Name: David Rivas

Age: 19

Appearance:

Inherited ability:Fire

Brief History:

David was always fascinated with stories.

Some were just for fun. Tales of brave warriors saving their beloveds, of mighty wizards overcoming their flaws and saving the day, of outcasts clawing their way into a happier life through hard work and perseverance. David enjoyed these stories, with their sad beginnings and hopeful ends. He also, however, had a great love of history.

This story wasn't just for fun. David saw history as a cautionary tale. It was the opposite of the novels and rpgs and movies he enjoyed. A hopeful beginning, then a sad end. He always found it odd, however, that at some point tragic events simply stopped happening. It was like the world blinked and forgot what it was doing.

David asked questions, and discussed this. He had teachers and peers who were more than willing to debate, but at the same time he was seen as being somewhat...odd. Most people acted as if the sudden "goodening" of the world was a, well, good thing. David, however, likened it to the great tragedies of the world.

To him, it was like holding a door open for someone. It's nice if you're just a random dude, but if you're a doorman then it is simply expected of you. The act becomes a job, and a rather pointless, ceremonial one at that. It becomes an automatic reflex, devoid of thought and meaning. Good, in essence, becomes no better than heinous evil. It becomes slavery, being forced to do good. When good becomes equal to eviil, humanity as a people die a spiritual death.

David became known as a bit of a weirdo for these beliefs. He was a nice guy himself, the sort that would give you the shirt off his back if you asked for it, yet he more or less advocated evil.

David did not want to be the hero of a videogame, forced to dance at the strings of some unseen puppet master. If given the chance, he would kill the love interest and the dragon and watch the kingdom burn, just to see if he could.

David didn't have a hard life. He went through school, had a few friends. Dated a few people, fucked one of them. He was a very talented student, but he didn't work too hard at anything and ended up with Cs and Bs. He partied a bit, but never got irresponsible with it. Just a decent, if lazy, teenager. However, all the time, he kept on searching for information on what that blank spot in history held. He asked questions. He met people.

Eventually, he met the right people, who asked the right questions and pieced together the blank pages of history.

Eventually, David fell in with a cult.

Name


Age


Appearance


Inherited ability


Brief History

Malcolm Gerhart, bookseller and failed scholar.

29

Appearance: Severely underweight, with pale blonde hair. Typically wears plain shirts without a tie under an ill-fitting tweed jacket. Not an attractive man, he has a thin neck and a weak chin- in combination with his clothes this gives him a peculiarly notable appearance.

Inherited ability: Shadow

Brief History

Mal's drive was not from any idealism, but because of a simple question. Why are there no records? Every other event, no matter how atrocious, has received some historical treatment. The Holocaust was the subject of countless books, biopics and narrative illustrations; even long after it had passed far out of living memory, it was still taught in school as an example of man's cruelty and responsibility for his own actions. Even the better obscured slaughters in human history- the Cultural Revolution, whose deaths were never tallied, or America's wars against the drug farmers of the Middle East, received foreign criticism, even if there were no official records. Why then had the cataclysm 100 years ago escaped the oversight of history?

Mal started this journey as a doctorate student, fresh and eager to impress by tackling something different from the usual questions of Post-Industrialism and the economic impact of globalisation on past geopolitics. He needed no discouragement from his mentors; his findings were discouragment enough. In the absence of any formal record, he started his search with secondary material, rumours or allusions of what had happened in old newspapers; he found nothing. It was not as though there were any lack of material from the time-period; far from it. Simply, there was nothing, nothing whatsoever discussing the cause of the cataclysm; merely lists of the cities burned and of the names of the dead.

Eventually, Mal was turned out of his position. His snail's progress on his personal 'quackery' was excuse enough for the department to refuse further funding for his doctorate. He was sure this was a cover, that he had gotten too close to some uncomfortable truth and that he was being targetted. He did not end his search.

Soon (his new job procuring and auctioning rare books and editions for an antiques company only reducing the time for his research, not preventing it), he stumbled on his first piece of real progress. He found a small group of people who had had the truth passed to them directly, and as the price for learning it for himself, he swore that he would repay their answers with his loyalty.

Mal is still searching for answers. All that's changed is how he asks the questions.

Name: Amis Thysia

Age: 20

Appearance: Amis is nothing spectacular at a glance: though tall, he is not lanky; though vaguely attractive, he falls closer to "average"; though often sort of dishevelled, he is not messy (or neatly groomed) enough to be especially noticeable. Perhaps the one feature he likes about himself is his eyes - a fairly striking blue-grey that varies in hue in different lights. He tends towards dark, fairly dramatic clothing, but again, nothing that makes him stand out too much. He's an average 20-year-old uni student, with a vaguely, subtly emo/gothic look still haunting his wardrobe from his melodramatic teenage years, and who sports a bedhead more often than a carefully-coiffed hairdo.

Inherited ability: Metal (I will admit that my undying love for Magneto may have had a part in this choice. )

Brief History: "There is a distinct difference between an atheist and an anti-theist; the former is passive, the latter active. One describes one's own beliefs; the other describes an attitude towards others' beliefs. One believes there is no God; the other knows, knows. I am the latter, the other, the different. I believe that humanity cannot live eternally in fear of these creatures, cringing before them, stone throats frozen by petrification distorting the truths we all have a right to hear and know. They act as false Gods, controlling us without ever revealing their faces, and with our fear we worship them; we fetishise silence! I am an anti-theist; I oppose these false Gods; the stifling of truth cannot continue."

Amis is a scientist at heart. He is curious about the world, and believes in the power of truth - and in the importance of humanity's search for it. Imagine, then, his inquisitive child's mind attempting to reconcile itself with a society-wide conspiracy - a silent and unspoken agreement to hide, to conceal the truth of the past from young ears. The conservative hush that pervaded the room in the frozen, petrified moment before his queries were brushed aside was always compelling, alluring to him. Of course, the universal taboo was impossible to resist, and, just as teenagers everywhere today type the word "porn" into a web browser for the first time with their hearts in their throats, Amis quietly delved into a quest for the truth of the past - anxious, excited, nervous, exhilarated.

He hated the fear in the eyes of his parents and his peers when he attempted to speak about what little he found. Inevitably, he became rather ostracised for his obsession with uncovering the past, and as is the fate of any who are isolated during their early, formative years, he grew up as an angry soul. His intelligence and passion went to waste on philosophising about that which nobody would discuss with him; he was yet another great philosopher who was limited to intellectual masturbation, without another to share in his ideas, consumed with angst on the problems he felt only he noticed in society. One must somewhat question reality, or rather one's own perceptions, once they reach the point of feeling utterly estranged, their worldview completely removed from that of those around them. Amis grew more frustrated, and more miserable, and more challenged. His university work started to suffer, his personal life was already a mess.

And then, of course, eventually he stumbled across like-minded individuals, his salvation from himself and his isolation: the cult around which this story centres. Universities have famously been a place for the seeds of revolution and alternative thinking to grow, and that has not changed with the coming of wider peace. With a release for his woes and the knowledge that he wasn't the crazy one*, he stabilised, as did his life. He began to live normally again, with the exception of a hidden double life with the cult; his grades picked up, as did his social life, and with being able to pursue and express his personal beliefs on truth and the past as well as live a somewhat ordinary life, he felt fulfilled.

Undeniably, however, the glowing coals and embers of anger still rested in his breast - ready to be fanned and flamed.

* Or rather, simply reassurance from potentially equally flawed sources - but he views it as knowing; oh, how appropriate for the themes of personal truth!

Note on personality: Amis is somewhat inspired by Winston Smith from 1984 and Bernard Marx from Brave New World. Their characters, similarly, feel they are the only one to see the truth of the world around them, as opposed to the indoctrinated minds of those around them - and yet, of course, if you are the only one to feel a certain way, are you not perhaps the crazy one?
Amis' reassurance of his sanity, that self-verification, after meeting the cult is dangerous - it is the same as in today's world, where we end up with echo-chambers or "circlejerks" of people with the same views all patting eachother on the back and assuring one another they're correct, closing out opposing views, and taking that as knowledge of their collective rightness. He takes the cult's reassurance of his sanity as knowledge. He believes that they are in possession of the one truth. I can feel Herr Born turning in his grave.
Also, similarly to Bernard, he is willing to put aside and ignore the previous ostracism from his peers once he can be accepted by them. Amis is fiery and passionate, and not a weak person really, but he is also young and frustrated, and was very alone for a very long time - and so he has somewhat "given in" and compromised his principles there. It's only human to not want to be alone.
I suppose what I am trying to convey is that he's not a great martyr or anything. I don't want to make him a Gary Sue - persecuted by society for believing in his good principles, the great and noble hero, blah-di-blah. He's very much flawed and compromised in his philosophies and ideas, which are still forming - he's only 20, and who truly knows their whole philosophy on life at 20 (regardless of what youthful arrogance makes us think we know)?

Name:
Elisa “Elli” Fitch

Age:
25

Appearance:


Standing at an average height of 5’6”, most people would describe Elli’s body as far from average. A small bust gives way to a small waist, which gives way to pear-shaped hips-- courtesy of her mother’s genetics. Years of yoga instruction give a slightly toned appearance despite her odd body type, and she has found that it only increases the likelihood of getting approached by a man who enjoys a nice “donk.” As far as other features, blonde hair hangs to her shoulders in a grown-out bob cut, a spatter freckles cover her nose area, and piercing grey eyes that seem to reflect much of her inner feistiness.

Inherited Ability:
Water *

Brief History:
"The Guardians have brought a false peace, and the people have begun to view them as gods! That is the work of the devil! Satan must be stopped-- The Guardians must be stopped. God is the way, the truth and the light, and not even the Guardians can take that away from us." **

The new world peace was comfortable but unsettling. No one spoke of the Guardians and the blood of the innocent that was shed in their global purge, and those that did revered the Guardians as the godly figures that had rid the world of its hate and war. In the mystery of it all, others decided that the Guardians were dangerous, and many radical ideas were passed around, all hushed of course, but the message was still the same: the Guardians were not to be trusted. It swept through the minds of the world’s leaders, always there in the back of their minds… Could the world really exist in peace if it was out of fear? And then there was a religious movement against the Guardians. They were seen as beings who had rid the world of much of God’s creation… beings that were attempting to imitate Him by supervising the world in its new peace, and it lead to the spawning of new teachings of how the Guardians were the work of the devil, of Satan himself.

And that was all Elli had known. Growing up in the “bible belt” region in northern Florida, she had been exposed to religion at an early age, thus planting the roots for how she would eventually view the Guardians. Her parents, both accountants and Christians, raised her on a straight and narrow path of morality. There were, of course, exceptions in life when she strayed from that path... Underage drinking in high school and sex out of wedlock her freshman year of college, both being things that were tried only once. But Elli prided herself in her overall innocence, happy with how religion fulfilled a spiritual need. She was a smart but impressionable girl filled with questions, and faith was a good way to answer much of those curiosities.

Though she never really was a "preachy" kind of church girl, she was adamant in faith, and she had always been curious about the church origins of their teachings against the Guardians. What made them so bad? What did they even do? There were so many questions that not even the church could answer. Following her graduation from college and the attainment of a degree in communications, she spent a year traveling and doing church work in large cities. Through her travels she was exposed to whispers of a cult that wanted to uncover the truth behind the Guardians. It immediately piqued her interest-- finally she would get the answers she searched for! And more importantly, she would also be doing the Lord's work in the world. She gladly joined the cult, with the grace of her God and her moral compass guiding the way.

Notes About Elli:
I understand that where I got my origins for my character is touchy, as it’s the topic of religion. I’m religious myself and don’t mean this to offend any party, so I’m going to stay away from making my character all preachy within the IC. Also, for those of that don't know, I chose water because it's a reference to the bible-- the story of Noah's ark and how God cleansed the world of its sin by sending the Great Flood.