Mol's CS Thing

[Mcmolly]

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[Mcmolly]

_{5'1" | 110lbs | Icy Blue / Bright Blue | Black / Deep Blue}

"Oh, the stories I could tell about you."

Appearance:

Short and spindly, there’s undoubtedly halfling in Lilann’s blood, just not enough to matter. Tainted is what you see, from the blue skin and curved horns, to the bright eyes and tail. Her parents could have been Gnomes, she’d still be cursed—and shorter.

So she’s gone out of her way to ensure the first thing people notice about her is something else. She wears a hat many times too big for her head, and often dons a thin, painted mask when performing. Her coat is thickly furred and its layers are manifold. The blue hair, which falls in abundance down her back and about her shoulders like a drape, also grabs attention as a sign of aetherborn abnormality.

Name:

Lilann Storyborn (Formerly Livean Shol)

Age:

18

Gender:

Female

Classification (Aetherborn Only):

Genesian, Alteration

Abnormality:

Lilann’s abnormality presents as a sort of localized bioluminescence. When exposed directly to light, she seems to absorb and diffuse it to her hair and her eyes. Her hair, normally a soft black, takes on a bold, deep blue hue, and her dim, icy eyes become azure lamps. She does appear to exhibit some level of control over this, able to burn through the stored light quickly, usually to ensure she isn’t disturbing others at night. As well, wearing her hat cuts back on the absorption significantly.

Personality:

Despite being a storyteller, Lilann is just as adept a listener as she is a speaker—it’s other people’s stories she’s telling, after all. She is insatiably curious and fiendishly persistent, but not impolite. She maneuvers through most conversations with fair amounts of charm and wit, and enjoys studying the people she meets, scrutinizing them as if they might be the subject of her next tale. If she weren’t a Tainted she would be called “charismatic,” and might have eventually found herself neck deep in the intrigue of the noble courts, whispering into the ears of the rich and powerful.

Beneath the generally friendly demeanor is a bitter, cunning cynicism. For all the work she’s done forging people into heroes, she still expects them to fail, not just in their duties but in their actions as well. She expects them to fail as people, because the truth is that Lilann does not believe in heroes, only heroism, and heroism is fleeting. In a way her stories are games, and they’re rigged, because no matter the length, no matter the path, no matter the triumphs, the endings are always disappointing.

She makes sure of it.

Bio:

The question is always, “Where to begin?” Finnagund is much too early, but to pick up in Dranir would be missing the point. Better instead that we start in that liminal space where warm plains become cold stone, and blue skies become gray. Where given names shed themselves to become names chosen. Where endings become beginnings.

Yes, we’ll leave young miss Livean out of this, for all sakes. Her story was brief, and would make for poor conversation.

Lilann’s began at the age of eleven, in a cart bound for Dragon Rock. She was a pitiful thing, without coin or direction, shivering in clothes unfit for Dranirian weather. The other passengers were little better—transients leaving Finnagund, ironically, in search of greener pastures. The fact that these pastures lay in the inhospitable mountains of a land wracked by civil war should tell you plenty about their circumstances. Among them was a man named Oranwulf, who had been hired on as the sole protector. His armor was dented, his sword poorly cared for, and the first words out of his mouth were lies about the scars on his face, which were numerous but unflattering, though they could hardly make him uglier than he already was. Not a famed, seasoned knight by any means, but then, you get what you pay for.

Those of you that frequent taverns in southern Dranir might recognize that name—we were getting to that, but perhaps it’s best if we skip the part you already know, and jump to the truth. The truth is that, when the pair of giants attacked, Oranwulf hid in the cart, and became trapped beneath it when it was flipped over, along with our own Tainted girl. Twelve passengers were reduced to five before one of the giants fell, entirely by accident, over the side of the cliff chasing after the survivors. While the remaining giant picked through the carnage , Lilann had what we could call a, “growing moment.” Still a young and inexperienced aetherborn, she only managed to infuse the wreckage with a sliver of her own aether. Blessedly, that was enough. The cart didn’t fly off into the air, or explode, or turn into dust, but it did lighten enough for Oranwulf to create a gap—which he would have dropped right back onto her had she not scrambled out ahead of him. Under cover of the fog, they ran for Dragon Rock.

And that was that. No, Oranwulf the Brave did not push one of the giants off the cliff and face the other alone, nor did he catch its blade with a single hand, and cleave its head from its shoulders. He was not a man of “peerless valor and mettle,” and the Fated Empress did not “weave a stitch in her pattern to accommodate his honorable path.” The first thing he did at Dragon Rock was threaten to break Lilann’s neck if she ever told anyone what had happened. The second thing he did was beat the snot out of her to ensure she knew he was serious. Then he went and got terribly drunk.

“But that’s not his name—” Shh. We’re getting there.

The reality is that Oranwulf’s story didn’t truly begin until almost a week later. Lilann had found work in a tavern sweeping floors and running drinks, and one day she saw a familiar face. It was one of the other passengers who had fled early into the attack. When they pressed her for answers, Lilann, fearing retribution from Oranwulf, lied.

No, the story of Oranwulf the Brave did not spring to life from the words of an eleven-year-old. Lilann Storyborn is good, but she didn’t start out that good. She told the survivor that Oranwulf had not hidden, but rather, he had tried to protect her. One of the giants had fallen, and while the other was distracted, Oranwulf struck it down. It was vague enough to be believable, at least to the drunken ears listening, and she figured that would be the end of it. Not so. Days later she heard that same story spill from the mouth of a complete stranger to a tableful of his friends, only the details were different. Oranwulf had not simply saved a little Tainted whelp, but all of the survivors as well. He hadn’t snuck up on the giant, he had challenged it boldly, and parried its blows as though they had been swung with the strength of a halfling. A nearby patron, overhearing this, chided the man for fudging the details, and corrected that Oranwulf had not parried, but blocked the strikes outright, matching the giant muscle for muscle—he had heard this from his friend, who had allegedly been on that fated cart, and whose words were thus beyond reproach.

This fascinated Lilann, who even then could see that a hero’s legend was budding right before her eyes, from a seed sewn by her own hands. Over the next weeks Oranwulf’s story continued to morph, and all the while she listened, learning which embellishments were more readily believed and which were waved off and discarded, seeing how far the truth could be stretched before it passed into bold-faced fable, and then, which fables sunk and which fables were met with toasts and hearty laughter.

The next time Lilann wove Oranwulf’s story, it was from the golden threads plucked from a hundred different iterations. The giants struck on the back of an icy morning fog, slaughtering the driver and all four of the mercenary protectors. While the passengers scattered, Oranwulf took up a fallen blade, sliced a giant’s ankle and sent it hurtling over the cliff. The last charged him, roaring with bloody fury, but Oranwulf stood strong. He was a man of unshakable faith, so confident in the will of the Fated Empress that he held up only his hand for protection. As the cleaver came down, it was stopped upon his palm by the fateful strings of Lady Azaiza herself, and with a single swing, Oranwulf severed the giant’s head. In the aftermath, he pulled an Elven girl of five from the wreckage, who to this day lives happily with her mother in Relfin.

It landed. Beautifully. Lilann’s story was received so well that she found patrons calling her over when their friends would mess it up. “Where’s the little imp?” they’d say. “Bring her over, she tells it best."

She only ever saw Oranwulf again on his way out of Dragon Rock three years later. He was a knight then; his armor was splendid and there was a ruby in the pommel of his very expensive sword. He was on his way to Cloud Hold, answering a prestigious summons for his heroism. Of course, he never made it. He died in an altercation with a single Gnomish bandit, falling from his own horse, accidentally castrating himself with his fancy sword, and bleeding to death on the side of the road clutching his own severed cock. This is why you and most people instead remember him as Oranwulf the Gelded.

See? We got there.

Much like his legacy, this too was a lie. But by then Lilann had learned a valuable lesson about storytelling: the only thing people enjoyed hearing more than a hero’s rise to glory, was their fall from it. She had bruises to repay, and nothing bruised as easily or as lastingly as reputation.

This isn’t about Oranwulf, but telling his story was necessary because Lilann created it, beginning and end. That, you see, is her story. She didn’t stop with him; even after Oranwulf’s tale fell out of fashion she kept her ear to the dirty ground of every tavern, listening for the signs of burgeoning heroes. She stayed in Dragon Rock until she was fourteen, and by then she had crafted no less than two dozen other stories, ranging from the triumphs of unassuming adventurers, to the frightening attacks of bandits and giants. Once or twice she tried her hand at retelling the legends of old, but found her interest waned when faced with the annals of history. She didn’t want to recite legends, she wanted to make them—and sometimes, break them.

When she left Dragon Rock, she donned a hat to hide her horns, a mask to hide her face, and long, flowing coats for her tail and skin. People were more receptive to her stories when she made it easy for them to ignore that she was a Tainted. She found great success in the taverns and streets of various cave-towns, and a plethora of stories on the journeys between them. She spun yarns for merchants and mercenaries, and once or twice even for bandits. Travelers who saw her in their carts knew they would not want for entertainment.

At sixteen she came to Norn Thul, having decided against trying business in Cloud Hold—even she knew better than to push her luck in such a spiritual place. It did not take long to establish herself, even in taverns where no one knew the name Lilann Storyborn. Her bardic skills aside, she had done careful practice with her aetherborn abilities, and began implementing them into her work. Her talents were still minimal, she could float one or two small props, or make her lyre play a few tender, ambient chords while she spoke, but theatrics went a long way with crowds who were used to getting their stories from poems and drunks. Nothing could ever truly compensate for her heritage, but she kept patrons drinking and eating, and that was usually enough to prevent her getting the boot if her tail happened to slip from beneath her coat.

Two more years she spent with Norn Thul as her nest, venturing out with slummy trade caravans and vendors desperate enough to take coin from a Tainted. Once or twice she dipped down into Relfin, to Buscon, where the fairer attitudes and close-knit community of Tainted nearly tempted her into staying, but not quite. Whenever she returned to Norn Thul, it was always with new stories to build.

Valan, the Gnomian Wolf. Sedrica Half-Hymn. The Man Who Was Kindling. Drang, Who Climbed Dragon’s Demise. The Secret Concubine of Rhogar Sadaar. The Seven-Headed Beast Behind Galken’s Door. The Fey Pirate King. Some of these names you know, others you don’t yet, but will. All were woven by the words of Lilann Storyborn, true in degrees often varying from “hardly at all” to “not even a little bit.” That doesn’t stop them from being heard, or, importantly, spread. Some become distorted, or claimed by other bards. Some have made their heroes into Oranwulf the Brave, others into Oranwulf the Gelded. More than once has she been threatened to stop, more than once she has been bribed to continue. Neither mattered much to her. After all, whatever one’s reputation, all it takes is the right story to set things moving the other way.

With the next Great War looming on the horizon, Lilann’s interests have naturally been drawn to the Bounty Houses established by the enigmatic diplomats of Veraz Althma. Oh, the stories to be born from the sorts collecting there, the triumph and tragedy awaiting them, the legends in making. But if she was going to uproot herself again it would not be for some glorified bounty board. Word of Lord Mystralath’s own venture reached even to Norn Thul, and she knew instantly that she would go there.

There was hesitation, of course. The gods had cursed her with a long and lucid memory, and though she had been Lilann Storyborn for many years, Livean Shol still paled at the idea of stepping foot in her homeland again. She would have rather stayed in Dranir, and lived out the rest of her days quietly.

But Livean’s story was over, and Lilann would not let that end hers, too.

Likes:

• Interesting people
• Uninteresting people (a challenge!)
• Good tippers
• Mysteries
• Long travels

Dislikes:

• When the sun is too bright
• Captive audiences (no challenge!)
• Any fish
• Out-of-tune instruments
• Knights

Habits:

When deep in thought, Lilann has a tendency to unknowingly burn through the light stored up by her abnormality, making her hair and eyes an occasional giveaway that something is on her mind.

Inventory:

• Lilann’s attire (big hat, wooden mask, longcoat)
• Lyre (cheap, but well cared-after)
• Satchel (contains a variety of small, handmade props, wooden bricks, and a whittling knife)
• Journal (filled with pages written in incomprehensible shorthand)
• Longsword (simple, but seems a bit too wieldy for someone her size)
• Money (tbd)

[Mcmolly]

________________________________________ Renault Allard Male | 26 | Doumerc Scion of Lightning _______________________________________________ "He doesn't smile right. I don't know. Like when a dog shows you its teeth, it's not happy—it's gonna bite." ________________________________________

"It's so very good to be back." Holy Sigil Location On the palm of his right hand. Appearance Renault strikes a distinctive figure. He stands just over six feet, and has been described as ‘gangly’ by the less than generous, though they aren’t far off. An avalanche of red hair falls well down his back, and bright, almost lupine eyes sit behind a pair of sleek glasses. Most people, however, notice the smile first. He wears it often, even when it might be inappropriate, and to hear it said it makes him frustratingly difficult to read. Perhaps that's the point. Though a sharp dresser, he doesn’t bother adapting to new trends. Renault has a small but trusty wardrobe of dress shirts, button-ups, vests and coats that he’s worn since he first stepped foot onto the aristocratic scene. He favors dark colors, and smart cuts that don't cross the line into flashy, but still command elegance on the right shoulders. Personality When it comes to appearing like your stereotypical aristocrat, Renault does his level best to fit the bill. Polite, well-spoken, and measured, he enjoys conversation and is always eager to meet new people. An avid reader with a taste for arcane academia, he isn’t a scholar but he has a passion for magic that’s stuck with him since childhood, and is always out to learn more than he knows, regardless of the subject. Most see past the smile quickly, but coming from politics he’s used to distrust. Having supported Nadine Lucienne’s stances for most of his career, he makes no secret of his relative distaste for the Church’s conduct. He believes Incepta chose her Scions for a reason, seeing in them the potential to be more than pretty figureheads. Biography Renault never saw House Allard at its weakest, before Nadine Lucienne became Scion and rose it from the aristocratic squalor it wallowed in, but he has seen it at its most pathetic. When things were low, House Allard sprawled to survive; it sired bastards, it married down, it branched shallow, but wide. Falling out of relevance had the unique effect of liberating them from the expectations of a higher House, while simultaneously shaming them for it. In the distant reaches of the family, this shame turned inward, gnawing at each new generation that failed to rise above their station. As a member of one of the House’s most far-flung branches, Renault’s prospects were meager. He and his sister Coralie grew up in a modest home in the Racine suburbs, unable to afford a place in the city’s heart. Coralie was a sickly girl who spent many of her early years bedridden, though she blossomed to be wildly sociable when she became a little healthier. Renault, however, was a bit of a recluse. He was magically gifted, but hopeless when it came to strangers. Often Coralie was his only company, and he spent many days in her room, reading and talking, and entertaining her with paltry spells when she couldn’t muster herself out of bed. Eventually in their teenage years, the duty of their crumbling House fell upon them. Coralie, still withered but only in body, began to pursue a career in Doumercene politics. She was personable, diligent, and driven by an admiration for the savior of House Allard: Her Holiness Nadine Lucienne. She began to shadow the Scion of Lightning, and spent many high school summers interning with Nadine’s party. Even if her role was minor, it was a meaningful step to her. Renault, for his part, was torn. His affinity for magic was growing, taking to the arcane like it was his mother tongue. He wrote runes as deftly as his own name, could speak spells with the linguistic precision of a scholar, and may very well have found himself with an early, full ride in one of Doumerc’s legendary universities. But, he didn’t want to abandon Coralie, who despite having grown popular by the time she graduated, was surrounded by people who manipulated and deceived for a living. It was too late for him to join her on the political stage, at least, not I the same capacity. He wanted to stay close. At sixteen he found a low-level politician tangentially related to Madam Lucienne’s party in need of interns. Renault’s social skills had improved somewhat from his proximity to his sister, but he was still politically fresh, and he’d learned well that the Allard name, especially when it belonged to such an outlier, held little weight despite Nadine’s position. So he was surprised to be invited onboard so readily. Until he actually met the man. He wasn’t a politician, more of a white collar grifter, and Renault had not been brought on because of his name, or initiative, but because of his magical aptitude. A good number of the interns were magically inclined, others weren’t kids at all, just adults who looked like they had no place in a noble’s court. Which made sense; none of them were going to be spending time there. Renault learned his first lesson in politics: Dirt leaves stains—keep your hands clean. Lobbying, bribery, blackmail and, occasionally, threats. Everything the grifter couldn’t do in the open, he delegated to the interns. Charms and illusions did wonders for minor-league espionage, and where backroom diplomacy failed, the more physically inclined of the bunch took charge. Renault broke more laws in a week than he had his whole life, which was not a high bar, but one that weighed on him nonetheless as those weeks turned to months. Was this Coralie’s life, too? He couldn’t believe if it was; she was always smiling, always looking so eager towards tomorrow, and Renault hardly wanted to see the next moment. By happenstance, it turned out that one of the people his grifter had pressured was in opposition to Nadine. His folding made things easier on the whole party—and by extension, Coralie. As can happen to anyone, the grifter’s luck eventually ran out. Whether he was outmaneuvered, or pushed the wrong person, or simply got sloppy, his crimes went public and his office collapsed. It was nothing short of divine luck that Renault wasn’t buried too, and had he been wiser, he might have taken the opportunity to start clean and refocus himself on his studies. Not so. He found another ambitious aristocrat, and this time when things went south he would make sure it wasn’t luck that spared him. Bringing along what remained of his former employer’s portfolio, Renault found himself a step above the other nameless, unpaid and unrecognized interns. When it came time to do his job, he remembered his lesson. He delegated, he used aliases, he kept his nose clean where he could and wore a mask where he couldn’t. Things moved slower, but he learned that was the proper way of things. Collapses like the grifter’s were rare, and were usually a sign that somewhere along the chain of diplomatic pressure, someone had failed to navigate gently enough. The people being blackmailed often wanted their secrets revealed as much as the people blackmailing them. This went on for a few years more. Renault would flit between internships, proving himself both effective and discrete, and found the means to continue his arcane studies. When he graduated, there was no shortage of candidates eager to have him on their campaign teams. This moved him out of the shadows and onto the stage of political theater, where he was finally able to talk face to face with the sorts of people whose careers he had helped stabilized and unstabilize. They were the worst. It was all fake, which he’d known perfectly well already, but having to interact with them was different. They were all arrogant or obsequious, dishonest by default, and they all absolutely hated each other. Even people representing the same parties, the same teams, smiled and shook hands with daggers behind their backs. Once again he couldn’t believe his sister thrived in a place like this. He searched, subtly, for dirt anyone might have had on her, anxious that she might have been as twisted as her company, but ultimately found nothing. In a way, that was worse. It would be devastating to learn she was never who he thought she was, but she was, and that made it all the more terrifying. Did she not know? Was Nadine’s party really some bastion of ethics? The Church certainly didn’t think so. How could someone like Coralie, who’d never worn a disingenuous smile in her life, survive in a place like this? It turned out she couldn’t. After years of good health, her illness returned suddenly, fiercely, and in the end, fatally. She was gone in the day it took Renault to rush home. The fall was inexplicable—even the doctors were stunned. There’d been no warning, no symptoms, she had been happy and healthy one moment, and the next she’d collapsed in the middle of a donor social. There was a brief and half-hearted investigation that fizzled from disinterest as quickly as it started. She was chronic, after all, it was just nature. Who would want to waste their time? Renault would. Like Coralie’s death, Renault’s turn was sudden. His current employer’s campaign crumbled when it was revealed he’d been embezzling from his own charities for a decade. Tragic and disgusting, good riddance. Then the CEO of a premier magitech company was ousted when her affair with a competitor’s bookkeeper became public. A high-profile House was thrown into chaos when it came to light they’d bribed a judge to dismiss a lawsuit against one of their own. Scandal after scandal hit the public, and it didn’t stop at Doumerc. A Rodion general who poisoned his opponent before the duel that helped secured his position. A beloved Rosarian author who’d been using ghost writers his whole career. A Lorenzian art collector dealing in counterfeits. Every week, for months, someone had their skeletons thrown out of their closet and into the open daylight. When it did eventually end, a slew of once-public-faces had simply vanished, and Renault returned to the political stage with a smile on his face. His involvement in the ordeal was an open secret; the result of his own efforts at finding the truth behind his sister’s death, culminating in a wanton divulgence of some of his portfolio. Some, he stressed giddily, but not all. He’d followed many threads, and found nothing, but was undeterred. Why rush? Renault was now a campaign manager, freelance. Few sought out his services, wary or outright fearful, but as the years went by people learned to answer when he knocked. He came to enjoy the façades, the nervousness in their smiles, the clamminess in their handshakes. Everyone hated each other, yes, but it felt good to cut a swathe through the aristocracy’s tangled hierarchy. His name never made the nightly news, but when someone’s career imploded, the nobles' eyes turned to him, and he smiled back. He kept clear of Nadine’s party, for the most part, though he did make efforts to cripple her opposition where he could. That they shared a family was already risk enough; she didn’t need someone with his reputation tied to her. Not when she so frequently butted heads with the Church. Renault’s view of the High Cardinal and her ilk only soured over time. As his leads dried up, he found himself more and more believing the Church had been involved in Coralie’s death. He’d made no small number of enemies, but no one as powerful as the Mother’s eyes and hands. She was herself a small fish compared to Nadine, but she’d done a lot for the Scion’s party. He was still undeterred, but knew that if he was going to take on the Church, he would need more than scandals. Sometimes there was no substitute for raw power. Renault was no soldier, he was a poor shot and had no talent for swordplay. What he did have was magic—but so did the Church, in much larger quantity and much stronger quality. So he turned his focus to the one thing they didn’t have. He went after the Curses. It did not end well. He was caught attempting to unravel the arcane lock set by Duchess Flores, and was promptly thrown in prison with little process. The Doumercene aristocracy collectively exhaled, and life went on. For about a year. Renault’s ascension to Scionhood was nothing less than divine comedy. How could the Mother choose someone like him? What purpose could he possibly serve in her designs? Renault didn’t know—he didn’t care. All that mattered to him was that he was free, and that now he had all the time, and power, he needed. Weapon of Choice Renault isn't much for weapons. He's hopeless with a gun and hasn't held a sword for anything more than ceremony. If a confrontation is unavoidable and magic isn't an option, he keeps an old pair of knuckle dusters handy, a memento from his earliest days in politics. Misc. Theme tbd Renault is quite a talented dancer, especially with a partner. Has a passable singing voice but can't play an instrument to save his life.

[Mcmolly]

_______________________________________________ Personal Data D A T A Full Name - Mox Holiday (Birth Name: █████████) Callsign - Aerie (Formerly ██████) Age - 23 (b. 2655 CE) Birthplace - Blackstone Pilot Type - Sniper - Psyche Analysis P S Y C H E Happy! ("True"!) Warm, energetic, with a penchant for harmless fun, Mox is someone who could find sunshine at the bottom of the ocean. Lose big at the card table? NC giving you grief? Last sortie went FUBAR? Keep that chin up! You’re only really lost when you admit it to yourself. Ceaseless optimism might not be the best way to make friends in a ruined world, but that’s alright—Mox loves a challenge. Professional! (Mostly True!) Don’t let the sunny disposition fool you, Mox knows how to work. She might look like a merc, and act like a free spirit, but when it comes to the job she operates like military. From planning to execution, Mox pours over every detail, determined to ensure things go as smoothly as possible. And when they don’t, you can depend on her to keep a cool head—and a steady hand. Curious! (Definitely True!) Strangers? Not for long! There’s nothing Mox loves more than making new friends—and learning all about them! Their hobbies, their dreams, their favorite colors; people are so fascinating, and sometimes terribly complicated, but that’s what makes them fun! And if it’s not people she’s learning about, it’s things! New experiences, movies, music, stories. Mox has an adventurer’s heart, and will try just about anything once (or sometimes more than once, if she forgets!) Gear G E A R Hunting Rifle A parting gift from Chelsea, there are a lot of fond memories scratched into its wooden frame. Fires old school ballistics and used mainly for hunting, it’s not about to pierce a steel hide, or drop a mutated behemoth, but it finds good use in Mox’s hands. Journal Mox’s prized possession. Leatherbound, with a lock that’s city-quality strong, and a key she wears ‘round her neck. Inside are lists of important things, names, places, events in cryptic shorthand, and a sea of inane, random information. Though this one is newer, gained on the eve of her desertion, she’s already begun to fill it out. Promise Ring A simple, silver band, sometimes worn on the finger, sometimes around her neck. "My Angel" is engraved on the inside. Neural Combatant N E U R A L C O M B A T A N T Armor Aerie’s hide is lightweight and sleek, crafted for subtlety and maneuverability. Considering she’s usually far-removed from the more brutal areas of a conflict, defense is about the last thing considered. Though she has had it tweaked since her desertion, to make it nigh-unrecognizable as Sahaquiel, the core functions and purpose of its frame remain. The metal is treated to be easily repainted between missions, for camouflage’s sake. Hands Known more widely by its field name, the TBE Mk III “Dragonslayer” is a thermal-ballistic-exchange rifle with a complicated history. Designed to rotate between necessary ordinance, the Dragonslayer was universally panned for its energy-requirements, especially when it often necessitates extreme range due to the volume of its secondary mode's charging sequence. Standard mech suits were flat out unable to use it, and NC’s often preferred quieter, subtler models for covert marksmanship. However, if one can get past (or utilize) these perceived downsides, you’d be hard-pressed to find a rifle with more penetrative power. At full charge, the Dragonslayer has been shown able to pierce armor which would otherwise require top-grade ordnance to breach. Chances are, you’ll hear this gun long before it fires, and its proponents will often tell you: “That only matters if you miss.” Back Dubbed the “iron mirror,” this stealth array helps to shield the Aerie from enemy radar, while also connecting to the advanced optics in its helmet. This way, the cloak can ping enemies who may be trying to locate her via standard survey tech. Auxiliary Aeries auxiliary is an array of wing-like thrusters meant to produce quick bursts of movement for repositioning or emergency evasion. In their standard state, they are unfit to provide sustained speed. At full sync, the array opens up, and, utilizing the Aerie’s antimatter core, along with its lightweight frame, can not only bring the mech airborne, but also maintain positions at high-altitude even when sharing energy with the TBE rifle. The auxiliary also carries a cache of flares to combat anti-air attacks, though the supply is small and won't last through any prolonged engagements. Relations R E L A T I O N S Chelsea "Gabriel" Solioun Known as “Gabriel”, Chelsea Solioun is one of Ecclesia’s “Seraphs,” who work in special and covert operations. She is also Mox’s mentor, and perhaps the closest thing she has left to family. After helping Mox escape Ecclesia, she returned to work, albeit with her outlook forever darkened. Though she’s undeniably a uniquely skilled pilot, there are some in Ecclesia, especially among the Seraphs, who have begun to doubt her loyalty. Mox, however, does not. Solomon "Mikhael" Roy Once known by the designation “Israfil,” Solomon Roy has since succeeded his late predecessor as Archangel of the Seraphs, and has inherited the title of “Mikhael.” A cold, ruthless, and singularly effective killer, there’s likely no one in the world more suited to the work of the Seraphs than he is. Roy got on with Mox about as well as he did with anyone—which is to say, not at all. They worked together more than a few times over the years, and he sits squarely at the top of the short list of people who absolutely terrify her. While he accepted Chelsea’s explanation for Mox’s disappearance, he has never been fully convinced of her death. A few cursory sweeps brought up nothing, but he still puts an ear to the ground now and then. Just in case. Milly "Uriel" Sonders An oldhead in the Seraphs, Milly’s been around longer than most. She’s a simple woman with simple interests: if something explodes, she’s happy. While notoriously difficult to make friends with, Chelsea and Mox both managed. Mox remembers her fondly, if spottily. Not enough to trust her, but enough to hope they never meet again—for both their sakes.

Physical Details ◢ Mox is an unassuming person of average height. Though slight at a glance, an incredibly strict and rigorous training regiment, which she still maintains, has left her with a fair amount of muscle and excellent physical health. It’s rare to find her without a smile on her face, or that same smile in her step, and just about every aspect of her demeanor. She has a tendency to dance as she walks, as if moving in time to some unheard music—or very much heard, if she’s wearing her headphones. She prefers simple, comfortable clothes, but likes branching out to be a bit more fashionable when means allow—which, considering her new life as a freelancer, isn’t very often. Background Information ◢ Personal log of Ecclesia Agent █████████,████████████████,Designation: Gabriel. Part 1 Date: April 11th, 2665 CE. Begin Playback: …s on? Hello? Fuckin—used to have red lights on these things, y’know? Tell you when they’re fuckin’ on. Anyway, fuck me, worst day of my life, I owe the Archie a beer. You remember—fuck, I mean, I’m only talkin’ to me but whatever—but no, that stupid ██████ Program? █████’s idea with the kids? Well we tagged this group of brats about four years ago when they were all like, six, and today some of’em pinged. Sim scores within "potential parameters" or some shit. Yeah, really. Seven pings, five of the families took the creds and handed the kids over. Unbelievable. And I taught heavy arms down in ████████, so you know he’s gonna make me babysit. Un-fuckin'...why’d I ever open my mouth? █████’s gonna pick some high-class bar in the Brights and I’m gonna have to shell out like fifteen creds for one beer. And he's gonna grin at me the whole time cause he's a smug asshole. Fuck. And he hates kids! Wasn’t even gonna do it ‘til I bet him he couldn’t. Fuck you, █████! Date: April 30th, 2665 CE Begin Playback: Okay, well, it’s been like almost three weeks, and my head fuckin’ hurts. Those ██████ candidates we brought in? I mean, not like you’re gonna be forgetting this anytime soon but on the off chance you did, fuckface, guess what happened day one? We get five brand-spankin’-new, shinier-than-a-dolphin’s-ass frames on these cores, start to get’em plugged in, and the first kid fries five minutes after he sits down. I mean like cooked, in the head, nothin’ but eggs up there. They let an intern do the fuckin' procedure on'im. Nice one. Yeah, so that put the brakes on us for a few days. Doesn’t matter, wasn’t any way we were gettin’ the rest of them in those cockpits after they saw us pull their buddy out. Doc had us mix some shit in their food, and they calmed down by the weekend but, I mean, Christ. What are the odds? And it’s not like they’re better or anything. Watched the psyche vids after they’d gotten their evals, and they’re obviously all still worried about plugging in, they’re just too clonked out to say it. So yeah, we’re trying again tomorrow, I guess. █████ wants medical down there, waiting. Sure buddy, like that’s not gonna freak’em out even more. Fuckin’ ass. Whatever. Know what I was worrying about when I was ten? If I was gonna have fuckin’ pancakes for breakfast. Date: May 12th, 2665 [LOG DELETED] Text Log. Date: May 16th, 2665 CE C3 CALLED ME IN LAST NIGHT AND THREW UP ON MY FAVORITE FKUCKIN SHIRT IM DELETING MY LSAST REC I TAKEIT ALBACK FUCK THESWE STUPID KIDS Date: July 25th, 2665 CE Begin Playback: Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me. FUCK meeeeee! Performance review? No one told me there was gonna be a fucking performance review! I thought this was just one of █████’s pet projects, when did he get the fucking higher-ups involved? He made Project ██████ a legitimate fucking program with funding and everything, and my name is on it! You know what that means? Means if this doesn’t pay out how they want—and I don’t even know what the fuck it is that they actually want in the long-term—it’s my ass on the line! █████ put himself as Assistant Director! Assistant! He’s the fucking Archangel! This was his idea and now I’m fucking in charge? Fuck that. You know what this is? He wants me out. Yeah, ever since his buddy got back from overseas, he’s been trying to get him into ██████. Won’t kick Sandalphon, they served together too. █████’s been here almost as long as █████, board won’t cut him. He could go after █████, but he won’t. Won’t go after anyone else. Doesn’t like me. Never liked me. But fuck him, I got this spot cause I’m the fucking best. They want these kids simming 90th in the sixteen-to-eighteen bracket by the end of September. Fine. C2 needs work and C5 is a fuckin’ anchor, but three and four pull their weight, they can pick up the slack. I’m moving my shit into their dorms. Up before the sun, and they’re gonna eat, sleep and shit simulations until this review bullshit is over. We’ll sleep in the goddamn pods if we have to. I ain’t goin’ fuckin’ anywhere, █████. You hear me? I’m gonna fuckin win. I’m motherfucking Gabriel. Text Log. Date: August 13th, 2665 CE Gettin there gettin there slow but we’re gettin there. Three and four stomped the 13/15 bracket easy, and they’re 75th already in the 16/18’s. Kids don’t fuckin miss. They do not miss. Gimme a coupl weeks ill getem NINETYFUCKINNINTH swear to god ill have these kids makin PMC sims look like training vids. Text Log. Date: September 24th, 2665 CE 2 and 5 i fucikn knew it i said it TWO AND FUCKING FIVE 55th FOR OVER A WEEK AND THEYRE GETTING FUKCING WOSREHAGAKCAWAICFAIHOWHOWHOWHOW HOW HOW 3 and 4 get tomorrow off 2 gets lunch 5 breaks 70th or he doesnt eat Date: October 1st, 2665 CE Begin Playback: Holy shit. We did it. We actually fucking did it. C4 hit 98th, and three cracked 99th, but they all passed 90. Average was like, 94th or something? I didn’t hear—wasn’t listening. Too busy enjoying the look on █████’s stupid fucking face. God I shoulda snapped a picture. Dunno what was better, the scowl he shot me when the auditor passed us, or how green he got when C5 puked all over his shoes. I was right, █████ pitched ██████ to the higher-ups as my idea. Lot of fucking money at his ‘recommendation’ but it was ultimately on me if it flopped. Well it didn’t, they’re fucking stoked and you know what? I’m running with it. I’ve got full control, all I gotta do is keep hitting high marks, and make sure the little bastards are Ecclesia-ready ASAP. Won’t be hard. Couple of'em can get going soon, with my help. Was gonna go bar-hopping and find someone to fuck my lights out, but C4 asked if they could have pizza—said I’d promised it if we passed. Probably did, whole month’s a fuckin’ blur. So yeah, you know what? We’re getting pizza, and something neon-colored to drink, and then we’re gonna marathon the Hell Melter movies cause I borrowed the third one from █████ and, hey, buddy? You ain’t gettin’ it back! Gabriel out! Text Log. Date: October 2st, 2665 CE, 6:00 3 came and got me, said 5 wouldnt wake up. called medical. he didnt make it. doc wont give me a straight answer. fed me some shit about plug fatigue. know better. i killed that kid. Date: October 7th, 2665 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: November 23rd, 2665 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: January 3rd, 2667 CE Begin Playback: Wow, shit, it’s been a minute I guess. Honestly forgot I had this tablet, just found it cleaning out under my bunk. Anyway, uhhh, update, update. Yeah. Okay so, last couple years have been pretty good! You know, I kinda thought balancing ██████ and ████ shit was gonna be impossible but, actually, it’s not so bad. Kids made it into Ecclesia, no fuckin’ surprise there. I don’t actually handle their sorties or anything, I just keep’em sharp in between, and since they’re a package deal they’re always together, so it works out pretty easy. C4’s got a thing for ordinance, oughta put him in touch with █████—woman’s a firebug. Three spends a lot of time training Two, she’s sorta my second-in-command. Two still struggles with her percentiles, but Three? High-90’s all day, and it’s even better in sorties. Seriously, I meant it when I said this kid doesn’t miss. I watched the vids. They put a rifle in her hands, plop her on the edge of the conflict zone. She’ll sit there for hours, not a single complaint. Shooting starts and she zeroes motherfuckers all day long. Pop. Pop. Cool as a fuckin’ cucumber. Told her she can bring holovids, or music or something with her but she just likes chatting with the rest of the squad. Grumpy fucks tell her to stuff it but she keeps going, it’s great. Gonna try and sit in on the comms with her on the next sortie. As far as █████ goes, it’s been weird. █████ was on me for a while after I got █████ on track, but then we lost Raphael. Wasn’t on an op or anything, dude just necked himself. He left me alone after that. Fuck. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand the guy, but he and ██████ served together. I get it. Kids are out for the night, long mission. Dorm’s all mine, so I’m gettin’ trashed—haven’t had a drink in months. Didn’t like ██████ much, but he saved my skin more than once when he didn’t have to. So, here. First one’s for Raphael. Good fuckin’ work, angel. Text Log. Date: January 5th 2667 CE 3 hit fullsync on todays sortie. overcharged her thermal and the fuckn hting blew up in her hands. shes fine, just spooked. r/d wants to fit her with higher-capacity equipment. i told her she gets to play with bigger toys. eyes lit up like christmas. pizza tonight. they earned it. Date: March 15th, 2667 CE Begin Playback: God. Shit. Shit. Okay, so, Three’s been goin’ on more sorties, and she’s doin’ great, seriously. Hits full-sync pretty quick, so they keep putting her further and further away. Still hits. Girl’s cracked, really. Problem is, her Shift finally cropped up. Or, I dunno, maybe it’s been up for a while and we just didn’t notice. Back after Five…y’know. After that, the kids set up a little memorial in his room, and every now and then they go in there and tell him what’s been up. Sorta became a post-mission ritual for’em. Well, Three got back first today, and she’s normally, like, y’know, right to Five’s room to give his lil’ picture an earful. This time she just got a drink and flopped down on the couch. Thought something might have been up—I mean, the sortie went fine, great, so I didn’t really know. Tried to be slick about it, asked if she’d already told Five how she did. Girl just stared at me. Asked again and she said she didn’t know who I was talking about. Now, look, I get it, kids are little psychopaths, and they can be mean as fuck, yeah, but not Three. Not any of the ██████. But Three is just disgustingly nice, so I knew she wasn’t just saying that to say it. Took her into the room and she looked at his picture for a long time. She doesn’t remember him. Look, they’re all starting to deal with their Shifts. C4 got a pretty typical lineage-bleed, and Two sleeps like one hour at a time. But I’m worried about how Three’s gonna progress. If this memory thing goes deep, she could end up a fuckin’ vegetable. █████ says I should stick to protocol, push it ‘til we have a good idea of what it can do. But he’s a stupid fucking asshole. He’s right, but he’s still a stupid fucking asshole. Two and Four are with her now. They’re tellin’ her about Five, and those first couple months. Dunno how much she lost, yet. Gonna go talk to medical. Date: May 30th, 2667 CE Begin Playback: … Long day. Long month, I guess. Jesus. New █████ in the squad. Remember █████’s buddy? The one he wanted to replace me with? Well, he’s in now. I’m still Gabriel, nothin’ fuckin’ changing that, but the guy’s been doing work in Ecclesia for a while and the Powers That Be deigned to expand the heavenly fuckin’ host and bring him in. ███████. Callin’ him Israfil. Guys a real piece of work. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an absolute monster on the field, can see why they brought him on, but, man, he’s like a slab of metal. Hardly talks on ops, and he’s curt in briefings, but when he does talk, you learn to fuckin’ listen. Killer strategist. No nonsense, too, even off-duty. No fuckin’ idea how he’s friends with █████. Friends with anyone for that matter. Dude doesn’t even smile, doesn’t even seem human. ████ can’t stand him, but she doesn’t like a lot of people. Always a hard adjustment bringing new people on. Lotta trust in the ██████, even with the assholes. Gotta be. Some of the shit we do, y’know, you need that. Anyway, uhhh, hmm…oh! Yeah, ████’s good. Had that scare with Three a while back, but we pushed it, figured it out we think. Definitely a memory loss thing. Helluva Shift, but it could be worse, y’know? Doesn’t hurt, isn’t miserable. Aside from some gaps, she’s still all there. Won’t even have to take any meds for it. Honestly? I’m kinda jealous. Lucky little shit. Part 2 Date: April 12th, 2670 CE Begin Playback: Aaaaay, got it! Holy shit, can’t believe this still works, I think I lost this thing like…wow three fuckin’ years, huh? Not the first time, either. Oops. Ah well, who cares? Uhhh, shit, things have been great! Mostly, I mean. ███ bit it a few months ago. Op in ██ took a bad turn on exfil. Archie took a hit and Israfil had to take over command while we got’im out. Thank god for that guy, really. Still gives me the creeps, but he does fuckin’ work. Don’t drink much these days, but I poured one out for Remiel. Good work, angel. Alright but enough sad shit, though! How about ████! Holy fuck, these kids are killin’ it! All of’em, even Two! C4’s happy as a clam no matter what the sortie is, as long as he gets to make something explode. Two’s been running recon for Three, and Three’s been sitting in on tactical meetings. Think she might have her lil’ eyes on commanding one of these things. Who knows? Soon. Maybe. She’s good, but there are some missions that take time to plan, and if she has to run sorties beforehand, there’s a chance she’ll lose some of the intel. Yeah, uh, her Shift’s kinda progressed. It’s not terrible, but she pushes full-sync a lot, and now she’s starting to get gaps more often. Last time she disconnected she forgot what years it was, and she couldn’t remember her favorite movie. Hah. Think I still have ████’s copy. Sucker. We’ll watch it tonight, it’ll come back to her. Gonna try not to lose this thing again, these little logs are nice. Date: April 25th, 2670 CE Begin Playback: Okay, okay! Quick one today cause I gotta run down to start clearing shit with the brass, but fuckin’ get this—they want to start grooming Three for ████! For real! I think they want her to replace Remiel. She's a marksman, makes sense. Fuck, okay, I’m gonna be late and I just fuckin’ know if ████ gets there first, he’s gonna try and talk’em out of it. Well fuck you, buddy, not on my watch. Text Log. Date: April 26th 2670 CE MY GIRLS GNONNA B A FUCKN ████ BABY LETSFUCKNGI GOOOOO OO Date: June 1st, 2670 CE Begin Playback: Well, it’s been a helluva few weeks, but things are goin’ good! Since Three got tagged for █████, I’ve had to sorta pull her aside for extra training. She hasn’t met anyone else from the squad yet, doesn’t know I’m part of it either. Right now she thinks she’s being tested—which, fair, she is. Downside is that she’s had to miss a couple sorties with Two and Four. First time they’ve ever actually been split up, I think. Threw’em all out of whack, and they practically glued themselves to her when she got back to the dorms. Two especially. Anyway, been and gonna be spending a lot more time with her. I mean more than usual. Hell I’ve been sleeping in these fuckin’ dorms most nights for almost five years, I see these kids every goddamn day anyway. Two and Four are due out tomorrow. Gonna take Three to the heavy range out in the dust—let her try some of the fun toys. Text Log. Date: June 2nd 2670 CE holy FUCK wow biggest mistake of my LIFE OW let 3 use a fuckin dragonslayer cause like idk i figured why not she likes snipers and she can actually use it u ever hear one of those things spool up when theyre charging on a fullsync battery? sounds like the fuckign world is ending. then she shot the stupid thing and there mustve been a fuckup with my dampeners cause i heard it like i was standing rgiht fuckning next to it. ears still ringing doc says ill b fine but FUCK OW and of cours e she hit the target anwyay didnt know what he r favorite food was when she unplugged and i had to remind myself that im a fucking adult so i didnt tell her that she loved to eat SHIT Date: August 15th, 2670 CE Begin Playback: Ugh, today fuckin’ blows. █████ went to the brass, told them how I’m pulling Three out of too many missions. Like, motherfucker, you know what she’s training for and you know some of that shit needs to be learned in a controlled environment. But yeah, brass agreed so she’s back on the normal rotations. We’re gonna have to squeeze in lessons during her downtime, which there’s already not much of anyway. Two’s glad to have her back, of course—she’s a good girl. They’ve both been spending a lot of time together, holding hands and shit when they think I'm not looking. Long as they don’t get marked for PDA I don’t really give a shit. C4’s been good too. Branching out more, hanging out in the barracks. Met ███ on accident, but she’d heard about his specialties and they talked for hours. Seemed to learn a lot, but fucked if I wanna to deal with another one of her, so I’m gonna try to rein him in a bit before he tries sneaking in booze and lighting bugs on fire. Gonna take’em out tomorrow. Know a nice place not too far from the city where we can spend the day, eat in peace. Birds like to flock out that way; might bring my rifle with me, see if Three’s as good out of the NC. Date: March 7th, 2671 CE Begin Playback: Well, today was the day. Three’s officially a █████. Just got back from the meeting, moving her to our squad first thing tomorrow. Designation is "Sahaquiel." Officially she’s just moving to Ecclesia proper, but she’ll be working under our CO’s, and when we need to pull her for ops they’ll shift her around to make it all look right. I dunno, never asked how any of the technical shit worked, don’t care. Bad news I guess, too. █████’s disbanded. Wasn’t on bad terms or anything. Point of it wasn’t to make a single unit, it was to make good soldiers for Ecclesia. Hey, and you know what? That’s what I fuckin’ did. These kids are goddamn stars. Two? Yeah, I pushed her hard, but you know what? She bounced back, she fuckin’ did. Scout’s not an easy role, and even when we stopped testing her she never let up. C4? Kid’s got a future in demo that’d make ████ blush. And every squad he’s worked with fuckin’ loves him. His heart is in this in a way you don’t see with most people. He loves being a pilot, even after all the shit. And Three? I mean, I’m not even her fuckin’ teacher anymore. Technically we’re coworkers now—you’d told me that at the start and I’d’ve made you swallow your teeth. Not lettin’em go though. Talked brass into letting us keep the dorms. Yeah, yeah, I can hear me already with the sentimentality shit. Fuck off. Won’t all be around as much, but it’s something. Guess y’all aren’t numbers anymore. Now you’re angels. Part 3 Text Log. Date: May 4th 2671 CE FIRST OP WITH ████ TODAY BICTH! god DAMN my fuckin girl was SO READY!! worried she wouldn’t get on with everyone but on the trip out ████ asked her if she really thought Hell Melter 3 was better than 2 cause apparently no one fuckin thinks that (coulda fooled me 2 blows AAAAAAASSSSSSSS) anyway they talked the whole fuckin way. Sandalphon and Iofiel got in on it too. Archie was a fuckin’ grouch about it but fuck’im HAHA LOSER I WON. so yeah we ganked this ███████ convoy and it went smooth as butter. Sahaquiel (GET TO CALL HER SAHAQUIEL NOW) was so far out but we could still hear the dragonslayer spool up. didnt matter though she zeroed TWO of the fuckers before we even got started. Archie and I took on the NC’s they had with’em, and ████ did her thing, made sure there wasnt shit left to ID. fuckin cherry on top is she completely forgot who Archie was when she unplugged. FUCK YOU ████ I’m gonna tell her SO MUCH SHIT ABOUT YOU GABRIEL OUT Date: February 23rd, 2672 CE Begin Playback: Not fuckin’ happy today. █████. Fuckin’ █████. Fuck. I don’t get it. I do not get it he won’t just leave a good thing alone. I mean, things have been going so fuckin’ well, and I’ve stayed out of his hair as best I can when we aren’t on ops, but he still has to try and find some way to just…get at me. Fuck! He went to the higher-ups. Thought he might be trying to get ████ booted but no, it’s worse. He went in all honey and praise, and said we should start putting her in on higher-confidential ops. ‘Course the brass didn’t like that idea much. I mean, she’s fuckin’ good, but she’s still a kid, and she and ████ have never been great about hiding their shit so of course they know about her, too. Having ties like that don’t usually make for a good fit. But █████, the fucker, suggests using her Shift as leverage. He wants to isolate her, cut down on the things she can lose when she unplugs so there’s a higher chance she’ll forget the actual fucking mission. Pitched it as the perfect fucking spec-ops agent, wipes her own memory. And those shitheads actually bought it. So now she can’t see ████ anymore, can’t leave the dorms, can’t watch movies, can’t listen to music. She gets to live in a small fucking bubble, with the occasional break to sortie, with as little intel as possible, I’m guessing so they can start wiping as much from her as they can. ████’s freaked out, of course. So’s ████. They both come by and I have to fuckin’ turn them away. The way they look at me. Like they can’t believe it. Fuck. They shouldn’t believe it. I wish they’d forget it. They won’t. Me neither. Text Log. Date: March 8th 2672 CE she forgot me. she fucking forgot me. started with other shit. lost her birthday, forgot how to dance, how to use the microwave, what coffee was, how old she was, doesnt remember her parents, or what time the sun goes down. she lost her name THREE FUCKING TIMEs. now she doesnt even like how it sounds anymore. forgot ████ and the poor boy fucking cried when i told him. said he fucking hated me. ████ took him away before i could say something stupid but hes right. he should fucking hate me. ████’s like his fucking sister and it feels like i took him away from her. still didnt stop it. didnt even try. today she got out of the cockpit and asked me who i was. dont even know if i wanna tell her. Date: June 29th, 2672 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: July 19th, 2672 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: August 4th, 2672 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: August 16th, 2672 CE Begin Playback: God. Okay. Well, it’s over. The little experiment, ████’s idea, it’s done. She went out on the last op and a malfunction in the plug triggered a failsafe, booted her out right as she was lining up her target. She forgot what the fuck she was doing, like, completely, and by the time Control got her caught up the target was gone. Whole op was a scrub. Oops! Turns out you can’t rest your entire fucking strategy on a goldfish! Fuckin’—ugh. Fuck. Whatever. They pulled it. Keeping her in the █████ at least, and I got them to give me a week to…I dunno, recoup her. She lost pretty much everything once or twice along the way. Me, ████, Ecclesia, herself. Every morning it was like figuring out if she knew enough to pour herself a bowl of cereal. Couldn’t tie her boots, had to teach her what sit ups were. Only anchor she managed to keep the whole way was ████. Fuck knows how, but she did. Gonna have to get her to help me. ████ trusts her. ████ won’t come by if I’m around. He’ll be back in like, twenty, so I gotta fuck off. Gonna give’em the night. Dunno what they’ll tell her about me. Probably just the truth. Huh. Fact that scares the shit out of me should say enough, I guess. ████ I’m sorry. You’re never gonna see this, but I just am. I’m sorry. I’m not gonna let something like this happen again. Date: November 28th, 2672 CE Begin Playback: Alright, hey. So, ████’s been back on ops for a little while. Little shaky at first, everyone kinda had their doubts, but as soon as she actually had to do her shit, she did it. Girl still doesn’t miss. Things are better with us. ████ and ████ told her what happened, which was fair. She wasn’t really keen on talking to me for a bit, which was also fair. I moved out of the dorms, let’em have that. Eventually she found me in the mess. Realized I was part of a memory she still had. Said it was a good one and she’d be okay trying to get back to feeling like that again. I just nodded. Didn’t know what to say, really. Didn’t wanna ruin it. Been a few weeks since then. We eat dinner together every other day, sometimes ████ comes. It’s…I dunno. It’s nice. I like it, but it feels so…weird. Different. I look at her and, like, I know it’s her. I know it’s ████. She’s still the same person, still nicer than she should be, happier than she should be. She likes a lot of the same things, just doesn’t know why she likes them. It’s her. But it’s not. Fuck that’s so mean. Anyway, dinner’s soon. Just gonna stay the course. Gotta. ████’s starting to come around on me, too. Didn’t realize how much I missed talking to her ‘til she stopped. Same with the little punk. Things go well here, I might try and reach out to him. Text Log. Date: January 1st, 2673 CE newyaers party SUCKKS cheap BEER cheap FOOD cheaP BREER c ity of mfucking angles and they alL SUCK ████ nad ████ went ofg somewhere else, cause ████ dooesnt liKE LOUD and drink saw ████ but th litt le punk woudlnt talk tome nad when i kept trying he PUNHCED ME not even mad tho ████ proud of u buddy u got a mean fucknfg hook kid. gotta lie down bfore i say smome dumshit Date: January 1st, 2673 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: January 1st, 2673 CE [LOG DELETED] Text Log. Date: January 2nd, 2673 CE Said some dumb shit. Text Log. Date: February 17th, 2673 CE girl still has my back op in ██ turned. uriel damaged. went in to get her and fuckn israfil SHITBAG ordred exfil. went in anyway no ammo no nothin but ████’s my fuckkin BRO and we dont leave angels BEHIND saw sahaquiel go airborne thougt she was ditching but then i hear that goddamn dragonslayer roarin got ████ out and i aint ever saying a FUCKING WORD to that shitheel evr again fucking lov u ████. Date: April 12th, 2673 CE Begin Playback: So. Went out with ████ and ████ today, took’em to that spot like she remembered. Brought the food, and the rifle. Been clean since new years, but I found a bottle of the soda they used to drink back in ████ so we split that. Hour or so later ████ showed up. I didn’t invite him—I mean, I woulda, y’know, but after last time I figured he probably didn’t wanna hear from me again. Didn’t really say anything for a while. Everyone just got real quiet. Dumbass me, eventually I told’im—fuckin’—I said I was sober this time, so he wasn’t getting another free shot. That set him off, he came at me swingin’. You know how many assholes I’ve dropped? How many bar fights I’ve walked out of pullin’ some motherfucker’s teeth out of my knuckles? Well I didn’t throw one fuckin’ punch. Might’ve slapped him back a bit, thrown him once or twice, but honestly? Kid’s a scrapper, he might’a actually had me towards the end. Should’a heard him screaming, pure fury, then it just…stopped. All of it. One second he’s wailing on me, roaring like an animal, then suddenly he’s just…sobbing. And he fuckin’ grabbed me. Hugged me. Fuck, look at me, now I-I’m a fuckin’ mess too. …Look I always kinda knew what this was. These kids. Could’a cut when they closed ████ down but I didn’t. I didn’t. They’re fuckin’ mine. Said they needed some time. Gonna meet again next week. ████ gave me his number, said I could text him if I wanted. Still tryin' to figure out what to say. Not gonna fuck it up this time. Part 4 Date: January 5th, 2677 CE Begin Playback: Knew I packed this fuckin’ thing somewhere. Well, get a good look now, cause this is probably the cleanest this place is ever gonna get. That’s right baby, we’re in the Brights now! Fuck! I remember when I was like, nine, lookin’ up at these towers from the dregs, thinkin’ I’d live in a place like that one day. Welcome to ‘one day’, girl. Needless to say, things in █████ have been goin’ well. Corpo shit sorta slowed down, but you know how it is with the suits, one of’em is always gonna want another one dead. Or worse, broke. Job’s a job though. They point, I shoot. Not like you can really say ‘no’ at this level, anyway. Not that I’m complaining, I mean, shit, look at all this. Look at the view! Easy to forget there’re still stars in the sky sometimes. Not anymore. ████ and I still butt heads, but he’s backed off trying to ruin my shit. Maybe he’s finally getting his shit together. Can’t say the same about his buddy. Fuckin’ Israfil. Yeah, nothing’s changed there. Still a gargantuan, soulless fucking machine. Still doesn’t think he did anything wrong wanting to leave ████ behind way back. The rest of’em are chill though, even Sandalphon’s getting sick of his shit. ████ and ████ are coming over later, help me break the place in. Got pizza, got the new Hell Melter. Gonna start with 4 cause that was ████’s favorite. … Fuck, can’t believe it’s been a year. Miss you, punk. …Fuck, nope. Nope, not today. Did this crying shit already. Today’s a good day. We’re fuckin’ happy today. Text Log. Date: February 25th, 2677 CE ████ forgot me again. not as bad this time, still has a lot of it. mostly just my name and face. ████ talked her through it, p much norml again. gonna go out tomorro just me n her, have a remembering day. Text Log. Date: March 14th, 2677 CE just hit up a strip mall with ████ 2day and this fuckn girl pulls us into a jewelry shop cuz she wanted to get PROMISE RINGS for her and ████. am i lame now cause i think thats cute as fuck ? i bought her a new journal. lost the last 1 and it had a bunch of important shit in it. gotta put ████ in the new 1 for her cause she forgot him again like 3 months ago. cant wait 2 see the look on her face Date: March 15th, 2677 CE Begin Playback: —got it! Come on, come on! Don’t hide! Look at the camera, come on let’s see it! Show it! 'Omigosh no stop! My eyes are all red it’s embarrassing!' Aw come on what’s it say on it, huh? What’d she get engraved? ‘My Angel’? How fuckin’ cute is that? Atta fuckin' girl, ████! Date: May 11th, 2677 CE Begin Playback: Hey hey. Back from another op. Yep, that’s my arm all busted up. Not too bad or anything, doc says I’ll heal just fine, and I’m good to pilot in the meantime anyway. Mainly it’s ████ I’m worried about. Only ever seen that girl miss once or twice since she was a brat. Well, un-fuckin'-lucky but today was one of those times. We were out in ███████ territory. Some assholes from our side went AWOL. Took over this little town near a transport site, guess they planned to ambush it. Higher-ups didn’t want that kinda heat so, in we go, gotta take’em out, clear out the town, too. Make it look like raiders. Don’t think she knew any of the deserters. Main issue was the civis. ████’s not too good about that part of the job. I mean, she’ll do it—done it—but sometimes, after she…y’know, the memory, she’ll start having doubts and shit. Basically what happened here. Hesitated, and one of the NC’s got me with a thermal blade. Hot shit, that. Closest I’ve come to biting it in a while. All good now. Brass wants me to have a chat with her and I will, but…I mean, fuck. I’ll tell her a job’s a job, and sometimes things get dirty. But I’m not gonna rag on her for not wanting to kill civis. Ever since ████ dropped out last year, she’s been on a real humanitarian kick. Think it’s getting to ████ now, too. Don’t think she’s told her about ████ or anything, but, shit, person you love starts telling you about how much peace matters, and how important life is, it’s gonna get to you. Ugh. Gonna go take a shower, soak these fuckin’ burns. Text Log. Date: May 20th, 2677 CE ████ called me. ████ got blasted at a bar and might have said something about ████ whn she got home. fk not gonna report this yet. mayb can fix it Text Log. Date: May 21st, 2677 CE false alarm ████’s just a sappy drunk. was pretty fuckn gone when i got there but the girl’s a professional. pulled her aside when we had a moment and made sure she didnt say anything. ████’s worried cause ████ doent drink much and barely ever gets drunk. asked me to look after her at work. like i dotn already gonna be weird when she wakes up tomorrow and doesnt remember anything, and its got nothin to do with her shfit lmao Date: July 13th, 2677 CE Begin Playback: Well, back to it, I guess. Some shit’s goin’ on in this little settlement on the territory’s border. ███████ or somethin’, I dunno. No mission yet but when you get pinged to be ready, you get curious, y’know? Anyway, looks like some strike shit. Governor or whatever doesn’t think the levies are fair, or wants a better cut from their mines, or one of the billion other reasons these people have. Negotiations are apparently looking ‘unproductive.’ Guys really oughta just take whatever we’re offering. I get it, shit sucks beyond the walls. You can get away with a lot, but when you start messin’ with the money, these corpo douchebags can do some drastic shit. Or they order other people to do some drastic shit, I guess. Worst case ███████ gets a visit from some ‘raiders.’ City officially pulls support for them, they become pretty prime targets, so sweeping it under the rug’ll be easy enough. Sucks if we gotta do it to our own civs. ████’s gonna hate it. If she’s lucky, one of these days she’ll forget about it. Gotta get down to the compound with the others just in case. Text Log. Date: July 16th, 2677 CE been sittin on my ass for days but shits happening ███████ bought some freelance muscle. 6 mechs, 3 NCs. pretty much fuckd at this point, negotiations got yanked right away. background found these dudes have beef with a raider clan, so we’ve got cover. gonna repaint, then go in and ash the whole place. just me, ████, and ████. not thrilled about runnin’ small group with the archie, but its better than fuckn israfil, i guess Text Log. Date: July 20th, 2677 CE FUCK FUCK FUCKFUKC FUCK FUCK ████ ISOUT THER E WIHT HER FUKCING HIPPIE CREW ████ DOSENT KNO DOESNT REMEMBR SHE WENTOUT THEREFUCKFUCK CALLINGHR SHE WONT FUKCING PICK UP WE LEAV FUCKING TOMORRO Date: July 21st, 2677 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: July 22nd, 2677 CE [LOG DELETED] Date: July 23rd, 2677 CE Begin Playback: … … I fuckin’— … I fucking tried. God I tried ████ I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t…if… Fuck. If you can…just…████ didn’t know. She didn’t know. I couldn’t…she doesn’t know. I won’t tell her, I can’t. I know you wouldn’t fuckin’ want that. I know. I’m gonna…I’m gonna have to think of something. You just…god why didn’t you pick up… What do I fucking do? I’m so sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry, ████. I fucking love you. I didn’t deserve any of you. Date: July 24th, 2677 CE [LOG DELETED] Text Log. Date: July 26th, 2677 CE she forgot ████ Text Log. Date: July 26th, 2677 CE getting her out. dont care how long it takes. next mission with 3 of us, im deregistering al her implants, pulling her NC's trackers, and sending her out. gonna make it look like she got taken. kno someone in tech who can help. whoevr comes with us has to die. hope its not ████, but thats how it is. cant do it anymore. im sorry it took this long. Text Log. Date: December 31st, 2677 CE it was archie. sorry ████. never liked you but you didnt deserve that. ████ didnt know what was happening, but she did what i told her. sahaquiel’s offline. far as brass knows she got scrapped by the raiders. deadzone didnt last long enough. had so much more i wanted to say. shes gone now. dont know where. dont wanna know. if i never see her again itll be what we both deserve. ████ ████ ████ i love you. i love all of you. i wish youd never met me. throwing this damn tablet into a fucking fire. Epilogue: Mox’s Journal: Page 1 Chelsea Emma <3 Glenn! Mox Holiday (you) Safie Calhan (also you) ((old you)) Sango Bay instant noodles! (Beef!) Dancing Post-post-ionic-punk (music)((good!!)) Sahaquiel tldr summary Before she was Mox Holiday, freelance pilot, she was scooped up in Project Cherub, an experiment conducted by Ecclesia, and headed by members of their special operations unit, Seraph. Training at age 10, piloting by 12, Mox has spent the majority of her life in and around combat. Eventually rising to into the ranks of the Seraphs, she worked alongside her mentor and parental figure, Chelsea Solioun. However, the effects of her Shift and the weight of clandestine operations on her conscience took their toll. It cost her family, friends, and very nearly her own life. With Chelsea’s help, she managed to escape Ecclesia and get herself into hiding. Now, with 2678 ahead of her, she’s come to Last Hope in search of…well, she doesn’t quite know yet. Maybe it’s too much for someone like her to ask for a purpose, but she figures she’ll look anyway. Polaris Shift ◢ Some might view Mox’s Shift as a mercy, others as a boon. After having lived with it for most of her life, she would, unequivocally, consider it a curse. When she was younger, full-synching with her NC would cause her to lose memories upon disconnecting. These began small, and isolated, but over time expanded to include larger and more crucial bits of information, such as her own name, and could cover anything from singular moments, to entire days. After a decade of intense and consistent work, the Shift now occurs whenever she disconnects, full-sync or not. Blessedly, these standard losses are often innocuous and easily remedied with a reminder. But ultimately the lottery of her mind is random, and while full-synch’s still carry a significant price, there’s always the chance that she’ll lose something important anyway. Personal Mission ◢ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus at mi mi. In imperdiet porta dolor, at fermentum nulla commodo eu. Suspendisse volutpat et ex tempor suscipit. Nullam tincidunt at nunc vel auctor. Donec venenatis, nisl nec fringilla varius, massa quam porttitor turpis, sed bibendum purus sem id risus. Nullam scelerisque lectus eget diam gravida malesuada. Maecenas consectetur est ac sollicitudin congue. Maecenas interdum erat dignissim lectus sodales, nec ultrices neque egestas. Integer convallis lacus at consequat volutpat.

[Mcmolly]

_______________________________________________ // INFO P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Full Name – Dot "Dorothy" Mummer Age - 14 Gender - Female Heritage – Alexandrian, with ancestral ties to Grayle. Magical Affinity - Light - // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y My Song is Fury There was a time when Dot saw the world as her mother did: a shining sprawl of adventure, filled to bursting with wonderful sights and friends waiting to be made. She gave her smiles freely and often, and saw the best in those she met, even when they didn’t deserve it. That time has passed. The girl that left Alexandria sees the world differently now. Sprawling, still, but like a corpse, filled not with promise but festering with the maggots of aristocracy. What was once a starry-eyed thirst for glory and adventure has soured into a bitter cynicism. Her smiles are guarded behind a cold wall of distrust, and she has a bad habit of assuming the worst in just about everyone she meets—especially those she perceives as nobility. Short-tempered, driven, and loathe to let go of a grudge, Dot is likely not what Grayle expected of the Heir of Light. That suits her just fine. My Dance is Justice Dot is not angry without reason—at least, not in her mind—and certainly not without purpose. In the nations of Grayle and Alexandria, where the strong do what they can and the weak endure what they must, she sees nothing but megalomaniacal beasts clawing over one another for the privilege of tormenting those beneath them. To them everything is a game, and every person a piece to be weighed, judged for its value, and then discarded. No heed is given to the lives they ruin, the suffering they mete out, or the fear they’ve sown so deeply into the populace that no one would even consider standing against them. Nothing would please Dot more than to remind the nobles of Grayle how human they are. How human she is, despite the heap of ancient glory she acquired by virtue of being born. Where once her undue gifts repulsed her, she now sees the potential to bring an overdue balance to the country’s elite. For the Light no longer serves a country, it serves a people. My Love is Honor The downside to laying immense responsibility and expectation upon a child is that, no matter their capabilities, at the end of the day you’re still laying immense responsibility and expectation upon a child. Dot is fourteen. She’s spent half her life locked in a tower, training for the day she might get to affect real change on the world. But the truth is that it’s been so long since she was actually in that world, and as much as the systems that govern it disgust her, she still missed it. Beneath the angry veneer is a girl longing for the wonderment of a lost childhood; companionship, adventure, the safety of trust. She's forgotten the sound of her own laughter, or what it feels like to confide in someone. Yet she can’t reconcile these desires with her own, self-imposed duty. If she can’t put herself aside for the greater good, then what’s the point? What separates her from the people she despises? Fidelity to her cause has seeded guilt deep within her, and Dot struggles constantly with her own morality. Is she really ready to bear the consequences of making so many enemies? And if she is, can she really do that alone? She doesn’t want to be alone. // SKILLSET S K I L L S E T The Heir in Cold Light The successor of Arbert Grayle, born to a vagabond in Alexandria. There’s an irony there lost entirely upon Dot, who could hardly be more disgusted with her gift than she already is. Having spent only a year performing menial infusions for the Sages’ research, once Verite allowed her other avenues to train, she scarcely ever summoned her aura again. However, hearing how so many of Grayle’s elite harbor powerful magics of their own has her reconsidering. If the stories are true, and the Light can be harnessed for the purposes of negation, then perhaps she can yet turn the curse of her legacy towards a better cause. There is, of course, a long way to go. She is effectively starting from nothing—over the years she’s lost her touch with even the meager feats she performed as a child. The idea of learning from the very people she seeks to unseat twists her stomach, but in the end, she knows, it will be worth it. Balletic Grace As Dot’s memories of Lerenna begin to fade, what remains is her mother’s spirit. She danced them across Alexandria, with enthralling grace born from her time as a warrior. When she finally achieved some measure of freedom in the Sages’ Tower, learning to dance was the first thing she thought of. Verite spared no expense. He brought in tutors from every corner of Alexandria, Valefor and beyond, and she met their instruction with an almost innate talent. Fast, nimble, with the balance and coordination of a cat, at fourteen Dot already bears Lerenna’s grace in full. Be it in simple clothes or lightweight, piecemeal armor, her movements are fluid and unencumbered. Alone her dances are sharp and captivating, but her brand of performance prefers a partner. Mummer's Waltz In learning swordplay, Dot had several obstacles to overcome; chief among them was the fact that she had decided upon a greatsword as her weapon of choice. Training with lighter wasters served well enough to develop her foundation, but the next issue arose when she met her tutors. She could not, or perhaps simply refused to, divorce her dancing from her swordsmanship. Waster in hand, she would twirl, and dip, and leap, and every time she fell, or tripped, or threw herself off balance, she got right back up. Her tutors were baffled and incensed, demanding she use proper form. Fighting, they said, was ugly, brutal, and above all, practical. But Verite saw differently, and much like how he had fostered her anger, he chose to nurture her peculiar style into something wonderful. He dismissed her tutors, and took up the role of teacher himself. Much to Dot’s surprise, he was incredibly well-versed, matching and surpassing both the tutor’s skills and her own elegance, as though he’d been fighting and dancing his whole life. For six years this was her morning noon and night. Hard training as well as the exercise to ensure she could wield her sword as gracefully as she danced. Though she never managed to best Verite in their spars, he did invite other youthful trainees to measure her against. There, her unorthodox style and swordsmanship granted her a taste of victory. It was addictingly sweet, and by the time she left for Grayle, she was eager to taste it again.

Physical Description Despite her best efforts, Dot does not strike an imposing figure. She’s short, and still carries a youthful countenance even when she’s glowering. When she must begrudgingly don the long dresses and frilled skirts of nobility, her pale-gray hair and glassy eyes lend her a doll-like appearance. Normally, she can be found wearing simple clothes, plain and well-fitting from shirt to boots, save for the addition of waist or shoulder cloaks. She moves with incredible grace, calm and measured even when her emotions are high. While not exactly stealthy, her height and the ghostly ease with which she navigates can take her in and out of a room before she’s so much as noticed. As a result of all this, seeing her heft such a mighty weapon might come as a surprise. Part of her strength undoubtedly comes from her aura, but the majority of it is borne from years of rigorous training. Dot’s stature belies a form of hardened muscle, maintained through determination and routine conditioning, as well as the agile flexibility required of a dancer. Character Conceptualization Dancer’s Scimitars Two elegant, curved swords once wielded by the nomad Lerenna. Red ribbons are fastened to each pommel, meant to be twirled and spun as part of a performance, but their fabric is shorn short and faded by the sun. A woman of no nation, they say Lerenna fought on a hundred fronts in her youth, but eventually grew weary of battle and sought a more colorful life. After her adventures in Grayle, she traveled the roads of Alexandria as a roving entertainer with a new name, and a new daughter. It is said that when she visited Ferrous Shore, Baron Auferrum was so taken by her performance that he offered her board in his own keep so that she might dance for his court. “Listen close, daughter-mine. To truly live in this world you must do three things: Sing loudly, dance boldly, and love bravely.” Broken Crest A cracked emblem depicting a star crossing over the dull gray sands of the Ferrous Shore, once the symbol of House Auferrum. The evening Dot Mummer’s aura manifested, Baron Auferrum was the first to act. He confined his guests to their quarters, permitting none to leave his keep save only for Lerenna, who he had named traitor, and banished. With the Heir of Light in his custody, he sought to elevate his House, and his own station, by demanding the Sages’ Tower reinstate him. Instead, they had him murdered, and Dot was seized from the Ferrous Shore. Without its head, House Auferrum quickly collapsed, its territories picked apart by rival neighbors. Now its legacy shines as brightly as its sands. Peculiar Stone A broken, silvery shard carved with a latticework of markings. Embers of pale light still glint upon its surface. Dot was seven when she was brought to the Sages’ Tower, where her confusion and tearful pleas for her mother were met by the Sages’ deaf ambitions. Tutored by a man named Verite, she was put to work immediately. Day in and day out, she channeled her light into all manner of objects, while the scholars studied her. These stones were her greatest challenge, drinking greedily from her aura, but breaking like glass when they grew too full. It took nearly a year to infuse one properly. Dot grew embittered, not only with the Tower, but with herself. The wonderment of magic soured, and she began to view her divine heirdom for what it truly was: a leash. It is said that by the time she was only eight, the golden brilliance of her magic had withered to a cold, lunic white. Wooden Greatsword Solid and heavy, the blade is weathered from years of practice. At first, Dot could not so much as lift this sword off the ground, but that did not deter her—she was determined to make it her dance partner. Though his excursion was brief, Verite returned from Grayle a different man. Upon reuniting with Dot, he threw himself down and inexplicably begged forgiveness for her treatment. He confided in her a deep resentment for the Sages’ cruelty and the confinements of the Tower. Though he could not free her, he asked her what she would study had she the choice. Dot told him she wanted to dance. Then she told him she wanted to fight. He agreed to teach her both. Torn Grayle Summons A letter sealed in golden wax, hand-delivered to Dot at the Sages’ Tower. Though sweetly worded, the invitation’s undertones are clear: ‘return the heir to her proper home, or face severe consequences.’ Dot loathed to go, though not for any love of Alexandria. By her fourteenth year she had developed a conspiratorial camaraderie with her mentor, who had nurtured her desire for revenge upon the aristocracy. His stories of Grayle were plenty, and painted a horrid picture of a land ruled by people every bit as corrupt as the Sages. When she received the summons, Dot was said to have ripped it in half right in front of the courier. However, she did not refuse them. Instead, she asserted that if she was to go to Grayle, she would earn her keep in the way afforded even to the peasantry: by becoming a knight. Proof of Person A simple document confirming Dot’s identity, though her parentage is incomplete. While it lists her name as ‘Dorothy Mummer’, she insists that her mother never called her that. By the time she left Alexandria, Dot had come to consider Verite as her true father. On the eve of her departure, he entrusted her with a plan. The thought of meeting the man responsible for her curse enraged her, but even as she entered Grayle, no one in the royal family had stepped forward to claim her. Content to let them hide, Dot set her sites on knighthood. They could not avoid her forever, and as the heir of Light, she would shine down on every shadow until she found them. Then, as so many things that lurk in shadows do, they would burn. Other Information Questions of Dot's parentage travel briefly up the chain of command before being stonewalled. Though her roots in the Grayle bloodline are undeniable, it would seem someone is protecting the identity of her father—or perhaps, protecting themselves.

[Mcmolly]

_______________________________________________ // INFO Character Info Name – Ezmy Eibril Age - 18 Gender - Female Place of Origin - Munzo Type – Cyber-Newtype Mobile Weapon Profile Suit Type - General-Purpose Mobile Suit Suit Style - Federation, junker Combat Role - Close-range striker Suit Armaments - Twin Beam Spear, Head-mounted Vulcan Gun, YHI YF-MG100 100mm Machine Gun - // PERSONALITY Pilot Personality Reckless Anger Ezmy has never been good at controlling her temper, a problem drastically exacerbated by Neo Zeon's conditioning. However, even before being brought in to the cyber-newtype experiments, her parents would have described her as a problem child, which might have been why there was so little fuss about giving her up. Within her is an ugly, angry, violent fire which refuses to be snuffed out, burning brightest in the heat of battle, and the cold of isolation. Grim Outlook Misanthropy was an ineluctable fate; people are disgusting during war, and there’s always war. On the one hand, an almost cruel contempt for life made Ezmy a good soldier on paper, but on the other hand—everything else. To Ezmy, the only thing more demeaning than being human is being a tool for humans, but dignity was never the thing getting her out of bed in the morning. Autophobic A misanthrope with a longing for affection might seem paradoxical to some, or perfectly logical to others. Ezmy just finds it humiliating. The love of family, the comradery of friendship, even in her dreams these things are vague and ephemeral. She cannot describe how they feel—or would feel—or just why she wants them, but she does. She wants them more than anything, sometimes even enough to act like someone acting like a well-adjusted person. But being discarded again, this time by Zeon itself, has done little to change her belief that these intangible concepts, if they’re real at all, are worth wasting on a tool.

Physical Description Ezmy is a built like a spike; short, narrow, deceptively sturdy. Spotty diets haven’t left her with much to build muscle on, but old exercise habits have at least kept her from wasting away. She wears what she can get her hands on, which usually means clothes that are baggy and too big for her, but which are at least insulated to handle the Cathartes’ occasional temperature tantrums. Her hair is kept short out of reflex, and her eyes are a dim, earthy brown. Her boney skin burns easily and often, and the multitude of scars left over from childhood experimentation crawl across her arms and spine and up her neck. She’s gone out of her way to rip out and stitch over the identifying Zeon crests of her mobile suit gear. The colors still disgust her, but there’s an odd, familiar comfort to the suit that’s kept her from tossing it in the airlock. Character Conceptualization Ezmy is Neo Zeon war-chaff brought up in the wake of one loss, and discarded on the eve of another. While initially a promising prospect due to how responsive she was to experimentation, her volatile personality and growing disdain for authority ultimately led to her dismissal after only a brief tour in conflict. Her home, which had so greedily sought her out, was now embarrassed by her, and at the age of eighteen she found herself living the life of a disgraced nomad. Neo Zeon coaxed the aptitude for violence out of her, and used it to feed her craving for conflict. Now, with the second war behind, Ezmy drifts listlessly in secret, desperate search of anything even resembling purpose. Time alone has awakened a new hunger within her as well, one for companionship. The feeling confuses her, disgusts her, and she does not know how to feed it, nor can she bring herself to ignore it. Mobile Weapon Description After her dismissal from Neo Zeon, Ezmy came into possession of a seized Federation relic, a nearly two-decade old GM Striker, and was sent on her way. The thing was hardly functional and took some time to adjust to, and the irony of having to pilot old Federation tech was not lost on her. While outdated in nearly every way, its close-range leanings were at least familiar to her. Passably mobile, with head-mounted vulcan cannons for minor cover, and a twin beam spear, which can be detached into two sabers, what the Striker lacks in range and defense it…well, it doesn’t really make up for it, but it does well enough up close.

[Mcmolly]

_______________________________________________ // INFO I R L Full Name – Misao (“Missy”) Ito-Walsh Age – 18 It's...dark... Place of Origin – United States Occupation – Prospective University Student A V A T A R Character's Name – Ciel Pathos Affiliation – Drox I'm...scared... Role – Buffer/Debuffer Profession – Traveling Physician Weapon of Choice – Focus Rings Domains – Enhancement, Manifestation - // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y Forbearing Ciel is the embodiment of the phrase “patience is a virtue.” She has to be, really, considering how much time she spends around newer players and rerunning familiar content. Whether someone is struggling to learn the game, or growing frustrated hitting a wall, or even being outright toxic, Ciel takes it all in stride and tries her best to help the situation along. Even facing the toughest odds, you’d be hard-pressed to get so much as a defeated sigh out of her. Some people like that, other people, respectfully, can’t fucking stand it. Ciel, of course, enjoys their company regardless. Missy...please... The Power of Friendship! Angel food cake is rich, and sweet, and sometimes it is just entirely too much. Ciel is like that. She’s quick to make friends, and quicker to want to help those friends. She loves to talk with them, loves to be regaled with adventurous stories, and now and then she even loves to talk with them a little OOC. When it comes to most things, Ciel is an open book—she finds people open up more easily that way. She won’t bat an eye if you call her “Missy” by accident, and she’s never turned away anyone who’s come to her with an out-of-game problem. Whether it’s raid bosses, homework, or trouble at home, Ciel has always done her best to be supportive. Idealistic, but not Blind While some people tend to believe that warm smiles and a bubbly personality equate to air-headedness, for all of the good and bad that Ciel is, she is not naïve. Is she trusting to a fault? Yes. Does her patience render her unable to make the “hard decisions,” especially when those decisions might leave someone hurt or even just inconvenienced? Absolutely. Ciel is keenly aware that supports are often seen as doormats, and can easily be taken advantage of, but that hasn’t stopped her from supporting even in the most blatantly deceptive cases. In her mind, she’d rather have faith and be wrong a thousand times than give up on someone and be right just once. Even if it’s just in a game, everyone can change, and grow, and be forgiven for their mistakes. Liar. // BENCHMARKS B E N C H M A R K S Shackled The crux of Ciel’s playstyle lies within her signature spell: The Shackles. When summoned, roughly a foot of ethereal chain binds her wrists. At first, this hampers her spell-power, but as she continues to cast, the chains will shimmer and crack. When they eventually break, the potency of Ciel’s magic is increased dramatically, allowing for enhanced shields, buffs, and debuffs for a short duration. Once the effect ends, it must be started over. Larger spells quicken the chain’s deterioration, but may not be available during the empowered phase as a result. Don’t…go… The Shield Behind You Ciel won’t call herself a healer, but some of what she does could be called “proactive healing.” Ciel can weave arcane barriers into existence with varying potency. Shields for individuals require less power to make effective, while larger, area-of-effect shields may take a more substantial toll. Your Wings. Your Chains. The core of Ciel’s spells are a range of buffs and debuffs. Where other casters would have made room for damage, Ciel doubled down on utility. Speed, strength, spell-power, empowered weapons, she has something up her sleeve for just about all of her allies in one form or another. For her enemies, while she won’t be hurting them per se, they may find themselves struggling to hurt her party in kind. Curses of frailty, hexes to shatter resistances and bindings to anchor the feet; assailants will find their weapons brittle, their armor chipping, and their efforts dashed against the empowered might of her party. Missy…please… The Best Medicine Is sometimes literally medicine. Ciel’s life as a roaming support, especially one inclined towards aiding the newer or more unfortunate players, hasn’t yielded her much in the way of coin. She’s taken to herbalism as a means of keeping herself afloat, after all, all it takes to gather ingredients is time, and the effort to learn how to utilize them. While she has no talent whatsoever for poisons, her tinctures and salves have eased more than a handful of headaches and minor wounds. Anything much greater though, and she’ll be the first to direct you to a proper healer. It hurts…

Physical Description Misao—though she’s gone by “Missy” for most of her life—is an unassuming girl with a prim, peppy disposition. Preferring vests and collared shirts, skirts and plain shoes, she generally wouldn’t look at all out of place at some mid-grade piano-recital, if she, you know, played piano. Tallish from her mom’s side, wiry from her dad’s, with eyes that might seem just a bit too big, and a smile near-constantly affixed to her face, if there was a single word to sum Missy up, it would be “approachable.” Mi...ssy... Ciel resembles Missy for the most part, albeit a bit less well-kempt. Volumes of black hair like raven-down fall from the wide brim of her cap, all the way down to her knees, occasionally bound in tails of three or four, but most often left like a feathery curtain. Her attire strikes a fashionable line between “swamp-witch-chic” and “discount battle-mage,” with black robes and thick boots, gauzed sleeves and superfluous belts and thin ringlet strings that could not, really, be holding anything together, but which she would insist were integral regardless. The standout to her ensemble would be the armored rings she wears on a few fingers of either hand, the catalyst for her magic and the closest thing Ciel carries to a weapon. Claw-nailed, lined with runes, and marbled onyx and ivory, one might easily mistake them for jewelry. The foremost digits can be retracted, so that she can handle things without jabbing them. Missy…please… Character Conceptualization Ciel made her debut in Aetheria a few months after Pariah Online’s launch, once the floodgates had opened and the famous and infamous wayfarers had begun chiseling out their legacies. Having always been what most people would refer to as “the mom friend,” it would have come as a surprise to no one who had known her—were she still in contact with any of them—that Missy chose to fulfil a supportive role. It hurts… She would emphasize “support” over “healer,” as Ciel decidedly doesn’t refer to what she does as healing. She supplies her allies with an arsenal of buffs, enhancements, and shields, and weakens her foes with debilitating curses, hexes and arcane devilry. “Weakens” is another important clarification to her, as Ciel boasts just about no true offensive capabilities. No weapons, no fireballs or lightning strikes, nothing to directly chip away at that health bar. This was, of course, by design for her. She enjoys the challenge presented by her somewhat-inhibitive toolkit, but more than that she enjoys conquering those challenges with others—which is great, because she likely couldn’t clear any content on her own otherwise. It took a while for her to grow into the peculiar playstyle she’d chosen, and longer still for her to convince others to give her a shot. Dungeoneers passed her by for more conventional healers, raiders would decline her applications almost instantly. She found tumultuous homes in random pick-up-groups, who were consistently surprised when she managed to get them through nearly unscathed; monsters would hardly ever scratch them, and her team found their weapons swung truer, their spells quickened. They would clear dungeons with brow-raising parses rivaling actual guilds, but when the time for glory came, Ciel always stepped back and let her tanks and dps and the occasional off-healer take the spotlight and riches. Don't…go... Ironically, the home she found was in travelling Aetheria, offering aid to players and denizens who would accept her. She helped newer players transition into more challenging content, she helped moderate players gear up so that they could apply to guilds with more confidence, and a handful of times she even found herself substituting for missing supports in raids run by guilds with serious reputations. While most people had never heard of her, Ciel’s name did find its way onto the short-lists of a fair number of higher-end raid leaders and dungeoneers, who knew they could rely on her to keep them up, and the enemy down. Perpetually guildless—again, by design—Ciel enjoys her humble life in Aetheria. She gets to meet all sorts of people, hear their stories and goals and help them on their way, make friends and experience Pariah’s content in fun and challenging ways. Except for PvP. As Missy would say, “Frick PvP.” Missy…please… Other Information Notable Spells Signature Shackled/Broken Chains Shackled Seele’s signature spell, and the key to her somewhat strange toolkit. When cast, Seele’s wrists are bound by a pair of ethereal shackles. While chained, Seele’s spell-power is inhibited, and the effectiveness of her shields, buffs and debuffs are substantially impacted. As she continues casting however, this inhibition gradually wears off, until the chains eventually break, activating the spell’s second phase: Broken Chains. Broken Chains For a short duration after the shackles are broken, Seele’s spell power is greatly increased, and a few of her spells become empowered, taking on new or heightened effects. As well, certain abilities can only be cast during Broken Chains and will immediately consume the effect. Shields Umbral Aegis/Abyssal Embrace Umbral Aegis Marrying her Arcane affinity for Protection with her Primordial affinity for Dark, Seele weaves a barrier of faint, deep-violet light, which can be applied to targets individually. Must be depleted or dispelled before reapplication. Abyssal Embrace Seele’s shield takes on a vantablack shine, able to withstand significantly more damage. Additonally, a portion of the damage inflicted by Cursed Weapon is fed into the shield, not enough to permanently sustain it, but exceptional if used on a target about to do burst damage. The Parasol The Parasol Combines all active shields cast by Seele into a single barrier-dome. If no shields were active, Seele can empower it by sacrificing her own HP. This spell must be channeled, and once interrupted or depleted, it will consume the Broken Chains effect. Buffs Hexed Weapon Cursed Weapon Target’s weapon takes on a ghostly edge, sucking at the light as it flies. Provides a slight increase to damage that ramps up as the duration winds down. Refreshing resets the damage buff, rather than extending it. Haint/All Your Shadows Haint It’s there, in the corner of your eye. Something, in the dark. Affected target adopts a shadowy after-image, which will mirror their next attack. All Your Shadows Applies Haint to all targets with the Cursed Weapon buff. Consumes the Broken Chains effect. Thrill/Absolution Thrill Moderately empowers a target’s strength, speed, agility or spell-power. Seele can further feed this buff by sacrificing some of her own respective stat. Absolution Empowers a target’s strength, speed, agility or spell-power temporarily, equal to Seele’s own spell-power. Can only cast each buff once, and targets can not receive more than two empowered buffs each. Debuffs The Fivefold Path/Guilt The Fivefold Path Seele applies one of five temporary debuffs to a target: Denial Reduces target’s movement speed. Anger Reduces target’s damage. Bargaining Reduces target’s spell-power. Depression Reduces target’s healing received. Acceptance Reduces target’s defense. Guilt Walk alone. Applies all five debuffs to a target. Afflicts Seele with empowered Acceptance, drastically reducing her defense. Heavy Heart/The Anchor Heavy Heart Seele greatly hinders a target’s movement speed. Requires her to maintain vision of the target. The Anchor You are sinking. Ethereal chains bind the target in place. The Anchor’s strength is directly linked to Seele’s spell-power. This spell must be channeled, and Seele must remain stationary. When The Anchor is broken or dismissed, the Broken Chains effect is consumed....please... Utility/Other Promise/Don't Leave Me Promise Seele summons a ghostly chain, which pulls a willing target to her. Heavier targets require more effort to pull. Don’t Leave Me Seele pulls all willing targets within a moderate distance to her. Can also be used to empower a single chain with her spell-power to attempt to pull a single unwilling target. (Not yet learned) The Choice/I Can Hear The Rain The Choice Seele channels to temporarily boosts a willing target’s defense dramatically, also numbing them to pain. However, the target will constantly lose health until the effect ends or is canceled. I can’t… I Can Hear The Rain Seele additionally empowers her target’s damage, but their health drains at a much higher rate. As well, the effect cannot be canceled and must run its course, or be dispelled. Without dedicated healing, this may potentially kill her target. You have to...

[Mcmolly]

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Welcome to Amygdala Circuit, a mecha-horror RP in a world beset by the Modir: bloodthirsty, interdimensional giants wielding devastating weapons and magics. To face these hellish invaders and the hordes of horrific creatures they lead, your characters will need to arm themselves with humanity’s only real hope at survival, and perhaps even victory: the monsters themselves.

But outside of the cockpit, the world is no less dangerous. While some of Illun’s people enjoy living in “post-war societies,” this international peace is often tenuous, and exists on the exploitation and suffering of smaller nations without monsters of their own. With armies rendered nearly obsolete, the struggle for power revolves mostly around the unspoken threat of violence carried by these reined-in monsters. From nation to nation, pilots are revered as everything from celebrities to pariahs; symbols of peace and the faces of oppression.

Your characters will endure hell, both from without and, especially, within. Together they might just survive, but alone they could become the things they fear most.

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Nothing brings people together like the threat of extinction.

Illun faces an alien enemy that cannot be reasoned with, which knows no fear and wants without compromise the complete and utter annihilation of every living thing. Naturally, when presented with the option of dying on principle, or uniting and surviving, the people of Illun chose the latter. The best and brightest minds from across the world came together to develop a means of fighting back against their invaders—and fell embarrassingly short. Even their most advanced weaponry could only slow the tide of lesser creatures, to say nothing of the giants, from which they drew nothing but the meagerest drops of blood. It wasn’t until they began experimenting on the strange, dead things that headway was made.

The shift in power was gradual at first, and derided by most for the secrecy shrouding it; no one knew how these weapons were being developed, how long it would take, or if they’d even work at all. The people were met with complete radio-silence, and a fearful unrest began to boil: until the first of the Modir fell.

Awe silenced man and beast alike. Government militia swooped in like vultures, the giant was ripped apart limb from limb until nothing remained but the head and torso, and then it was carted away into the deepest, most well-protected bunkers. Nothing was heard again for months. The attacks resumed, increased in frequency and fervor. Cities crumbled, millions died. Humanity was once again pushed to the brink, and in what would have been its final hour, it found deliverance.

A man-made Savior.

The taken giant emerged, its body restored, and turned its weapons and magics against the other Modir. More of the enemy fell in one day than had fallen in years, and when the dust settled, the Savior remained. It knelt to the ground, a hulk of flesh and alien metal steaming with Modir blood, and went slack like a puppet without strings. From the back of its head arose a lone, human woman.

In the aftermath, the fallen Modir were once again cut apart and dragged away. Another Savior emerged, and another, and another. Before long the reined giants were at every invasion, ready to repel the Modir and their ravenous armies. The war was no longer so devastatingly one-sided; humanity could finally fight back. For the first time since the invasions began, Illun found hope.

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The better half of two hundred years has passed since the first Savior rose, and the war between Illun and the Modir has reached a plateau. The Modir’s forces are seemingly endless, but the human-piloted Saviors are, generally speaking, much stronger. Now and then a new variant of the giants will emerge, wielding some powerful new weapon or hitherto unseen magics, and they may succeed in felling one or two Saviors, but if the bodies can be salvaged, Illun is always ready to replace lost pilots.

The depths of Modir intelligence are not fully understood, but they seem aware that they tend to lose man-to-man confrontations, and so their personal appearances are rarer these days than earlier in the war. Nevertheless, their invasions continue, and wherever the singularities appear, tides of smaller—but hardly less deadly—creatures pour forth.

The mightier nations of Illun are more than happy to keep the stalemate going. Smaller nations without Saviors of their own find their larger, more fortunate neighbors often leveraging their safety for compliance in border disputes, and leniency in trade deals. Governments like to tote that their people live in post-war societies, where international conflicts are resolved with diplomacy and, failing that, the silent threat of whatever horrors might be wrought by homeland Savior warfare. Minor disputes are sometimes handled with a degree of theatre, wherein nations will send one or two Saviors to remote areas desolated by Modir invasions to duel.

The reality is that much of the world lives under the iron boot of a privileged few nations, and the post-war bliss that exists for some is more often a pre-war anxiety for most.

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Humanity’s hope: the enemy, weaponized against itself. So much about the Saviors is kept hidden from the public, and even from the pilots. Most assume that the people inside simply puppet the dead giants around, but this is only half-true.

They aren’t dead.

When a Savior is made, a section of the subdued Modir’s brain is removed, rendering them essentially comatose. That void is filled by the pilot, who, once linked with the Savior’s mind via the cockpit, is able to control them with as much ease and familiarity as their own body.

Here are some key aspects to piloting a Savior:

The Body

Modir bodies are an amalgamation of flesh and a hyper-resilient, alien metal dubbed “modium”. The modium weaves in and out of the skin like a patchwork exoskeleton, and while all Modir share a generally uniform figure, their individual armors can vary wildly from one to the next. They all stand at roughly 35 meters tall, with builds that could be considered “average” to “hideously thin,” with the occasional outlier.

Saviors and Modir are also shockingly fast for their sizes, with speed and reflexes that seem to completely disregard terrestrial physics. They are not the slow, cumbersome giants of fairytales, these things can move, and move they do. As such, pilots are trained not only to utilize a Savior’s unique weapons and magics, but also in CQC.

Regeneration and Feedback

Modir bodies display the miraculous ability to regenerate almost any damages done to them, so long as the brain remains intact. This regeneration slows significantly if the heart is damaged, but even a severed Modir head will, eventually, grow itself a new body. All pieces removed from the body and head rapidly dissolve into pools of the near-black ichor that is Modir blood.

This presents a danger to the pilots. The Modir themselves are evidenced to be resistant to pain, but linked-in pilots are not. Chemical inhibitors can trivialize most artificial wounds, but if a Savior has its arm ripped off in combat, the pilot will, to put it gently, struggle with their composure. As well, while a Modir can technically survive having its heart destroyed and its head removed, these injuries will almost always result in instantaneous death to the pilot.

Weapons and Grace

Each Modir—and by extension, each Savior—has access to a unique weapon, which they can quite literally pull into existence utilizing smaller, more localized versions of the singularities used to invade Illun. These weapons vary wildly in appearance and application, some of which are simpler, and some which are entirely alien in design.

A Modir’s weapon is also the catalyst for its magic, called Grace, and like those weapons, Graces are unique from one to the next. These abilities might be tied to or influential upon the weapons, or may be entirely removed from them; the spectrum of Modir Graces is vast and often inexplicable.

However, using Grace takes a notable, physical toll on them, burning blood for fuel and ripping their bodies apart from over-exertion. As well, for pilots, Graces can only be accessed after “phasing,” a meta-physiological event that occurs after the pilot has been connected for a period of time—which, crucially, varies from pilot to pilot.

The Amygdala Circuit

The development of Saviors is a closely-guarded, international secret, the finer points of which are kept even from the pilots themselves. But what could not be hidden from them were the dangers they’d face just for linking up with the giants, and there is no greater danger than the one at the core to the entire process itself: The Amygdala Circuit.

Linking to a Savior comes with a myriad of risks both physical and psychological. Rule one of piloting is and has always been: “Do it as little as possible,” and for good reason; the longer a pilot stays connected to the Savior, the likelier they are to lose control. Remember that the Saviors are not dead Modir, only subdued, lobotomized, and comatose due to the removed section of their brains. Pilots aren’t just pilots, they are bridges between the Saviors and something…else. Something terrible. Prolonged sessions in the cockpit can and have led to pilots being completely overtaken by the Savior’s cognitive regeneration, losing both themselves and the giants to that elsewhere thing.

The usage of Grace drastically hastens this process, a caveat worsened by the fact that most pilots need to be connected for several minutes before they can even access their Savior’s ability.

Veteran pilots have also reported issues outside of the cockpit, from invasive, alien thoughts, to modium growths on the skin. While so far, none of these side effects have proven to be directly fatal, they have driven more than a few pilots into an early, permanent retirement.

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The advent of Saviors quite literally brought humanity out of the dirt. Gone are the days of bunker-cities and strongholds built beneath mountains, of disconnection and power-scarcity. The biggest cities of Illun are incredibly advanced, with skylines comprised of massive towers and roadways that sprawl and wind, connecting hundreds of miles of urban landscape together. Titanic space stations orbit the planet, housing Saviors to be deployed at a moment’s notice wherever they may be needed.

Outside of these cities the world is still widely modernized, however the propensity for singularities to appear in lesser-populated areas has led to more than a few towns being cut off from the rest of the world by ruined, untraversable terrain. This is especially true in less powerful countries without Saviors of their own, who have had to make compromises not only for the lives of their people, but then for the aid in rebuilding afterwards.

Here are some of the major players in today’s world stage:

Eusero

Eusero has an industrious history, and has led the world in technological advancements since even before the Modir’s invasions began. Indeed, the first Savior arose on Eusero soil, and though it is generally taught and accepted that the Savior project was an international collaboration, Euseran schools tend to focus more acutely on familiar, less foreign-sounding names.

Eusero has arguably the most expansive defense program in the world, boasting a whopping seven Saviors, and some of history’s most remarkable pilots. Its cities are vast and vertical, and between them the land is mostly flat, hospitable, and well suited for agriculture.

Eusaran society idolizes their pilots, treating them like celebrities. They make public speeches, visit children’s hospitals, and routinely appear on late-night talk shows; you’ll find their faces on everything from billboards to cereal boxes. To be a pilot in Eusero is to have one’s name forever etched into the hearts and minds of an entire nation.

Helburke

In the mountainous country of Helburke, civilization is…strange. Their architecture is ancient, their laws are draconian, and their wills are utterly unshakable. Helburke’s cities lay behind prodigious walls of stone and steel, and are built in tiers descending down the faces of mountains older than written history. High-towered castles and sprawling cathedrals are not uncommon sights in Helburke; indeed, one might look upon a village there and be shocked to find something as mundane as electricity.

But Helburke is not lost in time. Its aesthetics are only that, representative of their national identity, but never a hinderance. Helburke is bested in Savior-count only by Eusero, having six to its name, all of which carry long and brutal histories, and while its technological advancements might not be as plentiful as in Eusero, it is still a nation of keen, practical minds. Helburke has never shied from displaying its might in the face of any perceived slights, and is always the first to put forth duels as an answer to any diplomatic dispute.

Its citizens are hardy and proud; when the world reformed following the rise of the Saviors, and the nations’ governments collectively banned firearms from all but military use, the citizens of Helburke chose to carry swords at their hips rather than be unarmed—a practice still present to this very day.

The pilots of Helburke are regarded more with respect than adulation. They are seen as warriors, standing at the vanguard to defend their home, and their people, from the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. It is a legacy-defining honor to be selected for the Savior program in Helburke, and often times tournaments are held in which prospective candidates must fight, sometimes to the death, for their spot in the cockpits.

Tohoki

The Tohoki peninsula is a lush, vibrant land guarded from the Dim Sea by a range of snow-capped mountains. Once ruled over by the Arideans, it declared independence following the empire’s fall, though Helburke to this day still claims Tohoki was rightfully ceded to it in the aftermath. As such, tensions between to the two nations have always been high.

Though it holds only two Saviors, Tohoki has made advancements in defensive technology rivaling, and in some cases even surpassing Eusero. They were the first nation to successfully graft extra modium onto a Savior without rejection. Though other countries have managed to replicate the feat, none achieve the same quality. Nowadays, Tohoki is regularly commissioned for armor from programs across the world, cementing itself, for now, as a necessity.

Tohoki pilots are viewed with a respect more closely resembling Helburke than Eusero. There’s little in the way of fame, but plenty of reverence, and pilots are often selected from its engineering schools, whose students spend most of their academic lives working on and studying Saviors.

Casoban

Considered by many to be the most beautiful country in Illun, Casoban is a land of rolling hills and seaside vistas, where people spend their lives in luxury, relaxing on beaches and indulging their hobbies with all the time and means in the world. Though not the smallest country, it is still dwarfed by its political contemporaries, and its influence marks the first notable drop when moving past the “big two” of Eusero and Helburke.

That said, one should not underestimate Casoban. In more ancient times, Helburke was said to have tried to conquer them on no less than three separate occasions, and was rebuffed each time by Casoban’s comparably small yet devastatingly effective militia. Nowadays, and as is the case with most places, their military power is devoted almost entirely to their Savior program, of which they possess four.

Casobani pilots share a similar sort of fame with their Euseran cousins, only with a bit more pomp. Here, the pilots are not just protectors, they are cultural icons, and as such they are often as well educated as they are trained. Casobani pilots are always also lauded artists, musicians, actors, writers, and so on. The people revere them, almost even deify them, and those that retire—who can still function—normally go on to teach at the country’s world-renowned Savior Academy.

Runa

Sometimes called “The Pastel Isles” for the unique, gentle colors of its trees. Runa is a single, large island surrounded by a handful of smaller islands, and more than a handful of smaller islets. While once only really considered for its tourist trade, Runa has recently stepped into political relevance in the fallout of a disaster fifteen years earlier, where the neighboring island-nation of Westwel was overwhelmed by a Modir invasion. With their home ruined beyond repair, most of Westwel’s survivors were forced to emigrate, and were welcomed with open arms into Runa.

As a result, Runa acquired Westwel’s single Savior, and shortly thereafter, went on to acquire two more. Today, Runa still finds itself strongarmed on many matters by other, larger nations who believe they are unready for—and perhaps even undeserving of—such power. Whether or not they’re right, that power, along with the raw skill of Runa’s pilots, have kept the vultures at bay. For now.

And here is a timeline of some notable events:

Timeline

2000

The first singularity appears, and the Modir invasions begin. Millions of lives are lost, and many nations crumble in the first days before the Modir mysteriously withdraw. Attacks continue in this sporadic fashion for years.

2010

The first Savior, classified “Spirit,” emerges from a bunker in Eusero in the midst of a devastating invasion. The Modir are driven back in the ensuing fight, and two more giants are collected. The tide of the war changes almost overnight.

2015

The Modir invasions are repelled by Saviors with consistent success. The various remaining nations of Illun come together at the new, hopeful dawn of their world, and form the Illun Accord, swearing that the only war left to be fought is the war against the Modir. International regulations are set, beginning what many consider to be an era of world peace.

2300

The Aridean Empire breaks faith with the Illun Accord and uses Saviors to invade its neighboring countries. Eusero and Casoban attempt to intervene, but it is not until a single Savior from the tiny, occupied nation of Helburke attacks from within that the Aridean front is broken. In the aftermath, the Empire is crushed, and Aridea is ceded to Helburke.

2455

Westwel, a relatively small island nation, manages to repel an invasion and subdue a Modir without a Savior—a feat which has not been achieved for nearly half a millennia. With its newfound influence, Westwel manages to bring both itself and its neighbor, Runa, out from beneath the iron heel of tariffs imposed upon them by Eusero and Helburke.

2485

The Modir invade Westwel again, in the widest-scale assault launched in hundreds of years. The island is overrun, and both Eusero and Helburke conveniently fail to intervene until it is too late. Casoban Saviors arrive and manage to repel the Modir, but the damage is done. Westwel’s scarce surviving population leaves their ruined home behind, and find refuge in Runa.

2496

Runa’s sole Savior acquires a new pilot with an unprecedented phasing speed. Dahlia St. Senn, an orphan from Westwel, manages to capture two more Modir for Runa in her first year. Helburke manufactures two conflicts justifying duels with Runa within a single month, and loses both, costing it two prized pilots, and nearly one Savior. St. Senn becomes internationally known for her piloting skill, and Runa begins to see begrudging respect from other major players on the world stage.

2500

Present Day.

[Mcmolly]

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Your characters are Hovvi folk, and have been for most if not all of their lives. Things were simpler here four years ago, with the occasional lakeside tourism in the spring and summer months, but even with the spike in popularity, Hovvi still manages to be a quiet town—most days. Fishing and mining from the distant quarry make up most of the local economy, but within the last few years the new R.I.S.C. training program, which has commandeered the community rec center, has been garnering attention for the aptitude of its trainees.

CS Template

(A picture)

R.I.S.C. Dossier

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_Name

(Your name)

_Age

(Characters will range from 16-19 years old)

_{Phase Potential}

(Slow, Standard, and Fast are the options here. Slow phasing means it takes more time for the pilot to access their magic, but they can also be connected longer before they risk “completing the circuit.” Fast phasers can access their magic more quickly, but can’t be connected as long without significant risk.)

_{Physical Evaluation}

(Describe your character)

_{Psychological Profile}

(Describe your character’s personality: bullet points)

_{Background Information}

(Characters don't need to have been born in Hovvi, but they will have spent the majority of their lives there.)

Savior

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_Designation

(Your Savior's callsign.)

_Body

(While most Saviors have uniform frames, all possess unique nuances in their appearance in the form of the modium growths constituting their natural armor.)

_Weapon

(Savior weapons are unique from each other, but can still share categories like “sword” “bow” “gun” “cannon” etc.)

_Grace

(Rather than having access to a wide arsenal of spells, each Savior has one specific Grace that is unique to them. Using Grace requires that a Savior’s weapon be summoned and not in another’s possession.)

[Mcmolly]

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R.I.S.C.

_{Runan Isles Savior Corps}

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_{Established in the wake of Westwel’s destruction, the Runan Isles Savior Corps is by no means the most impressive program on Illun, but it’s well-funded and well-run by a few survivors of Westwel’s own Corps.}

Dr. Darroh

_{Character Info}

^{Name – Besca Darroh
Age – 33
Affiliation – R.I.S.C.}

<sup>Originally from Westwel, Besca Darroh has been around Saviors her entire life. Her grandfather had helped fell the Modir who would become “Dragon,” and her father had headed Westwel’s burgeoning Savior program. She met dozens of pilots, watched as their connection to the Modir ate away at their minds and bodies. Other nations treated their pilots like a resource to be burned through, kept at arm’s length in all but public affairs. Besca, however, went out of her way to engage with Westwel’s pilots and even piloting candidates, caring after them with a degree of humanity which was, frankly, missing in the programs of other nations. Her methods were derided as frivolous and naïve by her peers, but the pilots appreciated it, which, to her, was all that mattered.

She lost many things in Westwel’s fall; her home, her father, her friends, and no small piece of her faith in humanity, but ironically enough she didn’t lose her job. When Runa took in her country’s refugees, and subsequently acquired their first Savior, they came to the last living member of Westwel’s program for help in founding their own.

Nowadays, Besca doesn’t often involve herself in the politics of the program. Technically speaking she isn’t even chief of operations—a position occupied by the Runan government—but rather, her duties revolve around “pilot maintenance.” While she hasn’t lost her desire to make life easier for the pilots, she isn’t nearly as incorrigibly optimistic or sunny as she once was.</sup>

Dahlia

_{Character Info}

^{Name – Dahlia St. Senn
Age – 18
Affiliation – R.I.S.C.}

<sup>Dahlia was a toddler when her home was destroyed by the Modir, spirited away from Westwel in the arms of a family friend. She spent the first fourteen years of her life in the quiet, lakeside town of Hovvi. She was, like many children, absolutely enthralled by the Saviors, so when she tested positive and was whisked away into orbit, Dahlia thought her dream had come true. She missed her friends, and her adoptive father, but this was her opportunity to do something important. This was her chance to help.

She had no idea.

Runa’s Savior, Dragon, had not been phased by a single pilot until Dahlia entered the cockpit. With its potential finally unleashed, she was able to end invasions within minutes—which was crucial, because she couldn’t remain connected for much longer than that before the giant’s neural regeneration reached critical levels.

Dahlia has become Runa’s WMD, and as such, she actually doesn’t pilot as much as she did before R.I.S.C. acquired its two other Saviors. Besca has become rather protective of her, not wanting to risk putting her in situations where she may be forced to over-exert herself, or risk being overtaken.</sup>

Ghaust

_{Character Info}

^{Name – Hadrian Ghaust
Age – 38
Affiliation – R.I.S.C.}

<sup>Hadrian Ghaust is Helburke personified. He is strong, unrelenting, stoic to a chilling degree, and utterly devastating in the cockpit. Ghaust is also a veteran pilot, having commanded the Savior Marrowman in service of the Helburken crown for 15 years, and despite a phasing speed so slow that he rarely deigns to use his magic at all, he was well on his way to becoming one of his country’s most accomplished pilots.

However, Ghaust’s priority has always been the fight against the Modir, and Helburke’s clamor for political power is something he viewed with silent disdain. To him, using Saviors to settle diplomatic disputes isn’t just wasteful, it’s shameful. So, when Helburke ordered him to bring Marrowman to bear against the newly-risen Runa’s Dragon, he refused. When, then, he was given the ultimatum of going through with the duel or forfeiting his rank and position, he looked his general in the eye, ripped the pilot’s medal from his collar, and left his home behind.

Overnight Ghaust was made a Pariah in Helburke, and his home turned against him. He was forced to leave, and though several foreign programs sought him out, Ghaust denied them all, even passing up a pilot’s seat in Eusero. Instead, he went straight to the burgeoning program in Runa, who was more than happy to take him.</sup>

Safie

_{Character Info}

^{Name – Safie Calhan
Age – 22
Affiliation – R.I.S.C.}

<sup>R.I.S.C.’s newest pilot, Safie has spent the past year earning her place at Dahlia and Ghaust’s sides. Born and raised in Runa’s largest city, Queenshand, Safie was one of countless starry-eyed youths who dreamed of the day she’d get to step inside the cockpit of a Savior. A positive connection-test put her on the path, but it was the months upon months of personal training, rigorous study, and nights spent running sims until dawn that pulled her ahead of the other aspirants. With a phase potential speed just above average, she was a perfect fit between Runa’s other two pilots.

While Dahlia has accrued something of a heroic mythos about her, she’s often reclusive and hesitant to make many public appearances. Safie on the other hand loves to meet the people she’s helping, be that with personal visits, answering fan-mail, or simply getting her hands dirty cleaning up after the messier invasions. Some see her approach as distinctly Euseran, but Safie didn’t become a pilot for the attention, she became a pilot because it was the right thing to do.</sup>

Lucis

_{Character Info}

^{Name – Lucis Abroix
Age – 25
Affiliation – Casoban, on loan to the R.I.S.C.}

<sup>Casoban’s sole effort to save Westwel, while ultimately futile, planted the seeds of goodwill between it and Runa. Casoban has always lived in the influential shadows of Helburke and Eusero, but allied with Runa, the two manage a strong presence on the world stage.

As a show of solidarity, Casoban has even begun sending a Savior of its own as backup to Runa’s invasions. Enter: Lucis Abroix.

Lucis is perhaps one of Casoban’s most beloved pilots, despite having only a handful of deployments to his name. Handsome, personable, with a poetic flare and the voice of an angel, many people back home already consider him the face of Casoban’s Savior program—a role he is more than happy to play. Casoban makes regular public appearances, seemingly never missing an opportunity to espouse his love for the beauty of the world, and his burning desire to protect it from the Modir.</sup>

Hovvi

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_{A small town settled along Lake Ebon. Once a quiet, unbothered place, it has gained some tourist attention in recent years. For better or for worse, this is your home, and these are your people.}

[Mcmolly]

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[Mcmolly]

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Welcome to Regenlied, a sci-fi/fantasy RP set in a world where humanity is forced to harness science and magic in order to survive. With most of civilization confined to oasis cities amidst vast expanses of barren desert, the days of international conflict are ancient and gone. Now, the Regentier are the truest threat. The horrific creatures from above, the torrent that nearly drowned the world, and may yet still wash it away.

It is the duty of the Sonnelied National Defense Program to protect not only its largest city, but its numerous territories as well. From defensive expeditions, to large-scale hunts, where the Regentier fall, it is said, the SNDP rises. Once a singular entity, in recent decades a schism has formed. The old guards of the Vulkan Division prioritize the research and development of high-powered energy weapons, and are responsible for nearly all of the SNDP’s technological advancements since its foundation. Conversely, the newer Sarkaturges have pioneered the practice of grafting: drawing out humanity’s latent affinity for magic by grafting parts of dead Regentier to their bodies.

As the program’s newest recruits, your characters will discover that, while the Regentier may be the existential danger, they are not the only danger. Sonnehall’s High Command has been ordering joint operations between the divisions, and while the Vulkans and Sarkaturges may be working together, they are nonetheless competing, both for funding, and legitimacy in the eyes of High Command, and the people themselves. Tensions are high, interdivision conflicts are common, subterfuge and sabotage are the lull between the Regentier storms.

Hard falls the rain that scorches the earth.

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Seated with the Bay of Kings to its back, and the Aegaen Wall at its face, Sonnehall is the oldest and most well-protected city in the country, perhaps even the world. While the vast stretches of barren plains between oases lead to an unorthodox rule, it is nonetheless absolute. The entirety of the nation’s defense program rests comfortably behind Sonnehall’s walls, and as such, the other cities and settlements must often rely on outriding forces to come to their aid. In most cases they arrive before they’re needed. In others…

Like most cities, Sonnehall is built downwards. Above, buildings rarely extend more than two stories high, and instead run several down, often connecting to one another. Streets and highways mark up the topside, while cavernous plazas and intertwining railways make a web of the undercity.

The Bay of Kings houses Sonnehall’s modest yet well-guarded harbor, and opens up into the brackish waters of the Engel Sea. Beset by beast and pirate alike, it is sailed elseways by only the brave, the foolish, and the greedy. Somewhere within lies the sovereign atoll called Forra, from which trade occasionally makes its way to Sonnehall’s docks. Little is known of the place; its sailors say nothing to the public, and little more to interrogators. In the absence of any recorded hostility, commerce continues.

The Aegaen Wall, older than the city itself, is Sonnehall’s first line of defense. It has not been breached in decades, and what Regentier do approach the wall are usually meager, and dealt with in swift exercises often televised to the public. On the other side of it is the Plain. A simple enough name for a simple enough place: miles upon miles upon yet even more miles of exactly nothing. Hard, dusty earth, sand in some places, rock in others, all of it utterly barren save for the pockets of arable land, which have become the basis for settlements, towns, and even a handful of cities, though nothing quite rivaling Sonnehall’s size.

Further and further out into the Plain, the oases became fewer, smaller. The Reachline, well past the most outflung settlement in Sonnelied, is the point past which there is, as far as anyone knows, nothing. Expeditions have been conducted lasting several months, and each time its members return claiming there is not a single speck of healthy earth to be found. Flat, lifeless, and seemingly endless. Some of the more delirious explorers claim that the sun never set again once they passed the Reach, others say it never rose. Most were unable to say anything.

For better or for worse, this is your home. Now when the storms come, it is your duty to help weather them.

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When you ask questions of a storm, it answers in torrents and flashes of lightning. No one knows where the Regentier came from, or why they do what they do—they can’t be asked, they answer in nature’s own fury.

They are old, that much is known. As long as there have been clouds, there have been the beasts that come with them. They are also many, perhaps even endless. No matter how many are slain, more always come; there is always another battle.

Their appearances and abilities vary, and while there are records of recurring species, it is not uncommon for a new beast, or some hideous chimeric evolution to appear. Thankfully, the size and severity of a storm is often a reliable indicator of the power of the monsters within it. Currently, storms are categorized as follows:

Storm Tiers

Benign 1
A meager storm, bringing soft rains and often little else. The Regentier borne by these clouds are often small, unthreatening—though not unviolent—and easily dispatched by even untrained civilians. They do not tend to last very long.

Benign 2
Longer lasting than its predecessor, but still about as temperate. These are the most common storms, and B2 Regentier present minimal threat when met with a modicum of caution. Rarely, they can evolve into M1 storms, but this can often be predicted, and SNDP hunters can be dispatched in advance.

Malignant 1
M1 storms present the most common danger to Sonnelied, especially to settlements further from Sonnehall. Regentier that come with these storms often have abilities that, while on the lower-scale of power, still pose significant danger to untrained, unarmed civilians. There is also a chance for an M1 storm to evolve into an M2 with little warning.

Malignant 2
Here the danger spikes sharply. Regentier borne by M2 storms are often capable of significant feats of power, and certain “colossal” species may appear. Settlements and small towns in the path of an M2 are advised to evacuate, and meet with the inbound hunters for protection. In the case that the assault fails, civilians are advised not to return to their homes even after the skies have opened, until reinforcements have cleared the area. Rarely, M2 storms can evolve.

Malignant 3
Areas near the formation and especially in the path of M3 storms should evacuate immediately. Regentier of M3 storms are among the strongest and most deadly, and colossal species are much more likely to appear in multiples. In the case that an M3 results from the evolution of an M2, hunters are recommended to retreat until reinforcements arrive, or until the storm has passed, if the remaining Regentier are judged to be manageable.

Schicksal
In the event that a storm’s rain turns black, hunters are advised to evacuate immediately.

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Dating back to the country’s founding, there have always been individuals brave enough to fight back against the storm. Over the centuries, technology has evolved almost hand-in-hand with research of the Regentier. Modern hunters have access to a wide array of advanced weapons, armors, and vehicles.

However, in recent decades, the SNDP has been split into two competing divisions: the old guard Vulkans, and the newcomers, the Sarkaturges. While both divisions utilize humanity’s latent affinity for magic, their methods are wildly different from each other.

Vulkan Division

With black powder an ancient, unattainable relic, weapons are operated and enhanced via the energized remains of Regentier. As well, by tapping into a person’s latent well of power, they can be used like a battery, allowing them to operate arms and armor that would normally be unfeasible. Vulkan hunters are given access to high-potency energy weapons, as well as power armor, speed-enhancing exo-skeletons, and state-of-the-art prosthetics. They cannot, however, truly access their magical capabilities.

Sarkaturge Division

Having only emerged in the last few decades, the Sarkaturges carry a heavy stigma for turning people into monsters. It is true, of course—at least in a way. Sarkaturges tap into their affinity by grafting pieces of dead Regentier to their bodies, allowing them to perform extraordinary feats typically only achievable by their monstrous donors. The process is notoriously dangerous, with a mortality rate that would have landed any other procedure on the medical blacklists. In some places, that’s exactly where it is; in fact, the only place grafting is done is in the Sarkaturge Division’s wing. It is worth noting that the abilities granted by a graft are not the same as magic, though having a graft does enable one to learn it. Spellcasting is an entirely different and nascent art, with little research and very few practitioners. For the most part, Sarkaturges are limited to the feats granted to them by their grafts.

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Name:

Age: (Vulkan applicants are typically age 17-18, while Sarkaturges recruit from 13 but do not send hunters into battle until 16.)

Place of Birth: (If not from Sonnehall, give an idea of how far from city your home is.)

Division:

Background Check: (Brief history of your character, what led them to join the SNDP, and why they chose the division they did.)

Graft/Weapon Specialty: (You are fresh off the operating table. Vulkans will have limited control over their power supply, and thus will begin with less-extreme weapons until they learn to channel properly. Sarkaturges will have minor grafts to start, which will be added to/replaced/enhanced over time.)

[Mcmolly]

_______________________________________________ // INFO P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S Full Name – Moriya Mio Age - 20 Gender - Female Occupation – Blacksmith’s Apprentice - // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y Tempered “That’s the problem, you know. You think you’re the fire, but you’re the metal.” If it weren’t for her size, you might never know Mio was there. She speaks softly and maintains a serene demeanor, and it is by every measure an effort. She has encased herself in an armor of patience, and has not raised her voice in anger since she was still little. Her mind is filled with a myriad of calming mantras, meditative techniques, and sermons on tranquility. Quenched steel might lose its heat, but cold metal can still cut—she can’t afford to be complacent. Imperfect Alloy “You don’t smile right, girl. If a wolf shows you its teeth, it’s not happy—it’s gonna bite you.” The urges and impulses that plagued her as a child never went away. She knew better than to believe they could be buried, and though she tried her best to quell them, they’re still there, baked into her every moment whether she realizes it or not. Though often well-composed, one can still see that the fire in the forge doesn’t leave her when she walks away. It’s still there in her eyes, in her gait, in the bridled way she handles the curtness of others. Against her wishes, the world seems bent on trying to pry violence out of her, but even if it’s a fight she can never win, she’s determined to do her best not to lose. Sweated Steel “Sometimes I think you wake up to remind the sun it’s got a job to do.” Mio considers herself exceptionally hard-working, not out of arrogance but necessity. Each morning she’s up before dawn, fed and exercised and headed to the forge while the moon’s still watching. When an order comes in she gets to work immediately, heading a project herself, or assisting either Tetsu or Tsubasa as needed. In downtime she cleans, she organizes, she runs errands entirely unrelated to the forge. Anything to keep busy. Anything to keep the mind off itself. Idle hands tempt maligned action. // SKILLSET S K I L L S E T Blacksmith's Apprentice Mio knows her way around a forge. Be it structural components, tools, or, sometimes, little knick-knacks just for fun, Tetsu’s shop can do it all. She’s nowhere near as skilled as her master, and as a craftsman she’s fairly sure Tsubasa is the more skillful apprentice, but Mio is no novice anymore, and she excels at repairs in particular. Body of Work A decade of hard work and diligent exercise has made Mio almost as strong as the metals she works with. If there’s heavy lifting to be done, whether it’s around the shop or out on the town, she’s your girl. As well, her years by the forge have granted her a slight resilience to heat, and if you get too close to her you might swear she took some of its warmth with her. Independent The soft-ostracization Mio faces from both the village and her own family forced her to learn self-reliance at a young age. As a result, she’s incredibly responsible, able to take care of herself, cook, clean, and manage both a home and the forge without much trouble. It’s done nothing for her nonexistent social skills, but it does make her a dependable handywoman.

Physical Description Mio is imposing, and it stresses her out. She’s taller than most people in the village, even those older than she is, and practically a decade of working with heavy metals has given her a physique of hard muscle and the stamina of a field ox. Wherever she goes, Mio casts a long and intimidating shadow that most people would rather scurry out of than look up at. If they did though, they wouldn’t find much comfort. Mio isn’t an angry looking person, but being around her, you’re likely to be struck by a disconcerting anxiety. She tries to keep on a warm smile, and on another face, her eyes might be considered safe and comforting. On her though, people swear they see something in them. They hold firelight too long and too easy, and their brightness makes it hard to tell whether she’s happy, or about to do something…bad. Her hair is a soft sunset color, and goes down to her back. She dresses lightly for the hours spent around roaring fires and scalding metals. There are a fair few burn scars up and down her arms, and across her sides, from the early mistakes all apprentices make, but she makes no effort to hide them. Character Conceptualization When Mio was six years old, she smashed a frog’s leg with a rock. She remembers it vividly, and the gut-wrenching horror that rooted in her as it hopped oblongly away even more so. She remembers running to her parents, screaming and crying that the trees were going to eat her for being evil. Of course, when they found out what she’d done, they did their best to comfort her; then, when she’d finally calmed down, they scolded her gently, and brought her out to pray forgiveness for what she’d done. Kneeling there with her head pressed to the dirt, Mio had never felt so scared. Ultimately, it seemed the kami decided to spare her the agony of eternal damnation, or exile, and she went back to being a normal child. When she was ten it happened again. Sitting on a bench behind her family’s home, a small bird perched itself on her hand. It wasn’t the first time; Mio had a penchant for stillness that most wildlife found amicable, and she often found herself subject to the company of birds, and squirrels, and wild cats. It was pleasant, usually, and there was warmth in being trusted by something so small, so soft. So fragile. It didn’t move when she slowly closed her hand around it, but when she squeezed it fought back. It shrieked, it thrashed, it pecked at her hand with its sharp little beak and drew blood, but Mio didn’t let go. She just squeezed, until her mom found her and wrenched the poor thing out of her grasp. This time there was no comforting. Her parents demanded answers that she didn’t have; she knew it was wrong, she felt terrible, and she didn’t know why she did it. They looked at her like a stranger, they treated her like a yokai in the shape of their daughter. Animals didn’t come to her anymore after that. She felt an eerie discomfort whenever she drew too close to the forest, and soon that anxiousness began to follow her everywhere. The villagers seemed to sense it; there was a wariness about them when she was in their presence, even when she was still little. People stopped talking to her, stopped visiting her house. They averted their eyes like they could see something in her own that upset them. Before long, her company was scarce. Just about the only person who would actually speak to her was the local blacksmith, Tetsu, and he was more disliked than she was. Her parents didn’t care that she spent so much time around a delinquent; it got her out of the house, away from them. Whether the man was taking pity on her, or just wanted an extra pair of hands to dump his work into, at ten Mio began to work as Tetsu’s apprentice. The work helped. Smithing gave her a focus, a channel for the feelings she had but didn’t understand. She turned her impulses to the forge, and the crucible, and gave what remained to the flames. She started to smile again, even if she didn’t often have anyone to share it with. As time went on, Mio grew taller than her mother, then her father, and eventually you’d have been hard-pressed to find an adult in Heisana who could stand at-eyes with her. Combined with her muscled build and the unnerving air she’s been unable to shake even into young adulthood, her regard in the village did not improve, despite her best efforts. In some ways she began to adopt Tetsu’s ill reputation, though she attended few parties and never touched alcohol. But she doesn’t mind. In ten years, she hasn’t hurt a single breathing thing, intentionally or otherwise. The urges have become a part of her, and each day they pass from head, to heart, to hand, to hammer and finally to metal. Never thanked for her work, never welcomed as warmly as the forge, as long as she can keep her peace, Mio is content to be who she is. It’s better than what she could be. Other Information Mio has only learned a couple of signs to help out around the forge. Reinforce to make handling white-hot metals less of a danger, and Mend for when a project just needs a little touching up.

[Mcmolly]

I O N N A
I O N N A

^{“Nothing that can't be fixed over a hot meal and some trust exercises.”}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________ Ionna Rielle is a hopeful up-and-comer hailing from a family long embedded within the Order of the Glade. Raised on the compassionate teachings of her older sister, Ionna believes wholeheartedly in the chivalric ideals of knighthood; unity, companionship, selflessness, and the drive to protect those in need. Perhaps there is a place for her in the Lacorron of today, or perhaps she's spent her life lashed to antiquated codes and fanciful stories, hoping beyond hope that people like her can do good in the world. Compassion, after all, is nothing without forgiveness. Age: 19 Race: Human Nationality: Atutanian Weapon of Choice: Longsword Elemental Affinity: Thunder Spiritual Affinity: Dark

C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y C H A R A C T E R B I O G R A P H Y ________________________________________________________________________________________ Ionna was born with knighthood in her blood. For centuries, the Rielle family has served the Order of the Glade with loyalty, dignity, and an unwavering commitment to duty. While certainly not the oldest of the Order’s noble lineages, from their first knight the Rielle’s wasted no time in establishing themselves as worthy. Tracing their family line one finds no shortage of military achievements, diplomatic settlements, and martial renown. Some of the most famous duels in recent history were fought and won by Rielle knights, and to this day they are often among the first to be called upon when a matter would have to be settled with more pointed negotiations. Ionna was shaping to be no different. Her mother and father, both accomplished knights, started her training early. The Rielles were a large family and so they often tutored among themsevles, having developed a combative style over the generations that served them well. Ionna happened to win the lottery; they assigned her older sister, Liura, as her mentor. Of every Rielle branch, Liura was the most promising. She was only thirteen—eight years Ionna’s senior—when they were paired, and she was already outclassing the squires of other families within the order. She was talented, outgoing, always striving to better herself, but most of all she was kind. She never gloated, never condescended, and always took others at their word whether they deserved it or not. Friends came easily to her, even and especially among opponents. Liura Love, they called her, and it stuck. When Liura ascended to knighthood—one of the youngest in the Order’s history to do so—she took Ionna as her squire, and their training continued. Ionna accompanied her sister across Lacorron, settling disputes from Itenaire to Hahral, and seeing first hand why their family was revered. Though she had yet to awaken an elemental affinity, she watched with awe when Liura would harness the power of the storm itself, moving like lightning, striking like thunder. But confrontations like that were rare. When it came to a fight, Liura settled most everything with just her sword, but the lion’s share of their work, Ionna came to find, was diplomatic. Violence was a last resort, and if it could be helped, it was always better to handle matters with words. You made more friends that way. Everywhere they journeyed, Liura seemed to leave more beloved than before. By the time Ionna was seventeen, she hadn’t seen her sister duel for almost a year. They traveled, they negotiated, they made friends where they ought to have made enemies, they learned dances and songs and recipes that neither of them could execute particularly well. Ionna had put off her own trials for knighthood—much to the annoyance of her father and mother—content for now to stay with Liura. The titles and glory, she realized, meant much less to her than the duty itself. In her eighteenth year, Liura was killed. It happened on the road from Itenaire, in an ambush that only Ionna survived to recount, though poorly. She said that Liura sacrificed herself heroically, and when pressed, said nothing more. She returned to Atutania with her sister’s sword, and her affinity awakened. She went on to squire for a cousin, who had not much cared for Liura, noting often and with annoyance how much Ionna reminded him of her. She was not deterred, and continued to spread her sister’s cheer and camaraderie wherever they traveled, until he eventually went to her parents and demanded she be dismissed. She obliged, and agreed with them that she had put off her duty long enough. It was time to live up to her family name. It was time To Become a Knight. Even if she didn’t quite know what that meant anymore. C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N ________________________________________________________________________________________ Social ⬗ Empathetic ⬗ Trusting ⬗ Optimistic ⬗ Driven ⬗ Dense A B I L I T I E S A B I L I T I E S ________________________________________________________________________________________ Like all Rielle children, Ionna could keep a sword steady before she could properly hold a fork. Her first blanket was an oil-stained blade cloth, her first toy was a whetstone. Very normal. Under her sister’s tutelage, her family did what it did best—fostered prodigy. Now Ionna wields a sword with the ease and grace of a seasoned knight, which is fitting as she’s spent most of her life fighting them. From friendly spars and duelist training, to the settlement of squirely disputes, she has a habit of seeking out challenges and an aptitude for conquering them. Untested in a proper battlefield, Ionna abhors chaos and much prefers the Order’s penchant for smaller-scale, more delicate conflicts, which she has seen ended with words as often as she has with blades. Though her spiritual affinity is inexplicably dark, she approaches her magic with a stifling level of control. The arcane arts are relatively new to her, and even with the Rielles’ continued mentorship she’s skittish to use it. When she does, it manifests in much the same way as her sister, which is to say, inwardly. Rather than hurl bolts of lightning, Ionna focuses on herself, infusing her body with elemental authority. This grants her incredible speed and thunderous power, making a veritable living storm out of her. Or it could, perhaps, with time and training. As it stands, Ionna will hardly allow herself to tap her awakened affinity. She can manage some quickened steps, maybe a charged blow or two, but quickly her hold on the power tightens into a stranglehold and chokes it away. Like any weapon, it must be used to be learned, and until Ionna pushes through her own blockade, she’s unlikely to make any progress.

---

[Mcmolly]

H E C A T E
H E C A T E

^{“Your fuck-ups are literally costing me an arm and a leg.”}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R D A T A C H A R A C T E R D A T A _________________________________________________________ True Self Alberta "Albie" Klein Persona Hecate Pathos Ktharia Role Healer Weapon of Choice Asclepian Dressing: Vestments of arcane bandages which act as both a spell-casting focus, and serve to hasten the regenerative process of her self-healing. Domains Darkness; Restoration, Manifestation, Enhancement Playstyle & Attitude Backline Healer; Asshole Altruist

A L B I E : I N H E R O W N W A Y A L B I E : I N H E R O W N W A Y ________________________________________________________________________________________ Albie, who was very nearly “Albert” and who will only ever answer to “Alberta” under legal compulsion, has always sort of known what she wanted. Born to a nurse father and a therapist mother, she grew up surrounded by and constantly reminded of the absolute importance of empathy. No matter what, they said, she should always strive for kindness. People came from all walks of life, from all manner of circumstance, and though she would meet some she liked, and some she didn’t, it was imperative that she try her best to understand them, no matter what. Human interactions were ephemeral, and precious, and connections were made to be cherished. She thought that was bullshit. People sucked. They were loud, and inconsiderate, and when they weren’t literally killing each other, they were arguing over the dumbest shit. Her middle and high school years were a protracted angsty, broodingly emotional not-a-phase spent lamenting that everyone else was just so annoying and couldn’t understand her. Except Linkin Park. And the people in the comments section of her Linkin Park AMVs. Eventually she did grow up. With graduation approaching, and the fruits of her exceptionally studious labor opening the doors of higher education to her, Albie realized she didn’t really hate people—at least, not sincerely. Being annoyed with someone didn’t mean she had to treat them like shit. But being kind didn’t mean grinning through the things that annoyed her, either. She finished undergrad early, and didn’t think twice before throwing herself into medical school. Surgery seemed to be her destiny, where her bedside manner wouldn’t matter and she could do what she ultimately had always wanted to do, and what her parents had wanted her to do—help people. That was her kindness. Not fake smiles, not endless patience or empty platitudes. Action. H E C A T E : W O U N D T H I E F H E C A T E : W O U N D T H I E F ________________________________________________________________________________________ Actions have consequences. If you stand in fire, don’t pop your defensives for tank-busters, or drop aoe in the middle of the raid, your consequence is an irritable healer calling you a moron as she puts your stupid little body back together. Hecate has been joining pugs since Pariah launched, and while she finds herself malding every session, healing for the walking contraceptive endorsements that make up her groups, there is something strangely addicting about the whole ordeal. She’s not particularly interested in teaching, or lifting bad players up into competency, but no matter how bad a run goes, no matter how much yelling and fighting there is, she is the last to call for kicks and the last to vote for disbands. Apologies and removals are just band aid fixes; an entire gaming career correcting the mistakes of people who shouldn’t be able to tie their own shoes without medical intervention has taught her that any group is capable of clearing any content. No one is uncarryable. But some people are much heavier than others. Her reputation formed quickly. She was not a lone wolf; she was a healer, by definition she needed people to heal. Despite her prickly nature she was rarely seen alone, always tagging along with some group or another, having a small circle of regular players she ran with but never committing to something as serious as a guild. It was true that healers enjoyed a certain priority, but invites shriveled up quick if you were bad at keeping people alive. Hecate was not. When she joined a group, more often than not they cleared whatever dungeon they set off to challenge. Climbing ranks didn’t matter much to her, she wasn’t competitive in the way some people were, which perhaps made her rise that much stranger. Despite being on the shortlist for some of the most prestigious guilds in the game, she could just as often be found healing for groups of nobodies who couldn’t move and breathe at the same time. To her credit, she treats them all equally.

---

Spells & Spell-like Abilities

Signature

Martyr’s Rhetoric

Martyr’s Rhetoric
Hecate’s signature ability, which defines her spell-casting style. Passively allows her to both heal targets by transferring their wounds to herself, and damage targets by transferring her own wounds to them.

When activated, allows Hecate’s spells to apply instantly, preempting damage on a target by either taking it herself, or redirecting it onto an enemy. Cannot pass damage freely between targets without first going through herself.

Healing

Iaomai

Iaomai
As long as she remains alive and is not silenced, Hecate’s mana regeneration is vastly increased, and her body will reflexively use it to repair itself. The rapidity and cost depend on the amount of damage taken, but if she is rendered unconscious it will burn through mana much quicker. Lost limbs can be reattached with less effort, but fully regrowing body parts takes more time and much more mana.

Passively grants her Narkosis, which allows her to divert mana towards reducing her sensitivity to pain.

While this makes her deceptively difficult to kill, she is no more durable than your average caster. As well, she is unable to heal severe damage to her brain and heart, making her entirely unfit for close combat.

Anodynamic

Anodynamic
Hecate takes a target’s wounds and ailments onto herself, healing them in the process. This can be done gradually, or rapidly.

When Martyr’s Rhetoric is active, Hecate does not need to wait for a target to become wounded or afflicted, and can instead redirect the damage or effects to herself. Unlike with the standard version of this spell, she takes this damage instantly.

Charity of Wounds

Charity of Wounds
With great pains, Hecate can apply Anodynamic in an aoe to heal multiple targets.

This spell works identically to Anodynamic when Martyr’s Rhetoric is active, however, when used on two or more targets she can temper the amount of damage directed to her, rather than tanking multiple attacks wholesale.

Damage

Symalgesia

Symalgesia
Targeting an enemy, Hecate can harvest the damage from her own wounds, manifesting it as a bolt of angry shadow.

Panthysia

Panthysia
Hecate channels briefly, then divides the damage gathered from her wounds amongst multiple enemies.

Character Feats

Veteran Janitor : Hecate has been around the block, has seen just about every dungeon and raid encounter Pariah Online has to offer, and could probably explain the mechanics of most bosses with the accuracy of reciting her social security card number. She won’t, but she could. She’s not a great teacher; she can’t always tell you the right way to do something, but she sure as shit can tell you exactly what you’re doing wrong.

Who Asked : Hecate doesn’t talk about herself too much. Maybe one or two people in Pariah know her real name, and that she finished college early, but the information train usually stops there. It’s not that she’s paranoid, or wouldn't care to learn about others, it just hasn’t occurred to her. When your online career consists mostly of pugging with strangers, there’s not a lot of reason to get buddy-buddy.

I Want My Mummy : For as acrimonious as her interactions can be, Hecate is rarely short on invitations. Being a healer gets you invited to groups, being a really good healer gets you invited back, even when you call the raid leader a skin toilet. Hecate has been kicked from a fair few groups, but she’s been reinvited to many more, and has garnered a small celebrity status for her capabilities. As long as you don’t mind getting your mistakes called out in less-than-delicate ways, you probably won’t have to worry about wiping to healing.

Brainy : By design, Hecate’s role in Pariah shares some overlap with her real life trajectory. While she’s no savant, Albie Klein has an unbreakable work ethic and a knack for learning. She’s good at problem-solving on the fly, and has eagerly implemented much of her medical knowledge into her kit. While ethics are paramount in medicine, she's glad she doesn't need malpractice insurance in Pariah.

[Mcmolly]

Sele̫̹͊̐n̓̑e̺̋

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx B A S I C I N F O [Name] [Selen̍e͊] [Callsign] Selene [Gender] F [Age] Early 20s [Rank and Designation] Main-Class Constellation [Place of Birth] Luna-1 [Official Statement] "I like to think we'll get along." T̥̘̬̪̼ͣ̒ͭḪĬ̘̳͙S̱̻̮̼ͯ̀ͥ͒̚ ͩ̌ͩỈ̌̍̉ͬS̗̘̯̼ͬ̍ ͮͨNO̯̮͎̞̐ͩͣT ͛͛M͙͓̹̗̋ͯͩͦ̾Ÿ̰́ͮ̅ ̏̌ͥF̰̯̱̼͉͂͊̇Ă͉͙͎͈ͪͤC̀ͨ̽E̩̻̬̫ C O M B A T A B I L I T Y [Anti-Barrier Sword] #29 "Pleiades" [Anti-Barrier Quotient] 90% (Fragmented) [Physical Description] An ancient greatsword with a chipped and broken blade, too brittle for true combat. Once wielded by the legendary Constellation known as [C͌͛͂a͊llist̘̘͊̚ȯ], its obsidian edge never promised salvation, but meted doom in abundance. [Attributes] In its prime, Pleiades would engulf itself in ghostly AB energy. Now shattered, its fragments still thrum with power, which when channeled can manifest minor projections of its former glory. While the blade itself may be useless, each of the seven fragments can form its own copy at the cost of a diminished AB ratio. [Anomaly] Nebulae [Origin] Space [Ca͉ͮ̀͒̎ͤͅl͊l̗̒i͚̳̜͊sto Unit̿yͬ] [Phenomena] [Sele͊n̑̏ͩ̔̆e͊]’s anomaly presents as expected: psychokinetic force mimicking the nascent strength of the Unity’s [fo̭̤r͓̥̈́êb̮̼̠e̙̹a̚r̯̜̭͍͊̊͆̓]. In reality, it manifests not as a direct telekinetic power, but rather as a multitude of long, invisible limbs. Able to fluctuate at will along the spectrum of intangibility, these hands can simulate the effects of psychokinetic phenomena, from simple pushes and pulls, to complex, dexterous maneuvers. Individually they display modest strength, but working in [un͚͈̗̦î̝̞̺͈̋̔s̪̲͕̳on] their impact can be much more devastating. Most often, [S̥̺̦̲͆ė̫̱̮̥ͅlene] utilizes her anomaly to wield her many AB sword projections at once. [Limitation] Nebulae suffers from some predictable psychokinetic drawbacks. The mental and physical cost of her Anomaly increases with the number of ethereal limbs summoned, and this makes her more prone to rapid fatigue and exhaustion. However, at the same time it also presents its own unique challenges. Firstly, while the limbs generally follow [Selḛ͆̐ͫne]’s will, they have also been shown to act independently, as if [r̞̖̩̾̉ͭ̃e̹̣̤̙ͫm̠e͋m̥̏̅̒̅b̌ͥe̼̠͈͌r̮̲̻̅ͯ̌ͅi̲̙͆ͅn̅̾g͍̯̔ͧ o͕̱͎̳͆ͩͯu͔̠̔ͫ̆̆r͚̫̹̝̘̓ͣs̒eͭ̃l̖͓͒ve̜ͫsͭ]. This occurs most regularly in relation to the amount of limbs summoned, with more limbs meaning less direct control. Sometimes this works in her favor, as the Anomaly seems intent on protecting her, but as early incident reports detail, sometimes there is unintended collateral damage. Secondly, and most concerning, is the effect the use of Nebulae has on her amnesia. In most cases, activation results in some degree of mental agitation, manifesting as incomplete and often incomprehensible memories. These effects intensify with prolonged use, which can exacerbate the loss of control of Nebulae’s limbs, and trigger periods of dissociation. T̳H̝̦̰ͩ̏̔̚E̲̫̳ͮͧ̎̽̂S͍ͯ̿E͇͕̰͊͋ ͉̣͚̓̋͊̄ͨA̟̬̍̒ͬ̉R͍͓̙̣͖ͧͥ͑E̳̊ͣ͗̔̑ ̬̜̰̘̗ͣ̆ͮN͋ͧO̻Tͬ ̩͙̺̈̚M͇̔̚Y̖͔̮̯̮ ̠͓͇͔͌͌H̺̙̗̊A̖̩͖̳̮̔ͫ̉́̚N̥͓ͯ͛D͓̲̻͆ͤ͋ͮ̀S͙̤̱̬̦ͦͬ͊̌͌

Profile [Surface-level Impression] Patient is: * Sociable * Soft-spoken * Conflict-averse * [Sě̬̏́l̳̯̤͛̔ͅe͎͔̭̥̱͆͌̆̎nȇ̫͕̑̂̉] * Trusting * Compassionate * [███, ████████, ███, █████, █████, ████, ██] [Personal History] 'Mother Moon', Callisto Unity 100-150 IC. Collection, p112. Author Unknown [S̭̐̎̚he͍͋̓ ̣̹ẉäs͊] quiet as the void between stars, but not silent. Nor frigid, though in her wake was [c̭̞ͅȍ͖̀ͦl͛d̔ and͌ s̽t̝̀̔̓̓i̖̗͓ͥ̋̑͆l͖ͤl̰̯͔ness̬̰]. Her [l͊͆o̬̮̾v͉̠͉̿ͬ̐eͦ͋] was gentle. Those who mistook it for indifference saw also [fur͓y̝̩̦] in her passion. She never mourned, for [g̣̱̰r͕͍̿ͩ̑ie̓f̻̩̺̣ͪ̃̂ would have anchored o͑̔ǔ̙͊r͇̪̤̭] feet. [He̐ͬr̬͚ ͔̦ͥ͆͊̆n̚a͖̺̗me̹͗̇ a̹͚ͫ̓͒n̜̓d̪ ͓͚͍̠̿̊̒̀f̩̩͋̓̀ͨ̋ả̬͕̬̲̆̓ͯc̾̂ẻͮ] were lost in the unmarked graves of the Pleiades. There is a plaque above the door they can’t open, the door to an outside they’ll never see again — some of them never saw it at all. It reads: [The ảs͚ͬ͐͆h̽ͣes of a th͍̑ͬousan̦̤ͦ͊̉d stars, adrift in H͓̫̆e̯͈̺̣̤͑ͣr̞͙ͦ image͍̬̮ͩ.] Words they cannot escape. Words whispered to them in their dreams. NET Archive Yesterday at approximately 18:00, a cluster of Aberrant ships entered the Juno-29 system, disrupting the warp gate and passing harmlessly by several mining stations on a direct course for Megisto. Upon reaching the planet, the small fleet changed course and established a blockade around its smaller moon, Selene. Selene was briefly host to a private mining operation in 120 IC, which was quickly abandoned due to a lack of actionable resources. Megisto itself has launched no lunar operations on its lesser moon, and Selene was assumed to have remained cold ever since. However, at 19:23 a distress signal was intercepted from an installation presumably beneath the surface, identified as [L̦̣̥͙ṳ̝̰̿́͋̄n͖̰̝ͨa-1]. The Callisto Unity’s system-headquarters has begun evacuation procedures on Megisto and sent an armed repair team to the warp gate, but has otherwise made no comment on the station and its distress signal. New Euclidia Times, Archived Issue Dated: 01/01/276 IC They scratch their names into the walls. At first there is plenty of room, but as the years go by, the etchings crowd and overlap and connect together in looping portmanteaus. A handful of names become dozens, become hundreds, become innumerable and inextricable. The letters are brushstrokes of a mural, their own conception of a 'family name.' There is no way to tell the ones who had been brought from the ones who were born, so they called themselves together what they were—what the caretakers called them. Daughters of Callisto. UAS Reconnaissance Log: 01/03/276 IC, 05:00 Aberrant fleet retreated from Juno-29 approximately ten system-hours prior to the warp gate’s repair. UAS Reconnaissance team encountered no resistance upon arrival, or en route to Megisto. Distress signal intercepted by satellites on 01/01/276 IC was still active. Detected signs of life on Selene from orbit, which decreased rapidly when approaching Luna-1 Station. Found destroyed Pawn-class Aberrants, which appear to have engaged with the installation’s automated defense systems, as well as assumed members of staff. Station suffered severe structural damage, as well as a 90% failure in life-support systems. Recovered bodies of presumed inhabitants. Remains suggest a population of both children and adults, and multiple sealed dormitories show signs of long-term habitation. Aberrant damage tapers off midway into the facility, suggesting the defense was partially successful. However, more damage and deceased were discovered beyond the blockade. Core data systems and all physical archives appear to have been destroyed by surviving staff members. It is unclear at this time how much was lost to Aberrant forces, and how much to sabotage. No identifying material remains, neither regarding the deceased, nor the owner of the installation. One survivor found barricaded in what appears to be a crematorium. Teenage female, unconscious upon discovery. Numerous hand-prints and indents in the walls, floor and ceiling, but rapid scans detected no severe injuries. Retrieved without incident, but regained consciousness en route to the flagship and was unresponsive. All samples and remains are being catalogued. Initial assessments indicate the installation was likely some sort of research center, but no conclusive answers regarding its purpose, anachronistic interior, or the attack can be given at this time. There is no ceremony for death. They cast her ashes into Selene’s depths, to the desert of those who died before, where she will wait to accept the ones who will die after. Already, another sleeps in her bed, and eats at her table, and perhaps will carve a name into the wall over her own, connecting them in life until they meet in the Daughter’s Sea. Patient Assessment and Recommendation, 02/13/278 IC Initial regimen of anti-psychotics and behavioral conditioning proved counter-productive (which, I remind, Command was warned about — by me.) However, [Sel͉͔̇̈e̻͈͂̓n̤̘͒ͅe̞͙̺’s] lucidity has improved exponentially over the past nine months, I believe as a direct result of the altered treatment. As such, liberty was taken to conduct an impromptu re-evaluation, which I have summarized below. Patient [Sel̩̮̘̤ēͫ̓ne] possesses the composed demeanor expected of a soldier. Field tests indicate she is capable of both following orders and working cohesively in a unit of Constellations and Mechanized Infantry. Socialization has caused a marked improvement in stability, consistent with records of other successfully rehabilitated Constellations. (See ‘On Anomalies and the Mind’, Konners et al, 275 IS) During reintegration she was noted to take a keen interest in the physical and mental well-being of her squad mates, even under temporary conditions. Frequently applied self-sufficiency skills learned during therapy to cook, clean, and otherwise care for those in her vicinity. Cynical interpretations of this behavior deride it as ‘compulsory,’ but this diagnosis was unsubstantiated. Symptoms relating to [S̼͓̖͔ͬ͐̍̀̈elene's a̿m͈̙̟̈́n̘e͈̠̙ͬs͆͊̾ȋ͉̪a̭] have not improved, but have also ceased to degrade as of the change in treatment. Concerns regarding frequent hallucinatory episodes should be tempered; these instances are often so minor they are only reported afterwards and by her, voluntarily. Severe cases have not impacted her performance, in fact I would point to ‘Incident Report 6,’ as well as the lack of incident reports since, as evidence that she is perfectly capable of navigating them without endangering [o̓ǔ̄͗ͬr̪̻͍ͤs͎̘̣͎͌̋͛̿eͪ̏ͮlv̠̱̏̂ͫ̑e̺͍̣ͬ͊ͪ́̋s͈̣̬ͭ] or those around her. I will reiterate what I said upon her retrieval from [Lun̰̠̗̹̰ͬ̏͊a-̘͖̽ͩ̓̇1͔̻̪̙̯ͪ̾ ]: I do not believe these behavioral anomalies are symptomatic of any neurological disorder. Scans show no damage, and anomalous activity has yet to produce any tangibly harmful effects. In light of these advancements, I am recommending she be folded officially into the UAS’ Constellation Branch while her treatment continues. Signed, Dr. Reom She doesn’t know what they find, when they do find her. What they take from the moon is not her, or rather it is only one of her, but she doesn’t know which. Images, sensations, places, people, all plague her mind from the first. She doesn’t know where the memories come from, or when, or to who — or how many whos — they belong. The caretakers here are much different. They don’t poke and prod at her mind, or her soul, only her body. They ask her questions she can’t answer. They want to know what she is, and who she is. They want to know about her home, but she doesn’t have one anymore. So they name her after it, her cradle and her grave, and she is a Daughter no longer. Now, they tell her, she is a Constellation. It feels right. T̥̘̬̪̼ͣ̒ͭḪĬ̘̳͙S̱̻̮̼ͯ̀ͥ͒̚ ͩ̌ͩỈ̌̍̉ͬS̗̘̯̼ͬ̍ ͮͨNO̯̮͎̞̐ͩͣT ͛͛M͙͓̹̗̋ͯͩͦ̾Ÿ̰́ͮ̅ ̏̌ͥN͉͕͍̟̩À͙͚̭̺̞̎̈́M͔̻͙̌Ȇ̟̠͓̉͋ Home World Homeworld [Luna-1] Nearly a century ago, Meridian Corp. abandoned its short-lived mining project on Megisto’s smaller moon, Selene, before being promptly liquidated in the ensuing financial collapse. Authorities now believe that no true mining effort was ever made, and that instead Meridian constructed the research installation known as Luna-1 using a largely automated workforce, before its owners vanished. Built nearly a mile down into a man-made chasm, Luna-1 is separated into two main sections: the laboratory, and the estate. As the name implies, the laboratory sat on the upper level, and was presumably home to a host of scientific equipment. Laid out like a research park, there were multiple divisions whose purposes cannot be identified—in fact, in the wake of the Aberrant attack almost no machinery remained. All records, both digital and physical, were lost. Dormitory layouts suggest a modest population of potential researchers, as well as a small security staff. Beneath several layers of reinforced plating and military-grade blast-doors, lies the estate, [h͓̯͉̼̉ͯͧ̈́o̹͗̔ͪ̉m͇̠͔͓̪̊͛e̗͑͒̃̒̉] so named for its anachronistic appearance. Here the architecture shifts entirely from clinical to Victorian. The vertical atrium sports a wide, spiral staircase traveling down a cylindrical hall of bookcases, filled with material ranging from educational textbooks and encyclopedias to fantasy epics. None were published later than Meridian’s departure, some appear to have been written by the estate’s occupants. Also found were piles of burned paintings, carvings, smashed statues, musical instruments, and many other recreational products, seemingly destroyed during the Aberrant attack. At the bottom of the stairwell, the estate branches off into multiple rooms, including sleeping quarters, two gyms, a cafeteria, and enclosures which appear to have been used for some sort of combat training or [h͇̰̘̩̯̉ͥ̒͗å͆r͕̱̖̓̓ͭͭm̹̜͕̻̼͂͑̓o͉̦̠͔̥̍̈́ͨ͂͑ṉ̙͖̈́̈́ͨy̮͔̬̑͗̄̂]. Of note are the dormitory walls, which are marked with what at first appears to be meaningless scratching, but upon further examination, are in fact a collective mass of letters, presumably [n̾a̪̣̘̿ḿ̑͒̾͋e̞͔̯̠͆s͇͂͛]. Very few are legible, and none appear to connect to any established family or missing persons reports. The area below the estate is only accessible via the laboratory. An elevator shaft runs down to the bottom face of the installation, beneath which is the pressurized depth of the chasm. Found what was believed to be a massive reservoir of sand, or moondust leftover from when the chasm was made. Further analysis determined these were human ashes. Culture [THEWALLTHEWA͇ͧ̈ͫ̌LLTHEWALLTHEW̜͍͉̜̑̍A̰̞͎̝LL̯̫͗̉̓̃THEWALL̬̮͍͎T̺̍ͧH͚̙͈ͫ̾̈̒͒EͤW̖̘͇̋A͕ͭ̒ͩL̟̠̭̭͓͆L͇̓Ṱ̯̦̒̄̇ͥḦ̜̯̝̦́̚E͉̲͍͑̓W͇̩ͧͦA̜̅̑͗ͅĽ̟̓̏L͖͖͕ͭ̋͌T̮͔̖̹̖͗͐Ḫ͉̮̑̅ͬE͂̈̈́̊W̺͚A͎͈̰̮͔͋̄ͩḺ̻ͧL̙̺] ███ ██████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ████ ██ ████ █████ ███ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ █████ ████ █████ ████ █████ █████ ████ ███ ██████ █████████ ███ ████ █████ █████ ███████ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██████ ████ █████████ ██████ █████ █████ ██████ ████ █████ █████ ████ █████ ██████ █████ ████████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████ ████ ██ ████████ ██████ ████ ██████ ███████ █████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ █████ ███████ ██████ ███████ █████ ███ ████████ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ █████ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ████ ██████ ████ ██████ █████ ███ ██████ █████ █████ ███ █████ ███ ██████ █████ ████ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████████ █████ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ █████ ██████ ████ █████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ████ Warrior Family [The Callisto Unity] As Progenitors rose from the ashes of their fellows to lead humanity into a new age of war, the doomed world of Lycaon prepared for its end. Overwhelmed by Aberrant forces, its cities burned, its mountains crumbled, its oceans boiled, and its people were culled with unimaginable cruelty. On the precipice of obliteration, they say, it was not the survivors who cried out for salvation, but the innumerable dead. None know why She answered. [Callͨ̎ͭi̦̦̒͐̉̄s̱̫͗ͧ͆ͦ̐t̮͕̯ỏ̾͊̅̎,̙͓͖̈́̉ͅ ͛̅͌ͮ͂tḧ̠̝eͨ̅ͩͯͬ ̻̗̠͙͔͛ͥ̋̇Mot͔ͤ͋̏ͬ̚h̋͂̍eͦͯ͒rͧ ͨM͙̬̖ͪö̦͕͇͓on̗͎̠̭̹ͨ̀], wreathed in silver and fury. She descended like a verdict upon the Aberrants, cutting with a ghostly blade, rending with powers strange and occult. From ruin to ruin, across broken landscapes, barren seabeds, through a crust of blood and body, merciless and unyielding, She never stopped. Those saved by Her slaughter could only follow behind, glimpsing from afar the calamity she visited upon the Aberrant invaders. They became revolutionaries, reclaiming inch by inch what was lost. When it was done, Lycaon was quiet as if in mourning for its people, and for itself. There was no preserving a thing so utterly ruined. The survivors knew there had been no salvation, only vengeance for the death of their home. They left it behind, fleeing to distant stars where, eventually, they managed to forget what had happened. Lycaon, like so many lost worlds, faded from history. Some, however, chose to [r͇̗̪̀͂͐̉ͧḛ̳̼ͨ̎̂̽̾m͉͎ͪ̄̃̀̇ẻm͔̽̽ͬ̅̽bͣe̅̏̑ͦr̾̾̂͌]. Callisto vanished, never known by a [t̯̺̭̩͗ͣͥ̉̏r͎̍̆̄͊ú̙̩ͫ̉̽e̤͚̿ͧ ͎͈͔̤͐̈ͦ̓n̞̳̺͛̄́a͔̒͊m͎̟̦̍ĕ̥̦̪͎̆̈ͯͣ,̠̗̜͚ͅ ͌̿ȍ̺̜̠͙͇ͩr̀͗͊ ̻͉̼̥̈́̐ͦf̱̫̜͔ͅa̗̥͉̭ͬ͗͑c̎̀ͯ̃ë̖̻̙͖̻́], nor was She ever seen again. But at the site of Her final, pyrrhic victory over the Aberrants, She left one thing—three, things. Children. Infants, swaddled and silent as dead Lycaon. Her followers took them up and left with the rest of the survivors. But they did not forget. The Callisto Unity formed in the shadow of the progenitors; the UAS and the MHA expanded their reach, while the Unity focused inward. They did not truly emerge until decades later, not as some cultish antagonist, but as a scientific organization bursting with medical innovations. Helmed by the descendants of their [forebe͔̜̤ͦ̉a̫̤ͫr͓], the Unity established itself in the human effort as a force for good. They sought to ensure no world suffered as Lycaon had, producing both powerful Constellations, and critical advancements in medical technology. Some whisper that such altruism is merely a façade for a more nebulous cause. They say the Unity is still steeped in the [O̞̮̗̮ͮͅl͉̤̑ͪd͐̃̒ͪ Way̲̖̦̬̌͆s̝̼̱̪̠͊͑], that its highest echelons are driven by occult impetus, and that beneath their calm, collected exterior is a fanatical devotion to their lost Goddess. But these are mere rumors. Lycaon may remember the cries of the dead, but it lays silent and bereft. The Mother Moon is gone, and now Her children bring cold, gentle love to humanity. They are a thousand stars across the sky, working in unison, and even in death their ashes scatter together, with purpose. In [H̩̳̓̈́e͚͔̘̱̍͋r̖̞͊] image. Notable Contacts [Name] Dr. E͈̗̲ͩ̄ͅ Reom [Relation to Subject] Dr. Reom has been [S̉̄e̥̪͙͉ͪ͊ͥ̏̏l̲̗ͥͥe̘̤̿n̟̟̺͌͐͛̾e͂̇̔̒̑]'s MHA-assigned psychiatrist since her retrieval from Luna-1. [Analysis] Reom is a clone, registered to a Megisto-based agency located in New Euclidia. Neither the first nor, likely, the last of his line, Reom's generational work with Constellations has made him indispensable in his field. He has, quite literally, written the book on many subjects relating to Anomalies and their effects on a Constellation's mental state.