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[goddessplayer]

PLAYER

NAME: S.
TIMEZONE: CEST

CHARACTER

NAME: Anoja
AGE: Late-50s
GENDER: Female
SPECIES: Human
BIRTH DATE: Winter
HOMETOWN: Sira, Kijann
OCCUPATION: Former Goddess Player, now Elder
EDUCATION: Cult Theatre
LANGUAGES: Common Tongue, City Tongue
POWERS: None

PERMISSIONS

BACKTAGGING: Yes, please, I rely on it
4TH WALLING: No
THREADJACKING: No
KISSING: Yes, default to F/F
HUGGING: Yes, though it won't be welcomed
SEX: No, though I will happily write fade to black scenarios
FIGHTING: No
INJURY: Yes, though contact me about severe injuries
ROMANCE: Yes, F/F
DEATH: No

PERSONALITY

x Stern
x Calculating
x Uncompromising
x Proud

HISTORY

Brougt up in a highly religious family as the oldest daughter, Anoja was as a young child promised to the gods and herself chose the Cult Theatre as her site of worship. Since then, the Theatre has become her whole life and a marker of her identity. On the surface, she is proud - also prouder than what is seen as appropriate - of being a priestess.

Enter Ibi, a small-town girl with hitherto unseen divine potential, who has come to Sira solely in order to join the Theatre, and who comes to work towards her Initiation to Minave under Anoja's guidance as her teacher, but falls in a forbidden love with the God Player, Kairann (initiated to Ipallo), both of them expected to be celibate.

When Anoja finds this out, having fallen in a possessive love with Ibi herself, recognising her unique divine powers and her link to the gods, she sets out to ruin her own pupil's career, so that neither Kairann nor the gods may have her.

WORLD DETAILS

The Cult Theatre is the main cult site on Kijann, an island nation, with Sira being the capital, situated on the eastern coastline.

The Theatre is run by a 30-member body of priestesses, actresses who every night play out the legends and myths of the Common Faith for the public. To cover the roles of both gods and goddesses in their pantheon, the priestesses are divided into two groups of performers, God Players who have been chosen to manifest the male deities and Goddess Players who have been chosen to manifest the female. All girls who enter into priesthood have first been found worthy of the gods and hereafter, performed in a ceremony, called the Audition, that should make them open to be chosen by any of the ten gods in the Kijann pantheon. Once chosen by a deity, they will train with one of the Elders, always someone who has experience in manifesting a different god or goddess, preparing them to take over from the current priestess when the time comes that she retires or dies.

While the priestesses are those who actively go on stage and reenact the myths and legends of their Scripture, the Elders are former priestesses who have chosen to stay in the Theatre to oversee the everyday affairs of the Cult Site. At any point, there can only be ten Elders, one per deity, ten priestesses, one per deity, and ten apprentices, one per Elder. Once an apprentice is ready to take over from a priestess, she must prepare for a solo debut performance called the Initiation, a very holy affair that only select people can attend, since it is the first time an apprentice fully manifests her god or goddess.

The dogma of the Cult Theatre performances is that the priestesses literally become the gods that they perform on stage in the evenings; their essence changes into divine essence and they act as "holsters for the heavens" which is why the actresses must stay celibate, to remain worthy, so the gods can reside within them.

Aesthetically, Kijann reads like steampunk Victorian England with an additional polytheistic belief system. Sira is an eastern-facing harbour city, built to offer a view of the rising sun. At the Theatre, all performances end by sunset, since the gods, believed to live within the world in the sun disc, return to their home and sink with it into the sea and out of view. As such, only the nights belong to the actresses alone.

The ten gods of Kijann are: Shantij (Goddess of the Night), Jamil (God of the Day), Raschor (God of the Water), Toffir (God of the Earth), Pidann (Goddess of the Fire), Zuse (Goddess of the Wind), Ore (Goddess of the Past), Kaas (God of the Future), Ipallo (God of Lies) and Minave (Goddess of Truth).

BLURB

If one has once been divine, is it possible to live on as lesser than that?

Anoja used to perform as the night goddess, Shantij, but has grown too old for the stage. Instead she must watch her most recent pupil, Ibi, still uninitiated, do what no Cult Theatre actress has done before: embody several different goddesses and gods, her body obviously blessed by the heavens.

Envious of Ibi's abilities, Anoja grows possessive with the girl, trying to either own her or ruin her for everybody else, including the gods. And when she realizes the actress, supposed to be celibate, is having an affair with one of the God Players, she seizes her chance.

What lies at the end of the path of such selfish ambition?