BLOOD COLOUR: Red (#5e1000)
SEX: Female.
SYMBOL: The horned skull of a predator, in the style of the Mandalorian "Kyr’bes." Said to be the skull of a city-sized reptile in Star Wars canon, long hunted to extinction by the Mandalorians.
APPEARANCE:
Lorien is of medium height and build - a sporty child from always being on the move. Her hair is kept out of her face in a high ponytail. A single thin braid of hair hangs down behind her right horn. Like the tusks on her symbol, her thick pointed horns curve out and down from the side of her head, down to chin-level. Her head is squarish, and her jaw strong. Her face is grimly set into a glower that is quite expressive when it suits her. Her teeth curl laterally towards each other, and a second row of shorter teeth curl inward, making her speak with an odd accent that keeps her tongue safe in the back of her throat. She wears dusty, dark tunics, and often wraps her head if she is travelling on bright nights with her lusus.
PERSONALITY:
[General Personality]
Lorien is stern and taciturn; a prickly individual whose personality is spurred by the circumstances of her youth. Constantly travelling, and a rare lowblooded pilgrim of the Cult of Mirthful Messiahs, she has at an early age become a pragmatic and focused girl prone to feelings of isolation and need. She has disciplined herself to seek out and secure what she can, and to never betray the righteously capricious love of the followers of the Dark Carnival.
Lorien's breed of lusus is extremely nomadic in its larval stage as it looks for a place to make a permanent nest. Consequentially, Lorien is often on the move as she follows her lusus' nomadic patterns, away from her shabby hive. This travel, coupled with a sense of hostility from the cooler castes, gave Lorien a need for a sense belonging - belonging soon found in the friendly (but foul mouthed) cult of the mirthful messiahs. Underneath their slam poetry and sugary beverages and mistrust of outsiders, Lorien was drawn to the bonds that the invertebrothers and carapasisters of the cult shared. The cult was hesitant to admit such a warm blooded whelpling, at first. But they saw the potential of her fledgling devotion, and so, eager to belong, she was inducted to the cult as a young Cackolyte.
Spurred by the sense of welcome, her life rapidly transformed. Like molten metal cooling to iron, her desire to belong evolved into an unshakable faith. She adheres closely to the the cults traditions, and adheres to them with devotion and passion for the sake of her brothers and sisters of mirth. The exact beliefs don't mean much to her in the end, however - things like the superstitions, belief in miracles, and promise of paradise are customs to her, and little more. Her primary drive is her dedication to the cult itself, its members. Serving and protecting them, above all else, is key. A crime against her invertebrothers is a crime against her, as far as Lorien is concerned, and she will relentlessly pursue the transgressor to right their wrong. She has a clear sense of justice, and pursing that justice is her responsibility and her duty.
Lorien associates any personal success with the success of the cult - honor one, honor the whole. Thus her thirst for belonging readily grew into a kind of avarice for ambition. She desires more for herself, that she can be of more value to the mirthful messiahs. She constantly looks for ways to advance her own gain in a given situation. As a juggalo, hers is an unorthodox quiet mirth. If one should find her at a party, she would be off in the corner, scanning the crowd. When approached, she would engage them in conversation and make them feel welcome. Alternatively, she likes to be involved with food preparation, and making sure everyone enjoys everything from meals to snacks to beverages. Such quiet grace is her brand of mirth. That, and her jokes. Her jokes are both adored and feared within the cult, for the same reason: they are terrible. Anti-punchlines, mostly, with a sprinkling of cringe-worthy puns - righteously wicked holy work. It is an unorthodox methodology for the rambunctious Dark Carnival, but she enjoys the jokes, and as they say: you just got to be going with what feels right at where your heart's up in, you know?
[Hemospectrum]
Lorien is most often in the company of the cooler castes as a juggalo, and knows respect is due in excess towards all proper- blooded trolls. Emulating her high-blooded peers causes her to have little regard for lowblooded trolls. Lorien's sense of juggalo kinship does not extend to her lowblooded peers, and she reserves no kinship with them by mere virtue of common blood. Such interactions can vary from indifference to hostility, with the aloofness between a crusader and the crusaded. Their faithless presence: tolerated and unwelcome. Lorien's prickly hostility is matched by her protectiveness of those she deems allies - her faithful invertebrothers and sisters, and the select unfaithful that in time have earned her respect. She mistrusts outsiders, and will do anything for her friends.
[Lusus Relationship]
Dunemother's nomadic behavior has defined the entirety of her ward's young life. In a lot of ways, Lorien resents the feeling of constant uprooted, and the lack of non-sandworm companionship during those travels. Travelling abroad to the cult gatherings in different areas is her main comfort - hence her dedication to them and their ways. But despite having built one herself, she feels quite without a home because of Dunemother, and wishes that she will settle down one day where she can feel more stable. There is resentment, yes, but not hate.
[Interests]
Wilderness survival is less of a hobby than a lifestyle for young Lorien. She knows how to look for water, create shelter, and hunt for food - what's edible, what isn't, what you kill, and what kills you. She's not quick or strong enough to do proper hunting, but finding the creature is the hard part. Whistling to a sandworm-beast takes care of the rest. The vagabond lifestyle has taught her resourcefulness as an asset. Strong wits come ahead of witless strength. She does enjoy utilizing these skills, however, and has caught the ears of city-folk juggalos with wild accounts of her young hunting stories.
Conversely, being on the move means that exposure to common technologies is a privilege. She eats up as much information as she can about inventions old and new, their purpose and function and how exactly they function. This interest is odd for a juggalo, who consider most products of modern innovation the latest in a long line of miracles. As such, this interest she keeps hidden from her invertebrothers and carapisisters. She allows this interest in science and engineering to be her one heresy. Being on the ground floor of the miracle of innovation is the best way to stay ahead. And staying ahead is all there is.
Nestled between the her life's restlessness is a love of cooking. Lorien often cooks for herself - Dunemother is a terrible chef (not having arms, and she generally swallows her food whole). Off the road, Lorien excites her meals with herbs she gathers and stirs into stew or mixes into barbecue rubs. In the city, she experiments with spices from the markets, and revels in eating with the company of others. Eating at the table is where she feels most relaxed - at home. This, truly, is her kind of mirth. That and making jokes - although, her jokes are infamously dreadful.
STRENGTHS:
Focused: Lorien is a single minded spirit, capable of remaining wholly focused on the task at hand. This serves her well in her wilderness survival skills, and in finding her path to greatness - and of course her cooking. Anyone can admire a mind at work.
Honorable: If ever there was a young troll with a code of honor, this girl would be it. Her beliefs are backed with a strong will desire to uphold the ethics to which she prescribes. There is simply no other option - Lorien is a girl of her word. If she says she'll do something, she'll do it, by all that is wicked and beautiful.
Pragmatic: Even more important than her beliefs, however, is a commitment to one goal: Don't Be Left Behind. Willing to adapt her worldview to suit that desire is never a breach of her honor or ethics - it's the entire point of them. If what she believes doesn't get her anywhere, she's worse than everyone else.
FLAWS:
Aloof: She's stiff with just about everyone. Something about travelling with Dunemother has left her with the attitude of a loner, despite her fondness of company. The contradiction causes her some internal struggles, as well as problems being socialized. Lorien is selective with her peers. There are those worth as much of her time as they like, and those not worth a second.
Greedy: Associating the success of one with the success of the whole has its consequences, and its contradictions. Lorien is always looking for a way to make a bit of money to pad out the coffers. Deep down, she truly loves the feeling of having, and wanting not. Stuff means a lot to someone with so little, and even if her lifestyle should change, there's always more.
Insular: Lorien has one way of looking at things – the right way. Her search for her path in life leads her to be wildly defensive of her choices and her motives. If her aloofness doesn't discourage potential friends and allies, her stubborn and close-minded viewpoints will. No one likes being around someone who's "always right" - especially when its clear they aren't.
MEET THE LUSUS:
Lorien's lusii - Dunemother - is a subterranean worm the size of two vans back to back. She has no eyes, and instead relies on acute hearing to sense vibrations in the ground and in the air around her to determine size, shape, and distance of people and objects - or prey. Her thick skin, caked with sand and dirt, is hard like taut rubber. Her maw is filled with rows of prehensile teeth, meant to shovel earth through her body while burrowing, and to prevent struggling prey from escaping. She also has a number of tentacles that act both as feelers and as appendages to pull prey into her mouth. While she doesn't mind the sun herself, she is aware of her wards need for shade and sopor. One of her digestive chambers is permanently occupied as a shelter for her ward for day travel, complete with a small portable recuperacoon that must be flushed and refilled every few days. It's a little difficult for her to carry the makeshift bedroom in her body at all times, but it's one of the many sacrifices she makes for her ward (in reality, there are very few).
Though their relationship has friction at best, Lorien and Dunemother are very similar. They both seek belonging, though Dunemother in the more literal sense of a permanent nest. It is in her nature to wander, and she is aware of how hard that is on her ward. She is eager to please her ward, and finds gifts for Lorien and helps her whenever she can to try and make up for uprooting Lorien from normal troll life. Despite this, she is hesitant to ever compromise her impulse to eat, burrow, and search. She is not sure Lorien will forgive her, and neither is Lorien. She wonders if, when she nests, she will be able to truly make it up to her by becoming a home herself.
Dunemother's breed of lusus has a three stages of growth. During the larval stage, her job is to eat and search for a good nest. As she eats and burrows, she breaks down nutrients and minerals that she stores in digestive sacs like the one her ward lives in. As these sacs fill up, she extends and widens her body to accommodate more. During this stage, the lusus can get up to an eighth of a kilometer in length, and as wide as four. The rate of the worms growth is slow to start, and speeds up as the lusus finds a nest and their troll grows to need their guardian less and less.
In the second stage, Dunemother lusii burrow into the ground in whatever space they have decided to nest in. They create cocoons out of the minerals they have gathered as they begin to enter their final stage of life. The second stage is rapid, as the digestive sacs (incubated by the minerals and the warmth of the earth) expand into long appendages, reaching deep through the ground, forming the anatomy of the third stage.
From the second stage on, the lusus is completely stationary. At the start of the third stage, a sinkhole opens up above the newly reborn antlion-lusus, whose mouth is now the base of the hole. The tentacle feelers now can extend out and pull nearby prey into the maw. The body of the lusus is massive and extends deep into the ground, with large chambers and catacombs big enough to live in, and multiple sets of organs. The digestive process of Sarlaccmom can last up to a millennium, consisting of long cyclic systems involving paralytic poisons, lightly dissolving acids, and selective liquification of organs.
HIVE:
Lorien's Chittentown hive isn't much - a shack-like one-floor cabin with a separate bathhouse. Lorien hardly considers it a home, and generally uses it as a place where she dumps trinkets and heirlooms gathered from her travels. Shelves and trunks and boxes contain stuff she's picked up, or that Dunemother has given her for being such a trooper on their extended "field trips." The meal block and mesa of mutual consumption are humble, but kept clean and clear of detritus. Nothing gets in the way of using her kitchen on the rare times she's at her hive. Granted, there's only one battered chair.
WEAPON: Lorien uses a beat up walking stick sharpened at both ends to defend herself. Sometimes she pretends its a gun that she uses to defend her home and stop bad guys. Pew Pew!
