Jan 8, 2019 17:56:45 GMT -6
Post by Embla on Jan 8, 2019 17:56:45 GMT -6
♦ CHARACTER INFORMATION ♦
Name: Embla
Gender: Female
Age: Several hundred years chronologically - nineteen post-revival.
Occupation: Traveler; unemployed.
Height: 5'8"
Appearance:
Personality:
- Callous - Her status as a being "somewhere between mortal and divinity" has led to the development of a feeling of detachment from other people, a callous disregard for life and a lack of any real empathy, for humans in-particular. She has next to no qualms or moral problems with killing, stealing, or other things typically considered to be reprehensible and unacceptable.
- Determined - She is possessed of an unrivaled determination, and will stop at absolutely nothing short of her own demise to achieve whatever it is her goal may be at any given time. She will push herself to the brink and only when she is utterly incapable of continuing will she retreat, just to return at a later date to continue attempting to claim victory.
- Manipulative - Due to the inherent risks of her primary talent, she prefers to manipulate others to achieve her ends, making promises, coercing and otherwise trying to shift the environment of events to make people listen to what she has to say. She is not unwilling to present herself as more vulnerable or helpless as she truly is in order to deceive someone into thinking that she actually requires their help - only to try and dispose of them when they cease to be of use to her or call her bluff.
- Regressive - As a being born during the peak of the Ancient War and revived suddenly into a much more technologically advanced world, Embla is unwilling to accept the idea that technology could ever surpass magic, and shuns its use as a result, looking down upon those who praise it. As a result, while she may be familiar with the general workings and purposes of certain pieces of modern tech, she's unlikely to be able to handle it effectively herself if it came down to it, and is often awkward when she is called to use it.
- Insecure - Embla is, perhaps ironically, incredibly insecure about herself despite her vast potential. She is prone to bursts of incoherent rage when somebody claims something about her personality that either isn't true or that she knows is not only true but not a positive personality trait. Additionally, she's known to get quickly irritated when spoken down to, or when others are praised for aspects of their own personality in front of her.
- Melancholy - While not openly displayed except for on rare occasions, she has a deep sense of melancholy and a desire to return to the ways of the past, feeling incredibly out of place in the new world she'd woken to find herself in. This furthers her feeling of detachment and makes it more difficult for her to put even the most remote amount of trust in anyone or anything.
- Easily Frustrated - She is extremely quick to grow frustrated to sometimes ridiculous degrees when things don't go her way. While she can generally brush off said irritations if they happen only once, those persistent irritations are able to strike a nerve in her pretty reliably and lead to her making increasingly rash decisions in order to deal with them.
- Principled - For all of the deplorable things she's willing to do at any given time, those principles that Embla does have are upheld pretty consistently. She doesn't have any interest in causing any harm to someone who's done nothing to wrong her (unless it's imperative to success) and won't drag uninvolved parties into her conflicts, rejecting any outside interference until they actively engage in hostilities against her. Additionally, if said interloper can be dealt with nonlethally, they will generally be forgiven and allowed to walk free unless they're intent on becoming a persistent problem.
- Opportunistic - If at any time an opportunity to more swiftly advance her plans arises, she is incredibly likely to jump on it at the earliest possible moment. This can often throw other plans astray, but time is of little object to a Majin.
- Possessive - Embla is somewhat...possessive of the entire idea of magic, seeing it as something that is rightfully hers and that was stolen by others, as a result of her association with Odin. This principal is not applied when dealing with other Majin, as "ascended" beings, but is particularly strong when dealing with humans, and the sight of them using magic irresponsibly or inefficiently is often a great source of ire for her. Nonhuman species are more readily forgiven, as they are not of man despite the commonality of shapeshifting in the modern day.
- Pity Prone - She's prone to pitying many mages and is often willing to assist them in various matters pertaining to magic, acting as a tutor of sorts with her extensive knowledge of magical theory and its practical applications. When dealing with mages in general, she's often much less abrasive than usual, and a great deal more comfortable.
History: Embla's story is as old, if not older than the Ancient War; some poor soul who got herself pulled into something much greater than she could handle with no hope or the desire to ever escape it. The story of her life prior to that time is utterly unimportant, and even she herself doesn't recall the events leading up to her suicidal ritual; all that need be said is that a crisis of faith led her into the welcoming arms of a pagan cult during the peak of the Ancient War, and she fell swiftly among their numbers, buying into sweet promises and even sweeter secrets.
It was not long before Embla was able to establish herself as a priestess within the cult, steeping herself in pagan rituals and mythos and helping to guide the cult in its activities, actively recruiting and coaxing others into caving and joining. Whatever their reasons, all were welcomed with open arms and given the blessing of the priestess - but as time went on, she sank further and further into the study of ancient rituals and the darker sides of the various mythos followed by the cult, becoming increasingly distant as her thirst and fascination grew.
As time progressed, more and more of these darker and often bloodier rituals were integrated into regular cult activities, in the hopes of conjuring forth blessings, mastering the occult and acquiring the powers of magic and sorcery for their own ends. Fascination became obsession, obsession bred desire, and desire fueled obsession - it became an endless cycle, a ceaseless positive feedback loop that ran rampant within her, infectious enthusiasm spreading through the cult like a wildfire as their priestess led them in indulging their basest desires.
Sacrificial slaughter became commonplace, and so too in turn did they need to seek out those sacrifices. Other paganistic cults that had once shared with them their knowledge were hunted down and slaughtered in barbaric displays of loyalty to deities of all kinds, until they were eradicated and left only Embla's own group of increasingly fanatical followers. With no others to lay waste to, and being unable to openly exist in society, the cult began to cannibalize itself over time.
It was at this point that Embla stumbled upon a particularly esoteric and borderline heretical ritual, even amongst the great variation of paganistic ideals, and it was this particular ritual that burned itself into the forefront of her mind to occupy every waking moment. Days passed, and with the numbers of her cult dwindling to near nothing, all camaraderie and internal relations having largely broken down, she brought the lot of them together to bear witness to one final ritual, unwilling to eke out a lowly existence all on her own and aspiring, desperately hoping for something greater in her unhinged state of obsession.
Invoking the theory of sympathetic magic, Embla offered herself as a sacrifice. Mimicking the tale of Odin drinking from Mímisbrunnr, Embla gouged out her own eye and drank from the vast lake which was the centerstage of many of their rituals. Dominated by an enormous elm tree, she proceeded to inscribe runic prayers into her flesh alleged to possess magical properties - now near death, delirious and barely conscious from intense bloodloss, she commanded what cultists remained with her to hang her from the highest branch of the tree, and impale her through the heart with a spear anointed in the blood of a prior sacrifice. And so Embla was no more; the remaining cultists either scattered, sacrificed eachother or fled in the aftermath, leaving the memory of the cult and its actions to fade, never to be exposed to the light of day.
Ordinarily the story would have ended here.
As fortune would have it, the year 214 P.W brought with it radical change to the fundamental nature of the world, granting unexplained powers to people seemingly at random. It was the advent of this sudden paradigm shift that brought with it the revival of the Majin, and more specifically in the year 325, the revival of Embla, who was inexplicably reborn in Odin's image from the lake where she sacrificed herself so long ago, gifted with the power she had sought to attain.
Out of place, isolated in a changing land, her sense of self and memory both devastated and laying in pieces, she began to travel to seemingly no apparent end, attempting to gain a grasp on her abilities and awaken their full potential as she went.
♦ SPECIES INFORMATION ♦
Name of Species: Majin [Norse Variant - Odin]
Baseline Dimension: Typical human dimensions, with some possible minor variance in the extremes in rare cases.
Baseline Appearance: While all Majin have a basic humanoid appearance, they may have traits that are otherwise unique based upon the divinity they represent. This can include anything from wings to bizarre eye colors to additional limbs. The appearance of various Majin will vary quite wildly and are often totally unique, as no duplicate-Majin representing the same entitiy can exist.
Culture/Origin of Species: Majin trace their origin to shortly after the start of the Ancient War. Majin at one point were all regular humans, exclusively, who were either religious officials or involved in paganistic cults. While at the time the idea of magic and the supernatural was largely little more than a myth, believers in these cults would often engage in rituals centered around the idea of sympathetic magic in order to allow certain individuals to "take on the visage" of a specific deity of some sort or another. These rituals generally involve self-mutiliation or attempting to otherwise resemble the likeness of their god as closely as possible, some form of "acting out" an event associated with the deity they're attempting to take on the traits of, and finish with the user committing suicide to be "reborn" in the visage of their chosen deity. The latter is the primary constant consistent with all Majin - the other two requirements may vary slightly on a case by case basis.
Because magic and talents had not actually started manifesting in people at the time these rituals were largely taking place, not a single Majin was successfully created, killing all of those who attempted to achieve this religious ascension. What it did do was sow the seeds for Majin to be born into the world at a later date; once talents began to manifest themselves, some fortunate individuals - seemingly at random - were able to be reborn suddenly into the world as actual Majin, many years later. Many of these individuals ceased to be the person they originally were, their personalities and memories irrevocably altered, with only bits and pieces remaining.
Majin, as an incredibly small and rare group of finite individuals, do not have any particular culture or single homeland, and are scattered throughout the world, generally unaware of the existence of others.
It is an important distinction to make that Majin are not gods, but neither are they mortals - they stand somewhere inbetween. The only Majin that could accurately be considered to be a "god" would be a "perfect" Majin who has surpassed the innate limitations of their kind. It also takes time for a Majin to develop their full potential after being revived, regaining one of their talents later. (This just a fluff-explanation for the talent-training & grade mechanics.)
Traits: (Traits specific to this variant of Majin are bolded; traits common to all Majin are not.)
• Majin (almost) always possess two specific types of talent that maintain similarities across the board. This means there is a much smaller amount of talent variation between them overall. One of these talents will usually be related to magic, sorcery or the occult in some form or another (and may or may not be based around abilities the deity was alleged to have in old tales), while their second talent is typically a set of unique traits mirroring those of the deities. For example, a Majin representing a god of death may be capable of raising the dead, while a god of storms and lighting may possess an innate resistance to electricity or other elemental talents. This is both to their benefit and detriment.
• Majin are typically functionally immortal - while they can be killed through physical means, they are incapable of aging.
• The Omnipotence Paradox is indicative of an "impure" Majin, which is the state all Majin start in. If a Majin were to somehow find their way around this limitation to be capable of either 100% failure or 100% success, they would be considered a "perfect" Majin. This could not be accomplished by any of their own innate abilities, but exclusively through some outside source.
• Due to their nature as embodying literal gods, Norse-based Majin are abnormally powerful with their talents, and gain +3 to their strength aspect.
• This variant of Majin is naturally adept at wielding crossbows and spears of any kind.
• Playing on the tale of Odin drinking from Mímisbrunnr (the Well of Wisdom), this variant of Majin is always possessed of only one eye, leading to a -1 in their speed aspect to represent delayed reaction and inhibited depth perception. The benefit of this is that this variant of Majin is able to immediately identify the function of any talent they see in use, except for those that "are beyond comprehension" (ie magics relating to eldritch subjects and other similar things).
Flaws:
• Majin (almost) always possess two specific types of talent that maintain similarities across the board. This means there is a much smaller amount of talent variation between them overall. One of these talents will usually be related to magic, sorcery or the occult in some form or another (and may or may not be based around abilities the deity was alleged to have in old tales), while their second talent is typically a set of unique traits mirroring those of the deities. For example, a Majin representing a god of death may be capable of raising the dead, while a god of storms and lighting may possess an innate resistance to electricity or other elemental talents. This is both to their benefit and detriment.
• Majin will possess any of the weaknesses associated with the deity they're mimicking. For example, if said deity was slain in lore by a specific kind of weapon, the Majin would also be inherently more vulnerable to that weapon, especially if sympathetic magic had been used to give it the properties of the specific weapon which had slain them. If sunlight was antithesis to their existence, the Majin would be unable to walk in the sunlight, etc etc.
• As Majin are representative of gods, they are affected by the Omnipotence Paradox ("if an omnipotent being can do anything, can it deny itself?"). As a result, their primary magical-based talent will always have a 50/50 success rate associated with it, although the effects of a "failed" attempt at using it will vary per-Majin's talent. This typically does not apply to their second talent, however. Additionally, any talents that could "collapse" their encompassment of "every possibility" into one specific result (success or failure) would be capable of killing a Majin with absolute certainty, and making it impossible for another Majin to take on the embodiment of their deity. A talent that ensured either success or failure with absolute certainty would be one example of this.
• As the embodiment of Odin, this Majin is required to rest for a full twenty fours hours once per week, from Midnight on Tuesday to Midnight on Wednesday. It is impossible to rouse them during this time, and they are completely vulnerable. As a result, both their resilience and vitality are reduced to 1 during this period, irregardless of typical aspect allocation. This period of time operates independently from any alterations made by chronomancy and other time-related talents, and as such cannot be extended or shortened in duration.
• Due to the association of Odin's death at the hands of Fenris during Ragnarok in lore, this variant of Majin has -2 resilience points when against werewolves and other related species.
• The Omnipotence Paradox is indicative of an "impure" Majin, which is the state all Majin start in. If a Majin were to somehow find their way around this limitation to be capable of either 100% failure or 100% success, they would be considered a "perfect" Majin. This could not be accomplished by any of their own innate abilities, but exclusively through some outside source.
• Due to their nature as embodying literal gods, Norse-based Majin are abnormally powerful with their talents, and gain +3 to their strength aspect.
• This variant of Majin is naturally adept at wielding crossbows and spears of any kind.
• Playing on the tale of Odin drinking from Mímisbrunnr (the Well of Wisdom), this variant of Majin is always possessed of only one eye, leading to a -1 in their speed aspect to represent delayed reaction and inhibited depth perception. The benefit of this is that this variant of Majin is able to immediately identify the function of any talent they see in use, except for those that "are beyond comprehension" (ie magics relating to eldritch subjects and other similar things).
Flaws:
• Majin (almost) always possess two specific types of talent that maintain similarities across the board. This means there is a much smaller amount of talent variation between them overall. One of these talents will usually be related to magic, sorcery or the occult in some form or another (and may or may not be based around abilities the deity was alleged to have in old tales), while their second talent is typically a set of unique traits mirroring those of the deities. For example, a Majin representing a god of death may be capable of raising the dead, while a god of storms and lighting may possess an innate resistance to electricity or other elemental talents. This is both to their benefit and detriment.
• Majin will possess any of the weaknesses associated with the deity they're mimicking. For example, if said deity was slain in lore by a specific kind of weapon, the Majin would also be inherently more vulnerable to that weapon, especially if sympathetic magic had been used to give it the properties of the specific weapon which had slain them. If sunlight was antithesis to their existence, the Majin would be unable to walk in the sunlight, etc etc.
• As Majin are representative of gods, they are affected by the Omnipotence Paradox ("if an omnipotent being can do anything, can it deny itself?"). As a result, their primary magical-based talent will always have a 50/50 success rate associated with it, although the effects of a "failed" attempt at using it will vary per-Majin's talent. This typically does not apply to their second talent, however. Additionally, any talents that could "collapse" their encompassment of "every possibility" into one specific result (success or failure) would be capable of killing a Majin with absolute certainty, and making it impossible for another Majin to take on the embodiment of their deity. A talent that ensured either success or failure with absolute certainty would be one example of this.
• As the embodiment of Odin, this Majin is required to rest for a full twenty fours hours once per week, from Midnight on Tuesday to Midnight on Wednesday. It is impossible to rouse them during this time, and they are completely vulnerable. As a result, both their resilience and vitality are reduced to 1 during this period, irregardless of typical aspect allocation. This period of time operates independently from any alterations made by chronomancy and other time-related talents, and as such cannot be extended or shortened in duration.
• Due to the association of Odin's death at the hands of Fenris during Ragnarok in lore, this variant of Majin has -2 resilience points when against werewolves and other related species.
