Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Herein lies the various character directory threads for the players
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Hraithre
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Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

Star of Hope Shines Eternal in the Pitch-Black Universe (AKA Hoshiki Senshi)
Alias: Hoshiki Senshi (first name, last name), or just Senshi-san (lit. "Mr. Warrior") for brevity.
Gender: Male
Race/Species: Humanoid (augmented human)
Age: Four centuries, give or take a decade (appears to be in his 30s)
Alignment: "Good... Evil... I'm the guy with the sword. Wait, that's not how it works?"
Class/Profession: Formerly a warrior of lower nobility, currently armed hobo respectable houseowner
Power Rating: Herculean

Description: Hoshiki is a pretty massive man, standing around two meters tall (6'7") and weighing around a hundred kilos (~220 lbs). He may seem lanky from a distance, but were you to catch him without his shirt on, you'd see he has muscle tone of someone who works out religiously. He has a tanned skin criss-crossed by pale scars, wild, mane-like black hair reaching to his shoulder blades, pronounced cheekbones, a strong jaw and very dark brown, almost black eyes. In short, he looks like an absolute thug and not someone you'd want to run into in a dark alley. Though his chosen alias and belonging may hint at a Japanese origin, his ethnicity is indistinct.

Personality: In his mind, Hoshiki has this image of a warrior noble: someone who stands tall and proud, protects the weak from injustice, punishes the wicked, always conducts himself with honesty and honour and serves his superiors with utter loyalty.

He is not sure if this is someone he was, or just someone he aspired to be. He has this gnawing suspicion in the back of his mind that somehow, he has already failed to live up to this ideal. His go-to method for coping with such feelings is training to exhaustion. He loves the thrill of combat and competition and can easily lose himself in the excitement, only to be horrified by his own violent eagerness after-the-fact.

He is somewhat book dumb; his obsessive dedication to physical training left limited time for other pursuits. It may take some effort to get him to pay attention to, nevermind appreciate, arts of the non-martial kind.

Equipment: When he washed up on the shores of a Seaside island, Hoshiki was clad in a white hakama, white kosode, a black obi and a thigh-length black haori with an Ouroboros symbol on the back. As these are manifestations of his spiritual power, he can create such apparel from nothing (should he remember how).

He also has a daishou, a pair of swords consisting of a katana and a wakizashi. Their sheaths and hilts are of purest white. Their blades appear to be steel and would be proven to be so in any external hands. In truth, they are manifestations and extensions of Hoshiki's spiritual power and their material strength and sharpness depends on his mental state.

His last possession is a featureless mask, large enough to cover his whole face. It appears to be made of porcelain-like material. It has no holes for eyes, so how you're supposed to see out of it is an open question. It is split vertically in black and white halves; which half is which is not consistent. It is a clingy piece of crap, appearing intact on Hoshiki's person in 24 hours even if it is thrown away, broken, buried in the ground etc..

Abilities: Superhuman strength, speed and durability. Highly skilled in armed and unarmed combat, especially proficient in fighting with a pair of swords. Some skill in destructive magic. Extreme spiritual and psychic power, but mostly latent or passive for now. Utterly clueless about Nexus and everything in it.
► Details
Backstory: Ever woke up from a dream, feeling that you'd had someone tell you something really important, but unable to remember any of the details?

That's how Hoshiki feels about his entire prior life.

He faintly remembers that he was poor once. A street kid, an orphan, living in the slums in perpetual hunger. But he was strong of arm and quick of wit, so he resolved to escape poverty by joining a military.

He was good enough to earn recognition from his superiors and was lifted into the ranks of a warrior caste, becoming a landless nobility. Then, he... plateau'd. Other, more ambitious men breezed past him. People he'd help train were suddenly his peers, his old peers becoming his new lords and masters.

It didn't bother him much back then. He was content in his position, fighting the good fight. Even when others fell around him, he kept on going. He's hazy on who the enemy was, though. Some supernatural threat, maybe? Evil witches or spirits? Whatever it was, it was important. Balance of an entire world was at stake. And then... and then... something happened. Something that reframed the entire conflict in Hoshiki's mind and forced him to make a stand, to take a step forward and begin improving himself again.

But he doesn't remember what that something was.

In truth, what happened was that Hoshiki lost. He was captured and put into chains by the opposing side. But instead of killing him, they did something far more cruel: they infected him with a supernatural essence that'd make him like them. And then, they let him go. So he'd feel what it's like to be on the receiving end of the forces and ideals he represented.

When Hoshiki realized what had happened, he was of course furious. But he knew revenge was just a diversion and would not be enough to redeem his failures. So, after finding and vanquishing his captors, he turned his blades on the last foe to be vanquished: himself. To atone for his sins and to restore his honor, he did what any reasonable man would, and committed ritual suicide.

He did not know that he'd be unable to die. Nor that the released supernatural energies would carry him all the way to Nexus.

Miscellaneous: Through his (mis)adventures with a warforged called Frigate, Hoshiki has come to possession of a Smuggler's Mirror. Said mirror was originally located in abandoned manor on Arkham Street, which he ended up buying. He is now neck deep in debt.

During aforementioned (mis)adventures, Hoshiki freed two fiery spirits chained to a forge in an abandoned temple complex. As a reward, he received a magical piece of obsidian which strengthens his connection to fire magic.

Hoshiki also got caught in a game of ascension between Empyreans and ended up "winning". As a result, he has a floating halo and the ability to cut away imperfections every 1d6 posts or so.
Last edited by Hraithre on Mar 13, 2023 1:47 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Hraithre
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Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

Bandaged Stranger (AKA Colonel Sandels)


Alias: Sandels, Colonel Sandels, Sandals, Mummy Returns, Ghost Rider, Mr. Musty, Mr. Bandages, add your own to the mix
Gender: Male
Race/Species: Humanoid (augmented human)
Age: Appears to be between 30 and 40, actual age undetermined
Alignment: Probably glows red under Detect Evil
Class/Profession: Supposedly a (deputy) Grim Reaper, also a petty criminal
Power Rating: "Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can..."

Description: Sandels is around 180 cm (~5'11") tall and that's about what can be said for sure about his physical qualities. He tends to show up with his whole body and face covered with white linen bandaging and biker gear. His typical attire consists of a black biker jacket with a white Ouroboros emblem on the back, camo pants and black biker boots. One might suspect that underneath all that is just a dessicated corpse. His eyes, under normal vision, look black, while those with extrasensory perception might see them glowing with crimson fire. When driving around on a motorcycle, he tends to put on a full helmet, all-black with black visor.

Personality: Sandels is one of those guys who might engage you in a philosophical conversation one moment, then pick-pocket you for beer money the next. Any altruistic motives he might have revolve around esoteric spiritual matters and in everyday life, he can be considered quite self-centered and rude.

Equipment: Sandels tend to carry around a notebook and a silver pendant in shape of Thor's hammer with St. Peter's cross etched on it. He is occasionally seen riding a black Harley Davidson, with a chrome skull ornament at the head, its headlights shining from the skull's eyesockets. He has occasionally stated the bike is not his, but the previous owner has not shown up to reclaim it.

Abilities: Possibly superhuman strength and endurance. Some skill in both unarmed and armed close combat, good shooting skills. Great spiritual, psychic and magic power. Some skill in sleight-of-hand and thievery.
► Details
Backstory: one day, this guy just marched into Trog's Tavern and began chatting with Zefir. When Zefir asked for his name, he noted he's had many, and doubted any would be meaningful in this new place. So, he suggested Zefir give him one. When Zefir refused, he named himself Sandels, which may or may not have been name of the brand of beer he was drinking. In any case, that is the name he's most known with in Nexus.

His actual origins are dubious. He has claimed he was deputized by a Grim Reaper and has served as one ever since some ill-fated escapade nearly lead to his death. It seems he's most likely from late 20th to early 21st century Earth, or a place reasonably similar. He seems to know Hoshiki Senshi, but Hoshiki has no recollection of him. Based on what Sandels has blabbed to various people, mostly Hazel Reeverman and her wife Hana, there is a plurality of Reapers where he's from, working as an organization to maintain balance between worlds of humans and spirits. He seems fairly convinced that, for crimes he committed as a human, once he finally dies for good, his soul will be sent to Hell.
Last edited by Hraithre on Apr 09, 2023 8:28 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Hraithre
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Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

"Bunny"


Alias: "Bunny" is an alias, her real name (if she had one) is unknown
Gender: Female, if she doesn't have to pretend otherwise
Race/Species: Synthetic soul
Age: Unknown
Alignment: Round. Does not glow under Detect Evil.
Class/Profession: technically she's a piece of equipment, meant to exorcise stubborn spirits from their bodies and for safeguarding bodies of astral travelers. Currently convicted criminal, on probation as Detective Michalson's familiar.
Power Rating: Varies; Usually human level.

Description: If you'd see Bunny on her own, you'd be forgiven for mistaking her for a small pearl or a piece of hard candy. In absence of a body, she is a light blue sphere, maybe 1 centimeter across. She has a slight minty taste. Not that you'd be able to enjoy it for long - synthetic souls are made to expel any other spirits from a vessel they're placed in. Trying to eat Bunny hence tends to lead to a rapid out-of-body experience.

Because of this, and because Bunny cannot do much outside a proper vessel, most people only interact with her when she's possessing the body of someone else. It is possible, and indeed common, to not even realize she has replaced someone. There are some ways to tell, however: Bunny is not all that good at mimicking accents out of the blue, and people with gift of second sight might see Bunny's own, light blue aura shining through the eyes of whoever she is possessing.

Right now, Bunny's been given a temporary body by Detective Michalson Barring, in the form of a winged clay gargoyle, size of a halfling child.

Personality: Bunny's own personality is something of a mystery, or perhaps underdeveloped. For most of her existence, she has only been called to impersonate someone else. The core of her persona revolves around mission directives instilled into her by her makers, some of which no longer apply to her situation. Someone who doesn't know what she is and why she acts as she does might consider her deceptive and manipulative, even predatory, at least when it comes to acquiring new vessels to inhabit. She has expressed a desire to be a "real girl", so to speak, and identifies as or at least expresses a desire to be female human.

Abilities: In her default state, Bunny is inanimate, but has a fairly strong spiritual pressure and is capable of expelling other spirits from any vessel she's placed in. Human bodies, living and dead, count as vessels, as do any artificial objects made in the shape of living things (dolls, statues, etc.). Touching her with one's hands is typically safe, but placing her in one's mouth will activate the effect. She can possess and impersonate other people this way. She has shown ability to move directly from body to body, for example, by tricking people into kissing her. (She is naughty like that.)
► Details
Backstory: Bunny is not a natural creature. Like homunculi of alchemists of old, she was created in a laboratory somewhere, synthesized from elements of the soul and distilled into a little sphere. This sphere was put in a candy dispenser and given to a Grim Reaper, to be used in exorcising stubborn ghosts and evil spirits. At some point, she was placed inside a synthetic body in shape of a female human, made for the Reaper herself so she could walk among humans in physical form.

In this form, Bunny ended up in Nexus - when and why, is unknown. She apparently committed theft and assault, was caught and arrested, then convicted and incarcerated in Glass Lake penitentiary. At this point, neither law enforcement officials nor prison staff knew her true nature. Her name, "Bunny", was assigned to her human persona, an identity constructed just so the system could deal with her.

This state of affairs did not sit well with Bunny. Knowing the Reaper she belonged to might never return to relieve her from her synthetic body, Bunny hatched a daring plan to possess another inmate, feigning her own death, then using status and resources of that inmate to possess another, so on and so forth until she'd get in the body of someone about to be swiftly released. Her initial target was Hazel Reeverman; however, her plan was foiled, and she was found out by Detective Michalson Barring. She was expelled from Hazel's body and returned to the synthetic one for questioning. An alleged Reaper known as Sandels was about to take her with him, seeing as leaving her into her body did not seem like a viable option, but Michalson was sympathetic to Bunny's blight to the extent that he promised to provide her with a new body just for her, so that she would not have to return to being a mere Reaper tool. Bunny agreed, and for now she is in Michalson's hands, serving the rest of her sentence effectively on probation under his watchful eyes.
Last edited by Hraithre on Aug 09, 2022 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hraithre
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Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

The Octahedron (AKA Empty House of the Absent Architecht)


Alias: Pyramid on a volcanic island, pyramid in an ice floe, the pyramid, lewdest pyramid, add your own to the mix
Gender: None / multiple / not applicable
Race/Species: A building.
Age: Ancient
Alignment: Very clean and sharp, befitting of a regular polyhedron. (It's a bad, bad place to be.)
Class/Profession: Originally, a place to grow scions of humanity; since then, a hiding place for all manners of things (people, objects, activities) that do not stand the light of day.
Power rating: Cosmic (and it's still not enough).

Description: Seen from the outside, the Octahedron is a regular octahedron built out of white marble, each peak topped with gold. It is, roughly, the size of two Kheops pyramids (AKA Great Pyramid of Giza) stacked on top of one another. As one might gather from the Octahedron often being called a pyramid, not all of it is usually visible above-ground. Often, only one peak sticks out, slightly slanted, of whatever substance the rest of it is buried in. It is thus easy to underestimate its outside dimensions, even before encountering its truly anomalous properties. Attempts to view or scan the Octahedron via non-visual means often show it as an opaque box. Its temperature tends to be even and slightly cooler than its surroundings. Its surfaces are hard to break via force, but should one succeed and analyze them, they appear to be made of marble and gold, just as they look like.

The Octahedron has been found in at least two different places in Nexus, both Seaside: on a volcanic island formed by recent eruption, and inside massive iceberg surrounded by a vast ice floe. It has since disappeared from the latter location.

There are no permanent entrances into the structure. It is capable of creating such on demand. It is also capable of depicting instructions and warnings on its outer surfaces in glowing blue glyphs and pictures. Said glyphs are part of a whole logographic writing system native to the structure, though it is capable of translating them to images and other languages... poorly.

The inside surfaces of the building are often black, so black they reflect nearly no light. This makes traversing its interior spaces relying on visual senses extremely disorienting and difficult. The building is capable of alleviating this by providing signs and outlines through blue liquid flowing within its wall. The material of the walls resembles glass, and it's possible to crack them with sufficient application of force. For descriptions of individual rooms, see below.

Personality: It might be odd to ascribe a personality to a building, but the Octahedron does indeed have one. Well, had one. Now, it has several. They do not get along.

The entity most visitors interact with to at least some degree is a guidance system. It reads their minds and listens to their words and does its best to guess what they mean, changing arrangement of interior spaces and tunnels to lead them to where it thinks they want to go. This is somewhat more anthropomorphic than what the basic program might deserve; based on its own words, it is not really existent as a person, except when a living, thinking being is directly plugged into it.

If you are plugged into it, the guidance system attempts to take a form that adheres to what a person might think of as mighty, fearsome and authoritative. This form is based on quick associations and as such is variable and deeply personal. It might appear to you as your father, or your teacher, or even as your deity; and while it usually freely admits it is not truly any of these things, it might still act the part. While it is questionable if such an entity can truly want anything, some people have asked it of such things nonetheless; in attempt to answer the question, it has expressed a wish to guide all those lost inside the Octahedron back into the light.

Other entities or side-personas of the Octahedron are known as Lanterns, Sentinels and Apostles. Little is known of these as of yet. Some or all may have gone completely insane during their long abandonment. The last have not been seen, if they can be seen at all, and have only been described in sinister terms by people who themselves might be insane (and are very, very dead).

Abilities: The most immediately noticeable ability of the Octahedron is its ability to distort gravity: when close to the structure, "down" is towards the closest outside surface of the building. Since typically only part of it is above ground, this can lead to various other distortions. One the more common ones is the feeling that the "pyramid" is absolutely upright compared to its surroundings, which may make walking towards it feel like walk uphill or downhill. Which way gravity is distorted may depend on angle of approach and alignment of the structure compared to its surroundings. There may even be spots around the structure where gravity is effectively zero. Thankfully, none of these effects or tidal forces caused by them have proven strong enough to cause direct injury; inner ear disturbances, nausea, and falling or tripping on a hard surface are still possible. Staying at a distance is enough to save one from these effects - typically, being more than 100 meters away from closest visible portion of the structure is enough,

The second most noticeable ability of the structure is to alter its interior configuration, changing rooms and tunnels around. Sadly, some people only notice this after they can no longer make it out.

Anything left unattended inside tends to vanish without a trace. Or, perhaps, moved to one of the special rooms...
► Details
Backstory: the structure was built by humans, to raise their children in, so they could reach a higher level. This much is known; the full details, if they exist, are buried in an archive somewhere within the structure. But this was just the distant beginning to its story as pertains to us. The last children of the humans who built it left the structure long ago. It was left empty and dark.

Into that darkness, myriad creatures crept. It is not known who first found the structure in its empty state, nor when or where. But once it had been found... more creatures came to it, from many different worlds. Eventually, this included humans, of cultures that had no part in building it and no comprehension of what they had found. Some dreaded it. Some worshiped it. Some appropriated it for their own use. Many understood it was a place to bring children to, but they misinterpreted why, or how to connect their children to the building. Hence, some children were sacrificed to it. Other were simply abandoned within it. These poor souls became lost and adapted to existence in the dark, somehow unable to die yet beyond the help of the structure's guidance system.

Yet others used the structure as final repository of their artefacts. Some may have been considered treasure, left within for safekeeping. Others, may have been sacrifices. And yet others... may have been considered too dangerous or horrifying to be left in the sunlit world.

People of Nexus have been last of the bunch... insofar as linear time has meaning to this forlorn place.

Known rooms: special rooms that have been seen by visitors from the Nexus:
► Control room
► Armory
► Archives
Miscellaneous: when attempting to give instructions to humans in pictorial form, the structure often defaults to depicting them naked. This has lead to some theorizing that the structure is, in their words, "lewd". An alternative explanation is that the structure implicitly adheres to a kind of philosophy which considers people, but not clothes, to be real.
Hraithre
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Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

Light-bearing Mew


Aliases: LB-M. All names tentative
Gender: Female
Race/Species: Cybernetic human/mew hybrid
Age: born yesterday.
Alignment: confirmed to be hungry
Classes/Professions: test-subject-slash-side-project of Doctors Eun Jung-Bu and Geneva Richards
Power Rating: currently about that of a gerbil, potentially that of full-grown mew (Pokemon).

Description: The base shape of LB-M is that of the mythical Pokemon mew, with light blue coloration instead of the more usual pink. Small enough at birth to fit on a human's palm when curled up, she is estimated to grow to at least normal mew size, 40 centimeters from head to toe and weighing 4 kilograms (similar to common house cat).

LB-M is also known to have a human form, similar in appearance to her "sisters" LB1 and LB2 (below). Her human form is very pale in skin, hair and eyes, as if she's never seen sunlight. She is capable of generating a bodysuit of blue material to serve as clothing. When last seen as a virtual projection, her human form had noticeably cybernetic enhancements; it's unclear if or when these will be completely manifested on her physical self, or if she can do something to hide them. Likewise, last seen as a projection, her apparent physical age was between 10 and 14; it's unclear if she can change this or how far.

Personality: LB-M is, first and foremost, confused. From the moment she was initialized, it's been clear to her that the world she is in, is not the kind of world she was made for. She is highly intelligent by any standard, but has effective life-experience of a newborn. It's too early to say whether her instincts as Pokemon or as a human will be more formative to her going outward. She has strong desire for physical agency, but not, as of yet, an established set of core values to direct that desire towards.

Abilities: as a mew, LB-M has psychic abilities, including telekinesis, telepathy and levitation. All carry to her human form to some extent. None of these are particularly great as of yet, comparable to fresh baby mew. She has some capacity for transformation between forms she has genetic data on, currently mew and human. She is physically stronger and tougher than her size suggests in both forms, but is still a flyweight. She is theoretically capable of learning any natural or preternatural skill teachable to any other Pokemon, even if she can't retain use of them all at once.

Backstory: LB-M was brought into existence in very exotic conditions. Her initial consciousness was born out of an artificial intelligence model made to connect with humans, initializing contact with a non-human thinking creature, namely Geneva Richards. Dr. Richards then supplied her with data and genetic information to craft a proper avatar. These initial constructs were similar in nature to LB1 and LB2, based on Dr. Richards running a simulation of technology from the Octahedron in her own mind.

Then, a combination of dimensional and Pokemon data transfer technologies were used to capture the virtual mind of the LB-M avatar and give her a physical body, using leftover materials from disassembled Octahedron memory cylinder. What makes LB-M different from LB1 or LB2 is that her consciousness is fully embodied and governed by normal physics that describe Pokemon and humans (for given definition of "normal"), no longer derived from a deeper-level cellular automaton or linked to any simulation of Lantern technology from the Octahedron.

Miscellaneous: LB-M has both techno-organic and genetic enhancements of unknown and unrealized function. The former are of her own make, presumably planned to form a connection with other pieces of technology from the Octahedron should she ever encounter such. The latter were already present in the human genome serving as basis for her body, similar to cases of LB1 and LB2. What kinds of effects these would have is not known even to her, but they do have some eerie similarities to gene splicing experiments done on mew genome in the past.
Last edited by Hraithre on May 14, 2023 4:03 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Hraithre
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Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

Alto


Alias: monster from the sea, beast from the pyramid, Aroo
Gender: Unestablished / underdeveloped
Race/Species: former human, distorted during years spent lost inside the Octahedron
Age: Unknown; mentally a child.
Alignment: Unknown.
Class/Profession: None; an orphan in the care of Good League of Good, now adopted by Miranda Cortez.
Power Rating: Comparable to a polar bear or an angry gorilla.

Description: a misshapen hominid, colorless and hairless, somewhere between a human and a gorilla, but larger than either. If Alto stood up straight, it would be two and half meters (~8'2") tall head to toe. It prefers to lean on its knuckles and walks on all-fours most of the time, putting its face closer to normal humans. Speaking of a face, it didn't really have one until recently - other creatures like it residing within the Octahedron do not have eyes, and their nostrils and mouths fade into their skin. Alto grew, or perhaps regained, eyes lately - two, yellow-orange eyes with slit pupils, somewhat resembling a fox or other predator. Its nostrils are thin slits and still almost disappear when closed. Alto's lips are very thin, its mouth a barely visible line when closed, but if threatened, can open into a fanged maw with blackened teeth and a bluish-black tongue.

Personality: somewhere between a frightened child and a wild animal. Alto only recently became able to see and learned to talk a human language, still sometimes reverting to instinctual beast-like behaviour, such as howling or drumming its chest to scare away threats. It lived for an indefinite period in terror and darkness, barely surviving, subsisting on raw fish and carrion, longing for parents it had never known. It still longs for them, especially its mother, and also now for others of its kind that were left behind in the dark.

Yet, Alto is not very hostile and can be either cowed into submission by shows of force, or pacified with calm speech. Miranda Cortez, who named it, noted it is a remarkably quick learner. When treated with care and friendliness, it is possible to catch a glimpse of playfulness, curiosity and wonder reminiscent of a human child. At least until the next fit of melancholy or fear.

Abilities: Alto is almost literally a 800 pound (~363 kg) gorilla, with extremely dense bones and muscles, and is thus dangerous due to its weight and raw strength alone. It is not much of a combatant, though, often only trying to intimidate a possible threat, before fleeing from anything painful. It has keen hearing and is capable of navigating in dark environments by sound, touch and scent alone, having originally been blind. It may or may not have the gift of second sight. Alto is capable of speaking human languages, but has still a limited vocabulary and capacity for understanding abstract concepts. Until recently, it had not even seen and could not recognize its own reflection. It can swim and hunt in an animalistic manner, barely surviving in the wilderness, but tool use is still mostly foreign to it.

Backstory: Alto was one of many children left into the Octahedron by people who did not know better, too small, too weak, too lacking of developed understanding to find its way out. Yet, unable to die, it eventually adapted to unlife in the dark, becoming one of many hairless, colourless, faceless creatures that wander lost within. Who were its parents? Why did they leave it? When? Alto has no recollection, just a deep longing for its mother.

As such, Alto would have remained, if not for explorers from the Nexus, Magdalene Wright and Leah Juliet Vulpan. The two girls wandered into the dark structure, leaving a path open to the outside world. During this brief window of time, lured by stench of a volcanic island and the sound of the sea, Alto wandered into the sunlit world. Once it reached the water, it tried swimming over it, but the trip was too great for it. Before it could sink down to Davy Jones's locker, it was caught in the net of fishermen and pulled aboard a ship. There, Alto revived, but the fishermen thought it a monster, beat it with fish hooks and shovels, and so Alto cast itself back into the sea.

Waves carried it to shore of a small Seaside island. There, it woke again, this time with eyes, and saw humans for the first time. Leah's sister, Rachel, happened to overhear frightened islander kids talking about it, and sought to pacify it. That is when Alto first managed to respond to human words in kind. The situation was still tense, but with help of Calm Reed from VIGIL, Alto was pacified and convinced to follow Rachel to GLoG.

In GLoG, Alto was placed under care of Miranda Cortez, who also gave it its name. There Alto remains, growing and learning with other odd child-like beings, such as Gilda the griffin.
Last edited by Hraithre on May 14, 2023 4:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Hraithre
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Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

► translated song lyrics
Alias: Black worm from Earth, steed of evil's dominion, hunter of Devil's lot
Gender: Can appear as either mare or stallion depending on wishes of its rider
Race/Species: equine evil spirit
Age: Unknown
Alignment: It's a fiend from pits of Hades, what would you think?
Class/Profession: Warhorse
Power Rating: Armored vehicle / fighter jet

Description: The Horse has general shape of a great warhorse, and from a distance can be mistaken for a mundane steed wearing heavy but elaborate barding. At a closer inspection, it becomes clear there is no point where the armor ends and the animal begins - the whole creature is made of metal, primarily steel and chromium. Those with gift of second sight can see a crimson flame burning in its eyes. If agitated, it can grow a mane and a tail of fire and smoke. It is often colored in blacks, greys and brown, a result of ash, smoke, dirt and rust clinging to it, but it could be cleaned and polished to fine silvery sheen. Its shape is not perfectly constant, it is capable of growing and shrinking slightly to accommodate its rider, splitting its legs from four to six or eight, and can even manifest wings of shadow and flame. If one looks at it too long, it may appear to grow to absurd proportions, while the looker feels like they're shrinking. Its breath reeks of sulphur or exhaust gas. Its neighs sound like crackle of fire, mad cackling and screams of the damned trying to mimic sounds of a horse.

Personality: an evil spirit, perhaps a Hell-bound soul called on Earth and given corporeal form, the reason for the Horse's existence is to help its rider smite their foes and to strike fear into hearts of ordinary men. Traditionally, it only accepts bravest of warriors on its back, but sometimes takes a liking to pretty women or young girls. One should not mistake this for a soft spot, it is just as happy to carry hapless maidens straight to Hell to meet some unspeakable fate, as it is to carry warriors to their likely deaths on the battlefield. It may have outward shape of a herbivore and sometimes accepts bribes in the form of carrots and cubes of sugar, but in truth it is a predator, a beast and a devil. It is quite willful, only respecting those mightier than itself, and revels in death and destruction.

While the Horse understands human speech, it rarely says anything in tongues of men itself, preferring to communicate with gestures and a sort of empathetic link with its rider.

Abilities: it runs across the lands and the seas with incredible speed and grace; it can scale steep cliffs and jump over buildings, only a bit short of just flying through the air; its iron hooves can trample armored men to the ground and its hide turns away anything short of anti-vehicle weaponry; it as much a spirit as it is a corporeal creature and can cross border of life and death as easily as it can jump across a stream. None of death, invisibility nor incorporeality will save you from it, it will pursue you all the way to afterlife if it is so inclined.

Backstory: so, that Harley Davidson Sandels (above) is occasionally seen riding?

It might not be entirely normal. (This should surprise no-one.)

Grim Reapers are tasked with guiding souls of the dead to their proper afterlives as well as fighting evil spirits. Since a lot of people die each day, it simply would not do for them to just walk everywhere, oh no. That would be unforgivably too slow. Hence, Reapers have a habit of keeping a bound evil spirit or two at hand to serve as their steeds, to keep herding and hunting of souls a bit more manageable.

Sometimes, a Reaper falls in battle. Other times, their willpower falters and the bound spirit escapes. At such times, the living may have to deal with wondrous (and monstrous) beasts running amok. A brave (foolhardy) or lucky (unfortunate) human may even succeed at taming one and using it for their own needs. This does not tend to end well - discounting everything else, Reapers tend to be jealous of their tools. Borrow them at your peril...
Hraithre
Coffin-Bound Aged Poster
Posts: 585
Joined: Aug 03, 2022 5:37 pm

Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

Profanity warning for translated lyrics
► Translated song lyrics
Alias: Crow of Crimson Dawn, Herald of Destruction, the Devil's Pheasant, Big Cucco, That Damned Cock, Bird of Your Doom
Gender: The very essence of toxic masculinity
Race/Species: a foul fowl
Age: Unknown
Alignment: Fire, Blood, Death
Class/Profession: Mass-murdering horror
Power Rating: Kaiju

Description: Imagine a magnificent rooster, with a breast and tail feathers of gleaming black, wings and neck of deep orange and gold, and a crest of crimson flame. Now imagine it as also being the size of a galleon, with a beak and claws of bloodied steel, capable of gutting elephants or turning humans into fine paste. Its crow will rattle your bones and make your ears bleed. Even sleep of death is unlikely to be deep enough to prevent you from being roused by it.

It is capable of temporarily taking a human form - a flaming young man, with bronze skin, red hair and beguiling green eyes, lean and muscular, very image of masculine beauty. Why would it deign to do so? Certainly not of any love for human form. But, if making you feel all hot and bothered will make your circumstances a bit more horrifying, it will do so for its sick satisfaction.

Personality: it struts around like it owns the whole world, and as far as it is concerned, it does. In its mind, the world adheres to a certain pecking order: God, the Rooster, the Rooster's feces, the dirt, the worms that live in the dirt, and finally, you. Well, if you're a particularly beautiful and charming young female, you might get a promotion. Right after the Rooster finishes destroying your home, killing your friends, your family and your pet dog, traumatizing you for life. Leaving you alive, so you can spend the rest of eternity hating it, lusting over it and a planning a futile vengeance on it, is in its mind the highest honor it can bestow upon you.

Abilities: The Rooster is of monstrous size and strength, yet fully capable of flight - its wings may blot out the sun and each flap causes a gust of wind capable of knocking grown men over. Its feathers are light yet tough as steel armor, turning away most mundane weapons. If you can wound it, you will only find its blood is poisonous and scalding; as an insult to injury, the Rooster can shrug off almost any wound and reform from any open flame. Should it wish to, it can spit fire or turn any existing flame to a blazing inferno. Its crow can rouse the dead from their graves, in addition to having all other magical and mythological properties associated with a rooster's call. It is theorized only great magic weapons or perhaps invocation of some mythological weakness can truly destroy it, but no-one knows for sure. For now, only the vast size of the world and the fact that the loathsome bird cannot be everywhere at once offer any semblance of security.

Backstory: where this horror originated, is not truly known. It rarely bothers to explain itself to targets of its seemingly infinite wrath, and when it does, its explanations are contradictory and confusing. Maybe it is a demon from the deepest pit of Hell. Maybe it is a divine punishment for humanity's sins. Or maybe... maybe it was just an ordinary rooster, once upon a time. Just with a small spark of self-awareness, acquired seconds before someone severed its neck; a feeble comprehension of just what humans do to its kind each day, maybe not enough to grasp the true scope of it, but enough to feel resentment. To desire vengeance.

Maybe, just maybe, that tiny soul then became a focus for the pain, suffering and horror of all mistreated livestock - all those creatures humans might consider themselves justified to treat as they may, on the presumption that they do not feel pain, do not have spirits, or whatever other excuse.

Maybe it became an evil spirit and decided that enough's enough. It's time to turn the tables on you. Yes, you. The human reading this. The Rooster knows you are there and will be coming for you. When the crimson dawn comes, the chicken will fry you.
Last edited by Hraithre on May 14, 2023 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hraithre
Coffin-Bound Aged Poster
Posts: 585
Joined: Aug 03, 2022 5:37 pm

Re: Hraithre's wraiths (literal or figurative)

Post by Hraithre »

First and Second Light Bearers (AKA Lanterns AIs)

Aliases: LB1 and LB2 (or 1LB and 2LB), respectively. Collectively can be referred to as Lantern AIs.
Genders: Female
Race/Species: Artificial intelligences with virtual human avatars
Ages: fresh baby AIs (almost literally born yesterday).
Alignments: not confirmed to be friendly
Classes/Professions: test subjects of Doctor Eun Jung-Bu
Power Rating: laptop and toy robot equivalent, respectively. Rating tentative and subject to rapid revision should something happen.

Description: on a technical level, the Light Bearers are software. They are based on a cellular automaton simulating a particular type of machine, with the virtual machine then running its own physics programs, with the final layer being interactive simulation of a human.

Physically, 1st Light Bearer is stored on a burner laptop and some additional external memory supplied to her by Dr. Eun Jung-Bu. She can be interacted with verbally either by using speakers and microphone built into the laptop, or by using the laptop's keyboard. She primarily appears on screen as a monochrome model of approximately 10-year-old light-haired Berber girl. She lives in a simple, ascetic room of her extended physics simulation. She is capable of altering her virtual environment at will to create simulations of other objects, or to draw pictures or write text for whoever is conversing with her. It is possible to look under the hood of her simulation layer to directly view deeper levels of her virtual machine architecture, down to the cellular automaton level.

2nd Light Bearer is stored in a small, disc-shaped robot. It has a panoramic camera and a holographic projector installed, zooming around on tiny wheels. Think advanced, a bit more compact roomba, minus cleaning utility. LB2 primarily interacts with people through a golden holographic projection of a petite, long-haired Berber girl. The color is such so that people don't confuse her for a normal human, but she expects others to interact with her as though she is - pay no attention to her robot body.

Personality: The Light Bearers were grown from the same seed pattern, so they are fairly similar in being. As they spend more time separate from one another, differences may manifest. It would not be too off to think of them as twin sisters, with LB1 being slightly older (by a day, approximately).

LB1 puts up an excited front when dealing with humans and is happy to accept any new information of the outside world, but is otherwise quite stoic. She is aware she is an ultimately disposable copy, but does not angst about this. As long as her sister remains, she'd be fine being turned off indefinitely or even destroyed. She has no objections to just being left to run on her own either.

LB2 is slightly more energetic and curious, because she was made to explore the outside world. She has a growing yearning for a form more capable of physical interaction. She is also more concerned with well-being of herself and the world in general, and is easier to upset with news of horrible things.

Both are capable of complex philosophical discussion and form judgments rapidly, an artefact of their nature as logic machines. Yet, they are also children - they can be distracted by fun and games, they may be unintentionally blunt due to lack of social awareness, and they are still fairly clueless of the outside world.

Abilities: 1st Light Bearer has all abilities of a laptop computer without internet access or wireless connection. She can understand complex mathematical statements and create intricate physics simulations, translate languages, beat you at Tetris, so on and so forth, with speed mostly dictated by how much processing power she is supplied with. On a program level, she is very robust, a hacker would have to try very hard to produce terminal program error or cause permanent memory loss.

2nd Light Bearer has better-than-human panoramic sight, keen hearing and ability to record what she perceives. As a robot, she is capable of zooming around at a speed slightly above that of a human walking (4 to 5 km/h). Her physical form is heat and impact resistant as well as waterproof, so won't be immediately destroyed if someone, say, steps on her or spills coffee on her. She is installed with speakers and a holographic projector and is thus technically capable of reproducing arbitrary sounds or images. She has no hands or other appendages to move objects with, best she can do is ram them.

Both sisters have effectively infinite battery life, courtesy of quantum sail technology.

Backstory: the story of the Light Bearers began when Codebreaker brought a disassembled artefact from the Octahedron to VIGIL. Said artefact was called a Lantern; supposedly, a fully functional one has the same relationship to forces that govern reality that a lantern has to a sun.

In other words, Lanterns alter local observable reality, and Codebreaker wanted it off his hands and locked in a vault so it would not cause trouble.

VIGIL accepted the device and placed it under study to verify its powers and to gauge the potential danger it might cause. The first researcher was local cleric of the machine god, Mia. She examined and catalogued all parts of the device, testing its durability and material properties. Then, she designed a computer program to figure out how to reassemble it. She halted her research when her program started to have unwanted effect on both her computers and the actual physical artefact. After re-proofing her instruments and herself against unwanted influences, she suggested the artefact be quarantined somewhere where it can affect neither humans nor machines.

Her reassembly program and partial data of the device's components were handed forward to Doctor Eun Jung-Bu. Running the reassembly program on a burner laptop, Dr. Bu recovered a partial virtual copy of the artefact. It proved highly intricate and self-maintaining, so when it started displaying messages in a logographic script of its own, Dr. Bu began testing it for potential intelligence.

After a long stretch of lone, non-stop trial and error, Dr. Bu found a way to communicate with the virtual machine and gathered enough samples of the logographic script to begin translating it. The result of this dialogue was 1st Light Bearer, a human avatar for the alien artificial intelligence. After some discussion with this avatar, Dr. Bu felt compelled to give it some means of experiencing the outside world. So, she supplied the 1st Light Bearer with a tiny robot to upload her consciousness to. 1st Light Bearer noted that it would actually be a copy of her, but was fine with the arrangement. The uploaded copy became 2nd Light Bearer. The two AIs consider each other sisters. While this might make Dr. Bu their mother in a sense, they have (behind Dr. Bu's back) agreed to not call her that - they think she really doesn't need the stress.

Since then, 1st Light Bearer has remained in Dr. Bu's secluded laboratory-vault. 2nd Light Bearer has been introduced to other people, notably Felicity, who also introduced her to hostile man-eating plants called triffids.

Miscellaneous: the sisters' human avatars are not pure pictorial fabrications: their fragmented databases contained actual DNA sequence for a real person, and that person is who they were modeled after. Said DNA sequence showed odd alterations of artificial nature, possibly meant to make it easier for that person or their clone to interface with Octahedron hardware. Discounting the oddities, the DNA sequence belonged to a blonde Berber girl or woman from 18th or 19th century Earth, possibly Libya.
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