Difference between revisions of "Persona Ideas"
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| style="text-align: center" |United States (1861-1896) | | style="text-align: center" |United States (1861-1896) | ||
|One of the first documented serial killers in the United States. He built a hotel specifically for the purposes of murder, which he used to kill visitors who stayed there to attend the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. | |One of the first documented serial killers in the United States. He built a hotel specifically for the purposes of murder, which he used to kill visitors who stayed there to attend the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. | ||
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| + | | style="text-align: center" | [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebeard Bluebeard] | ||
| + | | style="text-align: center" | ''Histoires ou contes du temps passé'', by Charles Perrault, 1697 AD | ||
| + | |A nobleman with a blue beard, who secretly killed all of his wives and hid them in a locked room. Was foiled by his last wife when she discovered the bodies of his past wives, and had her brothers kill him before he could murder her. | ||
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Revision as of 16:21, 2 June 2012
This is the page for all those neat ideas for personas we find in research but cannot use. For now this page is organized by theme, but this may change or be expanded upon.
We recommend also searching resources on the folklore, mythology and urban legend section of the links page, as there are tons of resources there for finding possible ideas for personas.
Contents |
Death
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Black Dog | British Isles | A large black dog, said to foretell a person's death. There are various names for the dogs, depending on the precise location. |
| Macaria | Greek | Either the daughter of Hercules who sacrificed her life for her city, or the counterpart of Thanatos who brought good death. |
| Maximón | Mayan/Catholic | A modernization and mix of the Mayan god Mam and Catholic beliefs who serves as a link between this world and the underworld. Unlike San La Muerte and Santa Muerte, he is not seen as benevolent. |
| Melinoe | Greek | Daughter of Persephone who wandered the earth with a retinue of ghosts every night. |
| Meng Po | Chinese Folk Religion | Serves the Tea of Forgetfulness to souls before reincarnation, so that they may not remember their previous lives. |
| Mors | Roman | The personification of death, similar to Thanatos. |
| San La Muerte | South American/Catholic | A modernization and mix of Catholic and South American beliefs who is worshiped as a god of death. A benevolent figure, he also answers prayers for good luck and protection against witchcraft. |
| Santa Muerte | Mesoamerican/Catholic | A modernization of the death goddess Mictecacihuatl mixed with aspects of Catholic beliefs. She is worshiped as a goddess of death. She receives prayers for healing and protection, specifically against violence. |
Drunkenness
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Centzon Totochtin | Aztec | The 'Four Hundred Rabbits' in Nahuatl, they govern drunkenness. One of their number, Macuiltochtli, is a member of the Ahuiateteo, the gods of excess. |
Innovation
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Benjamin Franklin | United States of America, 1706 - 1790 |
One of the founding fathers of the United States of America and an accomplished diplomat. Known for many inventions, as well as for establishing the first lending library and the first fire department in the new nation. |
| Daedalus | Greek | A Cretan inventor, who created the labyrinth for the Minotaur among many other inventions. Imprisoned in a tower by Minos to disallow him from revealing any secrets about the labyrinth, Daedalus fashioned a pair of wings for him and his son in order to escape. Icarus flew too close to the sun and crashed into the ocean, where he drowned, but Daedalus escaped, moving on to build a shrine to Apollo where he hung his wings in offering. |
Love (Happy, Tragic, and Otherwise)
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Berenice, Egaeus | "Berenice", by Edgar Allan Poe, 1835 |
As Berenice succumbs to an unnamed illness, her cousin and fiance, Egaeus, a man prone to moody trances, grows obsessed with the only part to be spared by disease: her teeth. After Berenice is buried, Egaeus, in a trance, digs her casket up. Unaware of the fact she had been mistakenly buried alive, he forcefully extracts her teeth from her, and only realizes his horrid act later when he finds himself covered in blood and mud, with a lantern and a box of teeth on his desk. |
| Beatrice | "Rappaccini's Daughter", by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1844 |
Isolated to a garden of deadly plants, Beatrice's body is poisonous due to her father's experiments. When Giovanni courts her, his own body becomes poisonous, and he blames her. Bringing an antidote so that they may both be cured, Giovanni is horrified when Beatrice drinks it and dies while stating, "Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?" |
| Odette | Swan Lake, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, 1875–76 |
A princess cursed to be a swan during the day, Odette falls in love with the prince Siegfried. When Siegfried is tricked into swearing his love to a doppelganger, depending on the ending, Odette is freed from her curse through the power of love, or sacrifices herself for it. |
| Pygmalion, Galatea | Metamorphoses, by Ovid, 8 AD | Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor whose devotion to Venus allowed one of his most treasured sculptures, an ivory statue of a woman, to come to life. |
Luck
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Arkan Sonney | Manx | A long-haired fairy pig. It's said that anyone who catches one is blessed with good fortune, though they run from humans. |
Mystery
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Marie Laveau | United States (1782–1881) | A famous 'voodoo queen' of Louisiana Creole descent, Marie used her influence, her wealth of gossip, and other methods to exert her influence in New Orleans. |
Pride
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Atë | Greek | The Greek personification of hubris and folly. |
| Minos II | Greek | The king of Crete in Greek mythology, who was portrayed as a tyrant. Most known for his part in the story of Daedalus and Icarus, as well as the story of the Minotaur. While pursuing Daedalus, Minos was killed by the daughter of Cocalus, who poured boiling water over him in his bath. |
Prophecy
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Barton | Great Britain, (1506?–1534) |
A Catholic nun, Elizabeth began receiving visions of the future after an unknown illness, which made her popular at a time in Great Britain where Catholicism was being threatened by the English Reformation. As her visions grew to challenge Henry VIII, she remained untouched due to her popularity among sectors of the city. Agents of the king resorted to destroying her reputation with rumors about her mental health and sexual relationships with priests. When her reputation was ruined, the Crown arrested her and, after forcing her to say that her visions were false, executed her for treason without a public hearing. |
Temptation
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Glashtyn | Manx | A variant of the kelpie myth, the Glashtyn takes the form of a handsome young man. He attempts to tempt young women to come to the river with him where he will drown them. |
| Name | Origin | Description |
| Lucrezia Borgia | Italy (1480-1519) | A daughter from a Renaissance family known for their Machiavellian tactics of retaining power, Lucrezia was seen as an object of desire and revulsion, though the truthfulness of the rumors of her sexual exploits and acts of murder are not always known. |
Tricksters
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pied Piper of Hamelin | Germany | A mysterious piper who comes to the medieval town of Hamelin to take care of their rat population. When he is not paid, he turns his music on the children of the village, leading them away with his music. Many believe the Pied Piper is an allusion to a grim reaper figure for children. |
| Coyote | Native American | A figure appearing in many Native American pantheons, Coyote is portrayed often as a trickster, sometimes stealing gifts from the gods for mankind to being a sort of antihero, depending on the tale. |
Violence, Murder
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| H. H. Holmes | United States (1861-1896) | One of the first documented serial killers in the United States. He built a hotel specifically for the purposes of murder, which he used to kill visitors who stayed there to attend the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. |
| Bluebeard | Histoires ou contes du temps passé, by Charles Perrault, 1697 AD | A nobleman with a blue beard, who secretly killed all of his wives and hid them in a locked room. Was foiled by his last wife when she discovered the bodies of his past wives, and had her brothers kill him before he could murder her. |
Warriors
Female
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| La Maupin | France, 1670–1707 | Also known as Julie d'Aubigny. She was an opera singer as well as a swordswoman, and many stories spread about her flamboyant lifestyle. |
| Empress Jingu | Japan, 169–269 | A mysterious figure in Japanese history, Jingu was a consort to the Emperor Chūai. After his death, she ruled as Regent and led an invasion into Korea and returned victorious after three years, though modern historians have widely debunked this as myth. |
Male
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Goetz von Berlichingen | Germany, 1480 - 1562 |
A knight and mercenary who lost his arm in a battle, only to replace it with a metal prosthetic one and continue his fighting career. Subject of a play by Goethe, who portrays him in a different light. |
Water
| Name | Origin | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Sedna | Inuit | The Inuit goddess of the sea, she also governs Adlivun, the underworld. Hunters prayed to her to ensure that their hunts of sea mammals went well. |
| Cloacina | Roman | The goddess of the Cloaca Maxima, a system of sewers located in the city of Rome, as well as sexual intercourse. Sometimes worshiped as an aspect of Venus. |
