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[OOC] Background Information
DOROTHEA SOREN
All knowledge is power. Magic just happens to be the most powerful knowledge of them all.
stats
basics
Wealthy ex-child pirate who now portrays herself as a rich orphan living a life of carefree luxury, while secretly collecting, studying and selling magical artifacts. Calm, curious, charismatic, and also extremely manipulative. But she's extremely loyal to those who earn it. She respects those who are not afraid to live their lives by their own means and go for what they want...but that doesn't mean she won't use it to her advantage.
Her deceased captain Maggie Sorensen left her a shit load of money, treasure, and magical artifacts when she died and now Dorothea uses what Maggie taught her to maintain her status by means of selling to the right clients and blackmail others who might try to get in the way of her operations. She hates not being taken seriously. She taught herself a spell when she was young to lower people's inhibitions and make them more susceptible to her suggestions. She thought it would get people to listen to her and respect her more, as she was only 12 when she tried it. The cost of this spell was that she can't turn it off and the only person never affected by it was Maggie herself. Maggie took her to task for this at the time, but also told her that her own punishment would be bad enough the as the years went on. So now she always has to wonder if people are doing what she asks because they want to or because of the spell. It may have gained her the new name Silver Tongue, but it cost her whatever trust she had in everyone around her.
Now two years into her new life since Maggie's death, a client has come seeking a mystical artifact called the Iron Stag, an enchanted statue that is said to grant one wish to all those worthy who call upon it. Dorothea plans to find the stag for her client...and maybe make a little wish for herself to end the spell she cast all those years ago.
She's 19, 5'3", and very slender. She looks like a cool breeze could knock her over. But she's very quick, agile, and stronger than she appears. Dorothea is attracted to girls, but never allowed herself the chance to attempt anything with another girl. She may be a ruthless, manipulative, blackmailing bitch, but she's not going to coerce any girls into wanting to be with her.
setting
The planet is Gaia, a planet not unlike Earth, but if the Seafaring Era never ended and magic is a known quantity, but also still seen as very dangerous and mysterious. Many people don't understand it, so they know to fear it. Well, those who aren't out there seeking to use magic for their own purposes. Technology has progressed some, but not a great deal. Trains are a vital form of transportation on land, cars don't exist, and ships are still the only way to travel across the oceans.
People live in villages and city-states and kingdoms all across the lands, but the second-largest continent of Viridian is the lead export of many crops to some of the other more desert-like locations across the world as it has a lot of lush farmland that is strictly regulated by the two largest kingdoms, Brava and Drys. After the hundred year drought of centuries ago, the two kingdoms have agreed to never allow anything like that to happen again, so they work together to properly care for the land with the highest farming and cattle usage.
history
Dorothea has gone by many names in her life. She was found when she was five floating on debris from a shipwreck with no memory by the crew of the Immortal Magpie. After months at sea, the crew decided to keep her because she creeped out everyone around her, the captain, The Immortal Maggie Sorensen, indulged her crew and let her stay as kind of a pet. They called her Dead Eyes for years and Maggie didn't pay her much mind as she kept to the kitchens and below deck doing work and never complained no matter what. But as she got older she started to take more interest as she realized "Dead Eyes" was actually very smart and really damn good with some knives. She even gave Dorothea a real name, Dottie. Maggie just so happened to be extremely long-lived, having captained her ship for over 200 years because of a magical amulet she wore around her neck. She taught Dottie everything she knew about magic, got her books from around the world and Dottie soaked it all up. Girl was a natural with it just as much as she was with a set of good throwing knives.
But even a couple years into her magical training, Dottie was still not being treated with respect by the crew. Sure, she knew they loved her, because they protected her, and helped her and made sure to bring her treats when they docked in various ports as Dottie herself barely left the ship. But they didn't respect her she felt, and they didn't listen to her when she was trying to contribute her ideas to a coming heist or other affairs on the ship. They cared about her but they didn't value her opinion and she hated it.
So she taught herself a spell to lower people's inhibitions and biases, to open their minds more, and make them more susceptible to her suggestions. She thought it would get people to listen to her and respect her more, as she was only 12 when she tried it. The cost of this spell was that she can't turn it off and the only person never affected by it was Maggie herself. Maggie took her to task for this at the time, but also told her that her own punishment would be bad enough as the years went on. So now she always has to wonder if people are doing what she asks because they want to or because of the spell. It may have gained her the new name Silver Tongue, but it cost her whatever trust she had in everyone around her.
Maggie always warned Dottie to never take anything for granted though, because all magic has a time limit and a cost for using it.
And the same was true for Maggie. When Dottie was 17, there was a large battle on the sea where the Magpie took heavy damage and Maggie used her amulet to protect the entire ship and crew until they could get away. The ship and crew would live, but Maggie had tapped out the extent of the amulet's power. And that meant the cost of that power came due and Maggie's own life was forfeit. But before she went, she insisted that Dottie check out the papers in her desk in the Captain's quarters. It turned out that Maggie had liquidated a lot of her secreted assets so she could leave a large sum of money to the crew. They could leave the ship and do whatever they wanted.
Everything else was left to Dottie. Including the Magpie itself. And included in these papers were records. Documents saying that Dottie had a real name, Dorothea Soren, and also the locations of various caches that Maggie left to her filled with magical artifacts and other treasure she'd collected over two hundred years. Her men could live wealthy off the money they received and Dorothea could do whatever she wanted with everything else. Dottie told the crew that they loved the Magpie just as much as she did and they deserved equal rights to it. No one wanted to sell the ship (which Dottie wonders if it was becaeduse of the spell or if they truly meant it), so instead the crew stayed on, doing their thing under Maggie's second-in-command, while Dottie went off and turned herself into a young entrepreneur.
She portrayed herself as a rich girl whose parents had died and left her a lot of money, more than she knew what to do with, while running a brokerage operation on the side, selling magical artifacts to the special clientele. It wasn't just selling off some of the catalog that Maggie had collected, but sending the Magpie out to find more and bring it to her. Sometimes, when she was particularly bored or they needed someone with high magical expertise, Dorothea would even go with them.
personality
What Dorothea wants, Dorothea gets. She goes after what she wants in life and isn't afraid to manipulate or blackmail others to get it. Often she doesn't need to do that as much because the spell encourages people to do what she tells them to do (as very few people have counter-magic against the spell), but if need be, she'll do it. But she's also grossly insecure about her status and position with the people around her, because the spell means she can never trust that someone is doing something of their own free will. She's resigned to this as part of her life, but she hates it. The curse caused by youthful ignorance she hopes to one day rectify.
Dorothea is also very good at pretending to be a vapid, uncaring rich girl who only focuses on where she can spend her wealth. Maggie taught her well how to blend in with high society, even if when she's angry, she will indeed curse like a sailor. It works in her favor as many people underestimate her because of this. Very few people who are not in on the magical underground would ever suspect her of being one of the top tier sellers of artifacts on two continents.
Dorothea does struggle with relating to people her own age. There was only one other youth on board the Magpie and he was five years older than her so they did not have a lot in common, although he did treat her more like a kid sister instead of like a pet as many of the rest of the crew did. But this means that Dorothea doesn't know how to express herself naturally around young rich socialities and nobles. She can pretend, but any attempts in the past two years to try and be more authentic failed and left her doubting herself and the life she was making for herself. Still, if this is the life that Maggie wanted for her, then she was going to find a way to be happy in that life.
Whether she liked it or not.
abilities
SILVER TONGUE: A spell Dorothea cast on herself that influences those around her. They become more susceptible to her suggestions and opinions, and anything she states as a directive, they automatically want to go along with. Phrasing statements as a question can avoid this in people with strong will power who are staunchly against it, but even this is not full-proof. This only works with spoken word. Anyone who had previously been influenced by her is still in her sway to some degree until the spell is completely broken, so even seeing words written by her can ping the spell, but it is much easier for people to shake off that effect due to distance and not be influenced.
If Dorothea states something as a fact, "This is a cat" while pointing as a dog, then the people who hear it will believe that dog is now a cat. If Dorothea would say "In my opinion, I think that is a cat" it does not work. Same if she were to say "Is that a cat?"
FIGHTER: Dorothea is a skilled hand-to-hand and close combat fighter. She trained for years in how to use other people's strengths against them because of her small stature. She's fast, agile, very flexible, and an expert knife-thrower. She does not have a lot of physical strength, but she knows how to play to her own.
MAGICAL EXPERTISE: Dorothea has years of studying and practice in understanding and using magical and various artifacts. She is well-read and knows her shit when it comes to magic in her world.
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