Oct 3. Character profile

PERSONAL STATISTICS

Name___Lillum

Sex___Female

Description (include hair and eye color, hair length, body type)___
Dark straight hair, 5ft 5ins, slender, largish hips, dark brown eyes

Date of birth, age and place of birth___
Mar 1530BC, small town called D’Alphet, 30kilometers north of Thebes, in Egypt, 17years old

Parents, siblings – names, appearances, ages, descriptions___
Only her Father, he's called  Maram Te

Marital status, children. (How old, etc)___
Not  married

What is their family life like?___
Lives with Father who is a craftsman (a painter)

Pets?___
NO

What is their neighborhood like?___
Mud huts with reed thatch, like the other huts in their small town

What is in their wallet/purse that others would be surprised to find?___
What wallet? Has a paint brush made of goat hair and powders used to make paint pigment in a worn leather bag.

Occupation (do they like their job? How long has this been their occupation?)___
Helps her father. He draws the designs on boxes or walls of buildings or tombs, she colours inside the outlines

Financial situation___
Dependent on her father and any work he can find

Future plans___
To get married to another craftsman like her father

Education__
Has been taught which rocks are used for which pigments and how they are prepared. Studied the history of the Egyptian gods at the local temple. Can read and write, useful skill for a scribe/painter.

Religion___
She is Egyptian, and worships a pantheon of gods, but her favorite is Isis.

Favorites and why:
Color___
Blue, the colour of the sky and the River Nile in the mornings

Season__
Spring, when the jasmine by the river is in blossom

Holiday__
The feast of Opet, because of the food, singing and dancing involved

Weapon___
Err… a stick, anything handy

Sport___
Err…what is sport?

Pastime___
Weaving baskets from rushes cut from the riverside. Its peaceful, it can be done with friends, and you can sell the baskets afterwards and buy love charms

Food___
Corn cakes made with dried dates and honey

Saying___
“the gods have a reason for everything”

Curse word___
“may Horus tear out your tongue!”

Music___
At the festival of Opet, they use the pipes, drums, lyres and harps.

Room in the house___
Only one room, a food preparation area in one corner with a raised fireplace where cooking can be carried out. She and her father have a ribbed roll each to use as a mattress. It is laid on the dirt floor, and shaken out each morning 

Type of personality – strongest personality traits___
Cheerful. Hopeful, respectful of the gods

Weakest personality traits___
Not decisive, leaves the big decisions to others

What habits does she have?__
Each morning she prays to Isis to look after her mother

Prejudices, dislikes, hates___
Hates disease and laziness

Needs of the character___
Needs to be recognized as a person in her own right, not just as the daughter of her father.

Ambitions/goals – what drives the character –     
3 short-term goals___
To be a painter like her father, to marry and have a home of her own, to beat her father at Mancala (a game with stones)

3 long-term goals____
To marry well, to raise many children and to make beautiful objects like her father.

What is standing in her way?____
Her father is ill and can’t work. Without his work they cannot eat. Girls are not allowed to work as artists. They are wives and mothers, dancers and shopkeepers

How does she handle conflict?___
Runs and hides

Possessions she values the most___
The goat hair brush and the powders (some of which are very valuable- crushed lapis lazuli-blue pigment)

Vehicle she drives___
Walks everywhere, but once rode in an ox cart (only a couple of fields) when she was about 10 years old

Health___
Excellent

Passions___
Colour, life and music (and food)

What is their philosophy on life?___
“The gods have a reason for everything that happens”

How do they feel about:
            Love?___
She hopes the gods will send her a loving husband who is strong and healthy, and with a little money of his own-or land-, who will love her and look after her and their children

Crime?___
No. The punishments for crime of any sort are severe. Thieves have their hands cut off, murders are executed. There are few custodial punishments.

Have they traveled? Where?____
Not far. She and her mother went to visit a distant cousin in the next, but one, town. They walked for two days, sleeping under a tree for one night to get there. The cousin wasn’t very welcoming, sop they left after the second day and slept under the same tree on their return

Criminal record?___
No

Special training?___
Her mother taught her to make honey cakes, to bake corn bread, to cook fish with lime juice, and to fry meat in a little palm oil.

What happened in their past to make them who they are now? (divorce, abuse, love, cared for, pushed away, etc.) –
3 good things about their past____
The temple at D’Alphet is small but beautiful. There is a small court-yard where the children would sit and hear their lessons. She loved the temple and listening to stories in the courtyard. It made her feel safe
Jephet, her neighbours son, was slightly older than her and was her greatest friend  until two years ago, when he went to live with his uncle in Karnak, after his mother re-married.

3 haunting things about their past___
She had a little brother who died at three years of age from a cough. They didn’t have enough money to pay for a physician. Her mother died a year later (when she was 15), after being ill for two months, each day spitting up more and more blood. Her father is now ill and he has been coughing like her mother, but no blood yet.

How does her past link to their pursuit of or reluctance to pursue their ambitions/goals?___
Terrified of being left alone. Takes the safe course. Hopes for someone to look after them, not confident enough to strike out on her own. The world is a harsh place where you need the support of friends and family to survive. She only has her father.

What kind of temperament does she have and why? Does it have something to do with their past?___
Cheerful and uncomplaining, defensive. Since her mother and brother dies she sees illness and disease everywhere. She is terrified that her father will get sick and die and leave her alone in the world.

What makes her nervous, why, and how does she react to nervousness?___
Violence makes her nervous. When she’s upset over anything she goes to the temple and prays to Isis

What does she fear, why, and how does she react to fear?___
Sickness and Violence. - She once witnessed Jephet’s father shouting and beating Jephet’s mother with a stick. She was only 8 and was distraught for days afterwards. Not long after that, Jephets father disappeared. At the time, her father had said that he had probably left to find work elsewhere. His body was found 8 days later washed up on the river bank. His foot had been tied to a rock.  Everybody had gone down to the water’s edge to look.

What makes her feel safe, why, and how does she react to safe?___
To have food in the house and a roof over her head. When she feels safe she loves to sing the songs of celebration – the ones the children sing at all the festivities

What des she take for granted about their life?___
Peace. In other countries they have wars and famines, but in Egypt the Gods and the Pharaoh make sure that the Nile floods every year, so there is food. A strong Pharaoh also keep Egypt’s enemies at bay. No country has dared challenge Egypt’s superiority for more than 5 centuries

What do they appreciate about their life?___
The sun, the bountiful Nile, the Gods, music, friends like Jephet (who she misses), her father and the memory of her mother

How would they react to:   
Divorce__
??

Partner cheating___
??

Robbery___
The gods will punish the robber for his sins in the afterlife

Finding out someone loves them back___
The god have gifted her with a partner in life

Winning the lottery (do w/money?)___
The god have been merciful (and a little sly perhaps)

Being wronged some way? (forgive easily?)___
I isn’t for her to judge other people, their hearts will be weighed by Horus and he will punish the unworthy.

Change___
Change is good, it brings new opportunities

Monotony___
Monotony is fine, as long as there is enough food, and she has friends and a temple to pray in

What kind of friends does she have? Does she trust them, or have them for convenience?___
She makes friends slowly but loves them forever, even if they leave and never return

How will the story change her?___
She will grow from a child into a woman. A woman who can see the cruelty and venality of a priesthood that is more concerned with getting and keeping power, than their judgment by the very gods they profess to serve.