Alright, seeing mshcherbatskaya (hope I spelled that right, I used to have it memorized) and Khedive Rex back means I've gotta get in on this.
mshcherbatskaya said:
I haven't done any sort of character sheet, but I would at minimum like a clear description of your character's appearance and powers. It pays to have a well-thought-out character, because one of the ways your opponent can beat you is by writing your characther better than you do yourself.
So let's do this: Your character walks into a bookstore/gamestore/comicbook store/movie theater/library and sees a door in the back they've never noticed before. They walk through the door into the Infinite Library, the repository of all stories ever recorded in any medium. You are greeted by the Librarians, who have been arguing about which genres are the best and you have been called, among others, to help decide. Write an intro vignette that tells us how this happens to your character. It may be that your character was a normal person transformed into something fantastical by entering the Library, or maybe they were already a Jedi/werewolf/mercenary/Templar/fairy princess when they came through. The library is connected to all realities and the portal's effects can be...unpredictable.
The year was 1865 and Patrick Duke was stuck in a Colorado Border Town until the snows melted. Which being Colorado that could damn well take up to three months. Needless to say, Duke wasn't exactly a happy camper, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do unless he felt like ending up like all the other Wendigos. That's what the natives called them anyway, said they was overtaken by evil spirits. Duke liked to believe that was true, but even the natives knew the only thing that overtook those that were dumb enough to travel The Colorado Mountains in the winter was nothing but dog-gone hunger. It was his second week here and he was bleeding money faster than a medieval sanitarium. When one is in desperate straits like this, there's only one place that someone is bound to go.
The Local Library. Duke had often extolled the virtue of the local library to others in many of his longer town visits and as he said that the Local Library was the only place in every town that one could go and stay in a warm room all day and never pay a single cent. Duke become what would have been considered an avid reader back in the day.
This particular library was more of a person's house with a bookshelf in it with a number of dime novels. Duke sat warming himself next to the fire reading something fairly trashy as he heard two folks arguing near the front of the store.
"What are you talking 'bout! Silas Greaves is one of the best series out there."
"Sure, if you like the same bloody story over and over. Perhaps you just ain't intelligent enough to 'preciate a good mystery like those found in the tales of Detective Dick Daniels."
"Anyone can see those bloody twists coming. Least Silas has got some excitement to it. Not like Dick Daniels spending ten pages staring at a mark on the wall."
"Aw, come on. That was important to the story, it took you through the process of how he finds everything out!"
One of the men turned to look at Duke who was looking slightly miffed that his quiet reading was interrupted. "Say, Mister. You're a reader ain't ya. Come on, you've got to know what one of the best series out there."
Duke made a deep sigh before setting his book down on a table. "Well, I'm sorry to say, pardner. Ain't no such thing as the best series, but if I could pick one of my favorites... I'd say Black Arrow. Medieval tales of heroism, and rescuing maidens. Quite a gent that man, and looks quite dashing with the hood, and a damn good shot with his crossbow."
The two looked at the folksy Texan as bit strangely before one said. "I mean, I reckon partner. A bit old-fashioned don't you think."
"A bandit trying to help the good people by robbing the rich and respectin' the ladies. Why that's Black Bart right there, and all those other cusses that get books made of 'em." Duke responded. "Plus, I'm a bit old-fashioned too pardner. You could learn a thing or two from the likes of Black Arrow and The Bard. Mastery of the written word was held in high regard back then, boy."
"Come now, this Black Arrow fellow he ain't got the wit of no Dick Daniels."
"Or the strength of no Silas Greaves."
"He may not have the wit of no Dick Daniels but that willy Irishman is keen and dexterous 'nough to get his way out of any scrap."
This went on a while as a back and forth between the two and exchanging stories of their series, but no more boisterous was that of Patrick Duke telling the tales of Black Arrow and his Mirthful Multitude sailing the seas or tracking the lands of his beautiful Irish land and protecting against all the evils of the British kingdom with his diverse crew and wooing all the ladies but for his one true love of which he daily wrote works of poetry to though she remained undeterred.
Eventually, going back to the comfy chair and his fire, the man soon dozed off. Waking up to an eerie silence, soft as snow. A dim red light shone underneath a door that he didn't seem to remember. Normally, Duke would be the type not to question this, but for whatever reason, he seemed drawn to the door.
"Hello! Mr. Richards! You ain't burning kerosene are ya! Stuff's gotten right expensive and who knows when the next shipment is gonna come in with these snows!" He didn't get an answer; predictably.
Duke tentatively opened the door and walked through. Hearing a cacophony of noise as he entered, dodging a book as he did so.
"Norse literature is the best literature! Ye can't have good literature without respectin' the gods!" Came a shout.
"Listen, we've been arguing enough as is! We agreed! We're keeping it SECULAR!"
"Either way, The Bard doth create the finest sonnets! None could compare to his divine brilliance!"
"SHAKESPEARE IS A HACK!"
"TAKE THAT BACK! YOU POXY-TONGUED LAGGARD!"
"What in Tarnation is going on here!" Everyone turned to Duke standing there. Including Duke himself whose voice seemed significantly younger and... Betraying a more Irish heritage. Making his Southern dialect sound quite strange.
"Who invited the Peasant! He probably can't even read!"
"I take offense to that partner." Duke having time to collect his thoughts somewhat looked down to find a flintlock pistol tied to the right side of his hip. Which was strange not only because he didn't own a flintlock but because he hadn't been wearing a gun at all. And more importantly, he hadn't been wearing these fine leather pants or this cloak of green... And was he wearing a doublet?
"Ah, no! This is the one we've been waiting for. To help us decide."
"Are you sure? He seems a little scrawny."
"He's barely bearding!"
"Oh, he's much older than he looks. A youthful face is all."
"Now, partner! I don't know what type of trick you're trying to play! But I've been shaving for the past twenty years of my life! I ain't never worn nothing like this before." Duke stopped further still not enjoying the sound of the voice that was coming out of his mouth.
"Did you get the wrong person?" One of the librarians said.
"Weeeeellll," The other started. "I couldn't set up an appointment with the real Black Arrow... So I got the next best thing. He's an avid fan." Other librarians groaned.
"Ugh, typical."
"Now, what are you talking abou-" Duke spotted his reflection in the reflection from polished wood. Spotting bright red hair and vibrant blue eyes, and a green hood... He reached across his back finding a familiar looking crossbow and quiver of... Black Arrows.
"So... Mister Duke. How does playing out one of your favorite books sound too you?"
Duke nearly giggled to himself. "Long as I'm getting paid, we've got a deal. Certainly wasn't doing anything better than this."
I was going to wait a while to see what other genres people went with, but might as well get the ball rolling now! The genre I'm going with is what you might loosely called Surreal Neolithic Fantasy (the game Zeno Clash is the best example, though things like Conan or Jungle Book would be comparable). Here's the character:
Gilgamoc the Shapeshifter
"I filled happy people with woe over you,
and after you died I let a filthy mat of hair grow over my body,
and donned the skin of a lion and roamed the wilderness."
---
The creature in rags ran on all fours across the Savannah, following the rising sun. It covered its eyes and cheeks with a plain wooden mask, white and polished as bone, and adorned around the rim with a mane of matted furs. The creature's mouth was exposed, bloodied and panting as it ran, but like a human's. This creature called itself Gilgamoc.
Having studied the lion, Gilgamoc ran with distinctly feline grace, and wore claws in the wraps around his hands. He hunted the wildebeest using his lion's claws and human teeth, consuming their flesh to fuel his journey. But as he hunted, he grew to learn the ways of his prey. In this way he studied the wildebeest, and when the time was right he carved a new mask that was affixed with their horns. He swapped one mask for another, retracted his claws, and covered his predatory mouth. For a time she wandered with the herd in disguise, ate grass with them, crossed the dangerous rivers with them, and helped them watch for predators even as the lion remained hidden deep within the folds of her rags.
Gilgamoc split from his herd at the base of a mountain range, following the rising sun. Neither the lion nor the wildebeest served her well on the steep and rocky slopes, but from darting glimpses Gilgamoc noticed the lizards crawling with languid ease over the surfaces he could not. He studied the lizard, adapted his lions claws to be hooks that could grip the stone even when it was vertical, and carved a flat reptilian mask in its visage. The mountain range was conquered easily beneath his scampering lizard feet, and he celebrated by basking in the sun.
As Gilgamoc travelled and studied the animals around him - the cranes of the river, the dragonflies of the marsh, the snakes of the desert, and even the dolphins of the sea - he grew to appreciate the enormity of all that there was still to learn. One day while travelling as the crane, she passed through a village and found herself welcomed eagerly. Reputation spread faster than any animal he could master, and many were awed enough by the wisdom and strength of Gilgamoc to overlook her feral affliction. She came to the villagers on retractable avian stilts, ragged wings held at her side, looking down at them over the curve of her long-beaked mask. Their elder approached her, and prostrated himself before her delicate pronged feet.
"Oh Gilgamoc, your arrival could not be more fortuitous! A plague of frogs has descended upon our aqueducts, filling them with their spawn. My wife cannot lift a shaduf without the water seething with tadpoles! We humbly beg your aid."
When Gilgamoc spoke, it was in the shrill and quavering voice of an old woman.
"I will study your frogs. Maybe, when we understand each other, I will be able to divert them elsewhere. But in return I must know something."
"Surely there is nothing I could know that a famed witchdoctor like you does not?"
Gilgamoc nodded ponderously, shifting her balance, and making the elder flinch for fear that he would be stepped on.
"Perhaps not. But you might know of others who know things that I do not."
"You seek wise men?"
"I wish to study every animal, from here to the birthplace of the morning sun. Where can I find such wisdom, elder?"
"The Sumerians have a place of knowledge, in the city of Nippur. I have never been there, but I could not imagine a deeper well of wisdom."
Gilgamoc studied the frogs, drove them from the aqueducts, and on their powerful legs waded across the floodplains in the direction of Nippur. It was there, behind the stone walls of civilisation, that he found this place of wisdom. A building larger than any hut he had ever seen, attended to by robed scribes of unimaginable learning. But the city humans did not trust his feral ways, and he was driven from the city. It was under the cover of darkness, wearing the flowing robes and fanged mask of the snake, that Gilgamoc stole entry into the Nippur library. In amongst the shadowed shelves of slate and papyrus the shapeshifter gleefully prepared himself for a feast of knowledge... Until, that is, his flicking tongue caught a draught of some strange odour. One of the shelves struck him as out of place. Gilgamoc slithered over to investigate.
What he found exceed even his most wondrous sunrise on earth.
So the general idea of Gilgamoc is that he/she can switch between a bunch of different animal archetypes by switching masks, changing his physical abilities as well as his entire persona to match each different mask. Though he is called a shapeshifter, he doesn't actually change shape, he is always technically a human. However, through near-supernatural inhuman agility and an arsenal of concealed cavepunk gadgetry (claws, horns, stilts, wings, tails, spare limbs, stretchy adhesive tongues - I was hoping to have some licence to make things up as I go) he can effectively mimic the general shape and adaptation of other animals. Each shape has a different personality, voice, and even gender as well, which I encourage others to have some fun with if they get to write Gilgamoc. The important thing is that he must never go without a mask; whatever is under the mask has no power, and I'm sort of headcanoning is really diseased and deformed, part of the reason he's resorted to this outcast hermit lifestyle. I might elaborate on that later.
Here's my character. Historical fantasy, if we need a genre. Or should that be prehistoric fantasy.
As she ran, Taiga knew that she must be quite a sight. Her leather-lined furs were streaked with sticky sweat, her tattooed face was lined with pain, and the torn braids in her charcoal hair made it look as though she been dragged through several thorn bushes. Her deerskin shoes were practically on the verge of disintegration. In her right hand, she still clutched a flint-tipped spear. More in desperation, rather than any real hope of being able to fight off her pursuers.
With every step, she felt the flint arrowhead dig deeper into her left shoulder blade. But she hadn't the time to carefully prise it out and sew up the wound, nor could she afford to leave even the faintest trail of blood. She reached a ledge bordered by brush, and feeling that her legs were about to give out from under her, let herself collapse behind the cover of the bushes.
"I'll just... stay here... for a little while," she said to Kosa between ragged breaths. The dowdy crow gave her a beady-eyed stare, before fluttering up to perch on a nearby branch.
Since the age of eight summers, Taiga had been soulbound to Kosa. It was a long story involving a near-fatal fall into a mastodon trap, the intervention of a shaman and the inhalation of large quantities of herbs, but he had saved her life and as a child, she had appreciated the watchful guardianship of the wind spirit. As she had grown up and become a full adult member of the tribe, however, he had not, which caused... problems, to say the least. But at times like this, she was glad for the extra pair of eyes.
"Over there!" Kosa swooped back down beside her, nibbling her ear with his beak."Red Hands!"
Taiga peered over the ledge, spotting the pair of hunters below. One carried a small bow, while the other gripped a spear not unlike her own. Both bore their tribal mark: a blood red hand, painted onto the left side of their faces.
"Maybe you could hit them both at once with your spear?" Kosa suggested, the crow-equivalent of a ghoulish grin written across his face. "Right through the throat? Like the time you..."
"Oh, shut up!" Taiga hissed. Not because there was any risk of the small spirit being overheard. He could be shouting at the top of his lungs and the Red Hands would still be blissfully unaware of his presence. But because she needed to think.
The nearest hunter crouched down, turning over the undergrowth with his palms. Taiga drew back and flattened herself against the clifftop. She couldn't outrun them for much longer. She would need to hide.
She turned and scoured the mountainside behind her. There were a few smaller bushes, but nothing that could really conceal a person. Then, she spotted an opening in the rock face. A small cave she hadn't seen before. She scrabbled up the rocky outlay, ignoring the biting pain in her shoulder as she crawled on her hands and knees into the cavern.
The high-domed chamber she found was much larger than she had expected and lit from a small opening far above. That, however, was not what caught Taiga's attention. Elaborate paintings of leaping horses, meandering buffalo and even the odd ground sloth lined the walls. Alongside them stood stick human figures, depicted with far less detail than their putative quarry. The pictures alone were a sight to behold, but Taiga knew there was much more to them. As her father had taught her when she was young, each piece told a story which one could follow if they knew where to start. Some showed the direction to good hunting grounds, while others told tales of creation and long dead heroes. But none of these particular paintings looked fresh. Even the most recent had probably been painted generations ago.
"What's that?" Kosa asked suddenly, having taken on a more suitable spider-shape. Taiga peered in the direction he pointed and saw a flickering light deep in the cavern.
"Another way out?" she breathed. It was the wrong shade to be the torch of a pursuer, and so she stumbled towards the light. It was only as she approached that she realised just how mistaken she was.
It was a shimmering film stretched across the wall of the cave, roughly the colour of a thick mist. All Taiga could make out on the other side were shadows; some perhaps human-shaped, others more obscure. She held her spear up in front of her, just in case one decided to come through.
"Spirits?" she whispered.
"Maybe. Not like any I've ever seen before."
At that moment, Taiga heard voices at the mouth of the cave. The light in front of her suddenly rippled, as if a pebble had been skimmed across its surface, and then began to bubble away. She glanced over her shoulder, her heart leaping into her mouth as she saw the outline of the hunters against the entrance of the cave. The nearest one caught her gaze and sneered, making an obscene gesture that left little to the imagination. She looked back at her soul companion, sharing the same thought at once.
"Can't be any worse than them," Kosa said, tilting his head. Taiga couldn't disagree, and so with a final cry of defiance, she threw herself into the evaporating portal.
Quick question are we going to start fighting or are we going to have some down time to role play after we have everyone? I would recommend you the latter so we can flesh out our characters better before the fights start
As contestants, you find yourselves in the Infinite Library. The building aeems to be equal parts architecture and video store [https://www.mcescher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/LW389-MC-Escher-Relativity-19531.jpg] whose humble appearance belies the depth of its collection.
The librarians are similarly varied in appearance, silk scholar's robes mingling with tweed suits, monk's cassocks with hot pink hair and punk rock tshirts. Among the stacks, if you look carefully with an innocent's eyes, you may see angels, wings concealed beneath simple overcoats, listening to the music that emanates from the souls of the readers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjQ8yZDQyEw] as the words touch them.
Approach them respectfully and the librarians are happy to recommend, or to aid in research. Threaten harm to the collection and you will be summarily banished to the outer darkness. Silence is not required, but they do ask that you not disturb the other patrons.
He skittered up the street, toes digging into the debris that lined the alley. As he ran, a trail of wrappers and discarded burner phonelinks skipped down the concrete floors behind him. His white hair flapped behind him.
Gremlin weaved through the dumpsters, vaulted a shattered fence with a hole at human?s eye level, and sprinted into the road. The men chasing him, stone-strength flesh molding under expensive riot armor, chased after him with stun stick and shotguns. Even at a dead sprint, scratched as Gremlin?s voice was, it still came out even and smooth despite the panting. ?Bad op. Johnson burned me. I?mma eat his bones.?
The men chased, Gremlin fled, and they were quickly lost into the eternal shuffle of the city.
Minutes passed as they played cat and mouse between tweakers and burnouts and runners and garbage. Knights Errant had delayed the heavily cyberized men long enough to make trouble for their blatant and highly illegal modified shotguns, but the flash of credentials and a credstick made the officer look the other way. Gremlin had enough time to scramble animalistically up an ancient fire escape, and with the low-level grappling gear in his bug-out bag, he had gotten enough height to be lost to the city?s architecture.
Any runner with half a sense would take their invisibility as a boon, and vanish into the night.
Gremlin did not have that sense.
He stalked them for two blocks, ghosting between corner stores and the neon signs hanging above the road. His cloak shifting to smooth approximations of the colors around him, giving him some help to sink into the dance of light pollution and deep shadows.
They rumbled to themselves, almost too quiet to be heard, but Gremlin knew the sound of men using throat- mics, and he surfed channels in the radio to try and find theirs. For his efforts, his own internal links filled his mind with encrypted nonsense, clashes of foghorns and mantis calls. He killed the link and followed the men like a specter in the sky, determined to get his revenge. When you chase Gremlin, he reasoned to himself, you chased your own death.
At 1 AM, they split up, apparently determined to cover ground in a last ditch effort to find the runner and turn him inside out until whatever he?d stolen was found. They drifted into the city, each slipping through crowds and ducking into alleys.
Gremlin vaulted the the awning and fell toward his first victim. The man looked up, and registered a noise of surprise. A short human, male-ish, no more than 4? 8? (142 cm) flew from the sky, wispy white hair trailing behind him. In one hand, a sleek and expensive pistol, in the other, a dark bladed knife. The pistol, barrel elongated in some kind of modification, spit a quiet cough a noise as an orb the size and shape of a paintball covered the air between them. A puff of pinkish smoke hit the man on contact, and though the round did nothing to his armor, the fluid inside aerosolized immediately, and as if it bore through the clothes and skin, seeped into the guard?s bloodstream almost immediately.
As his eyes fluttered closed, Gremlin slammed boots-first into his chest and drove the knife into his neck. The armor deflected the first two attempts, but Gremlin got through on the third, stabbing and stabbing repeatedly until the knife?s sharp point punched through the man?s concrete-thick skin, and blood spilled in the alleyway.
He looked up, brushed fitfully and violently at his coat--as if trying to scrape the fluid gore off his coat with the speed of a rabbit--and tore into the night after his second victim.
The second man fared no better. He turned the corner of a particularly deep alley, and heard a tiny whump before falling asleep for the last time. Gremlin jammed the knife repeatedly into the back of the muscled man?s neck until the cybernetic spine showed, then he skittered back into the darkness.
Five miles, twenty minutes, and countless alleys later, Gremlin dialed his fixer?s number, and said, ?Hey Lester! I need?a meet with Johnson. Got the goods.?
The sigh on the other end of the line was long, but not unfamiliar. ?My name isn?t Lester, and fine. Same restaurant, I?ll message you the time.?
Gremlin nodded, and took the third door on the left, same entrance his used last time. But instead of delving deeper until the city?s tunnels, Gremlin found himself somewhere else entirely.
If you have any questions or need clarification, feel free to ask.
?Well this place is very interesting?? Chris mumbled under his breath. ?...well since this is a tournament, I may as well find the other contestants. If I remember the names from the previous posts they are Patrick Duke, Gilgamoc, Taiga and Gremlin right?.? Chris asked me. You know Chris you could try not to cheat. ?Look, you already know who they are so it's only fair that I do too.? Chris responded. Chris looked around trying to find anybody that checked off the other three contestants so far. suddenly something caught his attention? wait I don?t have something planned here? ?TA TA TA!? Chris laughed in a weird way. Who is this guy? ?Just an old friend.? Chris simply responded.
Chris tap the person on the shoulder. The strange person turned around and
OH MY FUCKING GOD! WHAT IS THAT!
?Who dares disturb the Ancient on? oh Hi Chris.? The Abomination said in an earth-shattering voice.
?oh you two probably need to be introduced to each other?? Chris said. ?Don't worry he won't bite. ? he told the both of us. ?This is my friend Dave, he's a happy guy, we were roommates in college and dave this is godzillarich, my writer.? wait you were only create a week ago Chris? ?As far as you know,? Chris said with a slasher smile. ?Anyway Dave, how's life been treating you??
?Great!? Dave yelled in excitement. ?I got a job at this multidimensional library, and I see that you got a pretty good job too, a character in a story, that's pretty impressive.?
?Not as great as a job as you think it would be Dave.? Chris told the weird tentacle monster. ?Anyway I'm looking for the other characters in the story, it's a form role playing game.?
?OH that sounds really interesting. I'd assume it has something to do with that tournament they?re holding here.? Dave said as he patted his friend on the back. ?All the main guest are going to go to the main reading Center. Let me just take you there.? and with that they headed off.
The infinite quiescence of the library was shattered by the hollow crack of breaking stone. Gilgamoc had dropped the stone tablet he'd inadvertently brought with him from Nippur, having been transfixed by the impossible sight before him. The high vaulted ceiling that was somehow also the floor - the utterly bizarre people who barely resembled the Sumerians of Nippur, or even humans in some instances - the lights and flickers and machinations blinking at him from the background - the scene had the shapeshifter's reptile-masked face swivelling about like a cobra in the thrall of a snake charmer. He barely even noticed as one of the librarians, a familiar looking Sumerian scribe, hurried over trailing a string of hushed admonishments.
"Ah ah ah, you broke it! Silly man."
The scribe gave the cloaked snake-man a smart rap across the shoulder with a scroll he'd been holding, pulling him from his reverie. Gilgamoc looked down at the other man as he stooped to gather up the fragments of broken tablet. When he spoke, it was in the smooth and deep voice of a barrel-chested adult man.
"Where am I?"
"Ugh, another urchin," the scribe bemoaned. "That explains it. You're in the Library."
"Nippur did not look this large from the outside."
"Not the Nippur library, I mean the Library. It exists beyond your world, with connections to it and many others through secret doors. You probably found the door to your world by accident."
Gilgamoc drew his cloak closer around him, his limbs disappearing into the sleek folds in a way that emphasised his serpentine appearance. His destination hadn't been quite what he expected, but his goal remained unchanged.
"I came here to study."
The scribe brushed the fragments of stone into a sack and looked up at Gilgamoc, his expression one of reserved scepticism.
"Study? Study what?"
"I wish to study every animal, from here to the birthplace of the morning sun," Gilgamoc explained enthusiastically. "A village elder told me that Nippur is a place of wise men."
The scribe stood, puffing as though he were physically put upon as well as emotionally.
"Well, we have the next best thing; books. And as long as you don't keep breaking them, you're free to read any that you wish. Animals, you said?"
"Yes."
"Then follow me."
Half an hour later, after sifting through some of the Library's endless available tomes on ecology and declaring all the illustrations dissatisfying, Gilgamoc sat coiled up in an armchair off to the corner of the main reading centre, his mask-shadowed eyes fixed avidly to a television screen displaying David Attenborough's Planet Earth II.
"Pen-gu-in..." he muttered to himself, carefully enunciating the word as he reached out to stroke the fat waddling birds on screen.
I have far from forgotten this and remain busy composing an intro. If I can't get it appropriately polished this weekend, I'll post it anyway and just live with it. But, it's been long enough at this point I think at the very least I should get some of my basic character points across. Consequently, here's a stat sheet everyone.
Name: Corinthian.
Race: Demon Prince. The Royalty of Hell.
Gender: Male.
Genre: New Weird [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_weird]
Appearance:
Brief Backstory:
On a routine expedition to generate mayhem and harvest souls from yet another insignificant, superstitious and wildly pitiful parellel reality Corinthian wound up attracting the attention of ... capable natives. The cheeky bastards confined him to a summoning circle. Which he promptly overpowered, no Demon Prince worth his throne would follow the commands of primitives. The primitives in question however seemed to take that as a challenge. And when they summoned him again it was into something much ... sturdier.
Corinthian has been caged in a magi-tech golem for more than six hundred years. He has outlived the civilization that detained him. Which in spirit means he's outlived the only people with keys to his cell. Like a genie in a bottle, he is fully contained, cut off from his true powers, trapped in a mystical metal automaton. Whatever the golem is made of, it has defied all of Corinthian's efforts to destroy it. It doesn't crack, it doesn't melt, it doesn't scratch, it doesn't rust, it is in every respect a perfect, permanent, cage.
It seems to have artificial lungs, strictly for ease of talking. So Corinthian can still smoke, at least. He clings dearly to the absurd hope that one day something like lung cancer will rescue him from his metal cage. As such, he smokes like a man possessed. Constantly.
Powers:
In The Old Days: Possess mortals, corrupt minds, summon plagues, create famine, craft storms, speak across time, travel freely between dimensions, harvest souls, generate madness, ensnare, enrapture.
These Days...: ... He can smoke. And he is unreasonably difficult to damage. His golem releases a torturous amount of electrical energy if he attempts to use any of his old powers. This burst hurts him as much as anything touching him, and often knocks him unconscious for a period.
Motivations/Themes/Pertanant Facts:
Corinthian wants to go home to Hell in a desperate, tragic sort of way. He misses his mansion, he misses his servants, he misses the culture of brutality and cunning, he misses being surrounded by the macabre and the grotesque. He is home sick, and his homesickness has had six hundred years to blossom.
Corinthian is in love with a Demoness named Arbella, though he would never admit it. They were engaged to be wed before Corinthian's capture. He thinks of her often but is too proud to acknowledge that she is a significant contributor to his feelings of homesickness.
Corinthian has adopted an almost suicidal disregard for his own safety, often rushing headlong with no consideration into any situation he thinks may have the slightest hope of damaging the golem he is confined to.
For clarification, Corinthian does not have a corporeal body around which the golem is worn, as a suit of armor might be. Corinthian is posessing the golem, and can be thought of as a spectral mist contained in a flask beside the golem's other internal mechanisms. So, for example, if he succeeded in cutting an arm off the golem, that would be a good thing and wouldn't equate to the loss of his real, actual, demon-form arm.
Thematically, this is a spoof on the tale of The Odyssey. A pompous, self centered hero goes on a voyage over seas from which he is unable to escape for many years longer than he'd expected. Despite seeing incredible wonders and involving himself in fantastical situations, growing as a person, as time passes his sole motivation becomes returning to his homeland, his family, his wife and his old way of life.
Duke, for the most part, kept his head down in the library. He was told that he wasn't supposed to harm anyone before the match, but being Black Arrow he felt much duty was needed in the slaughter of a fine beast with his emeralded saber and many librarians fit that bill. That and it was slightly dizzying to look at too much of the large library. He told himself that this was just because he was getting used to his young eyes, and limbs but it was really because the size combined with the uneasy melding of various forms of architecture that either seemed impossible or he was unfamiliar with inspired a sense of unease he had not felt since he was a child and visited a National Library in Pittsburgh. If Duke had a clearer mind at the time than he probably would have likened it to a four-year-old at an all you can eat buffet.
One thing was true though, he was not used to his young eyes or limbs. Duke had a strange gait about him walking as if he was a taller and older man, seeming mighty strange in the body of the rather short Black Arrow who was suited for slinking into the shadows whereas Duke's old body was more built like a self-assured mustang, broad and standing tall. His eyes were pointed towards the ground and his slight nausea at his surroundings only made his walk even more strange.
Duke reached up to tip his hat at an angel that flew past but was soon to realize that he was now wearing a hood instead of his wide-brimmed cowboy hat. Not wanting to appear the fool, he moved his hood and in one quick motion knelt down and reached down to pick a random book off the shelf in a motion much smoother than he imagined. It seemed his new body's natural poise kicked in for a second. He started to read it out loud under his breath. "50 Shades Darker... Ain't that just black?"
The bandit took a few idle steps forward as he read the blurb on the back. "..Desire for Christian still dominates her every waking thought... Sounds bloody exhausting." Knowing that it was there was nothing in front of him for a good twenty yards he continued to walk forward. "Anastasia learns more about the harrowing past of her damaged, driven and demanding Fifty Shades... What? Fifty Shades? That don't even begin to make sense. She, a painter or some-" As he was about to finish his sentence he suddenly found that the floor in front of him turned into stairs. He tripped down the first step, flew over the second one, and on the third one he reached for a railing to notice that there was none and instead ended up catching the step with one of his feet and righting himself by doing a quick jump down another two steps. Duke seemed a bit surprised that he caught himself. He laughed to himself though as he rubbed a pendant of a cat that he wore on his wrist. Book 3, a witch from the Scottish Dales bestowed upon Black Arrow the grace of a cat after he beat her in a game of wits. Duke quickly made his way back up the stairs.
To find himself on another set of stairs... He turned around again to find himself on a third different set of stairs. This time he very carefully walked his way down the stairs... To find him walking down another set of stairs at the bottom. Finally, he looked up... Or down? It seemed that Duke found himself on one of the Escherian stairwells about a story above Gilgamoc who was staring attentively at the TV.
Duke waved frantically at the... Masked person. "Hey! Partner!" As he heard the words come out of his mouth and the hint of Irish on them he then quickly followed it up with an "I mean... Medicine Man! Wouldst thou be kind enough to help me get up to where you are... Or I guess down from your point of you. It appears the stairs grow here thicker than African Jungles of your home, medicine man!"
OK,I've waited for people to follow through on character submissions, but it's time for y'all to shit or get off the pot. I'm going to post a list of contestants on Saturday and that will be last call. On Sunday, I give you an arena and pair you off to go at it. In the meantime, if you intend to participate as a judge, please reply to this post with your confirmation. If more than three people volunteer as judges, I will take the first three. If only two volunteer, I will be the third, and if only one person volunteers, I will fill the second spot, and the contestants collectively will be the third. I'll explain that last part more if it comes to that.
Gilgamoc flicked out his tongue, looking from left to right, and then finally up at where Duke was standing upside down. He recoiled with surprise.
"Argh?" he hissed in his deep masculine voice. "A man, a Celt no less, who hangs from the ceiling like a bat. Can't you just let yourself drop?"
As Gilgamoc looked up at the cowboy, the TV started to get weird static, and then suddenly Chris appeared standing next to a bunch of penguins. "Soooo cooold..." Chris mumble to himself as he thought about how stupid it was to insult his writer. "I hate you so much." He told me as looked out of the TV. Chris then reached his hand out of the TV and stared to climb out of it taking one the Penguins with him. His body still in shock with all the cold. "I take it you're the guy with the many masks, Gilgamoc right?" he then looked up "...and your the cowboy Duke doing your best Spiderman impression?"
"If I could drop down then I would! Listen, Medicine Man. You see, the same force that keeps you bound to the ground there is keeping me bound here. It is known as gravity. It seems that it changes at some point between us." As Chris exited out of the TV, Black Arrow quickly drew his crossbow and aimed at the... Thing. "What in Tarnation! Move a step and I'll shoot you right between the eyes, you demon of lies and villainy." Duke gradually changing to a more Black Arrow like voice as he finished his sentence.
Taiga found herself in a place utterly alien to her. The black stone beneath her hands and knees was hard and perfectly smooth, like the side of a polished axe. As she looked up, she realised that the marble walls of the chamber were similarly carved in unnaturally straight lines. The ceiling above her was even more confusing -- twisting and turning in on itself, so that it was impossible to tell where it began or ended.
Before her stood seven robed figures. Their leader was like no man she had ever seen before -- corpse-pale, bald, and with eyes the colour of a clouded sky. She scrambled to her feet, stifling a gasp as the flint arrowhead bit deeper into her shoulder blade.
"We mean you no harm. Please, lower your weapon."
Taiga didn't budge. One of the figures stepped forward, and she jabbed her spear at him to keep him at arm's length.
"You may keep the spear, for now," the leader conceded.
"Where... am I?" Taiga asked.
"The Infinite Library." That was a word Taiga didn't recognise. "A place where all worlds and stories are connected. Past, present, and future." That at least she understood.
"I don't trust them!" Kosa whispered in her ear. Taiga nodded, but outnumbered and on the verge of collapse, she couldn't see what other choice she had but to play along. At least until she knew whether they were beings of flesh and blood, or not.
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