User:Madigan

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This page describes a character who is dead or retired from Hollow.

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A cloud of dirt went up her nose and stung as she sneezed. She kicked her legs against the ground, scraping her skin as she tried to wriggle free. The dryads pinned her to the floor, one holding her down by her cheek and the others putting their weights on her abdomen and limbs. She growled in agitation as breathing got harder with the dryads on her. More dirt went up her nose and mouth as she huffed, making her wince again and cough, tears welling in her eyes. Her cheeks burned from the ground scraping against her skin. An angry cry ripped through her throat as she tried to squirm away, but they just held her down harder, hurting her and making her grit her teeth.

She reluctantly gave in and just laid there for a while, angered and annoyed at the pain where the dryads pressed down on her. With her subdued, they started to shave her head with a ritual blade. With a grunt, she kicked out again and hit one of the dryads that pinned her. A yelp followed by the sound of crunching rubble made it to her ears, and she smirked in sadistic satisfaction. The fallen dryad hissed as she got up, and then called out for another to join the group of them. She hastily commanded the other to hold down Madigan's legs as they moved to pin her legs. They all struggled to restrain her once again, but once they managed, she sagged in submission, waiting for its end. Once her head was stripped of every white strand of hair, the dryad on her back shifted to straddle her and began to tattoo her scalp with a sharp handmade needle. They inked her with a white organic ink. The tattooist was skillful and quick with her thrusting of the needle into Madigan's skin as she etched a symbolic design into her. When she finished, they wiped her scalp and covered her nose and mouth with a toxin that put her to sleep.

When she awoke, the world was a haze and blur as she tried to make sense of the things around her. She glanced to her side to barely make out a white-haired, darkly tanned dryad with tattoos decorating her face, arms, and legs. She spoke softly to Madigan, explaining to her how her life would be changed with her new markings - how her identity will no longer be entirely in her control.

Madigan hardly heard a thing her mother told her with her mind so jumbled and her senses distorted. The only word she really caught was one that would echo throughout the rest of her life: zombi.

Madigan's Society

Work in Progress

Madigan's people thrived in a vicious environment where most predators were either big enough or venomous enough (or both) to kill an average adult, and even some plants could manage much of the same, either by eating a person or poisoning them. Her people were adept in their environment, having spent centuries in the isolated jungle region. They developed many specialized methods of traveling and harvesting of the natural resources while guarding it from the vicious wars that would break out among tribes of other races in the region. Her people were perhaps the reason for some extinctions of tribes.

Sociopolitics and Economy

They were an egalitarian, esoteric people with no organized form of government or economy. Although they had a Matron (the oldest dryad who acts as the intermediary, shaman, and a tribe leader during difficult times) and offered her the most prestige, they all, regardless of age or kin group, had the right to speak on matters that concerned the whole of the tribe, and each dryad was as socially and politically powerful as any other.

The Matron's position served more as a pillar to the dryads' traditions and beliefs; they didn't have much of a written language, so all beliefs and practices were passed down orally through the Matron. Confusion about any tradition or belief was brought to the Matron who would reiterate a folktale to dispel any doubts.

They had no form of economy in that they didn't use currency but they certainly practiced bartering. Each dryad trained under various specialized skills and provided for themselves with such skills. With their skills, they would offered to create items for others in exchange for lessons of new skills and/or items not within their means of creating.

When conflicts arose in the tribe, those directly involved in said conflicts were expected to resolve them within whatever means necessary, and it was frowned upon if any of the other dryads interfered. Sometimes (very rarely), the Matron would interfere and only she was allowed to do so without social repercussions.

The tribe didn't practice self-grooming. All dryads were groomed by each other, and it was a severe social transgression if a dryad was found grooming herself (i.e., brushing her hair). Arguably, this tradition developed to foster solidarity and inter-reliance within a group of self-sufficient and resourceful dryads. Without such a cultural practice, it is likely the culture would have ended because the dryads would've felt no need to stay together and continue their cultural existence.

Fundamental Skillsets

Some dryads were able to learn a majority of the skills necessary to survive in the tribe's everyday life because of such extended lifetimes. Not all of them dedicated their lives to learning every trade; some chose to become very specialized to perfect certain skills. However, all dryads of the tribe knew how to camouflage, kill efficiently (as a warrior), and travel through the forest quickly and quietly. Those who were unable or unwilling to learn were perceived as a hindrance to the well-being and survival of the tribe and were either exiled or executed (the dryad in question made the choice if she was accused of hindrance). Such a practice left the tribe with only those who were willing and able.

They were an intelligent group of dryads, having a deep grasp on natural selection's function and understood how to use the natural process to their advantage. The dryads, to an extent, had harnessed the power of natural selection to drive their existence toward a more fit state so they could more efficiently survive in their environment. For this reason, Madigan and her people have certain characteristics not necessarily common among all dryads. And even within her group, some dryads were more... derived than others.

Beliefs

Madigan's tribe's beliefs were various and intrinsically esoteric. They revered many things, from serpents to naturally-occurring and engineered sounds. Although there were fundamental beliefs every dryad accepted as true, each dryad also believed as she pleased and was not criticized for her personal beliefs.

• Serpents

Anacondas were rare to sight, even for the dryads who inhabited most of the territory surrounding the areas the serpents made their homes. The anacondas of Madigan's birthplace were enormous in size, their lengths averaging at around 5 times the average height of dryads. Their massive sizes made their movements slow, both of which held symbolism for Madigan's people. They lived closely by the dark waters of a major river and usually slipped into the waters unnoticed, their presences hidden beneath the dark water's surface.

To the dryads, they were an elusive, benevolent species who represented patience, stealth, and camouflage, and were a manifestation of the fluid movements of the natural order.

Because the anacondas were such a rare sighting, seeing one was considered a blessing in itself and interacting with one was a blessing of cosmic proportions. They believed the anacondas determined a particular dryad's destiny if she ever encountered one. The particular fate that was determined by the serpent was interpreted by the dryad who'd experienced the encounter because the dryads believed animals communicated their messages either telepathically or through symbolic gestures.

In A Fork in the Road, Madigan encounters an anaconda for the second time in her life, but whereas in the first encounter, she only saw the tail of the anaconda disappear into dark waters, in the second, there was full-on body contact. The ultimate result of the RP left Madigan with a split tongue, which according to her teachings, symbolizes eloquence and a mastery of words and storytelling (twice the tongues equates to twice the capacity and skill).

• Sea Creatures

Every five years, at the darkest hour of night, a pod of whales would swim past the shores of Madigan's homeland.

The first dryad to observe them had spotted them by noticing the waves at sea lighting up in a vivid cerulean blue during the night when disturbed. Mesmerized by the bioluminescence, the dryad called upon others, and they all watched in wonder. One of them spotted black shadows under the water's surface that would chase into the pools of cerulean lights, which made the lights scatter and disperse until they disappeared from sight. And when one such shadow spit up water into the air, all the dryads gasped in shock while the younger ones shrieked in fright at the abrupt KSHH noise.

Eventually, the dryads came to learn the patterns of the whales and, like clockwork, would return to the beaches the nights the whales passed through. It became an important ritual to watch the whales pass through and observe the 'night lights' as the dryads came to refer to the plankton.

Over the centuries, the ritual became more complex with specific dryads swimming out to the whales to ride them. In the earlier years of the practice, many dryads had lost their lives, unable to tolerate the salt water. Only the mangrove dryads could go out to sea and ride the whales without fatal consequences. Those who couldn't survive the the salt waters learned to craft small boats to paddle out and be closer to the whales.

Other dryads were more interested in the night lights and used the boats to collect samples and study the phenomenon of bioluminescence. They harvested potentials of bioluminescence and learned to infuse night lights into other forms of life, such as birds, bugs, and plants.

The sea rituals fostered a cultural interest in the sea. Madigan's people studied as much as they could within their physical limitations, and understood a fair bit of reef life.

• Birds

Part of the rich wildlife of Madigan's homeland were the birds that came in so many sizes, shapes, and colors. Because avian life was so abundant and easily accessible to the dryads, the birds were among the oldest of creatures the dryads revered. Many of the dryadic folktales told stories of dryads sprouting wings and flying with the birds, and the younger dryads would often talk of dreams involving their own abilities to fly.

When the dryads learned how to harvest night lights, they tried to catch birds to make flyers light up at night like the plankton, but the dryads were unable to catch the birds in the sky. Instead, they caught land-bound birds which were massive creatures compared to the flying birds, their sizes being the only thing that kept them from ascending into the sky. The bounce runners (named such because their bodies and feather crests bob and bounce as they run) were all turned bioluminescent and were then referred to as light bouncers because of how their illuminated feather designs moved at night. This new adaptation created new speciation within the light bouncers, their different designs causing for preferential selection by the females.

Interestingly, the light bouncers don't have control over their illuminations; the lights remain within the feathers even after death. This phenomenon causes complications in mating practices because females will oftentimes confuse dead males for mates and leave eggs with the carcasses. The dryads made a habit of searching for dead <light bouncers to collect their feathers and use them in ritual outfits.

Such rituals were, of course, performed at night.

Kin Groups

While several races of Hollow use last names to denote family identity, Madigan's tribe uses hair-color and collar beading to represent their kin groups.

Every dryad of Madigan's tribe wore a beaded necklace around her neck that, from the moment of sprouting, started with three rows of beading the color of her hair which was also the color of her mother's hair (because dryads reproduce asexually, the genes passed to offspring are identical or nearly-identical copies of the mother dryad's genetics, so in this way, family relations were traced). Black vertical beaded lines through these three rows of beads denoted which -born the particular dryad was in her kin group.

Madigan has a single black line running down the center of her 'mother beading' which identifies her as the firstborn of her mother. Any that followed after her would've had two and more black lines running through their mother beadings, respectively. Madigan happens to be an only child, however.

Attire

While every dryad began with three rows of beads, they did not all necessarily maintain the same number of rows throughout their lives. With every notable experience a dryad had, a new line of beading was added to their necklace, eventually transforming the item into an egyptian-esque collar. A dryad's skills were also marked by the collar she wore and her character as an individual. The collars were a way of communicating stories to each other to remind each other of their mortal condition and how similar they truly were to one another.

The dryads were not permitted to wear anything that would sully the collar, and so traditionally, the collars are worn by themselves or with a solid-colored skirt. The color of the skirt didn't matter so long as the color was solid.

Coming to Hollow

Madigan's tribe had disbanded after the devastating death of their Matron. Madigan was a mere sixty-year-old dryad at the time when the tribe dispersed and had wandered aimlessly for many years until she came to Hollow.

Still today, she wanders about the world of Hollow but whether her journey is aimless is debatable, and whether she plans to return back home to try to find her people remains to be seen.

OOC Notes

This information is for OOC reference. Please do not use this information ICly if this information has not been given to you in character. I'm RP-friendly, but keep in mind: I'm an upperclassman in university, so free time is scarce but feel free to ask anyway, and if I'm available, then we can RP. :)