"History is written by the victors..."
Name: Perniciosa
Alias: Perni, Penny Feryerth Oughts
Age: About 14 billion 16
Gender: Female
Canon: Pantheon OC
Main Thread or Sandbox: Main Thread
Personality:
War is one of the most hated and dreaded of all the concepts, as was its deity, long ago. For as long as the life has existed, so have the flames of conflict, and so has Perniciosa, its goddess. Since time immemorial, the goddess’ power has been a core part of existence, mortals whispering in fear at her very presence, using her name in their tongue to represent the words “bane” and “dangerous”. Millenia ago, such a reputation was earned, as the goddess’ name carried with it the promise of bloodshed, and the very sight of her bronze armour and looming wings was enough to send a mortal army turning tail, fleeing rather than staying to face her. Her red hair, the mortals whispered, was coloured with the same shade of red as the blood she so often spilled.
That… is no longer who she is. It has been millenia since ancient times, and in the intervening eons, she’s mellowed out quite a bit from the edgelord demonic beast that she used to be. Now, after centuries of anger management classes, she’s a calm, pacifistic, albeit rather sarcastic person who attends a high school rather than a battlefield. Make no mistake, however, for though she no longer ravages any who dare oppose her, mortal or divine, vestiges of her former infernosque flame still flicker within, ready to scorch any who incur her wrath. She hasn’t spoken with her fellow deities in millenia, having distanced herself from divinity, but the proud and deadly war goddess who, to the other gods, vanished one day without a trace, widely presumed to be dead, still lies dormant within the tired high school student that she acts as today.
Equipment:
Valor
Perniciosa's divine weapon, birthed alongside her. It has not seen the flames of battle very often, as she rarely used it after crafting Bane and needed it even less once she left Bane behind. Despite that, it is a deadly weapon, both due to its divine nature, as well as its connection to the goddess of war. Unlike Bane, which she went out of her way to craft, this weapon is connected to her soul in a way that her stronger spear never was. While Bane represented the negative aspects of war and conflict - anger, vengeance, death, and hate, among other things - Valor represents the fewer positive aspects of war. Bravery, determination, loyalty, and justice are a few that come to mind. The weapon is said to be able to pierce through most shields and barriers, even enchanted ones, and, like most divine weapons, can only be held by a god, or by one given explicit permission to wield it by its owner. Should someone not fitting these criteria take hold of the spear with intent of using it, they will be incinerated by it.
Belligerence
The second half of Perniciosa's divine weapon, a shield to match Valor's spear. Unlike Valor, she never created a replacement for it, for her old self was too arrogant to believe that she would never need it. Now, in more peaceful times, she has no need for a shield. Even still, it stands alongside Valor as a representation of the better side of war and conflict. It holds the same power as Valor, though it is notable that unlike her spear, mortals are able to hold and even use Belligerence without Perni's permission. To answer the age old question of the all piercing spear against the unyielding shield, Belligerence is one of the few things that Valor cannot pierce through. In a contest between this shield and that spear, this shield would triumph.
The Point of Wrath
As is the case with all other gods on the Pantheon, Perniciosa has a divine artifact, a manifestation of her divine power. As love and war are innately connected, it mirrors the artifact of Love. The Point of Wrath is a more violent parallel to the Point of Desire, a beautiful compass with ornate designs, which points towards whatever the holder despises most, or the thing that they wish was destroyed the most, the latter taking priority in the order of importance to the Artifact. If the holder hates no one, it points towards Perni. As the Artifact’s true owner, Perniciosa can control the compass, able to manipulate it to hide a mortal from the enemies using it to hunt them. She can control the way it points, and is even able to force it to point in the opposite direction of the holder if she so pleases. This represents one of her domains that her greater domain of War encompasses, her power over hatred and grudges, as well as a bit of wrath and vengeance, all very common elements of a war. This is one of the objects that she hid away after pretending to die, thinking it might be believable that her Artifact was destroyed with her in the story that she crafted to fool the other Gods into believing her dead.
Attributes:
Godhood
As a primordial god, she is incredibly powerful even without getting into her divine domain. She has true immortality, unable to die even in the face of reality warping, though she has faked her own death before, making up a so called one use god slaying sword that was, in reality, enchanted with a single magical ability - the ability to glow red. That’s it. It made for the perfect prop for a hero to use to stab her, however, allowing her to pretend to die. Of course, being a god, she has all the powers of one, with physical traits, such as strength, speed, and stamina rocketing past anything mortals are capable of even at their peaks. Her power is directly proportional to the amount of conflict going on in her home universe. Even here, she draws power from the strife in her own world, making her an immensely old and powerful deity, as conflict and war have existed as long as existence have, and will never truly die. She does not merely hold dominion over war and conflict - she is war and conflict.
Warmonger
Perniciosa is the goddess of war, and has all the powers that one would come to expect from one. Some examples of this are telumkinesis, odikinesis, and more. Telumkinesis makes her a master of any weapon, modern or ancient, that she lays hands on, though her prowess will always be with the spear above all else, due to the influence of Bane. Guns, axes, swords, you name it, she’s got it mastered. She can conjure any weapon as long as it’s not a unique weapon or set of weapons. When she sees a weapon, she knows everything about it, and she is able to turn weapons into something far less threatening, such as turning arrows into rubber. If she must, she is able to disarm all opponents in a small range, of about 10 metres in radius. Her odikinesis, which is the power to manipulate negative emotions typically associated with war, such as anger, hatred, and fear, is her main power in the modern day, as she can use it to get out of situations without actually harming anyone, using it to lessen such emotions and calm people down, rather than intensifying them like she used to do to make soldiers fight harder back in the day. Other such emotions that she can manipulate with this power are nervousness, loyalty, and, of course, bloodthirst. Odikinesis is a power that her demigod descendants still receive to this day, but is considered a curse more than anything, as it was prominently used for inciting violence, and any who used it for good were usually hiding their power to use it, using it subtly for fear that they would be lynched for their ability. She has more abilities, of course, such as the power to see any grudges that a person might have for someone in the near vicinity, or the power to sense hostile intent in a range around her. She has rather powerful pyrokinesis, due to the association of fire with war, though it’s not nearly as powerful as that used by gods of fire or the sun or other domains of that kind.
Biography:
Perniciosa is one of the eldest gods, a primordial deity born at the dawn of creation. The goddess of war was said to have been born at the same moment as her sister, Dilectia, goddess of love. As ancient gods, they had no parents, rather manifesting from the very concept that they represented. The two manifested when the eldest gods first met each other, giving rise to the concept of relationships, and with it two gods to embody its halves. The newly created Perniciosa was the negative half of relationships, representing the ideas of war, conflict, resentment, and the like. Dilectia, on the other hand, embodied the positive half of this new concept, namely love, friendship, and other such things. Perhaps it is this connection that led the two deities to view each other as sisters, or perhaps it is the similar time of their birth.
Either way, when the gods first assembled, a twin bursts of light interrupted their meeting. One was a faint, soft pink that glowed warmly, creating comfort to those near her. The other was a roaring ball of pure flame, its burning inferno threatening to scorch the gods that would draw close, and yet also instilling fury and anger within them. Before the gods could act on this new development, the lights seemed to explode into a supernova, and when the divine flashbang faded at last, two new gods stood in their place. The first was an indescribably beautiful woman, with flowing pink locks that complimented her perfect skin, so alluring that it led to the first instance of desire in creation. The other seemed to take on a younger form, radiating power in oppressive waves, birthing wrath that threatened to drown the gods in vengeful hatred, though no sins had yet been committed to warrant it. The emotional radiation of the divine twins seemed to work in opposite directions to cancel each other out, allowing love and war time to get a better grip on their auras.
Though they had been born only seconds prior, the twin divinities instinctively moved together, the Lady of Conflict taking a protective stance over her sister. Being little more than a child at the time, the Lady of Desire, took offense, outraged by the insinuation that she needed protection. She squirmed past her sister’s stalwart form, taking her place next to War. The sisters regarded the gods, who examined them in kind. Love and war, as new concepts, were unfamiliar to the gods, but they recognised the young ones as fellow deities. As such, the gods welcomed Perniciosa and Dilectia into their ranks, the twin gods moving forward to claim their divine domains, and so the two approached the three goddesses of Fate. Perniciosa stepped forward, and spoke in the language of the ancients. “Who are we?” She asked the past, present, and future.
“Perniciosa,” They began, weaving their web of fate as she spoke in that same celestial tongue, “Goddess of War and Conflict. She who strikes down those who oppose her whilst never touching them. Thou shalt slay with sword and word alike, for war claims lives through convincing mortals to slay each other.” The Fated ones turned their gaze to the second twin, speaking once more. “Dilectia, Goddess of Love.” They proclaimed, their hallowed whispers echoing throughout the starless void, the sound moving even with no medium to carry them. “She who claims the lives of mortals before their time comes to an end. Thou shalt bring even gods under your servitude with the snare of love, for love is a powerful force indeed.” The Spinstresses of Fate regarded the young goddesses for a moment more, before turning away to return to their weaving of fate. Given purpose by the Fated ones, the young twins turned away, only to be greeted by the swirling galaxies and glimmering twinkle of stars, for the other gods had begun the Creation whilst they had spoken to the Spinstresses. With their destinies in mind, love and war moved to assist in the crafting of the world.
Perniciosa would grow into a particularly violent goddess of war. Much of her past has been lost to ancient times, though it is noted that she fell in love with her opposite, Benedictia, the goddess of peace. When her lover disappeared from the world, she went on a rampage of untold wrath, bringing forth countless wars and conflicts across the world. This would be her last rampage, however, as after a few decades of nonstop death and destruction, she found she felt none of the usual joy that she experienced from slaughter. The euphoria that she so craved to drown out her sorrow was gone. She had literally burnt herself out on war, and from there, she found no other way to vent her frustrations. The nagging of the other gods, the cries of the dying mortals, and all of the other pointless annoyances made her at last realise what she needed, to get away from all of this. As such, she crafted a plan that would finally put an end to her tantrum, and roped a mortal friend into pretending to slay her.
Now, gods can never truly die. When the ever boastful war goddess never showed her face, however, the other gods grew to believe that she was gone. Perniciosa spent the next few thousand years adjusting to mortal society, leading us to the modern day of 2021, where she is a mild mannered teen attending high school and working minimum wage. What awaits the mellowed out war goddess now that she has been pulled from the middle of a regular school day is unknown, but she is apprehensive and excited to find out.
"...And the literate losers."
