Character history
May. 24th, 2025 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
viennoiseriesLune is one of the children of a a pair of prestigious researchers in Lumiére, where a dwindling population can see a distant eldritch figure paint an age on a monolith each year. It's the Gommage. Anyone at the painted age disappears into wisps of flower petals and ink, and every year the maximum age dwindles. Everyone has a visible deadline, and there's a few ways to react to that. Some people live what they can, celebrate the life they had, and go to the docks to disappear.
Lune's family works to help the Expeditions reach and kill the Paintress. She grew up under immense pressure to solve an existential threat, literally getting drafted by her parents as one of their research apprentices at age four. This has its ups and downs, as it shapes Lune into a brilliant spell caster with a lot of knowledge at hand - but it also means she has a personal arc a parent always leaves their mark on their children. Lune wasn't left much room for frivolous things, so there's only a few personal indulgences that she mentions: she learns to play the guitar, and her favorite food is viennoiseries. By the time she's an adult, the musical indulgence has grown into an occasional public performance.
Her parents inevitably went on an Expedition, and for a while, Lune had herself convinced that they would succeed. If anyone could succeed, it would be them. But a year passed, and the Paintress stood to paint the next number on her monolith. Shaken, Lune finds an outlet for her emotions in alcohol and a grief-driven fling with another mourning woman, Sciel. Emphasis on brief, because once Lune had vented her emotions, she turned back to her work and dropped the connection without really explaining herself to Sciel.
Because her parents might have been dead, but she knew what they expected from her. Lune HAD to finish the job. She tried to make herself the premier tactical mind for Expedition 33, and convinced the Expedition to let her chart their landing on the main continent based on her research. Lune believed she had found where the original expedition - the only one to survive to return to Lumiére - made its landing. She gambled that this would let the expedition take advantage of roads, markers, and resources from their predecessors. She also worked with Gustave on his lumina converter to try giving their expedition a new tool.
When they landed, an impossibly old man and a host of monsters known as nevrons slaughtered the expedition. Lune managed to escape, and became the organizing and driving force for the handful of survivors to continue the mission. Lune talked Gustave down from committing suicide, and though she pushed protocol and the importance of sticking to the plan, they deviated to go find Gustave's foster sister, Maelle. It becomes clear that for all her talk, Lune's attention certainly can be diverted: at camp overnight, she summons her guitar to play, and when it turns out that puppet-like beings called gestrals are real, she is ecstatic for an excuse to detour to visit their village. The journey leads to collecting one more expedition survivor, Sciel. This isn't awkward for them. Rather, it's a comfort, and over the course of the adventure, Lune ends up explaining herself in their heart-to-hearts.
In another exciting turn, Lune gets to meet the legendary entity Esquie (a spirit? A giant upbeat balloon man.), who will help them traverse the continent if they help him get various stones back. Getting a stone back for him leads to a desperate boss fight, and the party is riding the high of their victory and climbing aboard the swimming Esquie when that old man catches them again. Already down on Esquie, Lune and Sciel are late to realize the other two are in danger. Gustave dies, and a stranger saves Maelle, with the party fleeing back to camp.
There's a lot of grief and anger, and the party's plenty suspicious of this stranger, named Verso. But he offers them another path to their goal, so they fold him into the group - and Lune and Sciel start to warm up to him as they travel. Lune is prone to questioning him, and tends to have notes about opening up without thinking about it. On top of everything else Maelle is experiencing with the party something is going on that has Maelle spooked - she's having nightmares and feels an odd familiarity and empathy toward things she's never seen before. Lune observes that Maelle has a sensitivity to chroma, a sort of magical essence for this setting. Trying to get to the Paintress' heart, they go to Old Lumiére, where Verso manipulates events to split up the party and tail Maelle to let the girl try to gain entrance to a strange, pristine manor. While split up, Lune figures out that Verso is the son of the man who's been killing the expedition. Push come to shove, Verso is on their side though, so they fight the old man - and the manor disappears. Time for another fallback plan.
The party goes to fight a pair of Axons to forge a weapon that will pierce the protection around the Paintress. An Axon of emotional masks challenges the party, but Sciel can't be affected by its masks however she presents herself, Sciel is already full of grief. An enchanting siren Axon is next, showing the party visions of deceased loved ones. Lune is enchanted by visions of her parents smiling at her. Finding that Verso can't be enchanted, the Axon tries simply attacking the party instead. After fighting, the Axon lowers a hand to Lune, and she steps on, only to use the invitation to get close enough to destroy the Axon with one last blast of magic. A weapon is forged from the Axons: a sword for Maelle.
The party goes to confront the Paintress. The family drama is getting thick, but they make it into the monolith and fight their way through it, witnessing projections of the Paintress' memories and taking their revenge on the old man in one last confrontation. Maelle is starting to develop a strange void power - maybe it's something they can use. For now, it's on to confront the Paintress, and one more helping of family drama. At the end of it, Maelle and Verso hold the Paintress in her final moments.
The number fades from the Monolith, and the party is faced with the prospect of returning to Lumiére, carrying their trauma and their victories alike, along with the possibility of an open-ended life. It's a celebratory Lumiére that welcomes them back, though Verso seems to hold himself apart from the crowd.
One last Gommage sweeps over Lumiére as the city celebrates, this time indiscriminately taking anyone of any age. The last memory Lune has is feeling herself come apart.
Lune's family works to help the Expeditions reach and kill the Paintress. She grew up under immense pressure to solve an existential threat, literally getting drafted by her parents as one of their research apprentices at age four. This has its ups and downs, as it shapes Lune into a brilliant spell caster with a lot of knowledge at hand - but it also means she has a personal arc a parent always leaves their mark on their children. Lune wasn't left much room for frivolous things, so there's only a few personal indulgences that she mentions: she learns to play the guitar, and her favorite food is viennoiseries. By the time she's an adult, the musical indulgence has grown into an occasional public performance.
Her parents inevitably went on an Expedition, and for a while, Lune had herself convinced that they would succeed. If anyone could succeed, it would be them. But a year passed, and the Paintress stood to paint the next number on her monolith. Shaken, Lune finds an outlet for her emotions in alcohol and a grief-driven fling with another mourning woman, Sciel. Emphasis on brief, because once Lune had vented her emotions, she turned back to her work and dropped the connection without really explaining herself to Sciel.
Because her parents might have been dead, but she knew what they expected from her. Lune HAD to finish the job. She tried to make herself the premier tactical mind for Expedition 33, and convinced the Expedition to let her chart their landing on the main continent based on her research. Lune believed she had found where the original expedition - the only one to survive to return to Lumiére - made its landing. She gambled that this would let the expedition take advantage of roads, markers, and resources from their predecessors. She also worked with Gustave on his lumina converter to try giving their expedition a new tool.
When they landed, an impossibly old man and a host of monsters known as nevrons slaughtered the expedition. Lune managed to escape, and became the organizing and driving force for the handful of survivors to continue the mission. Lune talked Gustave down from committing suicide, and though she pushed protocol and the importance of sticking to the plan, they deviated to go find Gustave's foster sister, Maelle. It becomes clear that for all her talk, Lune's attention certainly can be diverted: at camp overnight, she summons her guitar to play, and when it turns out that puppet-like beings called gestrals are real, she is ecstatic for an excuse to detour to visit their village. The journey leads to collecting one more expedition survivor, Sciel. This isn't awkward for them. Rather, it's a comfort, and over the course of the adventure, Lune ends up explaining herself in their heart-to-hearts.
In another exciting turn, Lune gets to meet the legendary entity Esquie (a spirit? A giant upbeat balloon man.), who will help them traverse the continent if they help him get various stones back. Getting a stone back for him leads to a desperate boss fight, and the party is riding the high of their victory and climbing aboard the swimming Esquie when that old man catches them again. Already down on Esquie, Lune and Sciel are late to realize the other two are in danger. Gustave dies, and a stranger saves Maelle, with the party fleeing back to camp.
There's a lot of grief and anger, and the party's plenty suspicious of this stranger, named Verso. But he offers them another path to their goal, so they fold him into the group - and Lune and Sciel start to warm up to him as they travel. Lune is prone to questioning him, and tends to have notes about opening up without thinking about it. On top of everything else Maelle is experiencing with the party something is going on that has Maelle spooked - she's having nightmares and feels an odd familiarity and empathy toward things she's never seen before. Lune observes that Maelle has a sensitivity to chroma, a sort of magical essence for this setting. Trying to get to the Paintress' heart, they go to Old Lumiére, where Verso manipulates events to split up the party and tail Maelle to let the girl try to gain entrance to a strange, pristine manor. While split up, Lune figures out that Verso is the son of the man who's been killing the expedition. Push come to shove, Verso is on their side though, so they fight the old man - and the manor disappears. Time for another fallback plan.
The party goes to fight a pair of Axons to forge a weapon that will pierce the protection around the Paintress. An Axon of emotional masks challenges the party, but Sciel can't be affected by its masks however she presents herself, Sciel is already full of grief. An enchanting siren Axon is next, showing the party visions of deceased loved ones. Lune is enchanted by visions of her parents smiling at her. Finding that Verso can't be enchanted, the Axon tries simply attacking the party instead. After fighting, the Axon lowers a hand to Lune, and she steps on, only to use the invitation to get close enough to destroy the Axon with one last blast of magic. A weapon is forged from the Axons: a sword for Maelle.
The party goes to confront the Paintress. The family drama is getting thick, but they make it into the monolith and fight their way through it, witnessing projections of the Paintress' memories and taking their revenge on the old man in one last confrontation. Maelle is starting to develop a strange void power - maybe it's something they can use. For now, it's on to confront the Paintress, and one more helping of family drama. At the end of it, Maelle and Verso hold the Paintress in her final moments.
The number fades from the Monolith, and the party is faced with the prospect of returning to Lumiére, carrying their trauma and their victories alike, along with the possibility of an open-ended life. It's a celebratory Lumiére that welcomes them back, though Verso seems to hold himself apart from the crowd.
One last Gommage sweeps over Lumiére as the city celebrates, this time indiscriminately taking anyone of any age. The last memory Lune has is feeling herself come apart.
