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IN MEDIA RES
A CAMPAIGN FOR NOBILIS: A GAME OF GREATER POWERS |
 "So I hear your songs, and I know your mind; I hear the world sing, and I know its state. I play the world as I hear it; sometimes I play the world as I want it. Sometimes I play you as I want it. "They call me The Lady of Sound, The Voice, Mistress of Melody, of Harmony, of Rhythm, Dissonance, Resolution, The Note, The Call, and other names besides. I am the Power of Music. And I play."
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THE POWER OF
MUSIC, CELESTE
ELANOR de BORNE Written 8/16/02 --gifts/handicaps/design to be added. Revised 4/24/03 --Fixed attributes; added gifts/limit/restriction/design. Revised 02/02/05 --Added one DMP and one RMP from the two character points granted by a loving and benevolent GM. Player Name
Zeynep Dilli (e-mail)
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"You want how much for this song? That's outrageous." "Is it? Consider. A woman was playing this tune on the piano while she was waiting for news of her husband, gone to war. A child was humming it to himself in the park when a young man walked past him, deep in thought, on his way to the Patent Office. A forgotten radio was playing it in a corner while a family was glued to the television, watching the moon landing. A girl was singing it out loud when a wall was brought down. "It was there for all of those things, and more besides. And if you own it it's going to be there for... whatever else you want."
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THE POWER OF
MUSIC CELESTE ELANOR de BORNE
She thought the idea-turned-fact of being part of all those "intangible" things would be exhilarating, liberating, and the logical next step---after all, her life so far had been a long trek to expand her ability and experience. But that would not be the only new thing that just happened to her. A loner so far by nature---if not by her personal nature, by the nature of her demanding education and lifestyle---she's found herself bound to four strangers. She needs to get used to working with them.
Strangely, she thinks she likes it. It will be another challenge. Or, if it turns out to be not, then like another musical ensemble.
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"...poetry has indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music without the idea is, simply, music. "Without music or a pleasurable idea, "color" becomes "pallor", "man" becomes "carcass", "home" becomes "catacomb", and the dead are, but for a moment, motionless."
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Estate
And this is what my soulshard brought to me...
I play, sitting where I am. It's nowhere. It's my own place. Music---the music I make is everywhere. I change instruments from time to time. I change them as the mood takes me. I change them as the mood takes the world, the universe. I change them as I sense a change----I change them to create a change. As the actor changes costumes to fit a scene or to define a scene, so do I change my instrument. I weave melody from the fabric of All that is always around me, now expressing the whole, now zeroing on a single line, a single point. Pick up the sopranino and soar with the first scream of a firstborn; sit at the organ to accompany the first rumblings of a reawakening volcano, tune the violin to fly along with the first breath of a frantic tropical storm. I play as you make war. I play as you come to terms. I play as you pray. I play as you think, as you make, as you destroy, as you play.
Have you ever seen a musician's eyes glaze over? Watched one in concert when the controlled body seems to be reduced to the hands (and, sometimes, lungs and feet) that command the instrument, and the rest just moves as it will, the expressions of the face completely out of the mind's power to determine, the frame swaying helplessly? That's when they touch me, or I touch them---it can happen both ways---and they can hear and express more than they could otherwise. This happens to the receptive, the ones that are open to me, most. You can train to be more open to me, but if you lack a basic something, it will not happen. Those that make music among you are linked to me. There are degrees of this. The most closely linked can hear my music, and reproduce it, on paper, in song, in playing. I am not the source of every piece of music created by man, not even all of the most beautiful ones. You people can manage fine. But of some. Those that I needed to create.
With you or without you, I play life as it happens. And sometimes---sometimes---I play life and it happens.
Those most sensitive among you can hear the concept behind a melody. They giggle at Mozart's C major piano sonata, first movement, end of first section---there's a joke hidden there that they hear. The word "loss" is audible to them in Chopin's Scherzo #3, the phrase "Once upon a time, there was..." in the opening lines of his Ballade #1. They hear the plainitive call in Vivaldi's G-minor concerto for two violins, even if they cannot fathom for what the call is, exactly. Those that are best linked to me can put these concepts in the music they create, embody concepts in sound, and the sensitive ones can decipher these. But when I need to, I can create a more powerful form of music that you will find on the pages of no music library. That form is unique to me, and I do not give it to those that are linked to me permanently. But I can make someone lift a simple pipe, cover the holes with his fingers, and blow into it---not to make sweet melody, as your bard said, but to talk to---and even control---those that hear it. Playing that pipe, my agent can play his audience, talk to them, lead them. Music changes your emotions. You have known this since the dawn of your history---and have applied it recently, very successfully, in the form of art you call "film music". But it was I that put the rebellion, struggle, and refusal to give in to the final bars of the tell-tale Ballade I mentioned above, and I can put far more transparent, far more specific feelings, concepts, into pieces music you've never heard. The more sensitive you are, the more you will be affected, but I can make it so that none among you who hear will remain untouched. You will know. You will do. And the knowing goes both ways---I hear a melody, sometimes, and I know. (That Mozart fella. He knew me. And was he a comedian. Some of the jokes he wrote in there... off-color doesn't begin to describe it.)
So I hear your songs, and I know your mind; I hear the world sing, and I know its state. I play the world as I hear it; sometimes I play the world as I want it. Sometimes I play you as I want it. They call me The Lady of Sound, The Voice, Mistress of Melody, of Harmony, of Rhythm, Dissonance, Resolution, The Note, The Call, and other names besides. I am the Power of Music. And I play.
Weaknesses
Celeste has had an easy life. She never had any real problems---the one thing she wanted to do from the fourth grade on was music, and unlike many who took that path, she never had to struggle much. Oh, there was the fourteen-hour-practice days as much as everyone else, and occasional frustrations on a passage, but overall she conquered all without plateuing too many times on the way. Other than that, she was sheltered---self-centered and kept very busy with her main interest, she didn't even have a crisis with a boyfriend, let alone become too aware with other, greater problems that exist in the world. She's aware of good and evil, but she's not had to face it personally, nor make friendships that would expose her to the same---except in music-related cases, where she supports independent musicians, doesn't like the RIAA etc. Hence, the grand perspective of a Noble will take some getting used to---her Estate she probably will adapt to pretty quickly, but the Valde Bellum... Design Music's flower has white, semi-closed petals for Magic and Beauty, tinged with red for Creation's fire. It's six-petalled with sword-like petals, standing for Eloquence, and has alternate leaves on opposite sides of stem at different points along the stem for the Creation stage. On the design, the flowers twine around a simple silver pipe [think a pennywhistle]. The background is very light blue for Air---"Conception"---bordered with darker blue for immortality. Associated Non-Player Characters
Arif Garibov, 52, elementary school/junior high music teacher in Celeste's hometown. Born in Baku in 1950, he had the old-school Russian conservatory training to become a college-level piano instructor in Baku in 1974. The influence of his own training he passed on to his students, who generally turned out to be passionate performers. In the early 80s, funding problems closed down his conservatory, political upheaval made people interested in taking private classes difficult, one thing led to another, and Garibov found himself an immigrant. Some confusion with qualification papers and accreditations later, he ended up teaching elementary school music classes in the US and not liking it very much until Celeste passed his way. Even after Celeste left junior high, he continued training her on the piano---even in grad school, when she's playing the piano, she feels as if she can just turn her head to the left and see him sitting there on his chair on the side of the piano, chainsmoking and asking "what note that is?" to her mistakes. After Celeste moved out, they kept in touch with visits, letters, and the young girl kept sending recordings of her performances for him to comment on. Charles Patrick de Borne, 26, architect. Second son of the deBorne family, in his own way he was always the one to be closest to Celeste, which is saying something in a family with very few common interests cultivated or pursued. That is to say, he would sometimes draw in the same room while she was practicing, and offer commentary when asked for. Then he would ask her what she thought of this new balcony railing detail he'd come up with. She finds him easiest to talk to, and while not in the habit of going to her family with problems, she would probably go to Charles as his favouritest oldest brother. Although neither of them acknowledge it very much, they understand each other to a degree, and like each other a lot. Paul Connaugh, 25, chemist, Ph.D. student. Likes reading, reenactment, and classical music, the last combined with the difficulty of affording concert tickets being what led him to meet Celeste. Always on the lookout for opportunities of cheap live music, which actually abound in a campus that has a music college, he attended her undergraduate semester recital, but ended up paying attention to more than the music. Seeking to meet her, he soon learned that when it comes to paying attention to more than music as a passion, she hasn't yet made up her mind. But he's patient, and likes whatever he can share with her, so does not pressure her---which last has caused Celeste to like him more than maybe she admits to herself. It was through his reenactment activities, a number of which he dragged Celeste to, that she started exploring Celtic music and early music. Appearance and Gifts Slightly wavy hair that's rather dark blonde and dark eyes in an oval face, Celeste is a medium-built woman. Since most of her daily circle consists of sitting down somewhere to practice, she's on the plumpish side, and is perpetually aware that she needs more exercise, but doesn't consider that a priority as long as she's healthy. Which she has (so far) been. Gifts pending revision. |
First it's all the same. Soft, warm, reddishly dim. Then there's change! That can't be good! Then you see something else that's not the same, not reddishly dim or warm or, probably, soft. You struggle towards it. Or are pushed towards it. Or both. And you attain it. And it becomes everything, and you struggle for it, in it, and not look for an alternative again.
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BIOGRAPHY Third child of a family of six, Celesta was the only daughter---which wasn't the only thing to set her apart from her three brothers. It's a commonplace family, as far as both-parents-working-and-intensely-successful families go. From a very early age, her oldest brother Martin was into computers. From a very early age, the next brother Charles drew pictures of buildings. From a very early age, the youngest, Keith, ran and fought. Celeste didn't do anything from a very early age except for being a good general-purpose student, which was just fine with her parents. There was the heirloom piano in the living room and Mom listened to classical music (and Dad to jazz), but she wasn't particularly interested in music. That started changing very slowly in her fourth year in school, when a Mr. Garibov, an Azerbaijani immigrant of the oldschool Russian music education tradition who had to move to the US as the USSR went to pieces, discovered that her voice and range were good, but somewhat beyond that, that she could discern four-note chords without any previous training. A loner at heart, Celeste understood only years later how much of a struggle Garibov must have had to ignite her about music. Even then, she stayed a loner, still the odd-one-out in the family (which wasn't very hard, because everyone else in the family were odd-ones-out as well), but now a loner with a passion. Not many friendships except with ensemble players. Not much of a social life; spending time with instruments was better. In due course she graduated from high school, applied to a music college, and was accepted after a bit of a hassle---it wasn't certain which department she'd go into, which she neatly solved by doing a composition/piano double major. Moving to $COLLEGE_TOWN [1] away from home didn't change her much. She didn't go into any drinking binges, didn't change her style of clothing, or what she read, a lot---she is not a "try everything" type... except in music. By the time she got to college she played the piano, the oboe, and she sang. College was a place to broaden her horizons and try on new kinds of music, so she picked up the Irish harp and started experimenting with the violin/fiddle and with computerized music. She also branched out into genres, finding out which ones she liked (most) and hated with a passion (rap, "adult contemporary"). That hatred is typical of her nature, for she is picky---her clothing doesn't have to be expensive, but it has to be "her style"; on the rare occasions she ate out with friends, she could be a waiter's nightmare in pickiness. Being in music school, leading towards the life of a performer, she is aware that self-presentation is a big part of linking with your audience... In one of her undergraduate semester recitals, a graduate student from the Chemical Engineering department, seeking cheap classical music, was in the audience. Paul liked more than just her playing, and came over to talk to her after the recital... and one thing led to another; however, even though she stayed in the same place, carrying on to grad school, she has not as of yet made a commitment to him. He means time, and entry into too many different social circles than she's used to---she seeks different social situations only as a means to getting into, you guessed it, more music. Hence her presence at the Ren Faire---for the past three years she has been performing there, practicing her Celtic/English music with Irish harp, recorder, and very recently, fiddle that's finally up to par. But having trained herself to be a loner from very early on (well, guess she _did_ do something from early on after all) she is not as utterly cold and distant as this seems to imply. She is compassionate, for she understands the hardship being alone can bring. She tries to bring help to those in such need, not necessarily by providing the companionship herself, but by showing them ways to deal with it... [1] Close to the Ren-Faire-To-Be-Chancel.
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"Now, music too is a language, but an untranslatable one." -Beethoven "Delicacy. Elegance. Restraint... There's more to the art than storm and stress and thundery bluster." -Mendelssohn "The music of Russia is Russia itself." -Prokofiev "There's something behind the notes which not even God---saving His near presence---can elucidate." -Bliss "The musician alone has access to God." -Stendhal "God was always a fine intellectual concept, but it's all his too physical son that inspired the loftiest music." -Rossini "You told me before, Arnold [Schoenberg]. [That tonic and dominant stand for] stability. And it's okay to blue the stability with a few extra notes." -Gershwin
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VISION CARDS A black obelisk surrounded by shafts of blue fire rising from its base, rising from a field of glowing blue arcane symbols that streches to the horizon.
Butterflies pour out of a black bank vault being impossibly balanced on the pointer finger of a young boy in jean overalls.
A cello sits upon a rocky outcrop, surrounded by boiling waves and stormy skies. The cello is playing, though no one is around to play it.
A sword and shield lay leaning against the wall of a hay barn. The sword is rusted from age and damaged from hard use, the shield shines like new.
In the fading light, a man's figure is silhouetted by the red glow of the sunset. He stands defiantly, atop a shingled roof holding a instrument in his arms.
The familiar black-white key pattern of a piano, but if you look closely, the key surfaces are smooth only because of a transparent upper layer---right underneath that flat varnish, carved into the wood, are miniature figures of flowers, animals, people, even cityscapes.
A leather-bound book lies open so that two pages are viewable. The left shows an illumination of a golden harp in a shaft of sunlight, the right, a broken violin surrounded by darkness.
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