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[merchantvessel]

PLAYER

NAME: S. (thewriteway)
TIMEZONE: CEST

CHARACTER

NAME: Kairann
AGE: Late 20’s
GENDER: Female
SPECIES: Human
BIRTH DATE: Autumn (Oct. 4th in our calendar)
HOMETOWN: Itall, Kijann
OCCUPATION: Merchant; former God Player, manifesting Ipallo
EDUCATION: Cult Theatre
LANGUAGES: Common Tongue, Breaker Tongue
POWERS: Manifestation

PERMISSIONS

BACKTAGGING: Yes, please, I rely on it
4TH WALLING: No
THREADJACKING: No
KISSING: Yes, default to F/F
HUGGING: Yes
SEX: No, though I will happily write fade to black scenarios
FIGHTING: No
INJURY: Yes, though contact me about severe injuries
ROMANCE: Yes, generally OTA, but player has an F/F preference
DEATH: No

PERSONALITY

x Arrogant
x Playful
x Caring
x Argumentative
x Selfish

HISTORY

In the island nation of Kijann, Kairann was born to a famous merchant father in the northern habor city of Itall, where she grew up the only daughter with dreams of becoming a merchant herself, though this was impossible due to her being a girl.

Adamant to have an adventure regardless, at age eighteen, she decided to travel to Sira, the nation’s capital, to audition for the Cult Theatre, which functions as the island’s greatest religious institution, where a body of thirty priestesses every morning at sunrise and every night at sunset perform the nation’s mythos, with each working priestess “manifesting” one of the ten gods of the pantheon.

Kairann was given an Audition and during her audition, showed a connection to the God of Lies, Ipallo, thus she was allowed to become an apprentice to the Theatre and Ruane, Elder – the title of a former priestess now overseeing the inner workings of the institution – of the Goddess of the Wind became her mentor.

Kairann was a hard-working if slightly chaotic apprentice and trained in this capacity for six years until, when the former priestess of Ipallo retired, she was asked to take over as a formal God Player, the Kijann term for a religious actress.

The rules, regulations and routines of the Theatre helped keeping Kairann’s restless, rather messy spirit under control for some years, but eventually she grew bored again and that was when the new apprentice of the Goddess of Truth, Minave, caught her attention. The girl had hitherto unseen spiritual potential and could manifest several gods, rather than just the one she had been first chosen by at her Audition, and Kairann fell utterly and completely in love with her. Ibi, as the girl was called, too, felt attracted to Kairann and although they were, as priestesses, supposed to stay celibate, they initiated a secret affair.

When Ibi’s mentor found this out, in a fit of jealous rage, seeing as she herself had a very complex relationship to the girl, she killed Ibi on the Theatre’s Main Stage one night and after much bureaucracy and covering up, as well as Anoja – Ibi’s teacher – trying to pin the fault on Kairann unsuccessfully, Kairann was finally allowed to retire in the wake of this huge loss.

She returned to Itall and reluctantly moved in with her parents again, deciding after some months that if she could manifest a god, she could work as a merchant, regardless of gender. So, she went out to seek employment on one of the ships and after a kind captain gave her the benefit of the doubt, she is making ready to go on her first voyage beyond the Edge, the horizon line that separates Kijann from all surrounding dimensions and which merchants cross by riding the Edge’s own magic in order to go trading in other worlds.

DETAILS

The Cult Theatre is the main cult site on Kijann, an island nation, with Sira being the capital, situated on the eastern coastline.

The Theatre is run by a 30-member body of priestesses, actresses who every night play out the legends and myths of the Common Faith for the public. To cover the roles of both gods and goddesses in their pantheon, the priestesses are divided into two groups of performers, God Players who have been chosen to manifest the male deities and Goddess Players who have been chosen to manifest the female. All girls who enter into priesthood have first been found worthy of the gods and hereafter, performed in a ceremony, called the Audition, that should make them open to be chosen by any of the ten gods in the Kijann pantheon. Once chosen by a deity, they will train with one of the Elders who has experience in the power of "manifesting", preparing them to take over from the current priestess when the time comes that she retires or dies.

While the priestesses are those who actively go on stage and reenact the myths and legends of their Scripture, the Elders are former priestesses who have chosen to stay in the Theatre to oversee the everyday affairs of the Cult Site. At any point, there can only be ten Elders, one per deity, ten priestesses, one per deity, and ten apprentices, one per Elder. Once an apprentice is ready to take over from a priestess, she must prepare for a solo debut performance called the Initiation, a very holy affair that only select people can attend, since it is the first time an apprentice manifests her god or goddess without any restrictions to her performance.

The dogma of the Cult Theatre performances is that the priestesses literally become the gods that they perform on stage in the evenings; their essence changes into divine essence and they act as "holsters for the heavens" which is why the actresses must stay celibate, to remain worthy, so the gods can reside within them.

Aesthetically, Kijann reads like steampunk Victorian England with an additional polytheistic belief system. Sira is an eastern-facing harbour city, built to offer a view of the rising sun. At the Theatre, all performances end by sunset, since the gods, believed to live within the world in the sun disc, return to their home and sink with it into the sea and out of view. As such, only the nights belong to the actresses alone.

The ten gods of Kijann are: Shantij (Goddess of the Night), Jamil (God of the Day), Raschor (God of the Water), Toffir (God of the Earth), Pidann (Goddess of the Fire), Zuse (Goddess of the Wind), Ore (Goddess of the Past), Kaas (God of the Future), Ipallo (God of Lies) and Minave (Goddess of Truth).