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I n f o r m a t i o n ::

Name: Samara.

Gender: Female.

Date of Birth: November 4th, 2012.

Dust/Essence: Maple Leaf.

Stage: Child.

Personality: Kind, Polite, Elegant.


This is the journal of Samara and Odell. Follow all of their rules as well as the guild's rules and Gaia TOS.

Table of Contents

Samara, the Maple Leaf Dust

Name: Samara
Meaning: Fruit of the Maple Tree
Nicknames: Sam, Princess

Hair: Long, red tresses decorated with lovely red maple leaves.
Eyes: As green as her spring folliage
Skin: Pale with a lovely blush to it like a cold day's ruddiness.
Clothing style: Samara dresses only in the finest, being a young lady of society. Her father makes sure to only allow her to wear proper things that a girl her age should wear and that naturally enhance her beauty. You will NEVER see her in pants. It's just not lady like!
Orientation: Unknown! And it's not polite to ask!

Personality: Samara is the perfect little lady who has the best manners. She curtsies to people, uses the right fork at dinner, and never causes a fuss. She can be easily embarressed by more crass manners, a blush nearly always staining her cheeks in their company. But she tries not to be overly critical, not everyone has a papa like her. She often tries to teach others her own age these traits but doesn't always succeed. She is not as much of a neat freak as her father, enjoying the occational messiness. Her father claims she's been that way ever since she was a bottle but she dismisses this idea. Samara is a lover of nature and enjoys walking in the park with her father. She also enjoys music, specifically her fathers.

Likes: classical music, autumn breezes, dancing, the color red and brown, roasted chesnuts, hot cocoa, most any candy, fairy tales

Dislikes: Being cooped up inside for too long, rude or mannerless people, breaking a violin string, bitter foods like coffee, horror stories

History (so far): Samara was found by Odell during a walk to clear his mind before a concert. He thought the bottle was exceptionally pretty with the bright red leaf of the maple in it. It reminded him of his sister Rosanna. He was even inspired to play a song right then and there. This made him collect the bottle as a source of luck and inspiration. Not too long after the bottle manifested billowing leaves all around the bottle. Odell was most assuridly surprised by the sudden change in his new decor but found it was not harmful or threatening. Then the biggest surprise came when he awoke to find a young girl sitting on the desk where the bottle use to be. He has since adopted her and has begun giving her violin lessons.

Traits: Thick Blood: A maple tree produces a sweet sap when cut or injured. As such Samara's blood is very thick, sticky, and slow-moving. That means she is not easily affected by cutting injuries, does not bruise easily, and can close a wound quickly if she can cover it. Her blood will even crystallize if left out in the air. However this also means medicines and other such things injected into her work much slower because they can't get through her system in a timely manner. Consequently due to the sweet nature of the tree's sap during the late winter time, Samara craves sweet treats and food during the winter.

Perfect Pitch: Maple wood is considered to be a tonewood, or a wood that carries sound waves well. It is normally used in the construction of string instruments and drums, even in the necks of electric guitars. Samara possesses perfect pitch and is able to identify someone by the sound of their voice. She can also identify objects that make a particular sound but it is much harder, she requires more time with the object to remember its exact sound due to imperfections that something can have over time. This also means her hearing is excellent but very sensitive to loud noises. She is an excellent violin player to boot!

Seasonal Change: Samara is very sensitive to temperature change of the climate. No so much in that she gets cold easily, in fact she's quite hard to make uncomfortable with temperature. But she is so sensitive biologically that her hair changes color depending on the season. From late spring to early autumn her hair is a beautiful green color. Her mother often decorates it with flowers, saying she is a walking meadow. But once the cool air begins to roll in Samara's hair begins to change. It starts at the roots of her hair which start to turn yellow and slowly spreads out into orange highlights then into a full red color. Often during this change she dones hats because she's embarrassed by how it looks.

Home

Odell lives in a two bedroom apartment on the second story of an old building near the concert hall. It is comfortable but not overly showy. Hardwood floors feel more comfortable than carpet and his balcony over looks a local park where he likes to walk. Everything is very neat and clean, not a speck of dust to be found. The bedroom nearest the balcony belongs to Samara, as she loves seeing the morning light as it comes through the large glass doors.

Bottle to Dust Spin:

→ Set up your journal nicely.
→ Post a journal entry describing how your guardian obtained their dust bottle.

Dust Spin to Child:

→ Journal entry reflecting on the change in the bottle OR RP with another Guardian/Dust.
→ Request and complete the growth quest.

Child to Teen:

→ Journal entry regarding the growth of the bottle into a child
→ Complete at least 8 RP's, meeting at least 3 different Dusts or Guardians.
→ Write at least 2 solo's that focus on the development of your Dust.
→ Describe somewhere, either in your journal or in roleplay, the development of your Dust's skills.
→ Request and complete a growth quest.

Teen to Adult:

→ Two month cooldown period.
→ Complete at least 10 RP's, with at least 4 different Dusts or Guardians.
→ Write at least 3 solo's that focus on the development of your Dust.
→ Describe somewhere, either in your journal or roleplay, further development of your Dust's skills.
→ A self determined growth quest that includes at least 3 additional entries -- it HAS to include roleplaying and solo's (IE: 1 RP and 2 solo's, 2 RP's and 1 solo, etc). Lengthy growth quests, if approved with the staff, can count towards your regular RP and solo requirements.*
→ Request and complete a quest.

Adult to Exal:

→ This is formally no longer an option, but if you're super dedicated and do extensive RP...you never know.



* Send Chrystal a PM detailing your growth quest and how many RP's/solo's it would encompass to determine eligibility.

Demons can be used for growth quests, but the interaction must either be approved by staff or an NPC demon will be roleplayed by staff. We prefer your personal quest to be about your character's growth, not just dealing with 'the bad guys,' but you can pitch your idea for approval if you still want demons involved.

The Maple Tree

*all from Wikipedia of "maple tree" and "sugar maple"

The sugar maple is one of the most important Canadian trees, being, with the black maple, the major source of sap for making maple syrup. Other maple species can be used as a sap source for maple syrup, but some have a lower sugar content and/or produce more cloudy syrup than these two. As they are a major source of pollen in early spring before many other plants have flowered, maples are important to the survival of honeybees that play a commercially important role later in the spring and summer. Maple is used as pulpwood. The fibers have relatively thick walls that prevents collapsing upon drying. This gives good bulk and opacity in paper. Maple also gives paper with good printing properties.

The wood is one of the hardest and densest of the maples, 740 kg/m3 (46 lb/cu ft), and is prized for furniture and flooring. The sapwood can be white in color, and smaller logs may have a higher proportion of this desirable wood. Bowling alleys and bowling pins are both commonly manufactured from sugar maple. Trees with wavy wood grain, which can occur in curly, quilted and "birdseye maple" form, are especially valued. Maple is also the wood used for basketball courts, including the floors used by the NBA, and it is a popular wood for baseball bats, along with white ash. It is also widely used in the manufacture of musical instruments, such as the members of the violin family (sides and back) guitars (neck) and drum shells.

Canadian maple, often referred to as "Canadian hardrock maple", is prized for pool cues, especially pool cue shafts, and the highest grades of this white wood are used by virtually all (both production line and custom hand-made) cue makers to make high-quality shafts. Some production-line cues will use lower-quality Canadian maple wood with cosmetic issues, such as "sugar marks", which are (most often) light brown discolorations visible on the shaft that are caused by sap in the wood. Great shaft wood has a very consistent grain, and no marks or discoloration. Sugar marks usually don't hurt anything and do not affect how the cue plays, but are not as high of quality as those without it. This wood is also used in skateboard decks for its strength. Some maple wood has a highly decorative wood grain, known as flame maple, quilt maple, birdseye maple and burl wood. This condition occurs randomly in individual trees of several species, and often cannot be detected until the wood has been sawn, though it is sometimes visible in the standing tree as a rippled pattern in the bark.

The sugar maple is a favorite street and garden tree, because it is easy to propagate and transplant, is fairly fast-growing, and has beautiful fall color. The shade and the shallow, fibrous roots may interfere with grass growing under the trees. Deep well-drained loam is the best rooting medium, although sugar maple can grow well on sandy soil which does not become excessively dry. Light (or loose) clay soils are also well known to support sugar maple. Poorly drained areas are unsuitable and the species is especially short-lived on flood-prone clay flats. Its salt tolerance is low and it is very sensitive to boron.

Art

Samara's bottle. Her pretty maple leaves inside looking ever so festive!



WTH! Suddenly an ever present breeze blows some leaves around the bottle.



Samara comes to life! A beautiful princess of the autumn,