Welcome to Gaia! ::

Name: Rowan Magali Trumoia

Nickname: N/A

Gender/Pronoun: Cisgender Woman - She/Her/Hers

Age: 22 23

Birthday: March 4, 2002

Sign: Pisces

Gemstone: Aquamarine

Blood Type: AB+

Fav. Food: Watermelon feta salad, raspberry tarts

Hated Food: Salami, she finds the smell and texture nauseating

School/Occupation: Destiny City University Senior, Music BA Program/ string quartet violinist on weekends and barista on weekdays. She intends to pursue an MA in music following the completion of her BA.

Hobbies:
Music -- Music is Rowan's greatest passion, she has been playing the violin since she was five years old and the harp since she was ten, though the violin remains her primary focus. She enjoys playing with others, but her shyness makes it difficult to do so outside of a professional or academic setting. She enjoys going to quiet natural settings to play her violin in solitude and draw inspiration from nature. Her music has been a source of great comfort for her in her darker periods, sometimes serving as a lifeline when she was unable or unwilling to share her personal struggles with others.

Drawing-- Rowan enjoys producing pastel and charcoal art and is fairly decent at doing so. She isn't confident enough to attempt to sell any of her work, but she spends a lot of her free time with a pad of paper and sticks of pastel or charcoal. She likes to draw from life, particularly enjoying portraying everyday people and scenes in an ethereal, whimsical light. If she feels comfortable with someone, she will show them her work and sometimes even give them individual pieces as gifts.

Gardening -- Rowan loves plants, a passion sparked in part by having a botanist mother, and even though living in an apartment prevents her from gardening on the scale she would like, she fills her rooms with potted flowers, herbs, and succulents. Her nurturing nature causes her to fuss over her plants almost to the same degree as people fuss over pets. She researches each of her plants thoroughly to make sure that she's giving them the best care she possibly can.

Swimming -- Rowan swims as a way to unwind and stay in shape. She has a membership at a local swimming pool and swims laps on any evening that she can find the time. It is her primary de-stresser. She enjoys swimming pretty much anywhere she can (as long as it's not infested with anything particularly disgusting or horrible). She loves cold mountain lakes, warm tropical bays, and everything in between. She is a strong enough swimmer that as a teenager, she worked summers as a lifeguard at her neighborhood pool and retains the knowledge she acquired on that job.

Virtues:

Compassionate -- Rowan is a deeply compassionate and empathetic person, which drives her to do everything she can to help others. She always has a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to lean on for whoever needs it and a percentage of each paycheck goes to charity. She is gentle and softly spoken, with a tendency to avoid confrontation unless it is absolutely necessary and would much rather attempt to mediate a fight than participate in one. Rowan has a deep seated need to nurture others that often comes out in the form of an intense need to tend to the people she loves. She's known to provide flowers and cards to let them know they're loved when they're feeling down, care packages when they're sick, and a mother hen trying to take care of them if they come to her in a bad physical or emotional state. An unfortunate side effect of her compassionate nature is that Rowan has a tendency to take on the emotional burdens of others that can take a toll on her own mental health and a tendency to fall short when it comes to being compassionate to herself and her own needs and is reluctant to let others take care of her.

Driven -- Rowan is very passionate about her interests and wants to be the best she can be in everything she tries. She throws herself entirely into her work because anything less than 100% is unacceptable. This can manifest in an obsessive focus on trying to perfect and complete a project, though she almost always falls short of her own expectations. She has a tendency to work on her current focus with an almost fanatical devotion until she completes it or at the very least reaches a significant milestone. Aside from the people who manage to get close to her, her work and the pursuit of perfection are her greatest loves. This drive has led to academic success and recognition as a skilled musician, but at the cost of a regular sleep schedule and a wider social life.

Loyal -- Rowan is fiercely loyal to the people she loves and will stand by them through just about anything. She loves her family and friends unconditionally and does everything within her power to support them. Rowan makes a serious effort to be there for her friends whenever they may need her, regardless of the time, place, or the inconvenience to her. She is good at keeping secrets of the non life-threatening variety, though if she was to encounter a secret that would put someone in immediate danger, she would likely consider the more loyal option to be getting them help, this being one of the few situations that would cut through her innate and intense fear of rejection in not doing what they might want. She can sometimes be loyal to a fault, neglecting to cut people out of her life when it might be best for her to do so or looking the other way when someone she loves does something less than admirable.


Flaws:

Vain -- Rowan is very concerned about her appearance, both in terms of her looks and in projecting an image of poise and achievement. She spends a lot of time making sure she looks just so before leaving the house and never goes without a supply of makeup and grooming supplies in her purse in case something goes awry with her hair, makeup, or anything else that ties into her public image. She tries not to be judgmental of people who don't put in the same amount of time in personal maintenance, but at times she can't help herself, even if she doesn't have the heart to say it out loud. It's easy to interpret her vanity as rooted solely in arrogance, but it stems in large part from a fear of what others may think of her if she shows anything less than a purely attractive, accomplished public persona. Indulging her vanity can sometimes come at the cost of making less than ideal financial decisions to buy items to feed it.

Reckless -- Rowan loves an adrenaline rush, which can contribute to risky and impulsive behavior. Whether it's running across a busy street rather than waiting for the signal or swimming in choppy waters, she frequently doesn't think about the potential consequences for herself until after the fact. This is one of the only areas contributing to her sense of self in which she doesn't pursue complete control of her situation, instead choosing to let whatever happens happen. Despite this behavior, she would be entirely unwilling to intentionally put someone else in danger with her actions and would likely engage in risky behavior to prevent them from coming to harm, especially if she blamed herself for their predicament. Rowan's recklessness has been a source of both frustration and worry for her family for years and resulted in multiple broken bones on top of more scrapes and bruises than anyone can count.

People Pleaser -- Rowan has a difficult time saying no and setting firm boundaries with people, often to the point that she feels guilty if she does so. Her people pleasing tendencies stem in part from an intense fear of rejection and in part from the fact that she hates seeing others sad or disappointed. Tying in with that is an extreme difficulty allowing others to see when she is in a bad mental or emotional state, fearing that she will be a burden to them or cause them distress. It's a struggle for her to put her own wants and needs ahead of those of others, especially her friends and it can lead her into less than desirable situations if left unchecked; she got in trouble at least once in high school for hiding a friend's contraband for them and could possibly get herself into worse situations should they arise before she manages to establish firmer boundaries for herself.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Eyes: Grey (AFAFAF), round
Hair: Thick, hip-length red (941C3B) wavy hair
Face: The shape is like this, with a nose similar to this, she has bow-shaped lips. Her ears are proportional to her head and have attached earlobes. Her ears are pierced on the lobes and she frequently wears a pair of small gold butterfly stud earrings.

Skin Tone: Rowan has very fair skin that burns easily.

Body Type: She is 5'3" with a bottom hourglass body shape and an average bust size.

Clothes: (Please see avatar reference) She almost always wears a small gold ring with a daffodil on her right ring finger. (I don't expect such a small detail in any art, I just wanted to make a note of it)

Background

Rowan was anonymously surrendered shortly after her birth and adopted by her parents, Esti and Rachel, as the youngest of their three daughters. She has never had any contact with any member of her biological family and as of now has no interest in seeking them out. She grew up in Destiny City, attending a small, private arts high school with her sister Willow.

Rowan's family has been very supportive of her throughout her life, though they are admittedly somewhat skeptical of the viability of a career in music, encouraging her to consider the possibility of going into academia in addition to performing.

Though Esti and Rachel both have an impulse toward being workaholics, they have always set aside time for their kids and each other in their schedules. They make a point of having the whole family together for dinner on Sunday nights as often as they can.

Family

Dr. Esti (Estelle) Trumoia -- One of Rowan's adoptive mothers, a respected botanist who works as a professor a Destiny City University and consults regularly with local, state, and national park services for environmental studies. Esti is charismatic and gregarious, a striking contrast to her more reserved wife. She enjoys hosting dinners for her grad students twice a semester and social functions for the biology department faculty. She is also the faculty advisor for multiple campus clubs and makes a point of being there for her students whenever they need her.

Rachel Trumoia -- One of Rowan's adoptive mothers, a quiet, disciplined artist who specializes in metal sculptures. Rachel is the daughter of Cuban immigrants who came to the United States in the 1960s. Though they initially struggled to come to terms with their daughter's sexuality, her parents came to not only accept but embrace her marriage and family. She and Esti met at a dedication ceremony for one of Rachel's sculptures at a local botanical garden. She has a studio downtown where she creates her larger pieces and a small home studio where she produces smaller work. She teaches sculpture at Destiny City University and runs a popular annual class on the creation of public art that culminates in the installation of a new collaborative piece to be placed somewhere in the city. She is also a fairly good painter, a skill that has come in handy for decorating the various casts Rowan has worn over the years.

Laurel Trumoia -- Rowan's oldest sister, a vivacious, boisterous woman pursuing a master's degree in political science with the goal of becoming a community organizer. Four years her senior, Laurel was the leader of the three, often guiding them into mischief and landing them in trouble with their parents and/or teachers. Though she's matured, she still has a taste for fun and mischief and is more than willing to pull her younger sisters into her shenanigans. She enjoys playfully teasing Rowan over her vanity and sentimentality, but she is fiercely protective of her softer sister.

Willow Trumoia -- Rowan's second older sister, Willow takes after Rachel in being highly artistically inclined, though she prefers creating digital art. She is a graphic designer for a local nonprofit organization and earns extra money through commissions. She and Rowan's shared artistic ambitions are long standing point on which they bond. Willow frequently tries to coax Rowan out of her shell, primarily through accompanying her to cultural events and well-meaning but unfortunate attempts at matchmaking.


Fun Facts

• Rowan always wears a light jasmine fragrance, just enough that she and anyone standing very close can smell it.

• Rowan collects music boxes and fantasizes about owning an authentic antique singing bird automaton music box.

• Rowan has an abdominal scar from an appendectomy when she was 14.

• Rowan has a love of high-heeled shoes that borders on obsession.

• Rowan hates the texture of latex and similar materials.

• Rowan is a hopeless romantic but has never been in a romantic relationship.

• Rowan recently became CPR, AED, and first aid certified.

• Rowan drives a pale blue 2006 Toyota Camry with an "I Brake for Butterflies" bumper sticker.


Favorites

Favorite Flower: Daffodil

Favorite Animal: Forest Mother-of-Pearl Butterfly

Favorite Non-Butterfly Animal: Harpy Eagle

Favorite Season: Spring

Favorite Color: Yellow

Favorite Musician: Josh Groban

Favorite Composer: Camille Saint-Saëns

Favorite Movie: Titanic

Favorite Visual Artist (Other than her mom): Alphonse Mucha

For countless centuries the awakening of a new Sailor Tempesti was a cause for celebration, seen as a rebirth for Tempesti itself. The people revered their senshi as the planet’s protectors. While some inevitably parlayed this reverence into wealth and political power, most made an effort to defend the planet honorably. Sotiria Tempestos was one of those who sought to serve the planet honorably, and in doing so created the most powerful empire Tempesti had ever seen. Her power and brutality marked her as the most significant Sailor Tempesti to awaken. Though Rowan will never directly experience the memories of this ancient incarnation, her legacy was a powerful defining force in the lives of every Sailor Tempesti who followed.

Hundreds of years before Elysia was born, Tempesti’s civilizations were in a profoundly weakened state following a series of disastrous wars, both among themselves and against extraplanetary invaders. Famine, disease, and violence were rampant throughout Tempesti as competing states emerged in the chaos. It was into this environment that a Sailor Tempesti by the name of Myrto arose in a small coastal village. Upon her awakening she took the name Sotiria, presenting herself as a savior returned to restore their declining civilization. Her message and power drew the devotion of the masses and with the special regard she paid to the military, she was able to raise an enormous army within a surprisingly short period of time.

Once she amassed her forces, she led a brutal offensive to unite the region’s fractured states under her rule, ultimately seizing the city of Keraunos as the capital of her new empire. She called the greatest minds of each new territory to Keraunos, drawing upon their knowledge with the intent of remaking Tempesti as one of the foremost powers of the Solar System. In addition to recruiting talent from her own planet, she created incentives to attract the attention of off planet luminaries in order to gain their insight and incorporate their knowledge into her expansion. Using resources plundered from conquered states she rebuilt Tempesti’s crumbling infrastructure, allowing for greater communication throughout the empire in addition to facilitating the movement of her armies.

As Basileia of the Tempestos Empire, Sotiria offered outlying states the opportunity to submit to her rule, making it clear that they would feel the full force of the empire’s power should they refuse. While many states acquiesced, allowing their sovereign rulers to become provincial governors, some refused. In cases where the states were in less than stable condition she would use her influence to destabilize them further, most through sedition spread via her spy network, or covert support of political dissidents or more agreeable rival royal factions. More stable states received a more overtly brutal conquest. Sotiria made a vicious example of their leaders, razing their palaces before bringing them to Keraunos for public display and execution. In order to win the support of their former subjects she used the rulers' liquidated wealth to bring their infrastructure and technology in line with the rest of the Empire. Subjects who failed to fall in line faced imprisonment and execution for treason and undermining the Imperial Peace. As her power grew, Sotiria’s identity became more enmeshed with the Empire itself and eventually she began to view herself as merely the instrument by which it achieved its destiny. As such, any threat to the Empire was a threat to her and vice versa.

Despite her grandiose plans for her Empire, Sotiria herself lived austerely, with rigid discipline and the expectation that her officials and other subordinates would do the same. When many of them opted not to do so, she became suspicious of their intentions in expanding the Tempestos Empire. The notion that they were more interested in enriching themselves than elevating the Empire to still greater heights filled her with a blind fury and she began to carry out extensive investigations of the entirety of the Empire’s leadership. The Basileia met every whisper of what she considered corruption with a swift and ruthless hand, making an example of all who drew her ire. An ambitious and popular general named Arete Spyros quietly stoked her fears, encouraging her to see treachery in every shadow.

As Sotiria grew more brutal and unstable, her military and popular support began to erode, creating even greater paranoia in the Basileia who increasingly turned her wrath upon subordinates she suspected of conspiring against her. She eliminated entire noble houses to prevent retaliation and discourage sedition. Ultimately it was Arete who assassinated her in her bed, ending Sotiria’s reign of terror and assuming the throne herself as a national hero. Her descendants inherited the crown and the Spyros Dynasty ruled until the collapse of Tempesti. Though widely considered an improvement over Sotiria, the Spyros were far from immune to the mundane corruption that accompanied wealth and power. Through carefully arranged marriages and cultivation of wealth the plunder of less powerful and well-regarded states, the Spyros Dynasty maintained a grip on their authority for centuries. Despite the fact that the Spyros Dynasty regarded Sotiria’s legacy as a curse on their planet, her sword remained a potent symbol of their power; what was once a representation of the first Basileia’s authority became emblematic of the Spyros' defeat of the legendary tyrant.

As the reincarnations of the most brutal dictator in the planet’s history, each Sailor Tempesti was a source of fear to the Tempestines and the Spyros Basileis publicly declared it their sacred mission to ensure that none of their planet’s senshi would ever attain the status Sotiria did.

To prevent another Sailor Tempesti from gaining the same power and brutality as Sotiria, the government of Tempesti spent centuries executing them upon their awakening. It took another extraplanetary invasion to convince the people that the presence of Sailor Tempesti was a necessary danger. In an effort to minimize their opportunities to seize power, the Tempestines built a tall, highly secure tower on an island off the coast of Keraunos to house the senshi who bore the title of Atê: Ruin.

Though the Tower of the Winds was beautiful, displaying the best of the Empire’s architecture and craftsmanship, it was a gilded cage intended to house a very dangerous animal. Once a new Sailor Tempesti awakened, the Tempestine army immediately spirited them away to the Tower, officially stripping them of their family name and legal status. No guard could remain in the Tower for more than a year, to ensure that they developed no personal attachment to the senshi.



Elysia was fourteen years old when she awakened as Sailor Tempesti, horrifying her family. Though they attempted to conceal their daughter’s abilities in the hopes of preserving her freedom and keeping her with them, a spontaneous outburst of power exposed their deception and the army removed her, forbidding her to say goodbye. Life in the Tower was lonely by legal decree, permitting her only solitary activities and denying her nearly all personal or social relationships despite the luxury in which they allowed her to live. The Basileis of Tempesti were among the only people permitted to maintain personal relationships with the Atê as a means of developing a degree of loyalty to the Crown. The Tempestine government allowed her to receive foreign dignitaries within the Tower to a limited extent while under supervision and to wander the upper floors of the Tower at her leisure. She was able to maintain monitored correspondence with a few select individuals, but anything that could be interpreted as seditious resulted in severance of communication with the individuals in question. Though they were equipped with facilities to enable her to remain relatively physically healthy, she suffered significant psychological damage from the severity of her isolation and struggled to regulate her emotions, a condition only exacerbated by countless reminders that her confinement was a mercy to herself and the planet, lest she succumb to the temptations that created Sotiria's inhumanity. The Tower was the greatest defense against the rise of another tyrant and to claim otherwise was to threaten the entirety of Tempesti and its people. Sailor Tempesti was to remain within the Tower of the Winds for the entirety of her life leaving only as was necessary to defend the planet and its civilizations. Left to her own devices Elysia cultivated what skills she could, with a strong focus on music and art, mastering several instruments and producing a sizable body of musical compositions and paintings during her short life. She was a voracious reader, spending a great deal of time in the Tower’s library and using the books as a means of escaping her reality.

When an economic downturn following a series of natural disasters exposed the weakness of the Spyros Dynasty, several outlying provinces initiated rebellions against imperial rule, the unrest spreading throughout the Empire until denizens of the capital itself took to the streets in protest. When the young Basileus Archelaus imposed martial law in the city, the protests erupted into violence as outraged citizens and disillusioned soldiers laid siege to the imperial palace. Desperate, the Basileus ordered his remaining forces to bring Sailor Tempesti to help quell the rebellions.

The smell of smoke had already traveled to the Tower of the Winds by the time the imperial ship arrived to collect Elysia. Outfitted in her combat attire for the first time, she trembled violently as the trireme docked. When confronted with the sight of the citizens fighting imperial soldiers, a profound horror overtook her and she rushed to their aid in defiance of her orders. With Sailor Tempesti’s aid, the rebels managed to push through the imperial barricades and take the palace as Basileus Archelaus escaped through the palace’s hidden tunnels. The rebels had spent months fighting in the streets to clear out the last imperial loyalists when Archelaus returned to lay siege to the city at the head of a newly rallied army, ranks swollen with extraplanetary mercenaries. Though the Basileus’ army outmatched the rebels in size, Tempesti and her companions managed to hold the city, even as her mental state continued to decline with every day of battle. In the night she found herself hearing disembodied whispers from the shadows, taunting reminders of the crimes her forebears, reminders that she was one slip away from becoming the heir to Sotiria’s cruelty.

Realizing that with the blockades Keraunos’ limited supplies would not hold out and driven by her fearful delusions Tempesti decided on a desperate course of action, ordering a surprise nighttime sortie to destroy several of the siege weapons threatening the city’s walls and swarming the night watchers. While the besiegers were distracted a disguised Tempesti ran for the command tents, summoning the most powerful storm she could muster. Refusing to relent, she expended the entirety of her life force to eliminate the attackers’ leadership. Without Archelaus’ direction and funding the imperial army fell into disarray and the mercenaries dispersed, leaving the city’s defenders in a position to destroy the remaining troops.

Though Keraunos survived the siege, without a clear successor to the Basileus the empire descended once more into years of civil war and eventually collapsed, leaving the planet vulnerable to its final fall to Chaos.

Battles
_ _ _ _ _ _

0/6

Regular
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

0/12
Solos
gaia_star _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1/12

Super Upgrade
Battles
[x][x][x] [x] [x]
5/5

Regular
[x][x] [x] [x] [x][x] [x] [x]
8/8

Solos
[x][x]/url] [x] [x] [x] [x][x] [x]
8/8

Homeworlds

Tempesti

Asmodeus

The Moon

Urania

Wonders

Joyeus Garde