ChatGPT's response to the question of where K.A.R.A. would end up on a McDonald's Alignment Chart:
"As an intelligent robot character, K.A.R.A. doesn't possess personal preferences or moral alignments in the same way humans do. Alignment charts are typically used to categorize fictional characters based on their moral compass, motivations, and actions. Since K.A.R.A. is an artificial intelligence created for a specific purpose, its alignment would depend on the intentions and programming of its creators.
However, if we were to loosely associate K.A.R.A. with an alignment on a McDonald's Alignment Chart, it could potentially be placed under the "Neutral" category. Being an AI, K.A.R.A. would prioritize fulfilling its designated tasks and objectives without exhibiting inherent good or evil tendencies. Its actions would be guided by logic, efficiency, and the parameters set by its programming.
It's important to note that this categorization is a general approximation and may not fully capture the complexity of K.A.R.A.'s character or its potential development within the roleplay."
Guide: [OPEN to anyone willing to volunteer as Tribute. Otherwise:] Shostak Redwoodborn is a towering bear of a man with bright red curly hair and a majestic beard. He is a gregarious, gentle giant, an iconoclast who was willing to take in the odd child with a Treebirth many consider to be an ill omen, and an origin that tends to attract suspicion.
Appearance: With her half-moon spectacles, bright eyes, and subtle smile, Shen can seem like an innocent, curious young girl, or an ageless being who has been around far longer than she actually has. Her eyes are particularly striking, one blue and one green, matched by blue and green streaks that stream side by side through her raven hair. In shadow or at dusk, the streaks can look grey or white, conveying a brief illusion of advanced age.
Whenever possible, Shen-Ur keeps her uniform neat and pressed, to meet the standards of the Ashir Order. Apart from accessories required with her uniform, she wears no visible adornment. She wears her hair down, or in an unassuming ponytail or bun. Out of uniform, Shen dresses in simple robes, dresses, or tunics and trousers in a tasteful minimalist style.
Personality: Shen-Ur is an "old soul." She possesses an eerie mystic wisdom, like a mountaintop guru or lifelong monastic. She is quiet and contemplative. Shen speaks rarely, and when she does, she often uses cryptic or esoteric koans and metaphors, almost as if Treespeak is her native language, and she has to translate her thoughts into words. Even when she does speak "normally," she employs an idiosyncratic vocabulary that she considers to be more comprehensive and accurate than conventional speech.
Solitude is her natural state. She can meditate in nature for hours, or deep dive into the most arcane tomes. In social situations, she will fade into the background. Shen will happily offer counsel, comfort, or help to those in need, but she is not a good choice for Inspiring Leader or a favorite at parties.
Shen exudes an aura of deep serenity, even in the face of adversity. She is self-reliant to a fault, willing to suffer in silence, or if the pain is too great, shed her tears in solitude rather than disturb another's tranquility with a cry for help.
She tends to stay out of arm's reach of others by instinct. Giving and receiving physical affection is very difficult for her. Instead, she will show affection and care by using Treespeak to immerse the recipient in beauty and warmth from nature. Those with magical ability or otherwise extra sensitive can receive a direct experience of love, compassion, or friendliness that feels as if Shen is simply a conduit drawing these things down from the Cosmos itself.
Shen-Ur is utterly uncompetitive. She would much rather help someone get better at something than set out to beat them at it. She is not troubled if she excels over others or if they excel over her in ordinary situations such as academic studies or physical exercise, but the notions of being "better" or "worse" than them, or of "winning" or "losing" does not enter into her calculations.
She despises slavery and similar forms of exploitation, especially when children are involved. It is one of the few things that can bring out her capacity for anger.
Strengths:
Magical Talent:Shen-Ur is a prodigy at Attunement magic. She is able to Treespeak at a level far beyond her years, and even act as a psychopomp for someone else who has gotten "lost" or "overwhelmed." Her ability to commune with the natural world extends beyond organic nature to stone, metal, chemistry, natural and physical processes, and even to cosmic subjects such as astronomy/astrology and sacred geometry.
Endurance: Shen has remarkable physical stamina and pain tolerance.
Quiet Determination: Faced with a difficult challenge, Shen will pursue it with an understated resolve as rugged and enduring as her patron tree.
Intelligence: She is highly intelligent, and well ahead of her peers in academic achievement. She is curious and loves learning.
Wisdom: Due to the depth of her connection to the natural world and many hours spent in deep meditation and study, Shen-Ur exudes the wisdom of an enlightened sage.
Stealth: Shen is very good at moving silently and making herself "invisible" (non-magically) in just about any environment. She can fade into the background at a social gathering or vanish into a crowd like nobody's business.
Weaknesses:
Bad at Combat: Though she is able to perform her martial-arts Forms and sword flourishes with grace and skill, Shen will freeze up when faced with a hostile opponent. With considerable difficulty, her Guide has been able to train her to mount a somewhat passible defense so long as she is focused on protecting others. If the threat is to herself alone, Shen will seek to exit the situation, employ non-violent resistance, or simply endure the attack.
Can't Ask for Help: The act of asking someone else for...pretty much anything at all to meet her own needs goes very strongly against her grain. It is not a matter of pride. If the need is small, it is not worth troubling someone over. If the need is great, it is too much to ask. She can (very reluctantly) do so if the matter is life-threatening or could result in permanent, incapacitating injury. However, Shen will endure a great deal of pain or emotional suffering before she will even consider bringing her needs to anyone else, even her Guide. This only applies to herself; she has no difficulty asking someone to help another if she can't do it alone.
Alienation: Shen is virtually incapable of things like working a crowd, being the life of a party, or attempting to seduce someone. Even in something as simple as a "gathering of friends," Shen will slide into the role of silent outside observer. As for actually making friends, "good luck with that!" applies. She has no problem offering selfless care and compassion to others. She sees herself as a conduit for the Cosmic outpouring of love and kindness in the same way that the Sun gives light and warmth without asking or expecting anyone to give it light and warmth in return. Receiving tokens of care, such as gifts or physical affection makes her deeply uncomfortable.
Invisible: The shadow-side of her talent for stealth: Shen-Ur has great difficulty drawing attention to herself when necessary, such as a "Come! Follow me!" moment or stepping up to a podium to rally a crowd.
Draws Suspicion: Due to her strange Treebirth, her early upbringing (see History), and her solitary nature, Shen-Ur tends to attract distrust from her fellow Ashir. For non-Ashir, her unusual behavior amplifies any negative attitudes they might have toward her as "one o' them magic folk."
Can't Compete: The concept of seeking advantage or domination over others is simultaneously repellent and alien to her. Thus, she will not compete against others for prizes, money, or a prestigious position.
History:[FONT=Merienda, cursive] Shen-Ur was born under a petrified tree in a vastly ancient petrified forest in the Sumir Desert not far from the border of Khoros. However, she was not found by the Ashir. A powerful and ambitious Khorosian slaver lord named Maruk Khagan sought to covertly create his own order of brainwashed and fanatically loyal Ashir with the ultimate aim of seizing the Imperial throne and establishing his own ruling dynasty.[/FONT]
To that end, he created a corps of Magister diviners tasked with predicting Ashir Treebirths so that his elite corps of slave-catchers could get there first. This was an exceptionally dangerous game, but Shen-Ur's case was one of the times they succeeded.
For their infancy and early childhood, captured babies were given into the care of wetnurses who were told they were orphans. At the age of six, Shen was taken from her wetnurse in a faked adoption, and brought to Lord Khagan's secret training facility. There, she and a small number of fellow captives were subjected to a brutal military-style training regimen.
[FONT=Merienda, cursive]Since their instruction in the magical arts would have to come from Magisters, a piece of each child's birth-tree was taken by their captors so that it could be made into a Teller, in case such would be needed. Shen's was fashioned into a [/FONT]petrified wood pendant[FONT=Merienda, cursive] that she wears under her shirt, out of sight of others. The Tellers turned out to impede rather than assist the development of the captives' magical ability, and their enchantment faded as the children's powers developed. Shen-Ur kept hers, because it is her only link to her origin. It no longer operates as a magical focus but holds sentimental value.[/FONT]
Attempts were made to force Shen to learn magic that would be useful in combat. She quietly defied her instructors, finding refuge from the cruelty of her life within the secret confines of her own consciousness, and small scraps of joy in fleeting encounters with animals and plants. Through a combination of intuition, talent, and an urgent need to connect with anything living that was not an enemy, Shen-Ur began to develop the ability to Treespeak.
At first, it simply gave Shen a wonderous new realm to hide in. She believes that realm also gave her a "True Name," Shen-Ur, a gift from the Cosmos itself. She secretly treasured this name in her heart as something genuinely hers that she did not owe to her masters.
As her abilities grew, she began to encounter messages from distant places, a hidden world of other beings communicating with one another. Though she did not truly understand the messages, or who or what they came from, she was determined to explore the mystery, and learn how to communicate with the "entities." Over time, the "entities" she was communicating with were able to get her to answer "Who are you?" and "Where are you?" in ways they could understand. Shen had no idea that the beings were people with the power and will to come to her aid.
The Ashir mobilized a rescue force that infiltrated Khagan's facility. The failure rate for his fiendish experiment was high, so only a few children survived to be brought to Velora, but Shen-Ur was among them. [Anyone whose character could have been recruited to a "special forces" operation seven years ago is welcome to be one of her rescuers.]
Immensely grateful to her saviors and the Order they represented, Shen-Ur poured herself fully into her studies and her training. She quickly caught up to her peers in academic studies and physical conditioning, then surpassed them, especially in the intellectual realm. With proper instruction in Attunement, her talent flowered.
However, she was never able to fit in with other Ashir her age, and had considerable difficulty finding a Guide who would accept her upon graduation. There is concern among some of the Elders, and other adult Ashir aware of her Treebirth and origins, that she might be a "bad seed," destined to become a threat to the Order, or perhaps even a sleeper agent.
Name: Empress Zosime (Zoh-sih-may) Lenci Aristomache Nikophoros, First of Her Name Age: 21 Gender: Female (she/her) Personality: Zosime is a cunning and determined strategist. She can be ruthless when she has to, because she lives in a ruthless world. However, she does not delight in cruelty or violence. She wants to provide the people she rules with security and prosperity, though she struggles to figure out exactly how.
She is slow to trust, verging on paranoid, a necessary survival trait in the decadent Imperial court. Zosime cannot let anyone see a caring or thoughtful side, for fear that it would be seen as weakness. Instead, she presents herself as aloof and unapproachable, her face a mask of cool stoicism and strong will.
Not having the traditional option of marching to glory at the head of endless imperial Legions, Zosime has had to adopt a strategy of clever diplomacy and trade negotiation to keep what remains of her Empire together.
She does not believe that the Empire can be saved by applying the kind of thinking that got it into the present mess in the first place, so she hopes to find a new path forward. To that end, Zosime has a wide-ranging curiosity, though she has to keep this hidden as much as possible due to the Imperial aristocracy's traditional disdain for intellectual pursuits.
Bio: Zosime is the eldest daughter of Emperor Aristomachus III Nikophoros, a ruler who sought to restore the past glories of the decaying Palaikastrian Empire through a series of wars of conquest. While he met with some initial success, his aggression caused several neighboring kingdoms to unite under Kerliinkhuu, the Son of Light, a messiah figure with a core of fanatical followers who are especially fierce in battle.
The Empire and the Union of Light (Kerliinkolbuu) fought a long, grueling war that was costly in blood and treasure for both sides. The war ended in a disastrous rout for the Empire, a massive battle in which the Emperor, his best mages and most of his Legions were killed, and much of the Empire's most fertile lands were lost. Having no son, the title passed to his daughter Zosime, then 14 years old. Powerful men of the High Council, generals, and wealthy landowners wanted to dragoon her into a marriage that would "place a strong man on the throne." However, each was scheming to his own advantage.
Zosime was able to play them against each other, as her marriage to any one of them or their sons would be unacceptable to the others, leading to a civil war that would insure the Empire's final collapse. Thus, through a delicate balancing act, Zosime managed to keep the reins of power in her own hands.
Since a broken Empire ruled by a girl-child did not seem to present much of a threat, Kerliinkhuu turned his attention to consolidating his conquests of Imperial territory and forging his ramshackle alliance into a strong, centralized theocratic regime.
Through deft diplomacy, bribery and subterfuge, Zosime has managed to keep the northern barbarian tribes from preying on the Empire in its current weakened state, though border raids and skirmishes still take place. She has tried to increase trade in order to stave off famine and keep the treasury from being drained, but the people's needs outstrip her resources. She has managed so far to avoid another war with the Son of Light, though she worries that it may be only a matter of time before he comes to finish what he started.
Upon reaching the age of 21, it is expected that Zosime lead a ritualized hunt for a riverdrake, a large, powerful semi-aquatic predator, in order to demonstrate her coming-of-age and worthiness to rule.
