Personality: Your first impression of Samata Mahto could be wildly different, depending on what she's doing when you meet her. While doing normal things (getting food, doing laundry, etc), her attitude is unremarkable, and if it weren't for her robot arm she wouldn't stand out of a crowd at all. She hangs out with friends, complains about having too much work, chases after love, gets drunk and then regrets it the next morning, and all the other little things that you'd expect of a twenty something living away from her parents for the first time.
Somewhere in her head, however, is a little switch. If she starts getting excited about something, or feels like she's been wronged somehow, or she just generally starts feeling strongly about what she's doing, the switch flips and suddenly mild mannered grad student Samata turns into wild eyed creature full of passion and energy. Her heart is full of lurking emotional energy that is just looking for an excuse to burst forth and make a mess. Give her a cause and she will move mountains with personal drive.
She cares deeply about justice. On the large scale, once she started seeing the wildly unfair balance of power in her own society (Sorcerers can do whatever they want and get away with it because they have the political power, and they have the political power because they have the magical power) she couldn't ignore it anymore. She came from a rich family, and could have walked away from her struggles at any time, but chose not to because she would go crazy trying to pretend everything was okay when she could see it wasn't. On a SMALLER scale, Samata still believes strongly in being fair. Seeing other people cutting in line, grabbing the last piece of food when someone else hasn't had any yet, or committing other such small social slights will deeply irritate her, even if she isn't the one who's being inconvenienced. She WILL confront a total stranger in the middle of a crowded restaurant for not tipping their waiter, even if her friends are begging her to just let it go because the total stranger is twice her size and has a skull and crossbone tattooed on their tongue. It should take no stretch of the imagination to imagine her at a rally or protest, with a megaphone and a cardboard sign, angrily shouting slogans about social justice.
She also has a bone deep streak of pride that sometimes borders on hubris. It's not entirely unearned. She developed and built a fully functional mechanical arm single handedly (haha, "single handed". I'm funny.) and developed an entirely new system of magic, after all. Her accomplishments are not trivial, but she has kind of let it go to her head. While she is an extremely capable individual, she tends to overestimate what she can handle until she's already way in over her head. She does eventually drop back down to reality, but usually not until she's said something stupid or gotten in trouble in general. It takes either a feeling of deep embarrassment or a sense of imminent danger to pull her head out of the clouds.
She can be kind of thoughtless. Coming from money, she was about as privileged as it was possible to be in her society without having any magical talent. Her life before the Incident left her wanting for very little, and she had never really faced much in the way of hardships. As such, she doesn't always fully appreciate what it's like to have to live without comforts. One is invited to consider the phrase "Let them eat cake". Samata isn't THAT out of touch, but she does tend to be bad at things like budgeting, and will often just not worry about money, whether she's spending her own or someone else's.
She does feel awful afterwards, because for all her flaws, she is fiercely loyal to her friends. Even if she stumbles on the way, due to hardship or her own short sightedness, she will always do her best to come through for them in the end. She will lend someone money, or let them crash on her couch, or be their wingman, or even fight someone on their behalf if she needs to, and when she realizes she's screwed something up (which takes a while sometimes) she always makes a bona fide effort to fix whatever is broken.
Abilities: Prosthetic arm - Samata's left arm is a mechanical prosthetic she built herself. She can take it off if she wants (and usually does at night), but it still responds to nerve impulses and has limited sensory inputs on it. The one she has now is the Mk 2 version. The Mk 1 was the initial prototype and proof of concept. She currently has half finished plans for the Mk 3. The Mk 2 is still kind of heavy and awkward, but with access to a workshop and the help of a trained surgeon, she can upgrade it to be more lightweight and responsive in time.
Wizardry - Samata is the first wizard there ever was in her world. She can't do magic intuitively like a sorcerer can, but she can trick the ambient magic in the world around her into reacting in ways she wants it to through elaborate rituals. Each spell takes anywhere from five minutes to an hour to cast, depending on the complexity, but it's also possible to finish 99% of the work, then leave it hanging and just do the last 1% real quick when you need it to finish the spell.
Spell Research - While her spell list is rather limited at the moment, she can research new spells that do more or less whatever she wants. The more complex the spell or the more powerful the effect, the more expensive and time consuming the research is. Simple spells take a week or two to figure out. More powerful spells can take months, if she can figure it out at all. Once it's finished being researched, it goes in the spell book and she can reuse it as needed or teach it to others.
Alignment: Sosyne: To sum up her personality in one sentence, Samata is normally fairly calm but keeps having spikes of extreme passion and anger where she gets carried away by things. Calm and Anger. Ideal Sosyne material.
Other: Naturally, I'll use common sense on making sure none of the spells she researches ever reach game breaking levels. If you want to set any hard limits on what kind of effects her spells can have, just lemme know and I'll abide by it.
no subject
Somewhere in her head, however, is a little switch. If she starts getting excited about something, or feels like she's been wronged somehow, or she just generally starts feeling strongly about what she's doing, the switch flips and suddenly mild mannered grad student Samata turns into wild eyed creature full of passion and energy. Her heart is full of lurking emotional energy that is just looking for an excuse to burst forth and make a mess. Give her a cause and she will move mountains with personal drive.
She cares deeply about justice. On the large scale, once she started seeing the wildly unfair balance of power in her own society (Sorcerers can do whatever they want and get away with it because they have the political power, and they have the political power because they have the magical power) she couldn't ignore it anymore. She came from a rich family, and could have walked away from her struggles at any time, but chose not to because she would go crazy trying to pretend everything was okay when she could see it wasn't. On a SMALLER scale, Samata still believes strongly in being fair. Seeing other people cutting in line, grabbing the last piece of food when someone else hasn't had any yet, or committing other such small social slights will deeply irritate her, even if she isn't the one who's being inconvenienced. She WILL confront a total stranger in the middle of a crowded restaurant for not tipping their waiter, even if her friends are begging her to just let it go because the total stranger is twice her size and has a skull and crossbone tattooed on their tongue. It should take no stretch of the imagination to imagine her at a rally or protest, with a megaphone and a cardboard sign, angrily shouting slogans about social justice.
She also has a bone deep streak of pride that sometimes borders on hubris. It's not entirely unearned. She developed and built a fully functional mechanical arm single handedly (haha, "single handed". I'm funny.) and developed an entirely new system of magic, after all. Her accomplishments are not trivial, but she has kind of let it go to her head. While she is an extremely capable individual, she tends to overestimate what she can handle until she's already way in over her head. She does eventually drop back down to reality, but usually not until she's said something stupid or gotten in trouble in general. It takes either a feeling of deep embarrassment or a sense of imminent danger to pull her head out of the clouds.
She can be kind of thoughtless. Coming from money, she was about as privileged as it was possible to be in her society without having any magical talent. Her life before the Incident left her wanting for very little, and she had never really faced much in the way of hardships. As such, she doesn't always fully appreciate what it's like to have to live without comforts. One is invited to consider the phrase "Let them eat cake". Samata isn't THAT out of touch, but she does tend to be bad at things like budgeting, and will often just not worry about money, whether she's spending her own or someone else's.
She does feel awful afterwards, because for all her flaws, she is fiercely loyal to her friends. Even if she stumbles on the way, due to hardship or her own short sightedness, she will always do her best to come through for them in the end. She will lend someone money, or let them crash on her couch, or be their wingman, or even fight someone on their behalf if she needs to, and when she realizes she's screwed something up (which takes a while sometimes) she always makes a bona fide effort to fix whatever is broken.
Abilities: Prosthetic arm - Samata's left arm is a mechanical prosthetic she built herself. She can take it off if she wants (and usually does at night), but it still responds to nerve impulses and has limited sensory inputs on it. The one she has now is the Mk 2 version. The Mk 1 was the initial prototype and proof of concept. She currently has half finished plans for the Mk 3. The Mk 2 is still kind of heavy and awkward, but with access to a workshop and the help of a trained surgeon, she can upgrade it to be more lightweight and responsive in time.
Wizardry - Samata is the first wizard there ever was in her world. She can't do magic intuitively like a sorcerer can, but she can trick the ambient magic in the world around her into reacting in ways she wants it to through elaborate rituals. Each spell takes anywhere from five minutes to an hour to cast, depending on the complexity, but it's also possible to finish 99% of the work, then leave it hanging and just do the last 1% real quick when you need it to finish the spell.
Spell Research - While her spell list is rather limited at the moment, she can research new spells that do more or less whatever she wants. The more complex the spell or the more powerful the effect, the more expensive and time consuming the research is. Simple spells take a week or two to figure out. More powerful spells can take months, if she can figure it out at all. Once it's finished being researched, it goes in the spell book and she can reuse it as needed or teach it to others.
Alignment: Sosyne: To sum up her personality in one sentence, Samata is normally fairly calm but keeps having spikes of extreme passion and anger where she gets carried away by things. Calm and Anger. Ideal Sosyne material.
Other: Naturally, I'll use common sense on making sure none of the spells she researches ever reach game breaking levels. If you want to set any hard limits on what kind of effects her spells can have, just lemme know and I'll abide by it.
General Sample: At the TDM
Emotion Sample: "The little motes of red and orange light blinking in and out around her suggested that she felt VERY passionate about this", "Her grumpy mood is starting to manifest on the world around her as a sort of gray fog spreading out from her body and clinging to the ground."
Questions: nah