Avatar of Lugubrious

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8 days ago
Current Wash away the sorrow all the stains of time
3 mos ago
Fusing into the unknown
3 mos ago
Looks like from here it, it only gets better
2 likes
8 mos ago
Forgotten footfalls, engraved in ash
9 mos ago
Stalling falling blossoms in bloom

Bio

Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.

Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.

Most Recent Posts

@Lugubrious I'm going to play Papyrus as my 'second' character, I understand the character a bit...too much lol.


Sounds good to me. He has an excellent reason to be in Snowdin, as well.
I'm glad that some introspection has served you well. I'll look forward to your next concept.
@Lugubrious Yes actually, it would. What did you initially have in mind?


I didn't really, so that works out. Since we have someone on the lookout for rabbits at the moment, perhaps we could encounter Ravio among the rabbitfolk Frisk is on the hunt for.
@Lugubrious I'm operating under the assumption that when I play Ravio I'll start in Snowdin correct?


That's news to me. Would that be your preference?
@Lugubrious Was there anything that Tora didn't loot? Or spirits to take from the Draugr?


Yes, plenty.
Tora, Poppi, and Big Band

Location: Sandswept Sky - Inner-Mountain
Level 9 Tora (120/90) Level 9 Poppi (120/90) Level 5 Big Band (59/50)
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Fox’s @Dawnrider, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Yoshitsune and Sora’s @Rockin Strings, Laharl’s @Dark Cloud, Raz’s @TruthHurts22
Word Count: 2343


Tentative steps, and even more ginger breaths, were in order as the heroes set out to brave the jagged path of ice, beneath the sightless gaze of its imprisoned overseer. Walking on ice made for a difficult challenge even without the rather extreme hazard of a bottomless drop on either side, and with the all-too-present sharp turns, the bridge demanded not just bravery, but an exceptional amount of focus.

Yet try as he might to concentrate, with Poppi at his back ready to pull off a rescue at a moment’s notice, Tora found his mental state nibbled by his allies’ speech again and again. A discreet -and prudent- request for help at the start from Yoshitsune, before they grew close to the ice-bound giant, wasn’t so bad, but others spoke up even after the treacherous trek got underway. No doubt Raz felt that his thoughts on the giant were important enough to warrant attention, but his conjecture came as a bad time. Luckily his questions didn’t provoke the dormant Typhon, but that stroke of luck emboldened a few others into picking up the psychic’s baton. Provided he was even trying, Laharl failed to keep his voice to a whisper when posing a few less-than-relevant questions to Primrose, although Therion hearing them was the least of his concerns. While the dancer replied in a much more situationally-appropriate tone, Midna took it upon herself to answer Raz, albeit less definitively. Even Fox chimed in, and though he sought to shut down the conversation as fast as possible, his voice was a small addition to the overall level of disturbance nonetheless. It wasn’t long, in that wide-open cavern of savage cold and dead silence, where even whispers and the scrape of feet across ice rang off the frozen walls, that the pilot’s confidence in the situation’s immutability endured.

A muted symphony of faint crunches echoed through the cavern as Typhon moved ever-so-slightly, contorting and cracking the ice that frosted his sickly flesh. A rush of air coursed past ears as he inhaled, long and slow. Then, after a poignant moment’s delay, he exhaled out in a tremendous sigh, his breath a buffeting glacial wind. Those in the middle of the group began to slide, pushed toward the brink of their precarious bridge. Skull went down on his side, suppressing a pained cry into a strained grunt with a Herculean effort, and next to him Panther fell on her front hard enough to knock the wind out of her lungs. It was all she could do to bury her new claws in the ice for purchase, quell the bitterly cold tears that welled up in her eyes, and hold on for dear life. Necronomicon hovered over as fast as she could to buoy her back up. Big Band’s inertia allowed him to shuffle against the wind before he could be pushed far enough to fall off, but judging by the look on his face, he was by no means a happy camper. When he turned his eyes on Typhon in anticipation of an attack, however, the detective found no sign of hostility. The wind that threatened to send almost half the group to oblivion had been nothing more than a murmur in the giant’s sleep. Band clenched his jaw and, one careful step at a time, moved on.

A few minutes more and the Seekers reached the opposite side of the cave. Even if the perilous episode failed to make the fliers and a few of their more seasoned veterans anything other than nonplussed, it left the others at least a little shaken, especially those unused to such fantastical environments. Once out of the giant’s domain and in the shelter of deathly cold catacombs, the less dauntless Seekers could let out whatever breath they’d been holding.

“Damn, I think I busted a rib,” Skull moaned. As Mona rolled his big eyes and begrudgingly healed him with a Diarama from Zorro, he gave his most courageous smile. “Hey, coulda been a lot worse, though.”

Band took the chance to touch on the subject Raz threw out earlier. “Not sayin’ anythin’ one way or the other, but is there any way to be sure that big guy back there wasn’t the guy we’re after, after all? Nice as it’d be to take everythin’ at face value, I still don’t know how I feel ‘bout that black-coated bunch.”

His question prompted Poppi to adopt a thoughtful pose, tilting her head down as she raised a fist in front of her mouth. “Well, it just Poppi conjecture, but that seem too easy. Barring hidden magic or break out from ice, he not seem that capable. Friends could just sit safely outside range on one side or other and shoot to death. No protection, no build-up, nothing. Compared to others, fight with him seem like anticlimax; just not have that much going on.”

“Plus, if it actual biggy boss, we run into Master Hand first, meh!” Tora piped up.

“Oh, very good point.” Poppi looked mildly impressed. “Rare observant moment from Masterpon.”

“Meh!?”

The detective looked confused. “Hold on a moment, back up. What’s this Master Hand y’all mentionin’?”

“It say on tin, meh. Giant flying handypon that show up and ruin Tora day right before biggy boss fight. Friend Band know when he see it,” Tora assured him.

With that matter definitively settled, the team could move on. Without even the faint light filtering through ice that illuminated Typhon’s cavern, the catacombs wallowed in Stygian blackness, and was it ever cold. The heat of torches, similar devices, and even a Fire-attuned Poppi barely radiated at all. Even back on the ice bridge, Sectonia’s fire antlion didn’t cast enough heat to be in jeopardy of melting the ice, and it was even worse here. Shadows cast by fickle firelight took on startling and fleeting forms, which went a step beyond the product of jumpiness when Draugr rose from their resting places to shamble around, attacking anything with a pulse that dared traipse through their dominion. The first one fell on Tora before he even realized what was happening, but a panicked flailing knocked the undead warrior back before its blade could bite into his flesh. From there a sound pummeling from Tora’s Mech Arms took the thing apart, but even in broken pieces the Draugr’s attack continued unabated. Only a spray of fire from Poppi reduced it to ash for good, and after that, the heroes tread that much more lightly. Paranoia was one thing, but when enemies were actually lurking in every shadow one had a good reason to be cautious.

Dead Nords weren’t all that awaited the heroes on their trail through the catacomb caves, either. Here and there they found bone-white warriors of ice marching through the halls on silent patrol, icicle spears at the ready. Rather than blindly rush the intruders like the Draugr, the Chilfos struck from a distance with the advantage of range, throwing their javelins to reach targets that the thrust of their polearms could not. The cramped confines of stone passageways not only limited how many Seekers could act at once, but increased the chance of friendly fire. When the mazelike catacombs opened up in several directions, the party had to choose between splitting up in order to cover more ground and find the right way out, or stick together in one big, ponderous group. Alongside danger, however, the heroes found scattered troves of treasure, be they coins or gems stashed in funerary urns or precious keepsakes that must be pried from cold, dead hands.

Leaving the loot to his more nimble compatriots, Big Band prioritized defense. His armored Brass Knuckles proved to be an invaluable tool against the team’s lifeless enemies, allowing him to power through their attacks and strike back with hydraulic might. He still took the damage from their attacks, which had the potential to add up into a problem if he didn’t receive any medical attention, so if a cluster of enemies confronted him he opted for a different approach. A well-spaced Giant Step could knock them down so that he could swoop in without worry, or a thrown urn could break their formation from afar–and if one happened to explode in a shower of hidden treasure, so much the better. Those who didn’t crumble beneath his first strike fell victim to his combos, which he kept short but sweet with the added benefit of both walls and ceilings to slam his lightweight foes into. Some of the Draugr and Chilfos had the intelligence to block, but even if his overzealousness got him punished here and there, Band came out on top with his throws and Take the A Train.

On their own path, Tora and Poppi blazed a fine trail for anyone to follow. The Nopon’s short stature but excellent defense meant that he could hold off the opposition while others attacked over or around him. Once the artificial blade Poppiswapped to her Alpha form for both a stronger shield and a sturdy sword, their company swept through the forsaken halls, stymied only by Tora’s insatiable desire for treasure. Without a single thought for the significance of their presence here he helped himself to over two hundred gold pieces, seven rainbow gemstones, and a nice necklace he would have put on the moment he got it if not for his profound lack of human-sized neck. Even after totally filling his pockets he continued to loot, right up until he threw open a chest only for it to come to life and attack him. Tora’s bloodcurdling scream echoed through the catacombs until Poppi managed to kill the thing and free her Masterpon from its chompers. Though covered in bite-marks, Tora looked more horrified than seriously hurt. “That is EVIL!” he cried. “Tora never feel so betrayed in whole life! How could such terrible thing exist!?”

“Maybe it supposed to punish the greedy? Teach some sort of lesson?” Poppi ventured.

“That stupid, meh!” The Nopon crossed his wings in annoyance. “If Tora not supposed to have treasure, why it just sitting there, ripe for taking?”

Eventually, one of the teams found a way out of the labyrinthine catacombs, a broken wall that brought them back into undeveloped tunnels. They demanded calculated jumps, deft climbs, and careful descents, which were feats that numb extremities made all the more difficult. By the time that a light at the end of the tunnel appeared, Tora was tucked snugly into Poppi QT Pi’s arms, soaking up every ounce of heat that her ether furnace managed to generate. He ignored the indignity of it and fixed his gaze ahead, which allowed him to be the first to lay eyes on the new cavern. It wasn’t so big, and in a strange turn seemed to foster life in the form of strange fungi. “This not at all what Tora picture. Did friends take wrong turn…?”

A brief look around turned up little. These organic chemical processors emitted light, but only the faintest trace of warmth, so despite appearances this cave wasn’t all that hospitable. It did offer a straight path forward, and this time the tunnel opened up into an immense cavern, larger still than that which held Typhon in its icy grip. As best Tora could tell, it seemed like some sort of long-abandoned mining center. All the wooden scaffolding, carts, tracks, ladders, pulleys, and so forth suggested as much. In the center of the room, past the various unstable-looking bridges and such, dangled a gigantic set of pincers. Only when Tora followed its chain upward did he truly begin to grasp the place’s staggering proportions.


Click for music


What he assumed would be a tunnel upward through the cavern ceiling actually opened up in every direction, becoming an incredible hollow extending untold distances both vertically and horizontally. The sight of entire ships lodged in the ice hundreds of meters above blew the Nopon’s mind. “...Meeeeh,” he murmured in awe, his breath misty and warm. Even as the spectacle dazzled him, however, his mind raced to come up with a path forward.

“That must be lift oldypon mentioned!” he observed after a moment. “If friends use that, we get to top in no time! Except, it not have actual floor. It just giant crane game right now.” Tora took a few steps forward to get a better look around. “Tora not want climb giant chain. Or make Poppi climb it, for that matter. Maybe some way to make go up?”
With his hand resting in his chin, Joker had been pondering the issue. “Perhaps we could position a platform for the ‘crane’ to grab. As long as it’s secure, we could ride it like a real elevator.”

“Failin’ that, we can always hold on for dear life an’ ride it up, long as there’s a way to control it,” Band remarked.

“There one other problem.” Poppi’s optics zoomed in on a point of contact between the giant chain and one of the ice-covered ships. “It look like chain frozen to ship masts. Someone need fly up and break free. Maybe look inside ship in process?”

Necronomicon whirred, agitated. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re not alone in here. I’m picking up cave monsters skulking around the place. Maybe some of us should clear them out so we don’t get any nasty surprises when it’s time to use the lift.”

“Sounds like everyone has somethin’ to do.” Band gave a stiff nod of approval. “Let’s get to it before we all freeze to death.”
Ms Fortune

Location: Carcass Isle
Level 7 Nadia (22/70)
Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Blazermate’s [@ArchmageMC], Hat Kid’s @Dawnrider, Geralt’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN, Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Link’s @Gentlemanvaultboy, Mirage’s @Potemking, Delsin’s @Rockin Strings
Word Count: 2031


As Nadia checked up on her allies, both who fought alongside her and who waged their wars elsewhere, she couldn’t help but acknowledge how great a toll the mysterious Master Hand’s trial had taken. The three-way miniboss extravaganza, as well as the sheer dramatic tension of the heroes’ much too close for comfort photo finish, left them all wounded, tired, cold, stressed, and more than a little miserable. They’d lost an invaluable ally, albeit not forever–that caveat being of rather critical importance to the mental wellbeing of certain individuals among their number. This harrowing episode wasn’t one that Nadia’s cohort could collectively shrug off and then just keep on trucking. Foreknowledge that only one ultimate trial awaited them in this place came as a rare comfort, even if it also assured them that it would be their most difficult challenge to date. A situation like that made it hard for even someone like Nadia, a jokester so desensitized by pain and bloodshed that she could pun and quip her way through even the most stomach-churning injuries, to put on a brave face. Yet she and the others managed, from the oldest and most grizzled among them to the youngest and most vulnerable. Before they could tackle the Deep Blue Seaside’s final boss, the bedraggled Seekers needed a break.

Unfortunately, this grotto could provide only so much respite to them. They could lay down on the stone, the kelp, or sponges, but they could not get comfortable. They could try to slacken their tensed muscles, but they could not relax. They could close their eyes, but stubborn aches and chills meant that they could not rest. They could steady their breathing, but the briny putrescence of the Parasite Farm wouldn’t let them breathe easy. And they could conjure up imagined comforts, be they the welcome faces of friends and family or more worldly delights like food, beauty, and sleep, but it proved nigh-impossible to blot out the unwholesome visages of marine aberrations, stamped as they were into the heroes’ minds.

A few separate conversions drifted about the grotto, each of which Nadia tried to pay some heed. When Bowser opted to shed some light on the giant evil glove’s whole deal, she made sure to swivel her ears his way. Evidently he and a few other apparent acquaintances whose names the feral didn’t recognize ran into this Master Hand before, and in what sounded like quite a sensational series of events, too. She couldn’t ignore the part where Bowser let slip his previous plan to take over various worlds, but she chalked that up to his exaggerated harmless villain shtick. More relevant to her was the fact that Master Hand showed up to beleaguer the heroes with enemies twice before, which included Link of all people. By her count, that made three times that its machinations came to naught. “I guess we’ll keep seein’ him, then,” she remarked, using the pronoun that the others did despite the entity’s total lack of identifiable characteristics. Kamek’s comment about the trial being a boon got her thinking. “Well, if he really is an enemy, I gotta ‘hand’ it to him. He shows up, fails to actually kill anyone, then leaves us with a whole buncha strong new allies and spirits. If you ask me, I’d say he’s alright..” She let slip a mischievous grin. “Get it? ‘All right’? Because he’s a right…ah, nevermind.”

Blazermate spoke briefly of more recent developments, namely the trial she’d faced alongside Peach, Bowser, his son, and Link. As hard as her own fight had been, Nadia did not relish her tale of an enemy who could brainwash the opposition to fight for the other team. The Medabot treated the situation pretty off-handedly, but Nadia came away from the story more uneasy rather than less. Nothing, it seemed, was off the table.

When Ace mentioned Mirage for the other’s sake, Nadia put her hand to her head and breathed a heavy sigh. She hadn’t forgotten about him or anything, but after seeing his rescue by Ace’s mysterious felynes she’d written the Legend off as ‘okay’ and moved right along, wanting to get the image of him being crushed under a watery leviathan out of her head. The heroes were lucky to escape the consequences of their actions this time, but would those kitties keep bailing them out forever? That sounded too good to be true to Nadia. It was just bad luck that her team ended up without a healer; that was a mistake that wouldn’t happen again.

Denied anything beyond a superficial and short-term wellness, the group needed a distraction in order to keep their heads in the game, and nothing served the purpose better than their looted spirits. It struck Nadia as a little funny how quickly they accepted and incorporated the little motes of prismatic essence into their daily activities, despite how incredible the things were. The power to essentially rewrite reality in the palm of one’s hand, to change appearance and personality and bestow new abilities, all made possible through death. Honestly, it sort of freaked her out a little, making her wonder if she and the others shouldn’t be a little more worried about the phenomenon. Just what kinds of dark secrets might it hold? But Nadia wasn’t even really the type to ask the right questions, let alone find the answers. If she didn’t get stronger, she could very well get the others killed, or find her undying body subjected to a fate worse than death. Spirits would make her stronger. That was that.

So it was that when nobody objected to her claim on the Oceanid spirit, she took a deep breath, and placed its essence into her chest. Then, like the others around her who accepted the exchange of one’s very self for power, she dissolved into a flare of radiant light, and transformed.








The Siren is a dualistic spirit whose cooldown depends on how she’s used. Devour and Pressure Crash are abilities that affect a wide area, dealing low damage (but with high crit) and Stress, respectively. Crits caused by Devour also cause Stress. Against enemies, Stress increases susceptibility to status ailments and increases their duration. Either of these abilities incur a short cooldown. Song of Desire incurs a long cooldown, and charms an enemy on the battlefield for a while. The charm automatically affects the enemy with the lowest debuff resist who hasn’t already been charmed and ignores debuff resist. It will fail if there is only one enemy


When the light died down, Nadia blinked a few times to clear the stars out of her eyes, then got straight down to business looking herself over to see the extent of her changes. It took all of one second to realize that her crop top had gained silky extensions in both front and the back, something like a sarong or other cover-up one might wear to the beach. It struck her as just a little too elegant for her tastes, but as far as appearances went she could hardly complain, and if push came to shove she could just cut it back down to size. Other than that, however, she couldn’t detect any changes. Not until a discoloration of her scar tissue prompted her to pull off her forearm, at least. “Whoa, look at that! I’m all blue inside!” When she shook her stump a splash of bright blue blood splashed onto the ground, which she promptly absorbed back into her body. Mind racing, she reattached her arm and ran a hand through her hair without realizing its new length or flow.

After noticing something her friend did not, Peach elected to inform her cat-eared comrade. “Your left eye,” she supplied. “It’s the same color as your blood, with a white dot in the middle.”

“Oh, really?” If anything, Nadia looked disappointed. “Well, I know heterochromia’s all the rage, but maybe I could work it into a cool eyepatch or something.” She absent-mindedly scratched at her collar, which was tickling her neck just a little with its new fluff. “Although, I’m pretty sure my vision’s fine…”

Pleased by the extent of her fusion overall, Nadia put her perfect vision to use on the others. Blazermate’s new kimono looked nice, although all her different parts were starting to make her look like she’d hit a real-life randomize button. Her gaze lingered a moment longer on Kamek, whose change had been more drastic. In fact, while she held her tongue, she couldn’t help but think the Magikoopa looked pretty weird. A bizarre blend of animal and human. It took her a moment to realize, not that she herself was an animal-human hybrid and a hypocritical one at that, but that a more significant change had taken place for Kamek. “Wait, what...!?” she murmured in awe, her eyes wide as saucers. “That’s how that works!?”

That left the spirits of the little Black Mage and the Ucas, but since Nadia wanted nothing to do with any of them, she left the others to deal with them. Now more than ever, she felt the need to be careful about what she fused with, and being either shorter or uglier was not on her radar. Instead she obliged Blazermate with a summary of her own encounter. “Well, the fish-thing I stuck in me didn’t actually fight us. She just summoned these animals made of water to fight for her. At first it was just pigs and birds and stuff, nothin’ serious, but then she whipped out tigers and giant turtles for round two. Then for round three she just plops down giant fish monsters and sea dragons! That last one even had shield and ice powers! They were so. Damn Tanky. It took fur-ever for us to whittle them down!”

Remembering another element from the fight, she glanced at Delsin and Hatty. “Man, you two really saved us. If ya didn’t take down that giant eel by yourselves, we woulda been dead for sure.” She shook her head with a groan and laid herself back down on her bed of kelp. “When we’re done with this rotten island, I’m gonna take a vacation. There were beaches around Limsa, right? Oh man, I can’t wait. Just me, the sun, and the surf, nice and warm, coconuts and barbeque, ahh…and lots and lots of alcohol.” She stared at the grotto ceiling wistfully, only to turn up her nose at the weird masses growing there, so her gaze lingered on Ace instead. “...Can’t get meowtta here fast enough.”

Her brows suddenly furrowed. “Wait, we’re bein’ paid for this, right!?”

At the very least, Spinal was. Link offered him one of the treasures he’d collected during the group’s stint in the Luma Pools, a gorgeous crystal sulfide. Its luster certainly caught the greedy skeleton’s eye. “Oh, hohohoho!” he cackled as he snatched the gemstone to affix to his shield. He crammed it right in the eye socket of the wooden octopus, where its viridian gleam could shine with the ghostly power at the pirate’s command. Link then left, retracing his steps up from the grotto in a hurry to find the unknown Abyssal freed by Sakura in the course of her trial.

He found her in the Parasite Farm, momentarily flummoxed as she sought to find a way out of the cave and up toward the less detestably malodorous surface of Carcass Isle. At his call she turned, first her head and then her crustacean mount. The haughtily beautiful New Southern bore a faint resemblance to Bella, her sister the Seaplane Tender, but she bore a snooty, lazy air all her own. She looked like she had a lot on her plate, and not very happy about it either, but the last thing she wanted right now was more enemies. “What is it?”

Link’s questions prompted her to raise her knuckles to her cheek as she searched for answers. “Yes, I remember…my sisters and I. The interminable campaign. Our only purpose in life, to oppose. To slaughter them, our hated enemies. I remained beneath, ever by the side of Her Excellency. I lacked the speed to go forth, but I could defend. In doing so, I could see my sisters, my people. Reduced to ash, resurrected time and time again. A grim parade of death, infinite, meaningless, and so very, very bothersome. Then suddenly, I’m here. With Her Excellency herself, and that oh-so-perfect toady, Pacific. The taste of death, my own death, for the first time…” The Abyssal sighed, allowing her eyes to slip closed. “If that’s all life is, I am done. Checking out. I wish only to be comfortable as I sink into a sweet, soft end, for good…” Her eyes flashed, and her brows knotted un annoyance. “Once I free myself of this wretched, stinking pit!”
Well, we could run into problems that would require such mercantile solutions. If people have non-combat specialties I'll definitely be more likely to include situations that need them. They could also just provide party utility, such as better item discovery or use of one's surroundings, or allowing them to carry and use greater and more varied quantities of items.

If you aren't sure about a direction to take your character though, and feel like you'd be depending on me in order to get it over, you could go a different way. Ideally we should play characters whose intricacies come to us naturally.
@Lugubrious So are the two weaknesses I came up with good enough?


Yeah, I think so
@Lugubrious Any suggestions for strengths & weaknesses? I already came up with two weaknesses. Check my CS post in the CHAR section, I'm working on it there. No worries I have it pending too.


Maybe Money Minded which gives him a keen sense for both business opportunities and how valuable various things he encounters in the world might be. He could also get along with animals due to his connection with Sheerow, have a talent for item maintenance, and (as a small business owner) have skill in management and resourcefulness and stuff.
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