App in Progress for Phantasmal Rift

IC Information

Character name: Penric kin Jurald

Character canon: Penric and Desdemona

Canon point: Shortly before Penric's Mission

Physical Description: Penric is a tall, skinny man with straight blond hair he normally wears long. He is 31, but others comment that he looks to be in his early 20s. He's considered to have more 'pretty' than 'handsome' features.

About the Character:

Let's get this all down, then edit later.)

So, Penric's world is sort of a medieval Europe with the serial numbers filed off, and with the Europe-analog in the southern hemisphere. The main difference is that the world's five gods provably exist, and various magic relating to gods, demons and souls can be practiced.

Penric grew up in an area called the cantons, an area of mountainous city-states. He was the youngest son of a local noble. Given the poverty of the estate, the plan was to have Penric marry a merchant's daughter who had money, but no title. He was on his way to meet the young lady when he crossed the party of an elderly divine (priestess) on the road, who had collapsed and whose attendants were desperate to get a cart to take her to town. The divine, Learned Ruchia, served the Bastard (the trickster god of the pantheon) and was a Temple sorceress.

The Bastard got his name as he came from the Mother and a demon lord who had sworn himself to Her service, rather than the Father (who fathered the Son and Daughter with the Mother). The Bastard's portfolio, in addition to untimely disasters, people who don't fit neatly into society, and generally putting a finger on the cosmic scale to re-balance it when needed, also included demons, sorts of elemental chaos spirits who occasionally got into the mortal world attached to animals or people. Sorcerers were those people who possessed (or were possessed by) demons, and had access to their abilities to manipulate chaos. Needless to say, the Bastard's priesthood allowed sorcerers to either work for them, or be exorcised of their demons.

Both Ruchia and her demon knew Ruchia was dying, and the demon needed a new host or she would dissolve back into chaos, and the demon decided that the nice young man who had offered to help, after all, the demon had lived through ten human lifetimes and had learned the balance between cooperating enough to not be exorcised and expressing what she wanted to do. Ruchia herself was not the rider the demon was supposed to have jumped into last time, but she had spent two lifetimes as a physician and was sick of it, so picked the person who was not medically trained. Penric was also a break in custom: normally the temple assigned trained divines to take on demons AND always made the transfer between riders of the same sex.

Anyway, Pen wakes up in town, in the hospice run by divines of the Mother, and discovers everyone is freaked out by him. His marriage is off, and the divines want to bundle him off to Ruchia's destination in Martensbridge, in the Weald, and that sometimes his mouth says things of its own accord because the demon that now lives in his head is still getting the hang of talking to him. Penric ended up naming the demon Desdemona, as he wanted something to call her other than 'Demon', and offered her the name as a present. That convinced Desdemona that she made the right choice here, as no one had ever gotten her a present.

In Martensbridge after some adventures, it was decided that Desdemona was too dangerous in a lay rider and a saint of the Bastard was called in to exorcise her back to the realm of the gods (which would be lethal). Penric pleaded her case, to the point where both Desdemona and the Saint got a clear message from their divine Master that He wanted her to stay with Penric.

So, Penric spent the next twelve years learning sorcery and being ordained as a divine of the Bastard, servicing as court sorcerer of the archdivine of Martensbridge, being a scholar, learning how to apply Desdemona's medical knowledge better, occasional assignments from the temple when they needed someone of his power-set. He briefly studied with the shamans of the Weald to trade magical tips, as he found their different magical abilities (granted by an animal soul grafted to theirs) fascinating.

When the elderly archdivine died, and her successor had a sorcerer already, Penric moved to work at the hospital in Martensbridge. Given Desdemona was the oldest demon, she and Penric often served as the last resort for difficult cases. This demonstrated a major flaw of Penric's that made him unsuited for medical work: he was too damn agreeable and took losses personally. He and Desdemona argued about this, as Desdemona has no problems being selfish and prioritizing their well being over strangers, and Penric was used to doing what others wanted of him. It got to the point where Penric was self-harming, Desdemona was healing him which stressed her, and that was finally enough to persuade Penric to stand up and ask for a new assignment, for his demon's sake. And that's where Penric's canonpoint sets him: as being newly transferred out of Martensbridge.

You can get a good picture of Penric from his history. He's a compassionate person who is used to being the youngest sibling and being a sort of afterthought, enough that he just steps up and does things. He's friendly and chatty and tends to take responsibility for things that he shouldn't. Right after his canonpoint, he discovers someone used him as a dupe to get a general convicted of treason and blinded, and Pen insists on staying in the town he is wanted as an enemy agent so he can heal the man (as the damage is bad enough it is permanent, but not so unsalvageable that Pen can't make a difference). While he was not terribly religious when he met Desdemona, his experiences have made him devout, albeit with the sort of logic that trickster figures use (like while on the run, taking from the offering box of the Bastard, since the temple normally supports him anyway; however, he didn't feel right taking from the Mother, as he refused to take the physician's oath and be seconded to Her service). He's a scholar and more a fan of subtlety than brute force, and the titles he's earned over the ones he has by noble birth.

Desdemona has built her own identity from those of her riders, as she has no memory of being unformed chaos. Even now, her most recent human riders exist as distinct facets of her personality. Desdemona likes pretty things and people, and will fuss over Pen's appearance even when he won't. She tends to be the more pragmatic one when it comes to danger, even if she shares Pen's affinity for bending the rules and she can ask Pen to indulge in things she wants to do. They do tend to balance each other out: Desdemona's confidence is from her experiences, while Penric's is more anchored in faith and compassion and the element of surprise. Desdemona adores Penric and feels proud that she picked him out: even if she can survive his death, she'd rather he not die and gets seriously concerned when he's seriously injured. She can be vengeful: when someone seriously injured Pen, she told Pen that she'd jump into his killer and make sure his life was painful until he died, despite knowing that if the Bastard's Temple caught up with her after that, she'd be dead. She does like people, but doesn't get much of a chance to interact with others directly, as most people find sorcerers worrying and prefer to ignore that Penric has a demon living with him.
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Character abilities: Pen speaks 6 languages (all exclusive to his world; he could probably learn ones from Earth quickly, especially European languages as ones that are related to the ones he knows). His training as a divine gives him somer history and a lot of theology, and he notes that he is trained as a physician. While this is pre-modern training, sorcery means Pen has some good anatomical knowledge, and, while probably not up on drugs, decent at surgery. He can use a bow and fish and ride.

Desdemona shares some of her skills with Pen. She's got a lot of general knowledge from previous lives: one spent as a courtesan, one as a spy, several working for the Temple. She'd advise Pen on being sneaky, but he is a quick study.

So, let's talk what mystical stuff Desdemona grants. Des can see through Pen's eyes, but also has her own vision, which is a lot more sensitive to souls. Pen can't use it for long without feeling overwhelmed. She can also enable Pen to see in the dark. Des can detect other demons, gods, ghosts (souls lingering after their body dies) and shamans/spirit warriors (who have animal souls attached to theirs). Based on other characters with this sense from the series, she can also detect saints (humans with powers granted by the gods). The common element seems to be any sort of alteration or addition to a soul. Desdemona can trigger Pen to be much faster or more coordinated than he is naturally, but only in short bursts.

As a chaos demon, Des can manipulate chaos, and grant Pen the ability to do so. The series describes things as 'downhill' and 'uphill', which a modern reader would phrase as the flow of entropy. Downhill magic includes accelerating a natural reaction (like rusting metal or dissolving hair dye), creating heat, and disrupting normal biological processes (not always in bad ways: killing parasites is part of this). Uphill magic allows Des or Pen to create ice, do delicate manipulations like pick a lock, or heal. While downhill magic is free (and a normal part of Desdemona's nature -- she is a font of chaos), uphill magic needs to be balanced by dumping stored chaos or Pen will suffer. (Long term effects include a skyrocketed risk of cancer: all of Desdemona's prior hosts prior to her entering service as a Temple demon died of cancer; short term effects are hyperthermia.) Also, killing a human with sorcery is a risk on Desdemona: when the soul returns to the gods, the Bastard can swoop in to retrieve His demon. Animals are considered acceptable if they are insects or other pests where they are not wanted (the Bastard considers these His animals), or going to die anyway.



Inventory: [What's on your character's person when they arrive, magically or otherwise?]

Samples: [Threads from the test drive are strongly preferred, but any thread of at least eight comments from your character will do.]