Deer Country Application

[souledsister]

Character Base

• Character Name: Ianthe Tridentarius
• Age: 21
• Canon (Date/Year Released)/Canon Point: The Locked Tomb (Most recent book released in 2020)/ Just before the reveal of Mercymorn and Augustine’s betrayal.
• Items Coming Along: Clothing, her rapier, and a few old dead fingers
• Content Warnings for Character: Cannibalism (of both living and dead) necromancy, manipulation of dead corpses, lying, gaslighting

Character Background

• History: At the wiki
• Core Relationships:
Coronabeth Tridentarius: Ianthe’s twin sister and likely the only person that she cares about. Their parents wanted to produce a pair of necromancer twins as heirs. However, only Ianthe had the talent and so their parents had Ianthe cover for Coronabeth, the proper heir as the oldest. Despite living in her shadow, Ianthe does care about Coronabeth and concocts deals and plans specifically to ensure her safety and is enraged when she might be threatened. Ironically, Coronabeth is devastated that she is not chosen to be the one consumed so Ianthe can become a Lyctor.

Naberius Tern: Cavalier Primary for the Third House. Ianthe and Naberius have an adversarial relationship, though he lives to serve her house. He seemingly resents that Ianthe is the one he ultimately must submit to and not Corona. Ianthe largely views him as a tool for his skill with the rapier and will consume bits of his body for her necromancy. Her lack of concern for him and love of Coronabeth is further shown when Ianthe chooses to consume Naberius in order to become a Lyctor instead of her sister, who would have clearly made a much better match for her. Naberius, furious over this, fights her from within and disrupts her Lyctor powers.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus: Ianthe’s fellow newly sainted Lyctor. Harrow and Ianthe are thrown together simply by nature of being the only new Lyctors in thousands of years and so are forced into a strange alliance where Harrow does not trust Ianthe but must sometimes rely on her. Ianthe helps Harrow with her plan to alter her memories in exchange for Coronabeth’s protection. Similarly, Harrow helps Ianthe by creating a bone construct arm for her when Ianthe is in danger of failing her training due to her inability to use her sword arm. Ianthe seems to get a kick out of flirting inappropriately with Harrow or making her look silly but there seems to be a somewhat twisted genuine interest beneath it all.

Augustine, Saint of Patience: Augustine is one of the Emperor’s Lyctors and tasked with training Ianthe in the ways of Lyctorhood. At first, they have an easygoing relationship relationship as Augustine is straightforward about what she needs to do. Unfortunately, when Ianthe fails to properly control Naberius’s soul, thus interrupting her training, Augustine becomes annoyed and says he’ll stop if she can’t get it under control. Once she is able to prove herself to him, their amicable relationship resumes. Though ultimately, she doesn’t consider him to be the one to stand behind if she wants to gain the things she wants.

The Emperor Undying/God/Teacher: Ianthe and the Emperor have a decent relationship but they are not particularly close and he seems overall detached from her training and experiences. However, even when she learns of his lies about Lyctorhood and the possible atrocities he’s committed, she ends up siding with the Emperor over Augustine. It is likely she chose this because she believed that it is possible the Nine Houses would die without the Emperor and thus needed to save him to save her sister. Not to mention, it would make her a clear ally of the most powerful man in the universe.

Character Personality Through Key Moments

(2+) Positive Experiences:
Ianthe is a very talented necromancer who has had little recognition for her skill and intelligence due to the scheme of pretending that Coronabeth is also a necromancer. Ianthe has spent most of her life doing the work for two people while Coronabeth is fawned over for being the more beautiful and charming than she is.

At Canaan house, Ianthe discovers the path to Lyctorhood and claims it for herself before anyone even knows she’s that far along on figuring everything out. She lacks the theorems that others had access to and yet is able to figure out the nature of energy transfer that allowed God himself to perform the Great Resurrection, which no one else had ever managed to do, based on her own knowledge, logic, and observation.

And even when Naberius fights her for control, she’s able to wrestle him down and maintain control over her body in order to fight and defend herself from the other necromancers at the same time. Then she was subsequently able to hold her own in a battle against one of the oldest and most powerful Lyctors for a short period of time.

Ianthe, along with being clever, is good at concealing her hand and looking to see how everyone plays their cards so she can align herself with the option that brings her the most power and ensures her best outcome. While the truth is that she loves showboating her power and intelligence, as she does when she reveals her Lyctorhood, she is used to playing the pallid, less exciting twin and keeping all of her skills under wraps.

She convinces her fellow necromancers that her skills were limited to a marginal type of necromancy and that her abilities are vastly inferior to her sister’s. No one expects that she is a threat and capable of becoming a Lyctor. Then she gleefully pulls the rug out from under everyone else’s feet, proudly declaring herself “the best necromancer the Third House has ever produced”. Later on, she purposely tries to cozy up to Augustine in order to get improved training and feigns deeper interest in his words and stories than she actually has in order to ensure she stays favored above Harrow.

Ianthe feels very little moral concern about how she climbs to power and is willing to do what needs to be done without fretting over the implications. She does not hesitate for a second to consume Naberius once her theories about Lyctor ascension are confirmed. She is willing to make deals and will fulfill her end of the bargain to get something she wants. But ultimately, she has no loyalty to anyone but herself (and perhaps her sister). This is why she is willing to sacrifice Augustine to save the Emperor, despite the reveal of all of his lies. It doesn’t matter that the Emperor lied to her (and everyone) about Lyctorhood at this point, what matters is what she can do to ensure her own survival and her sister’s survival.The implication that the Emperor killed billions of people in order to attain power is not something she will concern herself with, only that he has this power and being loyal to this power ensures she can survive and access more power.

(2+) Negative Experiences:
Because of all of her years having to pretend to be the weaker, less appealing twin, Ianthe holds a deep resentment towards most other people and considers herself to be superior and above the rest. So she tends to view people as stepping stones towards her own progress and goals, though she also craves the validation of her skills that she had been denied for much of her life. Lyctorhood was a way for her to gain both and so it was the only path forward.

After losing her arm in a battle, Ianthe struggles to control the foreign replacement as well as allowing Naberius to take over her body because she dislikes the idea of giving these lesser things any control over herself. When her performance becomes so bad that even the Emperor takes notice of her lack of skill, Ianthe is so furious at herself (despite claiming that “God is a dickhead”) that she is willing to let Harrow help her out in exchange for a favor. Though, she still never outwardly admits that it was her own resentment causing all of her problems.

This resentment also means that Ianthe often has twisted relationships with other people. Ianthe is snarky and dismissive to most people she meets, largely disinterested until she can find something useful or tolerable about them. Even pleasant exchanges have a bored or undercut tone to them. Dealing with other people who cannot give her anything is ultimately a nuisance. Now that she doesn’t have to pretend to be the quiet twin, she makes no effort to put on a good face if there is nothing in the interaction for her.

Her close relationship with her sister also reflects Ianthe’s complicated relationship with others. Coronabeth, while outwardly beautiful and important, was truly nothing without Ianthe, creating a deeply codependent relationship. Ianthe mentions a few times that she has rarely been away from her sister and that it is odd to be without her, implying that while Coronabeth is excluded from her general resentment, she does get satisfaction out of knowing her sister needs her to be anything at all. Similarly, she lies to Harrow and states that she does not see the body of a dead Lyctor that has been haunting Harrow that is hiding under Harrow’s bed. While a very cruel move indeed, Ianthe views it as a way to keep Harrow coming to her, needing her, and dependent on her.

Ianthe’s biggest hurdle is that she is not as cold-hearted as she appears. While she does shamelessly chase power, she is not able to admit to herself that she also seeks validation and has emotional needs. She is not as completely cold and detached as she likes to think of herself. The first obvious sign of this is her decision to consume Naberius instead of Coronabeth. Coronabeth would have been a much better match for her and not fought her like Naberius did, and made her a more powerful and controlled Lyctor. However, Ianthe could not bring herself to consume, and thus lose her sister, and so ended up picking a path that made everything more difficult for her, at odds with her desire to claim power for herself.

Even though she is often dismissive to Harrow’s problems or flirts with her inappropriately to set her off guard, Ianthe does end up developing genuine feelings towards her. She allows Harrow to sleep in her bed and occasionally offers genuinely good advice, hen Harrow is struggling with her incomplete Lyctorhood and believes she is being targeted for murder. Perhaps, kinder still, while she does appear to want Harrow indebted to her, she never offers Harrow the comfort that would make Harrow attach herself to Ianthe completely (for which Harrow is thankful and wonders if Ianthe knew and did her a kindness).

While it is likely that Ianthe saves the Emperor for her own benefit to stand as his last loyal Lyctor, she does show genuine horror at the idea that his death would (possibly) result in the death of billions of innocent people. Just as she, sometimes, seems to indicate that she feels regret over ruthlessly consuming Naberius. But with Ianthe, it’s hard to tell what she genuinely feels, as she tries to make her goals for power and emotional needs end up in alignment and when they do, it only further obscures her motivations.

Deer Country Attributes

• Canon Powers: Ianthe is a Lyctor and necromancer, who specializes in flesh magic and energy transfer. Flesh magic is described as such in canon-The school of magic chiefly to do with manipulating the extant thanergy of flesh, or impregnating it with additional thanergy. Flesh is a conduit for short-term storable thanergy, and in the right circumstances provides immense thalergy and thanergy boosts to the magician. Flesh magic is wide-ranging, covering preservation, imbuing, manipulation, creation, and processing. Flesh magic is also used for self-manipulation of the human body, either to make it perform better or to make it perform worse, often quite suddenly.

As a Lyctor, this means that Ianthe has an internal source of thanergy to perform this necromancy and she also heals quickly from wounds and can sense the life force of those around her.

In Deer Country, I will nerf her powers so that trying to manipulate the flesh of other Sleepers is very difficult for Ianthe and takes up more energy than should be possible. She will have to seek out other sources of flesh to prevent her from just easily messing with other people’s characters. Similarly, other Sleepers and the nature of Deer Country can override her abilities. Ultimately, planning on playing things very responsive and chalking things up to Pthumerian influence and powers that prevent her from operating as she could in canon.
• Blood Type: Vileblood.
• Omen: Spitting Cobra
• Blessed Day: 12/15
• Patron Pthumerian: Dorothea
• Blood Power Manifestation: She can imbue the flesh she summons and creates with poisonous blood.

Writing Samples

One: Feb TDM Top level
Two: March TDM with Ortus

The Player

• Player Name: Ru
• Player Age:18+
• Player Contact: worldtype
• Permissions: Here

Other Characters

Link to Character 1 overall AC: Kaworu Nagisa