Thar Shaddin

Player Name: Amanda (Fay)

Character Name: Annalise Dubaunte
Age: 70
Race: Elf
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 115lbs

Description:

Long legged, curvy, elegant and refined. With waves of shimmering gold hair that ends at her waist, liquid blue eyes and a lean and elegant figure, she is an amazing product of two very attractive elves. Her mind is sharp, her wit quick and her knowledge seemingly boundless when it comes to the humanoid anatomy.

She is often found in comfortable black leggings, a tunic of a bright color, and white coat made of a thin but surprisingly warm material.

Powers:

Medical Knowledge: After years of studying, Annalise holds a vast amount of knowledge in the dealings of the humanoid body. She also knows, from several experiments, how several chemicals, metals, magics and elements affect the body. She can cure, and she can poison. And perhaps that power’s gone to her head a little bit…

Healing Magic: Surprisingly powerful, Anna has been known to bring people back from the brink of death, though not without cost…

Steady Hand: Anna has an exceptionally steady hand. Usually a trait that’s not worth being mentioned, however, it comes in handy while performing surgeries and non-magical health practices.

Alchemy: Anna has a pretty broad knowledge as far as medicines are concerned – though she’s more interested in poisons. Her skill does, however, lie in creating healing tonics and salves, as that is what her original training was aimed towards.

Weaknesses:

Healing Magic: Anna, like all magic users, has a limit. Sadly hers is a tad more pronounced than others. What she does is, instead of simply removing the injury, she takes it upon herself. She’s brought others from the brink of death – almost at the cost of her own life. The few she’d done this for later scorned her, and as such she will refuse to heal unless she feels compelled to. Why suffer for those who will not suffer her?

Insomnia: Anna has not been able to get a decent nights sleep since the night she murdered her Father in cold blood. Nightmares –dreams? – of her repeatedly killing him wake her, shaking and out of breath. Whether it be from exhilaration or fear, she has yet to decide.

Trauma: Touching patients to heal doesn’t bother Annalise, however no one can touch her without having her at least flinch away. Patients can usually get away with gripping her arms, hands or legs if she’s helping them in some manner, but only because she vaguely remembers the need to seek physical comfort while in pain. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t fight an anxiety attack in the meantime.

Voices: Caused by degradation of the brain due to lack of sleep, Anna’s been known to hear hissing voices. She doesn’t see anyone who doesn’t exist, only hears them, hissing her darkest fears –desires? – in her ear.

Vulnerability: Excluding the lucky shot she’d had at her father, Anna is incapable of actually wielding a weapon. With no training, and no desire to get any, Anna cannot physically defend herself. At the most, she could slap someone… but what’s the use against anyone who actually intends to do her harm?

History:

The hardest part of any story, is the beginning. Annalise’s start to life, is no exception. Born to two beautiful but poor elves, she was an unexpected and unwelcome surprise. She was just one more mouth to feed, and they could hardly feed themselves. They would have just aborted her in some manner – but by the time they had realized they were expecting, an abortion would have killed the mother as well.

An so Annalise was born, kicking and screaming into the world. Her upbringing was no pleasant one, as her parents had only enough love for each other. That changed, however, as Anna grew older, and her Father began to take notice.

The abuse started as her mothers heath began to fade. It had started with simple touches, small smiles, things Anna had treasured at first – her first signs of the affection she so craved. But when her Mother died, it all went horribly wrong. Her Father began calling her by her mother’s name, and it didn’t take long for him to take her in their bed.

The first time had been a shock, and would be something she’d never forget. The second time was somehow worse still. The rape continued on for roughly a fortnight, with her literally chained to the bed. She was kept like a prisoner, beat into submission, and fed only enough to allow her survival. It was only while he saw her as her Mother that he treated her lovingly – and that was only the times that she wished she were dead.

One night he made the mistake of trusting her with a knife. They were having a treat – meat – and he had thought of it as a reward for her complete submission for the past couple of nights. She saw it as the opportunity she’d been praying for. The sound the metal made as it sank into his flesh was one she would never forget. She remembers only the first stab, then red washing over her vision. She doesn’t remember the almost insane laughter bubbling up from her chest as she stabbed him over and over, nor does she remember freeing herself with the key she found on his corpse and fleeing.

What she dies remember is stealing some clean clothes, burning her bloodied ones, and walking towards the city called Marn. Her village wasn’t far from Shim – about two days journey, and so the trip hadn’t been a long one.

I'm finding Annalise a little unfathomable. I think I get where you’re going with her, but I’m not really seeing it yet.
When did her parents overdose? At what age was she? At what age did she start practicing as an herbalist/alchemist. Expand more on the alchemy.

The character traits you describe imply she’s crazy as a March Hare. This needs to be listed as a weakness. As she is described, I’d say she’s bi-polar or samples her own wares. I’d say some of her strengths are actually symptoms of some serious megalomania. She thinks she’s a big fish in a big pond, but…

Pull the references to IRL drug names. Plus, I’d debate the addictiveness of the drugs. The potency of the drug is subject to the individual writer. Call them highly-addictive, or something.

Everything sounds a tad overpowered. The character seems to have few limitations. She can kick butt. She can make drugs that will forever enslave you. She’s super sexy, so you can’t say no. She’s super persuasive. What are her limitations really? How did she really come to be where she is? What drives her? What are her fears? I see she’s paranoid, but, I think you need to expand more.

I think she’ll know how to swing a punch, but if she’s been working on magical drug-making, she’s probably not had much time for physical training. I think that needs to be toned back.

If her bodyguards are using the products, then they’re going to be pretty useless. This needs to be noted as a weakness that can be exploited.

I know Marn has an underground, but that underground existed before this girl was born. I’d like to see a little less broad reach of her drug empire. Others will respond to her attempts to build that empire. The guard isn’t going to look the other way all the time. Now, she might have one or two on the take. That’s always possible, but also a dangerous proposition. Think about who their Captain is. If enough people die from her drugs, investigations will happen. And, the judges aren’t all malleable. Again, maybe one favors her, but not everyone is going to buy what’s she’s selling, literally and figuratively.

One last thought: She’s the drug-maker. As the maker, she should depend on a distribution network versus getting her hands in the distribution aspect. The way the app reads, she’s out there in the thick of things. This increases the risk factor of being caught.

Reworked entirely Ree, mind giving her another look over?

This is going to take some time.

First of all, in case it has any relevance, I'm just going to note that I'm reviewing the application at face value, so I haven't taken previous versions or reviews of the character application into consideration while writing this review.

Now, considering you've been a member here for quite some time and this is a reasonably powerful character, I'm sure you're aware that a higher standard of character is expected than if that wasn't the case. I say this because, as I read through this application, it's clear that you have way too much going on, and in the end, it doesn't form a cohesive character.

If you want a character like this to work, you really need to choose one idea for the character and go with it, so you can cut out all of these excessive traits. It's not about the details, in that case, but looking at the big picture of who the character is. There are so many ideas going on at once and not enough is holding them together. So, considering the nature of the character, I feel that you may need to have another think about what exactly you're going for with Annalise, taking what I've mentioned into consideration.

Anyway, having said that, I'll review the character as it is. There's a lot more to be said about Annalise to better show who she is as a person and what kind of life she's lived. She's not just a concept floating in space, so you need to show who she is within the community, within the culture of Marn, and really just what kind of person she is without all the extreme trauma.

Who would she be if she wasn't grieving or insane? How does she interact with the world? Where does she live, what work does she do, and how do other people see her? Who does she rely on, or consider a friend? Does she do any actual art as a hobby? How does she make a living and provide for herself?

I'd also like to see a lot more exploration of how she felt throughout her life, how the things she went through affected her at the time as well as in the present. Was she really just a willing victim her entire life or does she have any spark of self-respect? As for how they affected her, I don't necessarily mean mental health effects -- there's a lot more to how trauma affects someone than just whether they come through it as a hallucinating serial killer or not.

Now, on that subject, why did she become a killer? You haven't really mentioned her experience with death or murder, how it changed her, how her first experience was, and so on -- this sort of thing is very important to justifying the behavior of a character like Annalise.

Her husband: who was he? What was his standing in the community? Who were his friends, his family, his colleagues, and how did Annalise get along with them? What sort of relationships did they keep after her husband's injury? It's not quite clear what state he's in -- dead or comatose or what -- but how long has it been since it happened? How much did he know about what Annalise is like as a person, her abuse of medical knowledge and drugs, her disrespect of others' lives -- and what was his impression?

Probably the most important question of all: how hasn't Annalise been caught yet if she's doing all of this?

How many people would you suggest she's killed? Who were these people and where were they from? Has she been investigated by the guard? How did she choose her victims, and why does she need to justify her actions by saying she's "saving them" if she thinks they deserve to be killed anyway? Why does she heal people at the cost of her own life if them dying is a good thing to her? Why would she heal people at the cost of her own health at all if she's mostly concerned for herself? I imagine she must be a registered magic user, if she's in Marn, which should be mentioned.

Those are the main things that I think need clarification. Once you've addressed those, let me know and I'll review it again for you.

As always, if you have any questions or wish to discuss anything, you're welcome to PM me.

Hey, I heard this was ready to be reviewed again? If that's the case, make sure you post in the app next time cause it's hard to keep track of who needs review otherwise.

You've done well in sticking to just a couple of concepts in this revision, but I think you might have gone a little too far with removing details. If you look over my last review, one of the main points was that you need to make sure you thoroughly explain the character and why certain things are the way they are, and also make sure to include things that show what kinda person she is. She's still a person, with a life, outside of her trauma or her work, right? She was a person before her breakdown?

Main requirements are to have her medical background put in the history, show more about her as a person, fill in the rest of her life (70 years is a long time), and explain why guards never got involved. And, just in case, let me know if you were actually still working on it.