t belong in that world, but she certainly didn’t fit in with the human population.

She had called him Daddy, and for the first time since her conception, Dr. X realized that half of her DNA was his own. Epona was his only daughter. Now what? He had conceived her so she might live at all, but now it was clear that all she would even know was a life of pain and isolation locked in the tower like some kind of princess guarded by a dragon. It wasn’t as if he could send her off to preschool on her fifth birthday to go play with the other children. At two she was already almost as tall as he was, and, oh yeah, she happened to be half horse. She was perfect as far as Project Epona had been concerned: everything he could have hoped for and more- but as his baby Epona, his own flesh and blood, what kind of life could he offer her?

He would have to be rid of her, it was as simple as that. She was his daughter, and he didn’t have the heart to parade her around at speaking engagements like a monster. A life lived locked inside the grounds of the Manor was not at all a life worth living, and eventually she would get curious and want to see what was beyond the fence. Dr. X sighed and looked down from the kitchen chair at Epona sleeping on the mat in what had recently become her room in the Manor. She slept beautifully and his heart melted. Even if it would have been a mercy killing, he couldn’t do it. He had a decade of research wrapped up in her little frame, and he could do nothing with it. He would not turn his only daughter into a spectacle in the name of science, no matter how miraculous the work had been. He had gotten to play God, and now it was a disaster. No nobel prize, no women, no fame or fortune. He’d have to go back to his normal life, what it had been before Epona.

He stood up from his chair and rubbed his temples. It was late. He would think much better on 6.5 hours of sleep, and he had much thinking to do. It seemed cheesy, but everything changed when she looked up at him with those big blue eyes while he was checking her heart rate and breathing and said, "I love you, Daddy." He had no idea how she'd even learned he was her father, or if she'd ever heard those words used in a sentence before. It was possible she'd just been mimicking something on TV... It didn't matter. She'd said it. This was real.

He'd have to teach her how to survive on her own, and then he'd leave, go back to his life, and never tell anyone what he'd been up to. Only one friend knew where he was and what he had been doing; a scientist himself. An ecologist who had been studying Adohi Forest and the strange things that happened there. Recently his research had become increasingly more difficult, but Dr. X was certain that he could teach Epona to live there. She belonged in the wild... Somewhere she could run and be somewhat free.... That was it! He'd get his friend to teach her survival techniques, and when she was ready he would leave. She'd make her way there eventually... She'd be capable of survival, and he could go back to his own life. Guilt free. Simple as that.



Ironically, I want him to stay guilty the entire time he raises her. I wonder how it would effect her to be raised by a father who struggled to stay detached from her, who never admitted to loving her, and who struggled with the guilt of what he ultimately decided he would do when she was old enough. Probably 14. I think I've decided that yes, I do want her to be younger. Can't wait to see where the rest of this goes. I think I'll sleep on it too.



It suddenly occurs to me what a HUGE nerd I am, and exactly how much work I am putting into this character...


Internal Anatomy of a horse


Body parts of the horse

Centaur Skeleton
Internal anatomy of a male centaur
Horse Vices and their causes



So, I left out her background and her personality in the preliminary profile until I could get a little into her father's head. His personality, goals, and motives will largely dictate how Epona grows up. Like I said before, I wondered what it would be like to be raised by a father who was distant out of the guilt from your creation, who never allowed himself to be outwardly affectionate (at least not with any frequency).

Personality wise is difficult.... Epona has since escaped to Adohi Forest and found a home there with Secret. She enjoys the freedom she can enjoy within the forest, but is haunted by a desire for acceptance into general society. She is unhappy that she can't be like the people in town, and wishes they understood her. However Epona is grateful for the friendship of Secret, though Secret can be distant and often makes little sense to an already socially awkward Epona. She's haunted by a desire to find her father, but wonders if maybe this is in extended part of a test. She hopes he will come find her when the test is finished, but six months after being abandoned she is beginning to lose hope. She wishes she could talk to Secret about it, but isn't sure how she would react.

Epona is a generally calm girl who is unfortunately prone to being spooked and has experienced a history of anxiety attacks. Her human intellect and animal instinct often duel over the irrationality of her anxiety, but she has come to accept it as being simply a part of who she is. Though she is extremely intelligent, she has a tendency to still approach the world with a childlike innocence. Everything is new, something to explore or experience or play... Epona can find the joy in almost anything.

Suddenly I'm torn. Epona (the goddess) was probably pictured as a white horse... Should the character Epona be white or bay? I can't decide. This is where some feedback would be REALLY HELPFUL. HINT HINT WINK WINK. I'll put the white and black side by side for comparison.

I'm not sure which idea I like more. With the white, I'd be keeping true to the myth, plus I could make her even more fantastical in the eyes of the people of Delmor. The Bay gives her an element of normalcy though that almost makes her more human, and I can't decide which would be more fun to play with.... White horses are always special... I'll really have to take a vote on what people think about this one. It won't effect the profile any, but it could effect how I play her interactions with the general population.

After all that I still haven't typed her background. Anyone think the two pages from her father's point of view will suffice?



I've begun to notice a theme of daddy issues in some (all) of my characters.... Ironic, since I don't really have any...



Name: Epona
AKA: To be determined
Current Age: 14
Appearance: Up for debate
Costume: None.
Primary Power: Epona is excellent in one-on-one, hand-to hand combat. Her height gives her a definite advantage over others, not to mention the fact that she has four legs to stabilize her (and/or kick other people with) rather than the human two.
Secondary Power(s): Epona has developed a specialty for combat with her staff.
Weakness: Epona can’t see what is coming up behind her. Her large ears have given her a decent sense of hearing, like horses, but she can’t see anything which leaves her prone to being startled. Additionally, in the chaos of a big fight she may become spooked and start tearing around trampling things accidentally. She has very little self-control in this respect.
Personality: Epona has since escaped to Adohi Forest and found a home there with Secret. She enjoys the freedom she can enjoy within the forest, but is haunted by a desire for acceptance into general society. She is unhappy that she can't be like the people in town, and wishes they understood her. However Epona is grateful for the friendship of Secret, though Secret can be distant and often makes little sense to an already socially awkward Epona. She's haunted by a desire to find her father, but wonders if maybe this is in extended part of a test. She hopes he will come find her when the test is finished, but six months after being abandoned she is beginning to lose hope. She wishes she could talk to Secret about it, but isn't sure how she would react.

Epona is a generally calm girl who is unfortunately prone to being spooked and has experienced a history of anxiety attacks. Her human intellect and animal instinct often duel over the irrationality of her anxiety, but she has come to accept it as being simply a part of who she is. Though she is extremely intelligent, she has a tendency to still approach the world with a childlike innocence. Everything is new, something to explore or experience or play... Epona can find the joy in almost anything.
Biography: Coming soon to a theater near you!
Goals/Motives: Though she is at peace in the forest, she secretly desires to be accepted by a group of people. She’ll do almost anything for praise and attention. (this, I guess, would make her dangerous for a while, because whichever group got to her first and showered her with the most friendliness would have her. Ultimately, however, Epona doesn’t like hurting things)
Vices: Shying and spooking are considered vices in the equine world, and in Epona it has a lot to do with her lack of trust for humans. When put in a tight spot she has a tendency to back up (sometimes leading herself into corners) and then biting and kicking to get out. To some extent she creates her own stress, making situations worse than they must be.
Other: Vegetarian. Hawk companion. Relation to the goddess Epona.



Name: Epona
AKA: To Be Determined
Current Age: 14
Appearance: Epona is a grey centaur, with grey fur and paper white skin. She has beautiful, big, blue eyes and large ears inherited from her equine mother. She prefers to keep her(extremely thick) dark grey hair cut short for cleanliness and convenience purposes. It has a tendency to stand up a bit in the front because of this. As far as horse size goes, she is VERY tall. Her mother was 17 hands (5 and a half feet) tall, and Epona inherited her height. Therefore, the top of her head is about eight and a half feet off the ground. Epona dresses in tight and functional clothing for running around the forest, preferring to wear bodices because they help her keep her posture. Epona wears leather braces to support the hawk she has befriended and carries a hunting knife on her belt.
Costume: None Necessary
Primary Power: Epona is excellent in one-on-one, hand-to hand combat. Her height gives her a definite advantage over others, not to mention the fact that she has four legs to stabilize her (and/or kick other people with) rather than the human two.
Secondary Power(s): Excellent survival skills.
Weakness: Epona can’t see what is coming up behind her. Her large ears have given her a decent sense of hearing, like horses, but she can’t see anything which leaves her prone to being startled. Additionally, in the chaos of a big fight she may become spooked and start tearing around trampling things accidentally. She has very little self-control in this respect.
Personality: Epona has since escaped to Adohi Forest and found a home there with Secret. She enjoys the freedom she can enjoy within the forest, but is haunted by a desire for acceptance into general society. She is unhappy that she can't be like the people in town, and wishes they understood her. However Epona is grateful for the friendship of Secret, though Secret can be distant and often makes little sense to an already socially awkward Epona. She's haunted by a desire to find her father, but wonders if maybe this is in extended part of a test. She hopes he will come find her when the test is finished, but six months after being abandoned she is beginning to lose hope. She wishes she could talk to Secret about it, but isn't sure how she would react.

Epona is a generally calm girl who is unfortunately prone to being spooked and has experienced a history of anxiety attacks. Her human intellect and animal instinct often duel over the irrationality of her anxiety, but she has come to accept it as being simply a part of who she is. Though she is extremely intelligent, she has a tendency to still approach the world with a childlike innocence. Everything is new, something to explore or experience or play... Epona can find the joy in almost anything.
Biography: You may think you’ve heard of test tube babies, but you’ve never heard anything like this. Epona’s father is an extremely intelligent geneticist who created her with a combination of his own DNA and that of his favorite mare after having the Seaside Manor built to house his research. He was shunned from the scientific community for pursuing his idea that he could create a race of centaurs (which he called Project Epona) and relocated to Delmor. After nearly a decade of research and failed attempts, Epona was conceived and almost a year later she was born. Around her second birthday, her mother finally encouraged her to strike out on her own, and her father took her into his home for some further research.

Unfortunately for her father, the situation was about to get much more complicated when he discovered Epona’s ability to speak English when she looked up at him with her big, beautiful blue eyes and said “I love you, Daddy.” Shocked with the sudden realization that she was in fact his daughter, all of his ideas for her suddenly came crashing to the ground. He could not expose her to speaking engagements and the poking and prodding of other scientists. He would not be able to perform an autopsy on her if she died. He was suddenly ashamed of himself and vowed that the scientific community would not find out about her. He briefly toys with the idea of killing her to protect her from a life of ridicule and being cooped up in the manor, but ultimately decides that he will train her in survival techniques and when she is ready he will leave the manor with all his things, go to a catholic church to confess his sins and never speak of it again, returning to his life in the scientific community. However, the guilt he feels for what he has done in creating Epona never leaves him.

Being raised by a father wracked with guilt about whether or not he was ultimately going to abandon her, Epona obviously developed some serious social issues. She was forbidden to watch the television and her activities were closely monitored to make sure she wasn’t getting any information about humans being the norm. Her father was determined that she should never be made to feel bad about being who she was. He taught her as much science as she could absorb; from biology to ecology to botany to anatomy to religion. He taught her survival techniques and as much first aid as could possibly relate to her body. Finally, he taught her how to defend herself. At last, on her fourteenth birthday he told her that it was time for her final test. Epona would have to go into the woods of the Seaside Manor property and survive by herself for a week. He explained that it was a coming of age tradition and that everyone had to strike out on their own at some point. Confident in her abilities, Epona left with very few supplies and masterfully survived the week, enjoying the time to run free and meditate. When she returned happily to her father’s home on the final night, she discovered all of his things absent from the house.

After searching the house, she found all of her belongings present, along with a pile of non-perishable foods, some new clothes, a hunting knife, and a few pieces of flint. Believing the test was continued, Epona gathered a pack of her things and left the manor in search of her father. Shocked to find no one like her in town, and surprised by the stares and shrieks of a few locals, Epona spooked and ran into Adohi Forest, where she finally collapsed beside a small pond utterly exhausted. Finally the pieces of her lessons come together and Epona begins to realize she is the only one of her kind. She finds a letter from her father in her pack and realizes she has been abandoned. She cries herself to sleep and is ultimately found by Secret, who helps her get back on her feet.

It’s been six months since she was abandoned and Epona has begun to feel free again. She does not feel like she is a freak, knowing that without god she never would have lived in the first place, so she must be on earth for a reason. She has made herself happy in her forest home and ultimately returned to the Seaside Manor late at night for the rest of her things as well as a few supplies she could scrounge.
Goals/Motives: Though she is at peace in the forest, she secretly desires to be accepted by a group of people. She’ll do almost anything for praise and attention. (This, I guess, would make her dangerous for a while, because whichever group got to her first and showered her with the most friendliness would have her. Ultimately, however, Epona doesn’t like hurting things)
Vices: Shying and spooking are considered vices in the equine world, and in Epona it has a lot to do with her lack of trust for humans. When put in a tight spot she has a tendency to back up (sometimes leading herself into corners) and then biting and kicking to get out. To some extent she creates her own stress, making situations worse than they must be.
Other:

• Epona is a vegetarian and biologically incapable of digesting meats.
  
• Since moving to Adohi forest, Epona has found the company of a hawk she has named Tala who was abandoned when its mother’s nest was disturbed because of its proximity to a construction site. They take care of each other and can even communicate with one another.
  
• Epona is loosely based on the Celtic Goddess of the same name. She was, obviously, a horse goddess who born when a man (who hated women) “coupled” with a mare. She was a woman who is often depicted with horses (riding them, taming them, on a throne carried by them) and is sometimes depicted as a mare with a foal. For this reason, some historians think the Celts believed she could transform from human to horse. As a goddess, her duties were to protect horses, donkeys, mules. She was seen as a goddess of fertility and her main duty was to ferry souls to the afterlife. Ironically, this character Epona can have no offspring because of her hybrid status (and therefore is infertile). However, she may wind up the guardian of Adohi Forest, guiding people through the woods when they get caught in Secret’s traps, or allowing them entrance when Secret wishes to speak with them.
  
• For all intensive purposes, I’ll be going on the following internal and skeletal structures of the centaur (in case of injury). If I use any terminology for the horse parts of her body you can use this diagram for reference.

100 Powers are harder to list than you might think. The last few were a bit of a stretch...

Task Four: But she had a great personality…
Jasmine's life has been spent in the public eye, if only in their peripheral vision. She's lived her life carefully and cleanly, knowing that one step too far out of line and she'd be the headline of every tabloid in the city. She's careful about her friends and meticulous about her stuff. All she needs is for some stalker to get a hold of her underwear and sell it on Ebay.

Living a watched life has also forced Jasmine to treasure her private time. She and her father are very close, though her mother is a topic they never can seem to discuss. She only has a few friends and they're all people she knows she can trust.

Her only vice is a biting frankness when asked questions that she feels are her own business.