Strange Friends major characters (Bios reworked)

Swiftlit
Species: Human (?)
Age: 14
Sex: Male
Height: 5' 2"
Skin: ?
Hair: light brown
Eyes: Green

Swiftlit is a cowardly boy who is close friends with Calimn, a giant mermaid living in the Jewel River. His origins are very hazy, but he is definitely not a native to Felarya. He came from a very unstable vortex in the Miragia Forest, but what that instability was or where it led is a mystery.

Easily frightened and panicky, he is difficult for much of anyone or anything to approach normally. He tends to overreact to many things, which sometimes gets him into trouble, and his main staple is to run away or hide. Living in the Felaryan wilderness essentially on his own has made him good at both (particularly running), and his case of nerves make it very hard to sneak up on him. He's afraid of any number of things, though being eaten tops his list and can send him into a state of extreme panic. Not that he doesn't have other fears, like water . . . and fast movement . . . and crowds . . . and loud noises. Being so edgy makes him mistrustful of most people, so he's very difficult to get close to or make friends with.

Despite being a human in terms of physiology, Swiftlit has a peculiarity that is a large part of why he is still alive in Felarya. His body is basically like a super-condensed dimensional instability, and isn't quite aligned properly with Felarya's laws of physics. He is extremely light, enough so that he could be easily picked up by someone his size with one hand. This lets him move very fast and jump very high, enough so that any giant predator seeking to eat him will probably be out of breath and sweaty once they get ahold of him. He also can wreck most (but not all) other vortexes simply by touching or walking through them, and he is practically immune to size-changing and dimensional magic.

This instability is not without it's downsides, though. His lack of mass means he is easily tossed around and doesn't have much strength or force. If drenched by liquid, his density and weight will suddenly increase, often to the point where his is almost incapable of moving. He can't swim at all, and will instantly sink if he falls in water. Even rain can slow him down considerably.

History: Swiftlit's background is not very clear, and sometimes it is questionable whether he is actually a human at all, despite that he has the physical body of one. He came from an immensely unstable vortex, possibly connected to a chaotic dimension or warped bit of reality. He himself can't remember much of anything before emerging into Felarya, and only mentions 'going in all directions at once' as well as the even more enigmatic, 'falling from nowhere'.

After coming to Felarya, he wandered around for a few days, confused, lost, and frightened, before arriving at the Jewel River. He almost drowned trying to cross it, but fortunately survived and eventually met Calimn. After quite some time, they became friends and he settled down in a burrow close to the river.


Calimn
Species: Giant Mermaid
Age: ?
Sex: Female
Length: 170 feet
Scales: Green
Fin: Light green
Skin: Pale blue
Hair: Dark blue
Eyes: Green

A playful and very clever mermaid living in the Jewel River, Swiftlit's friend. She is very good at deceit, though she rarely means any harm by it, and is excellent at acting and misdirection. She is intelligent and difficult to trick or outsmart, but doing so will invariably annoy her, as she takes great pride in her own abilities.

Calimn is, like many mermaids, a lover of music, and actually has a CD player that she received from a human she was about to make a meal of. Singing is one of her favorite pastimes and she can often be found by her voice as she floats down the river on her back. Offering a CD (should you have one) or music (if you've the talent) may just be your ticket off of her menu. Calimn is also rather worldly for a mermaid, often tearing apart ships that occasionally pass through her territory to look at the contents almost as much as for the crew. She has a confident personality for the most part, and is fairly easy to get along with if you aren't too far down on the food chain.

Unusual for a mermaid, Calimn spends a decent amount of time on land, usually sunbathing and relaxing. While she isn't a river mermaid, she's still rather mobile and definitely not to be immediately discounted as a threat once up out of the water. She is an astute game-player, liking in particular games relating to bluffing or lying, something she is a master of. Though she is difficult to pin down, gaining the words "I promise" out of her will ensure she will do as she vows, and she will always follow the rules of her own or other's games. She doesn't like to lose, however, and you can definitely count on a demand for a rematch if you win.

Hunting: Calimn isn't much for grabbing or physical hunting. Her preferred method is to trick her prey into thinking she is harmless, even friendly, and she has a wide variety of acting personas to use for this. She's good at it, too, and not trusting her with no previous knowledge of how she operates is very hard, even for native Felaryans who know the dangers of predators. She will usually play around like this for a while before finishing up with the actual meal, but she also may challenge sentient prey to a game. If they lose, they're eaten, if they win, they probably won't be . . . though there's no guarantee she won't just make you play her again.

If it does come down to outright hunting, however, Calimn will most likely just grab as normal. Her tongue is fairly long, but it isn't sticky and so she doesn't use it much except for surprising those she's already beaten at a game from close-range. She may also shoot water from her mouth or splash to bowl her prey over, but she doesn't do that very often. She has no compunctions at all about climbing up on land to have a go at someone not expecting it, either, and overall Calimn is quite a hazard to any human-sized folk in her territory.

History: Calimn was born in the Topazial Sea, and went through life fairly normally for a young predator. When she was still small, she was actually caught by a whaling vessel. The crew planned to raise her to draw up whales, but she managed to disentangle herself from the net and get away. Though unharmed, the event left her with a dislike of whalers and generally people who carried around anything looking like a harpoon. She moved up into the Jewel River, near the Miragia Forest section, after growing into adulthood.

From there she stuck mostly to her area of the river, satisfied with her new residence, and wrought havoc on the ships that came through her area, eating those who wandered to the river after being warped into the Miragia Forest. It was quite some time before she encountered Swiftlit, and became friends with him after a long session of cat-and-mouse.

Haha. Sounds like a great character. Very funny. Can't wait to see a story with him in it.

An interesting character. The only problem I can find is this:

Quote :

Despite his cowardice, if he thinks someone he considers a friend is in serious danger, he will use any means at his disposal, even his life, to help them.

This is just completely at odds with the rest of his nature. It's also a common thing in many characters, seems like no matter what other characteristics they have, they'll always sacrifice themselves for their friends.

Hmm . . . now that I look at it, it is somewhat at odds with the rest. Well, I'll try and polish him up a bit. Revision time.

Anime-Junkie wrote:

An interesting character. The only problem I can find is this:

Quote :

Despite his cowardice, if he thinks someone he considers a friend is in serious danger, he will use any means at his disposal, even his life, to help them.

This is just completely at odds with the rest of his nature. It's also a common thing in many characters, seems like no matter what other characteristics they have, they'll always sacrifice themselves for their friends.

While I am guilty of this, I am glad as HELL someone finally came out and said it.

Here are two other characters that are in the story (if I ever get the thing set up ) Strange Friends.

Name: Jab
Race: Rock Harpy
Age: ?
Gender: Female
Height: 80 feet
Weight: ?
Hair: Brown, very messy and about to her mid-back
Feathers: Sparrow brown
Eyes: Grey
Disposition: Talkative
Special Abilities: Digestive control

Bio: A chatty harpy with a very big (and colorful) vocabulary.

Jab's name is short for Jabber, which is what she does . . . constantly. She can talk for hours at a time over even the most trivial subjects, and getting her started on a topic she likes will have you trapped in a verbal barrage for most of the day. This makes her something of an annoyance among the other sentient predators, so she doesn't have that many friends.

Like all harpies, she has the dialect that consists mostly of threats and swearwords. She very creative when it comes to inventing new swearwords, threats, and other "polite" phrasings, and a session between her and another harpy can make even sailors turn green and shudder. She usually tones her language down to "casual" when talking to creatures other than harpies (ie. Hey, jerkface, got a minute to run ya stupid big mouth before I rip it off?), as she realizes that her overt "politeness" bothers them.

Despite being talkative and care-free, Jab is no fool. She knows a lot of information gleaned from various sources she has spoken to and has a sharp wit. Many people underestimate the harpy and try to trick her only to fail and be eaten. She is very clever and good at predicting outcomes and reactions.

She isn't as voracious as most harpies, and is generally more interested in talking to her victims than immediately eating them. She will go after just about anything small enough to catch and restrain that can speak, and then will proceed to question them over everything they know. She can keep her prey for days, absorbing all the information they have to offer, before finally eating them.

Being the glutton for data that she is, Jab loves any kind of fact, statistic, or rumor someone has for her, regardless of how irrelevant or useless the information is. Interestingly, if you can give her a lot (and I mean A LOT) of information over various things (particularly new swearwords) she is likely to let you go on your way uneaten.

History: Jab is a Felarya native that grew up in the Great Rocky Fields as a chick. She was the runt of the clutch and often picked on by other harpy chicks as a child. She is small for a rock harpy even today, but she learned to accept her stature over the years. Jab spent most of her early years with her colony, keeping out of the way of bigger creatures like sphinxes and manticores. She developed quite the taste for Nekos while eating the Citas tribes out on the plains and loves their taste.

Jab developed an unusual talent to help cope with her meals often getting taken from her by the larger harpies. She can control her digestion and throat amazingly well, slowing it to avoid famine or speeding it up to digest faster. She can spit up whatever she has swallowed very easily, and can even make herself salivate on command!

Jab, fed up with being pushed around in her home colony and looking for more sources of information, left the Great Rocky Fields at fifty and headed out into central Felarya. She spent most of her time traveling around and harassing anyone she came across for tales. She went out into the Topazial Sea to learn swearwords from sailors and pirates, the fairy kingdom to discuss all manner of things with the fairies, and even went to the Dridder Forest to ask on the old civilization of the dridders.


That's Jab, my harpy character. Here's the terrifying Lythra

Name: Lythra
Race: Giant Gorgon Naga
Age: ?
Gender: Female
Height: 113 feet head to ground, 300 feet total
Weight: ?
Hair: Green serpents, can extend from her shoulders to her waist
Scales: Deep green with a black stripe down the spine
Eyes: Green, slitted
Disposition: Relaxed
Special Abilities: Hypnosis, Stonegaze, Divination

Bio: A large and frightening gorgon naga that recently came to Felarya through the Ur-Sagol gate.

Lythra is truly terrifying to behold. She is quite large, and much more serpentine than most nagas. She has longer fangs (though she has no poison), slitted eyes, and a tongue that looks like a human's but is forked. She is adorned with a lot of giant and valuable jewelry, and has a kind of "royal" aura about her.

Despite her frightening appearance, Lythra is fairly relaxed and rather lazy, spending most of her time lounging around Ur-Sagol. She tends to stay put most of the time, keeping to the ruins, but she sometimes goes out into the Miragia Forest to look for prey.

She prefers not to get up and chase her prey, and it is a rare thing that she will actively chase something down. She is not as eating-inclined as most creatures in Felarya, and you are relatively safe if she isn't feeling hungry. Just don't ever take her lightly. She's definitely a man-eater, and you may well find yourself disappearing between her lips if you take her lazy smile for a friendly gesture. A large amount of treasure or a few "sacrifices" might be enough for her to release you.

If you think you can just keep out of her reach, you are probably going to get eaten. She can freeze small creatures that look into her eyes into stone like most gorgons can, but her main hunting asset is that she is a master of hypnosis and lulling people into a false sense of security. Her voice is very soft and soothing, and her snake-like eyes can drown the thoughts from your head. She can even hypnotize people by rhythmically moving any part of her body, from her snake hair to the tip of her tail.

History: Lythra was a renowned oracle and held a venerated position in her own world. There, humans, nekos and elves are all still in the early stages of civilization (say, ancient Babylon), and the giant races are extremely rare. However, the giant sentients occupy a peculiar position as semi-divine beings, feared and revered for their stature and power.

Lythra was taken into a great neko city and was kept as an idol and oracle, something like a high-priestess. She helped the king of the city with important decisions and prophesied for those who brought her sacrifices. Usually, these sacrifices were animals or treasure, but sometimes slaves and prisoners of war were given to her as payment. Mostly she was fed a steady supply of criminals and willing victims.

At last, a rival kingdom overthrew and conquered the palace, and the soldiers were going to kill the gorgon. Unable to live in her own world any longer, Lythra fled the city and escaped through a portal gate leading to Felarya, set up in ancient times as a punishment for the worst criminals.

With no one to feed her and used to a royal treatment, the lazy gorgon had trouble in Felarya at first, but her hypnosis abilities and size gave her the edge she needed to stay alive and relatively well-fed. Now she lives in Ur-Sagol, eating the unwary and going into Miragia Forest to find those who have appeared there.

Bump for editing some things, and size changes.