Sesha Fulbright, Adventuring Scholar
Aether Dancer character by Elizabeth Barrette.
Blurb: Sesha Fulbright is an adventuring scholar with long curly hair and a nose for trouble. Based in Lachesis, she travels through other territories in search of historic artifacts and new knowledge. She tells stories, sings, and plays a clockwork mandolin.
Blurb: Sesha Fulbright is an adventuring scholar with long curly hair and a nose for trouble. Based in Lachesis, she travels through other territories in search of historic artifacts and new knowledge. She tells stories, sings, and plays a clockwork mandolin.
Basic Information
Name: Sesha Fulbright, aka the Library
Sex/Gender: Female
Homeland: Lachesis, city of Arlandria
Occupation: Adventuring scholar
Physical Description: Sesha is petite yet curvy. Although not an athlete, she has a sturdy body developed to its potential. Her face is moderately attractive, with blue eyes and long, wildly curling hair.
Sex/Gender: Female
Homeland: Lachesis, city of Arlandria
Occupation: Adventuring scholar
Physical Description: Sesha is petite yet curvy. Although not an athlete, she has a sturdy body developed to its potential. Her face is moderately attractive, with blue eyes and long, wildly curling hair.
Possessions
Clothing and Accessories: At home, Sesha dresses as a scholar in relatively plain and formal wear; austere colors such as black, charcoal, navy blue, and white. On the road, she wears tough practical clothes, often leather or heavy cotton; natural colors such as brown, gray, green, and cream. For performances, she wears flamboyant clothes designed to look good but still be easy to move in; complex patterns and brilliant colors such as peacock blue, emerald green, amethyst, goldenrod, and ruby. She customarily keeps one or two vivid silk shirts rolled up in her saddlebags for performances while traveling. She insists on sturdy, comfortable boots or shoes.
Sesha wears glasses with large round lenses set in scrolled silver frames. She doesn't wear much jewelry. The main piece is an oval pendant with an eight-pointed silver star against a blue enameled background, which her father brought back from an expedition when she was a little girl. (She sometimes marks her personal gear with the same symbol.) Often she pins her hair up with hairsticks, or braids it and fastens it with a clasp, so she has assorted items for that both plain and fancy. This includes a pair of deadly little skewers in wooden sheaths, disguised as hairsticks, for use in hazardous situations; and a set of several hairsticks that conceal lockpicks. She also has a belt buckle that turns into a push-knife.
Ancient Artifacts or Steampunk Devices: For performances, Sesha has a clockwork mandolin. It has six double courses of metal strings, and may be played with fingers or a pick. The visible part of the mechanism is at the top of the neck, with a bit more concealed inside the hollow body of the instrument where one side scrolls up toward the neck. It amplifies and tunes itself. Sesha sings well as long as she has musical guidance, but doesn't have a good enough ear for tuning an instrument easily. This was a gift from an inventor friend of hers.
For closeup studies, she has a fussy little headset like a pair of glasses with multiple lenses. Some provide varying levels of magnification. Others polarize light or filter with different colors. She keeps it in a locked case and uses it to examine artifacts.
Other Equipment: On the road, Sesha travels with varying amounts of gear. Sometimes it's just a hefty backpack, other times a horse with saddlebags. She always takes basic camping equipment, recordkeeping materials, some trade goods, and weapons for hunting and protection.
At home in Arlandria, she has a room in her parents' house. She keeps a bookcase full of books, and a few items picked up while traveling, but she doesn't actually tend to accrue a lot of stuff personally. Most of her finds go to the Library of Lexander or another library, to the Wash University, to a museum, or some other repository of knowledge. But she can access all of that if she needs to, along with study space or lab space. Everybody in Arlandria loves the lady who brings back the goodies.
Financial Resources: Sesha isn't rich, but she belongs to a well-to-do family. She has enough funds to travel as widely as she wishes. She can usually get backers for a planned expedition, and she donates most of her finds rather than selling them. She also has patrons for her creative work. However, she doesn't often carry large amounts of money because it attracts the wrong kind of attention. She's good at negotiating trades and long-distance deals, and she's an excellent bargainer.
Sesha wears glasses with large round lenses set in scrolled silver frames. She doesn't wear much jewelry. The main piece is an oval pendant with an eight-pointed silver star against a blue enameled background, which her father brought back from an expedition when she was a little girl. (She sometimes marks her personal gear with the same symbol.) Often she pins her hair up with hairsticks, or braids it and fastens it with a clasp, so she has assorted items for that both plain and fancy. This includes a pair of deadly little skewers in wooden sheaths, disguised as hairsticks, for use in hazardous situations; and a set of several hairsticks that conceal lockpicks. She also has a belt buckle that turns into a push-knife.
Ancient Artifacts or Steampunk Devices: For performances, Sesha has a clockwork mandolin. It has six double courses of metal strings, and may be played with fingers or a pick. The visible part of the mechanism is at the top of the neck, with a bit more concealed inside the hollow body of the instrument where one side scrolls up toward the neck. It amplifies and tunes itself. Sesha sings well as long as she has musical guidance, but doesn't have a good enough ear for tuning an instrument easily. This was a gift from an inventor friend of hers.
For closeup studies, she has a fussy little headset like a pair of glasses with multiple lenses. Some provide varying levels of magnification. Others polarize light or filter with different colors. She keeps it in a locked case and uses it to examine artifacts.
Other Equipment: On the road, Sesha travels with varying amounts of gear. Sometimes it's just a hefty backpack, other times a horse with saddlebags. She always takes basic camping equipment, recordkeeping materials, some trade goods, and weapons for hunting and protection.
At home in Arlandria, she has a room in her parents' house. She keeps a bookcase full of books, and a few items picked up while traveling, but she doesn't actually tend to accrue a lot of stuff personally. Most of her finds go to the Library of Lexander or another library, to the Wash University, to a museum, or some other repository of knowledge. But she can access all of that if she needs to, along with study space or lab space. Everybody in Arlandria loves the lady who brings back the goodies.
Financial Resources: Sesha isn't rich, but she belongs to a well-to-do family. She has enough funds to travel as widely as she wishes. She can usually get backers for a planned expedition, and she donates most of her finds rather than selling them. She also has patrons for her creative work. However, she doesn't often carry large amounts of money because it attracts the wrong kind of attention. She's good at negotiating trades and long-distance deals, and she's an excellent bargainer.
Abilities
Education: Wash University ranks among the best schools in Lachesis, known for producing skilled scientists, doctors, and scholars. Sesha studied here to learn about the world before the Fall -- what little is known about it -- and the civilizations that have developed in its wake. She is fluent in multiple languages for speaking, reading, and writing; plus partial knowledge of others. She knows geography and navigation, astronomy, biology, geology, anthropology, archaeology, and various other sciences. She can identify historic artifacts or clockwork constructs and estimate their worth (more precisely for their scholarly value than monetary value). Her experience with research and analysis makes it possible for her to find answers efficiently in any library or similar archive of information.
Sesha loves learning, and she isn't picky about what or where or how. She's perfectly happy to lean over a total stranger and ask for a lesson in whatever he's doing. This has given her an odd assortment of practical and irrelevant knowledge such as knot craft, juggling, flower symbolism, firework chemistry, finger-weaving, and bits of other people's genealogy.
Physical Abilities: Being in good shape, Sesha can walk all day, run, swim, climb, and scramble over or around most obstacles. She is agile and flexible, able to squeeze through tight spaces. She can lift moderate amounts of weight, but less than her own body so it's hard for her to pull herself up by her hands alone. Her riding ability is good, and she knows how to take care of horses on the trail. She understands how to fall safely.
Skills: One of Sesha's main skill sets is performance. She can read, write, compose, and play music. Her best instrument is the mandolin but she can manage a keyboard, a drum, or a tinwhistle. She sings well. She tells stories including myths and folk tales, legends, news, and tales of her own devising. If someone else is playing, singing, or storytelling then Sesha can learn new material quickly. Sleight of hand, such as palming or substituting objects, is a minor skill but useful for both entertainment and subterfuge.
Her love of adventure and travel has led her to develop many wilderness skills. She is adept at wild camping, preferably with equipment but she has no trouble surviving if dumped naked in the woods. (There was this incident with a drunken captain on a riverboat...) So she can make shelter, build a fire, find edible plants, hunt game animals, clean and cook food, do basic first aid, understand the weather, etc. She also does mapmaking and illustration of plants, animals, and artifacts although the quality is practical rather than artistic.
She has learned many discreet skills such as camouflage, hiding, tailing people, and generally sneaking around. She can pick simple locks, not always complex ones. She is quite good at getting out of ropes or other bindings. She is very observant of traps, unstable ruins, and other hazards, and can usually find a way to avoid or disarm them.
In combat, Sesha fights smart and dirty. She tries to avoid physical confrontations and attempts to solve problems logically first. But if a fight breaks out, she won't hesitate to hurt people. She prefers to make disabling strikes but will kill if necessary. Her considerable knowledge of anatomy makes her an effective combatant even at small size, as she aims for vulnerable points. She is familiar with knives, distance weapons, and unarmed combat.
Hobbies/Pastimes: Sesha enjoys games -- and the more intricate or obscure the rules, the better. Board games, card games, string figures, whatever. Her favorite is a classic among the scholars of Lachesis, called Rocks Fall. One player makes up a specific number of rules for moving the playing pieces, and the opponent tries to figure out exactly what they are. It can be played with manufactured pieces on a board, or with actual pebbles on the ground.
Sesha loves learning, and she isn't picky about what or where or how. She's perfectly happy to lean over a total stranger and ask for a lesson in whatever he's doing. This has given her an odd assortment of practical and irrelevant knowledge such as knot craft, juggling, flower symbolism, firework chemistry, finger-weaving, and bits of other people's genealogy.
Physical Abilities: Being in good shape, Sesha can walk all day, run, swim, climb, and scramble over or around most obstacles. She is agile and flexible, able to squeeze through tight spaces. She can lift moderate amounts of weight, but less than her own body so it's hard for her to pull herself up by her hands alone. Her riding ability is good, and she knows how to take care of horses on the trail. She understands how to fall safely.
Skills: One of Sesha's main skill sets is performance. She can read, write, compose, and play music. Her best instrument is the mandolin but she can manage a keyboard, a drum, or a tinwhistle. She sings well. She tells stories including myths and folk tales, legends, news, and tales of her own devising. If someone else is playing, singing, or storytelling then Sesha can learn new material quickly. Sleight of hand, such as palming or substituting objects, is a minor skill but useful for both entertainment and subterfuge.
Her love of adventure and travel has led her to develop many wilderness skills. She is adept at wild camping, preferably with equipment but she has no trouble surviving if dumped naked in the woods. (There was this incident with a drunken captain on a riverboat...) So she can make shelter, build a fire, find edible plants, hunt game animals, clean and cook food, do basic first aid, understand the weather, etc. She also does mapmaking and illustration of plants, animals, and artifacts although the quality is practical rather than artistic.
She has learned many discreet skills such as camouflage, hiding, tailing people, and generally sneaking around. She can pick simple locks, not always complex ones. She is quite good at getting out of ropes or other bindings. She is very observant of traps, unstable ruins, and other hazards, and can usually find a way to avoid or disarm them.
In combat, Sesha fights smart and dirty. She tries to avoid physical confrontations and attempts to solve problems logically first. But if a fight breaks out, she won't hesitate to hurt people. She prefers to make disabling strikes but will kill if necessary. Her considerable knowledge of anatomy makes her an effective combatant even at small size, as she aims for vulnerable points. She is familiar with knives, distance weapons, and unarmed combat.
Hobbies/Pastimes: Sesha enjoys games -- and the more intricate or obscure the rules, the better. Board games, card games, string figures, whatever. Her favorite is a classic among the scholars of Lachesis, called Rocks Fall. One player makes up a specific number of rules for moving the playing pieces, and the opponent tries to figure out exactly what they are. It can be played with manufactured pieces on a board, or with actual pebbles on the ground.
Relations
Family: Sesha is close with her family. Her father is an archaeologist and historian, who traveled in his youth and now teaches at Wash University. Her mother is a librarian working at the Library of Lexander with special interest in math, clockworks, and other sciences. Sesha has two younger brothers and a younger sister.
Romantic Relationships: While at university, Sesha had some relationships that lasted a few months to a year, often parting on amicable terms. Currently she favors short-term, casual encounters with friends. She is not looking to settle down, and is not easily swayed by appeals to sex or romance.
Considerations of appearance rank far below those of intellect and respect. She is openly, and sometimes quite harshly, disdainful of people who make passes based on her looks alone. It doesn't help that while she looks moderately pretty in the field, she can look quite striking if she bothers to dress up; people are often shocked by the sudden change. Conversely she is intrigued by displays of knowledge or common sense, and by people who admire her for what she can do.
Friends/Enemies/Other: Sesha has friends and contacts scattered across much of the continent. Her travels make it easy to meet people in person, but she also corresponds with scholars, traders, and others. She is more tolerant of subsistence scavengers than of dedicated ruin-robbers, and has some contacts among people who scrounge for a living. She also knows a network of people who help serfs escape from abusive overlords.
Duchess Hightower is a strict but comparatively benevolent ruler, who spends her considerable discretionary funds as a patroness of the arts. She sponsors a number of musicians, poets, painters, and other creative people living in or passing through her territory. Because her own life is so regimented, she enjoys living vicariously through adventurers as they tell their stories. She often commissions a song or a concert performance from Sesha. More rarely, the Duchess has provided discreet assistance to get Sesha out of trouble. Sesha has made a few contributions to the Duchess's collection of eggs, which includes both real and artificial ones decorated in various ways. Although they disagree on some points of politics, Duchess Hightower and Sesha are quite good friends.
There are enemies who remember her on various counts. Sesha carefully avoids returning to one barony where she interrupted the baron's book-burning spree, liberating a number of serfs and rare tomes in the process. She also has some rivals among ruin-robbers who dig for lost treasures to sell rather than preserve.
Sesha is fascinated by clockwork constructs in humanoid form. She tends to question new acquaintances intensely to determine if they are actually sentient rather than just soulless devices -- but once convinced, she treats them as people and doesn't really understand why many humans refuse to acknowledge clockwork people.
Romantic Relationships: While at university, Sesha had some relationships that lasted a few months to a year, often parting on amicable terms. Currently she favors short-term, casual encounters with friends. She is not looking to settle down, and is not easily swayed by appeals to sex or romance.
Considerations of appearance rank far below those of intellect and respect. She is openly, and sometimes quite harshly, disdainful of people who make passes based on her looks alone. It doesn't help that while she looks moderately pretty in the field, she can look quite striking if she bothers to dress up; people are often shocked by the sudden change. Conversely she is intrigued by displays of knowledge or common sense, and by people who admire her for what she can do.
Friends/Enemies/Other: Sesha has friends and contacts scattered across much of the continent. Her travels make it easy to meet people in person, but she also corresponds with scholars, traders, and others. She is more tolerant of subsistence scavengers than of dedicated ruin-robbers, and has some contacts among people who scrounge for a living. She also knows a network of people who help serfs escape from abusive overlords.
Duchess Hightower is a strict but comparatively benevolent ruler, who spends her considerable discretionary funds as a patroness of the arts. She sponsors a number of musicians, poets, painters, and other creative people living in or passing through her territory. Because her own life is so regimented, she enjoys living vicariously through adventurers as they tell their stories. She often commissions a song or a concert performance from Sesha. More rarely, the Duchess has provided discreet assistance to get Sesha out of trouble. Sesha has made a few contributions to the Duchess's collection of eggs, which includes both real and artificial ones decorated in various ways. Although they disagree on some points of politics, Duchess Hightower and Sesha are quite good friends.
There are enemies who remember her on various counts. Sesha carefully avoids returning to one barony where she interrupted the baron's book-burning spree, liberating a number of serfs and rare tomes in the process. She also has some rivals among ruin-robbers who dig for lost treasures to sell rather than preserve.
Sesha is fascinated by clockwork constructs in humanoid form. She tends to question new acquaintances intensely to determine if they are actually sentient rather than just soulless devices -- but once convinced, she treats them as people and doesn't really understand why many humans refuse to acknowledge clockwork people.
Personal
Personality: Sesha balances thought and adventure. She dives into the world for the sheer joy of learning all about it. Teaching gives her just as much pleasure. She loves books but is not content with only books. She does not rush into danger without forethought, nor allow overthinking to stall what must be done. She never gives up on a goal, but can grow impatient with people. She is organized in her work, yet whimsical in her entertainments. She is mercurial and complicated, not someone easy to predict. This entertains her friends and drives her enemies to death and distraction.
Sesha is a cautious optimist. She prefers courteous, civil exchanges but can switch down to ruthless practicality at need. She'll give someone a second chance, but rarely a third. She doesn't suffer fools willingly, and actively works against those who glorify ignorance or try to destroy knowledge. To her family she is loyal, to her enemies devastating. She makes her mark not in monuments, but in memories.
Goals and Worldview: Sesha seeks to be the best in her fields, to discover and preserve knowledge, and to make the world a better place. She compares herself to the leading experts in any given skill, which means some of her own skills are farther above average than she realizes, but she rarely feels jealous of other people's accomplishments. She takes pride in her work. She desires connections rather than fame, and respect more than glory. She holds the truth to be sacred; she may deceive opponents by actions, or encourage them to deceive themselves, but she will tell an outright lie only as an absolute last resort. She believes in justice as an abstract; but she understands that there are often differences between what is right, and fair, and legal in practice. And she ranks them in that order if there's a conflict.
Notably for someone who deals in valuable objects, Sesha is not motivated by money. Her family has plenty of it, but she also has experience surviving with little or none in rough situations. She will happily accept payment for her creative work, and use it to do something else she enjoys, but she's just as likely to do it for free if people can't afford to pay. No amount of wealth will convince her to do something she doesn't want to do or that she considers reprehensible.
In Sesha's view, the world is imperfect yet precious, infinite in its expressions of light and dark. She is neither blinded by the light nor daunted by the dark. She simply kindles her own torch to find the way.
Weaknesses: Sesha has a nose for trouble. If something bad is going on, she tends to find out about it, and certain categories of bad provoke her involvement. She won't stand for people stifling knowledge or destroying what little is left of history. While she isn't stupid enough to rush into an obvious trap, she will take far greater risks than average to protect books, historic artifacts, or similar resources. Likewise she protects other scholars when she can. She takes a dim view of bullies who pick on weaker people, especially women and children. She dislikes serfdom and despises slavery, and has tangled with perpetrators of those systems more than once.
Her small size limits her ability in physical situations, especially against a taller or heavier opponent. She can't run as fast or lift as much as average. She's not very good at plain wrestling.
She is sensitive to the environment, and therefore does not do well in noisy or chaotic places. Loud, shrill sounds hurt her ears. Smog and perfume make her cough. If caught in a raucous crowd, she looks for a quiet retreat.
Domestic skills are not her forte. She can wash things in a creek, sew on a lost button, and do minor repairs; but keeping up a nice house is beyond both her ability and her interest. Similarly she has little patience for people talking about the state of their home, their children, their romantic interests, etc. -- and she's quick to say so, which can annoy people.
She tends to have poor luck with watercraft, although she knows the basics of handling a canoe or rowboat. Boats are prone to sinking, or running aground, or being boarded by pirates, or all manner of other unpleasant things with which she has acquired entirely too much experience. So water travel is last on her list of ways to get around.
History: Sesha grew up in the city of Arlandria in Lachesis. (It developed from the ruins of Alexandria, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The area was peppered by enough small meteorites to level most buildings and obliterate the government, but some bunkers and basements survived to provide resources for later scavengers.) Sesha studied at the Library of Lexander and Wash University.
Among her favorite pieces of history is The Chairman, a huge battered statue of a seated man carved from white marble, along with a slab bearing the partial inscription "IN THIS TEMPLE AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE SAVED." It is one of very few above-ground objects in Arlandria to survive the Fall; although the name has been lost, legends associate the Chairman with liberation. As a girl, Sesha dreamed of discovering his lost identity, and this helped inspire both her academic studies and her thirst for adventure.
As a teenager, Sesha began accompanying her father on archaeological trips relatively close to home. The older she got, the farther they ranged, exploring much of Lachesis together. After graduating from Wash University, she set out on her own expeditions and explored other territories.
Among her early misadventures involved a riverboat trip to the Choking Mounds, a site said to be ancient even before the Fall. Sesha was sleeping nude in the sweltering summer night when Captain John Florin got drunk and climbed into her bunk to bother her. She eluded him and escaped over the side of the boat. It took her two weeks of scrambling through the woods, using all her wilderness skills in the most primitive of conditions, to make her way back to civilization. After this, she began saying of tight situations, "Well, at least I'm not diving naked off a riverboat in the middle of the night."
During this time, Sesha started to bring back interesting artifacts of her own discovery. She built up a network of contacts among scholars, traders, scavengers, messengers, and other interesting people. She donated valuable historic finds to universities, libraries, and museums. She would spread out duplicate copies of books or other items so that more places would have one, although unique items tended to land in major institutions or special collections. Her dedication to preserving the past led to such institutions offering to finance her later trips.
Her notable finds included pre-Fall maps of several cities; a perfect prehistoric spearhead; a library basement yielding several books written in Cherokee, of which only the alphabet was previously known in Lachesis; a dinosaur skull embedded in a cliff; and a nearly full cache of gasoline in underground tanks from a pre-Fall filling station.
A major altercation occurred in the Central Empire when Sesha tried to talk Baron Springfield out of burning books -- both modern and historic -- that he thought would make his serfs and vassals too "uppity." Rumor said that he kept some of the best books for himself, though. Sesha took steps to preserve and spread information that he wanted hidden. This led to a minor revolt during which his serfs set fire to the manor house. She escaped, but managed to save only two books from his private collection: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Way Things Work. The serfs brought a wagonload of other books slated for destruction. Sesha amended her crisis litany to, "At least I'm not running naked through the woods or climbing out of a burning library."
Plot Hooks: Sesha can connect with the crew of the Aether Dancer, or other characters, including but not limited to the following ways:
* rescue other characters.
* be in need of rescue herself.
* provide almost any useful tidbit of information off the top of her head.
* look up detailed or obscure information in a library or other archive.
* assist characters with research of their own.
* translate text or speech between languages that she knows.
* make an educated guess about content in a language she doesn't know.
* receive or deliver messages from or to characters.
* provide an artifact or other object that the characters need.
* get there first when characters are after something, requiring further pursuit.
* help characters track down something they want.
* buy or sell information, objects, etc.
* give a lesson in any of her skills.
* ask someone for a lesson about whatever they're doing that she can't.
* harangue someone about digging up an artifact, as comic relief.
* connect characters with someone she knows that they need to reach.
* be the endpoint of directions if characters asked how to find a library.
* compose a song or story about someone's adventure (flattering or otherwise).
* perform music, storytelling, etc. in the background.
* organize a bardic circle.
* stage a debate or a political protest.
* start an uprising, riot, or other incident that characters must then face.
* be on the scene of a water-related mishap, declaring it Not Her Fault.
* appear in colorfully embroidered rumors with little resemblance to her deeds.
Sesha is a cautious optimist. She prefers courteous, civil exchanges but can switch down to ruthless practicality at need. She'll give someone a second chance, but rarely a third. She doesn't suffer fools willingly, and actively works against those who glorify ignorance or try to destroy knowledge. To her family she is loyal, to her enemies devastating. She makes her mark not in monuments, but in memories.
Goals and Worldview: Sesha seeks to be the best in her fields, to discover and preserve knowledge, and to make the world a better place. She compares herself to the leading experts in any given skill, which means some of her own skills are farther above average than she realizes, but she rarely feels jealous of other people's accomplishments. She takes pride in her work. She desires connections rather than fame, and respect more than glory. She holds the truth to be sacred; she may deceive opponents by actions, or encourage them to deceive themselves, but she will tell an outright lie only as an absolute last resort. She believes in justice as an abstract; but she understands that there are often differences between what is right, and fair, and legal in practice. And she ranks them in that order if there's a conflict.
Notably for someone who deals in valuable objects, Sesha is not motivated by money. Her family has plenty of it, but she also has experience surviving with little or none in rough situations. She will happily accept payment for her creative work, and use it to do something else she enjoys, but she's just as likely to do it for free if people can't afford to pay. No amount of wealth will convince her to do something she doesn't want to do or that she considers reprehensible.
In Sesha's view, the world is imperfect yet precious, infinite in its expressions of light and dark. She is neither blinded by the light nor daunted by the dark. She simply kindles her own torch to find the way.
Weaknesses: Sesha has a nose for trouble. If something bad is going on, she tends to find out about it, and certain categories of bad provoke her involvement. She won't stand for people stifling knowledge or destroying what little is left of history. While she isn't stupid enough to rush into an obvious trap, she will take far greater risks than average to protect books, historic artifacts, or similar resources. Likewise she protects other scholars when she can. She takes a dim view of bullies who pick on weaker people, especially women and children. She dislikes serfdom and despises slavery, and has tangled with perpetrators of those systems more than once.
Her small size limits her ability in physical situations, especially against a taller or heavier opponent. She can't run as fast or lift as much as average. She's not very good at plain wrestling.
She is sensitive to the environment, and therefore does not do well in noisy or chaotic places. Loud, shrill sounds hurt her ears. Smog and perfume make her cough. If caught in a raucous crowd, she looks for a quiet retreat.
Domestic skills are not her forte. She can wash things in a creek, sew on a lost button, and do minor repairs; but keeping up a nice house is beyond both her ability and her interest. Similarly she has little patience for people talking about the state of their home, their children, their romantic interests, etc. -- and she's quick to say so, which can annoy people.
She tends to have poor luck with watercraft, although she knows the basics of handling a canoe or rowboat. Boats are prone to sinking, or running aground, or being boarded by pirates, or all manner of other unpleasant things with which she has acquired entirely too much experience. So water travel is last on her list of ways to get around.
History: Sesha grew up in the city of Arlandria in Lachesis. (It developed from the ruins of Alexandria, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The area was peppered by enough small meteorites to level most buildings and obliterate the government, but some bunkers and basements survived to provide resources for later scavengers.) Sesha studied at the Library of Lexander and Wash University.
Among her favorite pieces of history is The Chairman, a huge battered statue of a seated man carved from white marble, along with a slab bearing the partial inscription "IN THIS TEMPLE AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE SAVED." It is one of very few above-ground objects in Arlandria to survive the Fall; although the name has been lost, legends associate the Chairman with liberation. As a girl, Sesha dreamed of discovering his lost identity, and this helped inspire both her academic studies and her thirst for adventure.
As a teenager, Sesha began accompanying her father on archaeological trips relatively close to home. The older she got, the farther they ranged, exploring much of Lachesis together. After graduating from Wash University, she set out on her own expeditions and explored other territories.
Among her early misadventures involved a riverboat trip to the Choking Mounds, a site said to be ancient even before the Fall. Sesha was sleeping nude in the sweltering summer night when Captain John Florin got drunk and climbed into her bunk to bother her. She eluded him and escaped over the side of the boat. It took her two weeks of scrambling through the woods, using all her wilderness skills in the most primitive of conditions, to make her way back to civilization. After this, she began saying of tight situations, "Well, at least I'm not diving naked off a riverboat in the middle of the night."
During this time, Sesha started to bring back interesting artifacts of her own discovery. She built up a network of contacts among scholars, traders, scavengers, messengers, and other interesting people. She donated valuable historic finds to universities, libraries, and museums. She would spread out duplicate copies of books or other items so that more places would have one, although unique items tended to land in major institutions or special collections. Her dedication to preserving the past led to such institutions offering to finance her later trips.
Her notable finds included pre-Fall maps of several cities; a perfect prehistoric spearhead; a library basement yielding several books written in Cherokee, of which only the alphabet was previously known in Lachesis; a dinosaur skull embedded in a cliff; and a nearly full cache of gasoline in underground tanks from a pre-Fall filling station.
A major altercation occurred in the Central Empire when Sesha tried to talk Baron Springfield out of burning books -- both modern and historic -- that he thought would make his serfs and vassals too "uppity." Rumor said that he kept some of the best books for himself, though. Sesha took steps to preserve and spread information that he wanted hidden. This led to a minor revolt during which his serfs set fire to the manor house. She escaped, but managed to save only two books from his private collection: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Way Things Work. The serfs brought a wagonload of other books slated for destruction. Sesha amended her crisis litany to, "At least I'm not running naked through the woods or climbing out of a burning library."
Plot Hooks: Sesha can connect with the crew of the Aether Dancer, or other characters, including but not limited to the following ways:
* rescue other characters.
* be in need of rescue herself.
* provide almost any useful tidbit of information off the top of her head.
* look up detailed or obscure information in a library or other archive.
* assist characters with research of their own.
* translate text or speech between languages that she knows.
* make an educated guess about content in a language she doesn't know.
* receive or deliver messages from or to characters.
* provide an artifact or other object that the characters need.
* get there first when characters are after something, requiring further pursuit.
* help characters track down something they want.
* buy or sell information, objects, etc.
* give a lesson in any of her skills.
* ask someone for a lesson about whatever they're doing that she can't.
* harangue someone about digging up an artifact, as comic relief.
* connect characters with someone she knows that they need to reach.
* be the endpoint of directions if characters asked how to find a library.
* compose a song or story about someone's adventure (flattering or otherwise).
* perform music, storytelling, etc. in the background.
* organize a bardic circle.
* stage a debate or a political protest.
* start an uprising, riot, or other incident that characters must then face.
* be on the scene of a water-related mishap, declaring it Not Her Fault.
* appear in colorfully embroidered rumors with little resemblance to her deeds.