Massasauga

Umbra Rose Condos

@Dragonydas I'm still waiting for you to review my character sheet

Umbra Rose Condos

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... Until something happens and that's no longer the case...

@Xaltwind

I wouldn't worry about it.

Umbra Rose Condos

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They're just lil blobby guys building cities under the oceans.
No souls required to have a good time.

@LupusIntus

That "Good time" being killing and destruction if left unattended. Thankfully, the shoggoths in the building will be under strict control of the Elder Sign.

Umbra Rose Condos

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Depends on your philosphy, I guess. They were manufactured by the Old Ones as mindless slaves and servants but somehow developed enough sentience to rebel over millenia. Nothing to indicate they have a soul more than a complex AI shuffing off its shackles?

But hey, this is fiction bay-bee! Follow your heart, lol

@LupusIntus

Do cosmic entities created as workers have souls? It's truly one of the philosophical questions of all time. I would say no, purely because the Things From Beyond aren't exactly...well, let's just leave it as "they don't seem to meet all the criteria". That being said, they were intelligent and that was the Elder Things downfall because they became so intelligent that they revolted and said "nah fuck you". Outside of that, they tend to just do whatever they want.

Umbra Rose Condos

Shoggoths specifically are a genetically engineered servitor species made by and for the Elder Things, which were actually enemies of Cthulhu, so there's nothing specifically 'outer god' or 'great old one' about them. So it's not that they're too powerful to dispel, but there's nothing about them to dispel. We definitely wouldn't want anyone dispelling the Elder Sign enchantments keeping the Shoggoths in check, though!

Now, if we were talking Dark Young, then yeah, they're essentially unholy emissaries of the Black Goat, which is described as a eldritch goddess. I actually have characters drawn for a number of lovecraftian beings, including Dark Young and Black Goat, but I don't know if I'd share them lol. I'm not much of an artist, so even showing off my scribblings for Khalid and Trip is a little intimidating.

@Lugubrious

It's okay because Rebecca has a knack for combating Eldritch horrors. Fight fire with fire y'know.

Umbra Rose Condos

Oh god
Can't wait to see the reaction of our resident shoggoth scholar to her existence.

@Lemons

I’m sure it’ll be totally fine

another vietnam vet

when are we getting the monster vietnam flashbacks

@Kuro

Everyday because she can’t sleep at night much anymore. Too many RoN missions.

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It sounds like this shoggoth is more like an internal parasite in Rebecca's body, so given her reserved nature I don't think it would be obvious to Khalid. Though maybe a shell-shocked veteran would be more inclined to try out Shoggoth Therapy. If he did find out, though, it would definitely be a surprise that the human hasn't been completely assimilated.

@Lugubrious

The Binding Sigil. The Elder Sign. It holds great power and she has it tattooed on her back so that it is always present.

Umbra Rose Condos

Here we go

Shoggoth #2

Name: Rebecca "Rose" Holloway

Image/Appearance:


Race: Eldritch Abomination

Racial Traits:

Endurance: A shoggoth can survive comfortably in vacuum, in any depth of water, in freezing temperatures, and in catastrophic heat. Radiation which would cause cell-death in mammals is quite harmless to a shoggoth. A shoggoth suffers no ill effects from aging. Presumably a shoggoth must feed, but they have been known to sit in torpor for years—or centuries, or millennia, or eons; who can say?—with no apparent harm. The limits of a shoggoth’s endurance are unknown. With this in mind, the human body it is attached to requires a transfer of shoggoth matter to it in order to stay alive in such conditions with can rapidly drain energy from both.

All-Seeing: Shoggoths are encased in a thousand shifting eyes that can see in every portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. While the shoggoth is present in its Eldritch form, it is impossible to sneak up on its host.

Tekeli-Li: Shoggoths were bred to communicate, and to imitate the sounds of their former masters. They are incredible mimics. Few know how long it would take a shoggoth to use this facility for actual communication, but they certainly can imitate any sound they hear.

Intellect: A shoggoth has intelligence on the same scale as a human, but its modes of thought are utterly, incomprehensibly alien. In most encounters, a shoggoth acts with seemingly mindless, destructive wrath. But it may have inscrutable goals, newly conceived or developed over billions of years, which are served by the destruction it causes. In this case, the shoggoth is bound to the host with the "binding sigil" that is the Elder Sign. Through the years, the host and the entity have developed a crude method of communication while the shoggoth continues to be bound by the Elder Sign.

Reshape: Shoggoths can ooze, grow, shift or change their plastic form to fit through almost any gap. If air can pass through an opening, a shoggoth can as well.

Regeneration: A shoggoth can rebuild itself from a minuscule amount with only the most basic elements. If left in this state in an environment with access to oxygen and water, even trace water in the air, it reconstitutes to half strength in a matter of days. The shoggoth also regenerates tissue that belongs to its host.

Requirements: No outstanding requirements

Personality: Stoic, guarded, troubled. Rebecca has been through quite a lot and knows that sharing her past wouldn't earn her any sympathy about her situation because not all of it stems from her current relationship with her body's tenant. She hides a lot of her true self behind a wall of reservation, but she is far from inconsiderate.

Background: Little is known about Rebecca in the public light, and for good reason. Utilized as a new venture against combating Eldritch horrors during the Cold War, Rebecca was subjecting ti government trials involving induced shoggoth symbiosis. There was no thought given to the her expense. Part of the trail included combat testing for long-term exposure as well as performance. From 1967 to 1972, Rebecca was deployed with the 5th Special Forces Group as a part of MACV-SOG. Her top secret nature made her perfect for the top secret missions into Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War.

After the conflict wound down and Nixon enacted Vietnamization, the powers that be grew restless in dealing with Rebecca. Though they had reservations of placing her in other units on other missions, she was eventually allowed to participate in the newly minted 1st SFOD-D. But Rebecca’s past followed her, and she was swiftly becoming unpopular with Big Army as they found it harder to keep her identity a secret. Name changes, moves, redeployments, all were just stopgap measures. Eventually, Rebecca saw the writing on the wall. Even with pushback from her units she served with, Big Army was looking to quietly get rid of her.

With help from people she had met along the way, Rebecca was able to live a life AWOL from her unit and kept herself mobile to avoid prying eyes and suspicions. Her goal was to make it appear as if she had fallen off the face of the Earth. Her old life was gone and her new life had only just begun when she was met in a bar and handed an envelope from someone who had “done a lot of work to find her”.

Building, Floor, and room: Building 1 - Floor 3, Room #1-303
Room description: Sparse and spartan decoration. Full of old military lockers with a few pieces of furniture, several bookcases, a large walk-in closet for storage, a kitchen and dining room, and a small bedroom.

Umbra Rose Condos

I’m still working on the sheet but I hope no one minds if I use Delta Green stats for the shoggoth racial traits. Shoggoths are notoriously hardy and difficult to destroy.

Umbra Rose Condos

Wow, that's quite the coincidence. If this is a concept you've had for quite a while, I hope my own version doesn't end up falling flat in comparison. My concept of the Shoggoth is one that's very close to (and in fact, a piece of) the Shoggoth in At the Mountains of Madness. If Khalid finds out he's not the only one utilizing Shoggoths around, it would be interesting. Maybe your character is what Khalid claims to be, and is highly averse to actually becoming.

@Lugubrious

My character was born of my interest in Delta Green. I've run some games and got really into the lore and so there's where my character idea came from as you'll see.

If I had to say, I've had this character idea that I've worked through for about a little over a year and a half.

Umbra Rose Condos

I'll work on the character sheet then