Character Creation: Mental

Anthony made an interesting face, as he took down his new results.  "You could have done worse, all things considered, although the orc's mental penalty made a not great roll kind of worse for you." 

"What the hell does that mean you...you," Stephanie began, but trailed off as a new sensation overcame her.  Before now, the tingling had always been in her body, as various parts grew, expanded, and changed, but now for the first time, she felt something move in over her mind.  "No no no no no," she said to herself, putting her hands to her head.  Even if she looked like a huge perverse beast, at least she was still Stephanie inside.  Oh god, would he not be happy until he took everything from her? 

The sensations were manifold and bizarre, as if her grey matter were stretching and expanding in places, but in others, things were shrinking until they vanished entirely.  She began to feel more aware of her surroundings, as if the world looked clearer than it ever had before, sights, sounds, smells, the tiny movements of a squirrel she hadn't even noticed, sitting up in a tree across the yard, or the direction the slight breeze that was blowing.  But as she wondered at these new expanded senses, she began to struggle to remember all that much about the things she was noticing.  Looking at that squirrel, she could swear that she could have rattled off at least a few squirrel facts not thirty seconds before, but now anything beyond that simply wouldn't come to mind.  'What the hell is happening?' she wondered to herself.  Sure she was in a state of practically constant panic at this point, but this didn't feel like a byproduct of that.  Her eyes flickered to the columns that stood at the front of the sorority house.  She knew that not last week, her art history class had studied the various kinds that were popular in classical architecture, and she specifically remembered identifying these columns as one of those typed.  But now, not only could she not remember what kind these were, she couldn't recall ANY of the types. 

'It's okay Stephanie, think,' she coached herself.  'Columns like these came from uhhh...it was...GREECE!  Yes, okay, they're Greece columns...or...no wait are they Italian?  No no not Italian, what's the old Italy kingdom....name thing?  Oh fuck fuck fuck come on this is easy, it's...ROME.  They're Romey columns.  No wait...that's not...uhhh.'  Then she realized she couldn't remember what she'd been trying to remember.  One arm dropped limp down in front of her, while the other scratched at her head.  "What was Stephanie thinking about...?" she wondered to herself out loud. 

"An intelligence score of 7 can do that," Anthony explained.  "Takes a whole lot of knowledge and critical thinking right out of you." 

Stephanie had forgotten about Anthony for a moment, then scowled at him.  "The fuck does that mean?" she spat, not entirely sure what was happening, but knowing that she wasn't happy about it. 

Anthony smiled a somewhat sympathetic smile.  "It means you're going to be a bit dumber now, Steph," he said.  "I don't imagine you retained all the knowledge and focus that you used to have." 

Stephanie was shaking her head.  "No no no!" she shouted.  "I'm smart, idiot!  I got a 3.7 GPA.  YOU'RE the dumb one!"  She couldn't believe that.  She wouldn't believe that.  She was just flustered, that's all. 

"All right, let's see, how about some basic algebra," Anthony offered.  Stephanie smiled toothily.  She was a Calculus student at this point, and a good one at that.  "What's the Pythagorean Theorum?" 

Stephanie's mouth opened instinctively, confident that she knew the answer.  But then her brain caught up with the question, and no answer was coming up. She scowled and really put her back into thinking to find it, but it was like slogging through water fully dressed.  Everything felt sluggish.  She couldn't even find a close guess that sounded right at all.  Finally, desperately, she shouted, "27!" 

Anthony's head fell and she shook it with a sad smile.  "How about history?  Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?" 

Stephanie desperately tried to think of the answer, but when she came up with nothing, she just tried to think of all the Founding Fathers she could, but didn't get much further than Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.  She knew neither of those were correct.  She ground her fangs together in frustration.  "You FUCKER!  You made me a fuckin' dumb stupid dick monster!  I HATE YOU!" 

"Hey hey now, I know your Charisma is down a little, but it's only to 9.  I know you can do slightly better than that.  But hey, at least your instincts will be better.  You got a Wisdom score of 14, which is pretty darn good!" 

Stephanie didn't know why, but she got the feeling that he was actually telling the truth there.  She didn't really know what it meant to have a Wisdom score of 14, but Anthony seemed to genuinely think that was a good one to have.  She couldn't place how she knew this, but it felt right.  Whatever it meant though, it didn't seem to be doing her much good.  She'd rather have her smarts back in a heartbeat. 

"All right, Stephanie.  Are you ready for your final change?" 

"Steph don't WANT no more changes you-you-you-," but she trailed off, not coming up with any insult that wouldn't make her sound like a very angry five-year-old. 

"Lets get you a vocation, and find out about your background," Anthony said, rolling his dice. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Finally got around to finishing up the penultimate changes for Stephanie, her Mental Ability Scores: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, for which she got a 7, 14, and 9 respectively.  This episode is sponsored by   Thanks very much for helping the series get this far! 

I feel like there may be some debate on how Intelligence and Wisdom present in how a person acts, but looking down the list of skills that each covers, my interpretation is that Intelligence has to do with critical thinking and knowledge on a variety of topics, so knowing things and being able to learn well.  Wisdom seems more instinctual, having more to do with being perceptive in a sensory way, being able to tell peoples' and animals' intentions, and knowing how to survive.  Ergo, I figured taking out much of Stephanie's knowledge across the board, and shortening her attention span befits a low intelligence score, but she also perceives more than she used to now, and has better instincts to make up for her decrease in book knowledge and slowed learning processes. 

And for Charisma, this means that she's slightly below average, although with her diminished mental state, it might end up compounding a bit. 

At any rate, there's now only one stage left, which will combine both Stephanie's Class and Background, which will make her a fully created character.  After that, I may do another image summarizing Stephanie's new character, with maybe an action pose of some sort, before restarting the series with another one of Stephanie's friends. 

But the last stage is currently unfunded, so if anyone would like to contribute to get that last stage done to cap off this series, please feel free to send me a note!  I'm excited and I hope you folks are too  

Sura 

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