Height: 5' 8"
Weight: 101 lbs
Background and Story:
Ellopene is a female, anthropomorphic antelope. She originally hails from the Serengeti, before she was transported by unknown means and by unknown parties straight into the center of greater civilization. The culture shock was... fairly extreme. In her tribe, she'd been talented at the healer's arts and skilled in their application. Once that was no longer a necessary skill to have, and once she was no longer locked securely into that future, her natural curiosity drove her.
She became obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge, which she incorrectly believed to be various applications of magicks in the folklore of her tribe. Learning that they were actually more mundane explanations was a disappointment of the imagination, but didn't dampen her enthusiasm for learning. Over time and only having need of command of English, her accent has mostly disappeared. She's still fluent in Swahili, and has rudimentary grasp of several other languages, but for the most part you'll only ever hear English.
For some time, that was all that the antelope needed to feel whole, and to enjoy her place in the world. That all changed when she was reintroduced to magic - this time for real. The hippogryph
Jersey found herself naturally attracted to the antelope, and after a relatively short friendship, the magically-inclined hippogryph stole Ellopene away and over the course of months nearly remade her from top to bottom. She still looks the same, still has the same memories and personality, but not only did Jersey's labor irrevocably tie the two together, it also awoke within the antelope the spark of a vast potential.
The potential didn't last particularly long. Shortly after her (still meager) abilities became known to her, and very shortly after she'd discovered a certain... appetite that she'd lacked before, she fell prey to the dragoness
Koralia, who ended up keeping the antelope padding her flanks for longer than expected. When she was finally put back together, what little magical potential she'd gathered was nearly erased.
For nearly a year afterward, Ellopene's life was thrust back into the mundane. That is, until she ran into Koralia again. She sensed an instant connection - a piece of her soul had been lost to the dragoness's hips and not returned. A fractured soul was an obvious solution for her sudden lack of abilities, and after explaining the situation to (and spending a pleasant evening digesting) the (very) cooperative Koralia to retrieve what she'd lost, her potential was rekindled.
So stands Ellopene before you, ascendant mage. She is still a novice, and painfully so, but following her run-ins with Koralia her potential is open before her. She knows little in the way of spells or their use now, but who's to know what she'll stumble into as she goes?
Biology
Ellopene is an antelope, that much is evident by her looks. What's less evident is that she's equipped with the four-chambered stomach of most bovids. Her first and second stomachs do little except store food that hasn't been digested yet. Her third and fourth stomachs are where digestion truly kicks in. And thanks to the (fairly early) intervention of a certain kistune named
Kimmy with a penchant for exotic digestive tracts, Ellopene's stomachs are fully capable of digesting meat - alive or otherwise. Developments since that first encounter with the kitsune have seen that capability extend further to souls - though usually not on a permanent basis.
Magic and Improvement
Ellopene's magic is powerful, but is incredibly draining to use. Even the simplest spell, for a creature that was surely not built to handle the awesome arcane energies involved, would leave her exhausted to the point of collapse. To remedy that, the antelope has discovered an interesting trick that converts the stored energy in her body directly into the arcane energy needed to cast her spells. Essentially: she expends her own mass to power her magic. This isn't without its limits. Once there's nothing excess left for her to convert, there's no amount of effort that will make a spell happen. Any spell that would reduce her weight below 100 lbs for any reason simply fails to manifest. At her build, that's basically rail-thin as is.
To power her budding arcane power, Ellopene tends to end up eating. A lot. And it turns out the easiest way to gain a lot of weight quickly is to eat someone else. It's something that once upon a time would have horrified her, but now that the threat of permanent death is something of the past, she's grown to accept, even like it. Every time she eats someone and digests them, she gains 15% of their weight. This can sometimes be problematic, but it's not something she has much control over. Once she's gained the weight from her prey, the only easy way to lose it is casting spells. Sometimes, that's easy. Other times, it's hard to justify, which leads to sometimes having a few extra pounds than she'd like.
Much more interesting than merely devouring and digesting the body, Ellopene's stomachs are capable of digesting and absorbing souls all the same! This process is something that she must be attempting to do, it never happens without her concentration. Normally, this would be an extremely fatal thing to experience for the soul in question. Souls that are digested and absorbed into a predator tend not to survive the experience. This, frankly, terrifies the antelope, and after significant testing on things that aren't quite as sentient as people she's found a way to take a soul into her own, digest or absorb it briefly, and afterwards reconstitute it back into its original owner. A little worse for wear, perhaps, but very importantly intact.
Each soul she digests in this fashion is invaluable to her studies in magic, an incredible resource for learning how magic works and improving her ability to use it. Digesting souls is how she expands the number of spells she knows and can use, and improves the ones she does. Without this, her magic cannot be improved. Fortunately, a soul once digested and reconstituted is such a complex and magnificent thing that a second, third, fourth, or even beyond trip between her lips and into her belly isn't going to do lasting harm, but will reveal unto her new secrets. Similarly, having more time to truly experience everything it has to offer will improve her grasp of its secrets. Any given soul may lean strongly to one or more fundamental threads of magic, usually determined by the soul itself. Others have little inclination to stick to a particular current. Both are still useful. In the vaguest sense, souls can be separated in to such qualities as: "Aggressive" (Fire), "Passive" (Water), "Hasty" (Lightning), "Steadfast" (Earth), "Flexible" (Air), and "Rigid" (Void). A soul may possess more than one of these traits, or they may possess none at all. A soul with one of these characteristics counts as two points along a knowledge track for a spell that matches its element. In order to learn a new spell, a soul with matching element must be used. Otherwise, a soul can be used to advance the knowledge track of any spell.
"Spellbook"
As a novice spellcaster, Ellopene's spellbook is incredibly limited. She's capable of reforming herself at hefty cost, and she's capable of teleporting to remove herself from danger at even heftier cost. Realistically, this means that unless she's truly threatened by something beyond the mere physical, it's easier to just let herself be digested rather than escape. This is a concept that has taken some getting used to. More recently, she's learned how to reform others beyond merely their souls, though at even greater cost than herself. She's also capable of conjuring a flame and directing it to her will, almost certainly thanks to Jersey's tutelage on the subject. Greater effect, greater complexity - and greater variety - must all be earned before they can be used.
Spell name (cost in lbs of mass) [limitations or cooldown] Element
Progress (next effect)
Self-Reform (40) [1/day] Air
Ø O O (35) O O O O (30) O O O O O (25) O O O O O O (20)
O O O (2/day) O O O O (Instant) O O O O O (3/day)
O O O (Gain 1 soul knowledge/30 days) O O O O (Gain 1 soul knowledge/15 days) O O O O O (2 lbs/day)
Ellopene reforms herself from her digested or otherwise expired remains. This process is not instant, but it's fairly quick, usually taking about five minutes from scratch. If Ellopene is unable to reform herself because she does not possess the necessary mass, she will instead "leech" one pound per day from her predator, until such a time as she is able to reform herself - or sometimes a bit longer.
Reform Other (50) [1/day] Earth
Ø O O (45) O O O O (40) O O O O O (35)
O O O (2/day) O O O O (Digested by own meal) O O O O O (3/day)
O O O (15 minutes) O O O O (Controlled location) O O O O O (5 minutes)
Ellopene reforms someone she has digested. She can only reform someone that she herself has digested. Usually takes around 30 minutes to fully reform a new body.
Teleport (60 + 0.2X) [6 hours] Lightning
Ø O O (55 + 0.18X) O O O O (50 + 0.15X) O O O O O (45 + 0.12X)
O O O (3 hours) O O O O (1 hour) O O O O O (30 minutes)
O O O (Teleport to other) O O O O (Teleport external) O O O O O (Blind Teleport
Ellopene teleports to a location she can visualize, appearing there instantly, with a sudden loud 'clap' noise from where she was, and an audible rush of wind where she appears. If she misjudges the location or does not have it visualized clearly, she may end up too high (or too low) and stumble or fall. Her magic prevents her from accidentally intersecting with another solid object - but it's possible for her to fail so spectacularly she reappears inside someone else.
Conjure Flame (2/minute) [1 minute; small flame] Fire
Ø O O (medium flame, [x2]) O O O O (large flame, [x3]) O O O O O (multiple flames, [x5])
O O O (1/minute) O O O O (1/2 minutes) O O O O O (1/5 minutes)
O O O (30 seconds) O O O O (15 seconds) O O O O O (No cooldown)
????? (???) [???] Water
Unknown Spell
O
????? (???) [???] Void
Unknown Spell
O
????? (???) [???] Air
Unknown Spell
O
????? (???) [???] Earth
Unknown Spell
O
????? (???) [???] Lightning
Unknown Spell
O
????? (???) [???] Fire
Unknown Spell
0
