• Hafadac, a young man who is so afraid of the dark it makes his blood glow.

--Metallo

• Reaex, a dog-like alien from Metallo that devours iron and escapee from Allure City's D-Vault.
• Ivplec Ulkanator, a warrior from Metallo.

--Earth: Allure City

• Fimiendel Vericlatigan X

--Earth: Africa/Glasslands

• Ndakala Blayhi, eco-tourism guide and grocery store manager from Cape Town.
• Makemba, tactile telepathic empath and member of NYUNDO.
• Digbo, grocery store clerk from Cape Town.
• Lydia Benson, geneticist and eco-tourist from the United States.
• Dussan, a mentally-stunted but physically strong mutant from Mount Diaba.

--Earth: NorthCap

• Dominic Ruiz-Malavé, transgender drone operator and HKT hate group operative.
• Mateo Ruiz-Malavé, cousin to Dom, a hormonally-muddled young man turned assassin.

--Earth: General

• Czes Schäfer, child billionaire and majority shareholder in the Abditory and Comte Foundation.
• Lionel Duperie, Czes' lawyer and intelligence liaison; migrant from the planet New Terra where he was employed as a government prosecutor.
• Tristan Singh, Mobius operative, posthumous hero of the Battle at Xenophore, reactivated at Jadis experimental black site.
• Spencer Tras, formerly of Careo Fas but now a resident of Earth, itinerant and unnaturally lucky.
• Dr. Reschelle Mavox, neurosurgeon and geneticist employed at Jadis experimental black site.

• Sable Wakefield, complicated young man whose life is dogged by misfortune.
• Professor Arties Cimereau, executed for his philosophies.

• Kaito Stone, forcibly recruited into the Veris Defense Force.
• Captain Stone, Kaito's father and captain of the Starstalker.
• Vega, artificial intelligence that oversees all operations on Veris.
• Dekadin, alien ambassador to the Gnaritas System.
• Zine d'Lefevre, handyman, hitman, and would-be actor employed on Veris.

• SMD'P, also known as The Sounder, a monstrous herald of Idea that vaguely resembles a colony of giant worms.
• Tecrolys, an extra-dimensional being trapped within a herald of Idea that vaguely resembles a black panther.
• Tsathoskr, a weird union between a Son of Idea and Herald, closely resembles an unspeakable eldritch horror.

Medieval Era

• Kyato, "the Vagrant" of Aikamo Village, an oprhan; enlisted with the Yagyu Allied Shogunate under Hidoshi Nobunaga to repel the Kriegbessonenheit army led by the evil Ein Drach; adopted into the Nobunaga family.

Industrial Era

• Deo, helped in the fight against the Eisenfaust army led by the evil Eisen Zorn.
• Akhom Itaferasui, one of the Five Precepts succeeding Azriel Deckard as "the Gatherer", professor at Taiyu Wangetsu Academy, military leader in many conflicts, died during the Apocalyptic Era.

Space Era

• Dorje Tak, one of Solest's first astronauts, befriender of Thane, lover of Hidimbi, one of the Five Precepts succeeding Akhom Itaferasui as "the Gatherer".
• Hidimbi, codename Akkarat, royal member of House Kuru (an alien exmpire), one of the Five Devarajas (elite gundam pilots).
• Cadoc Haul, member of the Interplanetary Guild Coalition and enforcer of the Jayanti Blockade that cut Solest off from travel to the stars.

Apocalyptic Era

• Kyataru Michi, reincarnation of Kyato.
• Suzumi Michi, Kyataru's sister, captain of the ill-fated Harbinger.
• T'aejo Haeun, "Tsu", one of the five anti-precepts.

Post-Apocalyptic Era

• Zakch Akaeriis, a student at Taiyo Wangetsu High School.
• Daen Leynfail, a student at Taiyo Wangetsu High School.

Age of Oppression

• Taole Mylkin, bodyguard to Orim el-Seiken, general of the floating city of Genesis, and finally, in Facets, CEO of Lamentsia, Inc., a gravstone manufacturing company the city restructured itself into after the crash.
• Orim el-Seiken, diplomat and loremaster of the floating city of Genesis.

Facets

• Riath

Drin

• Anil Desimir

Flencemont

• Kelion Deorcmone, a student at Flencemont Academy
• Soren Torenyll, a professor at Flencemont Academy

Pharadahm

• Auruk
• Autun
• Aachen Kyrinos
• Naxos Cteraphim

Terminal Velocity

• Cody Maxwell, a university-level athlete in the sport Terminal Velocity
• Joseph Buckles, business person

• Circ, a supernatural creature that huants the underground City of Deryeamz in the Ashtaron Desert.
• Morank Dahmark, king of Xhora.
• Alwyain Teithanti, Queen of the Andoum Empire, now the Ashtaron Desert.
• Kor Teithanti, child of Alywain and brother of Morank Dahmark.
• Kaisaph Qye'tai
• Meitai
• Ankag, a monster with the body of a spider and head of a wolf.
• Bise Imoshuil
• Ildoriar
• Rhys Erymadon, diplomat of the City of Drachiar.
• Riath
• Icisox Kodia, a spirit animal

• Dauneth, sentinel of the Lett

• Eti Naris, synthetic companion, spaceship pilot, and assassin; formerly Potan Mul's thrall, now explores the Verse in his own spaceship: the Tabris Ruzgar; looks like a red panda in a gunslinger costume.
• Tab "Boomslang" Ydrian, a synthetic honor guard and cut-throat; formerly Ec-shavar's thrall, now explores the Verse with Eti Naris; looks like a river otter.
• Potan Mul, a Cizran assassin employed by the empire's high inquisition; owner of Eti Naris.
• Nenegin zar-Taliļ, a Cizran admiral charged with patrolling the sector of space containing Killimara and other planets; is large, white, and has eight legs.
• Bajaga Garul & Tarhara Maka, echinoderm artisans working on a commission for Potan Mul; Ec-Shavar didn't appreciate Potan Mul's gift and murdered the pair of artisans.
• Nirak mul-Siyé, a Cizran member of the Noema and information conduit, she seldom moves, much less departs the Ja'regia.
• JAS-397, a junior audit servitor of the Cizran Hall of Records.

Sefosifer | Kor | Dor | Autun | Ender | Nal | Antaris | Outcross | Rae Erenfale | Logan Dobutso


United Planetary Federation

• Himebabi Juan Moartyme

The Lycholme Cultists

• Valdyrdólg

Immortality—the defiance of entropy in spite of time or casual circumstance.

...



Whether a thing is good or bad often depends on factors independent of its own merits—a bit of knowledge Czes ascertained the Winter of 1675. The night in particular was bitterly cold, and the white vapors that still stir over the Baltic shimmered ominously under the low haze of the Northern Lights. A vague and magical apparition it seemed, seen through a small block of frost-traced glass fogged by his breath and painted over with hearth fire.

At the time Czes was recently turned nine and was, he had been told by his custodian, to become—on short order—a man’s man. That is, if he behaved himself and was very lucky. Until then, he would have to be sated by the duties required of him as a man’s toy.

Such was his state as he gazed out the window in awe: a rented bit of equipment that, once unwanted, would be returned to the orphanage in Prague, stitched up, cleaned up, consoled, and sent out to service the next inquirer.

Forgotten for the while, he perched on a stool and took small comfort in the heat of the fire. Otherwise, the room was empty and drafty. His suit inadequate to the climate, he shuddered, but not merely for the chill thrust into his bones by the wet seaside air. Beyond the door, an occult gathering of gentlemen were audible, and out of the muffled din of voices the words all of us who are here! seemed to anticipate an onslaught of demoniacal laughter.

At the time, he did not know what they were speaking of. Still, the thought of what was to come utterly terrified him, but it was proven baseless, as much worse transpired within the hour.

Inexplicably, he survived it all—being torn asunder, burned alive, frozen, and disemboweled.

From that night, where abandoned for the while he sat and shivered in a cottage on the little Isle. of Falster, he never aged and never suffered an injury from which he did not almost immediately recover; nor did he gain the strength of manhood, with which he could have defended himself against life’s ghastly perils, indignities, and crimes so often and undeservedly imposed on society’s weak and unusual.

Since then, he has learned a great deal.

...



Lifetimes later, beneath the shadow of a brown plaid flat-top hat, Czes studied an elaborate porcelain jigsaw puzzle strewn across the expansive bamboo floor of the Comte Foundation boardroom. The hand-painted tiles depicted the Battle of Zama, a fact entirely unrelated to anything, but it distracted him from the death of his most recent adoptive father. Both signified the end of something great—the Cathage Empire and Karl Albrecht.

Albrecht was ninth in a long line of wealthy adoptive parents Czes had secured for himself after decades of torment and terror, making his estate—estimated at €81 billion—one of the richest and diverse on the planet.

Light cut as a sword through the iconic violence scattered before him when his secretary adjusted the blinds on a massive window overlooking Frankfurt, Germany, from the 48th floor of the Messeturm. It was time to go. He stood, felt a tweed jacket that matched his cap slip over his shoulders, and made his way to the door.

The entire floor belonged to Czes, and was the locus of business conducted by the Comte Foundation: a band of organizations that collectively controlled the European Union’s technology market, with a special focus on human augmentation through a combination of robotics, wetware, and genetic engineering.

...



Three minutes later, when the service elevator doors opened for Czes, the square of white light they formed dispersed into a vast room dimly outlined by red LEDs arranged in sharp geometric patterns on the otherwise bare concrete walls. Nothing seemed capable of penetrating the indistinct blackness at the chamber’s center, so all he could see for the while was a ramp that led down from his feet and another far afield that led up to a large bay door.

He stepped down into shadows, the doors closed behind him, and for a while he closed his eyes and hummed.

When he opened his eyes, the scene was changed—that is, from his perspective. Nothing had actually happened in the interim, save that the cones and rods in his eyes had adjusted to the lack of readily available illumination. So, instead of a pit of darkness, he saw an elegant machine, feline in structure, covered in hundreds of blotches similar to the markings of a jaguar, except these were the emblems of companies that comprised the Comte Foundation. Where there wasn’t a blotch, there was the mercurial ooze of nanobot armor overlay that clung to intricate titanium barding wrapped around the machine’s flexible tungsten endo-skeleton.

Tungsten, Czes had learned, was one of the few materials that can interface with organisms on a molecular level, so in a way this wasn’t a machine at all, but a living creature.

Eventually, his eyes focused, and they followed the curve of its neck upward, where he observed the platinum-embossed logos of BMW, Virgin, and Stryker, to the center of its forehead, which was dominated by the symbol of the Abditory: a teardrop being cut by a sword.

When he approached, the tank-sized contraption knelt down and opened its mouth.

He entered with two thoughts in his mind:

‘Damn, this thing is so cool!’ and ‘Nothing can hurt me in here’—like Nascar meets Transformers meets Beast Wars.

He intended to be fashionably late to his political summit in Geneva, Switzerland.

Out of the Ordinary
> 0 Clout
> 1 Intellect :: hundreds of years of experience
> 2 Magic :: immortality, blood magic, hexes, and access to other planes of existence
> -1 Physical :: perpetual prepubescence
> 1 Technological :: extensive interaction with technology

Beyond the Veil of Flesh
> a constellation of a baby jaguar sound asleep beneath a shooting star, morphing into a Möbius strip and back, -- placed by Ximbic-8 on his left hand in deep radiant crimson.

A human lawyer, and a resident of New Terra, Lionel Duperie was the prosecution attorney in the war crimes trial executed against Ryand-Smith, which resulted in the conviction of the accused. The events of those proceedings are recorded in the headline article A Vindictive Sunset, written by the syndicated journalist Erin Heigaard of the Terran-Sun Tribune. Following the ground-breaking trial, after his fall from notoriety, Lionel returned to his pro bono work. Thereafter, in one of his more aggravating defeats, he represented Will, a lycanthrope who had been taken advantage of by the Red Technocracy pornnet. With a poor case and little evidence to support his client's claims, the judgment did not go well. Unfortunately, it was also a high-profile case, and it earned Lionel the reputation of a lame duck attorney.

Due to the poor reputation he acquired, Lionel moved from New Terra to Earth-F67X, where he was hired as a corporate attorney for The Abditory, a mysterious collection of wide-spread corporations run by Czes Schäfer.

Out of the Ordinary
> 1 Clout :: law talker
> 1 Intellect :: knows how to work a system
> 0 Magic
> 0 Physical
> 0 Technological

Beyond the Veil of Flesh
> scales of justice superimposed on a shield glow in white lines on his right palm.

Age: 32
Gender: Male
Species: H. sapiens
Faction: United Earth Confederation


Tristan is muscular, tall, and dark. Once a pale redhead, a single night changed his life, and he became dark as a lump of coal. An imposing, threatening, impressively-sculpted masterpiece of compacted carbon. Every surface of his body is hairless and smooth, he lacks finger and toenails, and even his eyes are light-devouring abysses. The only thing that makes him seem remotely human anymore is his friendly Aussie accent and white, toothy smile. His wardrobe is always appropriate to the culture and the occasion.


Drunken frat would describe the first half of Tristan’s twenties; the second half was characterized by painful rehabilitation from an accident and a devout sense of service to Mobius Corps. He became very serious, stern, and situation-appropriate. Every moment was an opportunity for tactical analysis, be it participating in lounge jokes or slaughtering enemies on the field. He blended in to life like a chameleon, participating just enough to not seem out of place but not so much as to be memorable. This has lent itself to the loss of many of his friends and the termination of several close relationships.


UEC; Metaphysical Mastery, a deep understanding of the laws of metaphysics and reference frame dynamics (see Department of Metaphysics) of Mind stimulation; capacity to nullify all non-real, non-empirical, or illogical intrusions on personal reference frame, an extension of his mental conditioning at Mobius Corps.


Mobius Corps Advanced Training in the fields of Asian and South American martial arts, advanced interrogation techniques, motorboating, code-breaking, hot wiring, piloting, and other skills that an operative on the field is expected to know.

Recovery Augmentations, applied in a series of medical procedures subsequent to the fire, have given Tristan several advantages.

• Nano-material skin presents unique advantages over the norm, including resistance to environmental factors such as temperature, and resilience against ballistic and martial threats.
• Nerve-numbing therapy, scar tissue, and the fire damage has made Tristan all but unable to feel pleasurable or painful stimuli. In tandem with his mental conditioning at Mobius Corps, he can further suppress his nerves to where he feels nothing at all.
• Tristan’s genetically engineered and lab-grown black eyes engage vaster reaches of the visual spectrum than what a normal human is allotted, and based on neural impulses can switch to different visuals, including heat-sensing, night vision, and infrared.

Mobius Corps Stock The Beacon A small, typically weapon-mounted scanner, which synchronizes specific coordinate submissions across a network of multiple amplifiers found around Earth-F67X. Heavily encrypted, all signals eventually trickle into New Roswell. Given authorization, access to New Roswell’s warp capabilities, satellite control, and other services and equipment of the military base are readily available.

Mobius Corps Stock T-22 Super Suit A skin-tight suit made of an incredibly flexible polymer, the T-22 is capable of sustaining heavy damage and mitigating combat encumbrances. Regular damage is lessened, and it enhances the wearer’s natural strength, speed, and other physiological and neurological functions.

• Camouflage - Activated by neural impulse, the metamaterials of the T-22 Super Suit warp the flow of light, causing it to become completely invisible to sensors that rely on the radiant spectrum’s wavelength feedback. A side-effect of this is immunity to harmful frequencies of light, such as gamma and microwaves.
• Adrenal Enhancer – A vial utilizing microcomputers to track adrenaline levels, providing stabilization and quick boosts. Large, controlled influxes of adrenaline can increase bodily capabilities to border on super-strength and speed without provoking arrhythmia or other muscular side-effects.
• Backup Bioforce - In lieu of life-force, bio-force, which is contained in a life-imbued serum, extends bodily capabilities through otherwise lethal circumstances. It can be used as a healing agent and is capable of repairing even major wounds.

Connectivity Module A tripod with a small palm reader (a device that interprets user intent by recognizing patterns in the user’s hand when pressed against it) and an internal encryption mechanism that collapses for storage purposes into a small ball of roughly an inch in diameter. Through space-collapsing algorithms, the Connectivity Module can communicate with and teleport weaponry weighing under 20kg to and from Mobius Corps central headquarters in New Roswell.

Cycle Rifle A 35kg heavy, 120cm long rifle named Circe, in reference to the deceptive goddess in Homer’s Odyssey. This weapon has a cyclic base and two barrels, a 36 caliber and mortar barrel, thus its designation as a cycle rifle, that have to be manually calibrated to achieve one mode at any given time. Its internal firing mechanism is electronic impulse, although built-in are biochemical reaction and magnetic acceleration backups. Various combinations of barrel and cycle type yield short and long range:

• 36-caliber munitions, consisting of: chain detonation shells, which rearrange exploding biomass into similarly-behaving charges, with diminishes returns of nine percent per-chain; standard armor-piercing rounds; voltage rounds, which unleash a burst of electromagnetism on impact.
• Mortar munitions, consisting of: heavy shotgun shells; tracking-capable anti-armor shells; plague mortars; standard explosives; standard grenades.
• Standard positron pulse, which, depending on its barrel association, can emit a wide or focused ejection of positrons.
• Electronic countermeasures, which, depending on its barrel association, can emit a wide or focused ejection of electromagnetic activity.
• Synthetic decomposition beam, which, depending on the barrel association, can emit a wide or focused ejection of energy that decomposes synthetics, such as plastics, rubbers, alloys, etcetera.

After an evening of binge drinking, Tristan collapsed into a stupor on the bed of his apartment and awoke hours later as a victim to a near-fatal arson, which resulted in the loss of his eyes, tongue, hair, fingernails, and most of his skin. Mobius Corps, which had recruited him a year earlier, chose further investment rather than writing him off as a loss, and replaced his skin with a material made of carbon nano-fiber. Likewise, he received genetically-engineered, test-tube grown eye transplants and went through nerve-numbing therapy to alleviate the pain of daily life, although the latter severely diminished his tactile function. After five years of therapy, Tristan returned to being a fully-functioning operative, and believes the fire has made him a more-effective assassin and put him in a better position to achieve Mobius Corps’ objectives.

Almost a decade later, Tristan was assigned a high risk mission involving the capture of the Technocrat outpost Xenophore. There, he helped establish a beachhead, destroyed the enemy's off-world shipyards on Castus and Reach, and helped coordinate the offensive against the critical point of Harlan Station.

It was during the organization of the Xenophore offensive that he became aware of pursuit by Caine, a high-tier being far more powerful than himself. He led Caine on a wild goose chase throughout intermittent phenomenological polarity shifts that culminated in the Technocrat headquarters in a bunker underneath the heart of Harlan Station. There, he witnessed the murder of the Technocrat general commander, General Walter Moore, shot at Caine with a chain-detonation shell, witnessed it hit, turned, and ran. He managed to escape the building, but was slain by shrapnel from heavy mortar strike against the building he was hiding behind.

He never learned that the campaign against Xenophore was a success.

Lately, Mobius has been putting a great deal of efforts into cloning him, albeit without much success.

Just your average busker-cum-mercenary from the streets and slums of Careo Fas, smelliest planet in the outer ring. He conceals his armaments under a gilt-trim crimson Technocrat officer jacket. Beneath that, he wears nanofiber mail combat fatigues that are remarkably scratch, slice, stab, projectile, and stain resistant; sometimes they even serve as camouflage. Around his waist is a utility belt, ornamented by both plasma and concussion grenades, trip wire, throwing knives, and duct tape. Slung across his back is his homemade plasma rifle, equipped with iridium capsules and an adjustable nozzle. Quite a few other things also weigh him down, mostly looted off the bodies of his victims. Well, let’s be honest, they were mostly victims of bad luck.

• The Ghetto—a plasma rifle that has been rigged, jigged, and repaired so many times that it looks like it is more lethal to the person using it than their target.
• Chapel—.442 caliber automatic gauss electromagnetic rail pistol with a phase-shift magazine that transmutes atmosphere into ammunition.
• PI-PSA45-K—.45 caliber handgun with a high-frequency bayonet, flash light, and laser sight containing 12 explosive cobalt-tipped rounds in its clip.
• Megumi Sakura—wakizashi, reflective as a mirror and tomb of an ice elemental, she has routed armies with her icy floes.
• Keefe—war sword, crafted by the Xindi, carved with runes, and drenched in an ominous shroud of dread and decay; have no doubt, Keefe will carve spirit as readily as flesh.
• Rhiannon—seax (long, thick knife) exuding a black mist that can solidify into a shield of sorcery at the bearer’s whim.
• High-frequency Blade—katana vibrating in the ultrasonic, a factor that overcomes even the toughest of physical obstacles.

Under his ratty blond hair and over his dopey green eyes are designer shades that doubtlessly cause every girl within eyeshot become as moist as the ambiance ascending from his pits.

Whoops. That last bit is just nerves.


Having gathered just enough money for a ticket out of heck, after his loathsome beginnings at Careo Fas, Spencer went to the spaceport. He had no real plans, but they went up in smoke when a terrorist group bombed the facility before he even opened the door to step in. Unscathed, he did his best to take care of the wounded, but was driven off by their uncharitable nature. On his way back to his flat in the less affluent region of Careo Fas, he heard a shooting at a bar, and curiosity drove him in. There, a gunman thrust a weapon in his hands and told him to kill anyone who came by. He stood there in shock, and eventually someone did venture close enough to witness what had transpired there. Afraid, he shot the woman in the shoulder and ran.

Fortunately, that is the night war erupted. In the confusion, he managed to make his way as a stowaway aboard a freighter, which left him on the planet Terra in an interesting city called Southern Sea. From there, he was recruited by a man named Tersan Rogut, given clothes and armaments, and trained as an assassin with an affinity for energy rifles.

There are many exploits Spencer engaged in under Tersan's direction, especially those involving a lycanthrope named Will who had numerous run-ins with the Red Technocracy. The two would pose as pimp and product, and try to lure high-ranking members of the Technocracy into a disreputable situation. This resulted in quite a few questionable videos and pictures of Will being strewn across the Red Technocracy pornnet.

After a series of strange, psychotic dreams, Tersan made sure Spencer started taking some anti-psychotropic medication. Injected in the buttocks. Spencer wasn't a huge fan of being held down by Tersan and stabbed with a horse needle, but the medication did get the job done.

In the aftermath of these dreams, Spencer took up residence in Wing City and became a drunk, gambler, and a man of high-reputation and ill-repute. His many exploits there include urinating on a machine named Cuddles and escaping due to a Goldbergian series of events that sent him into the sewer below the Gambit's Bar, from which he was later rescued by Rin and Motoko, machines constructed by Ryand-Smith. After being informed of his assault on the robot, he created a nice apology card out of construction paper and colored sparkle-glue and forwarded it on to Cuddles. He never did receive a response.

From Wing City, Spencer ended up on Valhalla. At least, he thinks that was it. As a drunk stripper, it was too much to remember. Then a man named Loinel reconnected with him and offered him a job as an informant working for The Abdictory. Not hard; right? Not really. A frequent planet hopper, he got in a fight in Allure City on Fortis and, the next day, woke up in Allure City on Earth. Under siege. Well, he high-tailed it to his friend’s apartment, went into the back room, and hit the city-wide EMP, passed out, woke up, ran outside, and got teleported to safety just moments before an antimatter nuke hit the city.

Out of the Ordinary
> 0 Clout
> 0 Intellect
> 4 Magic :: unusually good luck ensures success in his endeavors
> 1 Physical :: street busker born and raised, always on the run
> 2 Technological :: can figure out any weapon on-the-fly

Beyond the Veil of Flesh
> Ximbic-8 inspected Spencer Tras’ soul and marked his right ass cheek with a radiant glyph: six-sided diamond dice rolling through a line of cocaine on a skank’s taint and scoring double sevens.

Aliases: from those too terrified to utter its name emerge the descriptive monikers of The Herald of Insanity and The Horror of Colossus.

Age: born in the tumult of the Val’Gara civil war
Gender: indecipherable
Species: Val’Gara, Son of Idea, Herald
Character Tier: High
Character Type: Critical
Faction: Val’Gara

What burst forth from Colossus’ hemorrhaging grottoes was an incomprehensible sea of pungent filth, so vast as to create a false horizon. Neither merely Herald nor Idea’s spawn, the abhorrent fusion of those roles roiled into the verse to realize its mother’s ambitions. A fiend named Tsathoskr, neath its shadow vast cities were wholly barred from the natural light of their stars and instead lain bare by the ruinous glare its profligate maws and lidless eyes: organs that aimlessly gouged the slick film of its offal-hued hide. Translucent bubbles likewise vexed its surface as they surged and withered, as though its skin were a mantle of pitch-infused fire. Black vapors flowed along these, myriad phantasms born from the first as nightmares. For all that, it could neither be seen nor unseen, as each weird shadow and baleful silhouette refused to linger, lit only for horrible instants where reality and insanity so easily collide; suggestions of an insidious dream defined by unsettling cyan auroras and malicious crimson flashes.

Mire struck Colossus, and she was rent.

Inchoate, the storm of mud and malice splattered the felled spires that littered Colossus’ primordial husk. Meanly sundered, she, the acme of monstrous might and culmination of malformation, quaked. Mother goddess to the primal horde, who held herself aloof in manifold enigmas, drowned in filth. It began as a rain of countless frozen clots that punched through her rheumy atmosphere, artifacts of Mire’s passage from the cold of the void into Sal’Chazzar’s unnatural light. With the missiles’ increase, the gray obscuration of her putrid veil waned to tatters, as though devoured by cosmic moths. Her hide grew weary. In contrast, as it neared, each and every chunk torn by tidal forces from Mire’s thawed body became more vast and torrid. No longer icy darts, instead gargantuan planetoids cloaked in flames and incensed with bioforce pummeled Colossus’ armor and, smashed to molten pools on impact, gathered together and poured as an uncorked ocean into her depths.

Colossus was rent, but Mire was no more, its final vestige a diminishing sea of dirt, rock, and sludge that churned violently on the mightier world’s surface in futile defiance of complete annihilation.

Drop by gritty drop, in dark places, where the ultramundane bred with atrocities unfathomable, where gods refused to set their gaze, the flesh and blood of Mire descended. There, wherein base cauldrons fermented innumerable the spores of Colossus’ currish progeny, it mated with foulness unknowable. Mud, rife with the sentience of a a planet, a million cataclysm, a dozen heralds—slain but not wholly obliterated by Autun’s wrath—were acted on by the obscene actions of her planetary womb.

Mire, no more; but out of its destruction came life.

A baby was born.

A baby … that burst forth from Colosssus’ deepest cavities like a fountain of vomit and pitch, a spray of grotesqueries that blinked and screamed and damned all who might oppose the will of the Val’Gara.

• The Stile—Faultless, solid, and dull, The Stile, to appearances, is a black metallic band. To its symbolism, it serves as a restraint, but just as often is a gateway to worlds unknown. With it, the possessor can will itself across vast distances with only a thought. Were Idea to revive, the possessor would become the possessed, its location subject to the deity’s whim.

• The Sextant—As with The Stile, The Sextant is utterly utilitarian in design, composed of the same dark metal, and has the same matte finish. It is a saber-like blade that can erupt from Tsathoskr like a harpoon. While an efficient means of skewering opposition, it serves two other important roles: first, it issues a focused beam of destruction and decay, so whatever it hits disintegrates and initiates a plague of matter erosion; second, and the source of its designation, it can attune celestial bodies to its alignment, shift them according to the possessor’s will, or cause the very constellations to whirl in a panorama of chaos.

• Belial’s Toybox—Along with The Stile and The Sextant, hidden away in one of the many alcoves within the Epiphany Storm is Belial’s Toybox.
  
  Unfathomably dark, like a smoke-shrouded coal aflame in black fire, that nightmarish aperture is the epitome of seduction and distraction on the battlefield. Its Siren’s scream penetrates the length and breadth of galaxies with confusion, clouds minds, and vanquishes order. Inevitably, the relic’s lure maligns the most intimate intentions of its victims, infects them with base desires, and fuses their psyche into a faceless whore who flails them with the nigh-irresistible urge to draw nearer to their tormentor.
  
  For those who see it—who feel its infernal power vibrate over their mortal flesh—its apparent purpose crescendos with the seizure of their spiritual energy. Helpless in its abominable surge, they are abased to bodies, with neither spark nor predilection, awaiting the harvest of their bioforce.
  
  Attack is futile, for it drinks all, consumes all, absorbs all. Energy vanishes in its insidious gullet, munitions break apart like rape victims at a clown festival, and tendrils of psionic power spiral terminally into its void.
  
  Despite the tragedies born of its call, Belial’s Toybox was not forged for the mere crippling of civilizations to the passé end of bioforce acquisition; nor is the verve taken from its prey stupidly lost. They are fuel to an engine of Idea’s cruelest notions: a transformative engine that replaces the old, decaying multiverse and its members with the perfection of the Val’Gara. In its fell grasp, planets blossom as bloody lotuses strung from infinite lattices of neurological twine, empty space springs verdant, and adversaries open their eyes as brethren of the General Cataclysm.
  
  All connected, all unified, all … one.

• Foglet Armor—Source of the strange manifestations and black smoke that obscure the viscous flood that passes for its body, Tsathoskr’s foglet armor reacts to situations via instruction or its own volition, forming additional appendages and even breaking away in small black clouds. The greater the destruction, the more powerful this offensive shield. When it comes into contact with a perceived threat, it will almost instantly break it down to raw materials and convert those into additional nanomachines.

• Val’Garan Psi (Psyhic) Networking High—Tsathoskr may share its dominant trait with any sized group of NPCs, providing them access to its Apergy ability at an effectiveness suitable to their level. Furthermore, if other Heralds or Sons of Idea are present on the battlefield, it may share its dominant traits with them and, likewise, receive the benefit of their dominant traits.

• Warmonger—As with most Sons of Idea, Tsathoskr is able to move millions of General Cataclysm throughout the vast reaches of space to spread the will of the Val’Gara, relentlessly sieging alien worlds and clashing with enemy armadas. Beasts the size of TerraCrusher to tiny incubating skitterers sleep in stasis until the time is ripe to burst forth from one of its many iridescent pustules.

• Sal’Chazzar’s Light—From manufactured interstices, Tsathoskr gives vent to the same luminous green-blue bioforce that illuminates Val’Gara space. Capable of both creation or destruction, discharges of this energy vastly alter the substances with which it comes into contact; buildings crumble, deserts erupt into forests, saints go mad and murder orphans under their care, and spirits crawl forth from the grave and take physical form.

• The Sound of Insanity—Shrill noises emanate from Tsathoskr, striking both body and soul and crippling those who hear it with the most caustic offerings their memories possess. Meanwhile, the bone-shattering frequency pummels their body, blacks out their vision, and churns up the space around them until their nostrils fill with the putrescence of a recently-flooded graveyard.

• Kinetosis—The superposition of extra-dimensional stimuli into sensory range can form an incomprehensible phantasmagoria that overwhelms the observer and induces a state of nausea, confusion, and claustrophobia.

• Apergy (Dominant Trait)—Gravity’s natural opposite, Apergy is the outward spread of ripples on the fabric of space-time resultant from a sudden release of tension. Tsathoskr forces this release when it shifts mass—a more localized tensile factor than universal expansion—between dimensions. Often, this mass is not directly observable, but nevertheless forms a gravity well, such as dark matter. Like an invisible drill, it can bore holes in planets; like a hidden morning star, it can crush resistance to dust.

• Adaptive Digestion—Tsathoskr perpetually oozes a corrosive, viscous sludge, which coats all the bits and pieces making up its grotesque, indecipherable body. Depending on the chosen adaptation, this substance can consume nearly any material it comes in contact with, be it in a matter of seconds or over the course of several hours.

• Blood and Thunder—Electric current, produced by a chemical process within its digestive system, courses throughout every millimeter of Tsathoskr, and can be exercised to great effect against its foes in a devastating outpouring of energy that emits a jagged burst of super-heated plasma surrounded by an aura of high-frequency gamma and microwave bursts. Even if it doesn’t score a direct hit, the residual damage to organ or circuit board integrity will likely be crippling and, without treatment, eventually fatal.

• Ceaseless Growth—So long as Tsathoskr consumes, it grows. There is no limitation on the size it may eventually attain.

• Binary Fission—Splitting into two perfect physical copies of itself, the Horror of Colossus may truly be in two places at one time. This process may repeat ad infinitum. However, due to the bond of spirit, after a period of time, lest they be hibernating, its divisions must either again become whole or forever lost.

• The Epiphany Storm—Once on Mire, which ascended into the living world Tithonus, then was split in twain with the lesser thrown into Colossus, the Epiphany Storm now resides within Tsathoskr’s bowels. From its midst, an incessant cascade of acid rain rushes into the gullet of a disproportionately massive storm. Currents of green smoke and streaks of ash color the strenuously spinning maelstrom, and its lofty capitals ascend through violent displays of lightning to divide the Son of Idea’s aura from the vacuum of space. To a lesser extent, amethyst ribbons of twisted psionic energy race amidst the confusion, serving to cloud the judgment of any interloper and anchor the storm in the sea of space, time, slime, and sinew.
  
  Underneath the screaming mantle of the cyclone heaves a thick layer of heavy fog, where the very air is rife with the Vesuvian Virus and cruel phantasms writhe on ivory walls at all sides. The only sound in that place is the steady slap of waves, which swells in volume as one descends through the veil. Occasionally, the silhouette of an outcropping of rock penetrates the great sea of Tsathoskr’s digestive fluid, and upon those languishing isles await battalions of newborn Val’Gara—soldiers of the General Cataclysm. Yet the tide steadily devours those, pulling everything into the irresistible current of the whirlpool at its center—a bottomless pit, forever bound to the Astral Plane, where the Caves of Creation once were.
  
  Within that brutal compression chamber of sea sludge and brine-thick water, new Sons of Idea incubate, forged from the biomass of Tsathoskr’s victims. Deeper still, in the nigh-unreachable depths, the astral gates have combined into a great portal, which keep the storm constant and fill the torrent-carved alcoves round-about with an unabated flow of resources. Opposite that portal, within the astral realm, rages an equally fierce storm that shreds the spiritual energy within, an airborne strain of the Vesuvian Virus splitting and recombining souls with the fury of boiling blood and the darkness of Teachery’s abyss.

Name: Himebabi Juan Moartyme
Title: UFP Lifetime Board Member, Major General of the UFP Defense Force
Height: 175 cm
Weight: 80 kg
Age: 250 planetary orbits around its host star
Race: Humanoid
Tier ^{( EH )}: Low; Augmented and Trained Humanoid
Group(s) ^{( EH )} : United Federation of Planets

Appearance: Hair and eyes like a rust-ripe stream, skin ruddy as ground millet, shoulders broad, chin square, and back straight, Himebabi is strikingly forgettable in his every-man appearance. Well-groomed, face shaven clean, and ever adorned in suit and tie, he is of the tidiest disposition. The only memorable peculiarity of his appearance is his prosthetic left arm which, while shaped like a human limb, is covered in a layer of translucent white silicone and inset with copper circuits.

Personality: Firm, taciturn, and polished, Himebabi is the very model of a modern major general. Cool-minded, level-headed, his temper seldom ignites through to the surface of his otherwise placid demeanor.

Abilities, Talents, Traits, Powers:

• Guarded Mind -- Trained by monks from the planet Ecetopia, the only ability Himebabi possesses is a mind as well-warded as he is laconic. Mental attacks and malfeasance are utterly impotent against him to where is he unable to perceive such underhanded and unmannerly assaults as anything other than everyday obnoxious stimuli.

Items:

• Suit & Tie -- expertly tailored, this inconspicuous attire is ballistic blocking, puncture proof, anti-conductive, spectral diffusing, and supremely expensive. As such, the wearer is safe from light gunfire, bladed misadventures, electromagnetic maladies, and laser light.

• Prosthetic Arm -- milky white and translucent, one can almost see the titanium endoskeleton through the prosthetic's flexible silicone sheath. Copper wires connect its solenoids, fueled by micro-fusion generators, to his nervous system and also power a clandestine defense mechanism: a small plate set into the palm that can release a pulse of up to 1,000,000 joules of electrostatic energy.

• Biomuscular Implants -- as with any soldier, Himebabi's musculoskeleture is augmented with implants that bolster his strength and reflexes. He can lift up to 1,000 kg, run almost a 2 minute mile, and pluck a gnat out of the air without doing it harm.

History: Himebabi is a career soldier and heir to an important and wealthy family. Despite being a member of the aristocracy, he earned his way up the ranks of the military and served with valor. After losing his arm, his role transitioned from active duty to strategic command where his brilliant mind quickly elevated him to the rank of general. The same cannot be said regarding his luck, if it can be considered such, in becoming a member of the board, which was just as much to do with pull as it was his qualifications as a tactician and pragmatist.

Name: Valdyrdólg
Title: The War Dog
Height: 146 cm
Weight: 110 kg
Age: a thousand thousand moons waxed since the night these bones clawed forth from the grave
Race: Skeletal Direhound
Influence: 3 (regional); Animated Canine Corpse
Group(s): The Lycholme Cultists

Appearance: the towering skeleton of a direwolf, clung to by tatters of decaying fur and flesh, this menacing predator gazes forth with crimson motes hovering in the midst of its skull's orbits. Rust-tinged black armor clings implausibly to its back, forearms, and brow, secured by supermundane or subdaemonic forces.

Personality: Territorial, visceral, and violent, this beast will attack on the slightest pretext.

Abilities, Talents, Traits, Powers:

• ^{( 3 )} Howl -- an otherworldly vociferation that chills bone and rattles will, this howl is loud enough to temporarily deafen those near and be heard above the din of a great battle. The menacing tone lingers in the mind, breeding fear, doubt, and distraction.

• ^{( 2 )} Death Speech -- limited to barks, growls, and howls in life, the direwolf, in death, manifests its thoughts in a language understood by all, not by way of tongue, but via ghostly intonations reminescent of bones scraping bones and wind rustling pines in the dead of winter.

• ^{( 3 )} Undead -- even if its armor is cast aside and its bones strewn about, its damned spirit will eventually gather together the pieces and assemble again the whole.

Items:

• ^{( 3 )} Svartr -- grimy, dirt-caked, and flecked with rust and blood, this black armor held in place by the damned soul of a former life protects the wearer from crushing blows that would otherwise shatter bone. Similarly, the blackguard spirit that pervades its essence consumes light, deflects fire, and inflicts rot into living things that alight on its surface.

History: From the ruins of an unmarked grave amidst a swamp of gore from a battle ages past clawed forth a metal-girded beast of bone. Its semi-rational mind awakened, it now seeks to inflict pain on those who might have used it as a tool in its past. Even then, little pretext is needed to incite its ire and engage its teeth and claws.

Xenomisia-tainted patriotism smoldered in bosoms world-wide in the aftermath of the Iberian Incident, an event typified by Allure City's unprecedented manifestation and apparent permanency of presence, and that dark humor was poignantly exhibited in the subsequent surge of young men and women recruited into Earth-F67X's armed services. Born twenty-two years prior, Dom, a young man, although phenotypically female, was one such individual and his hatred of aliens ran deep. Recent events, for him, merely galvanized a long-present undercurrent of rage toward extraterrestrial intelligence after their first incursion, known as the First Contact War, left his father and hero on disability with permanent paralyzing nerve damage along the left side of his body. Pride in his father's sacrifice made Dom's military career all but inevitable. The deaths of millions of Spaniards merely accelerated the timetable. Within weeks of graduating air force boot camp and being assigned to Lakehurst Air Force Base as an O1 drone operator, he was recruited into the anti-alien hate group Honorable Knights of Terra (HKT) and helped brainstorm their slogan "MEGA -- Make Earth Great Again."

Appearance: While relatively small of stature and structurally androgynous, Dom does his best to project masculinity, sometimes to the extent that it is obnoxious. With irises as dark as his black hair and humor, his gaze is steady, haircut trimmed close to the scalp, and jokes obscene. Three hours in the gym each day along with hormone therapy make up for the remaining shortcomings of his unfortunately female body; thus, his secret pride and joy are his abs, biceps, ever-deepening voice, and the fine dusting of black hair on his upper lip -- all at the relatively minor cost of some acne scarring on his cheeks that he is convinced make him look even more rugged.

Height: 160 cm
Weight: 66 kg
Age: (23, Gaslands), (22, Unsolicited Invasion), (12, Neo-Chinatown)
Ethnicity: Latinx
Profession: Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Operator, Second Lieutenant (O1), Lakehurst AFB
Sex: Famale-to-Male Transitioning

x0.308 Belkrait: a standard military officer-issued service revolver with a 5-score drip magazine of molten lead ammunition. Biometrically engaged, it may be fired line-of-sight or on a phase-shifting oscillation pattern. The latter is designed to bypass both magical and physical barriers and teleports the full force of the projectile directly inside the target lock location, although activation depth can be calibrated to circumvent thicker buffers. Lock is achieved via laser analysis and the quantum entanglement of the projectile's energy envelope with an atomic cluster in the target structure. If a melee situation arises, the Belkrait can deploy electro-static pulse barbs at the bottom of the grip and, alongside the barrel, twin vibro-blade bayonets. GPS coordinates trackable by military police.

Out of the Ordinary

> 1 Clout :: HTK member and military officer
> 0 Intellect
> 0 Magic
> 1 Physical :: active military in good physical condition
> 2 Technological :: extensive drone and arms training