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HISTORY
The House of Castanides is a minor tributary branch of the Lamian royal family. It traces its descent from Halkyone Castanides, the current Matron's elderly aunt. The Castanides were dispatched to Furud decades ago, to relay the directives of the Matron to the small population of Lamia there. Since then they've languished in what they consider an isolated backwater, separated from the large Lamian population to the north - never mind that they travel between very large human colonies.

Pallas Castanides was born in the small Lamian district of Sasanka, and spent most of her childhood traveling back and forth from Sasanka to Camacho. Her parents and siblings make a living buying stolen gems and antiques from Camacho pirates who have no idea of their value, marking up the price, and then reselling them for a small fortune in Sasanka. For this reason they have more in the way of material wealth than the vast majority of Lamians. This causes political friction, with other branches of the royal family to derisively suggesting that the Castanides have "gone native" from too many years living away from the heart of Lamian culture.

A healthy chunk of the Castanides fortune is hoarded and buried in a secret location, but they spend the bulk of their money on expensive clothing, luxury goods, and lavish parties. Pallas was content to go along with this lifestyle until she hit her twenties. Then she succumbed to the strange and terrible disease known as boredom. The parties were all the same. The travels never ceased. Her family talked and talked, but the intrigues were never new. Pallas had a long string of short-term relationships in an attempt to shake her feelings of dissatisfaction, none of which were very fulfilling. After an extremely combative love affair with a traveller from Mithridates, Barnabas Nikolaou, she abandoned the idea of settling down and raising her own brood - an almost unheard-of decision in Lamian society.

That was when Pallas began to turn a little eccentric by Lamian standards.

She started going out to the desert. She wandered off into the human districts alone. She studied old magics with Halkyone - earth magics of the sort that had once sheltered their people when they still lived in primitive shallow burrows. It was (and is) Pallas' hope that by gaining magical power she can finally find a sense of purpose in her life, something to provide the thrill she's missing and cure her of her jadedness. Halkyone's ambitions for her are less clear.

One day Pallas announced to her family that she was going to Aschere to improve her skills. To the surprise of nearly everyone involved, Halkyone granted her permission to go. She is now petitioning for acceptance into the ranks of the Asterion League.

Since Lamia so rarely travel alone, Guild members may assume that Pallas left her clan and travelled to Murzim because she is some sort of exile, dissident, or criminal. This is not actually the case. Most of her family would love it if their mad prodigal daughter would come back to her senses and return home.



PERSONALITY
Pallas is loud, outgoing, and opinionated. She's spent a lot of time both on the road and in large, developed cities, and thus considers herself more cosmopolitan and urbane than most of those around her. The fact that Pallas is apparently only in the League on a lark can make it seem as though she doesn't take her work very seriously, especially since she responds to most dangerous situations with exaggerated bravado. She can come off as a bit of a flake and a dabbler, although her ambitions are anything but aimless, and underneath the cooing and the air-kisses there lies a rather clever mind.

In case it wasn't clear from the history section, Pallas' idea that power can make her content is not all that emotionally healthy.

Both friends and enemies of Pallas can expect her to meddle in their personal lives as a matter of course - not so much because she has things to gain from it, but because she seems to believe that the League was created solely for her personal amusement. That said, Pallas is friendly, condescends to be helpful to others, and is open to trying almost anything once. She's a wealthy hedonist, but no snob about enjoying low-class pursuits so long as they are new and/or interesting.

Pallas has almost no concept of personal space, and is a very huggy, touchy-feely person. This may partly be because she enjoys watching the silly bipeds squirm. Persons who dislike physical contact are advised to find some stairs.



COMMON KNOWLEDGE
- Hails from the southern continent.
- Sells jewelry on the side for profit. Who knows where she gets it from?
- Is constantly writing and receiving letters, to the annoyance of those who have to put up with messenger birds flying in and out of her rooms at odd hours.
- Has a disconcerting habit of swallowing her dinner whole.
- Has a lot of shady acquaintances who hang around at the dockyards.

I love your profile! You've got some great ideas! Keep it up, dude. heart


Your skill entomb, though, I think needs to be a bit weakened. I would say either keep just the damage or the evade hit, but not both. If you do want to keep both effects, I suggest maybe making it into a randomizer where a certain dice number will either cause - to evade or damage.

I'm probably suggest Positive Stat Effect (Self-Only) as a way of doing larger damage. We don't have a standard skill for a one-time big damage aside from being pre-buffed. I'll talk to EK about it. DX

Er. Seeking approval now, I suppose!

Any thoughts on how I could improve this are still always welcome.

Aludramule strikes again! Thank you kindly, sir. 3nodding

Hee - and just as I was settled on apping for my other character.

Pallas was actually created before I read the staff examples, so I was surprised to discover the similarities between her andand the stylish Monsieur Amelien (wealthy background, Sasanka, earth-related magics, etc). I thought it might be an issue, but if it's not... hm. I guess now I have a choice to make. xd

Point, xd . The Castanides are more assimilationist than colonial. Largely because their matriarch has been pissed off about being sent there for the last seventy years or so.

If Pallas were made aware of their similarities she would probably be happy to hear about home, consult her astrologist, and decide that Amelien is is her new BFF. Then she'd set about horribly corrupting him. ("Oh, darling, haven't you ever been to one of those stripping clubs? Dance of the seven veils? Oh, we MUST go. They have the most fabulous liquor drinks and humans are so funny when they worked up about pants. *manhandles Amelien into a carriage and off to the wrong side of the tracks*")