Adventures of Caelereth

Name - Phlegah Sphirm

Age - 21

Sex - Female

Race - Orc

Tribe - Volkek-Oshra

Occupation - Apprentice Metal Crafter

Title - Crafty Spellcrafter

Magic Level - 1

Overview - Phlegah is not an accomplished mage by any stretch of the imagination. She attempts to understand each aspect of a spell before moving onto the next part of it. She has carried this perfectionism over into other aspects of her life, including her job of crafting trinkets of various kinds. This results in a greater understanding, but a lesser variety of spells, that she is able to cast. Phlegah's perfectionist outlook on life is her way of honouring her patron, Anilya the Everbright. The cult surrounding Anilya's legend is said to teach that Anilya expects unwavering faith and willpower from her followers. Phlegah was given Pai'Orin, a Ximax cat, which has been useful as both a companion and as a focus for her spellcrafting efforts.

Appearance
Height - 2 Ped, 2 Nailsbreadths

Weight - 1 Pygge, 2 Hebs, 1 Hafeb, 3 Ods

Eye Colour -  Aeruillin Red

Hair Colour - Adlemirene with some highlights of cinnabrown and other lighter browns through it.

Physical Appearance
Phlegah is definitely a female. She has curves in all the right places and her arms and legs are slender, though not as slender as those of an elven or human female. Her skin is brown, almost the same brown as eophran. Her eyes are a deep red and they seem to flash with the ferocity of a flame when she is feeling quite emotional about something.

As well as clearly being a female, Phlegah is also clearly an orc. The only place she has any hair on her body is on her head, and this hair reaches halfway down her back. Her hair is brown in colour, naturally adlemirene with some cinnabrown and lighter shades of brown through it. It is kept out of her face with a hairband. Her ears have the pointed quality common to elves and orcs, although like other orcs, her ears are larger than those of an elf. Her nose is large and almost snoutlike in its shape. Her lips are often touched by a smile, and reveals the sharp gleaming teeth and tusks which further identifies her as an orc.

At just over two peds, she is tall for an orc, and her height is accentuated by her long slender legs. She carries her frame well, and although she isn't muscular, her body is toned. The only blemish on her mostly perfect skin is a star shaped birthmark on her right hand.

Clothes
Like most of the orcs of the Volkek-Oshra, Phlegah wears a bright red hooded robe which almost reaches the ground. The way this robe has been weaved with different shades of red fabric gives off the impression of being made of fire. Beneath her robe, she wears a simple red tunic and brown pair of trousers. On her feet are a pair of brown leather boots she purchased from one of the clothing stores in Ximax.

Around her waist she wears a leather belt which is emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Volkek-Oshra orcs. Various pouches hang from this belt. One of the pouches is her money pouch, another holds the tools of her trade, and the rest hold the reagents used in her spells.

Around her neck, on a thin leather necklace, hangs a golden amulet made by Phlegah. Inlaid into this amulet is a ruby. As a member of the Everbright Cult, Phlegah found the ruby and inlaid it in the gold prior to crafting the amulet. On both sides of her amulet, Phlegah etched the appearance of flames. A red headband ties her brown hair out of her eyes and the rest of her face. Phlegah's headband is covered in bright red beads designed to give the headband the appearance of a flame. Phlegah is never seen in public without her headband.

Personality
Passion, emotion, volatility and perfectionism are all key components of Phlegah's personality. She is passionate about life, about being an orc, about being a woman, about her work and about practicing her skills as a mage. She is currently striving to become better at her magic skills. It is an ongoing process tied in with the other aspects of her personality. She exudes a confidence, a never say die attitude and a calmness to the outside world.

Beneath the surface of Phlegah's apparently calm exterior lies an emotional interior. A very small change in the outside environment can lead to a sudden change in Phlegah's emotional state and she can be laughing, crying, screaming or trembling at the drop of a hat. Unjust cruelty, intolerance, persecution or punishment results in a particularly angry reaction from Phlegah, especially if it is against females of any race. At these times, she strikes out, often without thinking. Phlegah recognises this anger as a potential problem for her in her spellcrafting and is terrified of the prospect of her spells getting away from her and doing real harm to herself, Pai'Orin, others or property. She does her best to ensure she is in full control of her anger at all times, and that her actions are well thought out and aimed at producing the best effort possible.

Phlegah's motto is 'if it isn't done well, it isn't worth doing'. Whatever task she is doing at any time gets all of her focus and attention. When this orc maiden is focused ... really focused on any task, other things can be forgotten by her. While this ensures her work as a crafter is of high quality, it also means she can become unaware of other things taking place around her.

Beliefs
Phlegah's beliefs are centered around K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha and her membership in the Cult of Anilya the Everbright.

- K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha (word of K'ahn'uck)
As an orc, Phlegah was raised to honour and respect others in the Volkek-Oshra. By extension, this respect expanded to all people, regardless of their race or tribe. Honouring and valuing relationships between people was how Phlegah and other Volkek-Oshra gained respect, rather than through battle. Central to the Volkek-Oshra belief in K'ah'uck'tscha is that the strength of their magic came from the immense power that the defeated gods possessed. This power was buried deep within each creature. The only thing that decided how strong one could become is how much of their inner strength an individual could dig up and put to use. To gain honour and to respect her teachers, Phlegah seeks to constantly expand her magical powers.

- Everbright Cult
Overlaying her belief in the K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha is Phlegah's membership of the Everbright Cult, which honours Anilya the Everbright as the Patron of Magic. The K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha teaching suggests that the Everbright was able to dig up and use most of her inner strength. As a result, Phlegah believes that the Everbright is worthy of her honour and respect and regularly honours Anilya through prayer and action, and believes the ruby she inlaid within her amulet enables her to focus her will when she performs her magic. By constantly and diligently improving her fire magic, Phlegah is able to grow in the destructive aspects of the School of Fire Magic.

As another way of honouring Anilya, Phlegah has a small statue of the Everbright amongst her belongings and in her quarters in the catacombs beneath Ximax. She regularly raises prayers to the Everbright while holding this statue, as well as regular visits to the Everbright Statues in the catacombs and the Red Tower. When Phlegah is older, she has a desire to participate fully in the celebrations of the Everbright Cult, which were described and shown to her by her parents. These celebrations includes 'Slaying of the Blue' which involves the slaying of a drake over a body of water and 'Fire Down Below', practiced mainly by the Fire Daughters. She is well aware that she has a long time to go before participation in either of these celebrations. Phlegah's ultimate aim is to join the Fire Daughters in order to fully honour Anilya.

Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
Fire Mage - Level 1: Phlegah is trained in the Ximax school of fire magic. So far, she only has experience with the level one aspects of sphere one spells. These spell are mostly of use to her in her role of a crafter as they can help modify the fire cár’áll within the objects she uses in the crafting process.

Literacy - When Phlegah commenced her mage training, she learned how to read and write Tharian and Styrash. Of these two languages, she is more accomplished with Tharian, which she is able to use in her daily life around the city of Ximax. She is far more limited in her ability to read and write Styrash, as her training in the elven language is limited to her mage studies. With the intermingling of races at Ximax, Phlegah has also learnt to speak Styrash in addition to Tharian.

Phlegah's knowledge of spoken Styrash is limited to the words she needs to know for her magic spells, she is unable to carry out a general conversation in Styrash. If she is being spoken to in Styrash, she is only able to understand them if they are speaking slowly and if they are using words from her known spells.

Her association with dwarves in Ximax means she can identify when someone is speaking to her in Thergerim. She is unable to understand what they are saying to her, nor can she speak the dwarven language herself.

Perfectionist - Whether it is her magic, her work as a crafter or any other task in which she's engaged, Phlegah does it to the best of her ability. Her crafted items are always of exceptional quality. Her mastery of the level one fire spells exceeds most of her peers with a similar skill level. A consequence of this perfectionism is her refusal to move onto a new spell or other task until she has fully mastered and understands her current spell or task. Her perfectionism is her way of honouring Anilya the Everbright as her patron. This honouring is demonstrated in her ongoing worship of and prayers to the Everbright, her regular visits to the Statue of Anilya the Everbright in the catacombs and Red Tower and her desire to improve her ability to cast fire magic.

Pai'Orin - Phlegah has the companionship of a Ximax cat which she received as a gift between five and six years ago. Phlegah called the cat Pai'Orin because those words sounded nice to her. The purring of Pai'Orin, and the cat rubbing herself against Phlegah's legs calms and comforts Phlegah when the orcess is emotional and angry. This, in turn, helps Phlegah to focus on her spell crafting and concentrate on the fire cár’áll in objects. Pai'Orin does not, however involve herself in fights, preferring to hide than to risk getting hurt.

Metal Crafter - Phlegah is able to craft chains, amulets, necklaces, collars, rings and other similar trinkets out of a variety of different metals. She either sells these to her fellow orcs for money, or she adorns her own body with them. Her work is acknowledged by her master crafter and customers alike as being exceptional, finely crafted and exquisite.

Weaknesses
Single Minded - she really only focuses on one task at a time. While this means she completes each task to the best of her ability, it also means she can become unaware of changes around her. Phlegah can also be slower in acquiring skils in magic, crafting or other endeavours because of her desire to get her particular task completed perfectly.

Hot Headed - Like the element she studies, Phlegah is prone to violent and sudden outbursts. At these times her voice becomes clipped and raises an octave or two and her eyes seem to flash dangerously. When she gets like this, she often says things without thinking which are later regretted, and her spells run the risk of quickly getting out of control and damaging people, animals, plants or property. She is working on controlling this anger so that there is less of a risk of this damage occurring. Consequently, she goes and apologises for them once a suitable period of time has passed.

Doesn't like the cold - Phlegah feels the cold and really finds it difficult to focus and work when it gets too cold for her. During the winter months, Phlegah dresses as warmly as possible, and keeps nice and close to the flames of any fires near her. The cold tends to make her lethargic and slows down both her thought processes as well as her actions. When she is trying to cast spells, if it is too cold, she finds it hard to concentrate on the fire ounia in objects.

Female Rights - Phlegah abhors violence of any kind, especially when it is against women of any tribe or race. When she is aware of any such issues taking place, she goes out of her way to attempt to show the perpetrator the error of their ways.

Amulet - Phlegah's self confidence in her magical abilities is tied up in the possession of her amulet. Phlegah believes that it is her amulet that enables her to cast spells, inspite of the teachings of her tutors at the Ximax Academy. If she loses her amulet or if it were to get stolen, Phlegah would choose not to cast spells until she got herself a new one. As Phlegah is a metal crafter by trade, she would be able to make this new amulet straight away.

Magic
Phlegah is a level one practitioner of the school of fire magic. Her spells focus on Pyrification, the physical representation of incandescence. Phlegah tends to focus on developing her complete knowledge of each spell before moving onto the next one. As a result, she knows less magic spells then other magic users who started with her. At the same time, however, she knows all of the aspects of those spells and is less likely to suffer from spell fizzles. She finds it best to concentrate totally on what she is wanting to achieve before attempting to cast the spells.

Pai'Orin helps Phlegah with her spell casting. This orc mageling finds her companion cat helps her relax, focus her mind and concentrate on the needed spell. This helps her ensure spell fizzles are an extremely rare occurrences for her, an important factor with regards to fire magic. Phlegah's belief in her magic is tied up in the possession of her ruby inlaid amulet that she wears. She has worn the amulet prior to starting at the Ximax Academy and believes that it helps her in her spell casting efforts and in her efforts to honour the Everbright. In addition, her belief in the K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha would suggest that she is worthy of more respect and honour as a result of being able to unearth more of her inner power.

The earliest spell mastered by Phlegah was Flame Control. This spell is used to make her more attuned to the fire ounia in objects, such as metal, which she is working on at the time. She needs to be touching what it is she wants to make hotter.

After achieving mastery of Flame Control, this orcess focused on Quell Flame, a spell which enabled her to weaken the fire ounia in objects. This allowed for spell fizzles to be controlled and eventually put out through the application of water, and for items being crafted to be at the right temperature. Phlegah places her hand around the flame, and concentrates on the object in order to quell the flame. Phlegah no longer needs to use ashes to assist in the casting of this spell, but she carries some just in case something goes wrong for her.

After being able to control and quell flames, the spell of Rise Flame was Phlegah's next point of study. For this spell, Phlegah had to have a flammable object close at hand on which to focus her attention. Rise flame strengthens the fire ounía in a targeted object and at the same time increasing the heat property in the object as well. This is a very handy spell, especially when she's working or studying and the fire has gone out. Phlegah needs to concentrate on the object and have her hand around it before this spell takes effect.

Phlegah has recently mastered Glowing Hands, the level one manifestation of Searing. Phlegah is not only able to strengthen the fire ounía in her hands, she is able to stop the fire ounía's desire to strengthen and grow and become uncontrolled and destructive. With this spell, she is able to more quickly heat metal that she is working on to a suitable temperature for her metal crafting.

Now that she has mastered Glowing Hands, Phlegah has reluctantly moved on to learning Sparkling Stream. Phlegah considers this spell to be a waste of time and energy, as it doesn't have a practical use in her work as a crafter.

History
Phlegah is the only child of Mogh and Lursa Sphirm, a pair of Ximaxian fire mages. Her early years were fairly typical of the Volkek-Oshra, and her parents encouraged Phlegah to become a member of the Everbright Cult and honour Anilya. Her parents demonstrated this honouring through constant and ongoing praise and worship towards the Everbright, regular visits to the statue of the Everbright in the catacombs and the Red Tower and discussion and observation of the two Celebrations undertaken to remember and celebrate the Everbright.

The orc mageling was taught to read and write by her parents when she was still a young orc. This was in anticipation and preparation of her entry into the school of fire when she was fifteen. She was accepted into the fire school and worked hard and diligently at her studies. She found the study enjoyable. She liked learning the theories of magic and debating the issues with her fellow students, and even, on occasions, her instructors. This did not endear her to all of her instructors, or all of her fellow students ... there were some, however, such as her Magical Theories Instructor who welcomed the debates with Phlegah.

There were some concerns, however. This mageling proved to be rather slow in mastering the simplest of spells, taking three and four times as long as some of her fellow classmates. This raised deep concerns amongst the instructors at the Fire School, as they believed she did not have the aptitude to do the magic. On speaking with her, it was discovered she understood the theories behind the spells, she just wasn't mastering the practical aspects for some reason.

As a dedicated and hard working member of the Volkek-Oshra community of Ximax, Phlegah became apprenticed to a craftsman just prior to her joining the Fire School at Ximax. Her master specialised in making and enchanting small objects out of gold, silver and other similar objects. The enchanting of the objects would take a lifetime to master, and so Phlegah simply crafted the objects, using tools provided to her by her master. She started crafting items such as bracelets, collars, necklaces, rings, amulets and other simple objects. Phlegah was quite slow at the work, and her instructor thought it was because she was lazy or not understanding. One of her first items was a golden amulet that she hand crafted and inlaid with a ruby. Hanging it around her neck, prior to casting any spells, Phlegah came to believe that it was what enabled her to cast magic, despite the teachings of her instructors, that it wouldn't make a difference.

In both aspects of her life, Phlegah was found wanting and was worried she was going to be drummed out of the school of magic and out of her employment. She knew both would come with a stigma not only for herself, but also for her parents. She was understanding it all ... she was just wanting to do as good a job on each item as possible and with each spell as possible. She wanted to be the best she could be, as both an orc and as a woman, and in the two aspects of her life. She also saw this perfection as her way of paying honour to her belief in the Everbright and in the K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha. She took the early talks in both crafting and fire magic regarding accidents to heart and was determined not to allow either a failure in her spellcrafting or apprenticeship result in injuries to herself, or anyone else.

Her magical instructors as well as her crafting instructor came to this realisation after they studied what she was doing. Her spells and items were crafted well, she took detailed notes, she made sure all the safety practices were observed and she ensured the finest materials, and the exact measurements of materials and reagents were used in her work. While most of her classmates were now learning the elements of level two magic, she was able to achieve greater control over the simplest spells of the first level, and in time her hard work and dedication paid off for her. She was also able to use these spells in her work as a crafter ... controlling the flames she needed, making sure they were hot enough for the metal, but not too hot so her work wouldn't be destroyed. Her assorted items were admired for their craftsmanship and quality, which in turn brought more work in for the crafter who employed her ... although people wished she would work faster, her work was achieving pleasing results.

At times, Phlegah was teased by some of her fellow students due to the slow rate at which she is gaining magical spells. This provoked a passionate and fiery response from this orc mageling, in which angry words were spoken and blows exchanged. The orcess began to feel hot under the collar, and she came to realise it was more than her simply getting angry, but rather she was increasing the fire ounia around her. When she realised what was happening, she calmed herself down and was pleased to note her neck returned to normal. Phlegah would later on feel disappointed by these outbursts, and in time she began to control them better, although she would always have a 'fiery' temper. The orc maiden started to work on ways to better control her anger so that she wouldn't hurt people, plants, animals or property during one of her outbursts. A key change for her was the gift she received soon after.

During her fifteenth year of life, Phlegah was given a gift by her favourite instructors, a husband and wife pairing of wizards. It was a rose furred, violet eyed Ximax cat, named Pai'Orin by Phlegah. Phlegah instantly fell in love with the cat, and happily took her home. Phlegah promised her parents she'd care for Pai, and she was true to her words. If anything, she cared for Pai'Orin a bit too well, as the cat gradually became fatter and fatter. Phlegah has been questioned numerous times how she arrived at Pai'Orin, as it wasn't an elven name. The orc fire mage simply said she liked the way the name sounded and flowed from her lips.

Pai'Orin's purring, meowing and rubbing against Phlegah's legs were appreciated by Phlegah and tended to calm her down and help her think clearly when focusing on her spells or her work as a crafter. Phlegah was startled one day when she got a tingling sensation in her head, and then the picture of Pai'Orin and food. She looked into Pai's eyes and realised with a start it was Pai'Orin who had sent her the image. Again she got the same image, and this time, she got food out for Pai'Orin who ate it quickly.

In the years to come, Phlegah came to dote on Pai'Orin more and more and kept on feeding the cat. The cat depended on Phlegah and in turn kept Phlegah company while the orc studied magic and practiced the different items she was crafting. One of the first items crafted by Phlegah after Pai'Orin came into her life was the gem studded collar Phlegah made for Pai'Orin. Phlegah was happy with her life, such as it was. She slowly moved onto more intricate objects to craft and her control over the physical aspects of fire improved. Her control over the fire in objects helped her in her crafting as she was better able to keep metals at the correct temperature for what she was wanting to do.

During her sixteenth year, Phlegah lost her amulet. She was distraught and lost all confidence in her ability to cast magic. She had made her amulet and inlaid the ruby in it prior to her starting at the Ximax Academy, and so had always worn it while casting magic spells. She eventually found it and put it on again. Her confidence returned and she returned to casting spells once more.

At around eighteen, when Phlegah was finally getting around to studying and mastering Glowing Hands, debates flared up about females and males. It turned out some women had been taken advantage of sexually, physically and emotionally, and there was a debate about whether the actions were justified. The debates became quite heated and emotional and Phlegah was drawn into them. Phlegah made her points precisely and heatedly, women were just as good as men, and deserved as much respect as men. This belief began to drive her, a belief in justice for all, regardless of race, tribe or sex.

Phlegah continued to work hard at her work as a crafter and at her training as a fire mage. She continued to develop her beliefs about gender and racial equity and her faith and dedication to the Everbright grew stronger. She also continued to feed Pai'Orin a lot of food and her companion cat became fatter and fatter. That is where she'd be found today, in Ximax working to improve her skills in Fire Magic and in the arts of crafting precious metals into various trinkets and items of jewellry. Recently, a team of researchers from the Compendium in New Santhalon came to Ximax, and she found one of the team, a red haired young human to be rather ... interesting to talk to. His interest in the Cult of the Everbright also drew him to her.

She has recently been sent by her master metal crafter to take their goods to Naios, Caelum, Bardavos and elsewhere in Santharia. As she is an orc, she raises her hood above her head and she walks around in the relatively safety that provides her, as her features are somewhat shaded and hidden. She is well aware of the general populace's feelings towards orcs and she has no desire to 'inflame' the situation. Besides, there is that red haired young human that she wants to find again.

Focus Object
Amulet - One of Phlegah's first items was a hand crafted golden amulet, inlaid with a bright red ruby. The amulet is rectangular and measures four nailsbreadths in length and three nailsbreadths in width. The ruby has a diameter of two nailsbreadths and is inlaid into the middle of the amulet. The amulet has etchings in it that appear to be flame, centered around the ruby. A thin, brown coloured leather necklace tie the amulet around her neck.

Belongings
- Crafting Tools
- Changes of Clothes (robes, shirt, trousers)
- Boots
- Belt with pouches holding her money, tools and reagents for spell casting
- hairbraids
- Maps and Scrolls
- Parchment and Quills
- Small statue of Anilya the Everbright
- Pack containing food for herself and Pai'Orin

Familiar
Pai'Orin's CD (http://www.santharia.com/adv/index.php?topic=7062.msg264770#msg264770)
Phlegah was given a Ximax Cat named Pai'Orin between five and six years ago. She loves this cat to distraction, pampers her outrageously and feeds her excessive amounts of food. Like all Ximax cats, Pai'Orin has violet eyes and pink fur and has the ability to communicate telepathically with Phlegah. The overfeeding together with Pai'Orin's innate laziness has resulted in Pai'Orin becoming rather fat.

And now she's finished!

Yay!

Comments welcome now!

Name - Phlegah Sphirm

Age - 20

Sex - Female

Race - Orc

Tribe - Volkek-Oshra

Occupation - Apprentice Crafter Perhaps another word is required here. Crafting, as it stands, still encompasses a wide range of materials (bone, pottery, metal, stone and wood among them, to say nothing of shiny rocks.)

Title - Crafty Spellcrafter

Magic Level - 1

Overview - Phlegah is not an accomplished mage by any stretch of the imagination. She attempts to understand each aspect of a spell before moving onto the next part of it. She has carried this perfectionism over into other aspects of her life, including her job of crafting trinkets of various kinds. Phlegah was given Pai'Orin, a Ximax cat, which has been useful as both a companion and as a focus for her spellcrafting efforts.

Appearance
Height - 2 Ped, 2 Nailsbreadths

Weight - 1 Pygge, 2 Hebs, 1 Hafeb, 3 Ods

Eye Colour -  Aeruillin Red

Hair Colour - Adlemirene with some highlights of Cinnebrown If memory serves, Cinnabrown has an A in it. and other lighter browns through it

Physical Appearance
Phlegah is definitely a female. She has curves in all the right places and her arms and legs are slender, though not as slender as those of an elven or human female. Her skin is brown, almost the same brown as eophran. Her eyes are a deep red and they seem to flash with the ferocity of a flame when she is feeling strongly emotional about something.

As well as clearly being a female, Phlegah is also clearly an orc. The only place she has any hair on her body is on her head, and this hair reaches down to below her shoulder blades. Below the shoulderblades is still quite a bit of space. How far below is this going? There's quite a difference between ankle or even waist length hair and a few centimetres past those shoulder blades. Her hair is brown in colour, naturally adlemirene with some cinnebrownSee earlier comment on spelling and lighter shades of brown through it. It is kept out of her face with a hairband. Her ears have the pointed quality common to elves and orcs, although like other orcs, her ears are larger than those of an elf. Her nose is large and almost snoutlike in its shape, although this, and her ears add, rather than detract, from her looks. Her lips are often touched by a smile, and reveals the teeth that further identifies her as an orc.  Those of blessedly unfamiliar with orcs might not know exactly what it is about an orcish smile that indicates the race of it's owner.

At just over two peds tall, she is tall for an orc, and her height is accentuated by her long, slender legs. She carries her frame well, and although she isn't muscular, her body is toned, neither fat nor skinny. The only thing that mars her mostly perfect skin is a star shaped scar on her right hand, the result of a miscalculation on her part while heating the gold to make amulets.

Clothes
Like most of the orcs of the Volkek-Oshra, Phlegah wears a bright red hooded robe that almost reaches the ground. The way that this robe has been weaved with different shades of red fabric gives the impression that it is made of fire. Beneath her robe, she wears a simple red tunic and brown pair of trousers. On her feet are a pair of brown leather boots that she acquired in Ximax from one of the clothing stores.

Phlegah wears a simple leather belt with the coat-of-arms of the Volkek-Oshra emblazoned on its buckle around her waist and beneath her robe. Various pouches hang from this belt. One of the pouches is her money pouch, another holds the tools of her trade, and the rest hold the reagents that she uses in her spells.

Around her neck, on a thin leather necklace, hangs a golden amulet that Phlegah made herself. On both sides of her amulet, Phlegah etched the appearance of flames.

A red headband ties her brown hair out of her eyes and the rest of her face. Phlegah's headband is covered in bright red beads designed to give the headband the appearance of a flame. Phlegah is never seen in public without her headband.

Personality
Passion, emotion, volatility and perfectionism are all key components of Phlegah's personality. She is passionate about life, about being an orc, about being a woman, about her work and about practicing her skills as a mage. She is currently striving to become better at her magic skills, it is an ongoing process that is tied in with the other aspects of her personality. She exudes a confidence, a never say die attitude and a calmness to the outside world.

Beneath the surface of Phlegah's apparently calm exterior lies an emotional interior. A very small change in the outside environment can lead to a sudden change in Phlegah's emotional state and she can be laughing, crying, screaming or trembling at the drop of a hat. This volatility is due to her being an orc ... and a female. Cruelty, intolerance, persecution and punishment that is unjust results in a particularly angry reaction from Phlegah, especially if it is against females of any race. At these times, she strikes out, often without thinking. Normally, however, her actions are well thought out and aimed at producing the best effort possible.

Phlegah's motto is 'if it isn't done well, it isn't worth doing'. Whatever task she is doing at any time gets all of her focus and attention. This means that when she is focused ... really focused on something that she is working on, other things can be forgotten by her. While this ensures her work as a crafter is of high quality, it also means that she can become aware of other things that are going on around her.

Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
Fire Mage - Level 1: Phlegah is trained in the Ximax school of fire magic. So far, she only has experience with the level one aspects of sphere one spells. These spell are mostly of use to her in her role of a crafter as they can help modify the fire cár’áll within the objects she uses in the crafting process.

Read and Write - Phlegah was trained to read and write when she began her mage training. She can read and write Tharian, which is of help to her in her mage studies and when engaging with merchants and others around the city of Ximax. Phlegah can also read and write very basic Styrash, just as it relates to her mage studies.  While the explanation here is good, perhaps a cursory explanation of Phleagh's ability with the elven language might be in order. I assume she can't speak the language.

Perfectionist - Whether it is her magic, her work as a crafter or any other task that she's working on, Phlegah does it to the best of her ability. Her crafted items are always of exceptional quality. This perfectionism also means that she won't move onto a new spell until she has fully mastered and understands the spell that she is currently working on.

Pai'Orin - Phlegah has the companionship of a Ximax cat that she found three years ago. Phlegah called the cat Pai'Orin because she liked the sound that made. The purring of Pai'Orin, and the cat rubbing herself against Phlegah's legs calms and comforts Phlegah when the orcess is emotional and angry. Whenever trouble is around, Pai'Orin goes and hides, and so is of no use to Phlegah in a fight.

Crafter - Phlegah is skilled in crafting chains, amulets, necklaces, collars, rings and other similar trinkets. She either sells these to her fellow orcs for money, or she adorns her own body with them.

Styrash and Thergerim - Due to the intermingling of races at Ximax, and the fact that Styrash is used in many of the formulae used by mages, Phlegah is able to speak a smattering of Styrash. This is limited to the Styrash used in the spells. She is able to understand Styrash spoken by others if they are speaking slowly or if they are speaking the words from spells she knows. Phlegah is able to tell if someone is talking at her in Thergerim due to the small number of dwarfs she has encountered at Ximax. She is not able to understand Thergerim or speak this language herself.  Seems to be in order here. I can't really find any issue with the contents of this particular section, other than the language strengths being included together.

Weaknesses
Single Minded - she really only focuses on one task at a time. While this means she does that thing to the best of her ability, it also means that she can become unaware of things that change around her. It also means that she can be slower at picking up skills in magic or crafting because of her desire to get things right the first time.

Hot Headed - Like the element she studies, Phlegah is prone to violent and sudden outbursts. At these times her voice becomes clipped and raises an octave or two and her eyes seem to flash dangerously. When she gets like this, she often says things without thinking that she later regrets and feels she needs to apologise for.

Doesn't like the cold - Phlegah feels the cold and really finds it difficult to focus and work when it gets too cold for her. During the winter months, Phlegah dresses as warmly as possible, and keeps nice and close to the flames of any fires near her. The cold tends to make her lethargic.  A little more detail here might be in order I'd rather not see it simply left at lethargic. Does Phleagh simply move slower in thought or does it extend to actual slowness of movement as well?]

Female Rights - Phlegah abhors violence of any kind, especially when it is against women of any tribe or race. When she is aware of any such issues taking place, she goes out of her way to attempt to show the perpetrator the error of their ways.

This bugs me a little, but I'd call it balanced.

Magic
Phlegah is a level one practitioner of the school of fire magic. Her spells focus on Pyrification, the physical representation of incandescence. Phlegah tends to focus on developing her complete knowledge of each spell before moving onto the next one. As a result, she knows less magic spells then other magic users who started with her. At the same time, however, she knows all of the aspects of those spells and is less likely to suffer from spell fizzles. She finds it best to concentrate totally on what she is wanting to achieve before attempting to cast the spells.

Pai'Orin helps Phlegah with her spell casting. This orc mageling finds that her companion cat helps her relax, focus her mind and concentrate on the spell that is needed. This helps her ensure that spell fizzles are an extremely rare occurrences for her, an important factor with regards to fire magic.

The earliest spell that Phlegah mastered was Flame Control. Pai'Orin uses this spell to make herself more attuned to the fire ounia in objects, such as metal which she is working on at the time. She needs to be touching what it is she wants to make hotter.

After achieving mastery of Flame Control, this orcess focused on Quell Flame, a spell which enabled her to reduce the fire ounia in objects, allowing for spell fizzles to be controlled and eventually put out through the application of water, and for items being crafted to be at the right temperature. Phlegah places her hand around the flame, and concentrates on the object in order to quell the flame. Phlegah no longer needs to use ashes to assist in the casting of this spell, but she carries some just in case something goes wrong for her.

After being able to control and quell flames, the spell of Rise Flame was Phlegah's next point of study. For this spell, Phlegah had to have a flamable object close at hand on which to focus her attention. Rise flame intensifies the fire ounía in a targetted object and at the same time increased the heat in the object as well. This is a very handy spell, especially when she's working or studying and the fire has gone out. Phlegah needs to concentrate on the object and have her hand around it before this spell takes effect.

Phlegah is currently working on the spell Searing. While Phlegah is able to raise the fire ounia in her hands, she is unable to control it for long. She continues to work on achieving the desired results with this spell.

As she is still attempting to gain control over the Searing spell, Phlegah has yet to move on to Sparkling Stream as yet. For the most part, she sees that spell as a waste of time and energy, as it doesn't have a practical use in her work as a crafter.

History
Phlegah is the only child of Mogh and Lursa Sphirm, a pair of Ximaxian fire mages. Her early years were fairly typical of the Volkek-Oshra and she was taught to read and write by her parents when she was still a young orc. This was in anticipation and preparation of her entry into the school of fire when she was fifteen. She was accepted into the fire school and worked hard and diligently at her studies. She found the study enjoyable. She liked learning the theories of magic and debating the issues with her fellow students, and even, on occasions, her instructors. This did not endear her to all of her instructors, or all of her fellow students ... there were some, however, such as her Magical Theories Instructor who welcomed the debates with Phlegah.

There were some concerns, however. This mageling proved to be rather slow in mastering the simplest of spells, taking three and four times as long as some of her fellow classmates. This raised deep concerns amongst the instructors at the Fire School, as they were concerned that she did not have the aptitude to do the magic. On speaking with her, it was discovered that she understood the theories behind the spells, she just wasn't mastering the practical aspects for some reason.

As a dedicated and hard working member of the Volkek-Oshra community of Ximax, Phlegah became apprenticed to a craftsman at this same time. She started crafting items such as bracelets, collars, necklaces, rings, amulets and other simple objects. Phlegah was quite slow at the work, and her instructor thought it was because she was lazy or not understanding.

In both aspects of her life, Phlegah was found wanting and was worried that she was going to be drummed out of the school of magic and out of her craft. She knew that would come with a stigma not only for herself, but also for her parents. She was understanding it all ... she was just wanting to do as good a job on each item as possible and with each spell as possible. She wanted to be the best she could be, as both an orc and as a woman, and in the two aspects of her life. She took the early talks in both crafting and fire magic regarding accidents to heart and was determined not to allow either a failure in her spellcrafting or apprenticeship result in injuries to herself, or anyone else.

Her magical instructors as well as her crafting instructor came to this realisation after they studied what she was doing. Her spells and items were crafted well, she took detailed notes, she made sure that all the safety practices were observed and she ensured the finest materials, and the exact measurements of materials and reagents were used in her work. While most of her classmates were now learning the elements of level two magic, she was able to achieve greater control over the simplest spells of the first level, and in time her hard work and dedication paid off for her. She was also able to use these spells in her work as a crafter ... controlling the flames she needed, making sure they were hot enough for the metal, but not too hot so that her work wouldn't be destroyed. Her assorted items that were crafted were admired and that in turn brought more work in for the crafter that employed her ... although people wished she would work faster, her work was achieving pleasing results.

At times, Phlegah was teased by some of her fellow students due to the slow rate at which she is gaining magical spells. This provoked a passionate and fiery response from this orc mageling, in which angry words were spoken and blows exchanged. Phlegah would later on feel disappointed by these outbursts, and in time she began to control them better. A key change for her was the gift she received.

During her fifteenth year of life, Phlegah was given a gift by her favourite instructors, a husband and wife pairing of wizards. It was a rose furred, violet eyed Ximax cat, that Phlegah called Pai'Orin. Phlegah instantly fell in love with the cat, and happily took her home. Phlegah promised her parents that she'd care for Pai, and she was true to her words. If anything, she cared for Pai'Orin a bit too well, as the cat gradually became fatter and fatter. Any particular significance to the name? I'd hesitate to say that it's not in Styrash.

Pai'Orin's purring, meowing and rubbing against Phlegah's legs were appreciated by Phlegah and tended to calm her down and help her think clearly when focusing on her spells or her work as a crafter. Phlegah was startled one day when she got a tingling sensation in her head, and then the picture of Pai'Orin and food. She looked into Pai's eyes and realised with a start that it was Pai'Orin who had done that to her. Again she got the same image, and this time, she got food out for Pai'Orin who ate it quickly.

In the years to come, Phlegah came to dote on Pai'Orin more and more and kept on feeding the cat. The cat depended on Phlegah and in turn kept Phlegah company while the orc studied magic and practiced the different items she was crafting. One of the first items crafted by Phlegah after Pai'Orin came into her life was the gem studded collar that Phlegah made for Pai'Orin. Phlegah was happy with her life, such as it was. She slowly moved onto more intricate objects to craft and her control over the physical aspects of fire improved. Her control over the fire in objects helped her in her crafting as she was better able to keep metals at the correct temperature for what she was wanting to do.

At around eighteen, when Phlegah was finally getting around to studying and mastering Glowing Hands, debates flared up about females and males. It turned out that some women had been taken advantage of sexually, physically and emotionally, and there was a debate about whether the actions were justified. The debates became quite heated and emotional and Phlegah was drawn into them. Phlegah made her points precisely and heatedly, women were just as good as men, and deserved as much respect as men. This belief began to drive her, a belief in justice for all, regardless of race, tribe or sex. I'm wondering if anything more that simply talk came of this? Glowing Hands as I recall can be a rather disfiguring spell if applied properly. You may want to list searing, since that is what the spell is called on the site (glowing hands being the first level application).

Phlegah continued to work hard at her work as a crafter and at her training as a fire mage. She continued to develop her beliefs about gender and racial equity. She also continued to feed Pai'Orin a lot of food and her companion cat became fatter and fatter. This isn't quite seeming to be a good close. There's a lack of finality here, like there should be a bit more here.

Belongings
Crafting Tools
Changes of Clothes (robes, shirt, trousers)
Boots
Hand crafted Amulet on a leather necklace. The amulet has the appearance of flames etched into it
Belt with pouches that hold her money, tools and reagents for spell casting
hairbraids
Maps and Scrolls
Parchment and Quills
Pack containing food and water for herself and Pai'Orin  Wouldn't the water leak out? Or at least get into everything else?

Familiar
Pai'Orin's CD
Phlegah was given a Ximax Cat named Pai'Orin between five and six years ago. She loves this cat to distraction, pampers her outrageously and feeds it excessive amounts of food. Like all Ximax cats, Pai'Orin has violet eyes and pink fur and has the ability to communicate telepathically with Phlegah. The overfeeding together with Pai'Orin's innate laziness has resulted in Pai'Orin becoming rather fat.


The gripes I could find all appear to be fairly minor Phleagh, mostly a question of you seeming to have stopped writing a little too early. Though I'm surprised you of all people could fail to spell a Santharian colour properly. Shame on you.

Not much to pick out, fairly minor things. Fix them up and you should be on your want to the archives soon.

~First Approval~

Thank you for the approval, Kali.

Now I've finally finished integrating your comments as well as those of Valan. Or at least I think I have :D

I've taken out the volatility being attributed to her as a female, and I've focused more on the orc side of things with that. I tried to come up with some kind of mental illness for her, but was unsuccessful.

As I read through the magic information, I felt that people needed to have their minds calm for their magic to do what they wanted it to do. I am unsure if that is correct or not, but that was the main purpose behind me having Pai'Orin in as a strength ... as a way for her to calm herself before casting the spells.

I also addressed Valan's comments regarding the ending of the history section ... I can see where he's coming from, and added a couple more sentences to that ... my ultimate aim with this one is to make her a home in the catacombs beneath Ximax :D

Anyway, thanks again for the approval, Kali ... I know that Deklitch won't approve me ... he said he didn't like my hairclip or something like that, silly Dek!

Hello Phlegah! Nice CD you have here. After reading your magic section I would like to point out some minor errors that are easily addressed. My comments shall be in the ever-ugly color: orange.

Just some minor points, that I hope hurries your second approval.
~Bows gracefully and departs.~

Thank you for picking up those points, Gáyle, I've made those changes.

Any and all changes will be made in orange!
The primary purpose behind this character to to do up a house for her in the catacombs beneath Ximax.

Name - Phlegah Sphirm

Age - 20

Sex - Female

Race - Orc

Tribe - Volkek-Oshra

Occupation - Apprentice Metal Crafter

Title - Crafty Spellcrafter

Magic Level - 1

Overview - Phlegah is not an accomplished mage by any stretch of the imagination. She attempts to understand each aspect of a spell before moving onto the next part of it. She has carried this perfectionism over into other aspects of her life, including her job of crafting trinkets of various kinds. This results in a greater understanding, but less variety, of spells of which she is aware. Phlegah was given Pai'Orin, a Ximax cat, which has been useful as both a companion and as a focus for her spellcrafting efforts.

Appearance
Height - 2 Ped, 2 Nailsbreadths

Weight - 1 Pygge, 2 Hebs, 1 Hafeb, 3 Ods

Eye Colour -  Aeruillin Red

Hair Colour - Adlemirene with some highlights of cinnabrown and other lighter browns through it

Physical Appearance
Phlegah is definitely a female. She has curves in all the right places and her arms and legs are slender, though not as slender as those of an elven or human female. Her skin is brown, almost the same brown as eophran. Her eyes are a deep red and they seem to flash with the ferocity of a flame when she is feeling quite emotional about something.

As well as clearly being a female, Phlegah is also clearly an orc. The only place she has any hair on her body is on her head, and this hair reaches halfway down her back. Her hair is brown in colour, naturally adlemirene with some cinnabrown and lighter shades of brown through it. It is kept out of her face with a hairband. Her ears have the pointed quality common to elves and orcs, although like other orcs, her ears are larger than those of an elf. Her nose is large and almost snoutlike in its shape. Her lips are often touched by a smile, and reveals the sharp gleaming teeth and tusks which further identifies her as an orc.

At just over two peds, she is tall for an orc, and her height is accentuated by her long slender legs. She carries her frame well, and although she isn't muscular, her body is toned. The only blemish on her mostly perfect skin is a star shaped birthmark on her right hand.

Clothes
Like most of the orcs of the Volkek-Oshra, Phlegah wears a bright red hooded robe which almost reaches the ground. The way this robe has been weaved with different shades of red fabric gives off the impression of being made of fire. Beneath her robe, she wears a simple red tunic and brown pair of trousers. On her feet are a pair of brown leather boots she purchased from one of the clothing stores in Ximax.

Around her waist she wears a leather belt which is emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Volkek-Oshra orcs. Various pouches hang from this belt. One of the pouches is her money pouch, another holds the tools of her trade, and the rest hold the reagents used in her spells.

Around her neck, on a thin leather necklace, hangs a golden amulet made by Phlegah. On both sides of her amulet, Phlegah etched the appearance of flames. A red headband ties her brown hair out of her eyes and the rest of her face. Phlegah's headband is covered in bright red beads designed to give the headband the appearance of a flame. Phlegah is never seen in public without her headband.

Personality
Passion, emotion, volatility and perfectionism are all key components of Phlegah's personality. She is passionate about life, about being an orc, about being a woman, about her work and about practicing her skills as a mage. She is currently striving to become better at her magic skills. It is an ongoing process tied in with the other aspects of her personality. She exudes a confidence, a never say die attitude and a calmness to the outside world.

Beneath the surface of Phlegah's apparently calm exterior lies an emotional interior. A very small change in the outside environment can lead to a sudden change in Phlegah's emotional state and she can be laughing, crying, screaming or trembling at the drop of a hat. Unjust cruelty, intolerance, persecution or punishment results in a particularly angry reaction from Phlegah, especially if it is against females of any race. At these times, she strikes out, often without thinking. Phlegah recognises this anger as a potential problem for her in her spellcrafting and is terrified of the prospect of her spells getting away from her and doing real harm to herself, Pai'Orin, others or property. She does her best to ensure she is in full control of her anger at all times, and that her actions are well thought out and aimed at producing the best effort possible.

Phlegah's motto is 'if it isn't done well, it isn't worth doing'. Whatever task she is doing at any time gets all of her focus and attention. When this orc maiden is focused ... really focused on any task, other things can be forgotten by her. While this ensures her work as a crafter is of high quality, it also means she can become unaware of other things taking place around her.

Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
Fire Mage - Level 1: Phlegah is trained in the Ximax school of fire magic. So far, she only has experience with the level one aspects of sphere one spells. These spell are mostly of use to her in her role of a crafter as they can help modify the fire cár’áll within the objects she uses in the crafting process.

Literacy - When Phlegah commenced her mage training, she learned how to read and write Tharian and Styrash. Of these two languages, she is more accomplished with Tharian, which she is able to use in her daily life around the city of Ximax. She is far more limited in her ability to read and write Styrash, as her training in the elven language is limited to her mage studies. With the intermingling of races at Ximax, Phlegah has also learnt to speak Styrash in addition to Tharian. Phlegah's knowledge of spoken Styrash is limited to the words she needs to know for her magic spells, she is unable to carry out a general conversation in Styrash. If she is being spoken to in Styrash, she is only able to understand them if they are speaking slowly and if they are using words from her known spells. Her association with dwarves in Ximax means she can identify when someone is speaking to her in Thergerim. She is unable to understand what they are saying to her, nor can she speak the dwarven language herself.

Perfectionist - Whether it is her magic, her work as a crafter or any other task in which she's engaged, Phlegah does it to the best of her ability. Her crafted items are always of exceptional quality. Her mastery of the level one fire spells exceeds most of her peers with a similar skill level. A consequence of this perfectionism is her refusal to move onto a new spell or other task until she has fully mastered and understands her current spell or task.

Pai'Orin - Phlegah has the companionship of a Ximax cat which she found three years ago. Phlegah called the cat Pai'Orin because those words sounded nice to her. The purring of Pai'Orin, and the cat rubbing herself against Phlegah's legs calms and comforts Phlegah when the orcess is emotional and angry. This, in turn, helps Phlegah to focus on her spell crafting and concentrate on the fire cár’áll in objects. Pai'Orin does not, however involve herself in fights, preferring to hide than to risk getting hurt.

Metal Crafter - Phlegah is able to craft chains, amulets, necklaces, collars, rings and other similar trinkets out of a variety of different metals. She either sells these to her fellow orcs for money, or she adorns her own body with them. Her work is acknowledged by her master crafter and customers alike as being exceptional, finely crafted and exquisite.

Weaknesses
Single Minded - she really only focuses on one task at a time. While this means she completes each task to the best of her ability, it also means she can become unaware of changes around her. Phlegah can also be slower in acquiring skils in magic, crafting or other endeavours because of her desire to get her particular task completed perfectly.

Hot Headed - Like the element she studies, Phlegah is prone to violent and sudden outbursts. At these times her voice becomes clipped and raises an octave or two and her eyes seem to flash dangerously. When she gets like this, she often says things without thinking which are later regretted, and her spells run the risk of quickly getting out of control and damaging people, animals, plants or property. She is working on controlling this anger so that there is less of a risk of this damage occurring. Consequently, she goes and apologises for them once a suitable period of time has passed.

Doesn't like the cold - Phlegah feels the cold and really finds it difficult to focus and work when it gets too cold for her. During the winter months, Phlegah dresses as warmly as possible, and keeps nice and close to the flames of any fires near her. The cold tends to make her lethargic and slows down both her thought processes as well as her actions. When she is trying to cast spells, if it is too cold, she finds it hard to concentrate on the fire ouinaounia in objects.

Female Rights - Phlegah abhors violence of any kind, especially when it is against women of any tribe or race. When she is aware of any such issues taking place, she goes out of her way to attempt to show the perpetrator the error of their ways.

Magic
Phlegah is a level one practitioner of the school of fire magic. Her spells focus on Pyrification, the physical representation of incandescence. Phlegah tends to focus on developing her complete knowledge of each spell before moving onto the next one. As a result, she knows less magic spells then other magic users who started with her. At the same time, however, she knows all of the aspects of those spells and is less likely to suffer from spell fizzles. She finds it best to concentrate totally on what she is wanting to achieve before attempting to cast the spells.

Pai'Orin helps Phlegah with her spell casting. This orc mageling finds her companion cat helps her relax, focus her mind and concentrate on the needed spell. This helps her ensure spell fizzles are an extremely rare occurrences for her, an important factor with regards to fire magic.

The earliest spell mastered by Phlegah was Flame Control. This spell is used to make her more attuned to the fire ounia in objects, such as metal, which she is working on at the time. She needs to be touching what it is she wants to make hotter.

After achieving mastery of Flame Control, this orcess focused on Quell Flame, a spell which enabled her to weaken the fire ounia in objects. This allowed for spell fizzles to be controlled and eventually put out through the application of water, and for items being crafted to be at the right temperature. Phlegah places her hand around the flame, and concentrates on the object in order to quell the flame. Phlegah no longer needs to use ashes to assist in the casting of this spell, but she carries some just in case something goes wrong for her.

After being able to control and quell flames, the spell of Rise Flame was Phlegah's next point of study. For this spell, Phlegah had to have a flammable object close at hand on which to focus her attention. Rise flame strengthens the fire ounía in a targeted object and at the same time increasing the heat property in the object as well. This is a very handy spell, especially when she's working or studying and the fire has gone out. Phlegah needs to concentrate on the object and have her hand around it before this spell takes effect.

Phlegah is currently working on Glowing Hands, the level one manifestation of Searing. While Phlegah is able to strengthen the fire ounia in her hands, she is unable to control it for long. She continues to work on achieving the desired results with this spell.

As she is still attempting to gain control over this last spell, Phlegah has yet to move on to Sparkling Stream. Phlegah considers this spell to be a waste of time and energy, as it doesn't have a practical use in her work as a crafter.

History
Phlegah is the only child of Mogh and Lursa Sphirm, a pair of Ximaxian fire mages. Her early years were fairly typical of the Volkek-Oshra. She was taught to read and write by her parents when she was still a young orc. This was in anticipation and preparation of her entry into the school of fire when she was fifteen. She was accepted into the fire school and worked hard and diligently at her studies. She found the study enjoyable. She liked learning the theories of magic and debating the issues with her fellow students, and even, on occasions, her instructors. This did not endear her to all of her instructors, or all of her fellow students ... there were some, however, such as her Magical Theories Instructor who welcomed the debates with Phlegah.

There were some concerns, however. This mageling proved to be rather slow in mastering the simplest of spells, taking three and four times as long as some of her fellow classmates. This raised deep concerns amongst the instructors at the Fire School, as they believed she did not have the aptitude to do the magic. On speaking with her, it was discovered she understood the theories behind the spells, she just wasn't mastering the practical aspects for some reason.

As a dedicated and hard working member of the Volkek-Oshra community of Ximax, Phlegah became apprenticed to a craftsman at this same time. Her master specialised in making and enchanting small objects out of gold, silver and other similar objects. The enchanting of the objects took a lifetime to master, and so Phlegah simply crafted the objects, using tools provided to her by her master. She started crafting items such as bracelets, collars, necklaces, rings, amulets and other simple objects. Phlegah was quite slow at the work, and her instructor thought it was because she was lazy or not understanding.

In both aspects of her life, Phlegah was found wanting and was worried she was going to be drummed out of the school of magic and out of her employment. She knew both would come with a stigma not only for herself, but also for her parents. She was understanding it all ... she was just wanting to do as good a job on each item as possible and with each spell as possible. She wanted to be the best she could be, as both an orc and as a woman, and in the two aspects of her life. She took the early talks in both crafting and fire magic regarding accidents to heart and was determined not to allow either a failure in her spellcrafting or apprenticeship result in injuries to herself, or anyone else.

Her magical instructors as well as her crafting instructor came to this realisation after they studied what she was doing. Her spells and items were crafted well, she took detailed notes, she made sure all the safety practices were observed and she ensured the finest materials, and the exact measurements of materials and reagents were used in her work. While most of her classmates were now learning the elements of level two magic, she was able to achieve greater control over the simplest spells of the first level, and in time her hard work and dedication paid off for her. She was also able to use these spells in her work as a crafter ... controlling the flames she needed, making sure they were hot enough for the metal, but not too hot so her work wouldn't be destroyed. Her assorted items were admired for their craftsmanship and quality, which in turn brought more work in for the crafter who employed her ... although people wished she would work faster, her work was achieving pleasing results.

At times, Phlegah was teased by some of her fellow students due to the slow rate at which she is gaining magical spells. This provoked a passionate and fiery response from this orc mageling, in which angry words were spoken and blows exchanged. The orcess began to feel hot under the collar, and she came to realise it was more than her simply getting angry, but rather she was increasing the fire ounia around her. When she realised what was happening, she calmed herself down and was pleased to note her neck returned to normal. Phlegah would later on feel disappointed by these outbursts, and in time she began to control them better, although she would always have a 'fiery' temper. The orc maiden started to work on ways to better control her anger so that she wouldn't hurt people, plants, animals or property during one of her outbursts.. A key change for her was the gift she received soon after.

During her fifteenth year of life, Phlegah was given a gift by her favourite instructors, a husband and wife pairing of wizards. It was a rose furred, violet eyed Ximax cat, named Pai'Orin by Phlegah. Phlegah instantly fell in love with the cat, and happily took her home. Phlegah promised her parents she'd care for Pai, and she was true to her words. If anything, she cared for Pai'Orin a bit too well, as the cat gradually became fatter and fatter. Phlegah has been questioned numerous times how she arrived at Pai'Orin, as it wasn't an elven name. The orc fire mage simply said she liked the way the name sounded and flowed from her lips.

Pai'Orin's purring, meowing and rubbing against Phlegah's legs were appreciated by Phlegah and tended to calm her down and help her think clearly when focusing on her spells or her work as a crafter. Phlegah was startled one day when she got a tingling sensation in her head, and then the picture of Pai'Orin and food. She looked into Pai's eyes and realised with a start it was Pai'Orin who had sent her the image. Again she got the same image, and this time, she got food out for Pai'Orin who ate it quickly.

In the years to come, Phlegah came to dote on Pai'Orin more and more and kept on feeding the cat. The cat depended on Phlegah and in turn kept Phlegah company while the orc studied magic and practiced the different items she was crafting. One of the first items crafted by Phlegah after Pai'Orin came into her life was the gem studded collar Phlegah made for Pai'Orin. Phlegah was happy with her life, such as it was. She slowly moved onto more intricate objects to craft and her control over the physical aspects of fire improved. Her control over the fire in objects helped her in her crafting as she was better able to keep metals at the correct temperature for what she was wanting to do.

At around eighteen, when Phlegah was finally getting around to studying and mastering Glowing Hands, debates flared up about females and males. It turned out some women had been taken advantage of sexually, physically and emotionally, and there was a debate about whether the actions were justified. The debates became quite heated and emotional and Phlegah was drawn into them. Phlegah made her points precisely and heatedly, women were just as good as men, and deserved as much respect as men. This belief began to drive her, a belief in justice for all, regardless of race, tribe or sex.

Phlegah continued to work hard at her work as a crafter and at her training as a fire mage. She continued to develop her beliefs about gender and racial equity. She also continued to feed Pai'Orin a lot of food and her companion cat became fatter and fatter. That is where she'd be found today, in Ximax working to improve her skills in Fire Magic and in the arts of crafting precious metals into various trinkets and items of jewellry

Belongings
Crafting Tools
Changes of Clothes (robes, shirt, trousers)
Boots
Hand crafted Amulet on a leather necklace. The amulet has the appearance of flames etched into it
Belt with pouches holding her money, tools and reagents for spell casting
hairbraids
Maps and Scrolls
Parchment and Quills
Pack containing food for herself and Pai'Orin

Familiar
Pai'Orin's CD
Phlegah was given a Ximax Cat named Pai'Orin between five and six years ago. She loves this cat to distraction, pampers her outrageously and feeds it excessive amounts of food. Like all Ximax cats, Pai'Orin has violet eyes and pink fur and has the ability to communicate telepathically with Phlegah. The overfeeding together with Pai'Orin's innate laziness has resulted in Pai'Orin becoming rather fat.


I see nothing wrong here.  I trust that the magic section was approved by a magic expert.  Just one spelling error.  Other than that, I shall pass a Second Approval.  Good luck. :)

Go ahead and remove the colour so we can get you on your way!

Unwanted colour removed and ready for titling. Thanks for the approvals, Alt and Kalina and to Gayle for checking over my magic section. Thanks also to Uncle Van for his suggestions as well. An orc and her cat in the Ximax catacombs ... that has quite a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Now ... onto getting her house completed :D

Alrighty. Titled and Archived :)

Brought up as requested and set to pencil! :thumbup:

I've edited Phlegah to account for her membership of the Everbright Cult. I've used orange to indicate the changes made for this purpose. Azhira's thoughts on it would be greatly appreciated when/if she is able to do so.

Phlegah

Just one little thing in lime. :biggrin:

Well, that's all I could come up with, reading over the CD, so I give you your :pet: FIRST APPROVAL:pet:, just fix that one little thing. :)

Actually, I think you meant for Phlegah to take out 'as a', not 'as a way'.

"Her perfectionism is her way of honouring Anilya the Everbright as her patron."

Thanks Kalina and Sylvia ... I've attended to that mistake.

Phlegah

Oops, yeah, you're right Kali.  :buck:

Very nice! It's good to see an RP character involved in the Everbright Cult. Phlegah fits quite well in the cult's studies, being a fire mage, Volkek-Oshra, and female.


I would maybe arrange this sentence differently. "This results in a greater understanding, but a lesser variety of spells, that she is able to cast. Phlegah's perfectionist outlook on life is her way of honouring her patron, Anilya the Everbright. The cult surrounding Anilya's legend is said to teach that Anilya expects unwavering faith and willpower from her followers."

I know its hard to create the first CD with a background in something so new as the Everbright cult. You're doing a fine job here though!  :thumbup:


Is this gem a ruby? A true cult member would no doubt have a ruby gemstone to represent their reverence for Anilya. If not a ruby, then perhaps a garnet or red spinel. Either way, a red gem is required at a minimum. The eventual cult entry I write will probably have more to say on this.


How does Phlegah honor Anilya? The cult believes that prayers to Anilya and hard practice in magic grants her blessings. Even commoners have some to see Anilya as a source of strengths, warmth and courage. Magi who revere Anilya see her as more of a source and inspiration in their magic. Invoking Anilya when casting fire magic is said to grant the caster an extra boost of power. Anilya is revered more for her raw power, courage and strength than for her wisdom. So if Phlegah ever wants to become a powerful mage someday, she would do well to follow Anilya's example. Be brave, practice hard, fire magic is a powerful gift to be used to vanquish foes. The Fire Daughters are an example of Anilya's elite mortal guardians and perhaps Phlegah can be one someday.

Thanks Azhira, as soon as I read the entry on Anilya the Everbright, I realised I wanted Phlegah to be part of the cult.

Thanks for the suggestions, I've included all of them in the modified CD. I've taken your recommended sentences in their entirity.

Yes, I meant for the gemstone to be a ruby. :) The name was escaping my mind when I was making the changes, and I've now changed all of the instances of gemstone or red gem or red gemstone or gem to ruby throughout the entry. Should I perhaps include a bit in her history about how she found the ruby? I've included a bit now about how she got introduced to the Everbright Cult, but wonder if I should also include how she found the ruby.

I've also expressed in places about the way she honours Anilya the Everbright. They are spread throughout the CD. I wonder whether I should include a seperate section in her CD just about her practices in this regard.

I hope that my changes adequately address the points you raised and suggestions you made. The changes I made in response to your recommendations are in yellow.

Thanks again Azhira,

Phlegah

It is not required to have a separate Beliefs section. Personally, I tend to have one for some of my CDs where their belief influences their life in a large way. I do think that a separate section for you to summarize Phleglah's beliefs would be helpful in this case. Some of it being spread around seems repetitive to me.

Thank you for your advice, Azhira! :heart:

I have done as you suggested and combined it into a section on beliefs. I also read up on K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha and put that in as well.

How does that read to you now?

As I've added that extra material on the K‘ahn‘uck‘tscha, will I need both of the second round of reapprovals? I didn't change anything other than the material on Beliefs.

Just a roundabout inquiry for you Phlegah, one I hope helps you to define this character a bit more. You mention in the magic section that the amulet grants you more inner power (Will I am assuming, as will is what grants a mage strength of incantations.). Would this be akin to a focus object, something like a staff or wand would be for some casters? If so, what would the loss of it do for her castings? If its loss would hamper her in some way ... this would make a nice counter balance for the bonus gained from possession of it.

Also, since it empowers her, would it not be listed as a strength? (Defining the affect of its loss could also be used in the description of such a strength to lesson the overall impact on the S&W section. IMHO)

Just my two sans, hope this helps. :)

I'm sorry F'earn, but I'm not really understanding what you mean by a 'focus object'.

Maybe if I explain what my idea behind this is. It is an amulet she made and she put a ruby in it. It isn't actually magical or anything like that. She believes that this amulet helps her in her magic and makes it stronger. It is a belief, and she has never tried using her magic without wearing it. If she was to lose it, she'd just make herself another one ... using her skils as a metal crafter ... and until she made a new one, she wouldn't use her magic.

Would you mind explaining again what you mean?

Phlegah,

What many magi have are called objects of focus for their magic. In other words, magic is mostly dictated by willpower and a mage simply focuses on something to make a spell. What a "physical focus" does is help a mage cast a spell by simply being something they can look at.

For example, I have a few mage CDs that use staves. The staff itself is not magical, or enchanted in any way. But what my fire mage Amahad does when creating fireballs is focus on the tip of his staff and gather fire ounia around it and ignite it and release it. He uses the tip of his staff as a focus to create the fireball giving the sense that the staff casts the fireball. Of course, he could focus a fireball without the staff, but the staff is a sort of crutch that aids him and gives his eyes something to perceive while casting. Without the staff, he could still make a fireball, but he wouldn't be as effective because he relies on his staff. He believes the staff aids his abilities, but it is more a mental thing.

Other magi use different focuses. Azhira uses smooth river stones, and Shai uses a rod. In Phlegah's case, your amulet is a focus in that it gives you a sense of security to cast your spells. Without it, would you consider yourself "weaker" or more less capable? Or does it matter if you have it or not?

As I said in the previous post, she has never tried using her magic without wearing the amulet that she made. The amulet she made out of gold, without any magic involved in the making of it. If it was taken away from her, she wouldn't try to cast spells until she made another one. And as she is a metal crafter first and foremost, making a new amulet wouldn't be a problem for her.

It is worn around her neck. She therefore wouldn't be able to look at it while she is casting her magic. From what you were saying, Azhira, I gather that being able to look at it is a key part of the process. Is that correct? If so, how can it be considered a physical focus for her.

Actually, her cat helps her calm herself when she is casting her spells. And she looks at and feels the cat, so I suppose the cat would be even more of a focus for her than the amulet.

A focal object does not necessarily have to be observed during casting, the mere possession of it grants the mage a sense of safety or better said reliability in themselves. The aspects of dependency can vary immensely. Example though rare: A blind mage could use a staff or wand as a focal object. It is the presence that is a fortification for the will.

I'll quote you here to make a further point:You as the writer know if the lack of possession would influence her strength of will. As you mention in the CD, it grants her spells greater potency when cast, we as the readers can only assume that without it, something adverse would transpire. Staves, wands and such are merely common examples of focal objects and the concept could span a multitude of things, as you clearly exhibit in this CD.

Commonly human magi are the most dependent on focal objects, they are considered rare amongst elves. Orcs have never really been discussed in-depth, so there is not much precedence to weigh the numerical dependency this race shows.

Real worldly example of this concept: Father gives his son a baseball glove, tells him a random story on how 'that' glove has done exceptional things. Son then thinks, as long as he has 'that' glove he can do anything. In haste one day the family forgets the glove while in a rush to get to a tournament. The little boy loses confidence in his game because 'that' glove isn't on his hand. Does the lack of the glove change the child's skills? We as rational people know it doesn't. Yet the boys confidence is shaken and can throw his game off.

So in a parody of the above example: If Phlegah showed up for the game (Any instance she was casting a spell.) without her glove (Amulet). Would she be a bit off her game and fail (Spell Fizzle, or not have the strength of will to successfully cast.) more-so than she would if she had the glove (Amulet)?

So what exactly are you all looking for?

I really don't know how else I can explain it.

She wouldn't attempt to cast magic without the amulet.

If I remove all mention of the amulet, would that satisfy you? Honestly, it wasn't meant to be this complicated or difficult.

Remember what I explained to you, Phlegah? Just go off of that and you should be fine.

It really isn't complex Phlegh, in truth it was but a minor point. :heart:

The amulet is a wonderful addition and I am totally against you doing away with it.

What I personally would like to see is simply this, as you have already defined both aspects. The amulet listed as a strength, since it empowers her spells to be more effective. And since you mention that not owning it would limit her magic immensely, to the point of not being capable of casting. A very serious weakness for a mage right there.

I don't think it being worded that way makes the most sense. It makes it sound as if the amulet has powers, which is what started this whole misunderstanding in the first place. Especially since she won't cast magic without it, making them "more effective" isn't the point. Its casting at all.

At this point, it is a great weakness, a personal dependence on the amulet for casting. It isn't much of a strength when it has no abilities, but is simply a cheap focal object. Like Azhira said, it is like her stones or Shai's rod, they don't empower the spells but empower the caster in believing. Without it, many feel inadequate and unable.

No matter the viewpoint, it is evident that it grants her an enhanced set of focus/will. At least according to this quote. Add to this that she can not cast without possession of it and you have a very serious weakness. Possibly some light rewording here would take away from the strength garnered from it. If she is able to achieve more powerful results, it transcends a typical focal object and raises a question how it does this. I am assuming it grants her stronger will, which leads me once again to listing it as a strength. The lack of possessing it is without question a very serious weakness, that should be noted. IMHO

Which would give the amulet powers. I think this was the original quote, but it has been exaggerated through this discussion, on how it should be dealt with and hence all the confusion poor Dek is experiencing. Too many people telling him too many different things.

Perhaps just remove that instance where she gets more potent results, add a weakness, and everything should be solved.

It doesn't give the amulet powers ... the amulet gives her strength of will. Very similar to a priest holding a cross, does the cross have power? No. Does it give the priest strength of conviction? Yes. I don't see a variety of viewpoints expressed, Azhira and I have been on the same page since the discussion commenced.

The resolution you suggest is perfect Kalina, but merely noting the amulet under a strength in addition would clear it up as well. I would guess that would be Phlegh's decision to make and I shall bow out, as to not clutter her thread further. :)

No solutions or resolutions had been given to him which he understood, only confusing him more throughout the conversation. I had spoken with him in IRC about it, and explained it simply in very few words in what you two were trying to tell him. But nothing to solve the issue had been presented at the time as I felt he would be able to figure it out.


What I merely said, was what you two were saying was even confusing to me, as how you were saying it implied something completely different than what you were mostly likely meaning. The words used don't always have the meaning you believe they do, hence the confusion on such a simple matter.

Merely noting it under a strength would not solve it, as a weakness would need to be added as well, so either way, two things need to be accomplished, which ever he chooses. Not all or just one.

@Dek:

Grab me in IRC if you have any questions. :)

Where does this not imply adding it as a weakness as well? I also clearly mentioned what I would like to see. If this created confusion for her, then I apologize.

The amulet, like Azhira's river stones, are a mental thing. Like a security blanket. With them, she feels empowered. Without them, she feels weaknened and loses some amount of confidence. There is something about having a physical object of your element in your hands that mentally balances the caster. Some CDs list the focal object as a strength, but some don't. Azzy does not, but it is mentioned in her magic section only. I'd say its up to the writer to decide how much of a strength it is, or a weakness it is without it. It may be a major thing, or a small thing.

I trust I've understood it this time. I spoke with Kalina about it again in IRC and I think I picked up (finally) what people were saying.

I have
- removed the mention of it making her spells stronger
- included the amulet as a weakness (might need to give that weakness a different title)
- added an incident dealing with it in her history
- described the amulet in greater detail further down in the CD.

:clap: :clap: :clap:

Fantastic work, Dek! Your changes demonstrate that you did grasp the confusion we threw at you.  :D I particularly love the way you integrated the Everbright worship in Phlegah's life. She is a very devoted member and that is how I envisioned her members to be.

Second Approval! :nod:

Remove your color and one of us mods or admins can bump you back down.

Ok ... thanks for that, Azhira, for the approval and to Kalina for talking it through with me in IRC. Thanks to people in general for being patient with me. I've removed the unneeded colours now.

Okies. Rearchiving now :)

Going up!

Thanks for bringing Phlegah out of the archives for me, Kalina. I have corrected her Pai'Orin strength with the correct age for Pai'Orin as well as the way in which she gained Pai'Orin.

I have also updated the history section (right at the end) to bring in her interactions with Deklitch Hardin ...

Please let me know if there's any problems with my adjustments.

Phlegah.

Looks good to me, hun. Go ahead and remove the colour and we will rearchive. :)

Much obliged Kalina, colours are now removed!

Phlegah

And bumped back down!

 :D

Brought up as requested, also changed the status to work in progress :)

Thank you Irid

Ok then ... made the following changes ...

1) Upped her age to 21

2) Had her proficiency in the 2nd last level 1 spell, 'Glowing hands' increased, and had her (unhappily) learning 'Sparkling Stream'.

3) Added an extra paragraph to her history section, as she has taken to travelling around Santharia.

All changes in orange. The red that's in there is to help identify the spells.

Phlegah

Looks good to me. I approve of the magic changes. This looks like it's ready to go back into the archives to me.

Thank you Rayne. I've removed my editing colours