Background
Oct. 1st, 2007 03:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mycursedfaceFamily
The Phorcydes aren’t particular close, but neither do they all hate each other – they are different, and some get along while others don’t. Father Phorcys and mother Ceto are generally somewhat absent parents once the children have grown up and left home. Medusa gets along most with her triplets, than the Graeae, and Ladon is a favourite. She has at least nearly seventy full-and-half sisters, and so far only three brothers (one full, the other two half). Her family’s details are here.
The Gorgon sisters are non-identical triplets – Stheno is the tallest, with a lean build and the wings of an osprey, while Euryale is of average height and has the wings of a falcon. The human bodies of all three could be from anywhere in Northern Africa, the Middle East, or even northern India, but generally if asked they say that they are Libyan. All have dark hair, olive skin and dark eyes.
Stheno is very independent and very strong-willed. She has the shortest temper, is the most violent, and tends more towards silence than conversation. Euryale is the wanderer/gypsy of the trio, she tends towards being more emotional and dramatic than her siblings. Medusa is the dominant triplet; ruling her sisters like a little queen with a mixture of diplomacy, threats, and the fact that in their own private language she has a lot subtle dominance. It’s impossible to say if that it was the force of her personality that started her position, or it was just a chance happening that became her personality. All three sisters adore each other, and when alone speak exclusively in their private language.
The first generation Titans are her aunts and uncles, while the second generation Titans and the first generation Olympians are her first-cousins (list is here thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
2020sigh). While she tends to side with the monsters, as far as the Olympians are concerned, she’s mostly neutral. There are two exceptions: Poseidon she hates and fears for the rape, and Athena she utterly loathes for first failing to help, and then cursing her.
She also had/has a crush on Epimethesus, and used to show it by being an utter brat.
Physical Attributes
Medusa isn’t short for a person conceived of by the Ancient Greeks, but compared to a modern person…she is short (five foot or so). She’s curvy instead of slender, and appears to be North African/Middle Eastern with olive skin and large dark eyes in a sweet face. Her voice isn’t as seductive as her siren or nymph sisters’, but it’s low and feminine with a Libyan accent. When she had hair, it was long, thick, black, curly, and utterly gorgeous, but thanks to Athena’s curse Medusa has dozens and dozens of slender black snakes all over her head.
The snakes are alive, poisonous, and always rustling and whispering amongst themselves. If a character can speak to snakes, then they can talk to them. While they aren’t consciously a part (or rather, dozens and dozens of parts) of Medusa’s mind, and she can’t see out of their eyes, the snakes are a part of her, and when she gets upset she will tend to say ‘us’ and ‘our’.
As a gorgon, Medusa has brass claws on her fingers and toes that are normally sheathed like a cat’s claws. She has golden wings, and while she doesn’t entirely rely on aerodynamics to fly, her wingspan is still a respectable 12 feet or so. She has hollow bones like any other bird, which make her about half the weight a normal human her size would be, and thanks to being technically six-limbed her muscle-structure and brain are somewhat interesting. Medusa has an excellent sense of balance, and is utterly fearless about heights.
Medusa’s wings are not solid gold; they are bone and muscle and skin like any other pair of wings, but the feathers are gold – a warm, living-but-metallic gold that is as light as a feather. Despite being formed of gold, the feathers are still built like normal feathers, with hollow quills and microscopic hooks on the filaments so that they can be linked together. Like all those who have feathered wings, she does need to take care that her feathers don’t get bent, broken, or otherwise damaged. This is fairly time-consuming, but she needs to be meticulous about it if she wants to keep on flying.
Flying – notes complied from David Attenborough’s ‘the Life of Birds’, and in particular the episode ‘the Mastery of Flight’
Her wings are like a kestrel’s and thus she can fly like one: she can hover (long periods of time require a head-wind), dive, stop and start mid-air, and she has all the co-ordination and skill of the raptor family. Medusa can also take off from standing on the ground, but she prefers to use a cliff ledge, or a tree, or even a roof.
A ground-start begins by her jumping up vertically, and then beating her wings downwards with all her energy. She then brings her wings back and does it again, and only after that second sweep down can she start to go forwards. It takes a great deal of energy, and so she can’t do a ground-start twice in quick succession.
To land on a ledge or rock, she aims for a point below it and flies towards it at great speed. She then brakes by swooping upwards so that her forward speed at landing is about zero. She also prefers landing facing the wind to keep the airflow over her wings.
Powers
- To quote Wikipedia “In Ancient Greece a Gorgoneion (or stone head, engraving or drawing of a Gorgon face, often with snakes protruding wildly and tongue sticking out between the fangs) was frequently used as an apotropaic symbol and placed on doors, walls, coins, shields, breastplates, and tombstones in the hopes of warding off evil” and for the myth to start, I’m toying with the idea of the gorgon sisters being able to do so-called ‘apotropaic magic’, or protection magic. They are already guardians of Death’s West Gate, and it makes sense that they can do actual protection magic. This means spells, rituals, but also simple charms. This protection is not an immunity from harm; it is only a protection, and like all protections it can be breeched.
- The Gorgons are sea-daemons, and as such can raise a storm out of thin air. However, they prefer to use the weather that is already there – a breeze, for instance – as it takes less effort, and make it so many times worse. Creatures of Air and Water, the Gorgons tend to fly in their storms and utterly enjoy them – the more destructive, the better. They also get a power-boost from the energy and eletricty.
- If blood is taken from the left side of her body, it is a fatal poison. If blood is taken from the right side of the body, it can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life.
- Thanks to Athena’s curse, Medusa’s gaze will turn any living person she looks at into stone. The gaze can’t work on the dead or the truly immortal, but as it stands they are the only exceptions.
Misc
- As the granddaughter of the personification of the sea, and the daughter of a sea-god and a sea-monster, Medusa adores the sea, swims extremely well, and can’t drown.
- As the third generation from creation, she can recover from most things a human would find fatal, and she doesn’t age. However, she can still die.
- She comes from the middle age of Greek Mythology. As Perseus is the one to kill her, she’s three generations before his grandson Heracles, and well before the fall of Troy.
- Medusa and her triplets guard the West Gate of Death from the living.
- Due to Athena’s curse, she won’t look at anyone directly unless she wants to turn them to stone. She’ll study clothes and the floor, or the window or the scenery, but never the person she is talking to.
- Medusa can talk to snakes – all snakes, not just the ones on her head. She’s also very fond of them.
- She utterly adores birds.
- Technically, she’s pregnant to Poseidon, but in a very Ancient Greek Myth sort of way; she doesn’t know and won’t ever show until her sons Chrysaor and Pegasus are born from her neck after Perseus cuts off her head. Or possibly just when her blood mingles with the sea – I haven’t yet decided.
The Phorcydes aren’t particular close, but neither do they all hate each other – they are different, and some get along while others don’t. Father Phorcys and mother Ceto are generally somewhat absent parents once the children have grown up and left home. Medusa gets along most with her triplets, than the Graeae, and Ladon is a favourite. She has at least nearly seventy full-and-half sisters, and so far only three brothers (one full, the other two half). Her family’s details are here.
The Gorgon sisters are non-identical triplets – Stheno is the tallest, with a lean build and the wings of an osprey, while Euryale is of average height and has the wings of a falcon. The human bodies of all three could be from anywhere in Northern Africa, the Middle East, or even northern India, but generally if asked they say that they are Libyan. All have dark hair, olive skin and dark eyes.
Stheno is very independent and very strong-willed. She has the shortest temper, is the most violent, and tends more towards silence than conversation. Euryale is the wanderer/gypsy of the trio, she tends towards being more emotional and dramatic than her siblings. Medusa is the dominant triplet; ruling her sisters like a little queen with a mixture of diplomacy, threats, and the fact that in their own private language she has a lot subtle dominance. It’s impossible to say if that it was the force of her personality that started her position, or it was just a chance happening that became her personality. All three sisters adore each other, and when alone speak exclusively in their private language.
The first generation Titans are her aunts and uncles, while the second generation Titans and the first generation Olympians are her first-cousins (list is here thanks to
2020sigh). While she tends to side with the monsters, as far as the Olympians are concerned, she’s mostly neutral. There are two exceptions: Poseidon she hates and fears for the rape, and Athena she utterly loathes for first failing to help, and then cursing her. She also had/has a crush on Epimethesus, and used to show it by being an utter brat.
Physical Attributes
Medusa isn’t short for a person conceived of by the Ancient Greeks, but compared to a modern person…she is short (five foot or so). She’s curvy instead of slender, and appears to be North African/Middle Eastern with olive skin and large dark eyes in a sweet face. Her voice isn’t as seductive as her siren or nymph sisters’, but it’s low and feminine with a Libyan accent. When she had hair, it was long, thick, black, curly, and utterly gorgeous, but thanks to Athena’s curse Medusa has dozens and dozens of slender black snakes all over her head.
The snakes are alive, poisonous, and always rustling and whispering amongst themselves. If a character can speak to snakes, then they can talk to them. While they aren’t consciously a part (or rather, dozens and dozens of parts) of Medusa’s mind, and she can’t see out of their eyes, the snakes are a part of her, and when she gets upset she will tend to say ‘us’ and ‘our’.
As a gorgon, Medusa has brass claws on her fingers and toes that are normally sheathed like a cat’s claws. She has golden wings, and while she doesn’t entirely rely on aerodynamics to fly, her wingspan is still a respectable 12 feet or so. She has hollow bones like any other bird, which make her about half the weight a normal human her size would be, and thanks to being technically six-limbed her muscle-structure and brain are somewhat interesting. Medusa has an excellent sense of balance, and is utterly fearless about heights.
Medusa’s wings are not solid gold; they are bone and muscle and skin like any other pair of wings, but the feathers are gold – a warm, living-but-metallic gold that is as light as a feather. Despite being formed of gold, the feathers are still built like normal feathers, with hollow quills and microscopic hooks on the filaments so that they can be linked together. Like all those who have feathered wings, she does need to take care that her feathers don’t get bent, broken, or otherwise damaged. This is fairly time-consuming, but she needs to be meticulous about it if she wants to keep on flying.
Flying – notes complied from David Attenborough’s ‘the Life of Birds’, and in particular the episode ‘the Mastery of Flight’
Her wings are like a kestrel’s and thus she can fly like one: she can hover (long periods of time require a head-wind), dive, stop and start mid-air, and she has all the co-ordination and skill of the raptor family. Medusa can also take off from standing on the ground, but she prefers to use a cliff ledge, or a tree, or even a roof.
A ground-start begins by her jumping up vertically, and then beating her wings downwards with all her energy. She then brings her wings back and does it again, and only after that second sweep down can she start to go forwards. It takes a great deal of energy, and so she can’t do a ground-start twice in quick succession.
To land on a ledge or rock, she aims for a point below it and flies towards it at great speed. She then brakes by swooping upwards so that her forward speed at landing is about zero. She also prefers landing facing the wind to keep the airflow over her wings.
Powers
- To quote Wikipedia “In Ancient Greece a Gorgoneion (or stone head, engraving or drawing of a Gorgon face, often with snakes protruding wildly and tongue sticking out between the fangs) was frequently used as an apotropaic symbol and placed on doors, walls, coins, shields, breastplates, and tombstones in the hopes of warding off evil” and for the myth to start, I’m toying with the idea of the gorgon sisters being able to do so-called ‘apotropaic magic’, or protection magic. They are already guardians of Death’s West Gate, and it makes sense that they can do actual protection magic. This means spells, rituals, but also simple charms. This protection is not an immunity from harm; it is only a protection, and like all protections it can be breeched.
- The Gorgons are sea-daemons, and as such can raise a storm out of thin air. However, they prefer to use the weather that is already there – a breeze, for instance – as it takes less effort, and make it so many times worse. Creatures of Air and Water, the Gorgons tend to fly in their storms and utterly enjoy them – the more destructive, the better. They also get a power-boost from the energy and eletricty.
- If blood is taken from the left side of her body, it is a fatal poison. If blood is taken from the right side of the body, it can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life.
- Thanks to Athena’s curse, Medusa’s gaze will turn any living person she looks at into stone. The gaze can’t work on the dead or the truly immortal, but as it stands they are the only exceptions.
Misc
- As the granddaughter of the personification of the sea, and the daughter of a sea-god and a sea-monster, Medusa adores the sea, swims extremely well, and can’t drown.
- As the third generation from creation, she can recover from most things a human would find fatal, and she doesn’t age. However, she can still die.
- She comes from the middle age of Greek Mythology. As Perseus is the one to kill her, she’s three generations before his grandson Heracles, and well before the fall of Troy.
- Medusa and her triplets guard the West Gate of Death from the living.
- Due to Athena’s curse, she won’t look at anyone directly unless she wants to turn them to stone. She’ll study clothes and the floor, or the window or the scenery, but never the person she is talking to.
- Medusa can talk to snakes – all snakes, not just the ones on her head. She’s also very fond of them.
- She utterly adores birds.
- Technically, she’s pregnant to Poseidon, but in a very Ancient Greek Myth sort of way; she doesn’t know and won’t ever show until her sons Chrysaor and Pegasus are born from her neck after Perseus cuts off her head. Or possibly just when her blood mingles with the sea – I haven’t yet decided.
