Thursday, January 20, 2011

Sennen Saranta: Living in the Love of the Common People

Sennen has the distinction of being the first EVER Slayer-in-Training character created for the Buffy RPG. I made her in the first month or so of the Buffy RPG playtests. The date on her sheet says Feb 25, 2002. I have updated her a bit now that she is a full Slayer. Sennen's original stats still live on as the Slayer-in-Training stats in "The Slayer's Handbook".

I based a lot of what I think her life was like on the old song "Living in the Love of the Common People" made popular to me at least by Paul Young.

I wanted to post this as prep for my Season of the Witch postings.

Thanks to Kirk if he ever reads this!

Sennen Saranta

Sennen was a character in a group of stories set in 2005 (and written back in 2001) dealing with Willow and Tara called Coming Up Roses. The girls are given a Museum of Witchcraft when its old curator, Millicent Stuart, dies. The museum is actually a nexus point between magical realities and Willow and Tara, with new characters Mel and Sennen, as its guardians. Before the Buffy RPG ever got into playtest I spent the summer of 2001 playing a WitchCraft RPG game based around Coming Up Roses. Willow and Taras official stats look an awful lot like the stats I came up with then.
Coming Up Roses though never went past its first season, but I recruited a few of their writers to help me on The Dragon and the Phoenix. My later season Season of the Witch brought back Millicent and Sennen as special guest stars. Millicents role changed from a Guardian to a Protector, and Sennen was a full Slayer. In both timelines (CUR and SotW) Willow and Tara went to England in 2005. The differences were that Millicent didnt die (I did not want to base them in England) and Sennen had already ditched her Watcher in favor of working with Millicent.

Appearance
Sennen stands 5'2" (157 cm) tall. She has dark hair with a streaks of blue in it, a pierced nose, labret and navel. She also has a tattoo of a black sun on her left shoulder. She is dark skin with dark brown eyes.

Background
Life has not been great to 15 year-old Sennen Saranta. Born in an Indian neighborhood on Londons East side Sennen had to cope with a lot of the same things her friends did. An out of work and alcoholic father and an overworked mother, and she was a minority among minorities with her mixed Sri Lankan (father) and Londoner (mother) racial mix.

Her family life is bad, but no worse than her friends in the same situation. Her dad is a drunk, but he is not a mean one (he never would touch her or her mother) but he is a lazy one. Her mom is overworked, so no one even notices when she leaves the house at all hours of the night.

The night of Sennens calling was memorable. She goes out one night ends up drinking a little too much, taking a little too much X and finds herself at an after hours party. Soon she discovers that everyone around her is a vampire and she was brought as one of the snacks. With her friend already dead something in her snaps. She sobered up in flash and ended up killing ten vampires before getting out. The next morning she meets this man who looks a lot older than he actually is who identifies himself as her Watcher. Soon Sennen finds herself stuck with James Jimmy AKA Jimmy the Perv Grey and his twisted witch girlfriend Karen Kent. Karen is a witch, she says she is training Sennen to fight evil, but in reality she just likes to torture her. Jimmy likes to watch.

Things change when Jimmy asks Sennen to kill an old witch by the name of Millicent.

Sennen won't ever kill any human, no matter how evil they are, but all demons and vampires (good or not) are fair game.

And dont call her Sen. She hates that.

Sennen Saranta
Character Type: Hero
Life Points: 81
Drama Points: 10

Attributes
Strength 7
Dexterity 6
Constitution 7
Intelligence 3
Perception 4
Willpower 6

Qualities
Slayer
Attractiveness 2
Contacts, Criminal 1
Contacts, Supernatural 2
Fast Reaction Time
Hard to Kill 5
Nerves of Steel
Regeneration

Drawbacks
Addiction (Temazepam) 1
Adversary 5
Emotional Problem, Depression 1
Emotional Problem, Fear of Commitment 1
Emotional Problem, Fear of Rejection 1
Mental Problem, Recklessness 1
Mental Problem, Obsession, self-mutilation (cutter)
Screwed-Up Adolescent

Skills
Acrobatics 4
Art 1
Computers 0
Crime 3
Doctor 1
Driving 0
Getting Medieval 4
Gun Fu 2
Influence 1
Knowledge 1
Kung Fu 6
Languages 1
Mr. Fix-It 1
Notice 2
Occultism 3
Science 0
Sports 1
Wild Card 0

Combat
Maneuver Bonus Base Damage Notes
Punch 12 14
Kick 11 16
Stake 10 14
Knife 10 12
- Thrown 9 6
Break neck 5 28
Dodge 10 None Defensive Move

Note: I suppose if I had kept up with Sennen she would be 21 by now (and closer to the pic above).  Though I never really used her much after this.  Re-reading over these stats it is kind of a pity really.
I did have this idea that after the events in Season of the Witch that Sennen later went on to become the new Protector of Albion when Millie dies.  I kind of like that idea really and maybe that is the version of the character I should investigate further.

Hmm.  Actually now that I am writing this I am thinking of a new modern Ghosts of Albion game featuring Sennen, maybe one of the older Ghosts or Nigel and throw in Dirty Nel just for the fun of it.

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