╭─━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━─╮ Lakshmi "Opal" Suchwani ╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯ Female | 31 | Daughter of Drehta | Thynyc ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Name Info She mostly goes by Opal, which isn’t her real name but is what she calls herself since she finds the name “Lakshmi” drab and commonplace. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Abilities/Affinity Siren Shape The difference between a siren and mermaid can be hard to tell, which is partially how sirens are so effective. Some say sirens are mermaids who were banished from their tribes. The real difference is the dark pallor, sharper teeth, and, of course, their reputation for luring sailors to their death. Opal can shift into a siren, and though she can do this any time she wants, it’s really better if she does it when she’s in the water. Though she can sing like a siren, her voice doesn’t hold quite the same allure as theirs. It can generally get people to move towards her, but not at the risk of death. Breathing Underwater This is to be expected for a daughter of Drehta. She can breath underwater just like a fish, without need for gills due to the magical nature of the ability. This also means that her body is built to deal with the pressure that comes with the lower ocean, though she can only go so far. Her body can also deal with the cold of that deeper ocean. Enhanced Swimming Opal can swim as easily as a mermaid, even when she’s not in her mermaid form. She’s a very fast and accurate swimmer, but she’s never actually been in the sea - it’s just her luck to be in the only kingdom that doesn’t border the sea. So she’s mostly practiced at swimming against a river current. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Sexuality Bisexual Opal’s affection for men and women is very different, and though she’s sexually attracted to both, she’s more likely to be romantically attracted to women. Men, to her, are associated more with the idea of matrimony and children. Love could be found, but more importantly, a man is a part of the household and the father of their children. Women, on the other hand, hold a more unique allure to her. She finds them fascinating and beautiful and purely existing within the idea of romance, not existing in the context of children and a household. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Personality Opal was raised by her father alone. This in and of itself was unusual, because normally motherless girls would be taught how to cook and raise children and all of that by the women of the village. But since Opal wasn’t technically motherless, and since not a woman there wanted to take on the job of teaching a demigod, she was left with only her father and brothers. In a restrictive society like hers, men weren’t allowed to learn how to do tasks reserved for women, so all they could teach Opal was how to hunt and kill. Opal was raised as a man in a matriarchal society, and so she was considered lesser than the other young ladies who were learning how to do more feminine things. When Opal was young, she was happy just to be with her family, but when she got older she started to resent the people around her. What she wants most in the world is to be like other women, to know how to cook wonderful meals and keep her household pristine and bear life so that she can raise her children to be just as good at cooking and running a household. She’s naturally attracted to more feminine energies, both envious and mesmerized. She’s very determined to learn from these kinds of people, and gravitates towards people of any gender who are good at “feminine” tasks. Most of all, she tends to find motherly figures of great interest. She’d always wanted a mother - a real mother - when she was younger, and in her mind Drehta was just some random god who gave birth to her. She wanted a mother who would read her stories and teach her how to do things and kiss her on the forehead when she skinned her knee. She had her father, yes, but a mother would have been so much better. Instead of the fine young lady she could have been, she only knows about killing and warfare. Opal’s training is purely in the art of manual labor and death. She knows how to hew down a mighty oak, to shoot a bird who’s trying to eat the crops, to fight on a battlefield. She can wield a tree branch like a sword and uproot a sapling. She does these things well, yes, but without any vim or vigor. In truth, she hates them, and she hates this part of herself. She hates her rough, uncivilized way and she hates how masculine she is. She’s strong and stocky, and her talents at nurturing are grossly underdeveloped. Opal also has an explosive temper in which she can wind up hurting people. Her moods are hard to predict, though her anger does grow visibly so that people have time to get away. When she’s angry, she tends to physically hurt people and destroy their belongings. She’s not protective, nor defensive, but sort of psychotic. Her anger can be aroused by the smallest of perceived slights, but she never, ever holds a grudge. Once the moment of anger is over, it’s over, and she’s quick to forgive and forget. She’s not one for revenge or petty squabbles. Though her moods change with the wind, it seems, they’re not impossible to see coming. Truth be told, she can usually hide them pretty well and her subtlety of personality is lost only in moments of great anger or sorrow. Emotions should be beautiful, displayed with only a few movements of the face, something ethereal and enticing. Her desires seem to change from moment to moment as well, but the only things that continue to drive her are her desire for femininity and female family members. Her problem-solving generally involves physical intimidation and violence, since this is what she knows how to do. Not that she likes it, and she’ll readily step down if somebody else tries to talk things through. A trait that Opal saw in many upper-class women in her youth was vanity. As a little girl, she associated this with the ultimate form of femininity and modeled herself after it. Though she now knows this is nothing but upper-class silliness, she finds it one of her few more redeeming qualities and refuses to try and change. This is one of the main reasons that people see her as more shallow. She’s very focused on her appearance, and is determined to always look good. She preens herself constantly, often asking people how they think she looks just to get a compliment out of them. Those who insult her looks meet her immediate wrath. Everything she does looks like she’s posing for a magazine, and she’s always aware of how she looks, even when she’s fighting. She likes to add a little flair and make sure people notice how great she looks while she’s whacking a guy upside the head with a stick. The way she walks and moves draws attention to herself, but all the while she acts aloof and mysterious. It helps to draw them in, you see. In fact, this is her standard way of interacting with people: a dignified and strangely alluring personality which she’s really always had. She rarely gets close to anyone, though she’ll act civil towards them. It’s just that she never calls anyone her friend or trusts them, because that would ruin the reputation she’s worked so hard at. She’s a very steady, forward-moving individual, except for those moments when she loses her shit. The thing Opal wants most is a daughter of her own. She wants to raise that daughter the way she never got to be raised, and she wants her daughter to love her more than anything. She couldn’t care less who the father is, or if he’s even involved. Opal would have a child with pretty much anyone just to have a child. She wants her daughter to be beautiful like her, and she’d like it if the father had blue eyes too so their daughter could have blue eyes. She’s going to name her something elegant, like Lotus or Nila or Pearl. By then she’d know how to do motherly things, and she’ll cook while her daughter plays outside in the woods with the other girls, just where Opal can see her so that she doesn’t run into any wild animals. Opal won’t ever have to hunt or kill again - her husband will bring in the game, or else she’ll buy it at market. She’ll have a normal job like a seamstress or a shoemaker, and she’ll have a small garden and send her daughter down to fetch water at the town well once a day. Maybe, if she falls in love - and only if - she’ll send her daughter to her friend’s house to have supper and she and her husband will walk down to a creek in the woods and dip their toes in and talk and laugh and get back home far before their daughter is due. That’s the kind of life Opal wants, if she could have it. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Appearance Opal is a very pretty girl. This comes with the usual range of reactions: vehement dislike, denial of her being pretty, flirtation, people thinking they’re better because they’re not attracted to her. Her skin is a sort of nut brown, light enough to almost be causcasian but dark enough to show her Thynyc side. It’s smooth, mostly because she takes very good care of it, but can be a bit dirty and has a few bruises. Unfortunately, she does have a few scars, but she often paints patterns in ink over these so they’re not visible. Her favorite patterns are spiraling designs with ancient Thynyc words attached to them: usually words like “love,” “beauty,” “flower,” and things like that. Their words resemble something like Sanskrit. Her nose is fairly flat and large, which is something she definitely got from her father. It’s very soft-looking and has a gentle curve to it. Her lips are large, with a more prominent lower lip. She wears lip balm that smells like honey and beeswax. Her teeth are fairly straight and white, with no cavities. Her eyes are the most notable feature of hers, and the ones of which she is most proud. They’re small and almond-shaped, not very large or doe-like or anything like that. But they do have long, dark lashes, and most importantly, they’re a clear steel blue. This is pretty much the only feature that can be recognized immediately as from Drehta, and Opal loves her beautiful eyes. They’re like a cornflower blue with a grey tint to them. They’re very light, contrasting starkly with her skin and hair. She has her eyes outlined in eyeliner, and a slight rouge on her cheeks. Her face is heart-shaped. Her hair is very, very long, as she’s been growing it out since she was a child. It’s dark brown, like dark chocolate, and very rich and supple, rippling down her back. It goes down past her waist, and the top is done up with a braid across the front to keep her hair from getting into her face. On fancy occasions she knows how to wrap the whole thing up so that it sticks out from her head in a huge half-oval. It’s naturally wavy and when it’s windy it’s just a nightmare. It’s also awful to fight with, but Opal refuses to cut it just to fight and may tuck it all into a bag before a battle. With a pear-shaped build like her mother, Opal is curvy and just below chubby, obviously well-fed, a medieval sign of wealth and beauty. She weighs somewhere around 165 pounds. She has a large butt and smaller bust, and her legs start out thicker and get thinner towards the ankles. Her arms are a bit more consistent with their thickness. She has a nicely curved neck and sloped shoulders. Her skin is soft, though on her palms it’s more rough and calloused. Her fingernails are clipped short but are always a bit dirty. She has small cuts and bruises on her skin, and larger scars are always covered up with ink patterns like the ones on her face. Though her build is rather soft, she’s actually rather large and somewhat muscular. She stands at about 5’6”, and her muscles, though toned down, are most prominent in her legs. This mostly has to do with her swimming a lot, but is also because she’s spent a lot of her life running and hunting. Her feet are a lot more bruised and scratched and dirty than the rest of her body, because her family couldn’t afford shoes when she was young and so she ran everywhere barefoot. These, since they can’t really be covered up with ink, are always covered with shoes or cloth. She’s very sensitive about going barefoot. Like most people in Thynyc, she wears cotton pants and a poncho. One of her unlisted magic powers is looking sexy in a poncho. She has a number of ponchos, all wool, and they’re large and usually dark in color. Her favorite is dark teal with black trimming. They're like large squares with holes at the top. Most of the ponchos reach to right above her knees, and are large enough to cover both arms when they’re out straight at her sides. She often throws the poncho back over her shoulder like a scarf, and in rainy weather she tucks it over her head like a hood. She knows about a million folds for her poncho, and is constantly switching them out. Her cotton pants are usually lighter but more unsaturated, and are very tight. When she’s out and about she often wears a light cotton wimple with a ruffled top, golden-looking band, and no back so that her hair is more visible. She also wears long white stockings and tight-fitting cloth boots in dark forest green. Her clothing is more on the practical side, especially since she can’t afford anything fancy, but she does love her jewelry. She has a lot of it, some gifts and some bought. Most of it is iron (which multipurposes as a fae deterrent) and turquoise. Floral and plant-like patterns are very common in Thynyc, and mostly the kind of jewelry Opal wears. She has rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, chokers, belt buckles, and a lot more. Since she was trained to be ready for a fight (and since a poncho’s great for hiding weapons), Opal has a dark leather belt that’s usually too high to see, where she sheaths two iron daggers. She doesn’t hide them because she wants to have the advantage of surprise, but rather because they clash with her outfits. Opal’s siren form looks pretty much like her normal self, except there’s a certain dark glimmer to her eyes and her teeth become sharper. Her fingernails gain a certain point and, of course, she has the fish tail. The fish parts of her are in the form of a black carp, which is common in the rivers around her homeland. In fact, a lot of people eat black carp around here, which always creeps Opal out. Her scales are a sort of gray that’s nearly black and glimmer beautifully in the sun. It has small fins along the bottom, and a sleek fin along her back also shows up. The scales extend up along her ribs and upper back, a bit on the shoulders, and stop there. Because her fish form is a freshwater fish, and because she’s only been in the river, she would probably have a lot more trouble breathing and swimming in saltwater. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Likes Calligraphy Beauty Elegant Names Mother-Daughter Relationships “Feminine” Activities Cooking Children Paintings of Crying People Blue Eyes - Especially on Men Girly Girls Gemstones and Flowers Dancing ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Dislikes Fighting “Masculine” Activities Scars Bubbly People Not Looking Good Ugly Things Manual Labor Being Called Masculine Eating Fish Saltwater ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Strengths Fighting Hunting Cutting Down Trees Clothing Color Coordination Freshwater Swimming Physical Strength Gentleness Towards Children ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Weaknesses Cooking Desire to be More Feminine Tasks Reserved for Females Lack of Wealth Vanity Saltwater Swimming ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Family Brahma Suchwani Father It takes a special kind of person to attract a goddess’s attention. For each god, the criteria is different. And what of Drehta, so fickle and vain, such a woman of taste, to whom none are good enough? For a woman like that, it would take a truly noble, good-hearted, and brave sort of man. Brahma was one such man. He adored Opal and loved to speak of when he met Drehta. Brahma spent most of his life trying to catch that high again, to feel a magic that always eluded him. He was a sweet man, but a very lost and lonely one too. When he was older and his mind started to go, Opal would often catch him lying in the bathtub with water over his face, not moving. He wanted Drehta to come and save him again. Opal would always stop him, but the day had to come when she was too late. Brahma was an old man when he drowned himself in the bathtub. Opal never really appreciated her father, and always wished for a mother instead, but she still loved him. Deval Suchwani Older Brother Deval is Opal’s eldest brother, and he would have taken over the household if Opal hadn’t been born. He never held anything against her, though, and he was the only person who treated Opal normally. Opal saw him sometimes, though, when he thought she wasn’t looking, trying desperately to earn their father’s approval. He wanted more than anything to be treated like he had been before Opal was born, and he was often under great emotional strain, especially towards the end of Brahma’s life. Deval also greatly missed his mother, and when Brahma died he developed an alcohol problem which has been plaguing him lately. He’s a very mature, stoic, and restrained person, and tries not to show his feelings. Opal usually wished he were a sister instead, but did feel bad for him and consider him something like her protector. Now she’s more like his protector. Singh Suchwani Older Brother Singh was closer to Opal’s age, only a year older, and unlike Deval, he did blame Opal for everything that happened to him: for his father’s lack of attention, for the loss of his mother, for the way the townspeople whispered about them. Him and Opal got into terrible, screaming fights, and it didn’t help that Brahma always took Opal’s side without even listening to Singh. Deval was the one who tried to keep the peace, but Singh was more emotionally volatile than him and couldn’t keep his temper with Opal. And Opal, in return, couldn’t understand how Singh could blame her for things she had nothing to do with. If anything, she should be the angry one. When Brahma died, Singh chose to leave and go after his and Deval’s mother. He didn’t plan on returning, and Opal was glad to be rid of him. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Other Relationships Kunala Semi-Crush Kunala is the man after which Opal models her “dream man.” Though she doesn’t really know him, she’s seen him around town and she’s learned his name. His personality remains mostly obscure, but she’s more interested in looks than personality when it comes to a father for her child anyway. He has pale blue eyes, thanks to his Pathan heritage. He’s tall and lithe and has long, dark hair and a sturdy build. His skin is smooth and clear and he bears a little goatee. He’s everything Opal wants from a man. Uma Bhakta Town Weirdo Uma is an old lady who pulls a wagon full of books, ink, and parchment around the eastern part of Thynyc. She’s quite an odd lady, definitely not all there, but is harmless and always has good wares. Though she doesn’t stop by too often, Opal always loves it when she comes because she’s a good teacher and has taught Opal how to do small things like calligraphy and dusting corners and burping a baby. Her extended family travels with her, and it’s impossible to tell when she’ll show up. Iliane Borough Good Friend A while ago, Opal thought of Iliane as something like a crush, the sort of feeling she gets from women like her that draws her in. And Iliane might have felt the same way. But Opal got over it without incident, as she always strives to do. Now Opal considers her nothing but a good friend. Iliane teaches Opal how to cook and bake, and Opal doesn't understand how such a talented woman would feel the need to know how to fight as well. She encourages Iliane to pursue her cooking more. When Opal can get away and have some time for herself, she often rides down to Iliane's town to sit by the river or take walks in the moonlight with her. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ RP Relationships (These are for my own personal reference so I don't forget) Persilia Masculine. As a flirt and a pretty women with blue eyes, Persilia would be considered something of a rival to Opal. Because Persilia is wild and wears everything out on her sleeves - or that's what Opal thinks - Opal would take extra care to be aloof and mysterious around her to show how much better she is. She'd also be quick to put down the ocean, since she's jealous of people who have a connection with the ocean, and would be quick to get into a huge backhanded spotlight-hogging war with Persilia. If Persilia started playing music you can bet Opal would try to outdo her by singing. Velarie Masculine. Opal will feel that Velarie is a lot like her: a feminine personality but a masculine set of skills and appearance. She'll feel bad for Velarie, assume she feels as lacking in femininity as Opal does. She'd probably try to help Velarie, and maybe get some help in return. She might be interested in having Velarie as something like a sister. Zehra Feminine. Though Zehra has a few masculine traits, she's one of the ones Opal would find very alluring. Her hatred for violence and the talents she possesses would intrigue Opal, and she would often try to copy things Zehra does to improve herself. She'd probably be the most mysterious and aloof with Zehra, since this is how she shows off for people. Kairos Feminine. Now, this is a man who could be a good father some day. He's tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and very good-looking. Opal would be quick to want Kairos for her own, and would like bringing up the subject of children with him (for, heh, totally no reason) to see how he reacts. It doesn't hurt that he's rather effeminate (in her mind) and rather adorable, plus he comes with four sisters. Kiran Feminine. There's not a thing this girl could do to get Opal to like her except to tell her and everyone around her that she thinks Opal's better than her. That fire-loving little princess of Opal's precious homeland could die for all she cares. She's bitchy and as soon as Opal finds out she hates water you can bet she'll be dragging Kiran towards it every waking moment. She'll want nothing to do with the girl. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Backstory Opal’s father, Brahma, would have been the catch of the village, except that his marriage was arranged, and rather young. She was a young woman named Chetana, and the fact that their marriage was arranged didn’t lessen their affection for one another any less. Brahma was happy with his wife. He loved his sons. But his life changed when he was pulled under the river current as a young man. He was hauling in a net full of black carp when he lost his footing and went under. For years to come he would describe how he saw the beautiful goddess Drehta in the water, and that feeling, that strange and implacable feeling of realness. He was there, only there, and only then. He was gone for weeks, people were looking for him, and when he finally returned he told everyone of his encounter. Nobody believed him, and they expected him to go on with his life. But how could he? He couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t help but be crushed with sorrow when he looked at his own life and saw that it would never contain the magic he had touched for a moment. He fell into a dull, listless depression, ignoring his wife and sons. They tried hard to get him back, and he tried equally as hard to be able to enjoy his life with them, but all he wanted to do was remember the goddess, replaying their time together over and over in his head. It seemed that might be all he was destined to do, but when Opal arrived at his doorstep, some semblance of hope was rekindled in him. Not only did the whole town believe him now, but his daughter, part divine, could possibly draw the magic of the world into his life once again. At this point, Chetana knew she was no longer his. She chose to leave, but didn’t take her sons with her because they would have to be taught by a father figure. Brahma was a kind man. He always had been. Before Drehta, he had smiled at every passerby, laughed like a wild jester as he made conversation with shop owners, sent his hearty voice reverberating in melodies across the forest as he chopped wood. It was a happiness of the beauty of life. But after he found something more, he found that these things didn’t hold joy for him anymore. He still had his gentleness and good spirits, but they were quiet and sad. The only thing he had to remind him of what he’d had was his lovely daughter, the daughter of Drehta. He always had his eyes on her to make sure she didn’t fall and scab her knee, always wiped up her tears when she cried, always hugged her impossibly tightly when he came home and she ran to greet him. And his sons? They were hardly there anymore to him. They were part of the before, and though Brahma was never cruel to them, he simply didn’t have enough willpower to give them anything but strained smiles and pats on the head. When they were young, he had swung them around by the arms so fast they nearly threw up with exhilaration. Now that was a privilege reserved only for Opal, the one bright light in his life. For a time, for a long time, Opal was too young to notice anything awry. She had that childhood selfishness, and this selfishness continued as her father taught her everything he knew. Opal wanted to be like the other women, and if she was the only thing that mattered to her father, she certainly didn’t know it. It broke his heart a little more every time she asked why she couldn’t have a mother and learn real skills, but she was oblivious to this. Deval protected Brahma emotionally for a long time, and delicately skirted around the issues, distracting and diverting Opal. But Singh was far less sympathetic. He had too much anger and nobody to aim it at: he didn’t have the heart to yell at his father, and his mother was gone. So he yelled at Opal, and Opal, who didn’t really understand how his life had changed because of her, yelled back. Neither could possibly comprehend the self-importance and guiltless blame of the other, and they never once tried to make it up to one another. Deval tried to interfere, but more often than not it was Brahma who pulled Opal away and told Singh to leave her alone. Opal let him: after all, she was right. It wasn’t her fault that she was her daddy’s favorite, and Singh was being a meanie to her just because he was her big brother. As Opal got older, she started to understand a little more, but she still hated Singh and he her. The one she felt bad for, when the time came, was Deval. He helped to teach her how to hunt and fight, he worked alongside his father and protected him, and he never let anyone see how sad he was. Opal wasn’t sure how to talk to her father about this, though, and although she mentioned it tentatively a few times, she never really tried. She always regretted that. Opal, raised as a man and daughter of a goddess, was always distant from others. They didn’t know what to say to her, weren’t sure exactly what kind of person she was. In the end, Opal decided not to give them a chance to reject her. She never really belonged to her town, but she never had a great desire to go out and explore, either. She just wanted to be normal, do the things other women did. When she was young she met the travelling saleswoman Uma, who taught her how to do calligraphy and was, for a short time, something like a mother figure. But she left quickly, only coming and going now and then, and she wasn’t really the kind of mother figure Opal needed. Opal learned how to fight and hunt and spent her life doing these as jobs. She could use her siren form to fish more easily, but they still never really had much money. When she was twenty-six, her father started to go senile. He’d been rather old when he had her, and his depression had grown worse and worse as he failed to capture that moment of still, echoing magic again. He wanted it so badly, so badly that he’d cry and beg Opal to take him to her mother, as if she could. Deval looked after him, mostly, but Opal decided to take over the caretaking, hoping to practice her mothering and nurturing skills. She mostly had to guide Brahma and make sure he didn’t forget where he was. Mostly he just talked about Drehta, and Opal started to find him lying in the bathtub, fully clothed, with his head under the water. He wanted Drehta to come and save him again. She had to fish him out many times, and all three of his kids started worrying about him. One day Opal had to go to the market for food, and she locked Brahma in his room so he wouldn’t get into the bathtub. Unfortunately, he knew how to jiggle the lock to get it to open, and when Opal came back that day she found she was too late to haul him out of the bathtub. She sat there crying next to the tub until Deval and Singh came home and saw what had happened. Singh blamed Opal, and Deval was too shocked and heartbroken to stop them from getting into a huge fight. Both sides said things they would later regret, and the next morning Singh left without a word to Opal to go find his and Deval’s mother. Deval stayed, but was too broken up to take care of anything, and Opal made the funeral arrangements and kept the household running. Opal’s been staying with Deval for two years now, trying to keep him from sinking into depression the way their father did. Deval’s been drinking heavily and is unable to do much else, so Opal looks after him like he used to take care of their father. The household is proving itself difficult to run, especially since she doesn’t have many of the skills associated, but Opal is determined to help Deval avoid the path Brahma went down. She’s hoping to soon learn the skills necessary to properly run the household and, once she’s gotten Deval to go sober, have a little child to run around the house. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Other Credit to Mairu-Doggy @ DA for the image. ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ RP Sample https://wolfplaygame.com/forums.php?f=18&t=75031 ━━━━━━ नदी ━━━━━━ Activity Level I’m on several hours almost every single day except sometimes Saturdays. Roleplays: 1 slow RP 2 maybe-dead RPs 1 might-never-start RP |