Halo to anyone who bothers to read this!
For those of you who knew Ssar Aradyn and suspected after she died a colourful roleplay death that Qia Fask might be controlled by the same player, you were correct. I really do not like OOC things affecting IC roleplay, so I made sure not to tell anyone, though some people figured it out (Birot, Atagal and Merina), and a few others had suspicions.
I have decided to stop playing PlaneShift and have removed Qia Fask. It wasn't an IC death, so I suppose it will have to be that she didn't manage to pass through the Death Realm, perhaps a god got angry at her and blocked her passage through.
For anyone who was unsure about how Ssar Aradyn permadied, it was several weeks of solid roleplay, but the briefest summary I could provide is the following:
Ssar had always avoided relationships, as she was not good at handling strong emotions. She ended up having feelings for someone, who was about to get married. Then the person broke off the marriage, wanting to instead be with Ssar. Ssar felt *incredibly* guilty about this and ended up killing some people in a fit of rage, which furthered her guilty feelings later on. She ended up spiralling down into self-hatred, living in the Death Realm, punishing herself. After spending days in the Death Realm, a relationship started with a close friend of hers, who Ssar had secretly cared about for a long time. They had a binding ceremony after admitting to being in love with each other, using some dark magic which connected their minds, but would permanently kill Ssar if either of them removed their rings. Eventually this person was unable to deal with Ssar's constant negativity, and after Ssar wrote a suicide note, this person accepted Ssar's ring in a /trade, which permakilled Ssar.
Some weeks after Ssar died I was really missing PlaneShift and roleplay, so I eventually decided to make a new character, very different from my last one. Ssar had never had any history, I created Ssar years ago to try out PlaneShift. With Qia Fask, I decided to include a full history, although I told nobody about Qia's history, only what they could find out IC during roleplay.
Qia made a lot of friends, and even more enemies. Qia ended up in some roleplaying situations that were so bizarre that there is no way I could have come up with them on my own, yet I always kept it realistic and IC. The love triangle (well, more of an "X") with Atagal, Mrokii and Jiovanni was great fun, and had some really unexpected plot twists.
I am disappointed that I won't get to see Qia and Mrokii's wedding ceremony. They already got married in a very personal ceremony in the Death Realm involving carving an "X" into their hands and clasping them together. A GM had agreed to change Qia and Mrokii's last name (to "Conari", which they picked IC) during a formal wedding ceremony.
For those who interacted with Qia, and were curious to know more about her strange behaviour and back history:
Qia Fask grew up in a small house deep in a forest, with her parents.
When she was twelve years old, a group of three rather sadistic people came to her house, torturing Qia and killing her parents. During this ordeal, Qia escaped in her mind through a rather severe case of dissociation (look up DID for more information, basically compartmentalising the brain). They attacked Qia with magic as well as cut her with knives. This was the source of Qia's debillitating fear of almost all magic, and of metal weapons.
The attackers found Qia's resiliance to their torture fascinating, and this is what kept them from killing her when they killed Qia's parents. Eventually when one of the attackers had stepped outside and the other two argued over who was allowed to torture Qia next, an opportunity came up and Qia managed to stab each of them to death. When the third person arrived from outside the house, Qia also killed him.
Qia's brain was severely fragmented that day, and after she cleaned up the house in her altered state of mind, she did not remember anything that had happened. She put her parents bodies in bed, and went on with her life like nothing was out of the ordinary. Eventually she ran out of food, and ended up foraging in the wild, for survival.
Qia spent years in the wilderness at this point, living like other wild animals.
Eventually Qia met a small group of people, lead by a menki. They were kind, offering her food, and over many months she came to trust them. Eventually she found out that they were using magic to share their thoughts, acting as a collective mind. They were all from different backgrounds, but shared their thoughts and feelings. The magic used to gain this ability required a vow of silence. Silence of voice, opening of minds. The final connecting of minds being performed with a ceremony involving the cutting out of ones own tongue -- the final gesture of silence.
For those who thought Qia was not speaking *because* she had no tongue, that was not the case. She avoided making any noise with her mouth (laughing, shouting, giggling, etc.) due to her vow of silence.
After spending years with this small group of people, they were curious about Hydlaa, having heard many stories about it, but never having been there. Qia volunteered to go to the city and find out more, then return later. Qia was eager to go to a city, as she had always wanted to train in martial arts. This is the point when Qia's character was created and arrived in Hydlaa.
Qia's first weeks in Hyldaa were full of great confusion and fear -- she had met only eleven people in her entire life up until when she arrived in Hydlaa. She was very scared these weeks, spending much of her time running away from people and hiding in panic.
Certain events that happened to Qia would induce memories of her past, and would put Qia in an altered state of mind (dissociation). Many of these alters would not remember what happened afterward, which often caused a lot of confusion, when other people would be telling Qia about something she did, and Qia would have no memory of it.
After months in the city, Mrokii and Qia got close, and Qia brought Mrokii to visit her home in the forest. This was a lengthy roleplay, which included a model house made out of RP prop items, in the middle of a giant empty field outside of the normal map area. During this time Mrokii learned that Qia's parents were dead, that Qia thought they were still alive, that Qia was sharing minds with a group, and figured out on her own that Qia's missing tongue was a result of this mind sharing magic.
A while after returning to the city, an event happened wherein Qia was cradling a dying Mrokii in her arms in the Hydlaa sewer, and broke her vow of silence to tell Mrokii that she loved her -- caring more about letting Mrokii know how she felt, than about her vow of silencee. It was right after this when Qia followed Mrokii to the Death Realm and they had their own personal wedding ceremony of sorts.
After that happened, some people may have seen Qia talking in a tongueless, slurred voice. Qia had already lost the connection of minds by breaking her vow of silence.
There was of course way more going on than this teeny synopsis of Qia, including far more details in her background history. I could fill at least a long novel with Qia's adventures. I would like to thank Mrokii and Jiovanni's players especially, for their continued interest and interactions with Qia -- it was fun, and always very interesting.
Thanks everyone for the great times!
