Age: 21
Gender: Female
Rank: Weyrling
Appearance:
Balenna is a wholesome weyrborn lass, with a curvy body, a freckle-filled face, and – when her hair grows out – rich and wavy brown locks. Her face is well-boned and suited to a perky smile, which is a good thing because she usually has one on. Her big, brown eyes are luminous and sweet, making her look, basically, extremely innocent and feminine.
She dresses simply and modestly, and no one would suspect – not even her weyrmate – that behind the pretty face there might be something more...
Personality:
Balenna, at first and most other glances, is a perky little ditz. She became a candidate to support the new group of creche graduates and, although she never thought she would impress herself, she was optimistic about the experience and, well, is optimistic about everything. Everything, in her mind, will always turn out for the better. And it paid off with Taroth, didn't it?
Balenna is a sweetheart to the core and adores children, one day hoping to add her own to the creche. She's never said an unkind word to anybody (that they can remember) and is always willing to take on some new task or other. She's so energetic and enthusiastic that it's almost tiring to be around her.
Because of her optimism and indefatigable energy, most think that she is naiive and maybe a little silly, though in a good, traditional, female way. She steps on no ones toes, is generally pleasant and polite, and, apparently, completely selfless. Just like your traditional, maternal woman should be.
Maternal she is – she loves children and creche work, and was certainly very gentle to the younger candidates – but selfless she isn't. Just because she's helpful doesn't mean she isn't getting something out of it. Balenna's desires include helping out, but she is ultimately out for herself. Whether her reward is good feelings or something more tangible, there has to be one otherwise, suddenly, she will have no motivation to do it.
Balenna is an instant gratification sort of girl. She wants nice things and even – maybe – political power for herself, but she doesn't have the patience to get such long term things. She definitely is not a schemer, though she will participate in others schemes if there's something in it for her.
Still, though she always wants more out of life, she is generally happy no matter where she is. Things are good for her she has food, water, and she lives in a weyr. That's pretty good, in her mind. It could be better, obviously, but it's still better than some have, and she is grateful.
Of course, now that she has a dragon, things are going to be even better.
ADOPT:
The Dungeons and Dragons Blue
Do Gelatinous Cubes have souls?
—Our party’s dragonborn Paladin who wears a Helm of Seven Deaths
Inspiration:
Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro) since 1997. It was derived from miniature wargames with a variation of the Chainmail game serving as the initial rule system D&D 's publication is widely regarded as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry.
D&D departs from traditional wargaming and assigns each player a specific character to play instead of a military formation. These characters embark upon imaginary adventures within a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Master serves as the game's referee and storyteller, while also maintaining the setting in which the adventures occur and playing the role of the inhabitants. The characters form a party that interacts with the setting's inhabitants (and each other). Together they solve dilemmas, engage in battles and gather treasure and knowledge. In the process the characters earn experience points to become increasingly powerful over a series of sessions.
As of 2006, Dungeons & Dragons remained the best-known and best-selling role-playing game, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game and more than US$1 billion in book and equipment sales. The game has been supplemented by many pre-made adventures as well as commercial campaign settings suitable for use by regular gaming groups. Dungeons & Dragons is known beyond the game for other D&D-branded products, references in popular culture and some of the controversies that have surrounded it, particularly a moral panic in the 1980s falsely linking it to Satanism and suicide. The game has won multiple awards and has been translated into many languages beyond the original English.
A deck of many things (both beneficial and baneful) is usually found in a box or leather pouch. Each deck contains a number of cards or plaques made of ivory or vellum. Each is engraved with glyphs, characters, and sigils. As soon as one of these cards is drawn from the pack, its magic is bestowed upon the person who drew it, for better or worse.
The character with a deck of many things who wishes to draw a card must announce how many cards she will draw before she begins. Cards must be drawn within 1 hour of each other, and a character can never again draw from this deck any more cards than she has announced. If the character does not willingly draw her allotted number (or if she is somehow prevented from doing so), the cards flip out of the deck on their own.
Name: Taroth
Sound of voice: Taroth’s voice changes from day to day - or even hour to hour - though it is always very obviously them. There is most typically rain in their speech.
Personality:
Taroth is a dragon who operates on the principle of ‘whatever seems best right now’. Not for Taroth long term planning or thoughts of consequences, only the moment and the action. He is incredibly irrational, and only gets frustrated when people try to force him to work through things logically. He feels what he feels, and what he feels is that people should respect that. Trying to make him put a logical stamp on it is a path to stubbornness from him and heaps of frustration for everyone else.
This can also lead to him being exceptionally unreliable - he’s bad at keeping promises, even with the excuse that he might forget them. His memory is spectacularly awful - while a normal dragon might remember specific incidents for a sevenday or more, Taroth is unlikely to make it more then a couple of days. This is despite his intelligence, which can be frustrating for him occasionally.
This dragon is absolutely amoral - indeed, he cannot even begin to conceive of a moral code, and those who follow any are fools constrained by it. As far as he is concerned, moral judgements are just a statement of feeling - one might say something is right or wrong, but really you’re just saying that you like it or not. The only objective value is what Taroth wants… and what Taroth really wants, Taroth gets. He doesn't back down on those few things, and can be extremely fierce in their pursuit.
That’s not to say that he can’t be sweet or kind when the mood takes him or to those that he loves. Indeed, Taroth is a generous and open-handed (clawed?) dragon by nature, always ready to share - friends, food, pretty jewellery, whatever. He is a charismatic creature with a normally sunny disposition, and no cause to be cruel to anyone - what would be the point? Indeed, life is short - why not be kind, why not be generous, why not get along with people? It only makes life better.
Appearance:
Taroth is an exceptionally flexible dragon, able to contort himself in ways that you wouldn't think possible. He has a narrow wingspan and relatively slender body, suited to sharp turns and quick dives, though he will never have the stamina of some of his siblings.
Why me?:
Why Balenna? Because honestly, nobody really understands her, not on the level that Taroth can. People are blinded by her looks and manner, but Taroth knows what she is inside. They are alike in many ways, and their goals are almost completely aligned: both just want to be happy, and will do whatever they want to get there together, without moralizing at each other in the process. Of course, both want something out of the relationship. Their bond is a bargain: she'll take care of him, and he'll give her plenty of love in return, and it's one that both Taroth and Balenna are just fine with.
Written and Coloured for you by Con
History:
Balenna was an ordinary girl, born to relatively ordinary lower cavern parents in High Reaches weyr. Considered a beauty, she had young men vying for her affections almost the moment she reached her eighteenth turn. It was a surprise when she turned her own affections to an older wherhandler from outside the weyr, but it was generally accepted. Her lower caverns duties saw her in the creche and in the kitchens, and she got to know some of the more recent graduates of the creche.
She hadn't ever stood for a hatching. Her mother had mild narcolepsy, and she was not allowed to be a candidate until it was confirmed that she had not inherited the condition. By the time it was generally realized she hadn't inherited the condition and was thus fit to Stand, she was 16, but had become sick with something going around the weyr. It lingered, off and on, and her parents requested that she not Stand, remembering the horrors of the dragonplague. In the end, it was nothing, but at this point she was living with an older man – Mador of green Madask- and there were thoughts that she might be pregnant. On her twentieth birthday, she affirmed that she was not pregnant and, having gotten to know some of the older children of the creche very well just before the outbreak, she moved onto candidacy with them to support them.
She was not present at the unlucky candidate camping trip, to the great relief of Mador, but she later consoled some of the younger candidates when they subsequently had nightmares. She was in the stands with the other 'junior' candidates (though she was near to aging out) when Taroth decided to pick her out.
She will remember that moment always – the voice in her mind, playful and toying with her as it asked her to pick a card, any card, from a selection it 'held' out to her mind. She had 'picked' a card, but she knew that no matter what card she picked, it would be Taroth, and he would be hers and she his forevermore. That day, as she strode down from the stands with her new bondmate, she felt other aspects of her personality stirring, long hidden, but now ready to be freed. She and Taroth, she knew, would have a very interesting life... that was for certain.
It was at that point that she began to lose interest in Mador and his life. Her dragon had a special place in her heart, and there was no room for anything else. She and her older man drifted apart, and eventually both came to the conclusion that it just would not work.
Out of Context DnD
Do Gelatinous Cubes have souls?
—Our party’s dragonborn Paladin who wears a Helm of Seven Deaths
Inspiration:
Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro) since 1997. It was derived from miniature wargames with a variation of the Chainmail game serving as the initial rule system D&D 's publication is widely regarded as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry.
D&D departs from traditional wargaming and assigns each player a specific character to play instead of a military formation. These characters embark upon imaginary adventures within a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Master serves as the game's referee and storyteller, while also maintaining the setting in which the adventures occur and playing the role of the inhabitants. The characters form a party that interacts with the setting's inhabitants (and each other). Together they solve dilemmas, engage in battles and gather treasure and knowledge. In the process the characters earn experience points to become increasingly powerful over a series of sessions.
As of 2006, Dungeons & Dragons remained the best-known and best-selling role-playing game, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game and more than US$1 billion in book and equipment sales. The game has been supplemented by many pre-made adventures as well as commercial campaign settings suitable for use by regular gaming groups. Dungeons & Dragons is known beyond the game for other D&D-branded products, references in popular culture and some of the controversies that have surrounded it, particularly a moral panic in the 1980s falsely linking it to Satanism and suicide. The game has won multiple awards and has been translated into many languages beyond the original English.
A deck of many things (both beneficial and baneful) is usually found in a box or leather pouch. Each deck contains a number of cards or plaques made of ivory or vellum. Each is engraved with glyphs, characters, and sigils. As soon as one of these cards is drawn from the pack, its magic is bestowed upon the person who drew it, for better or worse.
The character with a deck of many things who wishes to draw a card must announce how many cards she will draw before she begins. Cards must be drawn within 1 hour of each other, and a character can never again draw from this deck any more cards than she has announced. If the character does not willingly draw her allotted number (or if she is somehow prevented from doing so), the cards flip out of the deck on their own.
Name: Taroth
Sound of voice: Taroth’s voice changes from day to day - or even hour to hour - though it is always very obviously them. There is most typically rain in their speech.
Personality:
Taroth is a dragon who operates on the principle of ‘whatever seems best right now’. Not for Taroth long term planning or thoughts of consequences, only the moment and the action. He is incredibly irrational, and only gets frustrated when people try to force him to work through things logically. He feels what he feels, and what he feels is that people should respect that. Trying to make him put a logical stamp on it is a path to stubbornness from him and heaps of frustration for everyone else.
This can also lead to him being exceptionally unreliable - he’s bad at keeping promises, even with the excuse that he might forget them. His memory is spectacularly awful - while a normal dragon might remember specific incidents for a sevenday or more, Taroth is unlikely to make it more then a couple of days. This is despite his intelligence, which can be frustrating for him occasionally.
This dragon is absolutely amoral - indeed, he cannot even begin to conceive of a moral code, and those who follow any are fools constrained by it. As far as he is concerned, moral judgements are just a statement of feeling - one might say something is right or wrong, but really you’re just saying that you like it or not. The only objective value is what Taroth wants… and what Taroth really wants, Taroth gets. He doesn't back down on those few things, and can be extremely fierce in their pursuit.
That’s not to say that he can’t be sweet or kind when the mood takes him or to those that he loves. Indeed, Taroth is a generous and open-handed (clawed?) dragon by nature, always ready to share - friends, food, pretty jewellery, whatever. He is a charismatic creature with a normally sunny disposition, and no cause to be cruel to anyone - what would be the point? Indeed, life is short - why not be kind, why not be generous, why not get along with people? It only makes life better.
Appearance:
Taroth is an exceptionally flexible dragon, able to contort himself in ways that you wouldn't think possible. He has a narrow wingspan and relatively slender body, suited to sharp turns and quick dives, though he will never have the stamina of some of his siblings.
Why me?:
Why Balenna? Because honestly, nobody really understands her, not on the level that Taroth can. People are blinded by her looks and manner, but Taroth knows what she is inside. They are alike in many ways, and their goals are almost completely aligned: both just want to be happy, and will do whatever they want to get there together, without moralizing at each other in the process. Of course, both want something out of the relationship. Their bond is a bargain: she'll take care of him, and he'll give her plenty of love in return, and it's one that both Taroth and Balenna are just fine with.
Written and Coloured for you by Con
History:
Balenna was an ordinary girl, born to relatively ordinary lower cavern parents in High Reaches weyr. Considered a beauty, she had young men vying for her affections almost the moment she reached her eighteenth turn. It was a surprise when she turned her own affections to an older wherhandler from outside the weyr, but it was generally accepted. Her lower caverns duties saw her in the creche and in the kitchens, and she got to know some of the more recent graduates of the creche.
She hadn't ever stood for a hatching. Her mother had mild narcolepsy, and she was not allowed to be a candidate until it was confirmed that she had not inherited the condition. By the time it was generally realized she hadn't inherited the condition and was thus fit to Stand, she was 16, but had become sick with something going around the weyr. It lingered, off and on, and her parents requested that she not Stand, remembering the horrors of the dragonplague. In the end, it was nothing, but at this point she was living with an older man – Mador of green Madask- and there were thoughts that she might be pregnant. On her twentieth birthday, she affirmed that she was not pregnant and, having gotten to know some of the older children of the creche very well just before the outbreak, she moved onto candidacy with them to support them.
She was not present at the unlucky candidate camping trip, to the great relief of Mador, but she later consoled some of the younger candidates when they subsequently had nightmares. She was in the stands with the other 'junior' candidates (though she was near to aging out) when Taroth decided to pick her out.
She will remember that moment always – the voice in her mind, playful and toying with her as it asked her to pick a card, any card, from a selection it 'held' out to her mind. She had 'picked' a card, but she knew that no matter what card she picked, it would be Taroth, and he would be hers and she his forevermore. That day, as she strode down from the stands with her new bondmate, she felt other aspects of her personality stirring, long hidden, but now ready to be freed. She and Taroth, she knew, would have a very interesting life... that was for certain.
It was at that point that she began to lose interest in Mador and his life. Her dragon had a special place in her heart, and there was no room for anything else. She and her older man drifted apart, and eventually both came to the conclusion that it just would not work.
