AtomicEmperor

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Thanks for the clarification! On a second go-through, I have decided to tweak the dragon post a bit. Now it's only affecting Ken. I hope that's a bit more on point! :)

@Estylwen

That's actually a really cool opening that I dig. How resistant to breakouts is Zi's dynasty? If Ken were to attempt summoning a door to the paths of Sage Kai, as is his usual method of interdimensional travel, would if be blocked?
Thanks for taking the info onside, as always you're incredibly graceful!

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Whoops, looks like I did mix up my words. Thanks, Atrophy. I've changed it to read Doomsday instead. So it's up to Atomic to see if I got it right. Think I did though, as it's more of a gravitational thing, like I was picturing in my head.

@Estylwen

For the most part it's a molten hot ball of gas. Like a miniature sun, essentially. It's kind of Ken and Drake's combined ultimate ability, so if you believe the dragon's strong enough to just eat that without any consequences, then that's what we'll go with. This maybe comes down to a wording problem, but the whole idea is that the gravity aspect is not the dangerous part; it just pulls whatever is in range into the dangerous part... Being the ball of encased plasma.

Something like 28k degrees Celsius if we wanted to get specific.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Mood Music

Leon & Kenshiro

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Mentions: Drake Blackmore, Lila Blackwood, A Fucking Dragon/@Estylwen | Direct Dialogue: Amara King/@Blizz, Sully McPherson/@Atrophy | Location: Elysium Island

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Kenshiro was already far ahead of Stormy's walking barriers, knowing how dangerous of a tool a Doomsday sphere could be. It was, after all, a massive ball of plasma that was encompassed purely by a gravity-manipulated pressure system. It was constantly tugging at everything within range (which happened to be substantial), and anything caught inside would meet a roiling death. Zombies by the dozens were gulped down by the hellish blue orb, flying into the air and ripping in half from the force before ultimately shredding apart. They were contributing to an ever-growing accretion disk of dirt and gore queued up to be consumed in a hollow blue heat death. Occasional bits of rock and bone would break from the orbit, launching themselves like high speed projectiles back out into the growing horde.

Only in the sweetest point of its wake could one move; the barrier created by Ken's control over it. Most times, Drake was the one driving it forward with the graceful arcs of lightning to track its pathway. But this constantly rotating sphere of energy was under total telekinetic control, and was doing just as much damage as a dangerous sawblade as it was an all-consuming ball of hot gas. Spinning with it, Ken whipped across the field like a skipping rock, smashing the ground several times in a row before Ken yarded it to a stop at the foot of the magma titan.

Then his whole world lit up. The kinetic beam from the sky, were it not for his ultimately stable position at the rear of a black hole, would've most likely engulfed him in a flaming Hellscape along with the Titan... It seemed like that problem was taken care of, or would at least be so distracted that its initial purpose was moot... This left the flaming lizard in the sky.

Leon, in an attempt to conserve a bit of energy, pushed himself to the limit of his everyday power. He was sprinting as fast as humanoid legs could take him, taking him all the way back to those football games he missed going to. Missed being a part of. It only became more real to him when he heard Sully's scream of pain from across the field.
Such a shame... He was so cute...
The lumbering giant of a man pivoted hard, in a split second releasing the first sequence of gates that would allow his power to begin pooling up.
If he's so cute, you want to protect him, right!?
Cute is a dime a dozen. But I wish to drink from the cup...
Then it's settled!

”Who’s still alive out there?!”

Amara One

"This is Leon! I'm moving to support Sully, confirm!?"
”A phantom is with him, stay together and keep an eye on Sully while he heals!”
"You got it!"

In a single pistoning of his leg, Leon's foot broke ground and kicked him forward with the force of a car. Around the same time, Ken was at the foot of the Magma titan when the Phantombane Spiritbomb went off, giving him the perfect moment to pick up some spinning momentum on the Doomsday again... Seeing as how whatever power necessary had already been put into it, keeping it contained was the only consistent draw from his own reserves. Light work in comparison...
Using the weight of it like an Olympic hammer thrower, Ken rotated once, twice, three times, and another... Then with an absolutely ear-shattering blast, the sphere was dragging him up into the sky hurtling toward the Dragon flapping itself around. As it lost debris, the pale blue light of the internal plasma became more and more brightly visible until he was just a sphere of blue flying through the sky. Each adjustment sounded like fireworks being set off in the clouds overhead.

As the orb climbed ever upward, Leon caught it in his vision and grinned. For a moment, he missed his magics... But the horde of undead closing in on Sully and the Amara clone's position had to be dealt with. Like a bullet, Leon transferred his frontward momentum into his legs, turning himself into a spear that toppled over a swath of the menacing shamblers. Enough that it stopped his momentum fully, letting him softly land on his feet and in stance. He didn't stop for pleasantries, his half-changed appearance resembling what he'd looked like at the meeting in the abandoned bar. His hair was pale white, body larger than it already was, and each swing saw his arms extend like cartoon rubber to cable-drag more zombies down into the ground.
Where the fuck did they get this many bodies?
Go drink...
Wha-No! He's wounded! We can't even try yet!

Leon felt Lelou grumbling... So his head turned for a split second.
"Sully! Buddy!? You gotta drink!"
He ripped the backpack he was wearing off with his teeth, letting his neck extend and crane enough that he could send it flying toward the Amara Clone.
"If he won't drink, force-feed him the green stuff in there!"
And then the blast wave really hit them. Leon's body reactively turned flat and wide, soaking up debris and the harsh shearing winds so that nothing would hit his brother-in-arms, or the clone tending to him... It was only then in that bright light that he saw Lila's oily black wings furled around her... He could smell someone unfamiliar with her, but couldn't do anything until the devastation rolled over them.

Ken was still making for the source of the pain at breakneck speeds, hoping to catch the Dragon directly in the accretion disk of the Doomsday to bring it to the ground. He vaguely knew how to seal entities, and as it was mostly belief, he liked to believe that this ball of hot plasma would be enough... But it wasn't permanent. He'd have to spend a weapon, or a scroll... But that was only if this worked to begin with. He could feel the pressure system the thing's wings were making, as well as the bomb-blast from behind that was probably something crazy happening... But he didn't care. This package needed to go somewhere important. Somewhere that it would really make a difference.
"Eat this, fucking Lizard!" he screamed, sound completely drowned out by the rushing air around him.

Recollections: Primal Sinister

Mood Music

Moriah

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Mentions: Bryn Woods| Direct Dialogue: "Little Sister", A Few Freaks/@NoriWasHere | Location: Boschetto D’Sylvia > Lugar Apartado 3 / Vance Head Station

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Boschetto D'Sylvia - 08:00

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Each day must begin with something joyous. The only rule one must follow for a happy, satisfied life is to maintain that same spirit with which the day begins, all the way until it ends. Consistency comes from understanding the process, and loving it as a pleasure rather than a duty. One does not need, for there is no need. One should be pleased, overjoyed at the idea that their life has been chosen for something more than breathing, eating and shitting. Necessity is only equal to the outside influence of life's peripheries, and to that outer influence, one must present the same spirit with which the day begins and ends. There shall be no pain in that life, for life itself is joy.

It is satisfaction, love, fulfillment and exploration. Victory in loss is found as easily as joy in success, and the ownness is upon the individual. One's life is exactly what they make it, even in the darkest moments. One's purpose is joy. Be thus, unto each and every other you meet, as you shall be their joy should you find it in yourself to become your own. That joy is the Mother's gift. It dangles from her antlers like ornaments in the branches of a tree, or like the lights in the night sky. Distant worlds, imperceptible until they're within grasping distance. A joy which the modern world consumes. But you will not be swayed by the darkness surrounding the joy. You will radiate, and that will be the contribut-

"Ma'am?"

The dimly lit room was smokey, a small draft traced through the haze as the sliding door rolled open not but a few inches. Just enough for a voice to come through without the present attendant's position compromised. Not that they had anything to worry about this morning... Moriah was dressed in a deep green robe, her body hidden under the layer of thick cloth. In one hand was a long-stemmed pipe from which rings of smoke curled up and out into the air when she puffed, and in the other was a small black leatherbound book which was beyond worn from years of usage. The private library of the residence hadn't been stripped and returned to the Ashram of Untouched Glory, leaving Moriah with tomes on tomes of knowledge and wisdom...

Yet she consistently returned to this book. The teachings of her Twin Grandmothers Allegra and Bella Motta. It was something like a guide to success, and was at the very least a clear and distinct picture of how her beloved Grandmothers thought about the world. As Greater Dames of the Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh, both were born the same way she was: Saturated in Joy. It was a crucial ingredient in making a Powerpuff- No... A Matriarch...

Moriah smiled as she heard the voice calling her attention.
"What troubles you, Little Sister?"
She hadn't adjusted any sort of makeup or skin affect, so she was at her most base form; olive skinned with warm features and deep green eyes beneath a well groomed mane of black hair. A thumb slipped into the bowl of her pipe, stuffing down the hot burning tobacco until she felt the last ember die beneath her finger.
"Your cellphone... A message."

The young woman behind the door slid it open a little wider, a dark cloth blindfold over her eyes as she entered. Training, meant to feel the world with her Lux rather than see it with her eyes. Everything that had ever lived still reacted in some way to the green of the Deer, thus it was common for young Matriarchs to live without their eyes for several years after being born. She was here to study, but for all intents and purposes, she was simply a servant. Not a lot of hope, as her contributions were subpar at best. Moriah felt sorry for her and any other born as a Lesser Dame... But she recognized that the girl had the spark for Joy. She was one with the Deer no matter her circumstance.

Her feet took her across the room gracefully, her hand sliding out to Moriah to pass off the little glass piece of technology.

"shit bad mo b rnd l8r”

Bryn Woods

That wasn't a normal message. There wasn't much thought in the reply, her thumb flicking up to the "k" key and sending the simple reply off. She took a deep breath. The girl heard, and felt the Lux of her mistress ripple in the dark behind her blind.
"Bad news?" she asked innocently, reactively stooping to kneel at Moriah's feet like any student would before their teacher.

She waited for wisdom and guidance, but felt a familiar hand grace her cheek and swipe upwards. Without hesitation, she stood back up.
"I really don't know yet. But we'll find out soon, won't we?-" Moriah said calmly, planting a kiss on the girl's forehead. "-Never you mind it... Now, come. It's time to get dressed and shine upon the day."
"Have you eaten, Mistress?"
"Lugar Apartado... I've business."

Wordlessly, the girl nodded. Four steps separated the two of them as Moriah slipped from the room and up the stairs, her flesh already reacting to the influence of Moriah's Green Lux as she began her mobile breathing exercises. Pulling the pigment from her skin, by the time she reached the top she was already pale and paper white. Her skin was cold to the touch, blood vessels pulled down to the lowest possible part of her flesh. Melanated skin cells crawled across her lips and eyelids, turning them brown before settling on a deep and dark black and letting natural oils build up to give them a glossy sheen.

The robe came away, a gentle whooshing noise prompting the young Dame to reach her arms out. The cloth fell between them perfectly, and she turned to bring it to its place while her mistress gathered herself. Admired herself... Choosing the tiger-stripes of the day. Fully nude, she stared at herself for longer than was necessary as she artistically reconstituted parts of her flesh into a design. The genetalia swinging from her pelvis was flushed with blood the moment she took it into her hand, standing on end as she hoisted the attached package to examine the tattoo-style design that painted itself across her skin.

Just in time, the attending sister passed off a bundle of clothes, not the least of which came from a friend whose magical aptitude came in the form of enchanted clothing: Orange and Purple came together to make a line of undergarments capable of hiding and supporting the heavy frontal weight, letting everything slip into a pocket which only existed on the inside. Aesthetically, she was smooth and flat, able to slip on any short skirt or tight pair of pants without some Blind questioning her orientation. In Culla, and among the faithful abroad, it wasn't something necessary... Though, she wore them anyway, as they were comfortable and prevented the otherwise uncomfortable sensation of being crushed by equally massive and muscular thighs.

And they brought her joy... Nothing could deny that. A pair of black slacks, tight at the waist, were tugged over her lower body and followed by some socks well suited to the included boots. Lifting her arms to allow access, the attending Dame began to bind Moriah's chest as she would to herself once it was her chance to serve in the Commendatoriate. Though unnecessary, it always felt more comfortable to Moriah to have firm support for her chest, the flesh trained to tense up and hold itself in place once applied. Over the wrapping, which extended just below her diaphragm, a plain black tank-top was followed by a soft and slightly oversized sweater, most of which Moriah then tucked into her waist. A little tug brought a comfortable amount of fabric out to break up the two-piece silhouette without restricting her movement.

On her feet, dark and laceless leather boots crept up over the tapered ankles of her pants. The heel and toe were a single part, solid and heavy; something she'd be able to run in if necessary, and wouldn't break as easily as a stiletto heel. The girl was already standing to the side with a small velvet pillow, and atop that pillow was a karambit-style blade still in its sheath. It was the kind of sheath meant to be subtly hidden on a person, and Moriah affixed it underneath the fold of cloth made by her sweater. As a test, she flashed her hand forward, snagging the handle to let the blade sing into the air with a satisfactory clicking noise. Nodding, the blade was again sheathed before she readjusted herself again.

A deep breath, then a nod.
"What is your Oath, Little Sister?"
"My Oath is my life in service to my Progenitor, Clan Motta, and the Mother Deer."
"And why do you live?"
"To improve upon that which I have inherited, and ultimately to flourish in divine Joy."

Moriah turned herself, boots thumping off the hardwood floor of her room as she made for a wardrobe, opening it and retrieving a deep red single-breasted peacoat. Its collar was exaggerated, covered in fur with a notable right-hand bias. Similarly, she took a thin-clothed scarf and closed the door as she wrapped it around her neck, tugging it out and over her mouth like a makeshift bandit's mask. She let it then settle as she slipped the coat on, leaving it unbuttoned.
"I want you to take some time to study. Let your eyes see light. I don't know when I'll be home, so Luciana will be around to administer your daily treatment and test you on what you've gone over."
"Yes Ma'am... M-may I-"
"Free yourself."

Almost giddy, the girl ripped at her blindfold and opened her eyes to look up at her teacher. She could only smile as Momo smiled back in a soft and matronly way.
"A contact has warned me of troubles that I don't know the nature of... So be safe. Remember the emergency plan if anything happens."
The girl nodded in return, and Momo planted a second kiss on the top of her head before heading for the stairs.
"Be good. And no television."
The door opened and closed without ceremony, Momo's hand only lingering to snatch the bag hanging by the door. A half-dazed young woman was left standing at the top of the stairs with a dreamy smile...

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Mood Music

Lugar Apartado Three - 09:30

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The facility was dark, quiet besides the gentle electric hum of the medical grade freezers keeping this particular safehouse's stash of materials fresh as possible. There was a dull shaking that rumbled through the concrete as the nearby tram system operated in its daily run from the surrounding suburb into the city's financial district. Properly packed with business people, Momo imagined their dissatisfied aches and pains. Her mind passed over the ingrateful nature of Blind Humanity, most unable to recognize just how beautiful the ignorance of their situation really was. It was like raising children, or stewarding long-lived animal companions. Another joy of being among the Mother Deer's most astute guardians...

There could be no negativity here. Not in the presence of her Unborn. The forming pool here, given the proximity to the nearby tracks, was suspended and cradled by a series of pads and springs that held it up and away from the regular vibrations while converting any stray energy into a gentle rocking motion. Around it, Momo had lit a number of candles whose places were kept by the wax melting down and pooling around their bases.
"Latenna? It's Mummy...-" she spoke gently, looming over the open mouth of the thing with wide and excited eyes.

It wasn't standard to name the Unborn- Those sorts of things were usually left to one's Sisters in the Commendatoriate, or on your first visit to Culla for a proper grading. But as far as she was aware, her own Mother had already named her before she was born, so to Moriah, it was a tradition all its own for Newbreeds. She had a particular confidence in this one, having a fellow Matriarch from another clan as a main contributor and partial sponsor of the secret project.
Of course, the body within didn't respond. It wasn't alive. Not in the same way a gestating Baby was alive, at least. Connection to a parent meant a Naturalborn had its life constantly breathed into it. But here, there were things to do before the energy could be expelled to jumpstart the consciousness locked away in the developing mind. However, she knew they had thoughts. They imagined, and dreamed, living out moments of their donors lives carefully selected by the Progenitor in control of their growth.

Personally, Moriah vividly remembered dozens of memories from Dames who had contributed their Matriarchal essences into her as a project of holistic unity. Within her, there was an entire council of intelligently gathered constituents- Not so active, but their memories were just a breath away from her mind's eye no matter the time spent without recollection. And, if she tried terribly hard, she could remember Cadenza... Whispering sweet nothings, powerful impressions, battle cadences and songs; things that had probably brought her great joy. For Momo, just seeing the face of the small child developing and aging week by week in the deep emerald pool brought that joy to her mind.

After all, she looked like Fiora... Loretta being from the same clan as Elizia, and the unmistakable red hair of the Guerra was already growing in long locks around the little girl's head and face. It made her giddy just to watch the unmoving body take slow breaths within the amniotic pool. However, today was strictly for feeding... Several vials of fully-deconstructed material were pulled from the freezer and slid into a curious machine. Similar to a centrifuge, each vial was heated to liquify its contents into a central vessel before being thoroughly incorporated into one another. The central container was then pulled from its slot and placed into a secondary contraption. Two handles on either side allowed Momo to grip it tightly, and the copper fixture began to oxidize rapidly.

She was thinking of Elizia... Of the only other person she wished could be here. But it wasn't mourning... She couldn't do that here. Not while she was preparing the sample. Instead, it was a moment that all three people involved shared:
Loretta and Elizia playfully bantering about philosophy upon a green-filled terrace in Culla. They were both in their uniforms, red hair tied tight and slipped under their caps. Their smiles were obviously the same, and it was almost hard for Moriah to remember which was which... But Loretta had a scar she wore proudly on her left cheek, and in that moment Moriah could feel herself reaching out to Elizia through that memory. The woman's face turned to hers, and she really smiled. Like the sun breaking through the clouds on a rainy day.

Then she broke from it, feeling a tear running down her cheeks as she grinned like an idiot. Like she was smitten.
Oh... The Joy...
Her aura was pulling air through the filtration system of the little bunker, and as she stood, she felt the immediate fatigue. The lack of sustenance wasn't usually too much of a concern, save for the fact that she'd gotten rather used to a sense of security. Like things weren't going to pop off at any moment. She spent the first year after the Cataclysm on high alert, intaking so much quality material that she'd managed to make a dent in the Coven's coffers... Conscious of it, she'd since cut back. Her body was leaner, not so full, only taking in after moments of strain like this.

Still, Latenna had to eat first. At least the preparation was done. She brought the container of glowing green biological material steeped in joyous Lux to the pool. Circling it, she dumped the container out slowly and gently, a low mantra leaving her throat.
"Blessed is the child without weakness. Blessed is the child without fear. Blessed is the child without weakness-"
This continued until the container was empty, and Moriah dipped it into the pool to shake off any bit still clinging to the sides. Her stomach growled as she did so, and she took a deep breath before letting the vessel empty out again. Then it was back in its original space, and Moriah was browsing the shelves for something to eat herself. A few more vials than before were stuffed into the machine, everything emptying into the center as a pale liquid mostly uncharged by magic.

It was a full month's worth of food for the girl being grown, but Loretta's next contribution was due soon anyway. Their agreement was once every three months, so once December rolled around there'd be more. Plenty more, as Moriah was confident in Loretta's personal level of output and the party in question was happy to take her money in turn. As the machine incorporated everything together into a frothy slurry, Moriah took her tumbler from her bag along with the small container of protein powder. A thick and frothy slurry formed as the two substances mixed further together in the plastic container, then Moriah gave it a minute in the blast freezer before pulling it out again. It wasn't frozen, but it was cold; pleasing to the mouth as it went down like melted ice cream.

"Augh! Delicious, isn't it? My sweet girl?" she asked to the quiet nothing. She'd taken her coat off, but upon finishing her beverage she began to pack back up.
"I know you want Mummy to stay and read to you, but those crazy cave ladies are going to interrupt my day sooner or later, so I can't really focus on it right now. I promise I'll make it up to you later. Now, you be good."

Candles were blown out. The integrity of the pool was double-checked. The coat was back on, and the bag was under her arm.
"Mummy loves you, Latenna. I'll be back again in a few weeks."
Momo checked the monitor by the door for any passing subway workers or random underground vagrants who may be loitering in this part of the subway... Seeing nobody, she turned her body and pulled the door open, stepping out and tugging it shut with a satisfying hiss as the locks engaged. She was underneath one of the stations in a maintenance tunnel that lead back to the main platform now. It was dark, save for the few runner lights that lined the ceiling at vaguely regular intervals. The sound of her heels thumped against the stone floor, leaving behind the door covered in signs warning against attempted openings.

It was a short walk at least, only a few minutes around a winding bend before the gate to the stairs which lead up to the platform itself. Even when she wasn't going to check on Latenna, she usually parked here and took the tram across the North to the NLB and Sin Sisters'... It was a simple convenience. So, as she crested the top of the stairs, she found herself on a mostly empty platform. Nobody really lived in this part of town, and all the businesses were already full of their employees; it left Moriah in a fairly peaceful space as she waited for the line she knew would take her to her destination.

“It’s always so nice when the station is empty, isn’t it,” a voice broke the silence behind Moriah.

“Oh yes, yes, I think I like the silence before the train,” a second joined in.

“But safety would be a concern. I don’t think I could be all by myself waiting like that. Not with everything going on,” a third voice added.

Moriah would see three well dressed men had suddenly appeared behind her. They were dressed in suits, carried briefcases, and each was well dressed and looked professional. The only thing amiss was a fist sized hole on the right side of the chest on one of the men. Each looked at Moriah with a wicked smile.

At first, she didn’t turn. It wasn’t nice to stare, after all; but they seemed to be insistent. Everything going on was a statement that just begged for an interaction.
"Oh yeah? What’s been go-”
As she turned her head casually, she was immediately caught by the fist-sized hole. Struck by the state of it, her matronly instincts still echoing from the moments spent with her Unborn, she was compelled to turn.
"-Holy shit, sir!? You need medi-”

Again, she cut herself off. The three of them… Tight formation, somewhat circled around her, everyone smiling. The hole… It gaped, oozed, and practically screamed at her. Her trained perception was to check them with Green Lux, finding vague Apparitional Emotional Fields. But the green still crowded around them… They were alive?
It wasn’t worth thinking too much about.

"Ahhh… alright… I guess you freaks have to do with what my little Cave Bat mentioned?”
Moriah’s shoulder drooped slightly, letting her back slide off her shoulder and hit the ground. She thought about the jacket too, cracking her neck and raising her arms to loosen it from her shoulders before letting an arm slip through the hole.

“Oh we don’t have to do anything,” the tall one joked.

“Anything at all,” the short one continued.

“But that wouldn’t be any fun,” the one on the middle added.

“Do you come here often,” the tall one asked as he began to circle Moriah.

“This station in particular,” the small one continued.

“Are you protecting something,” the one in the middle finished. As it did the ambient temperature in the station dropped quickly until it was freezing. The normally drab and bring beige walls seemingly began to lose what little color they had. Moriah would feel a relentless push against her emotional field begin.

It was a very uncomfortable moment. She didn’t need anyone or anything knowing about any of the quiet places… So whatever the thing prodding against her was trying to pick out, she only had one choice.
Kill it.
But she couldn’t let the Emotional Field waver. It was the first technique they were told to utilize in the Commendatoriate: Absolute Impression. Reading and identifying a threat, and setting a standard in one’s mind that hung the opponent on a lower rung than the Matriarch in question. Most things had to be treated like they weren’t “serious”, because if they were, you had something on the line.

Something made you scared. Shook you. Left a crack that other Adepts could get in through… Or worse.
This situation in particular, however, was getting to the point where violence was starting to look necessary. The coat dropped to the ground at the edge of the platform, the loose sweater covering her upper body leaving her with plenty of movement… The point was usually to avoid giving your opponent the chance to do something dirty like pulling your shirt over your head, so Momo’s first option was almost always the legs.

Hence the sturdy boots with thick weighted heels.
"You can avoid the worst of this if you disappear like a bad dream.” she offered calmly, feeling her Lux beginning to bolster her. The air was cold, but it always tasted fresher in these moments.

The tall one suddenly twitched. Something moved under his skin and the air was filled with the sound of bones snapping and muscles twisting. Yet after a few moments the noise stopped as did the twitching. “You are strong, Moriah,” the tall one grinned. The sound of a train entering the station filled the air.

“There are ways to break that strength,” the short one added.

“Shall we,” the one in the middle asked Moriah, “I think you have a train to catch.” It lunged forward with inhuman speed, reaching out to push Moriah into the path of the oncoming train.

Fight Music

With cat-like speed and reflexes, Moriah’s body tucked slightly and drove her shoulder into the lunging thing’s abdomen. One hand grabbed the collar, the other the crotch, and all the weight immediately drove the first assailant into the crack between the platform and the coming train. At first, she didn’t feel resistance, but as the train twisted it into a pretzel stick, she realized it simply wasn’t giving up its form. However, it was stuck, so she released the thing and let her back leg spring off the floor.

Her heel drove itself into the next one’s chest, sending it soaring across the platform and into a steel support beam which rang out like a bell and shook the entire pylon. The third was too much, however; its smiling mouth opened wider than was possible as it’s arms and legs began to stretch across her, constricting her.
She took a step, then immediately went for the train again. This time, still rolling into the station, she tried to scrape the thing off of her as its teeth sunk into her shoulder. She could only imagine that it didn’t think before its actions, as the initial clamping was only enough to break the skin of a normal person. Hers was already thick enough that it needed some extra effort, and in that moment of disconnect it loosened its grip.

Just enough for her to go for the knife. Still knocking itself against the slowing train, the leech peeled off her body as she spun the blade in her hand and ripped it upwards like she was ripping a piece of tape off of a box. As it whipped upward, the tip caught her cheek before being crammed and hooked into the thing’s skull. Disoriented further, she felt it lighten its grip enough that she could toss it without ripping her own flesh apart.
It hit the ground in a heap, but the one that had been kicked was already sprinting back toward her. Winding up to kick the stupid thing again, a set of spindly grey noodle arms absolutely shredded to fuck from being run over by a train several times now, slithered out from under the thousand ton metal behemoth. They grabbed and wrapped wherever they could, throwing her off balance.

The sprinter smashed into her like a ton of bricks, sending her hurtling into and spinning against the ever-slowing train. Thankfully it wasn’t just a passthrough and its solid, wall-like qualities were far more present now than they were while it was moving quickly. A horrific nightmare was crawling its way out from under the train, face and fleshy bits turning to clay-like gray as the wrapped arms tugged her leg toward a waiting mouth.
She’d dropped the blade on impact, hearing it hit the concrete but losing track of it almost immediately.

Oh fuck.

It had to still be somewhat pinned under there… All she could do was tense her leg and let the grabber think she was trying to get away. As the mouth got close enough, she then released every bit of tension on her leg, letting the gripping arms accidentally slip. It was enough to send the weighted boot and the power behind it careen into the grabber’s head.
Using its own strength against it, there was a loud snapping noise as she caved its skull in against the train. It growled and gurgled, but she had no time to focus. The one still in front of her wasn’t fighting quite like the others, resorting to actual strikes which put dents into the metal exterior of the train wall.

She could generate a significant amount of force from this range, but these things weren’t content with getting knocked around. They had to die. And for that, she needed a little more room. Her front foot stomped down, driving into the thing’s shin and buckling it… But she was quickly shown that wasn’t the right move, as the leg took the chance to begin coiling around her foot and ankle.
In the interim, the one she’d bladed was stirring, body slowly reactivating as it started to push against its half-split musculature.

They have to die, they have to die-

Using her free leg, Momo pivoted hard and ripped the thing coiling its way around her off of its remaining support and whipping it against the threshold of the open train door. Like putty, it simply flattened and mushed out in an unreal way, and it seemed like no matter how many bones they broke, they just didn’t care. It was like fighting a thing made of unfired clay.

Unfired…
Across the way was the opposite platform, still devoid of rail cars and totally open. Her hand reached out, wrapping around the thing’s head and squeezing to keep its shifting neck from getting any advantage. Her free hand did the same to the other creature, snatching down and practically crushing it like an orange.
Both struggled, coiling and wrapping around her while hands tried to claw and rip at her. It left her clothes mostly ruined, and while they were hitting surface skin, they simply couldn’t seem to figure out that they needed to go deeper than instinct told them.

So, in relative freedom, she dragged the two moaning and grunting creatures across the platform and into the pit opposite of her train. She knew, having spent enough time talking to engineers rebuilding the city’s destroyed rail network, that city trains always had electricity running through their lines… You just had to connect one side to the other, and boom- Full power electrical current.
Her hand rammed the face and head of one into the hot rail, feeling the electricity surging through her temporarily as she mirrored the other. Then, with tremendous force, she stretched them across the entire rail until the circuit closed. Instantly, they both began to convulse and jitter and scream as they started to cook.

On reaction, they had let her go, leaving her free to stand and gawk. She reached for her cellphone, but found that it had been smashed to bits when she hit the train, meaning she couldn’t document this… But she really needed to talk to Bryn now. With the platform cold and empty, and a small fire burning on the tracks, there was a small gust of air that gave her a reminder that they’d ripped through her sweater.
The shoulder, the belly… There was a chime that warned the train was about to depart, so she pulled herself back up and made way for her coat. The blade she’d dropped was a few feet away, and she managed to gather her possessions before slipping into the train.

Beneath the train, a gray, muck-like hand snagged the undercarriage, and as the iron horse pulled away from the station, it settled in for a long ride…

Recollections: Primal Sinister

Twin-Hill Coven

THE TWIN-HILL.COVEN
............................................................ "Mother Deer, bless our home and keep our wayward children safe."	Founded almost seventy years ago, the Twin-Hill Coven is a third-stage branch of the powerful Italian cult known as The Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh. Having completed their obligatory service to the Grand Trunk, founders Bella and Allegra Motta chose to utilize their influence to break away from their Mother Branch- The Coven of Untouched Glory. The two sisters, having spent their formative years as officers in the Whispering Flesh's own mercenary company per the traditions of the Matriarchal Lines, were well-traveled and cultured individuals; their globe-trotting deployments took them to places where the modern world was rushing in, and places where it hadn't even taken a breath. Their perceptions and opinions were shaped by a seemingly natural desire for fun and pleasure that came with the coming of the Gilded Age, and the Twin-Hill Coven is the absolute manifestation of their will to keep that feeling alive. As a Coven, the Twin-Hill is still fairly young in comparison to something like its Mother Branch, whose three-hundred year history in the United States can be traced back to the first European settlements in Appalachia. However, the relative youth and low number of adherants hasn't taken away from the fact that it's one of the most wealthy branches of The Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh. Through a tradition called the Biological Tithe, the various branches of The Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh are graded and credited by the ultimate leaders living in the hidden city-state of Culla in the Italian Alps. These benefactors, typically leaders of the founding clans, are responsible for the collection of biological materials gathered by the branch cults which are used in countless rituals and profit-making endeavors which keep Culla afloat in independence of the Italian Government as a whole. Magical pharmaceuticals, prosthesis implants, every single bit of raw material is sourced from thousands of smaller contributors around the world. In turn, those contributors are attached to their benefactors through business-style ties that are kept healthy by a consistent exchange of staff and valuable artifacts important to the branch.

So why is the Twin-Hill Coven so rich? How are they so capable of gathering desirable quality materials? This wealth stems from their willingness to do things that the upper branches aren't willing to do in order to bolster their contribution to the central powers back in Italy. Sex work, hospital and morgue heists; any possible licit or illicit means of gathering human genetic material was worked to the n'th degree, with the city of Cloverfield being ripe as the areas biggest and most populous. At first, the Sisters were somewhat beholden to their previous superiors in the Untouched Glory: They could only go so far, and were primarily expected to contribute their tithe to the Untouched Glory as opposed to sending directly to Culla. But once the Motta clan's leader was presented with the yearly tithe from the Untouched Glory, the source was tracked. Privileges were presented to the Motta twins from there, and their organization was able to successfully crawl out from under their Mother Branch with full autonomy of their Tithe contribution.

In the current age, and in spite of the destruction and slow decay of the city as people fled to greener pastures, Twin-Hill maintains Tithe Apice under the grading scale of the Whispering Flesh. The current leader, Moriah Motta, has long since reestablished the core businesses that kept their high quantity contributions, reducing and refining any material as required. Their wealth and support from the Matriarchs of Culla has given the American Motta clan a great deal of spending power which has been used to assist in the rebuilding of the city. The Blackwood Hospital, New Leopold Building, and many other destroyed landmarks on the North Side were rebuilt with Motta money, as well as "foreign relief workers" who were brought in to break several construction records. In return, the Twin-Hill Coven has insured a quiet but almost complete access to the city's various municipal facilities, and maintains a number of their own secret areas in dark holes beneath buildings one may never expect them to be in.

Membership is loosely maintained, as since their retirement, Allegra and Bella have been elected as a Dual-Head Matriarch of the Untouched Glory. Their policy has long since become one of focus on their pet Coven, feeding a steady stream of its own members from farther South up into Cloverfield's various operations before being sent elsewhere to bolster other fledgling cults with their experience. Most remaining members are Moriah's closest allies and trusted comrades who fought against the Cataclysm at her side. Practices are limited, as Moriah's own upbringing was only vaguely tethered to the traditions of Culla and the Whispering Flesh as her own mother and grandmothers' maverick statuses are well known. Only the most basic rituals in reverence to their beloved Mother Deer are maintained, while new options are often explored by Moriah in the interest of her youthful and curious followers.

Twin-Hill HQ

BOSCHETTO.D'SYLVIA
............................................................ "As it turns out, it was more like a clearing."	Boschetto - Italian for Grove. That's what the Whispering Flesh scouts called the area when they first came across it almost three-hundred years ago. There's a great deal of contextual evidence to suggest that they were talking about The Grove, as treaties with the Keepers of that time can be dated to within a few years of the initial contact. The Boschetto itself is located on a beautiful twin-hilled rise in the far North of town, and is named after Sylvia Motta who settled the pristine hills before ultimately moving south of Roanoke. This is the home of the Twin-Hill Coven, whose members are involved with various local businesses including a law firm, a detective agency, a clinic and- most importantly -the famed Sin Sisters' Strip Club. Its grounds span a dozen acres, and the compound itself is comprised of eight buildings and plots of tilled farmland which are painstakingly tended to. The majority of "dormitory" houses remain uninhabited, and are mostly meant for visiting delegations from the Mother Branch, or less frequently the Grand Trunk. In total, forty people live there on a permanent basis; most notably Momo Motta who inhabits the main household where her Grandmothers once lived.

Sin Sisters'

SIN SISTERS'.STRIP CLUB
............................................................ "We bump in the night."	Built on the same ground as the original building, the Sin Sisters' strip club is the crown jewel of the Twin-Hill's Tithe. As one third of the New Leopold Building, Sin Sisters' occupies the eastern part of the twenty-story hotel's ground floor. The club itself is a sprawling facility with a multi-tiered entry scheme to separate Blinds from their money, as well as the majority of the paranormal happenings. Like its predecessor, there's a long and winding entry hall separating the entry doors from the rest of the building, insuring privacy and sound dampening for the more respectable portions of the facility. In the deepest bend, there's an elevator leading to the upper floors of the hotel, allowing those staying in the upper floors to migrate freely and privately between the hotel and the club... A fairly important feature considering some of the shadier practices allowed by the Proprietress. On entry, attending members are given an identification band dependent on their Paranormal status, with the more "specialized" areas of the facility locked except to those who meet the requirements for attendance. Given that the facility is on the ground, one would not expect the level of verticality unveiled on entry. Styled in an industrial-gothic aesthetic and utilizing a massive hole left in the ground from the destruction of the old Leopold Building, the new Sin Sisters' boasts four floors of debauchery and pleasure. Starting from the top, one can find private rooms separating blind VIPs from the rest of the world, where groups of up to twenty can book private shows and events. Outside of these rooms, you can look over the balcony and down to the absolute ground floor. It's there that the general mass of regulars and Blind guests are corralled, as well as anyone who wants to utilize the space for the "Club" aspect as opposed to the "Strip" aspect.

While not obvious from the top, as you descend to the ground floor it becomes obvious that the space is actually widening, rather than maintaining a solid cylindrical shape. It's dome-shaped facilities allow for the bottom tier to act as a massive open space where multiple stages can host a variety of different featured dancers without taking away from guest space. The outermost edges are dedicated to guest seating, with large booths capable of fitting six people at a time, and in the absolute center of it all is the main bar.

The round counter fills out the center of the dancefloor and is completely devoid of seating arrangements. Any patron getting booze must stand to do so; an intentional choice to prevent drunkards from getting too comfy at the tap. Otherwise, it's a massive affair on a slightly raised platform, polished black wood brought in from the forest surrounding Culla at great expense to the Proprietress. Most shockingly, there was still room beneath to fit a "cellar" which is more like a four-by-four room where restock can be kept handy and the more expensive bottles can be kept secure... Hence the raised platform to ensure headspace for staff.
There are multiple "lifts" which can accomadate small groups looking to quickly move between floors; a necessary addition for the Third-Eye Open guests invited to the various "VIP" stages throughout. Mostly found on the floor below entry, these special areas are practically miniature clubs in themselves. On busy nights, they're typically jam packed with the city's Paranormal population who can find any manner of fetish being catered to through the prodigious application of magic. Many dancers in Sin Sisters' are paranormal themselves, and as such qualify for work in these upcharged areas where it's expected that their unnatural talents will pull in the Third-Eye Opened who crave the magical aptitude that they simply can't attain themselves.

On the floor separating the Third-Eye VIPs and the bottom dancefloor is the most illicit area... The absolute private rooms, where guests can buy a bit of one-on-one time with the dancer of their choice should they be available. These are usually made by appointment, but one can buy their way in if they can deal with the upcharge and the fact that they don't have a say in who is attending them. While being treated to this special experience, guests of all types can expect a skilled host or hostess service, with each qualified staff member having earned their stripes both on stage and behind the bar. Classier individuals may request dinner services, inviting a delivery from the restaurant connected to the other side of the hotel, while others can get a simple private dance and be done with their night... Charged by the hour and upcharged for each special service beyond, once you have a room, you decide how it's used.
While it's frowned upon to use these private rooms for anything more intimate than a dance, those with the deepest knowledge and connection to the Proprietress can wind up "accompanying" their host or hostess "after their shift". These lucky wallets guests are treated to an even deeper level of VIP treatment, including a private suite in the hotel as well as a non-disclosure package insuring total anonymity and non-disclosure from professional parties involved.

Recollections: Primal Sinister

Moriah Bella Motta

"They just don't make 'em like me."

_______________________________________________ Moriah Bella Motta She/Her | 33 | Italian American | 6'2" (188cm) | 160lbs (72.5kg) _______________________________________________ Liberated _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "Matriarch is more than just a title to a Motta." ___________________________________ [+] Matriarch of the Motta ⫻ Due to the unique circumstances surrounding the Matriarch Program, Moriah was hand crafted as a specimen outside the natural biology of Humanity's standard. Unnaturally strong, fast and durable, Moriah's body plays host to innate Green Lux reserves that make her an excessively capable Adept. Hundred-Fold Inheritor ⫻ As the latest of the Motta Clan's Matriarchal lineage, Moriah has full access to her family's pool of resources from mundane business ventures to the Spellbook of Sylvia de Motta, curated over the 300 years spent in isolation among the hills of Appalachia. The New Breed ⫻ Traditionally, Matriarchs of the Whispering Flesh are expected to join the Children of Alezia as members of the Commendatoriate: The officer corps of the Coven's in-house mercenary company. Moriah not only excelled in her duty as a leader of Men, but as a strategic powerhouse with little remorse or consideration for her enemies. Pole Queen ⫻ On her return from service in the Children of Alezia, Moriah inherited her family's main business: The Sin Sisters' stripclub. Having grown up there, she was already well acquainted with the ins and outs of hands-on operations. Everything from mixology to management, and even performances, aren't below the Queen's station.

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I don't even need to try... But I still do." At the surface, Moriah is an unnaturally striking woman whose height and stature would typically intimidate the average suitor. In reality, due to the functionality of her fleshcrafting abilities, Moriah's outward appearance is only limited by her overall skeletal structure: The soft and semi-soft structures of her anatomy are entirely malleable and beholden to Moriah's abilities as a Green Lux Master. That being said, in a neutral and unaffected state, Moriah's facial features are generally soft and rounded, sporting green eyes and a relatively small but similarly rounded nose. Her skin is often intentionally pallid and pale as an aesthetic choice, though because of this, her skin is often cold to the touch. Otherwise, her figure itself is generally toned without reaching the point of overtly masculine: As Matriarchs of the Whispering Flesh typically do, Moriah closely relates to and identifies with her femininity. Thus, striving for perfection in the same way a sculptor may, Moriah has spent many years perfecting her "neutral" figure. Now, no matter how many changes she may make in a day or a week, her form will naturally return to solid and densely packed muscle fiber hidden under a thin but softening layer of subcutaneous fat. As for her fashion sense and general aesthetic, Moriah continues the trend of her family by following boot-covered footprints toward the nearest Hot Topic (The old one, not... Whatever it is now.). Call it punk-chique, vampire goth, whatever label one assigns to the combination of military wear and otherwise scandalously chopped and screwed band tees and denim is what she loves. Crosses, rings with skulls, deep black hair and thick makeup, tattoos: Anything she can do to look like a member of a clan of bloodsuckers, including false fangs, she's happy to be caught in. Another quirk of her powers is the ability to form and shape stains on her skin, giving off the impression of makeup and tattoos that are said to dance across her body like moving pictures.

_{Psychology
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"Matriarchs don't break. We're meant to bend in weird ways."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ As a living legend among her peers, Moriah's level of freedom to experiment as she desires is only limited by her ability to maintain the expected quality and quantity of the Genetic Tithe. The Tithe is a payment of genetic materials made directly to the Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh - The ultimate originators of the Matriarchal lines which Moriah can trace her ancestry back to. The Matriarchs of Culla, their capital city in the foothills of the Italian Alps, maintain lines of credit which Matriarchs are able to call upon based on the quality and quantity of their provided Tithes. As such, those who are most successful find themselves to be both wealthy and powerful, garnering influence based on the perception of loyalty and dedication which consistent Tithes represent.
As such, in order to maintain as much autonomy as possible, Momo's only real goal in life is to maintain the highest grade of Tithe she possibly can. After all, she's long broken from the most traditional methodologies espoused by her teachers, in favor of far more experimental efforts in the furthering of the Matriarch Program.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Moriah is a surprisingly laid back individual for being so intimately involved with the daily grind of business ownership and coven leadership. This is mostly due to confidence and self-assuredness, which she had the opportunity to develop over a youth spent totally conscious of her purpose in life. Additionally, there are hypnotic anti-triggers locked in her manufactured brain which prevent overreaction. Any impulse that would unseat her stability is snuffed out before she can process it with a roughly 99% chance of efficacy. Therefore, her only true intention is to be the best Matriarch she can be: Fair, even-tempered, thoughtful, accepting and gracious.
Though, notably after an altercation with her direct progenitor, Momo has made subtle alterations to her behavior. Among them, she's far more hands-on in just about everything she can be than she was previously. Frustratingly, she's become something of a micro-manager because of it.

SECRETS ⫻ Moriah has a deep-seeded and desperate need for excellence and the recognition that it brings. Such is her fervor and need to accomplish this that she has completely divested herself of any rules and regulations set forth by the Coven of the Whispering Flesh in regards to the continuity of the Motta line of Matriarchs. Of note, a regulation stating that a Matriarch will only ever prepare a single replacement has been completely done away with, as Moriah began work on a simultaneous batch of ten "Unborn".
The process of preparing even a single Matriarch Unborn is a grueling and resource-intensive endeavor, especially given the requirement of constant genetic source material to pull from. While she does her absolute best to responsibly acquire said source materials, not all donations have come willingly... But if Moriah sees qualities and traits that she wishes to express through her Children, well... She can't help but fixate. One can only hope that a monthly blood donation is the least of their concerns.

SEXUALITY ⫻ One of the many quirks of the Matriarch Program's earliest days is the simultaneous coexistance of both types of human sexual organs. While she finds pleasures of the flesh to be accurately named, Moriah was born with a built-in drive to spread her genetic lineage as far and wide as possible while simultaneously storing and integrating any genetic material she happens to alternately receive.

FEARS ⫻ Prior to the Cataclysm, Moriah had been working on a single Matriarch. Over four painstaking years, Moriah had put her heart and soul into a single Unborn which had, in her mind, a strong potential for a split- Twins. Her ultimate goal, ripped away from her in a single instant of destruction. Her laboratory, her personal sanctum wasn't just crushed: It was swallowed whole. Since then, she's put a great deal of focus into making sure something like that never happens again. Thus, not only has she broken her Coven's laws by forming more than one, but she's also obsessively hidden locations in which her Daughters are kept all throughout the city and surrounding area. Something so wretched as loss of her Unborn can never happen again.

WHAT DID THEY DO DURING THE CATACLYSM? ⫻ Coordinating efforts to both mitigate damage and maximize the effectivness of her Coven's small but capable fighting force, Moriah was quick to align her forces with the Keepers of the Grove and other likeminded local groups. Her main goal was, at the time, recovering what she thought would be her safe and well-protected Unborn from an otherwise catastrophic lapse in defendable territory: Of course that didn't happen, and many got to see the brutality of a Matriarch in mourning first hand.

FLAWS ⫻ Unlike normal humans, Moriah was born with purpose and destiny pre-programmed into her psyche. While she is a thinking, feeling, living human with real hopes and dreams, her course and destiny were somewhat predetermined. As such, while others may change the course of their lives over and over again in order to better themselves, Moriah treats every brick wall she meets as just another obstacle. She is unflinching, unbending, but also inflexible when faced with something that will affect the overall positive status of her goals.

_{Backstory
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"In line for the ol' song and dance, huh?"

Moriah's story starts in a plague-ravaged village at the foot of the Italian/Swiss Alps nearly a thousand years ago. An isolated village, one where the only people left alive were the feared Strega, who were rumored to toil over bubbling cauldrons deep in the forests. Before the destruction, many of the locals tried and failed to uproot this secretive Coven, only to be turned back as the forests themselves came alive. They all believed that the disease came from those cauldrons, whose sickly green trails could be found weaving their way through the fields and streets after particularly dark nights.
La Sorellanza della Carne Sussurrata: The Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh, who came to the villages at night to take their Tithe... Being sick in the Motta Monad Valley wasn't just a death sentence in those days; it was a guarantee that your home would be invaded, and your loved one would be taken. Lo, more and more fighting men were sent to end the percieved threat. Consequently, less and less men were seen walking about the Valley. Eventually, less and less men were seen throughout the region as sickness took the weak, and the Flesh took the strong.

The ignorant couldn't have understood what they were trying to do: That the magical plague which was spreading across Europe had it's origins in a war so ancient that even the Sisterhood was infantismally small in comparison. The Sisterhood were healers, or at least attempted healers, as their Coven toiled in service to the Deer whom they deeply worshipped. They closely monitored local infection rates, and would attempt to minimize the spread by isolating the sick from their villages. Those "dark nights" were the result of a gentle -albiet still fairly disturbing- preemptive gassing of the locals with a sleeping agent. Their stilt-walking cauldrons were typically the last things that the townsfolk would see before the darkness fell around them; and those unaffected were typically the scant few magically-inclined individuals who had some sort of Emotional Field to protect them.
So naturally they'd be targeted. Hated. Suspected of creating the sickness to steal the sick and sacrafice them to the Devil. And naturally, with money harder and harder to come by, fighting Men would seek out the paychecks provided by mercenary groups. The very same who would find themselves traipsing through the Motta Monad Valley on the hunt for Witches of the Wilds. Of course they would, in turn, defend themselves.

By the end, one could count the amount of men in the surrounding region without an abbacus. When cities like Venace and Naples came to claim their soldiers, they found villages devoid of life, save a few pox-free women and children who somehow managed to escape infection. They never found their men: Those men weren't found until recently, when a logging operation in that same valley turned up trees whose cores were the mummified remains of long-dead mercenaries, still clad in their armor and clutching their weapons for dear life. Rather, unable and unwilling to push their luck in the dark forests, the famed city-states of Italy condemned the valley in all but the most blatant of wall building. Those who could flee did, and those who couldn't threw themselves from the nearby peaks.
Only the Sisterhood remained. And while they were alone, they had not been idle with those who they couldn't save: Instead keeping their essential parts in biological stasis until a time where a cure for their sickness could be achieved. It's said the Deer itself called to them through the forests- "Mankind has failed. Go, and and do as they have, o' Sisters of the Flesh. Maketh of a New Man in thine own image." And with the Deer's instruction, the Sisterhood learned to craft flesh from flesh recycled. Their cauldrons became wombs into which the lives and memories of the sick were poured.

Each sister would craft a mirror of herself, and each would inevitably crawl into their own creation in order to spark new life. These creatures, made of pure arcane biology who were born from their cauldrons as grown things, transcended the boundaries between the biological poles. Each then learned and taught and understood one another intimately; and the first of the Matriarchs were born. From them, more would come in generations upon generations, the technique being refined as the Matriarchs joined and split throughout Europe's checkered history. They would eventually weave their way into the fabric of European high society, expanding the genetic pool far beyond the picturesque hills they came from. With this influence, Matriarchs would then return to the Motta Monad bearing mortal followers, materials, resources - All in the service of giving back to the land that had cradled them. A city which would remain outside of time, outside of the realms of Blind Humanity, and deep in the Deer's most sacred of mountain groves.
The city of Matriarchs: Culla, the Cradle of Mothers, where the eldest and wisest of their kind would rule the forests and guide the evolution of the Coven of Whispering Flesh into a global effort. A practicing plan to replace the follies of Mankind with the pure, natural expression of Maternal love and tenderness.

Culla remains hidden in the Monad Valley, even as industry and modern technology move back into the lower parts of the landscape abudding the Cerva River. The revival of humanity, and the eventual repopulation of the area by the Blind Majority, were always part of the Whispering Flesh's plans after all. Importantly, due to that consistent slow prodding, defenses had to be erected. A garrison formed, made up of the mortal followers and biological Sons of the Matriarchs of Culla, dubbed the Children of Alezia. Purely practical at first, it was a way to put the otherwise mostly useless and heavily scrutinized menfolk of Culla to good use: Living and dying for their mothers and Matriarchs, their loyalty was supreme. As more Matriarchs were born, however, and many came to Culla from the far-flung branches of the Whispering Flesh, a new purpose was given to the otherwise mostly ceremonial "police" organization. The Commendatoriate was formed, essentially as a college for younger Matriarchs to come and hone their skills. With the leadership of the Sons more closely controlled by the Commendatoriate, the Matriarchs of Culla were free to begin selling their magical mercenary company to the surrounding areas, and eventually further abroad as conflicts became more global and widespread.

Now, with the origins covered, we can talk about the New World: A Matriarch named Sylvia, born as a noble Matriarch of Culla and carrying the bloodline of one of the Originators, was an especially gifted and talented individual among her peers. Selected by her Matriarch and the ruling council of Culla, Sylvia uprooted herself and her closest followers to make passage for the New World, recently reborn as the United States of America. A few lesser Sisters made passage first, returning letters detailing a mountain range with suitable connection to The Deer's influence: A perfect place for Sylvia to settle and take advantage of the burgeoning diversity of the newborn Country. Peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the native peoples who had called this "New World" their home for thousands of years prior, would all be available for them to easily pull and create from. Especially fascinating was the Native American's particular closeness and affinity for the natural environment most closely associated with The Deer. It was believed that their natural connections would make particularly quality contributions to Matriarchal bloodlines of the future.
As such, a branch was formed at the feet of the Appalachian Mountains: La Congrega della Gloria Immacolata, the Coven of Untouched Glory.

It's been three-hundred years since the founding of Untouched Glory. Unbroken for nearly all of it, the Sisterhood has been nothing but successful in their quest to perfect the process of Matriarchal Unbirth. Their claim to fame: Learning how to break the cycle of Reclamation, which prevented Matriarchs from needing to sacrifice themselves in order to birth the next generation. The phenomena of Twin Matriarchs, once seen as a blessing of fertility, became secondary to the new and modernized Unbirthing process. Now, it's merely seen as a good omen; a preferable outcome to see two Matriarchs born from the effort of one. Sisters no longer crawl into their own cauldrons to provide the spark of life: Thus, the number of Matriarchs in the world swelled from dozens to thousands within a few generations.
The unprecedented boom in population has since forced the Whispering Flesh to classify their ranks even further, creating less and less significant positions of authority and bureaucracy for those "honored sisters" who just don't stack up to their peers. Most don't even see the City of Culla now, and frequently these "Lesser Dames" choose to break with tradition altogether in favor of free lives among the world.

This process has since broken up the very Coven which created the situation in the first place: Sixty-five years ago, the renowned Matriarch twins Allegra and Bella, "Greater Dames" in their own right, returned from their time spent behind the forest walls of Culla with a new plan. Immediately, they petitioned for branching from the Untouched Glory, taking little with them and making way for the burgeoning city of Cloverfield not from their Motherland near the city of Roanoke. After all, they both had the chance to travel in the Commendatoriate, and saw far more of the globe than many of their sisters and progenitors before them. Fascinated by the liberation movements and rebellions sparking across the planet, their belief was that there was never a better chance than that moment to slip into modern City life.
Like the Matriarchs of ancient times, the two sisters quickly wove their way into what passed for High Society in the Appalachian South, finally forming the Twin-Hill Coven. Soon, the city's first strip club was opened- Originally a juke-joint and speakeasy in an otherwise dry county, Sin Sisters' became the premier club not only to see beautiful women, but to socialize and party to one's content. Of course, the sisters themselves only had one goal: Gather as much genetic diversity and potential as possible.

Famously inclusive and anti-segregationist, the Sin Sisters' Club became the gold standard for nightlife in Cloverfield's Upper-West End. Allegra Motta especially garnered a great deal of attention as a Texas Guinan-Style nightlife hostess: Her presence in the Club on any given night could reportedly turn the atmosphere from comfortable mellow to an absolutely electric fervor. On more than one occasion, it was said that the revelry would spill from the club into the gilded streets of Cloverfield's ritzy North side, lasting until every last man and woman made it back to their beds safely. It was a golden age, and the sisters prospered as they developed their own Matriarch Progeny.
A concerted effort on the part of Allegra and Bella, the two experimented on further perfecting a single progeny which was allocated double the resource pool. An experiment that's said to have created the single strongest Matriarch to have ever lived: Cadenza Superiore Motta, the first of the New Breed. The trend was not ignored, and while Cadenza's childhood rolled into her own time behind Culla's walls and at the helm of the Commendatoriate, Matriarchs around the world attempted to copy the results without success.

It's said that the bond Allegra and Bella share- Matriarchal Twinhood -was the spark that allowed for such an outlier to exist. Since, only the scant few twin-contemporaries have even come close to replicating the Motta Sisters' results. As such, Cadenza remained uncontested for almost twenty years as the "Arch-Matriarch". It was expected that her own progeny would either be a blessed Twin Unbirth, or at the very least an even stronger specimen than herself.
And so finally, we've reached our hero: Moriah Bella Motta, Matriarchal Progeny of the Greatest among them. Born to Cadenza behind the walls of Culla with only two years of Unbirthed gestation, Moriah was seen as "Uncooked" by those who found her infantile form as nothing more than a premature release. A test for Cadenza's future endeavors, and nothing more. So, it was fairly shocking to the Matriarchs of Culla when this "infant" strode and spoke and thought as if she were fully termed. Typically, a Matriarch would gestate for an entire decade as their Progenitor gathered genetic material from as many sources as possible.

For Cadenza, this process was simple: Why bother with outsiders? Everything Moriah needed to be was already behind the walls, and while most Matriarchs were covetous and guarding of their own personal genomes, none could resist the Arch-Matriarch's demand for their materials. She took whoever she could by charm and grace, and those who did deny her could scarcely prevent her from enacting the Right of Dueling to take by force. Thus, unlike most Matriarchs whose genetics come from a laundry list of Blind, Mundane or otherwise non-Matriarchal Adept tributaries, Moriah Bella was made entirely by the collected genetics of the best and brightest of her kind. Like her Matriarch, Moriah was powerful and gifted- growing faster outside of her artificial womb than she ever would've inside, by her tenth birthday, Moriah took her position in the Commendatoriate in order to travel the world and complete her education.
While most Matriarchs learn to fight and to lead in the Commendatoriate, it was here that Moriah instead learned how to be a human. Gifted as she was, her life as a fully conscious and adult-minded child was spent being taught to control herself and the powers within her. Cadenza was a harsh Mistress, and perfection was never enough to impress her, so Moriah only strove to seek that out. Emancipation from that, her time spent among her Peers as a leader of mercenaries in the modern age of Cold Wars and Hot Conflicts across the magical world, was like Rumspringa.

Moriah would spend the next decade among her peers as an unparalleled warrior princess, earning the highest honors among the Matriarchs in the Commendatoriate that she could before finally retiring to her true Motherland: Cloverfield. While she'd spent the occasional summer there in her early life as Cadenza's needs required, Moriah became especially fascinated by the lifestyle of her Grandmother-Matriarchs. Their oppulent Coven, the gilded Mansion they lived in, were very stark in contrast to the egalitarian and naturalist lifestyle of Culla. She would find later, during her time in the service, that more places were like Cloverfield than Culla: A realization that stuck with her and managed to draw her back once she had the freedom to do as she pleased.
As it was, she was still following her revered Mother, as Cadenza had returned to Cloverfield in order to address conflict within the umbrella of The Untouched Glory. Partly in support, but mostly independent, Moriah began to spend more and more time with her Grandmother Allegra. Learning about becoming a part of the Sin Sisters' Family as both a dancer and ultimately the facility's manager, Moriah became more and more comfortable with the urban highlife of America.

Cadenza eventually returned to Culla, trusting her daughter not only with ensuring the stability of the Coven of Untouched Glory, but the safety and protection of her non-matriarchal Consort and the gaggle of children that the two had naturally: Moriah's many "Mundane" siblings. Some remained with Bella Motta in the Ashram of Untouched Glory, others were trusted to various Covens in the local area. Cadenza was expressly clear, however.
"The only person who matters is Nikki. Protect my Consort. Protect my Love."
Moriah never could've predicted what happened next. How through a slow, subtle chain of events, the woman she knew as "Momma" would be slowly, surely lured through her children into the waiting arms of a criminal mastermind. One whose experiments of Blue Lux hungered for the incredibly durable and power-laden bodies of the Matriarchs. She disappeared one day, and without Moriah even prompting her to return, Cadenza made way for Cloverfield in order to find her missing lover. Before she too disappeared, Cadenza was sure to let her daughter know exactly how she felt about her failure of duty... Though she couldn't be stripped of her titles and rank, Moriah was stripped of every bit of dignity and peace she'd built for herself: Cadenza left no fault or flaw undescribed, dressing Moriah down to the point that when the Arch-Matriarch did disappear, there was no followup. No response.

All of Momo's affection and love toward her Progenitor died alongside her. There was no effort put into into mounting an investigation. Her half-siblings were quickly scattered about the local area, sent to different Covens who would take the orphaned children out of Momo's hands until a time where they'd be old enough to make their own decisions. Allegra, in mourning at the fate of her "Perfect Child", completely retired from public life to be with her beloved twin in the Ashram of Untouched Glory where they'd been born.
Now, she's been left to her own devices: Moriah has taken to her position as Matriarch of the Twin-Hill Coven like a fish to water, contributing a significant Tithe of genetics from her facility to the higher branches. Satisfied with the status quo, the Matriarchs of Culla have asked few questions... After all, despite her power, few wept at the loss of Cadenza Motta. Her impersonal, aggressive and often elitist attitude to those who she deemed "lesser" made her an incredibly unpopular figure across the entire family tree of the Whispering Flesh. By contrast, Moriah is looked upon fondly by the Matriarchs of Culla, as the eldest of their ranks remember the strange little girl for who she had been naturally. The opposite of her Matriarchal Progenitor, Moriah was always the first to rally Lesser Dames to her cause, and to uplift those she could wherever possible.

Momo has become a name that Culla can trust in the United States, while her Grandmothers Bella and Allegra have faded into quiet retirement with the loss of their "Perfect Child". While talks are in the works to push her toward leadership of the Untouched Glory, Moriah has since made plans of her own. Specifically, her own personal refinement to the process of cross-Matriarchal birth. The same kind of development her Progenitor Cadenza had created for her, Momo's intention was to experiment with a longer gestation time under the same process. This meant a ten-year development period for her personal Unborn, who she had affectionately named Fiora before the girl ever could've known.
Life settled into a rhythm from there. Sin Sisters' continued to be successful, and Momo's presence at the club was felt much like her social mentor. Healthy genetic diversity, the currency within the Whispering Flesh, bought her plenty of Matriarchal Material in turn, which provided for Fiora's planned gestation. Things were good, and Momo was at her absolute height in regards to her success. She was able to rebuild herself in the wake of losing her Mother both physically and mentally...

And then the Cataclysm came. It was devastating to the entire area, and even with the combined might of so many different forces coming together to try and stop it, there was only so much anyone could do. Ever the pragmatist, Momo did her best to use the time surrounded by the various covens of Appalachia to both gather material, and solidify alliances. At first, the Upper-West end was more like a breathing crater of destruction. Not only was the original Sin Sisters' club destroyed, but gut-wrenchingly, so had the underground laboratory which Momo had hoped would be safe for Fiora...
It hadn't been. Years of effort and material were wiped clean from the world by the chaos of the Cataclysm. More importantly than any of that, however, was the emotional attachment. Momo had, unlike many of her peers who saw their progeny as nothing but experiments, grown to love her Unborn like a true mother would... As if she'd carried the child in her own body. Maternal instinct gave way to mourning, coincidentally returning her to a closeness with her Grandmother Matriarchs that she'd been callous and cold about previously. But it also turned her into a frothing monster in opposition to Nyrah the Destroyer's nightmarish forces. Some called her bold, others foolish - But in the end, nobody could question that her efforts to reclaim the Upper-West End were pivotal in the overall reduction of Nyrah's capacity to wage war on the city.

And she didn't leave after, either. Despite so many people fleeing the city and the temporary reinforcements heading back to their respective homes, Momo was one of the first people to start putting resources back into the city. She became more than just a nightclub owner - She became a public figure whose contributions to the fiscal, material and labor requirements necessary for the initial disaster relief were recognized by politicians both local and Federal.
She had, after all, already claimed payment. The corpses of the dead were necessary contributors to the war effort... And the various post-conflict clinical facilities gave her plenty of magical and mundane material to send as unbroken Tithes back to Italy. Unbroken Tithes that earned her not only respect, but absolute trust among the Matriarchs of Culla. The kind of trust and respect which privacy can thrive in. As the Upper-West End was built back up to its gilded glory, the various magical groups playing a large part in the city's reconstruction over such a short period, Momo has taken the chance to work her way into various local enterprises.

Ever expanding her Tithe collection and unburdened by the expectation of her superiors, Momo has been free to experiment as she pleases. Because of this, she's divested herself of a cardinal rule: No longer is she restricted to a single Unborn. Instead, having established several hidden laboratories around Cloverfield's Upper and Lower ends, the amount of Unborn she's juggling in various stages of different methods and techniques has ballooned to ten. And each, separated from the rest, require tremendous amounts of time and resources in order to form correctly. Rarely does Momo sleep, for there is simply no time.
It's been almost two years since the devastation wrought by the Cataclysm. It's safe to say that, unlike many, the Twin-Hills Coven has thrived in the rebuilding effort of Cloverfield. Despite her pain and traumas, Momo has come to find joy and fulfillment in her life once again. Now, the only question for the future is: How long will she be able to keep up with the juggling act?

_{Abstraction
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"Green Lux is pretty crazy: It's everything Red Lux is, but better!"

TYPE ⫻ Adept

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Bio-Chemical Equation: Green Lux focusing on Periodic Elements and the part they play in Biology. Moriah's Channeler is a band made of pure gold implanted around the base of her spinal chord.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ There are Adepts who come from long-lived magical lineages, who are almost immediately opened to their third-eye and encouraged in every possible way to kindle early. Expectedly, they make for exceptionally talented individuals whose jump on the magical world around them leaves them overall more studied and capable than their peers who come into that world later in life. But what if one could twist and bend the Lux around the genetics of humanity, forming a vessel through the ebb and flow of magic that could be rendered as a willing host? Alternatively, what if one simply kept that child waiting, growing freely without the concern of lifespan as the constant manipulation of their body in a semi-formed state?

For Moriah, both of these ideas were used in tandem. Born through the Mother Deer's Gift - A process of gestating a child through multiple genetic donor sources by a competent Green Lux Adept - Moriah was created by one of the most skilled Green Lux users of her age. As such, her connection with Green Lux and her ability to wield and manipulate it down to the finest chemical elements found in nature is said to be peerless. Two years of gestation was all it took, and Moriah was born from the viscous amneotic pool in which she was developed with a fully developed mind and body. Cadenza, her Matriarchal Progenitor, had managed to make the unthinkable happen by claiming enough genetic material from the pool of Matriarchs spred across Dazzle to develop her progeny entirely from that source.

Until then, it was a source that nobody thought was possible to tap fully. A Matriarch may have two or three peer-donors, trusted fellows whose power or grasp on their Lux was particularly potent or desirable; but Cadenza sourced a reported five-thousand Matriarchal donors - Practically the entirety of their secret society's upper crust. It's had a potent effect on Moriah, and to this day her ability to control Green Lux borders on Apparitional. Spells, incantations, rituals; these things are only present as guidelines to educate lesser Adepts so they can hope to pull from a shallow pool of creation. For her, they're little more than party tricks, while she's able to call out to and reach for the chemical elements that surround all of us in subtle ways, using only her tremendous Green reserves as the catalyst.

The Mother Deer's Gift ⫻ As the primary building block of the magics utilized by Matriarchs of the Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh, the Mother Deer's Gift was the spell taught to the original Sisterhood who gave themselves to their cauldrons to kickstart the evolutionary process necessary to transcend their humanoid biology. At its most basic, the Gift is a fundamental understanding of the liquidity of Biology, and how the proper chemical compounds can create and maintain life with indefinite success. Understanding organic polymers created by nucleotides, and the further knowledge of how to create those building blocks through chemical elements and the formulation of amino acids, is a crucial stepping stone for every Matriarch.
Thankfully, this knowledge is usually second nature, as in the process of their creation, Matriarchs will invariably program this understanding into their "Unborn" progeny while they're creating them.

This process, the creation of a new Matriarch through the Mother Deer's Gift, is just as much a science project as it is a ritual spell. A great deal of Green Lux is focused into a protein-filled slurry - the components of which are historically recycled biological materials from corpses, but has expanded into pretty much any bio-organic material that can be gathered - which is then seeded by the Matriarch's own biological eggs from their womb. Over time, this slurry breaks all contributory sources down into their most basic elements, and one is left with a pool of resources from which a human can grow just as they would in a normal womb. The only difference is that, in this state exposed to so much Green Lux, every bit of contributory material can be sorted, organized and intelligently allocated to insure the perfect environment for growth.

As a magical side effect, all tributary materials are reliably preserved at a quantum level to retain cellular memory. As such, a properly formed Matriarch child - a process usually taking between five and ten years depending on the quality of materials used - is usually born with knowledge that a child otherwise wouldn't be. How to talk, how to read and write, how to walk and run and sprint and swim; the things that one would often spend those years teaching a child, they're born knowing. Beyond that, the Matriarch themselves typically pass down their knowledge of Green Lux through their own contributions, meaning that a Kindled Matriarch is a naturally competent Adept of Green Lux capable of replicating their Progenitor's own control. Thus, the greater the Progenitor, the more able the Progeny without intervention or education.

Cellular Banking ⫻ Matriarchal culture is all about genetic materials. From the time they're born until the time they die (sometimes hundreds of years later), Matriarchs are plagued by the goblinesque impulse to gather and maintain a stock of genetic material which they can then break down and convert to a more usable form. The most common method is through the ability to self-fertilize, which all Matriarchs are capable of through gamete-reconstitution by usage of donor materials. The goal with self-impregnation is not to carry a child to term, rather to produce a constant stream of high-quality Embryonic Stem Cells through the process of targeted self-renewal. In it's natural division, a fertilized egg will produce blastocysts whose inner walls are chalk full of stem cells.
Green Lux is further used to extract the fresh material, which is then packaged and sealed with a stable shelf-life which can be refreshed by the same Lux which forced it's creation in the first place.

Thus, genetic material of the highest quality can be stored for future use while the lesser quality product is shipped directly to Culla in order to pay the expected Genetic Tithe, alongside similar shipments of raw materials for the Matriarchs to produce their own stem cell banks.

Bio-Engineered Perfection ⫻ As the Whispering Flesh refined their control over the secrets of recycled life, they found that those secrets were equally capable of affecting those already born and grown. What started as simple rejuvenation techniques to prolong the lives of the Whispering Flesh's eldest Matriarchs became far more than the Sisters could've imagined. Rejuvenation became restructuring, the forcing of organs and soft tissue to function similarly using new materials that made them more robust and efficient. Some Matriarchs, unsatisfied with their human forms entirely, spend their own personal time and effort changing bodily systems altogether; developing cutaneous respiration, restructuring the nervous system, improving musculature and durability through various material means.
Modern Matriarchs, Moriah especially, have gone so far as to completely weaponize their forms. Bio-mechanical weaponry, post-human strength and reflexes, entire "Superman" conversions allowing the Matriarch to effectively transform into a far more deadly battery of Green Lux-powered destruction.

Moriah's main focus in this practice comes with a great deal of confidence in the Human form as the most potent vessel for Lux to be channeled through. As such, her preferred method of expressing her power is through the usage of tier-stepped levels of power which she uses to both gauge the power of her enemy, and conserve energy and resources in order to prolong her effective uptime before she requires replenishment.

• Riposo (Resting): Moriah's standard level of existence. Though she's no Hulk, Moriah benefits from an overall improved physique; a more robust musculoskeletal system, highly efficient respiratory/circulatory systems, and a gastrointestinal system capable of converting just about any organic material into its constituent parts.
• Migliorato (Improved): Moriah's primary combat form. This level of improvement is generally subtle, putting as little strain on her form to maximize improvements as possible. The integumentary system thickens, forcing cutaneous nerves under the surface to ignore basic surface pains. Energy and oxygen is diverted to the muscular system, and lactic acid produced by the increased strain is more directly filtered into the kidneys and liver which are improved to efficiently perform gluconeogenesis.
  While she doesn't experience any direct or apparent changes to her outward appearance, the results of study have shown that the transition from Riposo to Migliorato translates to a twenty percent overall increased output of power from her muscles; allowing her to run faster, jump higher, punch harder, and live through more devastating physical impacts without her body requiring any more energy than it was already using.
• Potenziata (Enhanced): Potenziata is where things start to get noticeable in terms of Moriah's overall change. Great reserves of Green Lux go into converting stored genetic materials, resulting in several body-wide mutations that leave no room to doubt that she's built herself for war. To start, the musculoskeletal system undergoes an overhaul as bones and muscles increase in size by an average of forty percent. New organs (called the Peripheral Chemosynthetic Glands, or PCG) form in her throat meant to gather chemical elements and produce compounds not naturally formed in the body. Her skin becomes hard and dense, utilizing the gathered materials from her new organs to inject a subcutaneous carbon-filament layer. Essentially bulletproof, ligaments and connective tissues are also coated in the same carbon layer in order to insure they can handle the increased strain. In addition, organs that otherwise would be used for everyday functions are stagnated as the energy they would otherwise used is allocated to more pressing systems.
  This is a full transformation, and the first sign that Moriah considers what's in front of her as an actual threat rather than a nuisance. Through sheer vanity, her outward appearance doesn't deviate much beyond a near three-foot overall height increase. Most notably, an aura of Green Lux typically surrounds her at this point, as the amount of it she's gathering and expending to maintain the form can be anything but subtle.
• Apice (Apex): At this point, all but the most necessary organs and bodily functions have been converted into pure glucose for energy. Nociceptors are completely disconnected from the nervous system, deadening her sense of pain and relieving her of any potential reactions due to it. The stomach and existent PCGs merge together into a single organ capable of breaking down just about anything into its constituent elements. This allows Moriah to eat damn near anything and repurpose it into her body in some way (a process responsible for her unique nickname and callsign within the Commendatoriate: The Uranium Angel). The skeleton is typically the first bit to be replaced, calcifying to the point that breaking one would require the force of a jet hitting her directly. The material swap usually comes with another size increase, bringing her to nearly eleven feet tall. The skin is further changed, becoming rigid plates of carbon steel wherever motion isn't a major requirement, and additional PCGs form in her arms and hands that are specialized for handling the formation of elements into blasts of incredibly reactive materials.
  At this point, the Lux energy radiating off her is so concentrated that walking about causes life to grow from beneath her feet. Her body itself, a walking breathing chemical factory, is now capable of replacing just about any "lost or missing" piece which may happen to come off during combat; though at a tremendous material cost that would probably still take her out of a fight temporarily as she devours anything she can get her hands on for a reset.
• Sconosciuta (Unknown): This categorization is for the unexpected: Moriah is constantly experimenting and developing her abilities in the search for perfection. The conflict with Nyrah the Destroyer's forces has been a sticking point in her mind for almost two years now: Her pursuit of perfection is rooted in the (self-aggrandizing) belief that one day, something worse will come, and she'll be the ultimate bulwark to stop it.
  Having never seen what her Progenitor Cadenza could actually accomplish at full power, Moriah only has the stories from the Commendatoriate's records to go by, and any first hand accounts that remain. To such an end, she's absolutely sure that her Apice form is anything but an Apex... An subpar estimation of perfection.

LIMITS ⫻ The main limitation in every single part of Moriah's understanding and control of Green Lux comes down to one limiting factor: Material quality. In the beginning, the Sisters of Whispering Flesh were forced to use corpses and materials from the natural world around them: While this mostly worked, living tissue was still required to complete the ritual behind the Mother Deer's Gift. As such, they would most often sacrifice their own lives in order to be "reborn" into the world as new beings. In this modern techmaturgical age, the flesh of the dead is seen as a middling quality material at best, used to pad the quantity in one's Tithe with an overall efficient and renewable material.
For Moriah, this means that eating as a human would is practically useless. As a "New-Breed" Matriarch, Moriah's nutritional needs are incredibly taxing and difficult to fulfill. As such, a great deal of care is taken to ration and control the genetic stock which she collects. There are alternatives, of course... In desperate times throughout history, Matriarchs have been known to cannibalize their "lesser" Adept followers, and even one another should the stakes be incredibly desperate.

Alternatively, the very presence of miasmic Black Lux can throw a Matriarch's entire body into chaos and disarray. The presence of undead, and the necromantic Black Lux Adepts who typically control them, is complete anathema to the Matriarch; the typical reaction is a lapse in control over the systems which are necessary to maintain their battle forms. Thus, Matriarchs either flee the conflict, become locked in a regressive state as their bodies consume themselves, or fly into a berserk rage which is completely ruined by the fact that their bodies are no longer capable of performing the same feats of power as usual.

WEAKNESSES ⫻

The Mother Deer's Gift ⫻ While the process of creating an Unborn no longer requires a Matriarch to sacrifice themselves, the creation and nurturing uses the Progenitor's energy. On days that Momo actively tends to her Unborn she will be more lethargic, perhaps weakened. This side effect can be negated by the consumption of the correct genetic material to fuel herself.

Bio Engineered Perfection ⫻ Each tier of power requires an increasing amount of Momo's energy, and fuel to go with it. It starts as being easily maintainable at the Migliorato level, to requiring frequent nourishment at the Apice level (of anything and everything, preferably higher quality materials). Maintaining it is strenuous, and pushing all the way to Apex level will leave Momo weakened for a couple of days afterwards - and unable to push herself back up to it.

At Potenziata, Apice and Sconsciuta (when its obtained) levels, Momo is giving out an aura of Green Lux powerful enough to start changing her surroundings. While this doesn't seem like a weakness on its surface, it comes with unexpected changes to any living being that comes into contact with it. At Potenziata this is minimal - animals may mutate slightly, Blinds find their cell generation increased. It's at Apice level that it gets dangerous. Her Green Lux aura causes rapid, uncontrolled cell proliferation in any biological creature that gets near her. Animals rapidly mutate, becoming twisted far beyond their natural form. Blinds mutate too. How this happens varies - sometimes they change physically, developing deformities or even growing new limbs. The increased cell growth leads of tumor formation. Essentially, getting near Momo will cause the development of cancer for all Blinds. It can do this for those with Emotional fields too - they're more resistant, but at this power level weaker Paranormal can be effected at a slower rate. This means Momo can hurt the very people she's trying to protect.

Also with each tier, Momo feels more and more uncontrollable impulses to gather material - and an increased desire for what comes with that. This lingers even after she goes back to her resting state. While at the higher tiers, this can be very... painful.

^{Other
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"My Angel fled to the Deer long ago... Funny I get left for another woman."

I missed a part about Momo's affair with a fellow Matriarch, and how she died in combat and Momo couldn't save her. And about how Fiora, her first "Unborn", was made with the stored genetics of Momo's dead lover. It drove her pretty crazy, but I doubt it'll come up ever.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Mood Music

Leon & Kenshiro

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Mentions: | Direct Dialogue: POST HERE | Location: Elysium Island

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Leon had taken some notice of Sloane's passing of the staff. He doubted her intentions in the action, but now wasn't the time for questioning one another. It was the time for action. Time for-

^{"... THE POWER OF THE SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!"}

Jess, unable to keep it in her pants

The absolute power of the sun smiting the hellhole before them was quite the opening flourish. Searing his retina, he instantly began to open Lelou's water and earth seals in order to regain his eyesight. When he did, his gaze was on Jess who had bitten the worst of it. His pack was laden with Temple-made goodies, and rather than break forward, he immediately slid to the side of the Greenwood members. A pack of the neon green gelatinous keylime pie filling slapped onto the ground next to Ruby and Jess.
"Don't feed her all of it! It's a triple pack, three doses, resealable - Just keep it on you in case you need more!"

Ken wasn't so patient. Nor was he concerned about the heat and bright light of the sun blast etching its way across the estate before them. It was par for the course in terms of what he was expecting: Big, extravagant displays of wealth demanded equally extravagant displays of destruction. Death on a wide scale... He only hoped Kari's journals were underground when everything happened. But that wasn't what he'd signed up for. He had some pent-up aggression that needed to be taken care of.
Leon'd explained what some of this stuff the Temple provided was supposed to do. It was interesting, but not something he necessarily wanted to put in his body after what Luca had been talking about... It didn't matter. It was necessary. This "Red-Pepper Jam" was meant to boost overall Lux conjuring, allowing the everyday Adept to pull from a level of strength they otherwise wouldn't be able to. But for someone like Ken, whose life was spent living and breathing the Lux that surrounded him, it was an altogether different level. Not only could he feel the anticipation of Purple Lux roiling up around him to crowd his body with its pressure, but the Gold Lux that came with it was like a folded-steel blade hot to the touch. It was driving his curse mark wild - There'd be no summoning under the influence of this drug. It would be too painful... Too dangerous, especially after the Gloom incident.

But it wasn't necessary. This kind of power was typically reserved for a partial merging through the Emperor's Tanto, but he'd left the sacred blade and it's guardian at home in the 11th Path to ensure his safety. Instead, he came brandishing a slew of alternative weapons. Forged by his clan, each reacted strongly to Purple Lux, holding a spell's influence without effort. It kept them locked in a slow orbit around him, just out of the range of being troublesome while still being in range for him to surge one or the other forward. Two massive kanabo, a dozen kunai, four different katana: He knew things would go flying, missing, break and shatter against the enemy. Better to have backups.
Deep breaths - Uncle Takedo's voice echoed in Ken's head as he began to take a step forward. Deep breaths to let the Lux flow across his skin like rainwater against a window. With the force of a bullet, one of the kunai launched out from the barriered sections. As it flew under Ken's influence, he continuously manipulated its mass and speed until a telltale explosion told him that it broke the sound barrier.

"Enlighten... Send."
In that instant, Ken was gone. Ahead, in front of the whole of the assault team, the ground buckled up into a fissure as he hit the ground with the force of a jet crashing into the earth. There was a massive puff of dirt and debris filled with the limbs and pieces of the undead horde, washing the impact site in sickly brown gore. A single slash broke through the cloud, Purple Lux rushing out from behind it in a shockwave that crushed the soft and supple forms it hit before crashing into the treeline nearby. A tree cracked in half, slumping over in an equal death.
Then it was completely dispersed: A massive purple sphere expanded across the field, creating a safe area with his defensive stance maximized for radius. Holes in the top-rear of the sphere projected his voice backward like a loudspeaker that blew over the sounds of gunshots.
"I will take ground! Move up behind me!"

Leon had already started to move out from where he'd been with Ruby and Jess when Ken made the next barrier ahead of them. It was a much smaller area to hide behind, but there weren't bullets flying through it, so it was safe in his eyes.
"Come on, Aggro! You bastards wanna live forever? Murakin's got the right idea!"
A few openings formed in the rear of Ken's barrier sphere, inviting those who needed the protection forward into his safety bubble, and the crater which it sat inside. As he waited, Ken heard Leon's loud voice behind him and nodded his head.

Slow, deep breaths. Slow. Deep. Breaths.
"Blackmore! Doomsday!"
There was a rush of fetid corpse air that rushed from the back of the sphere as Ken shouted, followed by an echo of a vortex forming. It was the housing necessary for Blackmore's hottest lightning to turn from the unconcentrated power of the sky into a fully realized miniature star. His hands were roiling the Purple Lux together, spinning the air in a trapped inner sphere that was only growing as he anticipated the inevitable heat. Anticipation, and slow. Deep. Breaths.

Recollections: Primal Sinister

Moriah Bella Motta

"They just don't make 'em like me."

_______________________________________________ Moriah Bella Motta She/Her | 33 | Italian American | 6'2" (188cm) | 160lbs (72.5kg) _______________________________________________ Liberated _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "Matriarch is more than just a title to a Motta." ___________________________________ [+] Matriarch of the Motta ⫻ Due to the unique circumstances surrounding the Matriarch Program, Moriah was hand crafted as a specimen outside the natural biology of Humanity's standard. Unnaturally strong, fast and durable, Moriah's body plays host to innate Green Lux reserves that make her an excessively capable Adept. Hundred-Fold Inheritor ⫻ As the latest of the Motta Clan's Matriarchal lineage, Moriah has full access to her family's pool of resources from mundane business ventures to the Spellbook of Sylvia de Motta, curated over the 300 years spent in isolation among the hills of Appalachia. The New Breed ⫻ Traditionally, Matriarchs of the Whispering Flesh are expected to join the Children of Alezia as members of the Commendatoriate: The officer corps of the Coven's in-house mercenary company. Moriah not only excelled in her duty as a leader of Men, but as a strategic powerhouse with little remorse or consideration for her enemies. Pole Queen ⫻ On her return from service in the Children of Alezia, Moriah inherited her family's main business: The Sin Sisters' stripclub. Having grown up there, she was already well acquainted with the ins and outs of hands-on operations. Everything from mixology to management, and even performances, aren't below the Queen's station.

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "I don't even need to try... But I still do." At the surface, Moriah is an unnaturally striking woman whose height and stature would typically intimidate the average suitor. In reality, due to the functionality of her fleshcrafting abilities, Moriah's outward appearance is only limited by her overall skeletal structure: The soft and semi-soft structures of her anatomy are entirely malleable and beholden to Moriah's abilities as a Green Lux Master. That being said, in a neutral and unaffected state, Moriah's facial features are generally soft and rounded, sporting green eyes and a relatively small but similarly rounded nose. Her skin is often intentionally pallid and pale as an aesthetic choice, though because of this, her skin is often cold to the touch. Otherwise, her figure itself is generally toned without reaching the point of overtly masculine: As Matriarchs of the Whispering Flesh typically do, Moriah closely relates to and identifies with her femininity. Thus, striving for perfection in the same way a sculptor may, Moriah has spent many years perfecting her "neutral" figure. Now, no matter how many changes she may make in a day or a week, her form will naturally return to solid and densely packed muscle fiber hidden under a thin but softening layer of subcutaneous fat. As for her fashion sense and general aesthetic, Moriah continues the trend of her family by following boot-covered footprints toward the nearest Hot Topic (The old one, not... Whatever it is now.). Call it punk-chique, vampire goth, whatever label one assigns to the combination of military wear and otherwise scandalously chopped and screwed band tees and denim is what she loves. Crosses, rings with skulls, deep black hair and thick makeup, tattoos: Anything she can do to look like a member of a clan of bloodsuckers, including false fangs, she's happy to be caught in. Another quirk of her powers is the ability to form and shape stains on her skin, giving off the impression of makeup and tattoos that are said to dance across her body like moving pictures.

_{Psychology
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"Matriarchs don't break. We're meant to bend in weird ways."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ As a living legend among her peers, Moriah's level of freedom to experiment as she desires is only limited by her ability to maintain the expected quality and quantity of the Genetic Tithe. The Tithe is a payment of genetic materials made directly to the Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh - The ultimate originators of the Matriarchal lines which Moriah can trace her ancestry back to. The Matriarchs of Culla, their capital city in the foothills of the Italian Alps, maintain lines of credit which Matriarchs are able to call upon based on the quality and quantity of their provided Tithes. As such, those who are most successful find themselves to be both wealthy and powerful, garnering influence based on the perception of loyalty and dedication which consistent Tithes represent.
As such, in order to maintain as much autonomy as possible, Momo's only real goal in life is to maintain the highest grade of Tithe she possibly can. After all, she's long broken from the most traditional methodologies espoused by her teachers, in favor of far more experimental efforts in the furthering of the Matriarch Program.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Moriah is a surprisingly laid back individual for being so intimately involved with the daily grind of business ownership and coven leadership. This is mostly due to confidence and self-assuredness, which she had the opportunity to develop over a youth spent totally conscious of her purpose in life. Additionally, there are hypnotic anti-triggers locked in her manufactured brain which prevent overreaction. Any impulse that would unseat her stability is snuffed out before she can process it with a roughly 99% chance of efficacy. Therefore, her only true intention is to be the best Matriarch she can be: Fair, even-tempered, thoughtful, accepting and gracious.
Though, notably after an altercation with her direct progenitor, Momo has made subtle alterations to her behavior. Among them, she's far more hands-on in just about everything she can be than she was previously. Frustratingly, she's become something of a micro-manager because of it.

SECRETS ⫻ Moriah has a deep-seeded and desperate need for excellence and the recognition that it brings. Such is her fervor and need to accomplish this that she has completely divested herself of any rules and regulations set forth by the Coven of the Whispering Flesh in regards to the continuity of the Motta line of Matriarchs. Of note, a regulation stating that a Matriarch will only ever prepare a single replacement has been completely done away with, as Moriah began work on a simultaneous batch of ten "Unborn".
The process of preparing even a single Matriarch Unborn is a grueling and resource-intensive endeavor, especially given the requirement of constant genetic source material to pull from. While she does her absolute best to responsibly acquire said source materials, not all donations have come willingly... But if Moriah sees qualities and traits that she wishes to express through her Children, well... She can't help but fixate. One can only hope that a monthly blood donation is the least of their concerns.

SEXUALITY ⫻ One of the many quirks of the Matriarch Program's earliest days is the simultaneous coexistance of both types of human sexual organs. While she finds pleasures of the flesh to be accurately named, Moriah was born with a built-in drive to spread her genetic lineage as far and wide as possible while simultaneously storing and integrating any genetic material she happens to alternately receive.

FEARS ⫻ Prior to the Cataclysm, Moriah had been working on a single Matriarch. Over four painstaking years, Moriah had put her heart and soul into a single Unborn which had, in her mind, a strong potential for a split- Twins. Her ultimate goal, ripped away from her in a single instant of destruction. Her laboratory, her personal sanctum wasn't just crushed: It was swallowed whole. Since then, she's put a great deal of focus into making sure something like that never happens again. Thus, not only has she broken her Coven's laws by forming more than one, but she's also obsessively hidden locations in which her Daughters are kept all throughout the city and surrounding area. Something so wretched as loss of her Unborn can never happen again.

WHAT DID THEY DO DURING THE CATACLYSM? ⫻ Coordinating efforts to both mitigate damage and maximize the effectivness of her Coven's small but capable fighting force, Moriah was quick to align her forces with the Keepers of the Grove and other likeminded local groups. Her main goal was, at the time, recovering what she thought would be her safe and well-protected Unborn from an otherwise catastrophic lapse in defendable territory: Of course that didn't happen, and many got to see the brutality of a Matriarch in mourning first hand.

FLAWS ⫻ Unlike normal humans, Moriah was born with purpose and destiny pre-programmed into her psyche. While she is a thinking, feeling, living human with real hopes and dreams, her course and destiny were somewhat predetermined. As such, while others may change the course of their lives over and over again in order to better themselves, Moriah treats every brick wall she meets as just another obstacle. She is unflinching, unbending, but also inflexible when faced with something that will affect the overall positive status of her goals.

_{Backstory
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"In line for the ol' song and dance, huh?"

Moriah's story starts in a plague-ravaged village at the foot of the Italian/Swiss Alps nearly a thousand years ago. An isolated village, one where the only people left alive were the feared Strega, who were rumored to toil over bubbling cauldrons deep in the forests. Before the destruction, many of the locals tried and failed to uproot this secretive Coven, only to be turned back as the forests themselves came alive. They all believed that the disease came from those cauldrons, whose sickly green trails could be found weaving their way through the fields and streets after particularly dark nights.
La Sorellanza della Carne Sussurrata: The Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh, who came to the villages at night to take their Tithe... Being sick in the Motta Monad Valley wasn't just a death sentence in those days; it was a guarantee that your home would be invaded, and your loved one would be taken. Lo, more and more fighting men were sent to end the percieved threat. Consequently, less and less men were seen walking about the Valley. Eventually, less and less men were seen throughout the region as sickness took the weak, and the Flesh took the strong.

The ignorant couldn't have understood what they were trying to do: That the magical plague which was spreading across Europe had it's origins in a war so ancient that even the Sisterhood was infantismally small in comparison. The Sisterhood were healers, or at least attempted healers, as their Coven toiled in service to the Deer whom they deeply worshipped. They closely monitored local infection rates, and would attempt to minimize the spread by isolating the sick from their villages. Those "dark nights" were the result of a gentle -albiet still fairly disturbing- preemptive gassing of the locals with a sleeping agent. Their stilt-walking cauldrons were typically the last things that the townsfolk would see before the darkness fell around them; and those unaffected were typically the scant few magically-inclined individuals who had some sort of Emotional Field to protect them.
So naturally they'd be targeted. Hated. Suspected of creating the sickness to steal the sick and sacrafice them to the Devil. And naturally, with money harder and harder to come by, fighting Men would seek out the paychecks provided by mercenary groups. The very same who would find themselves traipsing through the Motta Monad Valley on the hunt for Witches of the Wilds. Of course they would, in turn, defend themselves.

By the end, one could count the amount of men in the surrounding region without an abbacus. When cities like Venace and Naples came to claim their soldiers, they found villages devoid of life, save a few pox-free women and children who somehow managed to escape infection. They never found their men: Those men weren't found until recently, when a logging operation in that same valley turned up trees whose cores were the mummified remains of long-dead mercenaries, still clad in their armor and clutching their weapons for dear life. Rather, unable and unwilling to push their luck in the dark forests, the famed city-states of Italy condemned the valley in all but the most blatant of wall building. Those who could flee did, and those who couldn't threw themselves from the nearby peaks.
Only the Sisterhood remained. And while they were alone, they had not been idle with those who they couldn't save: Instead keeping their essential parts in biological stasis until a time where a cure for their sickness could be achieved. It's said the Deer itself called to them through the forests- "Mankind has failed. Go, and and do as they have, o' Sisters of the Flesh. Maketh of a New Man in thine own image." And with the Deer's instruction, the Sisterhood learned to craft flesh from flesh recycled. Their cauldrons became wombs into which the lives and memories of the sick were poured.

Each sister would craft a mirror of herself, and each would inevitably crawl into their own creation in order to spark new life. These creatures, made of pure arcane biology who were born from their cauldrons as grown things, transcended the boundaries between the biological poles. Each then learned and taught and understood one another intimately; and the first of the Matriarchs were born. From them, more would come in generations upon generations, the technique being refined as the Matriarchs joined and split throughout Europe's checkered history. They would eventually weave their way into the fabric of European high society, expanding the genetic pool far beyond the picturesque hills they came from. With this influence, Matriarchs would then return to the Motta Monad bearing mortal followers, materials, resources - All in the service of giving back to the land that had cradled them. A city which would remain outside of time, outside of the realms of Blind Humanity, and deep in the Deer's most sacred of mountain groves.
The city of Matriarchs: Culla, the Cradle of Mothers, where the eldest and wisest of their kind would rule the forests and guide the evolution of the Coven of Whispering Flesh into a global effort. A practicing plan to replace the follies of Mankind with the pure, natural expression of Maternal love and tenderness.

Culla remains hidden in the Monad Valley, even as industry and modern technology move back into the lower parts of the landscape abudding the Cerva River. The revival of humanity, and the eventual repopulation of the area by the Blind Majority, were always part of the Whispering Flesh's plans after all. Importantly, due to that consistent slow prodding, defenses had to be erected. A garrison formed, made up of the mortal followers and biological Sons of the Matriarchs of Culla, dubbed the Children of Alezia. Purely practical at first, it was a way to put the otherwise mostly useless and heavily scrutinized menfolk of Culla to good use: Living and dying for their mothers and Matriarchs, their loyalty was supreme. As more Matriarchs were born, however, and many came to Culla from the far-flung branches of the Whispering Flesh, a new purpose was given to the otherwise mostly ceremonial "police" organization. The Commendatoriate was formed, essentially as a college for younger Matriarchs to come and hone their skills. With the leadership of the Sons more closely controlled by the Commendatoriate, the Matriarchs of Culla were free to begin selling their magical mercenary company to the surrounding areas, and eventually further abroad as conflicts became more global and widespread.

Now, with the origins covered, we can talk about the New World: A Matriarch named Sylvia, born as a noble Matriarch of Culla and carrying the bloodline of one of the Originators, was an especially gifted and talented individual among her peers. Selected by her Matriarch and the ruling council of Culla, Sylvia uprooted herself and her closest followers to make passage for the New World, recently reborn as the United States of America. A few lesser Sisters made passage first, returning letters detailing a mountain range with suitable connection to The Deer's influence: A perfect place for Sylvia to settle and take advantage of the burgeoning diversity of the newborn Country. Peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the native peoples who had called this "New World" their home for thousands of years prior, would all be available for them to easily pull and create from. Especially fascinating was the Native American's particular closeness and affinity for the natural environment most closely associated with The Deer. It was believed that their natural connections would make particularly quality contributions to Matriarchal bloodlines of the future.
As such, a branch was formed at the feet of the Appalachian Mountains: La Congrega della Gloria Immacolata, the Coven of Untouched Glory.

It's been three-hundred years since the founding of Untouched Glory. Unbroken for nearly all of it, the Sisterhood has been nothing but successful in their quest to perfect the process of Matriarchal Unbirth. Their claim to fame: Learning how to break the cycle of Reclamation, which prevented Matriarchs from needing to sacrifice themselves in order to birth the next generation. The phenomena of Twin Matriarchs, once seen as a blessing of fertility, became secondary to the new and modernized Unbirthing process. Now, it's merely seen as a good omen; a preferable outcome to see two Matriarchs born from the effort of one. Sisters no longer crawl into their own cauldrons to provide the spark of life: Thus, the number of Matriarchs in the world swelled from dozens to thousands within a few generations.
The unprecedented boom in population has since forced the Whispering Flesh to classify their ranks even further, creating less and less significant positions of authority and bureaucracy for those "honored sisters" who just don't stack up to their peers. Most don't even see the City of Culla now, and frequently these "Lesser Dames" choose to break with tradition altogether in favor of free lives among the world.

This process has since broken up the very Coven which created the situation in the first place: Sixty-five years ago, the renowned Matriarch twins Allegra and Bella, "Greater Dames" in their own right, returned from their time spent behind the forest walls of Culla with a new plan. Immediately, they petitioned for branching from the Untouched Glory, taking little with them and making way for the burgeoning city of Cloverfield not from their Motherland near the city of Roanoke. After all, they both had the chance to travel in the Commendatoriate, and saw far more of the globe than many of their sisters and progenitors before them. Fascinated by the liberation movements and rebellions sparking across the planet, their belief was that there was never a better chance than that moment to slip into modern City life.
Like the Matriarchs of ancient times, the two sisters quickly wove their way into what passed for High Society in the Appalachian South, finally forming the Twin-Hill Coven. Soon, the city's first strip club was opened- Originally a juke-joint and speakeasy in an otherwise dry county, Sin Sisters' became the premier club not only to see beautiful women, but to socialize and party to one's content. Of course, the sisters themselves only had one goal: Gather as much genetic diversity and potential as possible.

Famously inclusive and anti-segregationist, the Sin Sisters' Club became the gold standard for nightlife in Cloverfield's Upper-West End. Allegra Motta especially garnered a great deal of attention as a Texas Guinan-Style nightlife hostess: Her presence in the Club on any given night could reportedly turn the atmosphere from comfortable mellow to an absolutely electric fervor. On more than one occasion, it was said that the revelry would spill from the club into the gilded streets of Cloverfield's ritzy North side, lasting until every last man and woman made it back to their beds safely. It was a golden age, and the sisters prospered as they developed their own Matriarch Progeny.
A concerted effort on the part of Allegra and Bella, the two experimented on further perfecting a single progeny which was allocated double the resource pool. An experiment that's said to have created the single strongest Matriarch to have ever lived: Cadenza Superiore Motta, the first of the New Breed. The trend was not ignored, and while Cadenza's childhood rolled into her own time behind Culla's walls and at the helm of the Commendatoriate, Matriarchs around the world attempted to copy the results without success.

It's said that the bond Allegra and Bella share- Matriarchal Twinhood -was the spark that allowed for such an outlier to exist. Since, only the scant few twin-contemporaries have even come close to replicating the Motta Sisters' results. As such, Cadenza remained uncontested for almost twenty years as the "Arch-Matriarch". It was expected that her own progeny would either be a blessed Twin Unbirth, or at the very least an even stronger specimen than herself.
And so finally, we've reached our hero: Moriah Bella Motta, Matriarchal Progeny of the Greatest among them. Born to Cadenza behind the walls of Culla with only two years of Unbirthed gestation, Moriah was seen as "Uncooked" by those who found her infantile form as nothing more than a premature release. A test for Cadenza's future endeavors, and nothing more. So, it was fairly shocking to the Matriarchs of Culla when this "infant" strode and spoke and thought as if she were fully termed. Typically, a Matriarch would gestate for an entire decade as their Progenitor gathered genetic material from as many sources as possible.

For Cadenza, this process was simple: Why bother with outsiders? Everything Moriah needed to be was already behind the walls, and while most Matriarchs were covetous and guarding of their own personal genomes, none could resist the Arch-Matriarch's demand for their materials. She took whoever she could by charm and grace, and those who did deny her could scarcely prevent her from enacting the Right of Dueling to take by force. Thus, unlike most Matriarchs whose genetics come from a laundry list of Blind, Mundane or otherwise non-Matriarchal Adept tributaries, Moriah Bella was made entirely by the collected genetics of the best and brightest of her kind. Like her Matriarch, Moriah was powerful and gifted- growing faster outside of her artificial womb than she ever would've inside, by her tenth birthday, Moriah took her position in the Commendatoriate in order to travel the world and complete her education.
While most Matriarchs learn to fight and to lead in the Commendatoriate, it was here that Moriah instead learned how to be a human. Gifted as she was, her life as a fully conscious and adult-minded child was spent being taught to control herself and the powers within her. Cadenza was a harsh Mistress, and perfection was never enough to impress her, so Moriah only strove to seek that out. Emancipation from that, her time spent among her Peers as a leader of mercenaries in the modern age of Cold Wars and Hot Conflicts across the magical world, was like Rumspringa.

Moriah would spend the next decade among her peers as an unparalleled warrior princess, earning the highest honors among the Matriarchs in the Commendatoriate that she could before finally retiring to her true Motherland: Cloverfield. While she'd spent the occasional summer there in her early life as Cadenza's needs required, Moriah became especially fascinated by the lifestyle of her Grandmother-Matriarchs. Their oppulent Coven, the gilded Mansion they lived in, were very stark in contrast to the egalitarian and naturalist lifestyle of Culla. She would find later, during her time in the service, that more places were like Cloverfield than Culla: A realization that stuck with her and managed to draw her back once she had the freedom to do as she pleased.
As it was, she was still following her revered Mother, as Cadenza had returned to Cloverfield in order to address conflict within the umbrella of The Untouched Glory. Partly in support, but mostly independent, Moriah began to spend more and more time with her Grandmother Allegra. Learning about becoming a part of the Sin Sisters' Family as both a dancer and ultimately the facility's manager, Moriah became more and more comfortable with the urban highlife of America.

Cadenza eventually returned to Culla, trusting her daughter not only with ensuring the stability of the Coven of Untouched Glory, but the safety and protection of her non-matriarchal Consort and the gaggle of children that the two had naturally: Moriah's many "Mundane" siblings. Some remained with Bella Motta in the Ashram of Untouched Glory, others were trusted to various Covens in the local area. Cadenza was expressly clear, however.
"The only person who matters is Nikki. Protect my Consort. Protect my Love."
Moriah never could've predicted what happened next. How through a slow, subtle chain of events, the woman she knew as "Momma" would be slowly, surely lured through her children into the waiting arms of a criminal mastermind. One whose experiments of Blue Lux hungered for the incredibly durable and power-laden bodies of the Matriarchs. She disappeared one day, and without Moriah even prompting her to return, Cadenza made way for Cloverfield in order to find her missing lover. Before she too disappeared, Cadenza was sure to let her daughter know exactly how she felt about her failure of duty... Though she couldn't be stripped of her titles and rank, Moriah was stripped of every bit of dignity and peace she'd built for herself: Cadenza left no fault or flaw undescribed, dressing Moriah down to the point that when the Arch-Matriarch did disappear, there was no followup. No response.

All of Momo's affection and love toward her Progenitor died alongside her. There was no effort put into into mounting an investigation. Her half-siblings were quickly scattered about the local area, sent to different Covens who would take the orphaned children out of Momo's hands until a time where they'd be old enough to make their own decisions. Allegra, in mourning at the fate of her "Perfect Child", completely retired from public life to be with her beloved twin in the Ashram of Untouched Glory where they'd been born.
Now, she's been left to her own devices: Moriah has taken to her position as Matriarch of the Twin-Hill Coven like a fish to water, contributing a significant Tithe of genetics from her facility to the higher branches. Satisfied with the status quo, the Matriarchs of Culla have asked few questions... After all, despite her power, few wept at the loss of Cadenza Motta. Her impersonal, aggressive and often elitist attitude to those who she deemed "lesser" made her an incredibly unpopular figure across the entire family tree of the Whispering Flesh. By contrast, Moriah is looked upon fondly by the Matriarchs of Culla, as the eldest of their ranks remember the strange little girl for who she had been naturally. The opposite of her Matriarchal Progenitor, Moriah was always the first to rally Lesser Dames to her cause, and to uplift those she could wherever possible.

Momo has become a name that Culla can trust in the United States, while her Grandmothers Bella and Allegra have faded into quiet retirement with the loss of their "Perfect Child". While talks are in the works to push her toward leadership of the Untouched Glory, Moriah has since made plans of her own. Specifically, her own personal refinement to the process of cross-Matriarchal birth. The same kind of development her Progenitor Cadenza had created for her, Momo's intention was to experiment with a longer gestation time under the same process. This meant a ten-year development period for her personal Unborn, who she had affectionately named Fiora before the girl ever could've known.
Life settled into a rhythm from there. Sin Sisters' continued to be successful, and Momo's presence at the club was felt much like her social mentor. Healthy genetic diversity, the currency within the Whispering Flesh, bought her plenty of Matriarchal Material in turn, which provided for Fiora's planned gestation. Things were good, and Momo was at her absolute height in regards to her success. She was able to rebuild herself in the wake of losing her Mother both physically and mentally...

And then the Cataclysm came. It was devastating to the entire area, and even with the combined might of so many different forces coming together to try and stop it, there was only so much anyone could do. Ever the pragmatist, Momo did her best to use the time surrounded by the various covens of Appalachia to both gather material, and solidify alliances. At first, the Upper-West end was more like a breathing crater of destruction. Not only was the original Sin Sisters' club destroyed, but gut-wrenchingly, so had the underground laboratory which Momo had hoped would be safe for Fiora...
It hadn't been. Years of effort and material were wiped clean from the world by the chaos of the Cataclysm. More importantly than any of that, however, was the emotional attachment. Momo had, unlike many of her peers who saw their progeny as nothing but experiments, grown to love her Unborn like a true mother would... As if she'd carried the child in her own body. Maternal instinct gave way to mourning, coincidentally returning her to a closeness with her Grandmother Matriarchs that she'd been callous and cold about previously. But it also turned her into a frothing monster in opposition to Nyrah the Destroyer's nightmarish forces. Some called her bold, others foolish - But in the end, nobody could question that her efforts to reclaim the Upper-West End were pivotal in the overall reduction of Nyrah's capacity to wage war on the city.

And she didn't leave after, either. Despite so many people fleeing the city and the temporary reinforcements heading back to their respective homes, Momo was one of the first people to start putting resources back into the city. She became more than just a nightclub owner - She became a public figure whose contributions to the fiscal, material and labor requirements necessary for the initial disaster relief were recognized by politicians both local and Federal.
She had, after all, already claimed payment. The corpses of the dead were necessary contributors to the war effort... And the various post-conflict clinical facilities gave her plenty of magical and mundane material to send as unbroken Tithes back to Italy. Unbroken Tithes that earned her not only respect, but absolute trust among the Matriarchs of Culla. The kind of trust and respect which privacy can thrive in. As the Upper-West End was built back up to its gilded glory, the various magical groups playing a large part in the city's reconstruction over such a short period, Momo has taken the chance to work her way into various local enterprises.

Ever expanding her Tithe collection and unburdened by the expectation of her superiors, Momo has been free to experiment as she pleases. Because of this, she's divested herself of a cardinal rule: No longer is she restricted to a single Unborn. Instead, having established several hidden laboratories around Cloverfield's Upper and Lower ends, the amount of Unborn she's juggling in various stages of different methods and techniques has ballooned to ten. And each, separated from the rest, require tremendous amounts of time and resources in order to form correctly. Rarely does Momo sleep, for there is simply no time.
It's been almost two years since the devastation wrought by the Cataclysm. It's safe to say that, unlike many, the Twin-Hills Coven has thrived in the rebuilding effort of Cloverfield. Despite her pain and traumas, Momo has come to find joy and fulfillment in her life once again. Now, the only question for the future is: How long will she be able to keep up with the juggling act?

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"Green Lux is pretty crazy: It's everything Red Lux is, but better!"

TYPE ⫻ Adept

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Bio-Chemical Equation: Green Lux focusing on Periodic Elements and the part they play in Biology. Moriah's Channeler is a band made of pure gold implanted around the base of her spinal chord.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ There are Adepts who come from long-lived magical lineages, who are almost immediately opened to their third-eye and encouraged in every possible way to kindle early. Expectedly, they make for exceptionally talented individuals whose jump on the magical world around them leaves them overall more studied and capable than their peers who come into that world later in life. But what if one could twist and bend the Lux around the genetics of humanity, forming a vessel through the ebb and flow of magic that could be rendered as a willing host? Alternatively, what if one simply kept that child waiting, growing freely without the concern of lifespan as the constant manipulation of their body in a semi-formed state?

For Moriah, both of these ideas were used in tandem. Born through the Mother Deer's Gift - A process of gestating a child through multiple genetic donor sources by a competent Green Lux Adept - Moriah was created by one of the most skilled Green Lux users of her age. As such, her connection with Green Lux and her ability to wield and manipulate it down to the finest chemical elements found in nature is said to be peerless. Two years of gestation was all it took, and Moriah was born from the viscous amneotic pool in which she was developed with a fully developed mind and body. Cadenza, her Matriarchal Progenitor, had managed to make the unthinkable happen by claiming enough genetic material from the pool of Matriarchs spred across Dazzle to develop her progeny entirely from that source.

Until then, it was a source that nobody thought was possible to tap fully. A Matriarch may have two or three peer-donors, trusted fellows whose power or grasp on their Lux was particularly potent or desirable; but Cadenza sourced a reported five-thousand Matriarchal donors - Practically the entirety of their secret society's upper crust. It's had a potent effect on Moriah, and to this day her ability to control Green Lux borders on Apparitional. Spells, incantations, rituals; these things are only present as guidelines to educate lesser Adepts so they can hope to pull from a shallow pool of creation. For her, they're little more than party tricks, while she's able to call out to and reach for the chemical elements that surround all of us in subtle ways, using only her tremendous Green reserves as the catalyst.

The Mother Deer's Gift ⫻ As the primary building block of the magics utilized by Matriarchs of the Sisterhood of Whispering Flesh, the Mother Deer's Gift was the spell taught to the original Sisterhood who gave themselves to their cauldrons to kickstart the evolutionary process necessary to transcend their humanoid biology. At its most basic, the Gift is a fundamental understanding of the liquidity of Biology, and how the proper chemical compounds can create and maintain life with indefinite success. Understanding organic polymers created by nucleotides, and the further knowledge of how to create those building blocks through chemical elements and the formulation of amino acids, is a crucial stepping stone for every Matriarch.
Thankfully, this knowledge is usually second nature, as in the process of their creation, Matriarchs will invariably program this understanding into their "Unborn" progeny while they're creating them.

This process, the creation of a new Matriarch through the Mother Deer's Gift, is just as much a science project as it is a ritual spell. A great deal of Green Lux is focused into a protein-filled slurry - the components of which are historically recycled biological materials from corpses, but has expanded into pretty much any bio-organic material that can be gathered - which is then seeded by the Matriarch's own biological eggs from their womb. Over time, this slurry breaks all contributory sources down into their most basic elements, and one is left with a pool of resources from which a human can grow just as they would in a normal womb. The only difference is that, in this state exposed to so much Green Lux, every bit of contributory material can be sorted, organized and intelligently allocated to insure the perfect environment for growth.

As a magical side effect, all tributary materials are reliably preserved at a quantum level to retain cellular memory. As such, a properly formed Matriarch child - a process usually taking between five and ten years depending on the quality of materials used - is usually born with knowledge that a child otherwise wouldn't be. How to talk, how to read and write, how to walk and run and sprint and swim; the things that one would often spend those years teaching a child, they're born knowing. Beyond that, the Matriarch themselves typically pass down their knowledge of Green Lux through their own contributions, meaning that a Kindled Matriarch is a naturally competent Adept of Green Lux capable of replicating their Progenitor's own control. Thus, the greater the Progenitor, the more able the Progeny without intervention or education.

Cellular Banking ⫻ Matriarchal culture is all about genetic materials. From the time they're born until the time they die (sometimes hundreds of years later), Matriarchs are plagued by the goblinesque impulse to gather and maintain a stock of genetic material which they can then break down and convert to a more usable form. The most common method is through the ability to self-fertilize, which all Matriarchs are capable of through gamete-reconstitution by usage of donor materials. The goal with self-impregnation is not to carry a child to term, rather to produce a constant stream of high-quality Embryonic Stem Cells through the process of targeted self-renewal. In it's natural division, a fertilized egg will produce blastocysts whose inner walls are chalk full of stem cells.
Green Lux is further used to extract the fresh material, which is then packaged and sealed with a stable shelf-life which can be refreshed by the same Lux which forced it's creation in the first place.

Thus, genetic material of the highest quality can be stored for future use while the lesser quality product is shipped directly to Culla in order to pay the expected Genetic Tithe, alongside similar shipments of raw materials for the Matriarchs to produce their own stem cell banks.

Bio-Engineered Perfection ⫻ As the Whispering Flesh refined their control over the secrets of recycled life, they found that those secrets were equally capable of affecting those already born and grown. What started as simple rejuvenation techniques to prolong the lives of the Whispering Flesh's eldest Matriarchs became far more than the Sisters could've imagined. Rejuvenation became restructuring, the forcing of organs and soft tissue to function similarly using new materials that made them more robust and efficient. Some Matriarchs, unsatisfied with their human forms entirely, spend their own personal time and effort changing bodily systems altogether; developing cutaneous respiration, restructuring the nervous system, improving musculature and durability through various material means.
Modern Matriarchs, Moriah especially, have gone so far as to completely weaponize their forms. Bio-mechanical weaponry, post-human strength and reflexes, entire "Superman" conversions allowing the Matriarch to effectively transform into a far more deadly battery of Green Lux-powered destruction.

Moriah's main focus in this practice comes with a great deal of confidence in the Human form as the most potent vessel for Lux to be channeled through. As such, her preferred method of expressing her power is through the usage of tier-stepped levels of power which she uses to both gauge the power of her enemy, and conserve energy and resources in order to prolong her effective uptime before she requires replenishment.

• Riposo (Resting): Moriah's standard level of existence. Though she's no Hulk, Moriah benefits from an overall improved physique; a more robust musculoskeletal system, highly efficient respiratory/circulatory systems, and a gastrointestinal system capable of converting just about any organic material into its constituent parts.
• Migliorato (Improved): Moriah's primary combat form. This level of improvement is generally subtle, putting as little strain on her form to maximize improvements as possible. The integumentary system thickens, forcing cutaneous nerves under the surface to ignore basic surface pains. Energy and oxygen is diverted to the muscular system, and lactic acid produced by the increased strain is more directly filtered into the kidneys and liver which are improved to efficiently perform gluconeogenesis.
  While she doesn't experience any direct or apparent changes to her outward appearance, the results of study have shown that the transition from Riposo to Migliorato translates to a twenty percent overall increased output of power from her muscles; allowing her to run faster, jump higher, punch harder, and live through more devastating physical impacts without her body requiring any more energy than it was already using.
• Potenziata (Enhanced): Potenziata is where things start to get noticeable in terms of Moriah's overall change. Great reserves of Green Lux go into converting stored genetic materials, resulting in several body-wide mutations that leave no room to doubt that she's built herself for war. To start, the musculoskeletal system undergoes an overhaul as bones and muscles increase in size by an average of forty percent. New organs (called the Peripheral Chemosynthetic Glands, or PCG) form in her throat meant to gather chemical elements and produce compounds not naturally formed in the body. Her skin becomes hard and dense, utilizing the gathered materials from her new organs to inject a subcutaneous carbon-filament layer. Essentially bulletproof, ligaments and connective tissues are also coated in the same carbon layer in order to insure they can handle the increased strain. In addition, organs that otherwise would be used for everyday functions are stagnated as the energy they would otherwise used is allocated to more pressing systems.
  This is a full transformation, and the first sign that Moriah considers what's in front of her as an actual threat rather than a nuisance. Through sheer vanity, her outward appearance doesn't deviate much beyond a near three-foot overall height increase. Most notably, an aura of Green Lux typically surrounds her at this point, as the amount of it she's gathering and expending to maintain the form can be anything but subtle.
• Apice (Apex): At this point, all but the most necessary organs and bodily functions have been converted into pure glucose for energy. Nociceptors are completely disconnected from the nervous system, deadening her sense of pain and relieving her of any potential reactions due to it. The stomach and existent PCGs merge together into a single organ capable of breaking down just about anything into its constituent elements. This allows Moriah to eat damn near anything and repurpose it into her body in some way (a process responsible for her unique nickname and callsign within the Commendatoriate: The Uranium Angel). The skeleton is typically the first bit to be replaced, calcifying to the point that breaking one would require the force of a jet hitting her directly. The material swap usually comes with another size increase, bringing her to nearly eleven feet tall. The skin is further changed, becoming rigid plates of carbon steel wherever motion isn't a major requirement, and additional PCGs form in her arms and hands that are specialized for handling the formation of elements into blasts of incredibly reactive materials.
  At this point, the Lux energy radiating off her is so concentrated that walking about causes life to grow from beneath her feet. Her body itself, a walking breathing chemical factory, is now capable of replacing just about any "lost or missing" piece which may happen to come off during combat; though at a tremendous material cost that would probably still take her out of a fight temporarily as she devours anything she can get her hands on for a reset.
• Sconosciuta (Unknown): This categorization is for the unexpected: Moriah is constantly experimenting and developing her abilities in the search for perfection. The conflict with Nyrah the Destroyer's forces has been a sticking point in her mind for almost two years now: Her pursuit of perfection is rooted in the (self-aggrandizing) belief that one day, something worse will come, and she'll be the ultimate bulwark to stop it.
  Having never seen what her Progenitor Cadenza could actually accomplish at full power, Moriah only has the stories from the Commendatoriate's records to go by, and any first hand accounts that remain. To such an end, she's absolutely sure that her Apice form is anything but an Apex... An subpar estimation of perfection.

LIMITS ⫻ The main limitation in every single part of Moriah's understanding and control of Green Lux comes down to one limiting factor: Material quality. In the beginning, the Sisters of Whispering Flesh were forced to use corpses and materials from the natural world around them: While this mostly worked, living tissue was still required to complete the ritual behind the Mother Deer's Gift. As such, they would most often sacrifice their own lives in order to be "reborn" into the world as new beings. In this modern techmaturgical age, the flesh of the dead is seen as a middling quality material at best, used to pad the quantity in one's Tithe with an overall efficient and renewable material.
For Moriah, this means that eating as a human would is practically useless. As a "New-Breed" Matriarch, Moriah's nutritional needs are incredibly taxing and difficult to fulfill. As such, a great deal of care is taken to ration and control the genetic stock which she collects. There are alternatives, of course... In desperate times throughout history, Matriarchs have been known to cannibalize their "lesser" Adept followers, and even one another should the stakes be incredibly desperate.

Alternatively, the very presence of miasmic Black Lux can throw a Matriarch's entire body into chaos and disarray. The presence of undead, and the necromantic Black Lux Adepts who typically control them, is complete anathema to the Matriarch; the typical reaction is a lapse in control over the systems which are necessary to maintain their battle forms. Thus, Matriarchs either flee the conflict, become locked in a regressive state as their bodies consume themselves, or fly into a berserk rage which is completely ruined by the fact that their bodies are no longer capable of performing the same feats of power as usual.

WEAKNESSES ⫻

The Mother Deer's Gift ⫻ While the process of creating an Unborn no longer requires a Matriarch to sacrifice themselves, the creation and nurturing uses the Progenitor's energy. On days that Momo actively tends to her Unborn she will be more lethargic, perhaps weakened. This side effect can be negated by the consumption of the correct genetic material to fuel herself.

Bio Engineered Perfection ⫻ Each tier of power requires an increasing amount of Momo's energy, and fuel to go with it. It starts as being easily maintainable at the Migliorato level, to requiring frequent nourishment at the Apice level (of anything and everything, preferably higher quality materials). Maintaining it is strenuous, and pushing all the way to Apex level will leave Momo weakened for a couple of days afterwards - and unable to push herself back up to it.

At Potenziata, Apice and Sconsciuta (when its obtained) levels, Momo is giving out an aura of Green Lux powerful enough to start changing her surroundings. While this doesn't seem like a weakness on its surface, it comes with unexpected changes to any living being that comes into contact with it. At Potenziata this is minimal - animals may mutate slightly, Blinds find their cell generation increased. It's at Apice level that it gets dangerous. Her Green Lux aura causes rapid, uncontrolled cell proliferation in any biological creature that gets near her. Animals rapidly mutate, becoming twisted far beyond their natural form. Blinds mutate too. How this happens varies - sometimes they change physically, developing deformities or even growing new limbs. The increased cell growth leads of tumor formation. Essentially, getting near Momo will cause the development of cancer for all Blinds. It can do this for those with Emotional fields too - they're more resistant, but at this power level weaker Paranormal can be effected at a slower rate. This means Momo can hurt the very people she's trying to protect.

Also with each tier, Momo feels more and more uncontrollable impulses to gather material - and an increased desire for what comes with that. This lingers even after she goes back to her resting state. While at the higher tiers, this can be very... painful.

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"My Angel fled to the Deer long ago... Funny I get left for another woman."

I missed a part about Momo's affair with a fellow Matriarch, and how she died in combat and Momo couldn't save her. And about how Fiora, her first "Unborn", was made with the stored genetics of Momo's dead lover. It drove her pretty crazy, but I doubt it'll come up ever.

Recollections: Primal Sinister

@Estylwen
You already know I'm down bad for Recollections content!

Recollections: Primal Sinister

@Estylwen
You are simply built different, my friend: How you manage to pump out these characters with such fervor and consistency is beyond me.
But it's impressive!