Cordelia's Character Quiz1. What are your character's colors and symbol? What personal meaning do they have, if any?
Colors: White and rose-gray (deep, dark pink shading toward gray but still strongly colored). Cordelia views the white as standing for betrayed innocence and vulnerability rather than the more traditional pristine state of those qualities. She sees the rose-gray as representing barriers of self protection that are sufficiently "malleable" and "translucent" to allow necessary interactions and observations. Perhaps even trust on some occasions...2. How old is your character?Her symbol is a black wheel burning with a blue-white fire. The wheel has no hub, but it does have four spokes (diameter length not radii) that cross in the middle. The spokes are also burning. To Cordelia, the wheel represents chance/randomness and inevitability. What goes around comes around, and most of it hurts. The flame purifies and focuses thought.
Unknown.3. Do you fall into the category 'run with scissors' or 'plays well with others.'?Plays well with others, definitely. She's lived for a long time in a place where it's dangerous to alienate people. She's very careful to figure out what's immediately dangerous public behavior and avoid it. She'll be very polite to people until she figures out whether or not she can afford to offend them and whether or not she needs to. She won't, however, trust very easily. She'll be looking for allies but wary about who she lets get close. She wants friends badly, but she's pretty paranoid about people interactions.4. What is your most prized possession? Tell the story of how you came to have it.Her most prized possession is a tarot deck that she made while she was in Evara. She made it card by card over the years during time stolen from the work she was supposed to be doing. She attempted to imbue it with Trump without actually connecting the cards to anything. She used the classic tarot symbolism bu also added twists of her own that aren't apparent to an unpracticed eye ( haven't specified these either. I know just enough about tarot to qualif as a knowledgeable dabbler, so I'd rather not come up with these details unless you think they're absolutely necessary. Also, when I say classic, I'm talking the mundane deck not the Crowley or the Mother Earth or anything esoteric). She hid the cards carefully while she was still in Evara. At the very least, her handlers would have taken them away; at worst, she might have been reprogrammed for wasting her time on such a project.5. If you had three wishes, what would they be? (And no, you can't wish that you had more than three wishes.)A. Never to have been enslaved.6. What is your moral code?
B. To be strong enough and wise enough never to be unwillingly used again.
C. To have at least one person she can unreservedly trust and rely on.The basis of her ethical code is officially survival at any cost. In practice, that gets modified to at almost any cost. Betraying a friend, ally or even a trust is alien to her. She's never had to do it, and she'd fight hard not to. It's difficult to say which urge would win out, and she'd have to take the relationship or trust pretty seriously (which she tends to shy away from) before she'd give it precedence over her personal survival. She will seek revenge for pain inflicted on her and/or her friends if she can do so at an acceptable level of risk (varies according to the offense), and she's got a very long memory for that sort of thing.7. What one virtue is important enough to keep sacred by your character? What one vice would the character never give up? Why?Virtue: She will do whatever she can to prevent harm to those she considers mentally or physically children. She does not, however, seek out such troubles or dedicate herself to social reform; she merely deals with what she encounters when it comes up. If she can't prevent, she will avenge. If vengeance is not an immediate option, she'll add the problem to her mental list of scores to be settled.8. Would your character have ambitions to take the throne?Vice: She loves food, especially good quality food. A new restaurant or a new chef are both of great interest to her. She loves to experiment with new flavors and textures. She doesn't tend to overeat, but she can't stand missing a meal if she can avoid it.
Cordelia's not going to be interested in the throne. She'd take it if she had to, but she'd try to avoid it if at all possible. She'd consider that sort of responsibility a form of enslavement. On the other hand, she'd consider being subject to a "bad" king a worse form of enslavement.9. How would your character react to finding out they aren't really who they believe?She considers what she currently knows of herself at any given time to be who she is. She believes that her memories from before her most recent slavery are inaccessible, erased, so she doesn't take them into account when she builds her picture of herself. Being told about who she was (or remembering it) would not disturb her unduly although it might take her quite a while to digest and integrate the information. She really has no preconceptions about who she was before.10. What, if anything, does your character fear most?Discovering that someone had lied to her about her past, however, would seriously disturb her. She might kill over it if the lie were serious enough and if she had believed it. She would however be very cautious about accepting someone's claims as truth. She's dealt with many people who didn't consider it worthwhile to tell her the truth.
Her greatest fear is mental reprogramming, personality erasure.11. What is your character's defining quote?"And that means what from my point of view?"12. Describe a recurring dream your character has.In the dream, she's a physically normal person, and she's walking unescorted in a public park in Evara. There are people all around her, and she can see vehicles moving on the streets nearby. Suddenly, the people start changing. Some go rigid then slack and collapse mindless. Others try to scream as their flesh crumbles to reveal featureless, metallic looking humanoid forms. They start trying to tear their own bodies apart as they realize that they can't see, hear, breathe or feel anything from the outside world. She starts to feel a change coming over herself-- She always wakes at this point.13. What were your childhood ambitions, and to what degree have you realized them as an adult?Her dreams were freedom, preserving her personal integrity, having friends and trying to find the balance between being skilled enough to be too valuable to reprogram and being considered dangerously able. She's still working on all of them.14. Describe your character's perfect day.Cordelia's idea of a perfect day (I'm assuming that this is some time after she's been in Amber for a while) would start with a hearty breakfast. She'd then spend some time playing with her pet cats until the light outside was just what she wanted for painting. She'd have a quick snack and then spend a few hours painting. Then she'd have lunch in company with people who she enjoyed being with. She'd spend the afternoon learning something new and get it right. That would be followed by more time with the cats and then a bath. Dinner would be a liesurely affair, again with good company. After dinner, she'd go for a walk some place pleasant and naturally wild (not a garden or a park). Part of the perfection to her would be the fact that at any point she could change her mind and do something completely different.15. Which of the elders would/does your character respect most, and why? (The Tapestry elders being Geraint, Ben, Quentin, Bailey, Gwyn, Jenner, Chris, Gen, Luke, Sarah.)
16 List up to ten quirks, idiosyncracies or affectations your character has.
1) Keeps left forearm covered regardless of what form she's in.
2) Resents orders. May disobey given the option. May sabotage if disobediance is not an option.
3) Always has at least one potential weapon on her (even if its potential is mostly theoretical).
4) Hoards food. Always carries something edible and has caches where she can get at them readily.
5) When she's not certain of the situation, underplays abilities in hopes of being underestimated.
6) Fears trusting anyone or anything.
7) Very patient with a long memory.
8) Has several cats (She'd get very into pets once she was able to have some of her own. Because they're not intelligent in the way that humans are, she'd view animals as trustable).
9) When she's not certain of the situation, she tries to appear physically unattractive.
10) Likes to know how things work and how to do them herself.
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