Luvadros' Plotnotes

[Luvadros Orthilia]

General Information : 1. What is your Name? Luvadros Orthilia.    2. Do you go by a nickname or pet name? I do not, nor will I answer to one should you attempt to create it.    3. How old are you? A score and three years.    4. What is your height? Five feet and ten inches. Perhaps slightly more.    5. What is your weight? One hundred and thirty-five pounds in the morning, before eating.   Aesthetics : 1. Describe yourself as you see yourself. Physically? Average. Clean-cut. Collected. Perhaps reservedly dashing. What is the purpose of this exercise, again? Also, this selection was not a question.    2. Describe yourself as others typically see you. The same as I see myself, if their eyes function properly. Again, not a question.    3. What is your favorite body feature? This is ambiguous. Are we speaking of my own body? Fine. It seems rather trite, but I will say my eyes. They link me to my web in a way few other things do.    4. How physically fit are you? Adequately. I am able to move freely about the city without growing winded and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Those who believe they require more than that are at dire risk of neglecting their minds, or perhaps attempting to compensate for some deficiency.    5. How do you typically dress and what is your style? I am not a trend setter or rebel, if that is what you're asking. I dress in the most common style of my people, tightly wrapping my torso and limbs with silk before donning the protective outer shell most of us wear. Admittedly I forgo the armor when I least expect I'll need it. Regardless, I wear a tailored coat as a final layer. It serves little practical purpose, but I appreciate the look. Hues are dark, sometimes rich, sometimes more grey with only a hint of color. As for style, I'm not certain what you're looking for. Professional, I suppose.     Family : 1. Who are your parents and what are they like? My father is Vodranth Orthilia. He is distant, conservative, somewhat more devout than I, at least vocally. My mother was Sinssa Orthilia, and she is very much like a corpse.    2. Do you have any brothers or sisters? Yes. One of each, both older than myself. The male continually attempts to force surrogates on me, while the female is content to ignore me as her insane little brother.    3. What is your extended family like? Much like my nuclear family, save the presence of more living females. They are close knit, traditional, and committed to keeping the bloodline going. Unfortunately they think I am less so, but it is our means and methods that differ, not our desires or goals.    4. Do you consider close friends as important or more/less important than family? I have not often considered it. Close friends are not a thing I have in abundance. I would say as important. Any citizen of Kalinor—true citizen, that is, i.e. Symenestra—is valued above perhaps all else. There are too few of us for it to be otherwise.    5. Do you treat animals like family? Do not be absurd. I am not a child.   Location : 1. Where were you born? Kalinor, the Place of Purging, where I now find employment.    2. Where do you live now? Kalinor still, of course. What is there for me elsewhere?    3. If you could live anywhere in Mizahar where would that be? I believe I just made this clear. I would not go elsewhere without need.    4. Do you have a favorite place to vacation or spend leisure time? Yes.    5. Where do you fear to be? Syliras, from what I've heard. Humans everywhere, like a pestilence, and Viratas knows what else. Horrid.

[Luvadros Orthilia]

Traits : 1. Do you have any physical weaknesses (disease, scars, and missing limbs?) Not as such, no. I may not be the most impressive physical specimen in the city, but I keep myself healthy. It is my business, after all.    2. Are you right handed or left handed? Right, though I have put some effort into being not entirely useless with my left. Caring for the nails of my right hand helps.    3. What languages do you speak? What do you sound like? Do you have an accent? I speak Symenos, obviously, usually in a cool and even tone. I'm familiar with most of the Common tongue as well, though rarely have cause to use it. This suits me fine. I'm certain my words when I do converse with the odd outsider are rather heavily accented.    4. Do you have any odd mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics? My propensity for being both contrary and correct has proven quite the irritant to my web. They would certainly classify my Esterianism as odd, annoying, and defining. I cannot quite disagree, as it is rather central to my outlook, unusual among my people, and no doubt a source of great frustration to them. Nobody likes to have it pointed out that they are among the ignorant masses.    5. Do you have (or want to get) any tattoos or piercing? Why do you have them (or will get them)? I do not, nor do I see any value in poking unnecessary holes into myself, whether to insert ink or metal.   Occupations : 1. What is your occupation? I am a physician, focusing on care of the pregnant and deliveries or premature surgical removal of the fetus. Specifically—and preferably—Symenestra mothers rather than the distasteful surrogates. I sadly find little work to be done in that area, however.    2. Do you like/dislike your work? Why? This is not the sort of occupation one enters without some desire, though the volume of death does, I suppose, take its toll. I do find my work fulfilling and certainly see it as necessary. When I do get a Symenestra patient and things do not go well, however, it is a heavy blow in multiple ways. There's the personal failure aspect, of course, but also the knowledge that each Symenestra killed by her offspring is a loss we can scarce afford, and each does great damage to the Esterian cause, as well. No, I do not dislike my work, yet it is... taxing.    3. If you could be anything you wanted to, what would you be? Flawless. Perhaps that would grow wearisome after a time, but I'd enjoy the knowledge that any lost patients were simply beyond help to begin with. It would also certainly bring me closer to my goals. And yes, I am aware you meant professionally.    4. What occupation do you admire the most? Why? My own, naturally. Why would I have become something other than I believed the most important? The healers of Rak'keli are undeniably potent, but I have always felt—perhaps ironically given the nature of gnosis marks—that they lack the conviction of medical practitioners. They have mystical powers granted by some foreign god, but have not spent years learning the intricacies of the body and how to mend it, have not labored in the way we have. They have not earned it. That said, it is possible that some envy exists within me for their abilities.    5. What occupation do you least like? Why? It should be apparent by now that I am not overly fond of harvesters, if that can even be rightly called an occupation. At the same time, I do understand that they are acting as they believe best for the preservation of our people. They are fools, but well-meaning fools. No, the supposed professionals I most detest are mercenaries, those who simply sell their bodies as instruments of destruction. They serve no purpose of their own, might as well not even be alive. If the only contribution one can make to the world is the destruction of small parts of it, that is a life worth nothing. They are lower than whores, selling themselves for death rather than pleasure.     Childhood : 1. What sort of child were you? Quiet. Reserved. I believe I took my cues from my father, a man I feel has never truly recovered from his wife's death. I was unfailingly obedient until my adolescence.    2. What is your favorite memory from childhood? There is no central bright spot or the like. I believe... Perhaps this is ironic given how lax I am in my duties as second son, but my father teaching me the rites and wisdom of Viratas was one of only a few real connections we ever experienced.    3. What is your worst memory from childhood? Nothing specific comes to mind. It's not as though I was willfully ignored or neglected. Life just always seemed a somber affair in my father's house.    4. What sort of relationship did you have with your parents? The same as I have now. Mother is still dead, father is still reluctant to interact with me. The latter has increased somewhat since the whole Esterian thing, but it continues to be a relatively subtle quirk. It's not as though I'm never invited over for dinner. There's just ever the inevitable attempt to send a surrogate home with me.    5. Who was your most influential rolemodel? That would likely be Svorador Hellebore, the head doctor at the Place of Purging. I can hardly claim him as a mentor figure, but I do certainly admire him. His knowledge is undeniable as is the razor edge of his mind. He is terse and direct with patients, refusing to coddle them, and this is a method I've adopted. Unfotunately he does seem to think the surrogates are our best hope for continued existence, but I suppose even the greatest mind is wrong at times.

[Luvadros Orthilia]

Goals Primary Symenestra Independence - the abolition of their reliance on surrogates and an established ability to maintain their own population with no aid from the other races. Potential Methods Medicine - Perhaps with enough skill and research, a more reliable means of preserving the mother's life will be revealed, whether more reliably removing the fetus prematurely or granting the mother greater resiliency to venom. Shielding - A theory he eagerly wishes to test, the idea of forming a shield around the unborn child that will not allow it to bite during delivery or perhaps simply keeps it from injecting venom is very far from being ready. Uncertain whether such things are possible and how safe such a procedure would be for the child, this will require significantly more knowledge and no small amount of practice on non-Symenestra before he is willing to make a true attempt. Divine Intervention - Unlikely. If Viratas has the power to set things right, then he has simply not deigned to do so. Also possible he simply lacks the power. Either way, reliance on the gods seems a foolish and fruitless path. Secondary Parenthood - Though having tasked himself with the much greater purpose of allowing all his people to reproduce without their current complications, he is not without some recognition of the simple means and joys of adding to the population himself. Potential Methods Symenestra Female - His favored option and the only one he has truly considered, the obvious problem lies in his own mother's fate. Unwilling to accept the current odds of survival should the premature removal of the fetus take place, this option will only become viable once he's made further progress along his primary goal. There is also the issue of locating a willing participant. Efforts in this regard have not been promising thus far. Surrogate - No. Ew. No. Tertiary Aril's Safety - Though not something he spends a great deal of time stressing over, his pet Kelvic being a potential surrogate does cause some problems for the Esterian. If she were discovered... Potential Methods Freedom - The most ideal solution, it would also be the most difficult to attain. True, he could simply leave her at the mouth of a cave and tell her to fly off into the wretched daylight, but that would be somewhat irresponsible, since she is his pet. Finding some visiting surfacer to claim her would be preferable. Food - He could always eat her, though the idea of consuming a creature that is plainly sapient even if vastly inferior is a good deal more barbarous than he generally cares to be. Submission - Lastly he could give in and allow some relative to claim her as a surrogate. Doing so would be giving his consent to the whole practice, however, and that is hardly acceptable.