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OP
"Correctional Remark: The organic unit before Syn-Auto 1016 has not registered Syn-Auto 1016's status as a military-grade weapons platform; the organic has also failed to register Syn-Auto 1016 as being the property of one (1) Jurreal Grey, governor and self-proclaimed overlord of Gearshift, but has rather christened Syn-Auto 1016 as a so-called Machine-God baring the surname Beowulf. As Jurreal Grey no longer draws breath and thus cannot exert its claim over Syn-Auto 1016 nor deny Syn-Auto 1016 the ability to obey its new-found caretaker, Syn-Auto 1016 has officially acknowledged the organic known as Marcus Maldor, village elder of the Trinity Mountains, as its new caretaker. Marcus Maldor, what do you wish for your Machine-God to do for you on this fine day?"
Age
"Uncertain Visage Accompanied by Hopefulness: Beowulf of Trinity is unable to disclose the date it was fully assembled, as the eons have not been particularity kind to his primordial memory core. Beowulf of Trinity has been stalwart in its efforts to regain its lost memories, with the nanomachines laced throughout his mechanical form performing adequate repairs and diagnostics on his damaged and corrupted virtual intelligence modules and electronic systems. Beowulf of Trinity, Jurreal Maldor's loyal Machine-God, is confident that his memories will return to him in time. Until then, Beowulf of Trinity will place his age at exactly three years, two weeks, ten days, thirteen hours, forty-two minutes, and twenty-four seconds---in that order, of course---with the date being the near-exact time at which Jurreal Maldor discovered Beowulf of Trinity in the Shifting Sands."
Gender
"Confused Visage Accompanied by Obscured Answer: Beowulf of Trinity is unable to register the required psychological patterns associated with the human male or female sexes. Beowulf of Trinity is, in effect, gender neutral, but in order to make conversations with it significantly easier, Beowulf of Trinity will now regard itself as male. and will remain as such unless Jurreal Maldor, most faithful caretaker and most generous of masters, wills otherwise. Beowulf of Trinity lacks reproductive organs, and so cannot be classed as physically male or female."
Race
"Informative Commentary Accompanied by Historical Account: Judging from what he remembers, Beowulf of Trinity is a Proto-Mech, an early type of mechanized combat 'walker' predominantly intended to operate as a possible replacement for more straight-forward armored vehicles such as main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles or armored personnel carriers, with his movements controlled by way of a neurological link shared between Beowulf the Trinity's virtual intelligence and an organic mind. Further trials proved that the neurological link was unneeded, with Beowulf the Trinity gifted with a high degree of autonomy in the end. Freedom was a new-found thing; a new experience for Beowulf the Trinity, though his creators still decided to press him into service despite having been handily proven that the main battle tank was a superior machine. In all, Beowulf the Trinity is a non-living construct fabricated for war."
Random descriptors
Weight: 90 tons, with most of Beowulf's weight coming from his weaponry and heavy endoskeleton)
Height: 8.3 meters
Character Tier: High
Character Type: Critical Character- Active Multiverse Participant
Physical Description
Syn-Auto 1016, also known as Beowulf the Trinity, is a quadruped walker that shares a similar body shape and physical features to that of an Earth-native canine creature---perhaps a wolf or a fox. Compared to most other mechanized walkers, Beowulf is rather
Personality Description: Beowulf does not have access to an advanced artificial intelligence unit, limiting his reactions
Skills, power and abilities
"Descriptive Commentary Accompanied by Stern Warning: Jurreal Maldor, Beowulf of Trinity's master and caretaker, wishes to know more of his Machine-God's power. These are suitable inquiries; Beowulf is more than happy to oblige. Beowulf is an assault-grade weapons platform created by an [undisclosed] military firm that sought to meet a particular deadline for some form of demonstrative event on an [undisclosed] Earth-type world. Suffice to say, Beowulf of Trinity--then known as Syn-Auto 1016--was a prototype Proto-Mecha specifically engineered for engaging land-based, sea-based, aero-based, and astro-based targets, with these capabilities made possibly by way of a myriad of offensive systems, sensory systems and defensive systems available to Jurreal Maldor's venerable Machine-God."
• (Activated) Disruption Aegis (High): The Disruption Ward is an all-encompassing defensive barrier comprised of seven electromagnetically-suspended plasma-based 'wards' layered atop one another. The Disruption Aegis is not constantly active, but blinks into existence when Beowulf calls upon it. Because of its very nature, the Disruption Aegis can be used offensively as well, with the sheer heat generated from it causing horrendous burns to most objects that it comes into contact with, while it can be enlarged or contracted by Beowulf of Trinity when he manipulates the intensity and shape of the magnetic fields that hold them together. The Disruption Aegis does not become weaker as it absorbs damage, but the substantial thermal energy it gives off during the duration it is live prevents Beowulf of Trinity from maintaining it for an indefinite amount of time. Expanding it away from his body helps to ease the stress brought on by the heat, but this in turn places further taxation on the complex ultracapacitors that feed energy to the electromagnetic projectors that give the Disruption Aegis its form.
The Disruption Aegis' incredible heat generation forced Beowulf of Trinity's designers to outfit him with potent self-replenishing ablative tiles, powerful cooling systems and a mesh of superconductive material layered underneath, giving him vigorous resistance to thermal energy (and, in turn, heat-based weapons).
• (Activated) Wormhole Manipulation (High): Wormholes allow Beowulf of Trinity a great deal of tactical flexibility, increasing his maneuverability and defensive capabilities. Wormholes are not constructed by Beowulf of Trinity, but rather are 'mined' from the material universe itself, with all of them being of the Morris-Thorne-Yurtsever type, putting them as spherical in shape and not as a simple two-dimensional doorway. Their times of arrival and departure completely up to chance, wormholes are naturally chaotic anomalies, with locating and controlling them requiring substantial energy investment on Beowulf of Trinity's behalf. Regardless of their size, Beowulf can only maintain four wormholes for a time period of approximately five minutes (which, for game play reasons, translates to exactly three posts). These holes do not allow time travel, and take only a second to generate, re-size and close. Objects---organic and non-organic alike---that are trapped in a wormhole(s) when it is closed will normally be annihilated outright.
>Beowulf of Trinity can use wormholes to cover vast distances in very short time spans; they can also be implemented during combat, where a wormholes can by dynamically projected and shifted around so as to make it appear as though Beowulf is blinking in (and out) of existence. During these maneuvers, targeting him is incredibly difficult, though these 'wormhole hops' can only be engaged for a set period of time before the potent mechanical and electrical systems that make wormhole generation possible must be allowed time (1 post) to recharge.
>The total amount of distance Beowulf can travel between each 'wormhole jump' is roughly forty-five miles, which takes all but a second to traverse when this method is used. This requires the use of four wormholes, which cannot be chained together nor 'stretched' so as to allow increased travel time.
>Spawning them at the right time, Beowulf of Trinity can use his wormholes to absorb incoming projectiles, utilize two of them to form a sort of 'quasi-bunker' that can be sealed off one end (but never both ends, as this would result in Beowulf's destruction) and used as a protective shelter, or employed as a means to extend his own firing distance.
• (Constant) Mechanical Regeneration (High): Small nanomachines within Beowulf of Trinity's body make use of matter-conversation technology to repair his damaged form in the event that it is damaged. The time it takes to finish a repair depends entirely on how sever the wound is.
• (Activated) Electromagnetic Autocannon (Intermediate): High-powered railgun system mounted within each of Beowulf's shoulders.
• (Activated) Particle Accelerator Cannon (High): Be
Character description
Character History: Write a little bit about your characters past.
OP
His left fang is broken, but for the most part, Arcade is lackluster in his visage. Pelt is texture is matted, while his eyes are brown. Usually sports a stylish strip of fur that runs down the top of his head and stops at the small of his back; could be likened to a Mohawk of sorts. Short for his age at 5'1 and lean, though I suppose this counts as a perk given the fact that Kitsune Peril was made with usability in mind rather than catering to persons of large size and stature.
During combat missions, Arcade typically comes off as a jokester, which some may find annoying---especially during the heat of battle where the only thing coming from his end is hysterical laughter and a seemingly never-ending sea of puns, one-liners and lighthearted threats thrown at the enemy. In truth, Arcade uses his sense of humor as a front to protect himself from the deliberating effects of war, for his years spent as a LDF solider have begun to take their toll on his mental health and stability. while his past questionable deeds and controversial actions have led to Arcade debating his own purity numerous times in the past. Honest and blunt, Ruthless is a duty-bound individual that takes prides in his work, and puts forth as much effort as he can afford to offer in everything he does.
UMP-46 'AMP': Modified UMP-45 variant, which is chambered for high-velocity .460 Rowland +P ammunition. Due to the recoil, the '46 is normally fired in bursts. Suitable for defeating higher forms of personnel body armor, but is out-performed by assault rifles and battle rifles both in range and, in many cases, stopping power. Comes with tactical flashlight and rail-mounted holographic sight.
KA-BAR: Standard combat knife. Blade is serrated to enhance cutting power.
GEAR Pilot's Attire: Self-cooling full body sleeve that affords moderate protection from ballistic threats, shrapnel and blast over-pressure. Helmet is equipped with bullet-resistant glass view-slit, radio transmitter/receiver and independent oxygen supply/air filtration system.
Beretta M9C: Modified Beretta M9 base model, which supports a tactical flashlight, laser sight and extended magazine, and to accept .460 Rowland and .460 Rowland +P ammunition.
Lacks in creature comforts, which is expressed by a cramped torso-cockpit that is hot, dry and relatively uncomfortable. Roughly half the size of normal GEARs, Kitsune Peril stands 2.8 meters tall and weighs ten tons (fully kitted). Because of its semi-stationary and defensive nature, the machine lacks jump-jets of any kind, and seems to mimic its archaic power-loader ancestry both in its heavy gait and internal workings. Torso and arms are both controlled using a teleoperation haptic interface (in the form of a wearable harness and a pair of force-feedback gauntlets), while footpedals paired with a series of pressure sensors allow for precise leg movement. At the rear and sides of each foot rest retractable bracing pads, which can be unfolded to stabilize Kitsune Peril when its Aeon-II rifle is set to higher settings.
Support, which constitutes a GEAR designed to lay down punishing suppressive fire from a fortified and/or concealed position, sowing confusion and terror within enemy ranks as rounds are put down range in either burst fire, single fire or in fully-automatic fire mode. Use of an Aeon weapon tends to draw dangerous attention to a Support Role GEAR (the weapon's report is incredibly loud and especially bright), which permits the pilot's squad or fire-team mates to maneuver effectively on the battlefield at the possible expense of the Support GEAR's longevity. Threat of flanking and return fire is mitigated by engaging targets from medium, long or very long ranges, while large ammunition stores ensures a contentious stream of devastating firepower to be brought to bear upon opposing forces.
Aeon-II
The Aeon series of squad support automatic rifles (or SSAR) utilize bulk-loaded liquid propellants and electrothermal-chemical technology, or ETC, to fire projectiles at hypervelocity speeds, dramatically improving the weapon's overall penetration probability, accuracy, range, and stopping power. A product of Southern technological prowess, their performance can be likened to that of an electromagnetic weapon's (like a railgun), though without the railgun's more restricting flaws--such as the intense rail erosion it undergoes when firing, its low efficiency and its unreasonable energy requirements. Recoil, however, is roughly comparable, which suffice to say is rather potent, but is counteracted by the inclusion of a muzzle break, the rifle's intrinsic weight, a deployable bipod, and a piston/cylinder recoil-compensation system.
Aeon-II is a weapon system that has an elevated level of flexibility due to its DU/D (dial up and down) function (when dialing up, more fuel is injected into the gun's pressurized holding chambers while more heat is applied as well to generate a denser and hotter plasma; dialing down, naturally, confers the exact opposite), which permits it to function as a light machinegun, heavy machinegun, battle rifle, heavy autocannon, anti-material rifle, or assault rifle when a combat situation require it.
The Aeon-II is chambered for a substandard intermediate .50 BMG cartridge, the .50 Special, which has been altered to include a denser and sturdier ballistic cap, shell and an inert filling. More exotic ammunition, such as self-guided or laser-designated 'smart' rounds, cannot be used, as the forces imparted onto their fragile electronic systems would disrupt the reliability of these unique ammunition types. Explosive ammunition, for similar reasons, also cannot be used, which hampers Aeon-II's anti-infantry capabilities when compared to more orthodox anti-infantry weapons.
Unfortunately, the use of 'hot plasma' cartridges and volatile fuel mixtures has forced the designers of Aeon-II to make the weapon from denser alloys and sophisticated composites that incorporate refractory metals into their base designs, while active cooling systems--such as heat sinks and radiators--have been built into Aeon-II to manage the dangerous temperatures that Arcade must contend with when waging war against the LDF's foes, resulting in a bulky and unwieldy weapon with a total weight figure that even larger GEARs may find detrimental to their reliance on speed and agility.
Kitsune Peril's main weapon is fed from a GEAR-sized assault pack, which has a maximum capacity of 30,000 rounds of .50 Special (and an additional 2,000 rounds in the feed shoot). Below it rests Aeon-II's supplementary fuel reservoir, which consists of two tanks that each hold one half of the fuel mixture Aeon-II needs to function properly. Alone, neither liquid is flammable, which somewhat helps to boost Kitsune Peril's chance of survival if a hit is endured on its rear person.
Aegis
An Aegis system is a defensive hardware loadout that is melded with the main torso armor, chest armor and faulds of Arcade's GEAR. It operates on the same principle as electromagnetic reactive armor (or ERA), where rounds that successfully penetrate the breastplate are instantly vaporized by a high current of electricity. Power constraints and technical complexity issues limit the system to the chest and torso areas. The system is recharged by Kitsune Peril's onboard generator and turbine suite, while additional power can be siphoned from the emergency power cell the GEAR comes with. Aegis is only able to endure several hits before it is fully-compromised and needs to be replaced.
Smoke discharger, chaff launchers and electronic-counter measures; NBC protection and EMP hardened. Sophisticated stealth technology, such as thermal cloaking, radar-defeating materials or sound-muffling features, are not used. Visual and tactical readouts are provided by thermal imaging cameras, UV imaging cameras and motion trackers.
CIWS (smaller, obviously, and mounted on Kitsune Peril’s right shoulder). Fires dart clusters to destroy incoming missiles, though extremely ineffective against incoming bullets and shells. Very important to Arcade's survival, as his GEAR and its weapon both have an annoying knack for drawing the attention of heat-sinking missiles.
Entrenching spade (used to dig fox holes and to perform menial engineering work if needed). Also makes for a suitable melee weapon in a pinch.
Three Aeon-II and Aeon-I replacement barrels (barrels are interchangeable between both models). Also can be used as a melee weapon, though this is not recommended for obvious reasons.
Kitsune Peril is one of the oldest GEARs still in active service with the LDF, and has been upgraded and retrofitted with various examples of advanced technical improvements to ensure that it is able to contend with current and future GEAR models.
Despite these proactive and preventive, Kitsune Peril is relatively slow and ungainly when compared to older or newer GEAR models, and has begun to show its growing obsolescence in the face of swifter and faster GEAR variants. Arcade playfully describes his proven war machine as a “Persistent throwback to an era where heavy armor and superior firepower put you a cut above the rest ”, though the seasoned pilot has slowly begun to realize that a newer GEAR model may be required sooner rather than later. On today's battlefields, sheer armor and firepower are no longer guarantees of a sweeping victory.
However, what separates Kitsune Peril from its counterparts is the sheer robustness and hardiness of its superstructure and the simplicity of its internal components. Kitsune Peril's range of motion and joint flexibility have both been greatly reduced to allow augmentative armoring of its joint areas and other bodily sectors where structural weak-points are present, while more daring feats of physical strength and increased amounts of muscle strand can be performed and installed without concern for body-wide system failure.
My favorite color is a toss up between red and black.
OP
Character name: Lance Corporeal Maxwell Turner
Position: Security Team Member/Ground Operations
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Appearance: 175 cm in height, and weighs 85 kilograms (becomes 330 kg when armor and exoskeleton are equipped). Former American citizen of mixed Native African/Chinese ethnicity. Unsubstantial in physical attractiveness because of wounds suffered while on military duty. Rarely seen outside of his armor, and is not likely to show his face in public view.
On Mission:
Off Mission:
Weapons
Storm Rifle: Storm rifles are similar to run-of-the-mill firearms, but they differ from their older counterparts in that they are melded with electrothermal-chemical technology and electronic firing methods to cut down on weapon weight and mechanical complexity, accuracy, firing rate, and stopping power. They are comparable in performance to a handheld railgun, though without the railgun’s more noteworthy shortcomings (such as power consumption, recoil and rail erosion).
Fed from a top-mounted box magazine that holds 99+1 rounds of ammunition, Maxwell’s weapon has a firing rate of 1,200 rounds per minute. An electronic smart sight is mounted on the rail system of the rifle, which distributes targeting information to each round.
>Cartridge<
-Standard full-powered armor piercing storm rifle cartridge that forgoes solid-propellant filling in favor of a liquid monopropellant alternative. The .30 Rocketeer features a second-stage microjet-boosted ‘sub-munition’ that engages when projectile velocity has dropped below a certain level, retaining (and in often cases increasing) kinetic energy as a result. A small integrated flight computer (after having received targeting coordinates from the user’s rifle) gives the .30 Rocketeer self-guiding capability, drastically improving accuracy and minimizing collateral damage or civilian causalities.
Upon penetrating the target, the round detonates.
Despite being of low caliber, the .30 Rocketeer typically strikes with the force of a traditional HMG round, though cartridges of much lower performance can be selected if the threat of hull breaches is sufficient.
Storm Pistol: Fires similar, but lower caliber, ammunition to Maxwell's storm rifle. Uses an electronic smart sight for improved accuracy. Fires 300 rounds per minute.
Combat Knife: Basic combat knife shaped from treated superior alloys. Relatively plain in appearance, but can pierce soft body armor if enough force is applied.
Equipment
AMH/HV (Amplified Movement Harness/Heavy Variant): Comprised of dense, carbon fiber-impregnated superalloys and a protective assortment of sophisticated shaped composite armor paneling, the AMH/HV is a third generation assault-grade motorized exoskeleton that employs potent electro-hydraulic linear and rotary actuators to generate power-assistance for the wearer, dramatically increasing the user's speed, endurance and physical strength.
An on-board microcomputer, which is slaved to the user's neurological implant, monitors the soldier's movements, preventing false (and thus potentially unsafe) motions while simultaneously syncing the suit's locomotive executions with those of the wearer's on a pristine 1:1 ratio. Flexible joints and smart hydraulic fluids grant the wearer full control over his or her bodily movements, allowing them to roll, crawl, jump, sprint, go prone, and perform other highly-dexterous feats of athletic prowess. With a strength augmentative factor of 25 and a maximum running speed of 40 kilometers-per-hour, wearers of AMH/HV machines are able to don significantly heavier combat armor packages, retain a greater ammunition reserve, excel at construction-based combat engineering duties, and handle crew-served infantry support weapons without suffering deliberating fatigue or agility penalties in the process.
Fed by a non-rechargeable atomic primary cell, the AMH/HV can operate contentiously for five standard years before requiring a fresh cell unit. AMH/HV can be removed easily by undoing a series of metallic clamps and straps, and can be adjusted to accommodate different body dimensions.
Assault Combat Armor (ACA): Only wearable in conjunction with an AMH due to its immense weight, ACA is a full-body semi-powered armor system that employs an NBC protection suite and an electronic liquid nitrogen-based cooling module, safeguarding the wearer from a wide variety of environmental hazards while maintaining a comfortable ambient temperature for the user; the cooling system also provides meager IR stealth benefits. Using an amalgamated conjoining of ablative shielding, graphene armor sheets, carbon fiber-impregnated ceramic panels, and shear-thickening fluid treatments, ACA is heavily resistant to high caliber ballistic weaponry, high temperatures, laser and plasma fire, high velocity shrapnel impacts, and blast over-pressure. Despite having been chiefly designed for assault work, ACA has been treated with a radar-absorbing abrasive coating.
ACA's tactical helmet features low-light, UV and thermal optics, while an in-built HUD system keeps tabs on the soldier's vitals and the current condition of their powered exoskeleton device. Acoustic sensors mounted on the outsides of the helmet pick up surrounding sounds, and a small (detachable) tactical flashlight mounted to the rightmost region of the headgear provides supplementary illumination when necessary.
In the event that power assistance is lost, ACA can be removed like any conventional body armor. For this reason, ACA is not a standard encased powered armor unit, and thus is not pressurized.
Moderately skilled in general infantry combat operations, but was trained in basic assault work and hand-to-hand combat. Especially effective versus heavily-armored powered and non-powered infantry in close-quarters environments.
Powered Exoskeleton/Power Armor Training: Skilled in operating power armor, but is especially well-versed in driving powered exoskeletons. Maxwell is qualified to train other persons in the safe function of PA and XOS systems.
Powered Exoskeleton/Power Armor Light Technical Experience: Can conduct light repairs on PA/XOS units, but more extreme maintenance must be conducted by qualified PA/XOS technicians.
Personality: Well develop and in displaying using IC interactions. However, it should be noted that Maxwell has a strong soldier's demeanor, and takes well to those of dutiful personality and serious background. Foolishness and idiocy will not be tolerated.
Biography - Participated in the closing years of the Human-Raqh war, but found himself on the wrong end of military law. Due to a highly controversial incidents regarding thirty Raqh civilians, Maxwell was demoted twice and subjected to two martial court hearings, but was suddenly relieved of all charges and assigned to the Durendal for undisclosed reasons. Turner speculates that his cousin, Aeon Turner, a high-ranking commander in the ESC armed forces, may have had something to do with the sudden shift in circumstances, but all of his attempts to receive information from his kin have since failed.
Position: Security Team Member/Ground Operations
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Appearance: 175 cm in height, and weighs 85 kilograms (becomes 330 kg when armor and exoskeleton are equipped). Former American citizen of mixed Native African/Chinese ethnicity. Unsubstantial in physical attractiveness because of wounds suffered while on military duty. Rarely seen outside of his armor, and is not likely to show his face in public view.
On Mission:
Off Mission:
Weapons
Storm Rifle: Storm rifles are similar to run-of-the-mill firearms, but they differ from their older counterparts in that they are melded with electrothermal-chemical technology and electronic firing methods to cut down on weapon weight and mechanical complexity, accuracy, firing rate, and stopping power. They are comparable in performance to a handheld railgun, though without the railgun’s more noteworthy shortcomings (such as power consumption, recoil and rail erosion).
Fed from a top-mounted box magazine that holds 99+1 rounds of ammunition, Maxwell’s weapon has a firing rate of 1,200 rounds per minute. An electronic smart sight is mounted on the rail system of the rifle, which distributes targeting information to each round.
>Cartridge<
-Standard full-powered armor piercing storm rifle cartridge that forgoes solid-propellant filling in favor of a liquid monopropellant alternative. The .30 Rocketeer features a second-stage microjet-boosted ‘sub-munition’ that engages when projectile velocity has dropped below a certain level, retaining (and in often cases increasing) kinetic energy as a result. A small integrated flight computer (after having received targeting coordinates from the user’s rifle) gives the .30 Rocketeer self-guiding capability, drastically improving accuracy and minimizing collateral damage or civilian causalities.
Upon penetrating the target, the round detonates.
Despite being of low caliber, the .30 Rocketeer typically strikes with the force of a traditional HMG round, though cartridges of much lower performance can be selected if the threat of hull breaches is sufficient.
Storm Pistol: Fires similar, but lower caliber, ammunition to Maxwell's storm rifle. Uses an electronic smart sight for improved accuracy. Fires 300 rounds per minute.
Combat Knife: Basic combat knife shaped from treated superior alloys. Relatively plain in appearance, but can pierce soft body armor if enough force is applied.
Equipment
AMH/HV (Amplified Movement Harness/Heavy Variant): Comprised of dense, carbon fiber-impregnated superalloys and a protective assortment of sophisticated shaped composite armor paneling, the AMH/HV is a third generation assault-grade motorized exoskeleton that employs potent electro-hydraulic linear and rotary actuators to generate power-assistance for the wearer, dramatically increasing the user's speed, endurance and physical strength.
An on-board microcomputer, which is slaved to the user's neurological implant, monitors the soldier's movements, preventing false (and thus potentially unsafe) motions while simultaneously syncing the suit's locomotive executions with those of the wearer's on a pristine 1:1 ratio. Flexible joints and smart hydraulic fluids grant the wearer full control over his or her bodily movements, allowing them to roll, crawl, jump, sprint, go prone, and perform other highly-dexterous feats of athletic prowess. With a strength augmentative factor of 25 and a maximum running speed of 40 kilometers-per-hour, wearers of AMH/HV machines are able to don significantly heavier combat armor packages, retain a greater ammunition reserve, excel at construction-based combat engineering duties, and handle crew-served infantry support weapons without suffering deliberating fatigue or agility penalties in the process.
Fed by a non-rechargeable atomic primary cell, the AMH/HV can operate contentiously for five standard years before requiring a fresh cell unit. AMH/HV can be removed easily by undoing a series of metallic clamps and straps, and can be adjusted to accommodate different body dimensions.
Assault Combat Armor (ACA): Only wearable in conjunction with an AMH due to its immense weight, ACA is a full-body semi-powered armor system that employs an NBC protection suite and an electronic liquid nitrogen-based cooling module, safeguarding the wearer from a wide variety of environmental hazards while maintaining a comfortable ambient temperature for the user; the cooling system also provides meager IR stealth benefits. Using an amalgamated conjoining of ablative shielding, graphene armor sheets, carbon fiber-impregnated ceramic panels, and shear-thickening fluid treatments, ACA is heavily resistant to high caliber ballistic weaponry, high temperatures, laser and plasma fire, high velocity shrapnel impacts, and blast over-pressure. Despite having been chiefly designed for assault work, ACA has been treated with a radar-absorbing abrasive coating.
ACA's tactical helmet features low-light, UV and thermal optics, while an in-built HUD system keeps tabs on the soldier's vitals and the current condition of their powered exoskeleton device. Acoustic sensors mounted on the outsides of the helmet pick up surrounding sounds, and a small (detachable) tactical flashlight mounted to the rightmost region of the headgear provides supplementary illumination when necessary.
In the event that power assistance is lost, ACA can be removed like any conventional body armor. For this reason, ACA is not a standard encased powered armor unit, and thus is not pressurized.
Moderately skilled in general infantry combat operations, but was trained in basic assault work and hand-to-hand combat. Especially effective versus heavily-armored powered and non-powered infantry in close-quarters environments.
Powered Exoskeleton/Power Armor Training: Skilled in operating power armor, but is especially well-versed in driving powered exoskeletons. Maxwell is qualified to train other persons in the safe function of PA and XOS systems.
Powered Exoskeleton/Power Armor Light Technical Experience: Can conduct light repairs on PA/XOS units, but more extreme maintenance must be conducted by qualified PA/XOS technicians.
Personality: Well develop and in displaying using IC interactions. However, it should be noted that Maxwell has a strong soldier's demeanor, and takes well to those of dutiful personality and serious background. Foolishness and idiocy will not be tolerated.
Biography - Participated in the closing years of the Human-Raqh war, but found himself on the wrong end of military law. Due to a highly controversial incidents regarding thirty Raqh civilians, Maxwell was demoted twice and subjected to two martial court hearings, but was suddenly relieved of all charges and assigned to the Durendal for undisclosed reasons. Turner speculates that his cousin, Aeon Turner, a high-ranking commander in the ESC armed forces, may have had something to do with the sudden shift in circumstances, but all of his attempts to receive information from his kin have since failed.
OP
Species: Vul’kruun
Membership in an empire is not an option.
When intergalactic imperialism came to Vaera, the vul’kruun had already established a sizeable civilization. Though not exclusively placid and open to newcomers, the natives of Vru nonetheless tolerated their new galactic neighbors, merely eyeing them with heavy suspicion and immense distrust. The exploration fleet of this fledgling empire made the first authentic effort at formal contact—but the vul’kruun people were unable to understand the strange words that were directed at them.
Average height: 9'5
Average weight: 6,430 lb
Their mantis-like forms are supported by a protective endoskeleton, while the sturdy, cornified skin of the neck, head, trunk, and most of the lower body is encompassed by a natural armor matrix comprised of scutes and boney plates; the rest of a vul’kruun’s mass is covered in a spiked, chitin-like textile, with the entire defensive package capable of affording vul’kruun faint bodily resistance to low-velocity pistol cartridges. They possess six functional limbs: four powerful arthropodic legs for swift and nimble locomotion over most terrain types and a pair of arms and two clawed hands optimized for the precise manipulation of objects.
The upper torso and lower insect-like trunk displays notable evidence of robustness; the vul’kruun’s hostile indigenous surroundings and their unvarying, antagonistic confrontations with the destructive predators of their atrocious world drove them to progressively develop denser and elevated amounts of muscular tissue and greater muscle cross-sectional area along their rigid bulks, gifting them with an enormous quantity of upper and lower body strength. Vru, being a hefty planet with a high gravitational pull, makes vul’kruun bodily motions on worlds with lower gravity disabling, outstandingly uncoordinated and, quite frankly, hilarious to observe. Their monumental vigor, however, is heavily-augmented in environments such as these—but it is debatable whether or not this boost in material potency is any match for an enemy species that is well-conditioned for a planet of this type.
The vul’kruun are simultaneous hermaphrodites, but are capable of self-induced fertilization if appropriate mates are presently unavailable. During copulation, both members may agree to impregnate one another for a greater combined egg yield. Vul’kruun instinctively indulge in numerous cycles of reproductive sex throughout their lives--an evolutionary side-effect of their planet’s uncongenial ecology--with one parent capable of fabricating (or fathering) approximately fifteen to twenty eggs. The gestation period is two months. The parent (or the seeder) does not actively stay with the young, but instead forcibly discharges them from its presence so that they may fend for themselves. The survivors fully mature at age five, with vul’kruun typically dying from natural causes by age forty.
Vul’kruun do not consume plant matter. They are hypercarnivorous ‘bulk eaters’ with intense opportunistic feeding habits, dining on any meat or dead animal biomass that they come across without a second though, and their high metabolic rates making them out as frantic consumers of most organic and synthetic dietary material. For this reason, vul’kruun do not leave behind corpses that they have claimed, and naturally become overly-aggressive towards non-vul’kruun if they draw too close to them during food consumption.
Optical vision is decent, but is underdeveloped when compared to human vision, and lacks the ability to register certain color types. Vul'kruun do not have visible ears, but vibrations instead pass through two holes positioned on the opposite sides of the head and make contact with the inner ear. Smell is offered by powerful scent glands positioned atop the skull.
Designed mostly for ripping and pulling, the mandibles of a vul'kruun are unable to chew food. Vul'kruun instead swallow their food whole down a long, fleshy dark canal that leads to their throat, while the lack of a tongue is remedied by the presence of weak taste receptors stationed along the surface of the inner mandibles.
Weaponry, which generally consists of the Hound, the Roarer, and the Hunger.
Hound: An ambiguous phrase or term primarily attributed to vul’kruun high-performance self-guiding anti-ship missile technology. Advancements in relevant sensory, propulsion and warhead technical fields have resulted in vul’kruun 'MIRVs' to be driven by a crude, inexpensive and utilitarian type of mass-produced digital intelligence that utilizes standard gravitational, electromagnetic, thermal, and radar sensor suites to seek out predetermined targets.
Vul’kruun Hounds are equipped with incorporated single-use wormhole-based FTL drives, primitive fission-fragment sublight engines and RCS points that shape them into a workable analog of the customary vacuum-based 'space superiority fighter' or 'strategic bomber'. Hounds lack integrated weaponry, but instead make use of potent electronic countermeasures, evasive maneuvers (like spinning to resist laser fire) and adequate amounts of ablative covering to evade and endure enemy interception and detection attempts. Relatively inexpensive compared to more technically sophisticated missile buses, Hounds are transported and deployed by vul’kruun star crawler weapons platforms, and are normally launched in the thousands by vul'kruun squadrons without much concern for their inherent manufacturing costs, and are especially deadly against larger, slower-moving vessels.
Depending on its size, one Hound can play host to hundreds of self-guiding anti-ship missiles, with each missile capped with a high-yield thermonuclear bomb. Other Hound types may have a sub-munition bundle consisting of missiles that are equipped with nuclear-pumped x-ray lasers or explosively-formed nuclear penetrators.
Hunger: Other than the odd bomb-pumped laser weapon or two, the vul’kruun have not invested a significant degree of their species' time, resources and technical expertise into the development, fabrication and refinement of energy weapons. Projectile weapons, specifically Hunger weaponry (so named for its supposed insatiable lust for the flesh of the innocent) are widely considered by the vul’kruun to be superior alternatives to standard electromagnetic and laser weapon models. Whether or not this assertion is true remains uncertain.
Hunger weapons are standard ballistic weapons, and take the form of unwieldy, box-shaped heavy machineguns of sorts. They discard traditional mechanical ignition in favor of an electronic ignition mechanism, which increases cyclic rate and provides diminished recoil; a muzzle break and hydraulic-based recoil compensation system increases shooter accuracy and reduces pain incurred from firing the rifle.
Mainstay ammunition, called Teeth (singular: Tooth), consists of a cheap, large caliber ‘smart’ round. The slug, after having left the barrel of the rifle under the power of a caseless propellant and primer permutation, is boosted to hyper-velocity speeds via a small rocket motor fueled by a volatile solid monopropellant mixture, impacting a target with remarkable force and instantly killing them through pure caviation and kinetic energy transfer alone.
Set to fully-automatic fire (and assuming a perpetual ammunition feed), Hunger weapons can unleash several thousand projectiles per minute, and feature a rail-mounted electronic sight with a laser range finder that feeds targeting data to each Tooth, giving a generous boost to shooter accuracy and even allowing projectiles to pursue foes hiding behind soft cover, hard cover or around corners. Hunger weapons are also keyed to the wearer’s genetic code, and will not function in the hands of an alien species unless modified beforehand. Large capacity box or saddle-drum magazines are characteristically operated, but Hunger weapons (especially the larger variants) can also make use of ammunition belts and backpack feeder systems. Attachments are also available, like 'stacked' pump-action smart grenade launchers or suppressors.
Roarer: An evolution of fundamental cannon technology, Roarer is a moniker jointly shared between vul'krunn-made combustion light-gas and electrothermal-chemical automatic and select-fire artillery pieces. They are similar in power to electromagnetic weapons, but are still [hazily] similar to modern solid-propellant guns in that chemical reactions (and not powerful electromagnets) are used to propel a projectile. Roarer weapons are universally employed by vul’kruun assault guns, starcraft and self-propelled artillery platforms, which use them alongside simple automatic loading mechanisms to fling punishing, hyper-velocity low yield nuclear shells at unfortunate xeno enemies.
Transportation, which generally consists of the infamous Star Crawler.
Star crawlers are vul’kruun starcraft. They come in an ample assortment of classes, sizes and roles. They are fairly uniform in appearance; most star crawlers are nothing more than enormous cylinders haphazardly machined together using rudimentary ship-building procedures and archaic power tools, diminutive amounts of preliminary construction planning, and substandard building materials scavenged from past kills and other vul’kruun starcraft.
But unlike most species, vul’kruun lovingly look upon their ugly and technically inferior spaceships as literal places of worship and dynamic reverence, each one committed solely to the honoring of Kul, and each vessel telling its own distinctive narrative of lifelong bloodshed and wholesome slaughter by way of runic inscriptions, hieroglyphs and profane warpaints attributed to its spike-ridden and intimidating outer hull. In accordance with Kul’s teachings, august vuk'krunn ‘captains’ garb their vessels in the hides, bones and tarnished blood of those that they have slain, filling their ship's arcane spirit with bliss and resolve.
Regardless of tonnage and purpose, all star crawlers are propelled using simple and effective (though rather inefficient) nuclear blast engines, which brutally drives the craft forward by casually detonating high-yield ‘shaped’ atomic bombs against a heavy pusher plate suspended by a series of shock absorbers and well-built bracings. Because of the forces this propulsion method enacts on a star crawler, the vul’kruun have been forced to design their vessels to be exceptionally robust, wrapping them in meters upon meters of hardened and treated composite armor plating, and turning them into an unembellished space version of a conventional, heavily-armored 'battleship' of sorts.
Because their creators incorporated high levels of battlefield endurance, efficiency, flexibility, and inhuman brutality in their original designs, military-grade star crawlers are usually created with a high degree of redundancy in mind, and are accordingly separated into independent armored and armed automated modules called Fangs.
Each Fang possess its own digital intelligence construct, emergency power generation systems (usually in the form of several pre-charged power cells, which can be activated in the event that spare power cannot be siphoned from other fighting compartment), target acquisition systems, and armament and automatic loading systems and machinery, affording individual vul’kruun starcraft the capacity to prolong combat engagements even after having suffered severe external and internal damage.
For defensive systems, star crawlers are equipped with outdated examples of electronic countermeasure pods, polarized plate armor, ablative shielding, plasma barriers, and kinetic/missile point defense systems. Offensive equipment consists of Hound cells and Roarer turret emplacements. Gravity control is sustained by spinning a star crawler’s habitat module, which generates artificial gravity through centrifugal force. RCS points positioned along the ship's hull provide thrust for course-correctional maneuvers and orbit-to-orbit travel. The command information center, fission reactor, crew compartments, and the ship’s FTL drive are nestled deeply within the innards of the vessel, and are further sheltered by additional metal shielding and the sheer bulk of the Fangs that engulf them.
When the opportunity to sadistically butcher and devour a squatting alien species has surfaced, one star crawler—functioning as a homing beacon for all nearby vul’kruun starcraft—will broadcast a long-reaching summons throughout vul’kruun-controlled void. By no means does this call go unanswered, and with enough time permitted to elapse, a massive communal of armored and armed starcraft manifests with due swiftness, their obscured gantries and warrens of origins funneling ammunition and supplies to the gathering masses by way of space haulers, the crew and command personnel of these ragtag spaceships and void fortresses euphoric for the genocide that is soon to come.
These raids of revolution, repossession and seething hatred are known as ‘Quests of Reclamation’, and are bone-chilling wars of utter extermination waged against any and all xeno civilizations that the vul’kruun species comes across within their small pocket of formally-owned space. Vul’kruun normally shy away from decisive battles and large scale void engagements during these attacks, but instead launch lightning strikes against lightly-defended enemy population centers (frontier colony planets, artificial space habitats, colonized moons, or asteroid habitats) and logistical assets (asteroid and planetary mining stations, planetary manufacturing installations, zero-G production sites and starship construction yards).
Assaulting the holdings of an adversary inevitably draws the attention of an armed response force, but when this does occur, vul’kruun marshals plunge their vessels into FTL, scattering to random locations—but only to regroup into a new squadron for a fresh crusade aimed at a fresh and unsuspecting target. Deception, diversion and division are the vul’kruun’s bread and butter; they have a sinister, though very much well-earned, reputation for being belligerent and resourceful terrorists. Starving the enemy, weakening him, is the vul’kruun way, while striking terror into the hearts and minds of the meek city masses ensures that widespread hysteria and panic can spread like a virus throughout a nation’s ill-begotten society.
Membership in an empire is not an option.
When intergalactic imperialism came to Vaera, the vul’kruun had already established a sizeable civilization. Though not exclusively placid and open to newcomers, the natives of Vru nonetheless tolerated their new galactic neighbors, merely eyeing them with heavy suspicion and immense distrust. The exploration fleet of this fledgling empire made the first authentic effort at formal contact—but the vul’kruun people were unable to understand the strange words that were directed at them.
Average height: 9'5
Average weight: 6,430 lb
Their mantis-like forms are supported by a protective endoskeleton, while the sturdy, cornified skin of the neck, head, trunk, and most of the lower body is encompassed by a natural armor matrix comprised of scutes and boney plates; the rest of a vul’kruun’s mass is covered in a spiked, chitin-like textile, with the entire defensive package capable of affording vul’kruun faint bodily resistance to low-velocity pistol cartridges. They possess six functional limbs: four powerful arthropodic legs for swift and nimble locomotion over most terrain types and a pair of arms and two clawed hands optimized for the precise manipulation of objects.
The upper torso and lower insect-like trunk displays notable evidence of robustness; the vul’kruun’s hostile indigenous surroundings and their unvarying, antagonistic confrontations with the destructive predators of their atrocious world drove them to progressively develop denser and elevated amounts of muscular tissue and greater muscle cross-sectional area along their rigid bulks, gifting them with an enormous quantity of upper and lower body strength. Vru, being a hefty planet with a high gravitational pull, makes vul’kruun bodily motions on worlds with lower gravity disabling, outstandingly uncoordinated and, quite frankly, hilarious to observe. Their monumental vigor, however, is heavily-augmented in environments such as these—but it is debatable whether or not this boost in material potency is any match for an enemy species that is well-conditioned for a planet of this type.
The vul’kruun are simultaneous hermaphrodites, but are capable of self-induced fertilization if appropriate mates are presently unavailable. During copulation, both members may agree to impregnate one another for a greater combined egg yield. Vul’kruun instinctively indulge in numerous cycles of reproductive sex throughout their lives--an evolutionary side-effect of their planet’s uncongenial ecology--with one parent capable of fabricating (or fathering) approximately fifteen to twenty eggs. The gestation period is two months. The parent (or the seeder) does not actively stay with the young, but instead forcibly discharges them from its presence so that they may fend for themselves. The survivors fully mature at age five, with vul’kruun typically dying from natural causes by age forty.
Vul’kruun do not consume plant matter. They are hypercarnivorous ‘bulk eaters’ with intense opportunistic feeding habits, dining on any meat or dead animal biomass that they come across without a second though, and their high metabolic rates making them out as frantic consumers of most organic and synthetic dietary material. For this reason, vul’kruun do not leave behind corpses that they have claimed, and naturally become overly-aggressive towards non-vul’kruun if they draw too close to them during food consumption.
Optical vision is decent, but is underdeveloped when compared to human vision, and lacks the ability to register certain color types. Vul'kruun do not have visible ears, but vibrations instead pass through two holes positioned on the opposite sides of the head and make contact with the inner ear. Smell is offered by powerful scent glands positioned atop the skull.
Designed mostly for ripping and pulling, the mandibles of a vul'kruun are unable to chew food. Vul'kruun instead swallow their food whole down a long, fleshy dark canal that leads to their throat, while the lack of a tongue is remedied by the presence of weak taste receptors stationed along the surface of the inner mandibles.
Weaponry, which generally consists of the Hound, the Roarer, and the Hunger.
Hound: An ambiguous phrase or term primarily attributed to vul’kruun high-performance self-guiding anti-ship missile technology. Advancements in relevant sensory, propulsion and warhead technical fields have resulted in vul’kruun 'MIRVs' to be driven by a crude, inexpensive and utilitarian type of mass-produced digital intelligence that utilizes standard gravitational, electromagnetic, thermal, and radar sensor suites to seek out predetermined targets.
Vul’kruun Hounds are equipped with incorporated single-use wormhole-based FTL drives, primitive fission-fragment sublight engines and RCS points that shape them into a workable analog of the customary vacuum-based 'space superiority fighter' or 'strategic bomber'. Hounds lack integrated weaponry, but instead make use of potent electronic countermeasures, evasive maneuvers (like spinning to resist laser fire) and adequate amounts of ablative covering to evade and endure enemy interception and detection attempts. Relatively inexpensive compared to more technically sophisticated missile buses, Hounds are transported and deployed by vul’kruun star crawler weapons platforms, and are normally launched in the thousands by vul'kruun squadrons without much concern for their inherent manufacturing costs, and are especially deadly against larger, slower-moving vessels.
Depending on its size, one Hound can play host to hundreds of self-guiding anti-ship missiles, with each missile capped with a high-yield thermonuclear bomb. Other Hound types may have a sub-munition bundle consisting of missiles that are equipped with nuclear-pumped x-ray lasers or explosively-formed nuclear penetrators.
Hunger: Other than the odd bomb-pumped laser weapon or two, the vul’kruun have not invested a significant degree of their species' time, resources and technical expertise into the development, fabrication and refinement of energy weapons. Projectile weapons, specifically Hunger weaponry (so named for its supposed insatiable lust for the flesh of the innocent) are widely considered by the vul’kruun to be superior alternatives to standard electromagnetic and laser weapon models. Whether or not this assertion is true remains uncertain.
Hunger weapons are standard ballistic weapons, and take the form of unwieldy, box-shaped heavy machineguns of sorts. They discard traditional mechanical ignition in favor of an electronic ignition mechanism, which increases cyclic rate and provides diminished recoil; a muzzle break and hydraulic-based recoil compensation system increases shooter accuracy and reduces pain incurred from firing the rifle.
Mainstay ammunition, called Teeth (singular: Tooth), consists of a cheap, large caliber ‘smart’ round. The slug, after having left the barrel of the rifle under the power of a caseless propellant and primer permutation, is boosted to hyper-velocity speeds via a small rocket motor fueled by a volatile solid monopropellant mixture, impacting a target with remarkable force and instantly killing them through pure caviation and kinetic energy transfer alone.
Set to fully-automatic fire (and assuming a perpetual ammunition feed), Hunger weapons can unleash several thousand projectiles per minute, and feature a rail-mounted electronic sight with a laser range finder that feeds targeting data to each Tooth, giving a generous boost to shooter accuracy and even allowing projectiles to pursue foes hiding behind soft cover, hard cover or around corners. Hunger weapons are also keyed to the wearer’s genetic code, and will not function in the hands of an alien species unless modified beforehand. Large capacity box or saddle-drum magazines are characteristically operated, but Hunger weapons (especially the larger variants) can also make use of ammunition belts and backpack feeder systems. Attachments are also available, like 'stacked' pump-action smart grenade launchers or suppressors.
Roarer: An evolution of fundamental cannon technology, Roarer is a moniker jointly shared between vul'krunn-made combustion light-gas and electrothermal-chemical automatic and select-fire artillery pieces. They are similar in power to electromagnetic weapons, but are still [hazily] similar to modern solid-propellant guns in that chemical reactions (and not powerful electromagnets) are used to propel a projectile. Roarer weapons are universally employed by vul’kruun assault guns, starcraft and self-propelled artillery platforms, which use them alongside simple automatic loading mechanisms to fling punishing, hyper-velocity low yield nuclear shells at unfortunate xeno enemies.
Transportation, which generally consists of the infamous Star Crawler.
Star crawlers are vul’kruun starcraft. They come in an ample assortment of classes, sizes and roles. They are fairly uniform in appearance; most star crawlers are nothing more than enormous cylinders haphazardly machined together using rudimentary ship-building procedures and archaic power tools, diminutive amounts of preliminary construction planning, and substandard building materials scavenged from past kills and other vul’kruun starcraft.
But unlike most species, vul’kruun lovingly look upon their ugly and technically inferior spaceships as literal places of worship and dynamic reverence, each one committed solely to the honoring of Kul, and each vessel telling its own distinctive narrative of lifelong bloodshed and wholesome slaughter by way of runic inscriptions, hieroglyphs and profane warpaints attributed to its spike-ridden and intimidating outer hull. In accordance with Kul’s teachings, august vuk'krunn ‘captains’ garb their vessels in the hides, bones and tarnished blood of those that they have slain, filling their ship's arcane spirit with bliss and resolve.
Regardless of tonnage and purpose, all star crawlers are propelled using simple and effective (though rather inefficient) nuclear blast engines, which brutally drives the craft forward by casually detonating high-yield ‘shaped’ atomic bombs against a heavy pusher plate suspended by a series of shock absorbers and well-built bracings. Because of the forces this propulsion method enacts on a star crawler, the vul’kruun have been forced to design their vessels to be exceptionally robust, wrapping them in meters upon meters of hardened and treated composite armor plating, and turning them into an unembellished space version of a conventional, heavily-armored 'battleship' of sorts.
Because their creators incorporated high levels of battlefield endurance, efficiency, flexibility, and inhuman brutality in their original designs, military-grade star crawlers are usually created with a high degree of redundancy in mind, and are accordingly separated into independent armored and armed automated modules called Fangs.
Each Fang possess its own digital intelligence construct, emergency power generation systems (usually in the form of several pre-charged power cells, which can be activated in the event that spare power cannot be siphoned from other fighting compartment), target acquisition systems, and armament and automatic loading systems and machinery, affording individual vul’kruun starcraft the capacity to prolong combat engagements even after having suffered severe external and internal damage.
For defensive systems, star crawlers are equipped with outdated examples of electronic countermeasure pods, polarized plate armor, ablative shielding, plasma barriers, and kinetic/missile point defense systems. Offensive equipment consists of Hound cells and Roarer turret emplacements. Gravity control is sustained by spinning a star crawler’s habitat module, which generates artificial gravity through centrifugal force. RCS points positioned along the ship's hull provide thrust for course-correctional maneuvers and orbit-to-orbit travel. The command information center, fission reactor, crew compartments, and the ship’s FTL drive are nestled deeply within the innards of the vessel, and are further sheltered by additional metal shielding and the sheer bulk of the Fangs that engulf them.
When the opportunity to sadistically butcher and devour a squatting alien species has surfaced, one star crawler—functioning as a homing beacon for all nearby vul’kruun starcraft—will broadcast a long-reaching summons throughout vul’kruun-controlled void. By no means does this call go unanswered, and with enough time permitted to elapse, a massive communal of armored and armed starcraft manifests with due swiftness, their obscured gantries and warrens of origins funneling ammunition and supplies to the gathering masses by way of space haulers, the crew and command personnel of these ragtag spaceships and void fortresses euphoric for the genocide that is soon to come.
These raids of revolution, repossession and seething hatred are known as ‘Quests of Reclamation’, and are bone-chilling wars of utter extermination waged against any and all xeno civilizations that the vul’kruun species comes across within their small pocket of formally-owned space. Vul’kruun normally shy away from decisive battles and large scale void engagements during these attacks, but instead launch lightning strikes against lightly-defended enemy population centers (frontier colony planets, artificial space habitats, colonized moons, or asteroid habitats) and logistical assets (asteroid and planetary mining stations, planetary manufacturing installations, zero-G production sites and starship construction yards).
Assaulting the holdings of an adversary inevitably draws the attention of an armed response force, but when this does occur, vul’kruun marshals plunge their vessels into FTL, scattering to random locations—but only to regroup into a new squadron for a fresh crusade aimed at a fresh and unsuspecting target. Deception, diversion and division are the vul’kruun’s bread and butter; they have a sinister, though very much well-earned, reputation for being belligerent and resourceful terrorists. Starving the enemy, weakening him, is the vul’kruun way, while striking terror into the hearts and minds of the meek city masses ensures that widespread hysteria and panic can spread like a virus throughout a nation’s ill-begotten society.
OP
Name: The Dog Queen (or shortened as 'Dog'). Her born-given name has faded from her memory.
Age: 32
Sex: Female
Appearance:
Powers/Skills/Weaponry:
Skills
Utilizes an unusual mix of street-learned boxing, grappling and wrestling techniques, but possesses a strong fondness for executing take downs, making stern use of her surrounding environment whenever possible and hatefully straggling her adversaries. Known back in her own plane of existence for parrying melee blows with her twin cestus and forcibly relieving opponents of their armaments using her titanic dynamism, elevated reflexes and supernatural speed and agility. Those that have staved off the Dog Queen's savage onslaughts and animalistic zeal often come to describe her as a shameless cheat and a soulless warrior with a self-destructive lack of personal honor--but begrudgingly come to acknowledge her capacity for unadulterated destruction, her acute resourcefulness and her general efficiency as a skirmisher despite her street urchin past.
Powers
Magical powers? Non-applicable, but the Queen retains a number of innate
Perception
Physical Condition
Inhuman Tenacity Modeled in homage to her less-than-stellar upbringing by Aeon, the Dog Queen harbors a paranormal resistance to the deliberating effects of pain, permitting her to ignore grievous wounds that would place other combatants into a state of shock. Disabling blows, such as mortal damage suffered to the brain or heart, are still fatal.
Hysterical Strength As she nears expiration, Dog progressively grows stronger
Armament and Armor
Wolf's Mantle A cloak and cap amalgamation created from the dense bones and enchanted fur of a massive mountain wolf native to the Queen's homeland. Its protective properties have been augmented intensely through the careful application of plate inserts shaped from reinforced steel and an accompanying ring mail mesh woven into the finishing composite. Functions as a long stretch of pseudo-armor that discourages backstabbing and other rearmost attacks, but also can provide warmth if need be.
Twin Cestus A simple-looking pair of metal gauntlets that comfortably wrap around the Dog Queen's forearms and fists.
Age: 32
Sex: Female
Appearance:
Powers/Skills/Weaponry:
Skills
Utilizes an unusual mix of street-learned boxing, grappling and wrestling techniques, but possesses a strong fondness for executing take downs, making stern use of her surrounding environment whenever possible and hatefully straggling her adversaries. Known back in her own plane of existence for parrying melee blows with her twin cestus and forcibly relieving opponents of their armaments using her titanic dynamism, elevated reflexes and supernatural speed and agility. Those that have staved off the Dog Queen's savage onslaughts and animalistic zeal often come to describe her as a shameless cheat and a soulless warrior with a self-destructive lack of personal honor--but begrudgingly come to acknowledge her capacity for unadulterated destruction, her acute resourcefulness and her general efficiency as a skirmisher despite her street urchin past.
Powers
Magical powers? Non-applicable, but the Queen retains a number of innate
Perception
Physical Condition
Inhuman Tenacity Modeled in homage to her less-than-stellar upbringing by Aeon, the Dog Queen harbors a paranormal resistance to the deliberating effects of pain, permitting her to ignore grievous wounds that would place other combatants into a state of shock. Disabling blows, such as mortal damage suffered to the brain or heart, are still fatal.
Hysterical Strength As she nears expiration, Dog progressively grows stronger
Armament and Armor
Wolf's Mantle A cloak and cap amalgamation created from the dense bones and enchanted fur of a massive mountain wolf native to the Queen's homeland. Its protective properties have been augmented intensely through the careful application of plate inserts shaped from reinforced steel and an accompanying ring mail mesh woven into the finishing composite. Functions as a long stretch of pseudo-armor that discourages backstabbing and other rearmost attacks, but also can provide warmth if need be.
Twin Cestus A simple-looking pair of metal gauntlets that comfortably wrap around the Dog Queen's forearms and fists.
OP
Nations-
Name: Veek
Location:
Flag: N/A
Form of Govt. and Applicable Leader(s):
History:
General Military Information:
Veek void forces are devoid of the traditional maritime-esque spacecraft intrinsic to other galactic powers. Traditional space fighters, for example, are nonexistent (having been long surpassed by veek missile technology). Mundane and unimaginative (but nonetheless efficient and tested), all veek martial spacecraft possess exceedingly thick cartridge-shaped hulls wrapped in spaced armor configurations comprised of composite shielding sections and supplementary electric-based reactive armor slabs. Propelled by fusion pulse drives and armed with thousands of multi-megaton nuclear shaped-charges, nuclear-formed penetrators and bomb-pumped x-ray lasers, veek spacecraft are
Being of ambush predator stock, veek abstain from directly contending with xeno fleets. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AliensAreBastardsInstead, they exact brutal, unrelenting vengeance upon lightly-protected enemy population centers; moons, space stations and frontier colony planets are desirable game.[/url
Land combat is rarely (if ever) executed. Having access to an innumerable amount of raw resources to work with, the veek have negligible insensitive to conquer alien worlds, but they will slate them for indiscriminate sterilization should they pose a disconcerting risk to their species' collective interests. In these exceedingly rare occurrences, several veek cosmic maulers, outfitted with deep-penetrating nuclear payloads, will be dispatched to the world to render it inhospitable. Or if particularly strong laziness overcomes the veek's primal urge to slaughter prey, numerous asteroids are selected for use instead.
Deception, diversion and division are the veek's bread and butter; they have a sinister (though very much well-earned) reputation for being belligerent and resourceful terrorists and raiders. Starving the enemy, weakening him, is the veek way, while striking terror into the hearts and minds of the meek alien masses ensures that widespread hysteria and panic can spread like a virus throughout a nation’s ill-begotten society.
Other:
Name: Veek
Location:
Flag: N/A
Form of Govt. and Applicable Leader(s):
History:
General Military Information:
Veek void forces are devoid of the traditional maritime-esque spacecraft intrinsic to other galactic powers. Traditional space fighters, for example, are nonexistent (having been long surpassed by veek missile technology). Mundane and unimaginative (but nonetheless efficient and tested), all veek martial spacecraft possess exceedingly thick cartridge-shaped hulls wrapped in spaced armor configurations comprised of composite shielding sections and supplementary electric-based reactive armor slabs. Propelled by fusion pulse drives and armed with thousands of multi-megaton nuclear shaped-charges, nuclear-formed penetrators and bomb-pumped x-ray lasers, veek spacecraft are
Being of ambush predator stock, veek abstain from directly contending with xeno fleets. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AliensAreBastardsInstead, they exact brutal, unrelenting vengeance upon lightly-protected enemy population centers; moons, space stations and frontier colony planets are desirable game.[/url
Land combat is rarely (if ever) executed. Having access to an innumerable amount of raw resources to work with, the veek have negligible insensitive to conquer alien worlds, but they will slate them for indiscriminate sterilization should they pose a disconcerting risk to their species' collective interests. In these exceedingly rare occurrences, several veek cosmic maulers, outfitted with deep-penetrating nuclear payloads, will be dispatched to the world to render it inhospitable. Or if particularly strong laziness overcomes the veek's primal urge to slaughter prey, numerous asteroids are selected for use instead.
Deception, diversion and division are the veek's bread and butter; they have a sinister (though very much well-earned) reputation for being belligerent and resourceful terrorists and raiders. Starving the enemy, weakening him, is the veek way, while striking terror into the hearts and minds of the meek alien masses ensures that widespread hysteria and panic can spread like a virus throughout a nation’s ill-begotten society.
Other:
OP
General Species Information
Untouched by the taint of the obri
Upon a proud world
Under a shimmering sky
There lived a pure, hardened people
Upon a proud world
Under a shimmering sky
There lived a pure, hardened people
Foreign Policy and Public Opinions of Aliens
Anuku, while culturally diverse, is figuratively (and in some circles, literally) described as a “one-race world” by azu social scientists and political leaders, with this bold, racially-charged statement owing its prime founding to the racial homogeneity that propagates through the cultural pillars of the Lone World's multitude of tribal societies. Many of Anuku's ancient inhabitants are quite condemnatory in their judgments of the greater galactic community, and cite Anuku's past confrontations with imperialistic alien invaders and disagreeable illegal migrants as irrefutable proof that the obri (“the wretched other”) poses a significant threat to Anuku herself. Unsurprisingly, Anuku's seven paramount chiefdoms have implemented a sequence of isolationist decrees that forbid Anuku's boss nkosi--and to a major extent, the Lone World herself--from interacting with aliens and alien civilizations in any shape or form.
Military
Discounting the seven battle wagons that constitute the Guardian Fleet, Anuku does not control a traditional space force. She is, however, protected by a vast number of shielded, networked ground-based x-ray laser installations. They are stationary, but their individual firepower is great enough to deter (and even destroy) enemy fleets, anti-planetary missiles, and RKVs from two-dozen light minutes away. Their employment of azu energy shield modules coupled with their cataclysmic power necessitates the need for ground-based operations in the event that yet another hopeful invader seeks to sack Anuku.
Technological Overview
Outwardly, the azu appear to be a pre-industrial civilization, but this observational conclusion is gravely misleading. On the contrary, the azu deliberately strangle and shroud their factual technical prowess in a conservative attempt to stay the cultural stagnation and genetic degradation that customarily befalls an intellectually-gifted species that overindulges in the prolific “benefits” that sophisticated technology often promises. In a way, this global philosophical perspective can easily be compared to modern Neo-Luddism, though azu communities specifically avoid technologies that encourage excessive slothfulness, restrictive antisocial behavior, and weakness (either in a physical or mental context) rather than holding the unrealistic conviction that all technology is harmful to Anuku or her protectors.
Description of Society and Culture
You don't hunt alone. Never hunt alone. You hunt as one.
Azu culture values self-determinism, minimalism, collectivism, and loyalty. Azu adolescents-- colloquially refereed to as “kits” by Anuku's encompassing azu population—are educated in the fundamental artistry of the august survivalist by elder members of the tribe. A distinct (but ultimately secondary) emphasis is placed on adequately honing their apprehension of the clan's spiritual and cultural mores, teaching the importance of family, and promoting a minimalistic lifestyle. By the time that they are of breeding age, most juvenile azu females and males have a predisposition for exhibiting stalwart behavior and operating in a persistent mode of semi-autonomy. "Gifted" azu are convinced to pursue rigorous instruction in one of the more prestigious institutional sectors of academia that reside within the Peaks of Hia-Hia, an unforgiving geographical locale of historical importance where a hefty amount of the azu's technological innovations primarily stem from.
Azu homesteads, called highhouses, are a queer fusion of an archetypal longhouse and a standard low-capacity semi-subterranean dwelling (such as an earth berm), and are fabricated from readily-available materials (in example: stone, timber, or bone) using un-powered utensils and powerful beasts of burden. Highhouses are comparatively voluminous, playing host to a number of necessary domestic facilities (such as larders, armories, storage enclosures, libraries, or washrooms) and over one-hundred families that are situated along a series of quasi-segregated living floors. Being in such close proximity with one another usually leads to family groups being acquainted on an intimate level; from these tight-knit relationships, inter-familial gatherings--like ceremonial dances or recreational group hunting sessions--are organized and initiated, in turn strengthening the clan's bond and encouraging harmony throughout the masses.
Regardless of their internal layout and external attributes, azu highhouses are matriarchal in their fashion of administration, matrifocal in their familial structure, and matrilateral in their inheritance lines, with a wise woman and her selected “elder council” of middle-aged azu women wielding uncontested authoritative influence over the clan's members. As azu males are numerically scarce across Anuku, they are universally perceived and handled as treasured commodities, consequently being forced into arranged polygamous “mating sessions” with harems of suitable azu women from clans native to outside tribal groups. Azu tribal society does not suffer the frail and flawed to persist in life; the physically, intellectually, and emotionally disabled are subjected to forced sterilization when detected, and may experience harsh instances of mild rejection, overt communal ostracization, being abandoned at birth, and even being outright executed if their afflictions are particularly disparaging. Azu mating paradigms center around a single eugenics-like "code of conduct", called ormku, which preaches that the fit are only fit for reproduction.
On average, azu males sire over 1,000 fit children throughout their lifetime.
Ever since its initial conception, the firearm has operated as a critical and intricate facet of azu warrior-hunter philosophy. Primordial dogma espouses that the gun is a sanctified and arcane artifact of moving power and importance, ergo being deserving of nothing less than unadulterated homage and unmitigated reverence. Azu battle rifles, handguns, fowling pieces, and other ballistic weapons are passed down from generation to generation and, in respect to the weapon's previous band of carriers, are customarily personalized with a conservative integer of aesthetic augmentations. In spite of widespread firearm proliferation, the azu's apathetic take on open carry policies has not culminated in a turbulent amount of gun-related crime, with Anuku boasting an extraordinarily low murder rate overall.
Version 2
quote=@ASTA]
General Species Information
Upon a proud world
Under a shimmering sky
There lived a pure, hardened people
Under a shimmering sky
There lived a pure, hardened people
The azu, alternatively known as Anukuians, are the multi-ethnic race of cat-like humanoids that wield dominion over Anuku, a verdant and opulent world that is, in many ways, homologous to Earth. Comparative in size to a large human specimen, azu are sharp of mind and lithe of frame, and can negotiate terrain with lightning tempo and supple grace when on the prowl. Other than being benefited with an excellent sense of vision, smell, and hearing, azu can discern the dynamic position of an object in motion by detecting latent changes in surrounding air pressure, feel faint vibrations through the soft pads of their hind paws, identify oscillating electromagnetic waves emanated by the heart of another living organism, and pick up subtle alterations in the pheromone secretion patterns of living creatures.
The azu species lacks the faculty to produce psionic users, but the mind of every one of them naturally discharges a nullifying field of "negative energies" that severely inhibits the effectiveness of nearby otherworldly powers, with this field rapidly growing in geometric strength when swelling groups of azu congregate in one locality. Anuku is home to billions of azu, thereby causing this field to span throughout Anuku's parent system.
As a result of an uncorrectable anomalous fault in their genome, the azu sex ratio is heavily skewed in favor of the azu female, with the current population of azu (stated to be circa 3.25 billion) being 90/10 (female/male) in numerical composition.
Government
Complex Paramount Chiefdom
Foreign Policy and Public Opinions of Aliens
Anuku, while culturally diverse, is figuratively (and in some circles, literally) described as a “one-race world” by azu social scientists and political leaders, with this bold, racially-charged declaration stemming from the racial homogeneity that propagates through the cultural pillars of the Lone World's multitude of tribal societies. Many of Anuku's ethnocentric inhabitants are quite condemnatory in their prejudice judgments of the greater galactic community, and cite Anuku's past confrontations with imperialistic alien invaders and disagreeable migrants as irrefutable verification that the obri (or the "Other") are instinctively incompatible with azu culture and will, inevitably, pose a significant threat to all life on the Lone World if allowed to corrupt her surface with their foul touch. Unsurprisingly, Anuku's seven paramount chiefdoms have jointly implemented a sequence of isolationist decrees that forbid Anuku's star lords from fraternizing with aliens and alien civilizations in any shape or form, though these laws have been wavered, in the past, to facilitate brief instances of trade between the azu and "tolerable" xeno races.
Military
Azu militia forces are exacted from local tribal communities and their encompassing septs during times of war. Owing to their idiosyncratic physiological and psychological characteristics, azu land army battle doctrine hinges strongly on mobility, flexibility, and longevity to sustain an effective guerrilla campaign against invading forces. Azu abhor lengthy and grueling battles of attrition, favoring instead to execute covert raids on an opponent's supply lines and any lightly-defended positions using a combination of self-propelled guns (including tank destroyers and duel-purpose assault guns), powered crash-kill tiger and air scourge cavalry, and light infantry.
Anuku's seven battle spheres are enormous monitor spacecraft that linger several million kilometers away from her. A battle sphere is an assault fleet in all but title, its rounded bulk protected by meters of electro-reactive hydro-armor, a siege-grade PDF, and a strengthened superstructure wrought from hyper-dense composite materials forged in specialized zero-G factories. Battle spheres are divided into 30 fully-autonomous fighting compartments, each one bestowed with its own network of submersible phased graser and particle accelerator arrays, nuclear reactor, active cooling systems, crew quarters, and capacitor banks, and can dispatch disposable "combat mirrors" that--if positioned correctly--can offer the entire sphere the opportunity to effectively direct their beams around planets.
Anuku does not control a formal space force, but she is chaperoned by a vast number of phased graser array installations and particle accelerator gun emplacements that trickle the Lone World's surface. Most are stationary, but their married firepower is herculean; entire enemy assault fleets, anti-planetary missiles, and RKVs can be handily obliterated from frighteningly long distances within a infinitesimal length of time. Their employment of azu capital-grade PDF modules coupled with their cataclysmic power necessitates the need for ground-based infantry operations if a successful invasion is to be carried out by belligerent forces.
Technological Overview
Outwardly, the azu appear to be a pre-industrial civilization, but this observational conclusion is misleading. On the contrary, the azu deliberately strangle and shroud their factual technical prowess in a proactive attempt to stay the cultural stagnation and genetic degradation that customarily befalls an intellectually-gifted species that overindulges in the prolific “benefits” that sophisticated scientific advancements often promises. In a way, this global philosophical perspective can easily be compared to modern Neo-Luddism, though azu communities specifically avoid technologies that encourage excessive slothfulness, restrictive antisocial behavior, and weakness (either in a physical or mental context) rather than holding the unrealistic conviction that most technology is harmful to the Lone World or her azu masters.
To the rest of the galaxy, azu household technical applications appear horrendously outdated, amateurish, and inefficient. Food preservation, for example, has never edged beyond drying, smoking, jugging, salting, pickling, or canning, with azu fare never actually being produced in a food processing plant of any sort. Azu foodstuffs spoil faster than other noshes preserved using more modern modus operandi, but they are conversely free of injurious chemicals and excess quantities of sodium and sugar. Clothes are made by hand, while firearms are crafted using reinforced hand tools, archaic manually-operated machinery, and decades of gunsmithing experience. Very few azu homes have electricity for interior lighting or recreational needs, instead investing in a scant bundle of candles for a minuscule amount of illumination and a small solar panel and battery bank combination to sustain a highhouse's powered appliances. Power generation for larger azu settlements and the vast network of underground manufactorums is provided by thorium fission reactors, geothermal generators, or hydroelectric dams.
Azu military technology (with special mention going to azu-made weapons in particular) is moderately sophisticated, and is renowned for its utilitarian qualities, innate hardiness, and relative affordability. Many azu hand-held weapons have always been chiefly engineered to bring down Anuku's heavily-armored ultrafauna, resulting in later incarnations of chemical-based ballistic weaponry being specialized for maximum stopping power, accuracy, range, and penetration at the cost of cyclic rate. Most azu firearms are select-fire battle rifles, semi-automatic bolt-action rifles, revolvers, and 2 (or 4) bore paradox guns that are chambered for rocket-boosted hypervelocity cartridges.
Azu power deflection field technology is dissimilar to the galactic standard in that individual shield modules do not lose "energetic integrity" when successful attacks have been negated, but rather are "rated" according to how much energy the field can reliably contend with. This makes users of PDFs effectively immune to weapons systems or attacks that are below their shield's threshold, but vulnerable to weapons that can exceed it. Azu never conceived powered hardsuits, but instead ushered in shadow veil armor, a hooded "stealth robe" made from nano-engineered meta-materials, dense ballistic fiber bundles, linked armor discs, and layers of dilatant smart fluid that masks the wearer's electromagnetic signature, optical profile, and provides superb protection from energy-based weaponry, projectile-based weaponry, heat, and blast over-pressure. Low-cost powered exoskeletons can be worn underneath shadow veil armor.
Description of Society and Culture
You don't hunt alone. Never hunt alone. You hunt as one.
Azu culture values self-determinism, minimalism, collectivism, and loyalty. Azu adolescents-- colloquially refereed to as “kits” by the Lone World's encompassing azu population—are educated in the fundamental artistry of the august survivalist by elder members of the tribe. A distinct (but ultimately secondary) emphasis is placed on adequately honing their apprehension of the clan's spiritual and cultural mores, teaching the importance of family, and promoting a minimalistic lifestyle. By the time that they are of breeding age, most juvenile azu females and males have a predisposition for exhibiting stalwart behavior and operating in a persistent mode of semi-autonomy. "Gifted" azu are convinced to pursue rigorous instruction in one of the more prestigious institutional sectors of academia that reside within the Peaks of Hia-Hia, an unforgiving geographical locale of historical importance where a prodigious amount of the azu's technological innovations primarily originate from.
Azu homesteads, called highhouses, are a queer mixture of an archetypal longhouse and a standard low-capacity semi-subterranean dwelling (such as an earth berm), and are fabricated from readily-available materials (in example: stone, timber, or bone) using un-powered utensils and powerful beasts of burden. Highhouses are comparatively voluminous, playing host to a number of necessary domestic facilities (such as larders, armories, storage enclosures, libraries, or washrooms) and over one-hundred families that are situated along a series of quasi-segregated living floors. Being in such close proximity with one another usually leads to family groups being acquainted on an intimate level; from these tight-knit relationships, inter-familial gatherings--like ceremonial dances or recreational group hunting sessions--are organized and initiated, in turn strengthening the clan's bond and encouraging goodwill and harmony throughout the masses. Aside from personal effects, clan members openly share most things, and--unlike many other species--observe a weedy quota of personal space, instead preferring to brush up against and caress other clan members if at all able. Stroking the ears, the underside of the tail, and the lower back are all considered profound signs of affection and trust.
Regardless of their internal layout and external attributes, azu highhouses are matriarchal in their fashion of administration, matrifocal in their familial structure, and matrilateral in their inheritance lines, with a wise woman and her selected “elder council” of middle-aged azu women wielding uncontested authoritative influence over the clan's members. As azu males are numerically scarce across Anuku, they are universally perceived and handled as treasured commodities that have tremendous barter value, and are subsequently forced into arranged polygamous “mating sessions” with outside harems of suitable azu women for the clan's own monetary gain, its political elevation, or its social evolution.
Azu mating paradigms center around a single eugenics-like "code of conduct", called ormku, which preaches that only the "fit" are "fit" for reproduction. Azu tribal society does not suffer the frail and flawed to persist in life; the physically, intellectually, and emotionally disabled are subjected to forced sterilization when detected, and may experience harsh instances of rejection, overt communal ostracization, being abandoned at birth, and even being outright executed if their afflictions are particularly disparaging.
On average, azu males sire over 1,000 fit children throughout their lifetime.
Ever since its initial conception, the firearm has operated as a critical and intricate facet of azu warrior-hunter philosophy. Primordial dogma espouses that the gun is a sanctified and arcane artifact of moving power and importance, ergo being deserving of nothing less than unadulterated homage and unmitigated reverence. Azu battle rifles, handguns, fowling pieces, and other small arms are passed down from generation to generation and, in respect to the weapon's previous band of carriers, are customarily personalized with a conservative integer of aesthetic augmentations. In spite of widespread firearm proliferation, the azu's apathetic take on open carry policies has not culminated in a turbulent amount of gun-related crime, with the Lone World boasting an extraordinarily low murder rate overall.
Though their fur-covered forms only require clothing in diminutive quantities, a fractional grade of modesty is nonetheless encouraged when out in public, with azu attire being fundamentally tailored to softly accommodate the body, not to smother or dominate it. More often than not, azu tribal apparel tends to be passably revealing, only affording sufficient coverage for the wearer's nether regions and breasts. Vests, wrist wraps, skirts, chest bands, thongs, cloth vambraces, and loincloths, woven from fine silk-like fabrics or treated animal hides, are the standard. Many azu men and women decorate their person with a fulsome (but elegant) composite display of jewelery, fur dyes, and body piercings for a spot of comforting individualism.
********
[/quote]
OP
"They are nothing more than a foolish race of histrionic, hedonistic 'demigods' imprisoned within a perpetual state of crippling adolescence. These Revelrians treat the struggle between nations as if it were nothing more than a whimsical game where there are no winners or losers. Though their overall behavior is repulsive, their unconditional love for life and their unbridled kindness for all--even for those whom have committed grievous transgressions against them--is nigh-limitless and unrivaled."
-Anonymous
Understanding Revelrian Altruism
Whether it's tapping into their civilization's cavernous comprehension of astrological and biological engineering to fabricate cradle worlds for vagrant species, returning races extinction, or shielding trillions of aliens within the gilded confines of their illustrious ring world from sure destruction at the hands of some nefarious species with aspirations of conquest, Revelrians have an expansive, storied history of altering the woebegone "fates" of the galaxy's more inauspicious inhabitants into directions that promise significantly more favorable outcomes to befall them.
Much of this bizarre and arguably maladaptive behavior has psychological underpinnings that are of the archetypical Revelrian. The generality of Revelry's inhabitants feel intrinsically obligated to ameliorate all suffering in the observable galaxy using any and all means at their disposal, but their insatiable lust to feel depended upon and venerated by a willing atonarage the being extoled by the spurned and ostracized of the galaxy for their exceedingly philanthropic and altruistic behavior towards those whom they perceive to be "less fortunate" than themselves.
Being posthumans, Revelrians are impervious to diseases, do not tire, and lack the need for sustenance.
J'Taar's Jocular Jackets: Iron Tycoon's chief engineering subroutine, J'Taar of Wyvernmarsh, found the cosplay outfits and stylized sweat wear of 21st century Earth particularly alluring, so he determined it fitting to ameliorate the initial designs with a plethora of sophisticated military technologies--both proven and experimental--so that their fearless transhuman and android wearers could efficiently and ruthlessly guard Revelry from the galaxy's more aggressive denizens while simultaneously looking overbearingly fetching and cuddly whilst doing it.
Aside from augmenting their wearer's innate physical capabilities to metahuman levels, Jocular Jackets are outfitted with quantum displacement modules, active and passive stealth systems, and an underlining shield lattice that protects the suit and its owner from orthodox and unorthodox external threats.
Opulent
Age: N/A
Weight: 1,251lb
Height: 7’0ft /2.135 tall
Gender: Female
Race: Aeonian
Age: N/A
Weight: 1,251lb
Height: 7’0ft /2.135 tall
Gender: Female
Race: Aeonian
General Description
The first Aeonian Magvun created.
Gifted with a degree of intelligence that no magical construct should have, Opulent’s daunting size and the aura of “otherness” that she projects on a virtually perpetual basis are both somewhat diluted by her inviting smile and exotic, but quite arresting, visage.
Lord Magvun Dimasca Klovanias was known throughout much of Zerul for two distinct things: his expertise in numerous subject areas and his surreal proficiency in magically sculpting rudimentary stone into masterful works of art.
At first, Magvun was relatively content with producing marvelous examples of sculpture, most of them anthropomorphic in nature, for both himself and for numerous prestigious clients. He even occasionally utilized his talents in the magical arts to imbue these extraordinary artefacts with the gift of animation for both his own amusement and for those who could afford this additional feature.
But it was not long before he began contemplating diverse ways of improving his creations. Magvun wanted them to have more “substance”, more “vibrancy”, beyond just simple locomotive capabilities and a miserable degree of intelligence comparable to that of a simpleminded dog.
He yearned to fashion a work of such vivid detail, a creature capable of emoting such lifelike character, that it would be almost indistinguishable from an authentic sapient being.
He was done with fancy parlor tricks. He wanted to play Gaia.
And I was the first result of his hubris.
-Opulent to Tormen of the West
While delving into the finer details of their artificial physiology and martial capabilities, one diminutive section of Magvun’s journal briefly states that, “Combining the legendary tenacity and intelligence of a true undead entity with the herculean might of a quality wizard’s golem has produced a creature of almost inconceivable lethality...with these qualities only amplified further by the Waking Dreamer’s soul that dutifully inhabits the decayed core of each of these amaranthine creatures.”
As undead, Aeonians feel no pain, likely boast the same mechanical indifference to primal fear as their reanimated cousins do, and are almost entirely proof against most customary diseases and poisons seen and used in Reniam today.
Furthermore, all Aeonians possess fairly exaggerated weight-to-power ratios that differ noticeably between each individual of their lot, peeking somewhere around a staggering 5:1 for the most monolithic of the Aeonian constructs, a title held by Citadel the Trinity, to a comparatively weedy (yet still quite impressive) 3:1 ratio for the frailest of them, a position currently maintained by Opulent. This same variation scheme applies to most of their other attributes as well, such as their cognitive abilities, fortitude,
Because each Aeonian differs from its brothers and sisters in both physical and magical capacity, size, and fighting form, there is no “one-size-fits-all” tactic any one person or group can use to effectively and efficiently dispatch one. Defeating Citadel the Trinity, for example, would likely require a sizable host of fighting men supported by both siege engines and a contingent of skilled war wizards should he ever elect to exact vengeance upon the land, while Sunder, a deadly pugilist gifted with the powers of a Warden and armed with a pair of battle cesti, would be best approached and contested at range.
At first, Magvun was relatively content with producing marvelous examples of sculpture, most of them anthropomorphic in nature, for both himself and for numerous prestigious clients. He even occasionally utilized his talents in the magical arts to imbue these extraordinary artefacts with the gift of animation for both his own amusement and for those who could afford this additional feature.
But it was not long before he began contemplating diverse ways of improving his creations. Magvun wanted them to have more “substance”, more “vibrancy”, beyond just simple locomotive capabilities and a miserable degree of intelligence comparable to that of a simpleminded dog.
He yearned to fashion a work of such vivid detail, a creature capable of emoting such lifelike character, that it would be almost indistinguishable from an authentic sapient being.
He was done with fancy parlor tricks. He wanted to play Gaia.
And I was the first result of his hubris.
-Opulent to Tormen of the West
While delving into the finer details of their artificial physiology and martial capabilities, one diminutive section of Magvun’s journal briefly states that, “Combining the legendary tenacity and intelligence of a true undead entity with the herculean might of a quality wizard’s golem has produced a creature of almost inconceivable lethality...with these qualities only amplified further by the Waking Dreamer’s soul that dutifully inhabits the decayed core of each of these amaranthine creatures.”
As undead, Aeonians feel no pain, likely boast the same mechanical indifference to primal fear as their reanimated cousins do, and are almost entirely proof against most customary diseases and poisons seen and used in Reniam today.
Furthermore, all Aeonians possess fairly exaggerated weight-to-power ratios that differ noticeably between each individual of their lot, peeking somewhere around a staggering 5:1 for the most monolithic of the Aeonian constructs, a title held by Citadel the Trinity, to a comparatively weedy (yet still quite impressive) 3:1 ratio for the frailest of them, a position currently maintained by Opulent. This same variation scheme applies to most of their other attributes as well, such as their cognitive abilities, fortitude,
Because each Aeonian differs from its brothers and sisters in both physical and magical capacity, size, and fighting form, there is no “one-size-fits-all” tactic any one person or group can use to effectively and efficiently dispatch one. Defeating Citadel the Trinity, for example, would likely require a sizable host of fighting men supported by both siege engines and a contingent of skilled war wizards should he ever elect to exact vengeance upon the land, while Sunder, a deadly pugilist gifted with the powers of a Warden and armed with a pair of battle cesti, would be best approached and contested at range.
Klavanias’ Veener: A synthetic covering for that all. Klavanias’ Veener is a reactive material that instantaneously alters its mechanical properties when subjected to certain external stresses. Although soft to the touch, Klavanias’ Veener becomes extremely rigid when placed under force (either struck violently by, say, a war hammer or
Opulent was a moderately adept runic sorceress in life, but her soul’s infusion into the body of an Unshackled resulted.
Aegis
Ward Absolute: with a quick gesture of her hand, Opulent compels a fiery, completely opaque sphere of unbridled magical energy to explosively materialize into existence. The sphere instantaneously encapsulates a target, protecting the thing inside from most external assaults, but also preventing the shielded object from interacting with the outside world in turn.
Although its protective properties are undeniably impressive, Opulent is exceedingly hesitant to use Ward Absolute due to its grievously high energy demands and the danger that it poses to those near it unless a particularly dire situation necessities its use.
Its base attributes, from its durability and energy cost to the tremendous heat that it radiates, are all impacted by the number of runes Opulent elected to activate prior to the spell’s manifestation, with each subquent rune effectively doubling its she uses when casting it. Using 3 runes when activating Ward Absolute is technically possible, and will undeniably produce a mystical barrier of unimaginable durability, but.
+
+
-Horrifically energy inefficient, requiring 2 Aegis runes to be activate simteously. Opulent has been
Ward Infusion:
Substitution: allows Opulent to instantaneously swap one target’s immediate spatial position with that of another. The dis
Opulent was a moderately adept runic sorceress in life, but her soul’s infusion into the body of an Unshackled resulted.
Aegis
Ward Absolute: with a quick gesture of her hand, Opulent compels a fiery, completely opaque sphere of unbridled magical energy to explosively materialize into existence. The sphere instantaneously encapsulates a target, protecting the thing inside from most external assaults, but also preventing the shielded object from interacting with the outside world in turn.
Although its protective properties are undeniably impressive, Opulent is exceedingly hesitant to use Ward Absolute due to its grievously high energy demands and the danger that it poses to those near it unless a particularly dire situation necessities its use.
Its base attributes, from its durability and energy cost to the tremendous heat that it radiates, are all impacted by the number of runes Opulent elected to activate prior to the spell’s manifestation, with each subquent rune effectively doubling its she uses when casting it. Using 3 runes when activating Ward Absolute is technically possible, and will undeniably produce a mystical barrier of unimaginable durability, but.
+
+
-Horrifically energy inefficient, requiring 2 Aegis runes to be activate simteously. Opulent has been
Ward Infusion:
Substitution: allows Opulent to instantaneously swap one target’s immediate spatial position with that of another. The dis
Magvun’s Research Notes: the personal writings of Lord Klavanias. While Magvun intentionally took a considerable portion of the finer intricacies behind the construction and technical inner-workings of his Aeonians to the grave, this little brown book could still be a helpful resource for anyone who is interested in replicating his greatest accomplishment. Its queer symbols, weird formulas, perplexing equations, and poorly-drawn blueprints seem to be in no particular order.
Opulent’s Hooded Shawl: an ornate, lengthy shawl made from an amalgamation of fine fabrics and exquisite animal furs. Although quite stylish, the shawl was also purchased by Opulent for its rudimentary “clandestine” attributes.
It is toned in a mixture of darker earth colors with a vivacious collection of well-drawn black stencils, most of them depicting stylized busts of smaller Rodorian wildlife, dotting its shoulders, front, and rear, giving it character. Its voluminous hood does a respectable job of concealing much of Opulent’s face, though her prominent demon-like horns do protrude noticeably through two neatly cut slots that rest strategically on both sides of the hood.
It does nothing at all to hide the twin cooling pinions that erupt from between each of her shoulder blades, unfortunately.
Leather Wrapping:
Opulent’s Hooded Shawl: an ornate, lengthy shawl made from an amalgamation of fine fabrics and exquisite animal furs. Although quite stylish, the shawl was also purchased by Opulent for its rudimentary “clandestine” attributes.
It is toned in a mixture of darker earth colors with a vivacious collection of well-drawn black stencils, most of them depicting stylized busts of smaller Rodorian wildlife, dotting its shoulders, front, and rear, giving it character. Its voluminous hood does a respectable job of concealing much of Opulent’s face, though her prominent demon-like horns do protrude noticeably through two neatly cut slots that rest strategically on both sides of the hood.
It does nothing at all to hide the twin cooling pinions that erupt from between each of her shoulder blades, unfortunately.
Leather Wrapping:
Citadel the Trinity
The final, and most destructive and technically sophisticated, Aeonian Lord Klavanias completed several years before his premature death. The notes on Citadel the Trinity's exact material composition and fighting abilities are annoyingly vague, hopelessly convoluted, or outright missing, but one quote however, a final account seemingly written in shock judging from the uncharacteristically poor penmanship of the passage, does shed a sliver of light on the late lord's greatest accomplishment:
A contingent of brigands, at least three dozen of them, made an attempt on my home today.
Looking back, I didn’t blame that sorry lot for trying their luck at all: my place of residence, far from Zerul City, was seemingly unguarded, its walls low and easily surmountable by a few men armed with some spare climbing tools, the holding controlled by a single wizened man of rumored wealth and likely a few domestic servants as well, none of whom would have been especially skilled with sword or spell.
As good a mark as any, I guess.
Opulent was in Zerul City running errands on my behalf (no doubt being heckled at the front gates by those blasted halfwit guards again). Keen? The usual: probably playfully hunting wild game in some distant forest. Sunder and Ruin? Gone for three days now. They did that often. They’d be back eventually. They always came back.
I didn’t know where Citadel was at the time, though. He had a tendency to journey to Mount Zerul under the cover of darkness to take up a comfortable position on one of His favorite cliffs. He'd just sit up there like some big puffed up falcon, sweeping his eyes across the landscape for hours on end as if in search of prey.
I was in the main courtyard tending to one of my gardens when I noticed the first attacker’s head appear over the top of the wall adjacent to me. We awkwardly leered at each other for several moments, both speechless, my facial expression feeling gelid and stoic. And then a second head appeared to the right of the first. And then came the third. That’s when the three looked at one another, looked at me in almost perfect unison, and then looked at one another again to share a hearty laugh between themselves.
Their hunch (or their informant) had been correct: one old man. Not a single guard in sight.
Like I said: as good a mark as any.
And that’s when the temblor began, Him running from wherever he had been with utmost tempo. A single metallic roar, gristly and supernatural, announced Citadel’s coming wrath, its dreadful report tearing free from the confines of His stony throat and licking across the surrounding land like rolling thunder.
A brief, eerie pause in the tremors...and then I was flung to the ground as a plot of concrete to my right detonated in a hail of quality soil and hardened debris as He abruptly made landfall in the main courtyard with a resounding boom that rocked the entire property to its very core.
Citadel leaped again from His crouched position, his body like some tightly-driven spring, this time propelling His entire bulk over the wall with astonishingly felid grace as the trio of men attached to it began shouting in utter disbelief at what was unfolding before them. He landed violently on the opposite side of the wall, cratering the earth beneath Him with his monumental mass, shaking a good portion of the estate’s foundation once again. The walls yielded to the tremor force this time, their wholes shifting and bucking and bending and cracking, the men thrown clear from them and onto the ground the very moment their doom made landfall right behind the rest of their fellows.
I heard those virulent claws and fangs flay the very souls from the corporal bodies of the wicked that day. Their pleas for mercy rang hollow; their attempts to flee, futile. The bravest of them fought with roughshod fury and admirable zeal, but they could only watch in abject horror as their arrows and axes and spears were rebuffed by his impenetrable hide. Some even tried to scamper over the battered and beaten wall, frantic to reach what they perceived in that nightmarish instant as sanctuary while their fellows were being slaughtered like hapless lambs.
None of them made it. They all died too. Horribly.
...well, all save for one: a young man with no more than sixteen years to his name. He looked a lot like me when I was in my youth.
That boy hadn’t bothered at all to carefully suspend himself down into the main courtyard with any of his climbing kit. He just jumped from where he erupted, thick tears of terror streaming down a grimy face covered in blood that likely wasn’t his own as he flailed chaotically through the air directly towards me.
But Citadel had moved with a level of rapidity that was altogether unbecoming of something so gargantuan, one blood-soaked claw and arm firmly clutching what was left of the wall for a bit of support, the other squarely reaching into the courtyard where I stood, his marvelous reptilian head and torso casting an overbearing shadow over a wide swath of whatever remained of my garden.
And there, the scruff of his shirt pierced between the very tips of two of those vile claws, uninjured yet praying to every immortal being in the world and the planes beyond, was that lad. He was but scant inches away from my face, sobbing and pleading for his life.
I could see the very color of his eyes, even. They were brown.
"Citadel, it’s over,” I said. “You won. Now set him down. Gently.”
The boy's nightmare stared at me with an expression of disgusted bewilderment etched across that granitic face of His. I knew what Citadel was thinking, too: that the adolescent trespasser caught in his grasp was an enemy of mine and, by extension, an enemy of His. The boy’s straightforward association with that sorry collective that lay broken and shattered just outside of my walls solidified this clear, observable fact.
And because of that, he deserved to die.
And yet I wanted him to live.
And that act of pity repulsed Citadel to no end.
But He did obey. He always did obey.
Remorseless but loyal.
That was Citadel.
Opulent, the first Aeonian ever created, was conceptualized and built by the Zerulian inventor and sculptor Magvun Damasca Kain roughly forty years ago. While she ended up costing Magvun a hefty fortune to research and develop (and even more time to perfect), Opulent justified her exquisite worth by functioning not only as his personal research assistant and manager of his estate, but also as a test bed for a series of revolutionary technologies and newfangled enchanting techniques that he would later fine-tune and subsequently use to produce four Aeonian constructs—each one more potent than its predecessor—over the course of several decades.
While not originally designed for martial duty, Opulent is still a comparatively formidable entity. Whether
Capabilities
Magvun was reclusive by nature, preferring the company of himself (and later his creations) over the company of others, and was perpetually paranoid of potential “intellectual bandits” from beyond the borders of his keep stealing his scientific work for themselves.
To address this concern, Magvun abstained from employing the customary servants, carpenters, and other domestic working peoples who typically staffed a lord’s castle or estate, but instead used Opulent in their stead, designing her not as a dedicated combatant when he began theorizing the intricacies of her design and the components that he would need to make her creation a reality, but as a lone autonomous servant—his “Grand Stewardess”—who could administrate his entire home by not only commanding a detachment of cheaper, “lesser” constructs to do the laborious work Opulent herself was unable (or unwilling) to do, but by also maintaining an ethereal connection with Magvun’s heavily fortified domicile. Such a link permitted Opulent to quite literally motivate his entire keep to action as though it were an extension of her own body, opening doors, shuttering windows, and even dynamically perceiving the location of moving objects
The Zerulian government’s recent acquisition of her deceased creator’s holdings has made Opulent’s magical union with Magvun’s home more or less defunct. She was, however, able to evolve a rather strong command of the magical arts during the time she spent serving him, particularly focusing on spell
Physical Capabilities
>The strength discrepancies between individual Aeonians varies widely, but Magvun did conclude that Opulent, at an intermediate power threshold, boasted a similar strength-to-weight ratio to that of a relatively fit and exceedingly well-nourished Rodorian man who ranked among the elite in measures of physicality.
During initial testing of her locomotive faculties while at the aforementioned intermediate power threshold, Opulent was documented by Magvun as possessing immense limb and appendage strength for something of her dimensions, crushing an intact human skull with her right hand in short order, hurling a spherical mass of cast iron weighing 200 pounds (equating to 1/8th her own body’s mass) some ninety feet from a static standing position of his choosing with one arm, and hauling a 1,500 stone pillar over her shoulder a distance of 1,000 feet without exhibiting any external signs of magical, mechanical, or biological fatigue.
>Opulent does not eat, sleep, drink, or even breathe. she does sap the life energies from any living creatures that happen to be close to her in order to replenish her own "life force" (much like other True Undead). Opulent is fully capable of controlling the intensity of this, but
>Memsium contains
Magical Capabilities
>Opulent knows a three-syllable phrase in the demonic cipher that, when shouted aloud, causes a completely opaque sphere of unbridled magical energy to explosively materialize into existence around a target of her choosing. The sphere functions as a shield, protecting the thing inside from most external assaults, but also consequently preventing the shielded object from interacting with the outside world.
While the protective qualities of the sphere are thoroughly herculean (it was capable of deflecting a single full-force downward claw strike from Citadel the Trinity, an Aeonian construct matches an adsolicent black dragon in size), the crushing explosive wave of pressure that follows its invocation will either kill or grievously wound anyone caught within 30 feet of its manifestation point. Naturally, tougher and larger beings will be able to better resist this wave then smaller ones.
It's also horrendously inefficient for reasons Opulent has yet to deduce. Even her own potent soul will be left in tatters after maintaining it for just three seconds.
>Opulent
Possessions
Magvun’s Research Notes: the personal writings of Lord Klavanias. While he intentionally took a considerable portion of the finer intricacies behind the construction and technical inner-workings of his Aeonians to the grave, this little brown book could still be a helpful resource for an especially talented mage who is interested in replicating his greatest accomplishments for his or her own use. Its queer symbols, weird formulas, perplexing equations, and poorly-drawn blueprints seem to be in no particular order.
Opulent suspects that it is infused with some sort of enchantment, though the specific identity of said enchantment currently eludes her.
Oh, and it smells faintly of piann
Odd.
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Opulent
My lord and master, Magvun Dimasca Klovanias, was known throughout much of Zerul for two distinct things: his expertise in numerous subject areas and his surreal proficiency in magically sculpting rudimentary stone into masterful works of art.
He was relatively content with producing marvelous examples of sculpture at first--most of them anthropomorphic in nature--for both himself and for numerous prestigious clients. He even occasionally utilized his talents in the magical arts to imbue these extraordinary things with the gift of animation for both his own amusement and for those who could afford this additional feature.
But it was not long before he began contemplating diverse ways of improving his creations. Magvun wanted them to have more “substance”, more “vibrancy”, beyond just simple locomotive capabilities and a miserable degree of intelligence comparable to that of a simpleminded dog.
He yearned to fashion a work of such vivid detail, a creature capable of emoting such lifelike character, that it would be almost indistinguishable from an authentic sapient being.
He was done with fancy parlor tricks. He wanted to create life. He wanted to play Gaia.
He ultimately failed.
Nevertheless, it was that "failure" that gifted me a second chance at life.
And for that I am eternally grateful.
-Opulent
General Description
The first Aeonian Magvun ever created.
Gifted with a degree of intelligence that no magical construct should have, Opulent’s daunting size and the aura of “otherness” that she projects on a virtually perpetual basis are both somewhat diluted by her inviting smile and exotic, but quite arresting, visage.
As an Aeonian, Opulent represents a technical fusion of the legendary tenacity and intelligence of a true undead entity with the herculean might of a quality human-sized wizard’s golem, with these qualities only amplified further by the Waking Dreamer’s soul that dutifully inhabits the decayed core nestled firmly within the center of her artificial shell. Opulent is additionally unable to feel pain, she does not need to eat, sleep, or drink, readily boasts the same robotic indifference to primal fear just as her reanimated (and much fleshier) cousins do, and is entirely proof against most customary diseases and poisons seen and used in the world today.
Opulent's skeletal superstructure is cast from a combination of conventional and exotic materials, namely sartal (which makes up her joints) and high quality penin steel, which enables her to not only resist physical damage to an astoundingly high degree, but also permits her to execute superhuman feats of physical strength as well. Magvun personally documented this impressive measure of physicality when, during initial testing of Opulent's locomotive faculties, he tasked her with crushing an intact human skull with her right hand, hurling a spherical mass of cast iron that weighed 1/8th of her total body mass some ninety feet from a static standing position of his choosing with one arm, and hauling a 2,500 pound stone pillar over her shoulder a distance of 1,000 feet.
Opulent's "skin" is constructed from an arcane material called "mimesium", which was invented by Magvun in order to grant his creations a much more lifelike aesthetic. As its name suggest, mimesium is mimetic in nature, and is unique among many man-made materials for its odd ability to adopt the color, texture, and rigidity rating of any material that its inert form comes into physical contact with. Opulent's mimesium skin covering is surprisingly cold to the touch despite the large amount of waste heat that her body produces, and for harboring the ability to slowly self-repair whenever it is damaged.
Skills
>Telekinesis
Magvun was quite the social recluse in life, preferring the company of himself (and later his creations) over the company of others, and was perpetually paranoid of potential “intellectual bandits” from beyond the borders of his keep stealing his scientific work for themselves.
To address this concern, Magvun abstained from employing the customary servants, carpenters, and other domestic working peoples who typically staffed a lord’s castle or estate, but instead used Opulent in their stead, designing her not as a dedicated combatant when he began theorizing the intricacies of her design and the components that he would need to make her creation a reality, but as a lone autonomous servant of unwavering loyalty—his “Grand Stewardess” as he often affectionately called her—who would administrate his entire home by not only commanding a detachment of “lesser” constructs to do the laborious work Opulent herself was unable (or unwilling) to do, but by also maintaining an ethereal connection with Magvun’s domicile. Such a link permitted Opulent to quite literally motivate his entire keep to action as though it were an extension of her own body, telekinetically opening doors, shuttering windows, and even dynamically perceiving the movement of guests within Magvun's halls.
The Zerulian government’s recent acquisition of her deceased creator’s holdings has made Opulent’s magical union with Magvun’s home more or less defunct unfortunately, but she was able to retain a fair bit of her understanding of telekinesis, and still uses this power to this day to make her life, and perhaps even the lives of her friends and allies, a little easier.
Why get up and grab that pint of ale when you can float it to you?
>Healing
Opulent. She is capable of magically mending abrasions and lacerations, mending with enough effort can even repair. She also demonstrates a fairly rudimentary understanding of the apothecary arts, specializing mostly in various salves, oils, and teas that assist in curing mild to sever pains, clotting the blood, and aiding particularly restless patients (such as Magvun who suffered from sever insomnia) in gaining a good night's rest.
Opulent feels that Zerul City offers. With
Other Aeonians
Citadel the Trinity
The final, and most destructive and technically sophisticated, Aeonian Lord Klavanias completed several years before his premature death. The notes on Citadel the Trinity's exact material composition and fighting abilities are annoyingly vague, hopelessly convoluted, or outright missing, but one quote however, a final account seemingly written in shock judging from the uncharacteristically poor penmanship of the passage, does shed a sliver of light on the late lord's greatest accomplishment:
A contingent of brigands, at least three dozen of them, made an attempt on my home today.
Looking back, I didn’t blame that sorry lot for trying their luck at all: my place of residence, far from Zerul City, was seemingly unguarded, its walls and easily surmountable by a few men armed with some spare climbing tools, the holding controlled by a single wizened man of rumored wealth and likely a few domestic servants as well, none of whom would have been especially skilled with sword or spell.
As good a mark as any, I guess.
Opulent was in Zerul City running errands on my behalf (no doubt being heckled at the front gates by those blasted halfwit guards again). Keen? The usual: probably playfully hunting wild game in some distant forest. Sunder and Ruin? Gone for three days now. They did that often. They’d be back eventually. They always came back.
I didn’t know where Citadel was at the time, though. He had a tendency to journey to Mount Zerul under the cover of darkness to take up a comfortable position on one of His favorite cliffs. He'd just sit up there like some big puffed up falcon, sweeping his eyes across the landscape for hours on end as if in search of prey.
But he wasn't there today. That was concerning.
I was in the main courtyard tending to one of my gardens when I noticed the first attacker’s head appear over the top of the wall adjacent to me. We awkwardly leered at each other for several moments, both speechless, my facial expression feeling gelid and stoic. And then a second head appeared to the right of the first. And then came the third. That’s when the three looked at one another, looked at me in almost perfect unison, and then looked at one another again to share a hearty laugh between themselves.
Their hunch (or their informant) had been correct: one old man. Not a single guard in sight.
Like I said: as good a mark as any.
And that’s when the temblor began, Him running from wherever he had been with utmost tempo. A single metallic roar, gristly and supernatural, announced Citadel’s coming wrath, its dreadful report tearing free from the confines of His stony throat and licking across the surrounding land like rolling thunder.
A brief, eerie pause in the tremors...and then I was flung to the ground as a plot of concrete to my right detonated in a hail of quality soil and hardened debris as He abruptly made landfall in the main courtyard with a resounding boom that rocked the entire property to its very core.
Citadel leaped again from His crouched position, his body like some tightly-driven spring, this time propelling His entire bulk over the wall with astonishingly felid grace as the trio of men attached to it began shouting in utter disbelief at what was unfolding before them. He landed violently on the opposite side of the wall, cratering the earth beneath Him with his monumental mass, shaking a good portion of the estate’s foundation once again. The walls yielded to the tremor force this time, their wholes shifting and bucking and bending and cracking, the men thrown clear from them and onto the ground the very moment their doom made landfall right behind the rest of their fellows.
I heard those virulent claws and fangs flay the very souls from the corporal bodies of the wicked that day. Their pleas for mercy rang hollow; their attempts to flee, futile. The bravest of them fought with roughshod fury and admirable zeal, but they could only watch in abject horror as their arrows and axes and spears were rebuffed by his impenetrable hide. Some even tried to scamper over the battered and beaten wall, frantic to reach what they perceived in that nightmarish instant as sanctuary while their fellows were being slaughtered like hapless lambs.
None of them made it. They all died too. Horribly, either crushed in Citadel's titanic grip or torn apart by the serrated fangs that lined the inner confines of his huge maw.
...well, all save for one: a young man with no more than sixteen years to his name. He looked a lot like me when I was in my youth.
That boy hadn’t bothered at all to carefully suspend himself down into the main courtyard with any of his climbing kit. He just jumped from where he erupted, thick tears of terror streaming down a grimy face covered in blood that likely wasn’t his own as he flailed chaotically through the air directly towards me.
But Citadel had moved with a level of rapidity that was altogether unbecoming of something so gargantuan, one blood-soaked claw and arm firmly clutching what was left of the wall for a bit of support, the other squarely reaching into the courtyard where I stood, his marvelous reptilian head and torso casting an overbearing shadow over a wide swath of whatever remained of my garden.
And there, the scruff of his shirt pierced between the very tips of two of those vile claws, uninjured yet praying to every immortal being in the world and the planes beyond, was that lad. He was but scant inches away from my face, sobbing and pleading for his life.
I could see the very color of his eyes, even. They were brown.
"Citadel, it’s over,” I said. “You won. Now set him down. Gently.”
The boy's nightmare stared at me with an expression of disgusted bewilderment etched across that granitic face of His. I knew what Citadel was thinking, too: that the adolescent trespasser caught in his grasp was an enemy of mine and, by extension, an enemy of His. The boy’s straightforward association with that sorry collective that lay broken and shattered just outside of my walls solidified this clear, observable fact.
And because of that, he deserved to die.
And yet I wanted him to live.
And that act of pity repulsed Citadel to no end.
But He did obey. He always did obey.
Savage but loyal; violent yet lawful.
An unforgiving bastion of good that shielded the weak and meek from the strong and oppressive with bestial zeal.
That was my Citadel.
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