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[ethyraia] app
Player;
Character;
CHARACTER NAME: Adora
AGE: ~21
CANON: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
CANON POINT: Episode 43, Stranded; after landing to refuel, but before running into the Star Siblings.
BACKGROUND/HISTORY:
Born on Eternia to unknown parents, Adora was brought through a portal as a baby to Etheria, a planet stranded in the empty dimension of Despondos. Arriving in the Fright Zone, she narrowly avoided being placed in the Horde orphanage thanks to the innate power dwelling within her; something Shadow Weaver was quick to capitalize on by making Adora her protege, planning to raise her into the strongest warrior in the Horde — all while manipulating Adora's every move and thought to suit her purposes.
This status came with certain allowances, but also enormous expectations. It's not fully detailed how Adora and Catra actually met, but it's implied that that the latter arrived in the Fright Zone a year or two later as a lonely, abandoned kitten, and Adora immediately latched onto her, much to Shadow Weaver's chagrin. With the Fright Zone living up to its name, and Shadow Weaver finding any excuse to abuse Catra not just for her own failings, but for dragging Adora down with her (read: daring to distract Adora from being a perfect little soldier), the two girls clung to each other for the better part of fifteen years, with grand plans to take over the entire world one day. To be free.
Then Adora found a glowing sword in the woods, and everything fell apart. Realizing that the Horde were, in fact, the baddies, she left, and she left alone, not having the chance to return before Catra was sent out to find her with Shadow Weaver breathing down her neck. Adora, having found what she believes to be her destiny in becoming She-Ra, refuses to go back; Catra misinterprets Adora's abandonment of the Horde as abandonment of her, and begins a years-long descent into villainy and becoming Adora's worst nightmare.
Adora spends those years at war against the Horde, struggling to understand both her place in the universe and herself. At one point, Catra's bitterness leads her to tear a hole in reality, and the cost to fix things is the the life of the Rebellion's queen. This is Adora's breaking point: she stops letting misplaced guilt hold her back, and becomes more determined to end things with Catra, one way or another. Unfortunately, the role she'd been given as She-Ra to restore balance to Etheria turns out to be the key to activating a superweapon that could destroy the entire planet, and Adora, even knowing it might be their only chance at victory, refuses to use it.
Her new best friend Glimmer has no such qualms, however, and Adora is forced into channeling the planet's energy through her body, much like her predecessor as She-Ra, Mara, was. But, like Mara, she finds a way to minimize the damage — even as the Heart of Etheria drags them out of Despondos and into the wider universe, Adora shatters her sword, declaring that she is not a weapon... and, as of right now, no longer She-Ra.
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: n/a
PERSONALITY:
➡ A LEADER: Adora is, first and foremost, a leader. This is both due to her natural, headstrong personality, her control freak nature, and because it's been expected from her for her entire life; first by Shadow Weaver (and the Horde), then by the Rebellion as a whole. While she slots into the role with apparent ease, she's never been given a choice to decide for herself if she'd rather lead or follow. From day one, she's been told that she's special, that she's destined for greatness, and while it's given her an ego, it's an ego fed by others as much as herself.
➡ INSECURE: Adora doesn't demand that people like her, but she wants to be liked. She draws an unhealthy distinction between herself and She-Ra; while they're one and the same, she knows it's She-Ra that people admire, not Adora, which makes losing her such a terrifying prospect. She also knows that people look to She-Ra for hope, to be their hero, and in pursuit of those expectations, she goes without sleep, she pushes herself to and far beyond her breaking point, all out of desperation to be good enough, smart enough, strong enough. Her only worth is what she can give to other people, and any happiness she finds for herself as Adora is purely incidental, to be put aside for the Greater Good at a moment's notice.
➡ DENSE: Perhaps unsurprisingly, given her circumstances, Adora is tactically smart, but a blockhead when it comes to emotions. She's overly blunt, and has trouble seeing past her own views on things, or realizing that others might see things differently. It's what drives a wedge between her and Catra, because she can't understand why Catra won't just leave the Horde the way Adora did, when it wasn't even a choice for her. Likewise, while most of the other recruits saw past the Horde's Starship Troopers-level propaganda, Adora fell for it hook, line, and sinker, fully believing that she was on the side of good until being forced to confront reality.
➡ SELFLESS: When breaking the sword, Adora declares I am not a weapon for the world to hear, but what she meant is I am not a weapon to be used against my friends. In battle, the only sacrifice Adora is willing to make is herself, both in mind and body — because to her, that isn't a sacrifice at all. She actively seeks out danger, putting herself in the firing line out of a need to protect others, and, subconsciously, as penitence for (what she sees as) her numerous failures. Even after losing the ability to become She-Ra, she continues to act recklessly in fights, to the point where one of her own teammates has to knock her unconscious just to get her to actually retreat with the others. In short, she's the definition of first (wo)man in, last man out, sometimes to a harmful extent.
SUITABILITY:
Adora is a soldier, and has been a soldier her entire life, having been taken in as a baby by a military organization known as The Horde. She's used to dealing with hardship, limited resources, and following strict orders, though she no longer does so as blindly as she once did.
While Adora was just reaching the point of seeing active duty in the Horde, she has spent the three years since leaving fighting at the head of the Rebellion's army as She-Ra, helping organize their disjointed efforts and taking command of their armies alongside first Queen Angella, then Queen Glimmer. She is capable of fighting both solo and as part of a group, and giving and taking instructions; albeit not ones that involve undue risk to others (any risk to herself is fine), or acts of abject cruelty, even if for the sake of victory.
When she left the Horde, she effectively uprooted her entire life; leaving behind everything and everyone she'd ever known for the sake of helping the planet instead of hurting it. Adapting to life on Ethyraia won't be easy, of course, but she has literally done the same thing before, and will push down her emotional reactions, homesickness, and concern for her friends in favour of dealing with the problems in front of her right now, presenting a strong exterior even if she starts to crumble internally.
ABILITIES/SKILLS:
Adora has been trained almost since birth by the Horde, and was the top choice for promotion to Force Captain (aka, being put in charge of her own squadron) among her cadet group before she defected. She's good with both her fists and an extendable staff, knows basic survival and tracking skills, and has a mind for strategic planning, even if everything tends to fall apart the moment she actually starts on a mission. Her last three years have been spent at war, and she's as much at home on the battlefield as she is anywhere else.
More uniquely, she also has the ability to turn into She-Ra, a giant glowing woman with incredible power. For the most part She-Ra is Adora, just bigger, stronger, and with better hair, but she also has a few extra powers (see below). Her biggest weaknesses are her relative lack of speed, largely close-quarters fighting style, and the fact she's still Adora, thus incredibly stupid and gullible. *
(At her current canonpoint, Adora does not have access to She-Ra, for reasons I'll extrapolate on below, but she has the inherent ability to become her again, and will inevitably regain that either through in-game stressors or a canon update. This is very much intended as a temporary depowering to help facilitate character development, and make the initial adjustment period harder on her than it might otherwise be.)
I'm gonna try and make this a comprehensive list, but also not tl;dr too much, so please ask if you need clarification on anything! I know the setting has minimal nerfs, but given what a hero type Adora is, and what a huge plot convenience She-Ra is, I'm going to keep a lid on some of her more undefined powers to make things fair.
» Healing. While inexperienced at first, Adora has spent two years honing her healing powers, and been shown to save someone from death's door, and, slightly past her current canonpoint, either an Actually Dead or incredibly close to it person. Both of these happen in very emotionally charged situations (and the former with a sorceress instructing her), are not something she's able to do casually, and I will 100% be asking for mod permission before healing anything at a near-death level. At minimum it'd put her out of action completely for a few days, and weakened for up to a week.
No matter what, healing more than a few scratches leaves the target exhausted afterward, and while Adora's own wounds as She-Ra usually heal without a trace, she's still left with the sensation of them; a burning ache that only fades with time. Overuse of her powers also leaves her drained and unable to maintain her form as She-Ra, and this functions as an effective nerf in unpredictable situations like on Ethyraia: either she limits herself, or risks burning out and being unable to fight if something urgent comes up.
» Animal transformation. At the start of the series, Adora transformed an ordinary horse into her flying, talking steed, Swift Wind... and also gave a random lizard wings, before it literally flew away and was never seen again, lmao. Since she never uses this ability again in the show (and both times she did it was unintentional), it won't ever be a thing in-game. Swift Wind would get jealous. :(
She-Ra has been shown to calm wild animals at some points, though this seems tied to her magical connection to Etheria itself, rather than a more generic "animals just love her" sort of thing. It wouldn't work on any overtly hostile wildlife on Ethyraia, only something along the lines of a startled deer, and if it could make a difference to an event or whatever, I'll ask the mods if it would work... or perhaps make things worse due to magical misfires. (It can just be nerfed completely as well; I'm really not fussed.)
» Super... etc. While Adora is strong for a human already, She-Ra is freakishly so, able to pick up (and throw) tanks, effortlessly carry a wagon full of supplies, and generally seems to have very few limits on her physical capabilities. She can jump absurd heights and distances, though her speed is still lacking, and can fight in space for... some reason. Strength-wise, she'll be limited by her ability to focus on the task at hand, and her survival in space won't extend to other hostile environments; at best, she'd have a bigger lung capacity and more stamina to push through things like poison gas, extreme heat, etc.
» The sword itself can transform into various items, from the purely mundane (a mop) to more useful things (a shield), and sometimes comically useless (a flute). This seem limited to less complicated objects, so to speak — so she won't be able to make a gun, but a bow and arrow would theoretically be possible. By way of nerfs, I'll take the early-canon approach of 'sometimes she gets what she wants, sometimes she gets a golden coffee mug, it is a mystery'.
It can also fire rainbow energy beams (subtle) both from the tip and out of the runestone on the hilt, presumably when Adora focuses her magical energy there. This would be able to take out a few of the rats from the TDM, or punch a hole in a (thin) wall, but wouldn't be very effective against stronger opponents or obstacles.
The reason for Adora's current lack of power is due to her shattering her previous sword, in a desperate bid to avoid being used as a living superweapon. She was (and still is) under the impression that She-Ra was tied to the sword itself, and that by breaking it, Adora was effectively giving up their connection forever. As it turns out, said sword was a means to control her, and the giant warrior lady was inside her all along — she eventually learns how to manifest her own sword out of pure magical energy, and regains the ability to transform into She-Ra without the previous restrictions on her strength. It does require more focus than before, since she's having to actively maintain the sword itself on top of her own magic, and as a result her powers overall fluctuate depending on her emotional state at the time. (It also acts as a convenient way to nerf her further if need be: just say the magic's acting up.)
* She-Ra also has two canon-specific weaknesses, courtesy of the same race that created the original sword limiter in the first place: a red data disk, making contact with which puts She-Ra in an uncontrollable berserker state until it's destroyed, and a virus which renders Adora unable to transform into She-Ra at all. While the former example would most likely not work on her new sword, and the chances of First Ones technology being on Ethyraia are, uh, low, unless the mods are really pulling a long con with the similar planet names, there's no reason something else couldn't have a similar effect either to facilitate a plot or keep her from being a Convenient Solution to a problem.
INVENTORY:
» her standard uniform: pants, jacket, turtleneck, (empty) utility belt, boots
» an extendable staff, her main weapon
» the (ordinary) dagger she keeps under her pillow
» a martyr complex big enough to need its own slot
SAMPLE ONE: COMMUNICATION; from an earlier canonpoint (episode 13), and more naive than she is now, but still fairly accurate to her present demeanor.
SAMPLE TWO: THOUGHTS; also from an earlier canonpoint, but she still catastrophizes internally and blames herself for any problems.
SAMPLE THREE: CONFLICT; continued elsewhere on the TDM, since it just barely meets length requirements.