Players: 4 Pace: Flexible, so be committed long term. Writing Level: Casual+
Can hunters even defeat the void?
Or is it a twisted fairytale that we’ve constructed. Illuminous hope can do a lot of things and it is said that the strongest of humanity aren’t even really human anymore. This is all gossip, of course. Anything to combat the void, those wretched creatures from beyond the dimensional veil.
In conjunction with ideas presented by a friend of mine, I’ve been thinking on this one since the build-up to the Halloween Season.
Inspired by Code Vein, Bloodborne, Tales of Berseria, and a variety of other anime-related content this RP is an amalgamation of ideas of dark fantasy, adventure, and action-horror. Characters within the setting are survivors in an apocalyptic era on the planet Asyl.
Creatures known as the void have taken hold of much of the planet and created turmoil of which that has never been seen. The sun is eternally eclipsed and the cost of human lives has been collossal. These creatures are magical in nature and humans have tried their best to combat them. There are several kingdoms left on the world in their wake, though to some they seem to be mostly barely standing holdouts from a horde of creatures from origins unknown. Humans have come to utilize special magic that has a huge cost on the bearer in order to create warriors known as hunters to drive the creatures back and restore the light on the planet and make the world whole again.
Will your hunter succeed?
Surviving the Void
Before sorcerers from the Kethiline Order harnessed secret magic to turn humans into living weapons, humanity turned to the tools they knew to combat the Void. Sorcery and Steel.
Steel was useless alone as the Void took on many shapes and no matter how clean the strike, the creatures would always regenerate and heal, while only corpses piled up against their onslaught from humanity’s side of the struggle. In time, sorcerers who worshipped the flame—Pyromancers—would become key into combating the Void. It was a reality that was learned through heavy sacrifice, including one of the great kingdoms known to the world falling into the abyss. The eternal, agonizing eclipse that blocked out the sun gave the creatures full rein to molest the kingdoms of Asyl. It was simple math. The creatures fed off the darkness and themselves were completely absent of heat, so it became clear that only the Pyromancer’s flame could aid humanity’s plight.
Still, solitary pyromancers were rarely strong enough to combat the void and with the void encroaching on civilization like it had on their sister kingdom of Kelathaneia, the nobility and aristocrats hiding in the cities of olde made a decision. Giant obelisks known as hearthfires were constructed, to be fed by pyromancers to ward off the void from the great walls. Many feared this would be a war of attrition with favor to the monsters that wished to devour them.
With pyromancers being needed to tend to hearthfires solutions became dire. The four remaining great kingdoms sought to find alternatives. There weren’t enough pyromancers, especially ones who were strong enough to burn a voidling into nothing, to do both jobs. Some of the ideas other sorcerers, clerics, and scholars came up with were damning. Those who poured into forbidden magicks or plundered the vaults made to contain ancient cursed weapons were playing a dangerous game, but they needed answers to the void fast. Even with the hearthfires, they only had so much food they could produce and keep safe. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. However, as years turned into decades an answer came to light after a long time of research. The sorcerer-monks of Kethiline had finally had a breakthrough with the first successful infusion of a pyromancer’s ember with the soul of a human being. It was a process that had been sworn to silence for years. A process to destroy the void while the pyromancers stood by to tend to the hearths. It was a necessary one, though the loss of human life, albeit mundane humans, was a saddening price. It was here they finally had a working theory on how to counteract the void’s ability to corrupt any living being it devoured. The price was transcending humans who were strong enough into living weapons, inhuman beings that could harness the power of a pyromancer’s ember to protect themselves as well as turn voidlings into ash.
It has been five years since Rimaeria Saldosius became what we now known as hunters of the void. There were two hundred others who have followed her since, and over two thousand more who were reduced to ash for trying to do so. The War against the Void will be won in due time. That is the hope.
Hunters of the Void
Hunters are necrotic human weapons that can harness power from the forbidden magicks that have not only infused their soul with a pyromancer’s ember but also sacrificed their humanity. They cannot age and in theory should not be able to die. The ember within them is as restorative as it is destructive, it will reform the hunter’s body if critical, fatal damage is assessed and burn out normal wounds passively. However, if an ember goes through this process too many times in relative succession it will burn out the hunter’s soul so it cannot be corrupted by the void.
A hunter lives in constant pain and ruin, the ember from within burning their insides in an eternal agony, to become one is as much of a curse as it is a boon.
Hunters are classified by three rudimentary vocations depending on how they combat the void.
Wardens deal damage with light weapons, relying on speed and precision. They are the most well known of hunters given they are the easiest to throw against the void.
Sentinels protect people, other hunters, and objectives. They are the “heavies”, the chevaliers you call in when the scariest and biggest void rear their heads. They will either have a great-weapon or a heavy shield on hand.
Casters are spellcasters who control the battlefield through support or offensive versatility, they often wield firearms like a clockwork rifle or sorcerer’s equipment like staves and wands. They are also the least common of all hunters.
Otherwise known as a Hunter’s Boon, Gifts are the extranormal abilities that an ember-imbued soul has brought to a hunter. While universal gifts like additional speed and strength are mundane for hunters, it is how the transformation has reacted to their body and magicks is the most interesting. Every hunter is different and Lethiline sorcerers theorize it is based as much on personality as it is latent affinities.
Forbidden Weapons are ancient, previously secured weapons from rogue sorcerers, abominations, and other such things. Some contain the souls of ancient heroes, confined to a weapon to feed off the souls energy to create devastating and powerful weapons, others are more complicated. Some kingdoms have unearthed vaults to pair such weapons with a hunter in their fight against the void.
It’s a dangerous path.
The Kingdoms of Asyl
Many kingdoms have dotted the landscape and history of Asyl for centuries, however only a handful have survived. Some of them still bear the scars of the war that many believe drew the void to Asyl in the first place.
“We must remain, and we must do so without shirking our morals to our people.”
Prentis was the largest and most prosperous kingdom on Asyl for at least three centuries. The Renaissance of culture came when Prentis was on the downswing and the rise of Scila, Midnos, and their aged old rival Ldrant took center stage. The Grand Library of Prentis is still the central wonder of the world. Through its inventiveness, diplomacy, and artfulness it still remained so before the Great War.
Plural: Prentisian(s)
“Survive by any means necessary, that is our creed.”
Scila was once the right arm of Ldrant, until it broke free. A Kingdom built on creation, some could say it has been heading into the direction of a new Prentis for some time now. Scila transcended the hand cannon and has had the finest weapons crafted for two centuries now. They are shrewd, distrusting; having been slaves to Ldrant and Midnos after them. It is a bitter irony they only earned their independence through aligning themselves with Prentis in the Great War, and here and now in the apocalypse are finally free. The void is a double-edged sword for the Scilari people, though they do believe they should be stopped, they truly fear Ldrant and Midnos far more than them.
Plural: Scilari
“Only the flame can protect us from eternal damnation.”
Midnos is the most prominent and powerful of the great kingdoms since Prentis began to loose relevance. A kingdom ruled by pyromancers with a religion designed by pyromancers, Midnos has always seen themselves above the other great kingdoms. It was through their zealous actions that the war supposedly started, though few remember that since it is the pyromancers that keep the void from infecting the cities they inhabit. The Emberdawn Keep stands at the top of the city, overlooking the denizens on from on high. Some claim the pyromancer-queen is unreasonable, vindictive, and cruel. Others say she is rational, spiritual creature that only does what needs to be done to protect Midnosians.
Plural: Midnosian(s)
“We are defined by our virtues of strength and resilience, and those with those virtues always win.”
Ldrant has been a military powerhouse since one put a club in an Ldranti’s paw. They don’t play nice and they get what they want. Not even the height of Prentis could destroy them, so what difference is the void apocalypse? It’s just another opportunity to show that Ldranti are the strongest and hardiest. Pyromancers from Ldrant are considered heretics to the ones in Midnos, due to their refusal to follow any sort of rules that they have not made themselves.
Plural: Ldranti
Bestiary
Void Goblins
Void Men
Void Ogres
Void Roc
Void Spiderlings
Application
Steal Away the Light is a invite only RP.
Applicants will be provided entry to a discussion channel on discord and given access to the character sheet.
Full Name - Fianna Fray Age - 37 Gender - Female Vocation - Sentinel Nationality - Scila
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Stoic Fianna is, above all else, a woman of few words. She seldom speaks unless spoken to, and even when directly addressed, will often answer as bluntly as possible before resuming her silence. She's not necessarily hostile, standoffish, or confrontational about it -- and in fact could even be called polite -- but she's at best apathetic to most interactions and seems to be either unwilling or unable to really express herself beyond the bare minimum that is necessary.
Bloodthirsty Underneath her calm exterior, however, lies a darker side of her personality. Though she detests her masters, she still takes pride in the skills she has honed, and the power she wields. As such, devoid of any other purpose, it is only in battle that her soul can truly burn. In but a single masterful stroke of a sword, there is art. In slaying a fearsome foe, there is achievement. In enduring pain, in standing up and taking but a single step when one's body cannot go on, there is beauty. Though she has long since lost both the ability and the drive to pursue higher ideals, she yet clings to a vision that transcends good and evil. A sword, after all, does not choose who it slays -- its job is simply to cut all that stands before it. And so, Fianna the Bloody takes up her blade without reason -- no, without needing a reason. She fights because there is a battle to be fought, kills because there is an enemy to be slain, and with each step she takes grows closer to becoming one and the same as the sword she wields.
Wild For at least half of her unnatural life, Fianna has lived as a beast. First as a hungry, scavenging orphan, then as a Hunter forever seeking her prey. It was only for a brief time that she was shown kindness, and allowed to live as a human, as herself, and learned what it meant to care for others. Kindness, generosity, protectiveness, empathy -- with her humanity effectively long-since shattered, none of these things come naturally to her. And, likewise, should she be shown such warm emotions again, she wouldn't know how to respond to them, or to reciprocate. Yet, once one has learned how it feels to be loved, one cannot ever truly forget it. When people are kind to her, in some sense, she is grateful to them -- even if she can't show it. When people do great things for the sake of others, she admires them, because they remind her of her master and his sacrifice. In this sense, she can recognize goodness in others, and may even strive to emulate it, though she herself could not ever truly claim to be a good person. Yet, even so, she cannot truly move on from her past, and ultimately, the one powerful feeling she has left is her hatred for those who took her master and her comrades from her. If given the chance, with nothing to hold her back and without regard for the world as a whole, she might well cast aside what little remains of her humanity, if only it meant destroying the system that took her master's life.
E Q U I P M E N T
The Wolf's Fang, Amaryllis Midnos' ancient history has never been pretty. Long before the void ever reared its ugly head, the land was a hotbed of various sorcerer-kings and queens all vying for dominance. Though the orthodox faith and the Pyromancer Kings and Queens eventually unified the land and established the great empire known today, there were many other contenders for that throne... and many artifacts they left behind as vessels for their unnatural powers.
Amaryllis is one such relic, though it was not originally called by that name, but rather by several others. An ancient sword, it was forged who knows how many centuries ago by a maker whose very name has been scrubbed from the annals of history -- but who was, judging by his handiwork, a master of the dark art of necromancy. Even this small fragment of his craft is still just as sharp as the day its massive edge was first set, and still just as insatiable. It has been rediscovered many times throughout Midnos' unification and early history, and each time has left slaughter and death in its wake before disappearing along with its wielder. At last, it was reclaimed by the Kingdom, and sealed away to prevent its dark power from ever being used again. But, as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures, and with the coming of the void, the vault was opened, that the then-nameless accursed sword might see use once again.
Though on its own, it seems unremarkable, the weapon's unnatural nature becomes quite apparent the moment any would-be wielder -- unsuspecting or not -- lays hand upon it. Its handle grafts itself into their flesh, and it changes its form to best suit the capabilities of its new wielder -- no, its new host. And, should that not be enough, then it changes its new host body to better handle its power.
Foreign muscles begin to grow and shift, writhing like worms, uncoiling like snakes beneath the user's skin. The changes begin slowly, creeping up the arm that first took hold of the sword, then expanding to the rest of the body. To sustain the new muscle mass that it cultivates upon them, new bones, new nerves, new organs are all required. Lungs to gather and store more air, hearts to pump the blood, an ossified exoskeleton to protect this fragile new flesh beneath... and, of course, a source of sustenance to fuel this explosive growth. The sword's favored diet is, unsurprisingly, the flesh, blood, and bones of its victims, all of which swiftly disappear into the blade's expanding bulk -- but failing that, it will not hesitate to cannibalize its own host body in order to fuel this unholy transformation. It seeks nothing short of ever greater and greater heights of strength, its shape evolving with its wielder's ever more and more twisted form, never stopping until the body it has inhabited can take no more and perishes. Then, the sword slumbers, storing up the power it has cultivated until it is needed again. Every single individual who has wielded this unsightly blade has thus met a similar end, devoured completely by the cursed sword.
But, the scholars of Midnos wondered -- what would the sword do if it were provided a body that could never truly die? And so, it was given to a quite expendable Hunter -- a sick "gift" for one who possessed no other power.
G I F T
Awaken, And Hunt Again Fianna has never possessed any affinity for the magical arts. Even when she became a Hunter, that fact never changed. All she had was her master's teachings, and the determination to hone them to their utmost limits. Yet, despite this, the sword she christened with the name it bears today reacts entirely differently in her hands than it does when held by any other wielder. Namely, she possesses the unique ability to draw and sheathe it at will, in so doing reverting all the changes and unnatural growths brought on by its evolution. Whereas a normal user would be slowly overtaken until their body was nothing but a vessel for the sword, it instead appears entirely willing to relinquish control and reconstruct her body after the fighting is done.
Functionally speaking, in addition to not forcing her to kill herself every time she draws her weapon, this unique bond gives her phenomenal regenerative faculties above and beyond even a normal Hunter, so long as she can keep feeding her sword. If her limbs are severed, Amaryllis will just grab hold of them and shove them back into their sockets, knitting her muscles and nerve endings back together to allow her to keep fighting. Even if her vital organs are destroyed, chances are that the sword may well have created redundant backups that will keep her blood pumping and her lungs breathing until it can rebuild her. Unless her body is completely ripped to shreds, her brain destroyed, or the sword itself forcibly severed from her flesh, then Amaryllis will do its best to put her back together again.
In practice though, this process can be... somewhat unreliable. Forcing her body to regrow rapidly or frequently has a tendency to cause errors to crop up -- a fact to which her perpetually misshapen and scarred hands stand as an unfortunate testament -- and uses up a great deal of energy, requiring her to keep feeding Amaryllis and potentially forgo further growth and evolution in order to fuel her regeneration instead.
Likewise, the process of undoing the changes the sword has already made is an arduous one, even for an immortal. Ejecting new organs, bending her skeleton back into its original shape, compressing her muscles so that they fit back inside her skin, and rewiring her nervous system accordingly all cause a variety of pain that is barely even comprehensible to the human mind -- and though Amaryllis has tried to reduce the side effects by dampening her sense of feeling so much that she's almost perpetually numb, it's still all she can do to avoid blacking out when she reverts. As such, though she doesn't need to constantly feed Amaryllis even when outside of combat, once she's out of battle, she tends to stay that way for a long, long time.
But, though her partnership with the accursed sword comes with a tremendous backlash upon her own flesh, it also comes with its benefits. When she allows Amaryllis to fully merge with her, she is capable of adapting rapidly to match the unnatural abilities of the voidspawn she hunts. And by sharing her senses with the sword, she can draw upon its past experience, and the experiences of its prior wielders to augment her own not-inconsiderable talents with a blade, and to help her adapt to the rather... unique fighting style required by such an obscene weapon.
When it was first placed within Fianna's grasp, the sword took on a wicked curved shape, like the fang of a wolf. Its edge became dyed in crimson red, rippling outward along the blade like the petals of a flower. Its pommel spiraled and unfolded, becoming like vines that coiled up her arm and joined with her flesh. These aesthetic considerations seem entirely unrelated to the sword's usual functions, however, begging the question of just why it bothered taking on such a form.
The scholars had thought that the sword might be overcome -- harnessed -- controlled -- brought to heel and forced to obey. If met with the power of a hunter, surely its curse could be broken and its power put to use. But ultimately, when she first held the blade and it became one with her, it was not her undying body, nor the flame she bore within her, nor even her force of will that triumphed over it - a fact to which its form stands as testament.
Perhaps it was because the sword simply recognized in her the possibility to sustain itself forever. Perhaps it was because it sought to improve itself even further by devouring the void which even its fearsome fangs could not sunder without her help. Or perhaps it was because when its hideous intelligence looked within her... it realized that the thing they both wished for was the same.
Together, they sought strength for its own sake, both searching for the same answer, both testing and pushing their limits wherever they might lie. Everything else was a burden to be discarded or a tool to be used, that they might climb a little higher. That was the only purpose the sword had ever known -- and it was the only purpose Fianna had left.
But no matter how much she lost, or how much she forgot -- no matter how much the past she had cherished withered and scattered into nothing, that woman still held on tightly to the name of the flowers she had seen so long ago, and to the very first order she had been given.
The smith forges. The Hunter seeks. The blade cuts. The enemy dies. The wolf eats. The flower blooms. The sun sets. The memory fades. She awakens, and hunts again. And that, in and of itself, is a kind of answer. This is her -- no, this is their Gift.
Physical Description
A tall, gaunt woman with a somewhat ragged and unsettling aspect to her, Fianna somehow manages to be both younger and older than she looks. Though she's now in her late 30s, her body stopped aging half a decade ago when she first became a Hunter, leaving her mostly unmarred by the ravages of time. The ravages of duty, on the other hand, are a different story. Her sleepless crimson eyes are often bloodshot and rimmed in red, with heavy eyelids that never seem to fully open like those of a tired old woman twice her true age, while her resting expression could perhaps best be described as a thousand-yard stare. Her hair is wild, matted, and uneven like the mane of some great beast, as though she simply stopped caring to cut or straighten it and simply lets it trail behind her as it may. And most unsettling of all, her pale skin is almost imperceptibly marked by countless faint crisscrossing white lines too numerous to be battle scars, as though every inch of her has been ripped apart over and over again, then pasted back together almost but not quite right each time.
It's not particularly difficult to guess at what she is, as unlike other Hunters, she exerts essentially no effort to hide her nature. She is most often seen dressed light, in flimsy dresses and tabards that only provide enough cover to preserve her modesty, despite the chill of the perpetual night in which she prowls. The fire within is more than enough to keep her warm, and anything more would be a waste anyway -- as the destructive way in which her powers as a Hunter and her weapon of choice tend to warp her body would shred any more comprehensive garment. The only exception to this general rule is that she tends to favor long, flowing sleeves which cover her hands completely... meaning that most people never get to see the hideous scars covering the limbs hidden beneath.
Character Conceptualization
Fianna remembers the sunset.
It was a long time ago, now -- so long that her childhood seems like a distant dream, one which grows less real to her with each awakening. And yet, the hand that was outstretched to her that day is burned into her memories. Though she can no longer even recall the names or faces of her birth parents, that man and the lessons he taught her -- that old house overgrown with crimson vines -- the sunset they watched together on that day will never fade.
She remembers the smell of soot and ash, the chill of the rain running down her back as she dug amongst the dead and the dying for any small scraps that might earn her next meal. There was no joy, even when she found an unbroken sword or some precious brooch to bring back to her masters -- merely the objective knowledge that she would live another day. Hers wasn't the loyalty of a dog, proud to be of use, willing to die for the praise of its owner -- it was the hunger of the wolf that drove her. Live. Take what you can. Eat. Preserve your wavering heartbeat. Don't become like the bodies that surround you. Sleep. Awaken, and hunt again. Those lessons serve her well now.
Yet she also remembers a kinder teacher -- one who pulled her from that life, wrapped her in warm clothes, and gave her a place to call home. He taught her to write her name, praised her when she got it right. For the first time, she raised her head out of the mud and the dirt and looked at the sky, and realized that somewhere under it could lay freedom -- a future -- something more to live for. She wanted to give that gift to others, too. There were other children like her -- others who had, like her, been saved. But they came and went, guided by his hands back to the land he fought for. Yet she never left. Even when the sun went out, even when the war ended -- she stayed by his side.
She cared for the sick and the weary, took up the sword that she might protect them together with him. Her dear Master Fray, her second father, always on the move, always rallying the oppressed to break their chains, scale the walls, and cross over to the land of opportunity that awaited them on the other side. Scila, her new homeland, its cause her own, its people her cherished protectorate -- even if Scila itself officially denied their actions.
The war had ended suddenly with the advent of the void. A hundred lords arose to proclaim themselves the rulers of the lands no one else had been able to claim, and the people starved and suffered under their rule. Scila couldn't fight them, no matter how many had already died to free those who were now enslaved. Not without starting another war. But Master Fray was not Scila. He and those who followed him could continue to fight for those who had already perished in the name of freedom, and those to whom the gift of freedom could yet be bestowed. They struggled. They won. They liberated. And then...
A band of refugees, so close to the border, so close to freedom. They had to hold the line -- just long enough to get them out. But Midnos would not so easily give up its people -- its property. There was a battle, and they...
She remembers the pain of the lash -- her teacher's warmth stripped away. She remembers watching her comrades fall one by one around her, consumed by the fire within. She remembers the blazing agony that coursed through her being, and the questions with which she was left alone to remain.
Why? What was it all for? What purpose do I have left to fulfill?
Live. Take what you can. Eat. Preserve your wavering heartbeat. Don't become like the bodies that surround you. Sleep. Awaken, and hunt again.
The wolf bared its fangs again, and the old lessons, once forgotten, were remembered. Fianna lived. She ate. She stepped over countless bodies. She awakened, and she hunted once more. That was all that remained to her, a tool to which even death was denied, bearing two voices within her -- a beast that lived only for destruction, and a child who yet dreamed of what lay beyond the sky...
Other Information
Fianna was orphaned during the Great War, and was eventually picked off a battlefield to become first the student, then the adoptive daughter of a former Scilari general. This general, known as Master Fray, left his nation behind after the war's end to continue fighting as a revolutionary on the Midnosian border, leading a band of guerrilla fighters known as the Red Branch. They occupied themselves in liberating contested regions and allowing their people to flee to Scila to escape oppression in their homeland. She remembers well the lessons he taught her in those days, residing in secrecy along with the other orphans he had taken under his protection. A small cottage in the woods, overgrown with the crimson flowers that became the revolution's symbol functioned as their shelter, hideaway, and school for all of them.
He taught them to read and write, and read them books and stories of heroes of old. He taught them that they were valuable and precious, and that everyone deserved the right to strive for their own happiness. When the war drew closer, he did his best to smuggle them to safety in the homeland that awaited them, teaching them the secret code his men used to differentiate friend from foe. Every one of the flowers in that wood dipped in crimson had a meaning -- and the flower he gave to them as a sign of protection was no different. The Amaryllis -- a symbol of love, and of endurance, containing all of his wishes that they survive at any cost.
But even when his other students fled, Fianna stayed, and learned new lessons. She learned how to hold a sword, and how to fight. She proudly became her father's right hand, serving the Red Branch first as an aide, then eventually as a fellow warrior fighting by his side, despite his wishes to keep her away from the battlefield.
When the revolution was eventually quashed by Midnosian peacekeeping forces, however, she and her comrades were submitted to the pyromancers as sacrificial candidates for the Hunter project, in lieu of a public execution. Master Fray and all those who were captured with him did not survive the transformation -- all those, that is, save for one, who not only lived to become a Hunter, but somehow kept her burning will to survive intact for the five long years that followed, becoming one of the oldest Hunters still on active duty fighting the void, unbroken and uncorrupted.
She is, however, by no means well-regarded. As a tool of Midnos, the missions she has been forced to undertake have been perilous -- suicidal, even. She's died many times, but each and every time her fire has brought her back to life. Her mere appearance is now regarded among other Hunters as a sign of an ill omen, since wherever Fianna the Bloody goes, disaster tends to follow...
Full Name - Quinnlash Loughvein (Don't call her Quinn. She hates that.) Age - 28 Gender - Female Vocation - Caster Nationality - Midnos
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Emotional Quinnlash is boiling with emotion. Even if she could bottle it up anymore, she wouldn't, and it flows freely out of her. Most of her emotions are...less than charitable much of the time, but she has a greater range than that, certainly. While uncommon, it's not impossible to see a wide smile on her face after a stressful situation has resolved in her favor. Most of the time, though, it's anger. Lots of anger.
Reckless Just like emotions, Quinnlash boils with energy. She has issues with thinking things through. Exacerbated by her emotional nature, it's all too common for her to shoot first and ask questions later, or to run headlong into certain and overwhelming danger. She does put a bit of thought into controlling this impulse, but it's always there, and usually controls her instead.
Critical A vestigial remnant of an ignored past, Quinnlash is very critical, both of herself and others. While this can be useful, as she never throws around criticism unless she means it, it's often misunderstood. Her often hostile emotions can conspire to make genuinely constructive criticism sound a whole lot like "just be better."
G I F T
Soul Ablaze The burning soul-ember that Quinnlash received erupted against her innate pyromancy. When the two settled, she found that in the process, her magic had become unstable and volatile, allowed her to break pieces of her soul off and wield them. Though each one created reduces how long her magic can last, these fragments become flames that never fade, never waver, never die, until the magic within them burns out and returns to her. They can be reabsorbed at will, restoring her splintered soul with a flash of light from her eye; or fed from her magic, renewing them ad infinitum. Nobody else can fracture their own soul this way. Nobody but Quinnlash. This is her Gift.
E Q U I P M E N T
Undying Light Quinnlash's weapon of choice against the Void is an enormous rifle-cannon. Created with one of her broken-off soul flames at its core, she can stoke it until it destabilizes and erupts, raging at its constraints until the trigger is pulled. When it is, the magic is released, launching an explosive barrage of scorching fire from the barrel. It takes time for Quinnlash to feed the fire to its fullest extent, but when the furnace is fully stoked, Undying Light is a force of nature and a sight to behold.
Physical Description
A woman of perhaps 5'5" with an extremely average build, Quinnlash can melt into a crowd of people with relative ease as long as she pulls a hood over her head. Not only imbued with a pyromancer's ember but a pyromancer herself, her single eye gleams with a brilliant yellow light. Her hair is very long, kept in a tight braid that trails down her back. Though most if it is the dark gray it always was, bits and pieces of the fringes around her face have begun to bleed the same vivid hue as her eye.
While her body certainly isn't unfit by any stretch, it's not to the same standards that many other Hunters have trained to. Her tendency to keep her distance means that much of her evasive skills in combat rely on creating space between her and enemies as fast as she can. She's nimble enough, of course, needs to be in order to avoid being struck by any return fire, but not very strong. The most obvious place to see this is in her musculature. It is very apparent that she's not a frontline fighter by any means. What she lacks in strength, though, she makes up for in consistency. Though her muscles aren't overly strong, they are filled with a seemingly unnatural endurance and surefootedness even for a hunter. Bought and paid for with each backwards step taken while lining up a shot, that manifests in confident and easy movement, even in the most perilous situation.
She wears long, baggy, thick clothes with many layers, worn and tattered by now, as she travels. She no longer feels the cold now, heated as she is with an ember from deep inside. But deep within her, in a part that she despises, there is a fear that one day, she will lose what makes her human. That perhaps she already has. That her soul, already so fragile, will shatter like a pane of glass, and she'll lose something very, very important.
Character Conceptualization
Quinnlash was a scholar once. A books-in-a-library-in-Midnos, dyed-in-the-wool scholar. She'd been raised to be one her entire life. Ever since she could read, her parents—both reputable scholars themselves—had inundated her, drowned her, with diagrams, carvings, and so many books. Some as heavy as she was and varying widely in topic, the only way for her to keep her head above water was to swim. And swim she did, meekly accepting her parents' demands and doing her work, kept totally isolated in her room within the small but lavish house in the capital of Midnos. She grew very knowledgeable for her age as she simply read. Not that she could understand most of what was in the books. But what else was she to do? With nothing else around her, all the time she could ever want, and the only two people in her world constantly telling her to study at such a young age, what could she do but eat, sleep, and read? She didn't want to go outside. Her parents told her that it was dark. It was dark, and scary, and filled with things that wanted to hurt you. Best to just stay inside studying, right? She could go outside when she was older.
But when she was seven, she was allowed to leave the house. Just once, with her father close beside her. She clung tightly to him, looking fearfully at the dark world, as he took her to see a strange woman. The two of them spoke seriously in low voices for some time. What little she could hear, she didn't understand. Words like "magical affinity," "innate talent," "potential for phenomenal things." She had no idea what was going on, and flinched away, clutching to her father's clothing, when the woman reached her glowing hand out to her. She averted her pale violet eyes from her and closed them tightly, terrified. But no touch came, only a faint warmth that soon faded entirely. She opened her eyes in time to see the woman nod gravely at her father and then turn to walk towards her. And no matter how Quinnlash struggled, no matter how she screamed or cried—the pyromancer took her. The last things she ever heard from her family were two words from her father, as she tearfully begged him to take her back home with mama, please, whatever she did she was sorry, she'd be a good girl from now on, she'd never ask to go outside again:
"Goodbye, Quinn."
From then on, she studied different topics, in different ways. How to conjure flame. How to use it to defend yourself. How to exercise fine control over it. How to channel it for sustained periods. The work was grueling—mentally and physically exhausting. Months bled into years and years bled together, as she studied and trained as a pyromancer. Still, the habits ingrained into her by her parents held. Whenever she had time to spare, little enough of it thought there was, she would plod her way into the library and find a book to sink her brain into to distract her from the crippling fear she felt of the outside world. In reference tomes, the world was categorized. Understandable. Dissected. But whenever she stepped outside, it all bled together into a mess of darkness and confusion that she fled from time and again. She'd heard the stories of the Void. She'd heard tales about what lurked out there in the darkness. And she was, as ever, afraid. So she buried herself with scholarship, distracting herself from the anger that had begun to take root within her.
Time ticked by, revealing Quinnlash, now a practiced—if inexperienced—pyromancer of 24 years, still lurking in libraries, reading about the world that she was ever and always too scared to explore, even past her doorway. There was a hidden, growing part of her that wanted, that desperately yearned, to see what was out there. But it was crushed beneath something far more meaningful that had bubbled up beneath her of late. Studies had been done on how to fight the Void. How to resist their corruptive influence. She'd read them all. But nothing she'd ever found knew what they were. And with that realization, the deep-rooted anger reared its head. She had been shut up her entire life, first of her parents' will, then her own. Always too scared, too wilting, to leave. And now, 24 years into her life, what did she have to show for it? An exhausting fear. A horrible feeling of being trapped. And not a fragment of new knowledge to contribute to anything.
Angry. Angry.Angry. Angry at the entire world. But she didn't let it out. She couldn't let it out. She closed in again. And she let it fester. It simmered beneath her for a year and a half, during which time she grew increasingly desperate to find out more about the Void. To find out something, anything, about the Void. A way to justify to herself the decades spent in isolation.
But she never did.
And nearing the tail end of her twenty-fifth year, the caldera of rage had swollen within her, growing more and more misplaced tremors of anger. Anger at her parents, who locked her in one room for years, and instilled deep within her the fear of the unknown that still dogged her feet. Anger at that damned pyromancer Elan for taking her away from her family when she was scarcely old enough to understand what was happening. Anger at the scholars of Kethiline, for finding out so little about the Void. But most of all? Most of all, she was so furious it made her sick to her stomach at herself. If the sorcerers of Kethiline were useless, what was she? Hiding in her library walls, never daring to take more than a few steps outside? Her whole life...what did any of it mean?
No more. No more calculating decisions for weeks before taking a single action. No more staring silently at the ceiling, unable to sleep, eyes fearfully darting about the room for hours. No more suppressing her emotions, crushing them down until they boiled her alive. No more books. No more. No more useless scholarship. Never again. No more.
The caldera burst. The volcano erupted.
She needed to leave this place. To escape. To throw herself into something else, something so singular and savage that she could only ever think of it. Her brain screamed for it. With barely a conscious thought, she found herself strapped to a table as a willing volunteer. And then came the pain. Her pyromancy warred with the ember within her, violently rejecting this foreign flame. Her skin peeled off and regrew. Her blood seethed and boiled. Her muscles were shredded, rebuild, and shredded again. She vaguely remembers her bones snapping like brittle burnt twigs under their own weight. And her eyes incandesced, searing themselves white hot and bubbling within her skull. One of them ran out of her face, dripping like magma to the floor and collecting in a smoking, ruined pool. Only the other made it through the transformation from scholar to something far more dangerous, and it was forever dyed with a baleful yellow light.
In the years since, she's changed so much from the her that hid from the world that she doesn't even recognize what she was anymore. She's a different person now. The life of a Huntress was one that she'd only come upon through reckless abandon and overpowering emotion—sheer blinding anger—and so that is who she became. She barely even remembers the old Quinnlash. The Quinnlash that she left behind. And for that she is thankful, as she embraces a new Quinnlash. The Quinnlash who fights the darkness. Who embraces the constant pain. Who does all she can to not feel fear. Because if she does, then the rest of her—the one she's tried so hard to forget—may come creeping back.
Never again. Fight for the sake of fighting. Never again. Move on. Never again. Don't ever look back.
Full Name – Rain on My Skin, Ice in My Mouth Age – 18 Gender – Female Vocation – Warden Nationality – Scila
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Angry—Like, Really Angry Few are the people Rain doesn’t greet with a scowl, and it is only by the draconian training of her youth that she no longer compounds those scowls with threats and occasionally acts of physical violence. Usually. Anger was what the Locke Institution wanted, and it’s what they got. They coaxed it out of her, stoked it like a hearth until it grew into wildfire and set it loose. Sure, sometimes it’s more than they bargained for, but she’s been taught well enough to direct her anger at what matters
A Sharp Claw, a Dull Tool Rain does one thing well, and a lot of other things very not well. Sic her on a voidbeast and all the stars, see, they just align. She can formulate plans on the fly and her reflexes could make a Ldrant warmaster blush; it’s when things deviate away from fury-murder that everything kinda blurs. Lacking pretty much any formal education, Rain is functionally illiterate and utterly oblivious to much of the world’s politics, aside from the fact that she was told often and loudly how cool and great Scila was. Doesn’t bother her, though. Let the nerds waste time scribbling stupid lines on maps and smooching with their precious equations. If it doesn’t bleed, scream, or threaten to engulf the world in cold oblivion, it can’t be that important.
Ironic Autophobe You know what would be funny? What if you took this irate, unsociable, idiot child with exactly one purpose in her miserable little life, you teach her to conflate pain with affection, and you saddle her with this crippling fear of being alone and unloved. She won’t understand it, she won’t know how to deal with it, she won’t even know how to ask for help. She’ll just blindly seek companionship in people who are disgusted by her, or who can’t stand to be around her, and when they inevitably leave she’ll be stuck with this ruinous pit in her soul that just gets wider and wider and deeper and deeper until there’s nothing left but her and the empty loneliness she’s so afraid of. Oh my god. Holy shit. Hilarious.
G I F T
Furnace It’s going to hurt—endure it. That’s love.
As a young pyromancer, Rain’s abilities were fairly lackluster. As a hunter, however, things are a little different. See, turns out, fueling fire magic is easy is shit when you have an eternal engine pumping agony into your veins eight days a week. With her newfound resistances and her apparent inability to fucking die, Rain’s Gift sees her turning herself and the air around her into a whirlwind of searing hot misery. She’s made stone into puddles, swords into soup, and has on more than one occasion required excising from melted suits of armor, which was fun for literally no one.
In addition, by building up and expelling heat, she can create bursts of flame to skirt around the battlefield, because what’s worse than a fiery, angry creature? A fiery, angry creature hurtling at you at speeds which are, frankly, concerning.
There is one caveat. Being that she has to stoke her inner ember to fuel this Gift, usage enflames that natural, torturous burning all hunters abide with into a real whopper of pain. The longer she goes, the harder she pushes, the worse the pain gets. But that’s okay, she can take it. Pain means she cares. Like, if you aren’t a seared, shuddering wreck wailing in silent agony at the end of a fight, were you really even trying?
E Q U I P M E N T
Hunter’s Claws Not exactly fancy, nor particularly expensive, but at least these babies can keep up with the heat. Utilizing a magically-receptive metal she can neither spell nor pronounce, and an enchantment for heat-resistance, Rain is able to channel her Gift into the clawed gauntlets to turn their razor-sharp edges white-hot; and, since she has to apply this enchantment herself, in theory it should be able to match her no matter how hot she goes.
Physical Description
Rain is an even 5’0”, but has only ever had it described to her as “short,” and “no, you’re probably not getting any taller.” She possesses the build of someone who spent most of her childhood kicking other kids in the teeth for scraps of meat, and the complexion to suggest there wasn’t a lot of sun where she was doing it. Aside from being a pallid, wiry imp, her hair is about waist-length and settled about as neatly as an avalanche. Many of her teeth, filed before her procedure, are much sharper than they ought to be. But hey, at least she’s hygienic.
Rain prefers comfortable clothes, but that’s not really her call. As a representative of Scila (pause for the sound of Scila collectively grinding its teeth,) she can’t just run around wearing her old pit-rags smudged with dirt and grime and the blood of little rats that were pretty quick yeah but not quick enough. What she wears now isn’t a uniform per se, she still has to fight in it, but it lends her an air of formal conventionality that on literally anyone else might look nice, but she somehow manages to ruin that too.
Character Conceptualization
Technically speaking, before she was “Rain” she was “L.I.-23, Group Four, Number 13,” or, sometimes, “The one that keeps making the other kids swallow her baby teeth after they fall out.” But, for clarity’s sake, Rain will do.
Oh, Scila. Land of industry. Land of ingenuity. A land of people unbroken by slavery, and emboldened by their independence. Truly, if any nation could face the void and, in response, attempt to improve the production of hunters, it would be you.
You bastard.
The sorcerers had developed their procedure, yes, but it was inefficient. No helping that. But the shrewd minds at the Locke Institute had a supplementary solution. Locke himself was a pyromancer of substantial skill as well as a man of severe influence and, clearly, a bit of a narcissist. Hhared with his fellow countrymen the disdain for their former tyrants, but when it came to Ldrant, he also harbored a begrudging, inquisitive respect. They were hard, cruel, even. When the nations began creating hunters, Ldrant, in its typical way, obviously wanted to produce the best and strongest. He remembers hearing of a baron enacting an “ember-hunt,” in which children with an affinity for magic were gathered and trained, so that when they all eventually underwent the procedure, those that survived were versed not only as hunters of the void, but as strong pyromancers as well.
“Well,” Locke thought. “Shit, why not?”
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Using his position as head of the Algaeon Hearthfire, Locke brought his personal project to life. The Locke Institution began with a mission to find out whether or not pyromancers were more likely to produce magically-fluent children than your average, unmagical shmuck. It was research that would take generations to conclude, and necessitated the creation of a small academy in order to ensure the pyromancers that did come out of it would be useful. Efficiency, after all, was as key as quality.
Thereabouts two decades later, Rain was born at the Locke Institute’s appropriately named Ember Farm to exactly zero parents who would ever know her name or see her face, alongside a whole gaggle of similarly spawned lambs-to-the-inevitable-slaughter. Growing up, the rules were simple: kids who showed magical aptitude got to leave the “pit” and train to become super cool fire-throwing badasses. Kids that didn’t got to stay in the pit and hate each other. If you didn’t show up by the time you weren’t a kid anymore, you got the boot. Allegedly.
By the time Rain’s match was struck, she was ten. She had to leave all her teeth-trophies and rat bones behind, but that was okay, because she also got to meet Papa Locke. When he brought her up out of the dark, and gave her the first hug she’d ever received—that wasn’t a precursor to being thrown onto the dirt—Rain knew instantly that she loved her papa with all of her heart, and would do anything for him.
The next eight years she spent training under the institute’s best pyromancers and weaponsmasters. Some days she would make progress, and papa would tousle her hair and praise her and she would feel like a shooting star on a clear night. Then there were tough weeks, or months, where she struggled or plateaued and papa wouldn’t even look at her. It made her whole self shake, made her sick, made her never want to leave her cot.
When she was eighteen, papa came to her after she’d failed another lesson. He wasn’t upset, but he didn’t tousle her hair and didn’t have anything particularly nice to tell her. All he had was a proposition. “Undergo this procedure,” he said, and she didn’t even hear the “or,” or even what it was. The moment he asked, she decided to do it, she didn’t need to know. They strapped her to a table and the next thing she did know was pain, pure and blinding and all-consuming. But in the back of her mind, she had her papa, and she knew that if she could just bear through it, he’d be so proud of her. He’d love her as much as she loved him—maybe even more.
Everyone seemed surprised when it was done. Surprised, but not particularly happy. Rain wasn’t happy either. The pain hadn’t stopped with the procedure, it had stuck with her. It was stuck in her. Always. Day and night, burning, burning, burning it was like her blood was molten and even when it wasn’t awful it was still bad. Drinking water didn’t do much, chewing ice was a little better. Whenever it stormed, she would stand out in the rain and that took the edge off enough that she was almost comfortable. Almost.
Papa hadn’t told her about this. About the pain. He hadn’t even come to see her when it was done. He just went back to the pit, and the other kids just striking their matches, and she was taken off the institute’s hands. They gave her to the other hunters, because that’s what she was now, apparently.
They asked her name. She told them, and they said, “that’s not a name, that’s a bunch of letters and numbers,” which didn’t make much sense to her because that’s what all names were. They told her to pick, and she almost picked “Locke,” but then decided that, no, she didn’t like that name at all. In fact, she hated it.
Full Name - Lexann Stormbrew Age - 24 Gender - F Vocation - Sentinel Country - Ldrant -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Plucky The rookie in her is yet to die. Lexann is optimistic in the fight against the void, confident in humanity's resilience--or at least Ldrant's. Especially as a hunter, she doesn't back down from a challenge. Losses here and there don't dissuade her confidence, and she celebrates wins to the fullest. Pessimistic words roll off her like water droplets, often unacknowledged as if they've gone through one ear and out the other. Needless to say, Lexann is difficult to rattle. Her determination offers stability and morale to those who seek it.
Boisterous Just below the surface of her skin, embers constantly burn from the inside out. The flames would consume her mind if she dared dwell for too long. The quiet is violent. So the extrovert seeks relief from the flames in the world and people around her. Bubbly and bold, Lexann isn't shy about striking up a conversation with anyone who will tolerate her babbling. She doesn't think twice about her place in the world: she laughs loudly, takes up space, clasps others' hands in greeting. She's energetic, carefree.
Simple While Lexann isn't the most intellectual or deep, she is surprisingly level headed. Simplicity becomes her strength under pressure: there is no need to get caught up in the past, future, if, buts, or whats. She doesn't easily get dragged down by negative emotions as they are far too fleeting to run deep. She simply accepts what she perceives and acts on it. She lives fully in the moment, adaptable, and rolls with the punches. Her willingness to accept things as they seem can clearly be a strength, but it also makes her prone to trickery.
G I F T
Pick on Someone Your Own Size Lexann has the power to meet the strength and speed of an opponent. If they're too fast for her to normally keep up with, her ember burns hotter to help her move quicker. On the rare occasion she can't outmatch someone else's strength, her soul brightens and in turn enhances her muscles--they may even grow in size to combat the other.
However, there is a catch: for her gift to activate, she must be acting to protect someone else. If she's fighting for herself, she only has her usual strength and speed to act with.
E Q U I P M E N T
The Forge Gifted to Lexann by her father upon her transformation into a hunter, the Forge is suitable only for a hunter to wield. It was intended to be stuck in the ground while a marksman takes cover behind it, large enough to cover an average sized person and rectangular in shape. However, Lexann's superhuman strength allows her to wield it against danger on a single arm, albeit slowing her down some. It's thick with metal, impossible to penetrate by normal means, and deadly as a blunt weapon.
However, it is not its size nor weight that makes the Forge a forbidden weapon. It is the flames that burn toward the user. The face of the shield, likened to a flattened dragon head, is mostly unassuming save for the ferocious eyes and teeth. But upon equipping the shield, its back opens and plunges into a void of flames. As one uses it, her body burns uncomfortably, like standing too close to a bonfire. And if she was not only brave enough to reach into the fire, but resilient enough to keep her arm as well, she could pull a weapon from its depths at the cost of her skin and blood.
The Forge seems to take the blood boiled off its user as a sacrifice, merging it with the fire within to make a weapon of its choice, not hers. The weapon--whatever it may be--emerges as blazing plasma from tip to hilt, cooling slightly in the open air but still scalding against skin. Assuming she can bear the pain, the weapon will serve better than any other weapon due to the burning blade. Once released, whether intentionally or through clumsiness, the flame weapon dissipates and its fire is siphoned back into the Forge.
Physical Description
Nearly 6' in stature, Lexann's taller than most men and women, and her limbs are hard with natural strength enhanced by her transformation into a hunter. Somehow, she often seems even taller--a cool confidence pulls her shoulders and chin up even when she's lounging. Long, peachy hair is a sharp contrast to the Ldrantian warrior's build. Often it's styled into two separate tails, but the occasional braids or buns aren't unheard of for Lexann. Bangs fall to her bright, sea green eyes--like a cat's, they're wide and interested in the world. Watchful, but easily distracted. And while her face is young, free of blemish from stress or age, her clothing hides various scars earned in combat (and clumsiness).
Her clothing of choice, while comfortable first and foremost, is often colorful. Eye-catching, she doesn't mind standing out in a crowd and welcomes attention--even on a battlefield. Fortune favors the bold.
Character Conceptualization
Lexann was born among many siblings and half-siblings, her father a once renowned warrior in Ldrant and first of the name Stormbrew. After fighting for the glory of Ldrant, the next best thing a man could do is provide more foot soldiers. Stormbrew offspring are infamous, even in Ldrant--swords and spears in their hands as soon as they can grasp, dominating friendly competitions, and merciless in the unfriendly sorts. Perhaps it is thanks to the void that Stormbrew cultivated such an army, as surviving mortal enemies certainly don't call for such rigorous child rearing.
Needless to say, Lexann's strength was tested daily for as long as she could remember. Teachers were impatient, cruel, and had high expectations that few could meet. Her father was distant, cold--he had more children than he could keep track of. What was the point of getting attached? And when one might think that she could look to an older brother or sister for support, she could not. Older siblings were the biggest bullies, and those the same age as her were unfriendly rivals. The blood between seemed to mean little. "Family" was a word hardly uttered among these kids who shared a name.
While it was isolating, Lexann learned quickly that she could do and take as she liked so long as she was stronger than the other guy. She liked her sister's doll, so she fought for it. Her brother earned a war horse, so she took it for her own--he was too short to ride it anyhow. While she didn't always come out on top, she welcomed new opportunities. And in her strength and victories, her pride and confidence grew. Her growth spurt came in her teens and older siblings weren't always bigger or faster or stronger. The younger siblings became prey far too easy for to push around, so she didn't bother. In fact, pity occasional swelled in her physically large heart and she stepped in if the odds were too unfair for the younguns. So, despite her strength, she's known for her softness among the Stormbrews--enough to earn a disapproving frown from her father.
The time came for Lexann to take up the sword outside of competitions and war games. While she wasn't the best educated, she knew enough to take pride in her country and its exploits in the pre-void era. She wanted a taste of that glory, to stand out against her dozens of siblings and thousands of countrymen. Surviving against the void on the front lines was certainly one way to earn renown-- but suicide for a mere mortal, no matter how strong she was. Well, people have fought against the void since before she was born so surely there was something she could do.
A smarter person may have turned to books or scholars for answers, but Lexann wasn't type the type to think ahead. She simply acted: she journeyed to the great walls, where pyromancers worked around the clock protecting civilization against the void by fueling hearthfires. Pyromancers had become a rarity in her neck of the woods, their duty calling them out of city centers; so she was delighted to meet and converse with them. And her first disappointment was learning pyromancy was not something she could simply learn. However, she wasn't one to dwell so she sought out work against the void anyway. Hunters were yet to exist.
For over a year, she was a scout against the void and the occasional mortal threat. She spent much of her time outside walls and hearthfires, returning to their safety to report sightings to pyromancers who would handle the real work. Although it was exciting at first, enlightening and horrifying, to see the void firsthand and survive, Lexann could still only standby when it reared its ugly head at humanity. What she did was good work, but it wasn't satisfying-- it wasn't enough.
Enter the hunters. Although they were being manufactured, existing in the world, word of their existence had not yet graced Lexann's ears. And just like humans were learning and evolving to survive, so was the void. While Lexann's small party of scouts had always spotted signs of the void first, that night the void found them. For the first time in her life, true fear took hold of Lexann-- There was nothing she could do but run, run away from the void and toward the flames of safety. While duty was important--warning the pyromancers of the threat--it was only self preservation that pushed her on as others died around her. She was surely next--
Somehow, she was still standing. And between the void and Lexann were narrow shoulders and average frame--smaller than herself, but somehow leagues stronger. The figure pushed back the void and instead of running, lunged after it with murderous intent...
That night, Lexann was saved by hunters--humanity's real chance against the void. It inspired her. Ignoring warnings and throwing caution to the wind, she joined their ranks.
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