CAMPER REGISTRATION FORM
Camper Name: Ila Gallo
Age: 15
Divine Parentage: Unknown
Appearance:
Known Abilities:
- Blessing of the Gods [Minor] - To have divine blood in one's veins, increasing all natural and physical abilities above any mortal. Lessened due to Unclaimed Status
- Battle Sense [Minor] - To posses an instinctive understanding of the flow of battle and surviving combat. Lessened due to Unclaimed Status
- The Virtuoso [Major] - The innate ability to be extremely competent in a given form of art
- The Urbane - To be well traveled and posses a wealth of knowledge on different cultures and customs
- Child of Rome [False*] - To have a deep connection to Rome. Allows for understanding of said culture and history at an instinctual level
- Child of Athens [True*] - To have a deep connection to Athens and Greece. Allows for understanding of said culture and history at an instinctual level
- Palpable Presence** [Minor] - The state of possessing a presence with the ability to affect other individuals. Lessened due to Unclaimed Status
Weapons:
- Aurora Florum - A sword in the style of a Spatha, seemingly coated in Imperial Gold and curiously smelling of flowers
- Celestial Bronze Dirk - A typical sword of Celestial Bronze, fashioned in the style of a dirk
- Sling - A simple leather sling complimented with an assortment of Celestial Bronze and Steel "bullets"
Biography: Before we start, I just want to make it clear my dad wasn't a bad father. I know how things may get mixed up in the bureaucracy that you Romans love, but I want this to be on record. Good? Good. My father was, much like me a Demi-god, but I wouldn't learn this until a while after I was born. Before I was born my father had been a successful Philologist. He was mostly focused on the proto-Indo-European languages, and had a soft spot for Latin. Shouldn't have come as a surprise really, given his heritage, but that's besides the point. His work took him all over the world, mostly Europe, exploring ruins and reading up on the latest finding of the Philology world's most famous authors. Apparently he had read a lot of Tolkien as a kid, and after discovering his work in the Philology community and its influences on his works, he became dead set on following in his foot-steps. Dad was a pretty good writer all things considered. He was no Hemingway or Steinbeck, but there was a certain comfort to his writing that drew people in. Had he decided to be a chronicler or write children books I'm sure he would be famous by now. He just
had to try his hand at writing trilogies and far reaching stories.
They honestly didn't sell that well. But, teaching at universities across the US and Italy more than made up for those flops of books. I would still read them though when I was old enough to. I don't think he ever really intended to have kids or a family for that matter. It was always work for him. Not in the way of bills needing to be met or he being a workaholic, but in the much simpler sense that he was over devoted to it. It's probably one of the better qualities I inherited from him. For days he would barely eat or drink while working on his next piece or researching some great break through or connection. It only makes sense it'd take a literal Goddess to make him look away from work. He said that he met her in Sicily while on a work trip. She was a writer like he was, and apparently she was site seeing for her next piece. They clicked instantly, or at least that's what he said. I'd like to imagine it was probably more mom having to literally drag him around and kiss him before he even got the barest trace of an idea she was interested. For all the fluffy prose and delicately crafted metaphors and idioms he could conjure, he was hopeless at understanding people in the real world. Especially romance. It's kinda funny thinking about how a
Goddess had to be the proactive one in the relationship and make him fall in love. I'm unsure if I should be proud or ashamed of my dad for that one...
Getting off track, I know. I was conceived and born on that same trip. I'm sure that must've been a shock to dad. He always sort of explained it that one day she was just gone, and there I was. He took it surprisingly well, all things considered. Mom was kind enough to leave behind an explanation that she was, infact, a Goddess and some basics for dad when it came to raising a child. A human child. I found the books later, my father the sentimental man he was kept them, and nothing about demi-gods was mentioned in them. Nothing about who my mother was either, which was a bit irking when I was younger, but dad took it in stride. Most of those early years were nice. I was ignorant of being a demi-god and dad was still in good spirits. We traveled all across America and Europe. Went to shows in London, saw art museums in Paris, and great food in Italy. There were a few places we always avoided. We never went to Greece at all, and our stays in New York were always extremely short. After I was born, dad always seemed a little more wary of those places. Around the time I was eight, things had begun to change.
Thinking back on it, it should've been really clear. Dad was spending more time at work than he ever had. He began drinking more than just socially like he had before, and there was that curious bespectacled man who dad always talked to once a week. Whenever he came by there was always a lot of shouting and crying to be heard. One day his editor came by and in hushed tones I could hear the discussion of the tone of his work changing, and not in a positive way. In his sleep dad would mumble on and on about things I never understood. Around his workshop I found scraps of stories; pages ripped, crumpled and heavy with the marks of erasers. They spoke of strange things. Monsters I had heard about only in books and museums, but spoken of with such fervor and realism they couldn't be anything but autobiographical. Or at the very least biographies. Of who, at the time I wasn't sure. But I now know the importance of those names; Jackson, Grace, Chase, etc. Dad had never spoke of knowing such people, and something about the time-frame never quite added up in mind. Doesn't help that Chiron says he never met my dad.
When I was eight, the metaphorical beans were spilled. My father admitted that my mother had not had to leave for work, but was in fact an actual Goddess. A Greek one if his guess was right. What she was doing in Sicily, I don't know. Your guess would be as good as mine. That meant I was a demigod. Others things started to click after that point. The strange things, like the teenagers who'd wave from the trees when we'd tour the country side. The large dog that followed us along an old dirt road in France, the Rugby Players in England who stared down dad and I when we got too close to the field. After that point, things got even worse for dad. His mumbling and strange stories increased. Eventually they reached the point of no longer making sense. Eventually it reached the point that dad became a full on insomniac. Once my grandmother heard of it she became incredibly distressed. She was always a shrewd woman who kept to herself. The only time she ever seemed to loose the feeling of an old, bitter Italian woman was when she found my dad disheveled and shaking in his work study, papers tossed around him crumpled and ripped like a fresh snow fall of failed ideas. She spoke of taking us to visit someone she knew in California. Before that happened though, dad got much worse. He never hit me or anything of the like, but something in his eyes changed. There was an expression in them I couldn't understand. Compassion and dread mixed and swirled in a dance with pity and fatalism. It was a fearful look, and those ever dark eyes of my dad didn't help. It was a few nights after he adopted that expression and the insomnia caught up with him that I first heard the voice. It urged me to run, and something about it was so compelling, I just listened.
And so one night in May I left the studio apartment in Boston where my dad stayed most of the time when he wasn't traveling, and left to follow where the voice directed me. I eventually found myself at a simple hostel in upstate New York. It was run by one 'Aunt Kaylin', and ethereally beautiful woman. In the four years I lived there, never once did she ever seem to age, even with all the stress I and the
others must've put her through. Her skin was fair, hair long and always so silky smooth as if finely polished every morning. Always on her face was a smile. The four years I stayed there were among the best. She taught me a lot of things. How to cook, to sing, the names of different plants and animals in the woods. My favorite activity was to watch movies with her. Weird things happened there though. Young kids often frequented the place, as well as strange people. The kids were always banged up like I was. Sometimes they came in small groups, other times they were by themselves. Some carried strange looking swords that would gleam like gold or give off a soft icy blue glow. Always they were varied. Some had beautiful blue eyes and hair which looked to be made of strands of the sun. Others had storms brewing in their deep grey eyes. A few even tried to fight me on sight. While Kaylin cooked and patched them up, I'd sing them songs or listen to their stories. All were varied. Most seemed to be heading to the city, probably to get here to camp. A few were on their way out to California, apparently looking for a wolf of all things. Others were more...varied. But those were outliers.
Things changed one day when I heard the voice call to me once more. It seemed it was finally my turn to head south to camp, or at least that was my guess when I was told to move south. Four years without so much as a peep and now the voice calls out once more. Was a bit annoying, but if it had lead me to Kaylin, than perhaps i was worth listening to again. The trip was fairly uneventful. A few hellhounds seemed to stalk me, but never did much until I reached this big botanical garden. I had been with my dad a long time ago on one of our rare trip to the City. I figured I'd be able to loose the pack easily, but I found myself cornered in one of the gardens. I had a small knife I had gotten from Kaylin, but I knew it probably wouldn't be enough. I felt a weird feeling swirling around in my stomach, and nearly collapsed from the pain. I'm pretty sure I even blacked out for a few seconds. I say probably cause when I opened my eyes again, the scenery had changed. The bushes had rearranged and a hedge-work of roses and laurels had given way to a sword, sheathed and tangled in a fine web of vines. It looked old and there was a heavy spiderweb of growth about it, as if it had been left there for sometime. Regardless I was thankful for whoever had left such a sword, since the Hellhounds seemed much more interesting in the sword, having backed off and bristling their fangs at it from a distance. Not wanting to loose advantage I grabbed the sword, which came out from its earthy prison surprisingly easily, and got out of there like a bat out of hell. Give or take a few days on the run, and next thing I know I'm running straight into you guys a few weeks ago.
Now with that taken care of, can I go back to my cabin
Optio Thomson? I need to get ready for lunch.
RP Sample: See previous app
* Ila is a Greek Demigod, but due to the nature of her Godly Parent, she is able to innately understand both the Greek and Roman parts of the pantheon. Sort of like how Percy was able to adapt to Latin and all of that in Lost Hero. Except Ila is predisposed to knowing both just like she was born a Roman Demigod, despite being Greek.
** Ila gives off a presence that is only noticeable [at present] to those predisposed to understanding auras or those attune to the forces of nature and magic. Kids or Legacies of Hecate, Hades, Hypnos, and/or other Gods and Goddess that deal with magic or related domains to the aforementioned will be able to detect a slight feeling given off by Ila which mostly manifests as feeling skittish or "off" around her.