Safiyyah Mahdi by Epoch, Duchess of Imagination

"Imagination is but a breath from madness." - Popular saying in Eskandar

The diminutive Duchess of Imagination (five foot two, in her late twenties, with a freckled face and fashionable taste in clothing) does not cut a terribly imposing figure. Before her Commencement, she was a marine biologist -- not the most awe-inspiring profession. But she is a Duchess of the most far-ranging Estate that Aqshai controls, and even were she as stable and level-headed as Tariq Debrie, she would be a frightening individual.

Safiyyah Mahdi is neither stable nor level-headed.

Mahdi has been known to identify herself and her Estate with the sharks that she used to study. Ancient, powerful, far-ranging, constantly moving, and utterly amoral. She has embraced these aspects of he Estate, integrated them into herself, and, surprisingly, hung unto a shred of her sanity in the process.

Mahdi herself is deeply imaginative. Ideas bubble through her constantly, and she puts many of them into action. She has a fairly short, but very focused attention span -- in her is Aqshai's obsessiveness mirrored, but not his dedication to the long-term project (or, perhaps Aqshai is just as ephemeral, but has a different enought conception of time that a millenium seems like a passing moment to him). For a few hours, perhaps a day, Mahdi will commit herself totally to some passing notion, then, abruptly, abandon it, and make no effort to return her experiment to its original state.

The Duchess is not a raving lunatic. She is perhaps a bit brusque, but lucid and generally polite in her personal dealings. She understands at least the concept of thinking through the consequences of her actions she was a scientist, and her training in rigorous thought has not left her but she usually chooses not to bother thinking ahead of the moment, when dealing with her private projects or citizens of Eskandar. Further, she understands the choices she makes and the consequences that they have. It's just that, unless those consequences fall back on her, her Estate, or her Familia, she doesn't care.

Mahdi's quarters in the Palace of Sleep's Reflection are a place of wonders and horrors. One of her favorite pastimes is to inspire one of the sleepers whose dreams create the contents of Eskandar to feverish, impassioned imaginings, then Perserve whatever creations amuse her for her personal enjoyment. She might perform these experiments on a larger scale, were it not for the disapproval of Riena Nagoro and Thomas Aerington.

Mahdi loves to inspire, and she could be a wonderful if terrifying patron to the arts, were it not for one tiny problem. She has no artistry in her soul. Her aesthetic sense is minimal, and restricted entirely to that which is conventionally pleasing to the eye. The Duchess of Imagination has no understanding of art, nor patience with it.

Mahdi does not recognize this incapacity as a flaw. She rails violently against those who claim artists as the pinnacle of creativity. Her ideal of the imaginative person is one who, like her, is constantly awash in practical ideas, visions of things which might work, which might have an effect in the real world. Imagination, to its Duchess, is a Estate rooted heavily in the real world.

Do not mistake this: Mahdi recognizes and embodies Imagination, and she is a brilliantly intelligent woman. She is not blind to the parts of the Estate which she holds in low regard, but neither does she have any affection for the more scattered aspects of Imagination. Indeed, she has been known to speculate as to whether her Estate has been the victim of Excrucian attack in the past, designed to seperate it from the real world and make it irrelevent. She is capable of passionate and convincing argument that her definition of Imagination is truly the essence of the Estate.

Because of her unconventional insistence on grounding Imagination in the real world, Mahdi may well be Aqshai's greatest mistake. She, like all of his Nobles, has been touched by his interest in Dreams, and she is better equipped than any other of the Familia to participate in Aqshai's attempt to better Creation. But she approaches the project as another experiment, without respect for what has already been done, and seemingly without any understanding of Aqshai's intent to create something within Creation, but seperate from it. At present, Aqshai seems to be either unaware of Mahdi's differences of opinion about Dreams, or willing to allow her to take the project in a different direction. Only time will tell if that will continue to be the case, and whether Mahdi's intervention will prove to be for the betterment or detriment of the work.

Within the Familia, Mahdi fills a complementary role to Tariq Debrie. She is, in many way's, Aqshai's sword focussed, intelligent, and with powerful active tools at her disposal. She and Tariq will tend to work together to solve any problem that the Nobles of Eskandar must deal with. She is not terribly close to the other Nobles she regards them as less grounded and more flighty than she, and they regard her as dangerous and unpredictable, if undeniably incredibly useful.

One thing to note: Imagination is ephemeral, and Mahdi, for all her power, often seems barely there. She can be inspiring, but she is not overwhelming unless she actively uses her Domain. She is nearly defenseless against other Miracles -- Imagination can not stand up to Reality. She is aware of her nature in this respect, and, in a worrisome situation, will stick close to Thomas Aerington to benefit from his Auctoritas.

Safiyyah Mahdi's Character Sheet

 Aspect			2:Legendary	5 AMP
 Domain	(Imagination)	4:Duchess	6 DMP
   	(Dreams)	3
 Realm			1:Radiant	5 RMP
 Spirit			0:Candleflame	5 SMP

 Gifts and Virtues:

 Limits/Restrictions?:	Affiliation:Code of the Wild

 Bonds
	Strength	Description
	7		The Sanctity of Imagination
	5		Her Anchor, Corin Weissman
	3		Sharks (the entire biological order)
	2		A small sailboat, currently harboured in London
	2		A former classmate, Hussain Zakir
	1		Her thesis first draft

Notes

The Sanctity of Imagination is Imagination as the practical inspiration of real things, as described extensively above.

Mahdi does not have the Sanctity of Dreams as a Bond -- while she's very interested by Dreams, she's not emotionally invested in them. They're just another experiment to her.

Corin Weissman is a former lover of Mahdi's. She always carried a flame for him after she broke up with him (her idea, which she has regretted since). She loves him still, though she's careful not to show it. In general, Mahdi doesn't interfere too much in Weissman's life -- she regards him as an emergency resource. Weissman was a resident of Babylon when it became Eskandar, but he now lives in Robata. He is a physicist.

Design Notes

Well, I tried to do something controversial with Imagination, here. I don't know if the result is coherent, but it seemed more interesting that presenting a Delerium lookalike.