Polgara the Sorceress

Polgara is a bit on the over-powered side, and the Will and the Word is teetering on the edge of "Deus ex Machina" and "godmoddy." The most invasive aspect is her mental abilities. Essentially she can do whatever she can imagine.

I WILL ALWAYS ASK BEFORE DOING ANYTHING THAT WILL AFFECT YOUR CHARACTER. This permissions post is for the more passive aspects of her power, or for you to request something of me. If at any point you feel I've over-stepped with her power, please let me know and I will redact it.

( Description of the Will and the Word )

What can Polgara do to someone's mind?
The list includes but is not limited to:

• Know your race/world
  
• Know if you have any magical ability (and potentially how powerful you are)
  
• Read select thoughts (Not full mind-reading, requires an idea of what she's looking for)
  
• Place false memories
  
• Place suggestions (e.g. you are thirsty, have this water that in no way has truth serum in it)
  
• Pick up your greatest fear
  

These powers can be fooled and it is possible to learn to resist/hide yourself from them.

Permissions:

• What will Polgara sense when she brushes against your mind?
  
  
  
  • Race/World?
    
  • Magical Ability?
    
  • Anything else?
    
  
  
• Can she use her mental abilities on your character? Are there any hard limits that should not be crossed?
  

APPLICATION
PLAYER INFORMATION
⇒ Name: Junabi
⇒ Journal: Sorceress_Polgara
⇒ Age: 31
⇒ Contact: greenfirerp@gmail.com
⇒ Characters Played: Not Applicable

CHARACTER INFORMATION
⇒ Name: Polgara
⇒ Age: 3,398 (Just says 3,000 for simplicity’s sake)
⇒ Canon: David Eddings Book Series:

• Belgariad


• Mallorean


• Belgarath the Sorcerer


• Polgara the Sorceress

⇒ Canon Reference: https://kalten.sandwich.net/eddings/timeline.html (she was born in the year 2000 and is a prominent figure in most of the events up through the sixth age… have fun Cap :D )

⇒ Canon Point: 12 years after the end of Polgara the Sorceress. 5398 Alorn Calendar. (Note: There is no canon between 5386 and 5398 – just giving enough time for her twins to be old enough to take care of themselves so she won’t be freaking out about them constantly.)

⇒ Personality:
Much of how Polgara acts comes from the fact that she is over 3,000 years old. During that time, she’s been part of and put up with a lot. She’s rarely surprised anymore and comes into most situations thinking “this again?” Her twin sister died, the duchy she ruled was destroyed, an evil god tried to remove her will and force her to marry him, and she’s been responsible to raise, protect and watch die a string of self-destructive blonde hair boys for over 1,000 years. What have you got? Demons? Seen them! Killed one in utero. Shame about the mother, but she was dead the moment she was impregnated anyway.

Polgara is able to be calm in most situations because she’s seen it all before. This is especially true with children (especially young boys since she’s been responsible for raising so many of them). She expects arguments when she tells people what to do, usually because she’s a woman, but having heard them all before she’s most likely to just wait for you to finish and then ask why you haven’t started yet.

That said, Polgara is very emotional but she tries not to be. It can seem like she doesn’t care due to the walls she’s put up around herself after watched friends and family grow old and die for millennia. Her best protection is to keep herself removed from the day-to-day of the world because she has to in order to fulfil her purpose and keep herself sane. However, her emotions are there and come out at times – especially when something actually manages to take her by surprise. This causes all of her walls to fall down and all of her emotions are on full display. If she’s angry – stay away because things are being thrown and you might get his with a lightning bolt. If she’s worried – it’ll be full on tears. It takes a lot to surprise her so these outbursts are few and far between.

Polgara is a protector. The last 1,000 years have been devoted to keeping her great-nephews safe. Before that she worked with (read: bullied) dukes to create and maintain the longest truce of the Arendish civil war. She wants everyone she feels responsible for to be safe. She sees it as her responsibility in most cases since she has a power others don’t. It took being unable to stop the slaughter of the Wacite Arends to make her see that she can’t always protect everyone. It’s a lesson she hates, but has learned.
That lesson that she can’t protect everyone along with protecting herself from her emotions will sometimes make it seem like she doesn’t care at all, or is being deliberately cruel. Example; she’ll want to save an entire city from a plague that will kill half if they’re lucky, but 3,000 years of experience has taught her that she cannot save every person. Instead she will coldly focus on saving as many as she can while allowing the doomed to die. She wants to save them all, but she knows she can’t and won’t let anyone see how much it kills her to condemn anyone. If anyone confronts her, she’ll allow them to think she’s heartless. If it’s someone worth it and she has the time she’ll clinically explain why she’s acting as she is. She knows she’s correct, and either eventually everyone else will accept that or they’ll continue to be wrong.

Another aspect to her general calm is the fatalistic philosophy all of Aldur’s disciples have. It’d be ludicrous to not believe that everything is fated and has a purpose when the Purpose Of The Universe has literally spoken to you from your nephew’s mouth more than once to make sure you accomplish all of your tasks correctly. When the Purpose isn’t available there’s always the prophecies or the seers. Everything is going to happen exactly as it needs to happen because that’s the only way it can happen (unless another accident happens that creates two possible purposes of the universe, but that’s on the level of stars exploding so a human probably won’t cause it). She takes comfort in knowing that everything has a purpose. It gives meaning to all of the horrible things she’s gone through, and allows her to trust that her happiness with her husband and children now is real because she’s earned her reward.

In more wordly matters, Polgara is very prudish. A lot of that 1,000 years raising her nephews was spent keeping them from having children out of wedlock. She has no tolerance for swearing, drinking or whoring. Swearing is only okay when she’s upset and throwing around lightning bolts, in which case she showcases an extensive multi-lingual vocabulary.

⇒ Previous game history: Not Applicable

⇒ Powers and Abilities:
There are many types of magic in Polgara’s world. The strongest is The Will and The Word. Gods accomplish anything by shaping their will and focusing it through a word. Humans can do this as well to a much lesser extent, and are called Sorcerers. A God’s disciples make for the strongest sorcerers. Polgara is a disciple of the God Aldur and therefore has a very strong will.
Essentially; sorcerers can do anything if their will is strong enough. If they can think it they can do it with some exceptions and limitations.

Limitations:

• The most important limitation is that no one (not even a god) can un-create anything. Un-creating something causes the power to pull back in on the caster than they are unmade instead in a very violent explosion.


• Using your Will requires a lot of knowledge and research. A good portion of Polgara’s 3000 years has been spent studying. Example: You don’t alter the local weather without knowing exactly what it will do to the larger patterns. Creating a storm in the wrong place at the wrong time could do anything from nothing to starting the next ice age in another thousand years. It’s much better to just leave well enough alone.


• Using your Will can be exhausting. Will is like another muscle, it can be over-stretched and it has its limits. Example: Kicking up a breeze rom dead air has caused Polgara to feint because of the sheer weight of the air. Making minor adjustments to the current atmosphere like making an existing wind blow harder is easier but still tiring. Physics is still a thing even when altering things with your Will alone. In many cases Polgara chooses to do things the regular way if it’s an option.


• Using your will creates a “noise” that can be heard/felt by anyone with the same talent. The noise has been described as anything from a whisper to a thunderclap. Most of Polgara’s actions are quiet from 3,000 years of practice, but doing something strenuous will be louder.

Special Proficiency
Using your Will requires a lot of thought and knowing exactly what you want to do before doing it. The following is magic that Polgara uses so regularly it doesn’t tire her and she hardly has to think about anymore.

• Changing form into an owl. – Polgara can change into her preferred form of a snowy owl almost instantly. She can also easily change into any type of bird or a wolf with little thought. Any other type of creature takes more time and effort because she needs to think about it first.


• Mental Abilities. – Polgara can tell different people and races apart from the “look” of their minds. A quick look will tell her who someone is (if she knows) and if they have magic. She doesn’t read minds in the traditional sense, but can pull one or two thoughts. One of her favorite tricks is to pull someone’s deepest fear and then create an illusion of it convince them to talk. She can also put minds to sleep, which is useful when sneaking past someone. Using her mental abilities can be risky though, as it leaves her defenseless against others with the same powers.


• Talking to birds – All birds can talk to her and she to them. It’s usually not very useful since they just want to talk about their eggs or the day they learned to fly.


• Talking to wolves – Polgara can speak to wolves because she’s taken the form of a wolf and learned their language. She can “speak wolf” in human or wolf form, and other wolves may recognize that she is sometimes a wolf.

⇒ Personal Effects:
Polgara will come into the world with two personal effects:

• A silver amulet with the image of an owl worn around her neck. It was made by her father and can be used to focus her will.


• Medical Bag – a bag filled with various herbs and other medical concoctions that she always keeps with her.

WRITTEN SAMPLE
Test drive thread: http://unrivaled-ooc.dreamwidth.org/2643.html?thread=54867#cmt54867