Oraculum

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

Ilshar Ard’sabekh

In the chaos of smoke and erupting bullets, Ilshar could not say if his bullets had struck anything alive. There were screams, but one who had been in battle more than once knew to disregard them. He had even read it in some manual that had been passed around during the war. An involuntary scream could mislead as much as a deliberate lie, or something like that. Overconfidence at what sounded like the enemy's fear or pain could kill. So, he focused on the rhythm of his own gunfire. A burst, a pause, another burst.

Dust and splinters exploded and rained down around him as the CivSec forces at last turned their fire against the squad, forcing him to take longer pauses before ducking out from behind the shattered wall to shoot. To his dismay, the building he was behind was steadily being reduced to as bad a shape as the one whose failing cover he had left. If this kept up much longer, he could very well be finding himself exposed, and the fog of smoke could only do so much to conceal him from sight.

Unnaturally coloured lights flashed overhead, then the sound of a thunderous impact rolled down from the distant treeline, and Ilshar staggered as a wave of psychic feedback struck him. It was not as bad as it could have been had he still maintained direct contact with the ether-worm to that moment, but the strain from the collapsing connection was enough to cause a moment's disorientation. Let them not find me now...

Fortunately, as his senses realigned, the battle was already winding down. The gunfire died out, and a voice that for once was not screaming or cursing called out to them, corroborated by the suitable comm code. With a grunt, Ilshar hauled himself up from behind the battered wall and trudged towards the newcomer - their presumptive ally. On the way towards the house the (ostensible) human had emerged from, he saw the ZRF rounding up some of the enemies who were still mostly intact. He shrugged. Their planet, their war, it was up to them. They knew the situation best. As far as he was concerned, the contact was the main priority now; with the starting briefing alone, he had no idea where to go from there, and he doubted the rest of the squad had either.

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

Ilshar Ard’sabekh

For a moment, Ilshar felt as if he had fallen bodily into the Chasm. Part of his mind had followed the ether-worm as it slithered towards the treeline, an odd sensation as if some of his sensory organs had been surgically detached, altered and carried around while still somehow connected to his mind. It was disorienting, the sort of thing that could send a novice etherealist stumbling dazedly into the line of fire, confusing the oneiric creature's odd perspective and fluid airborne movement for their own. But Ilshar was no novice, and he remained firm on his feet even as those sensory angles that had stayed with him registered the approaching etheric blast. He drew his focus away from the worm long enough to right himself from his leaning position and crouch before the world around him erupted into a flash of unnatural colours and distorted perspectives.

His connection with the ether-worm had lessened the sensory shock, momentarily inuring him to this sort of abrupt shift, and his attention flowed back to the Chasmic entity as soon as he was positive that he still had at least some moments of safety. He saw, or perhaps rather felt, the potent signature among the trees, let senses that were only partly his slide over the barrier's surface. Ilshar did not see the being within as clearly as the worm would have - tall, spindly, a scielto perhaps? It was hard to say - but he could tell that it had not noticed the translucent void-predator, or at least gave no sign of it. This was just as well. As long as the barrier stayed up, there was nothing he could do to strike at the enemy etherealist, but as it was he could prepare something for when they would inevitably attack again. Wait. Stalk. Ambush. He impressed these simple thoughts onto the ether-worm's consciousness as he withdrew from it, leaving it to hover among the tree branches; if the Nexus favoured him, it would be ready to strike as soon as the prey was exposed.

Ilshar awoke to his body in time to see figures moving in through the now battered settlement. Their focus on Echo's towering bulk, evidently as unsettling for them as it had been for him, bought him precious seconds to lunge away from the now ruined building and behind a still mostly intact one across the street, praying the smoke would cover him enough. The human that had been with him seemed lost in the haze, but he had more urgent things to think of as Rasch's voice crackled within his helmet. It made sense that, as the most mobile of their team, he would flank, while the giant unzatlidge drew fire. This left it up to Ilshar to do what he did best in these situations.

"Received," he growled back into the comms, "Giving cover fire."

He leaned part of his torso out from behind the corner and raised the Ulvath's barrel. It was not a weapon built for precision, but that was not what he needed. Pressing the trigger, he sent a sweep of explosive bullets towards where the CivSec squad's fire gave away their position. A brief pause, then another burst. A pause, and another. There were not enough of them to call for a continuous automatic barrage, but these sporadic volleys should have been enough to pin them in place while the rest of the Envenomed struck home.

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

Ilshar Ard’sabekh

With a storm of gunfire and comms interference, it began. It had been a trap after all by the looks of it, but Ilshar was past the point of congratulating himself for seeing it coming. It was less of an achievement than a bare minimum for survival in situations like these. And if he wanted to cling to that life-giving threshold of performance, now was not the time for gratification, but action. Sensory organs blossomed over his exposed membranous hide, globular protrusions and spiral-sunken circles that glowed with putrid grey-green luminescence. Enhanced senses swept the tangle of houses, overlaying sight, smell and more esoteric modes of perception still. The tang of smoke and metal from projectile trails. The ill-describable, but unpleasant taste of qillatu discharge- no. The etheric blast that arched towards the gigantic Echo had come from too far away for his perception of the source to be useful to him even if he could pinpoint it.

But perhaps it could be to something else.

The human close to Ilshar called for a grenade. Not a bad idea, that, perhaps he should have prepared some. Too late for that now.

"No grenades," he growled in reply, "Keep shooting. Give cover. I'll take the ether-blaster."

Finding heavier cover, as their pointman had called out, was easier said than done when every passage between the buildings could have been a killing corridor. The best he could do was move away from the corner and towards the central point of the house he was hunkered behind. It would put him closer to the still suspiciously open door, but it seemed a more acceptable risk than sprinting across the ambushers' line of fire.

Weapon slung across his chest, Ilshar raised his arms and retracted most of his sight organs, turning his focus inward. Semi-material senses reached inward, through and beyond semi-ethereal entrails. He had sometimes heard that, according to physicists, the act of observing something could provoke a change. While he had never been one to study anything quantum, the principle rang true to him. Not because of any persuasive argument, but from simple, tangible experience. Looking into the Chasm is more than perception - it's bait.

The space between his upheld hands darkened, as if some invisible shape were filtering the daylight directly above it. Startlingly, the ground below remained clearly lit. In a moment, there was a blurring, a folding of perspective, as if the tarrhaidim and the house behind him had been a drawing on a piece of translucent paper that was being folded around that one point in midair. The suspended shadow grew deeper, expanded - and then it was gone, and something writhed in its place. A sinuous form twice as long as Ilshar's arm twisted through the air, as if swimming through water, crystalline in its transparency and yet oozingly, unmistakably organic. Smell. Seek. Hunt. The ether-worm whirled, circular tooth-ringed jaw snapping, and slid away, towards the direction where the blast had come from.

Ilshar leaned against the building's wall, dizziness coursing through him as implanted and template-bred organs fought to absorb the qillatu diffusing from him exertion. The moments immediately after reaching into the Chasm were the worst. The most dangerous. He could only pray to the source of all that churned and slithered that the rest of the team was keeping the enemy distracted enough.

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

Ilshar Ard’sabekh

He was already halfway to disappearing into the brush, an odd mound of gnarled metal steadily creeping towards the open ground of the settlement's edge, when he caught the familiar tones from their talkative - by Ilshar’s standards, at least - local guide. It was not something he had heard before, not exactly. Some of the words he did not entirely grasp, and some others were unfamiliar to him in this context; back where was from, they used to say rings rather than coils… Used to say, yes, not anymore. But the meaning could not have been more clear. This planet was alien to him, its conflicts and his own role in them something he understood detachedly at best - business, he had truthfully said. And still, it was heartening to know that here like anywhere he was among fellow spores of the Nexus. In the end, a tarrhaidim was just that. Maybe the vrexul had the right of it in their own way.

Twisting back his torso, Ilshar made a gesture with one hand, a circle with sharp fingers pointing inward. Once it had been a ritual greeting, but like his spirals it had taken on a more common meaning these days, one anyone could understand. Keep within it, and it with you.

Then the forest parted around him, and the war demanded his attention again. The vrexul had it easier, he thought as he swept the barrel of his gun left to right across the outer row of buildings, ready to let out a suppressive burst. There were fewer of them, and they weren't really part of any nation. Meanwhile, if a tarrhaidim came out from one of those houses in Zanovian Security gear, he would have to shoot, brotherhood in the Totality or not. Hadn't it always been that way?

Once upon a time, Ilshar ruminated as he shuffled ahead behind the other two, he liked to think he had done it for an actually good reason.

Artillery thundered, far away but still much too close, and his skin bloomed with receptors again. Here was a trail of fresh steps, and there was motion in the woods, much like what their own group's must have been. Too far to smell what it was. He did not like the uncertainty. 

With a lurching step, he brought his back to the wall of the open building, putting it between himself and the opposite end of the village. If something was moving in, they were going to need cover, but still he hesitated to enter it. That footstep trail did not feel right.

"Careful," he growled, only just loud enough for the rest of the team's vanguard to hear, and motioned to the open door, "Smells like a trap. They move in from outside, wait inside, and they have us. You hear our contact?"

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

Ilshar Ard’sabekh

The soil on this world smelled good. Lately, Ilshar had found himself jumping from one dry, dusty planetoid to another, a grainy film clogging his sensory glands with an annoying taste he was only now fully getting rid of. The humid wafts of boggy, unsettled earth that Zanovia had greeted him with had been a more than welcome change. It did not quite smell like home - nothing ever really did - but it brought back pleasant memories of boundless tropical peat fields under a hazy sun. The only irritants were the persistent smells of battle, still too fresh to have settled into a comfortable decay, and the smokestick of the human riding along with him, to say nothing of the transport itself.

He gnashed his teeth as the vast creature lurched ahead under his feet. He was still not wholly used to the idea of a living thing so tightly woven with cybernetics it was almost a machine itself, let alone an intelligent one. The mass of mostly etherically inert metal made him uneasy, not faster than light travel had the first few times. Depending too much on machines. That had never been the Alazann way. Better the simpler, more straightforward things, like the gun weighing down in his hands.

The guides’ chatter was at least a distraction from the strange mechanical colossus and its eeriness.

“Mercenaries?” he grunted in response to the tarrhaidim’s musings, “Could say that. Business. Hate…” The lower rows of his ocular bulbs dissolved into his head, and new ones opened further up, looking at the sky between the trees’ canopy. “Elsewhere.”

At last the trudging ride was over, and Ilshar heavily hopped down, some wary eyes still trained on the giant - Echo, it had been designated? - as part of it detached to follow. Maybe it was a machine after all. He gave another grunt of acknowledgement as the group’s voidhanger moved ahead, snapped on his helmet and hefted his machine gun before following into the undergrowth. He smelled the sap now, the rotting plants underfoot. Nothing out of place, their guide was probably right about that noise. Still, they were in a warzone now. If time had taught him anything, it was that it paid to always keep every gland open. Especially early on, when nothing seemed to have gone wrong yet.

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

Ilshar

Name: Ilshar Ard’sabekh Maraknat; also known as Halch’aldurnat (Seventh Worm-Ring, ritual name in the Manifold Spiral, sometimes used as an alias nowadays) and Teffn (the Marked).

Age: 68 years.

Species: Tarrhaidim.

Appearance: A broad, burly Tarrhaidim, Ilshar looks squatter than he really is due to his head, or what passes for it, being barely separated from his torso. His face is little more than folds of flexible epidermis around a putrid chasm of long, sharp teeth. Thick, knotted strands of fungal tendrils, fused together by rot, give an impression of a muscular body, though one that would be deformed and tumorous by human standards. Though moderately augmented, most of Ilshar’s implants are biological or etheric in nature and buried in the oozing tangle of his inner bulk, making them invisible at a glance besides some odd ridges and twisting outlines protruding around his shoulders, upper arms and thorax. What is immediately obvious about him is the design that covers his light gray membrane-skin from head to toe, an intricate pattern of connected and intertwining rusty-red spirals. Formed by a symbiotic lichen, this living ornament grows and contracts, slowly shifting over a period of months. Ilshar displays his tapestried body with pride, rarely covering himself aside from sparse bolted-on pieces of armour.

Background: Ever since the Helios Subjugation, Enthuur, Ilshar’s home planet, had been an Yrrkradian vassal in all but name. The world, along with a smattering of underdeveloped colonies in nearby systems, was nominally under the rule of a harsh theocratic regime headed by the Mutrebb Alazann, the Manifold Spiral, a Tarrhaidim sect whose methods if not beliefs made most interstellar dismiss them as extremist warlords rather than a legitimate government. In truth, however, while the Spiral comprised many skilled agitators, etherealists and even scientists, whose influence and experimental combat assets had allowed their swift rise to power during the fragmentation of the OSLF, precious few of its members had any aptitude as administrators or military leaders. Their independence and their very grip on their population was tenuous at best, and would have rapidly dissolved had the Dominion not stepped in to prop them up with an influx of funds and weapons, in exchange for the tacit acceptance of its authority and acting as a buffer for its interests in the region. The Spiral leadership did not give its de facto submission much weight, for its true goal was a more esoteric one - to use a combination of widespread genetic and psycho-social engineering in a vast experiment, or ritual, that would supposedly transform the whole of Enthuur into an ethereal conduit to the Nexus of Teeth, the Tarrhaidim’s legendary origin.

Born in 4169, Ilshar has lived to see the death throes of the Liberation Front, the meteoric rise of the Spiral, whose ranks he joined shortly afterwards, and its unofficial alliance with the Yrrkradian Dominion. As a talented etherealist himself, he was inducted into the sect’s decentralized priesthood and played a role in its subtle decades-long preparations for the great rite. At times, this involved ethically questionable methods, as coercion, eugenics and outright assassination were required to fashion Enthuur according to the cryptic dictates of the great plan. As the Spiral’s militant arm had never evolved beyond the haphazard organisation of its earlier days, he was occasionally also called to defend the planet and its colonies from incursions by neighbouring local powers that attempted to absorb them.

The Spiral’s ambitious scheme was never completed, however, as the Veiled War would eventually reach Enshuur’s once-remote corner of the Expanse. The pressure from its regional rivals, now backed by the Dominion’s own adversaries, as well as the Yrrkradians’ own more and more exigent demands for involvement began to mount, and the Manifold Spiral’s leaders panicked as the global order they had carefully cultivated for so long was threatened. In an effort to stave off the rising tension, Ilshar and his fellows were dispatched on covert strikes against enemy-held systems, aimed to disrupt and intimidate. All this did, however, was inflame further reprisals, until Enshuur found itself isolated, having lost its colonial holdings, and as vulnerable as ever.

Surprisingly enough, it was the Yrrkradians who reached the planet first. Prevident minds in the Dominion’s military command had anticipated that the Unified Celestial League and their local allies would attempt a push through that region of the peripheral Expanse, and a vrexul legion was deployed to block that access corridor to core imperial space. Ilshar was gnashing his teeth at the lumbering insectoids’ intrusion on his homeworld when the UCL advanced in earnest, and battle broke out over Enshuur. The struggle was long, bloody and indecisive; Ilshar and his fellow Spiral members found themselves alternatingly pushed back to their planetary strongholds and painfully reclaiming ground, and narrowly escaped complete annihilation as the UCL deployed vrexul of its own.

This proved to be the turning point of the war, as after some destructive clashes the great arthropods on both sides withdrew. The remaining Yrrkradian forces found themselves outmatched, and, unwilling to commit to the defense of what was to them a disposable puppet world, retreated to defend the Dominion’s holdings. The Manifold Spiral, never truly an effective fighting force on its own and battered after years of combat, was swiftly and systematically eradicated by the advancing UCL. Ilshar was among the few of its members who managed to escape, fleeing on board a handful of salvaged civilian craft and scattering over the Expanse.

His home, purpose and compatriots lost, he drifted through contested space for a time, paying his way with sporadic mercenary work, until he at last fell in with the Intranszjednota. Resentful against both the UCL that destroyed his world and the Dominion that pushed it into war before abandoning it, Ilshar joined its forces for a chance to avenge the Manifold Spiral, and perhaps one day assembling the resources to rebuild it.

Character Evaluation: Driven and taciturn, Ilshar moves with the quiet deliberation of a lifetime of precise, meticulously calculated action. Used to thinking in terms of years and decades, a habit that not even the war has fully dislodged, he can be infuriatingly slow to act, pondering and weighing the possible consequences of anything, but when he moves at last it is with irrevocable certainty. With this sluggishness comes detachment, sharpened by the cosmic nature of his worship of the Nexus; people are to him but minuscule cogs in the immense workings of the universe, occasionally suborned for the even lowlier purposes of someone’s individual plans, and there is nothing strange in accepting this fact as it is. Despite this, he is at rare times capable of genuine passion, whether in his faith or his camaraderie with the bygone confraternity of the Spiral. The loss of the latter has left him somewhat vacant in recent times, and this may have contributed to his readiness to join the Intranszjednota, his alignment with which is altogether a matter of convenience rather than truly shared goals.

Skills: Besides being a veteran fighter whose frankly shoddy training and poor discipline are evened out by years of experience in the thick of the Reckoning, Ilshar is expert at sabotage and terror operations, having grown skilled in causing disruption by way of engineered malfunctions, explosives, dispersion of pathogens and many other means. By a combination of augmentation, armour and Tarrhaidim resilience, he is comfortable traversing and fighting in various hazardous environments. Despite his often subordinate role in the past, he has developed a certain aptitude for strategic thinking at as far as a planetary scale in his work at the Spiral’s behest.

Etherealism: A trained etherealist, thanks to the Spiral’s unorthodox ritual practices Ilshar can notably draw upon both the Chasm and the Abyssic Plane, though for obvious reasons not both at once. Like most, he has a far greater ease manipulating the former and can access it under combat conditions; he usually employs it to blight the enemy with flash infestations of parasitic ether-growths and materialize vermiform Chasm creatures to wreak havoc. Contact with the Plane is much more arduous, and Ilshar can only accomplish it by entering a trance with the aid of meditation and psychoactive drugs. The ways in which he can control it are nevertheless fundamentally similar, involving the manifestation of either disruptive Plane debris or Abyssic creatures; those he often finds more difficult to direct than their Oneiric counterparts.

Loadout:

-Ulvath Light Machine Gun: A weapon of Tarrhaidim make, characteristically capable of delivering an imposing amount of firepower while being light enough for members of the species to carry and handle even in arduous conditions. Ilshar carries a supply of various types of ammunition for it, including fragmentation, armour-piercing, incendiary and even a few ether-disrupting rounds.

-Dauvnil Piercer Gun: A bulky, hefty sidearm that fires metal flechettes with enough strength to pierce thin metal and shatter bone or carapace. It is rather inaccurate and ineffective at longer ranges, but quiet, robust and easy to maintain. Ilshar sometimes coats the darts with toxins.

-Combat Armour: Not so much a suit as a patchwork of several pieces mostly held together just by being attached to the same body. Ilshar’s armour is an odd assemblage of Yrrkradian and Intranszjednota elements, some of which are fastened to his skin in Tarrhaidim fashion. Thanks to his anatomy, it protects him in hazardous environments despite only individual parts of it being properly sealed. Its vambraces and gauntlets have sharpened edges which serve as close combat weapons.

-A supply of plastic explosives, regularly restocked when possible.

Actions Of Interest: Several of the disruptive actions Ilshar took part in during the Veiled War would be considered criminal under the laws of most major nations; incidents like the incursions on the planets Rvastre and Utkal ended in considerable losses of civilian life, and his association with the Manifold Spiral makes him at least complicit to the rest of their activities.

The Evenomed: Violent Military SciFi Action Across A Post-War Expanse

Ilshar

Name: Ilshar Ard’sabekh Maraknat; also known as Halch’aldurnat (Seventh Worm-Ring, ritual name in the Manifold Spiral, sometimes used as an alias nowadays) and Teffn (the Marked).

Age: 68 years.

Species: Tarrhaidim.

Appearance: A broad, burly Tarrhaidim, Ilshar looks squatter than he really is due to his head, or what passes for it, being barely separated from his torso. His face is little more than folds of flexible epidermis around a putrid chasm of long, sharp teeth. Thick, knotted strands of fungal tendrils, fused together by rot, give an impression of a muscular body, though one that would be deformed and tumorous by human standards. Though moderately augmented, most of Ilshar’s implants are biological or etheric in nature and buried in the oozing tangle of his inner bulk, making them invisible at a glance besides some odd ridges and twisting outlines protruding around his shoulders, upper arms and thorax. What is immediately obvious about him is the design that covers his light gray membrane-skin from head to toe, an intricate pattern of connected and intertwining rusty-red spirals. Formed by a symbiotic lichen, this living ornament grows and contracts, slowly shifting over a period of months. Ilshar displays his tapestried body with pride, rarely covering himself aside from sparse bolted-on pieces of armour.

Background: Ever since the Helios Subjugation, Enthuur, Ilshar’s home planet, had been an Yrrkradian vassal in all but name. The world, along with a smattering of underdeveloped colonies in nearby systems, was nominally under the rule of a harsh theocratic regime headed by the Mutrebb Alazann, the Manifold Spiral, a Tarrhaidim sect whose methods if not beliefs made most interstellar dismiss them as extremist warlords rather than a legitimate government. In truth, however, while the Spiral comprised many skilled agitators, etherealists and even scientists, whose influence and experimental combat assets had allowed their swift rise to power during the fragmentation of the OSLF, precious few of its members had any aptitude as administrators or military leaders. Their independence and their very grip on their population was tenuous at best, and would have rapidly dissolved had the Dominion not stepped in to prop them up with an influx of funds and weapons, in exchange for the tacit acceptance of its authority and acting as a buffer for its interests in the region. The Spiral leadership did not give its de facto submission much weight, for its true goal was a more esoteric one - to use a combination of widespread genetic and psycho-social engineering in a vast experiment, or ritual, that would supposedly transform the whole of Enthuur into an ethereal conduit to the Nexus of Teeth, the Tarrhaidim’s legendary origin.

Born in 4169, Ilshar has lived to see the death throes of the Liberation Front, the meteoric rise of the Spiral, whose ranks he joined shortly afterwards, and its unofficial alliance with the Yrrkradian Dominion. As a talented etherealist himself, he was inducted into the sect’s decentralized priesthood and played a role in its subtle decades-long preparations for the great rite. At times, this involved ethically questionable methods, as coercion, eugenics and outright assassination were required to fashion Enthuur according to the cryptic dictates of the great plan. As the Spiral’s militant arm had never evolved beyond the haphazard organisation of its earlier days, he was occasionally also called to defend the planet and its colonies from incursions by neighbouring local powers that attempted to absorb them.

The Spiral’s ambitious scheme was never completed, however, as the Veiled War would eventually reach Enshuur’s once-remote corner of the Expanse. The pressure from its regional rivals, now backed by the Dominion’s own adversaries, as well as the Yrrkradians’ own more and more exigent demands for involvement began to mount, and the Manifold Spiral’s leaders panicked as the global order they had carefully cultivated for so long was threatened. In an effort to stave off the rising tension, Ilshar and his fellows were dispatched on covert strikes against enemy-held systems, aimed to disrupt and intimidate. All this did, however, was inflame further reprisals, until Enshuur found itself isolated, having lost its colonial holdings, and as vulnerable as ever.

Surprisingly enough, it was the Yrrkradians who reached the planet first. Prevident minds in the Dominion’s military command had anticipated that the Unified Celestial League and their local allies would attempt a push through that region of the peripheral Expanse, and a vrexul legion was deployed to block that access corridor to core imperial space. Ilshar was gnashing his teeth at the lumbering insectoids’ intrusion on his homeworld when the UCL advanced in earnest, and battle broke out over Enshuur. The struggle was long, bloody and indecisive; Ilshar and his fellow Spiral members found themselves alternatingly pushed back to their planetary strongholds and painfully reclaiming ground, and narrowly escaped complete annihilation as the UCL deployed vrexul of its own.

This proved to be the turning point of the war, as after some destructive clashes the great arthropods on both sides withdrew. The remaining Yrrkradian forces found themselves outmatched, and, unwilling to commit to the defense of what was to them a disposable puppet world, retreated to defend the Dominion’s holdings. The Manifold Spiral, never truly an effective fighting force on its own and battered after years of combat, was swiftly and systematically eradicated by the advancing UCL. Ilshar was among the few of its members who managed to escape, fleeing on board a handful of salvaged civilian craft and scattering over the Expanse.

His home, purpose and compatriots lost, he drifted through contested space for a time, paying his way with sporadic mercenary work, until he at last fell in with the Intranszjednota. Resentful against both the UCL that destroyed his world and the Dominion that pushed it into war before abandoning it, Ilshar joined its forces for a chance to avenge the Manifold Spiral, and perhaps one day assembling the resources to rebuild it.

Character Evaluation: Driven and taciturn, Ilshar moves with the quiet deliberation of a lifetime of precise, meticulously calculated action. Used to thinking in terms of years and decades, a habit that not even the war has fully dislodged, he can be infuriatingly slow to act, pondering and weighing the possible consequences of anything, but when he moves at last it is with irrevocable certainty. With this sluggishness comes detachment, sharpened by the cosmic nature of his worship of the Nexus; people are to him but minuscule cogs in the immense workings of the universe, occasionally suborned for the even lowlier purposes of someone’s individual plans, and there is nothing strange in accepting this fact as it is. Despite this, he is at rare times capable of genuine passion, whether in his faith or his camaraderie with the bygone confraternity of the Spiral. The loss of the latter has left him somewhat vacant in recent times, and this may have contributed to his readiness to join the Intranszjednota, his alignment with which is altogether a matter of convenience rather than truly shared goals.

Skills: Besides being a veteran fighter whose frankly shoddy training and poor discipline are evened out by years of experience in the thick of the Reckoning, Ilshar is expert at sabotage and terror operations, having grown skilled in causing disruption by way of engineered malfunctions, explosives, dispersion of pathogens and many other means. By a combination of augmentation, armour and Tarrhaidim resilience, he is comfortable traversing and fighting in various hazardous environments. Despite his often subordinate role in the past, he has developed a certain aptitude for strategic thinking at as far as a planetary scale in his work at the Spiral’s behest.

Etherealism: A trained etherealist, thanks to the Spiral’s unorthodox ritual practices Ilshar can notably draw upon both the Chasm and the Abyssic Plane, though for obvious reasons not both at once. Like most, he has a far greater ease manipulating the former and can access it under combat conditions; he usually employs it to blight the enemy with flash infestations of parasitic ether-growths and materialize vermiform Chasm creatures to wreak havoc. Contact with the Plane is much more arduous, and Ilshar can only accomplish it by entering a trance with the aid of meditation and psychoactive drugs. The ways in which he can control it are nevertheless fundamentally similar, involving the manifestation of either disruptive Plane debris or Abyssic creatures; those he often finds more difficult to direct than their Oneiric counterparts.

Loadout:

-Ulvath Light Machine Gun: A weapon of Tarrhaidim make, characteristically capable of delivering an imposing amount of firepower while being light enough for members of the species to carry and handle even in arduous conditions. Ilshar carries a supply of various types of ammunition for it, including fragmentation, armour-piercing, incendiary and even a few ether-disrupting rounds.

-Dauvnil Piercer Gun: A bulky, hefty sidearm that fires metal flechettes with enough strength to pierce thin metal and shatter bone or carapace. It is rather inaccurate and ineffective at longer ranges, but quiet, robust and easy to maintain. Ilshar sometimes coats the darts with toxins.

-Combat Armour: Not so much a suit as a patchwork of several pieces mostly held together just by being attached to the same body. Ilshar’s armour is an odd assemblage of Yrrkradian and Intranszjednota elements, some of which are fastened to his skin in Tarrhaidim fashion. Thanks to his anatomy, it protects him in hazardous environments despite only individual parts of it being properly sealed. Its vambraces and gauntlets have sharpened edges which serve as close combat weapons.

-A supply of plastic explosives, regularly restocked when possible.

Actions Of Interest: Several of the disruptive actions Ilshar took part in during the Veiled War would be considered criminal under the laws of most major nations; incidents like the incursions on the planets Rvastre and Utkal ended in considerable losses of civilian life, and his association with the Manifold Spiral makes him at least complicit to the rest of their activities.

The Court of the Gods

and

The Messenger

---

With an exaggerated crack that resounded through the air, a set of six, shimmering feathered wings unfolded from empty space and then unfurled to reveal the lithe form of Hermes - Herald of the Gods adorned in his distinctive wide-brimmed helmet and bearing the twinned-serpent stave, Kerykeion. As the flowing traces of light rushing across his wings faded, they tucked into themselves, merging into a single flowing cloak of feathers about his shoulders.

The reverberations of the burst were soon lost in the sound of rustling leaves and birdsong. The god stood at the edge of a wide clearing between two stretches of forest, curving off to both sides like a great bending road. The grass underfoot was tall and unruly, with long coarse stalks that itched against the skin. Across the glade from him, the trees stood vast and thick, circling the opening in a great ring whose further edges he could not see from where he stood. Nearby, the living colonnade of wood and bark seemed no different, at least at first glance; but to his trained eye, it was clear that the spaces between the trees were more even, and that their branches were in many places lower and thicker, draped with some sort of lichen.

Suddenly, there was a rustling in the leaves overhead, and in the space of a blink something large and dark was hurtling down towards him. A broad, barrel-like chest, with mighty ribs visible through leathery skin and matted fur - two arms from every shoulder, ending in recurve yellow claws - a head like the skull of a toothy ape, grown over with mangy hide - those lichenous vines clinging to its every extremity, like the strings of a grotesque marionnette - Hermes, who had experienced similar displays of the four-armed creature’s ilk before, simply surveyed the terrain without moving or seeming to react to its descent.

Indeed, when its paws were mere inches away from his head, the beast abruptly stopped, as though the vines holding it aloft - which now visibly grew into its very skin - had run their length. With a raucous growl, it slid upwards along the trunk, pulled by its organic cords, and remained hanging midway up like an immense hairy spider, its sunken eyes never leaving the intruder.

It was only when its ascent stopped that a previously nigh-imperceptible figure detached itself from the shadows of the grove and advanced into the clearing. The Watcher of the Woods, Artemis, seemed a part of the forest come to life. There was ostensibly nothing too unusual about her; too tall, perhaps, and too sharp-featured for a Hellene woman, but not much different from them in her garb or the modesty of her ornaments. Even still, her movements had something less than human to them, a fluidity both animalistic and mechanical, and when she stood in place, it was as firmly and motionlessly as the trees.

“Hermes,” her voice was as inexpressive as her eyes, but not yet as hard, “You have a message.”

“Naturally, oh Artemis, most imperishable and unbesmirched of the Gods.” Hermes threw her an extremely lazy salute before flicking a wrist and producing ablack-and-gold filigreed letter seemingly from thin air. “I come bearing a message for Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, from Zeus, King of the Gods and the Heavens, the All-Father on high, with the utmost exigency.” He paused for a moment and turned his helmeted gaze upwards. “Though I must qualify that it is for your ears alone.”

"There are no others here." Nonetheless, the goddess made a slight gesture with her fingers, a motion whose stirring only further evidence the unnatural austerity of her posture, and the beast on the tree almost soundlessly withdrew out of sight among the higher branches.

Hermes haphazardly tossed the letter to Artemis from across the clearing, the blackened parchment seeming to drift across the grove on unseen wind until it came in reach of her darting hand.

BY DECREE OF THE LORD OF OLYMPUS

The Highest, King of the Gods, Father of All:
ZEUS

Let it be known that Zeus is dead. His rightful Heir – forever may he rule – has succeeded him to the divine name and mantle of Zeus.

Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, is formally invited to a gathering of the High Pantheon at Zeus’ palace in Mount Olympus, on the noon of the day following receipt of this note. Zeus will accept oaths of fealty, and make the first announcements of his reign.

Signed, Zelos
Majordomo of the Highest Palace, Servant of Zeus Almighty

“I have also been instructed to verbally inform you that you are hereby summoned to Mt. Olympus to attend Zeus at the stated place and time.” Hermes added after allowing Artemis a moment to view the letter.

The Maiden's already thin, predatory lips tightened as she read, one eyebrow arching upwards in either surprise or curiosity. She rolled up the missive again with a single hand and nonchalantly tossed it into the undergrowth behind her back.

"Then he did die as well," she mused, her eyes still fixed on Hermes, but her words drifting past him, "But he was not old, not that way. Was it bloody?"

“Oh, scarcely so, if only because his death was so macabre that his blood curdled into cruor before it could seep out from him. The state of what is left is so vile it would not even be fit for your beasts to gnaw on.” Hermes chattered with an almost conspiratorial air, waving his free hand out to the side, the very essence of a gossip.

If his flippancy had the intent to elicit a more vivid response, however, it was to be disappointed. Artemis' expression lost even that little shade of unsettlement, as though she had expected to hear nothing short of that. "A grim sight it must have been. Who was it that struck him down?"

“Alas and alack, the culprit evades justice. His Renewed Highness Zeus has, naturally, sworn that the perpetrator will be found…though his first official order was for me to deliver his summons to all of the High Pantheon, and as far as I am aware he has yet to contact any of the other gods.”

Hermes actually laughed aloud then, a lengthy, exaggerated titter that carried on a ways beyond the confines of the grove.

“Somehow I feel as though this matter may remain unresolved for some time.”

A measure of surprise returned to the goddess' face. "I rather thought he would have met his end in battle if it came to it," she shifted her weight from one leg to another, a deliberate motion that left her poised to sprint, "There are few things that can slay one of us silently. If it is something we do not yet know, I would gladly challenge it in the hunt. This riddle cannot last all so long."

“Careful, goddess. Sometimes in the chase, one is the master or the hound - and sometimes the prey is sacrificial. You should know full well how an owner might dote on their beasts.” Hermes wagged a finger sardonically. “Even Apate has nary an inkling of how it was done or who might be responsible. If a culprit is found at all, I fear for the convenience of such a discovery.”

"You make it too complex, Hermes," Artemis rolled her bow-shoulder, flat annoyance in her eyes under a smooth brow, "You, Apate, all of Olympus. If Zeus' murder cannot distract you from your shadow games, nothing will, and Typhon's next rising will find you caught in a trap you set yourselves."

“Well that’s just a patently unfair assessment!” Hermes exclaimed. “Typhon is already a trap of our own making, you can’t just keep pulling the Typhon card every time something - ah. I forget myself.” He performed a low, exaggerated bow to Artemis. “And that besides, I am merely a messenger, and you the Huntress. Perhaps I should think better of trying to argue the matter of traps and chases with as peerless an exemplar as you.”

He righted himself and then stared pointedly at Artemis for a long moment, almost expectantly. A heavy silence filled the air.

“Well, I had better get going then. I have the rest of the High Pantheon to deliver to. I will see you at Olympus, goddess.” He tipped his helmet to her as his cloak once more unfurled into a set of six shimmering, feathered wings once more. Then encompassed his frame, and with another resounding and exaggerated crack, they folded upon themselves in a flash of light until nothing was left.

Not a scant moment after his departure, there was an abrupt yelp, and a woman tumbled down from the canopy above to crash headlong to the ground where Hermes had just stood.

Artemis stared at the intruder. Hermes was often known to either steal from or else play pranks on those who did not offer him some form of token recompense for his services - but in her grove, there was naught of value that the Herald could have possibly taken, nor anybody else around for kilometers save for slavering beasts.

So Hermes had evidently made-do by teleporting some hapless mortal directly into the grove. Perhaps somebody who had prayed for his intervention just then - or who had slighted him.

With a groan, the newcomer began to lift herself off the ground, her forearms sinking into the grass as they heaved up her shoulders. By the standards of most cities, there was nothing remarkable about her: neither plump nor malnourished, clothes neither too fine nor shabby, calloused fingers. She rose to her knees, turning up at last her disoriented eyes, which immediately fell upon the goddess. Her disheveled face paled and dropped back in awestruck fear as a stifled yelp died in her throat.

Artemis let out a hissing breath, and a scowl finally fell across her brow. The coming days were going to be very long.

The Court of the Gods

Artemis

Artemis

Watcher of the Woods, Maiden of the Hunt, Aegis of the Pure

A creature of Hellas through and through, Artemis has never borne a name not of this world, even as her duties have never truly been those of her Arithborn predecessor. Where the latter monitored the biosphere of the planet, content to ensure that it did not risk growing untenable for human livelihood and expansion, her new namesake takes a far keener interest in the affairs of mortals. The hunt, the fundamental struggle between man and wilderness, she makes her domain, and even beyond it she jealously works to keep the balance of nature and civilization even, so that both may remain in the form most pleasing to the masters of Olympus. Where life grows and mutates in dangerous ways, she prunes it, and where mortal ambition encroaches too deeply upon the wilderness, she smites it harshly, lest it turn to hubris. In every city, her her temples stand like watchful eyes, even as her bestial emissaries prowl the deepest forests.

Artifacts and Powers:

Autotheina: Though the gods are inextricably bound to their supernal nature by the nanites coursing through their blood, for few are these ties as deep as for Artemis. She was not born from a human womb, but crafted from vat-flesh and metal-bone by her creator, a perfect child by artful calculation. The might and grace of divinity are embodied in her without effort; her strength, agility and resilience are preternatural, and, though she is rarely seen wearing more than a plain short tunic and a simple hairpin, her mere presence never fails to inspire reverent awe. Senses keener than any animal make her the mistress of the wilds in more than name alone; she has been known to disappear into the most insidious forests and swamplands for months at a time, only to emerge as flawless as she had entered, with neither a scratch nor even a single hair out of place. If nature had an apex, it would surely be her - were it not that the source of her strength is most unnatural.

The Thanatephore Bow: Though all weapons are made with the purpose of bringing death, few are as deserving of proclaiming their attribute openly as Artemis’ silver bow, whose unseen arrows never miss their mark, and slay even the largest of beasts without leaving a wound larger than the bite of a mosquito. The secret of this power does not lie in the bow itself, which is perfectly ordinary, but in the unassuming bracelet the goddess wears on her right wrist. When she releases her empty bowstring, it fires a minuscule flechette, strong enough to pierce through armour. Sometimes it is imbued with a quick toxin, or a painful one, or even a virulent engineered disease, depending on the intent of its wielder. The dart can be fired with a simple contraction of the wrist, without drawing the Bow, but Artemis never forgoes the charade to maintain the weapon’s mystique, and keep its secret hidden.

The Apanchomenis Grove: Hidden deep within the impassable wilds of Hellas, the Grove of the Hanged is the beating heart of Artemis’ power over the planet. Not so much a true grove as a frightful biotechnological factory, whose inchoate sentry-beasts, bound to strange machine-trees by organic filaments, lend it its name, this site contains the genetic records of every animal species of the known world, and, esoteric rumours claim, some from Arith. In the bowels of the Grove’s protoplasmic ponds, these sequences can be combined to create impossible chimeras, or monsters of myth, empowered with cybernetic organs in the same way as Artemis’ own body, or even lineages of entirely new animals, bred to fill a particular ecological niche. Some such terrors are given over to Zeus’ bestiary, while others are turned loose upon those unfortunate mortals who have displeased the goddess. The Grove cannot, however, give birth to human beings, and imperfect attempts will emerge from it as witless apes.

Notable Creatures of the Grove

Moon-elk: So named because of the crescent shape of their antlers, the gibbous heads of these beasts suggest that they have as much in common with moose as they do with elks. Although large and heavyset, they are remarkably agile thanks to their flexible legs, and fond of eating moss and tree bark even in the warmer seasons. Found all over Hellas, moon-elks are sacred to Artemis, and hunters who kill one must make an offering to her temple.

Lystos bear: Dreaded predators of the woodlands, lystos bears bear some resemblance to badgers or wolverines, with their lean bodies, elongated snouts and vestigial tails. Notoriously ill-tempered and ferocious, they do not hesitate to attack humans who stray too close to their dens, but only rarely approach inhabited areas to prey on livestock. Legend has it that bears were once mortals who incurred Artemis' wrath, and were punished by being transformed into animals.

The Boar of Kalydos: While there have been numerous boars over the centuries, such was the terror caused by their first appearance that they are still remembered by the name of the region they first plagued. As large and heavy as hippopotami and tremendously strong, these biomechanical monstrosities are the favoured instrument of the goddess' retribution. The Boars have six tusks and quills like porcupines on their back and flanks; fortunately, they are sterile and only ever appear one at a time.

Stymphaloi: Rapacious birds with steely-gray feathers, the Stymphaloi are known as the hunting-bird of the Watcher, occasionally depicted as taking flight from her wrist to pursue their quarry. Illustrious mortals favoured by the goddess are sometimes gifted with a tame Stymphalos, a great honour as well as an admonition, for they have a ravenous appetite and are quite partial to human flesh. In the wild, they are feared for their sharp beaks and hard, rigid feathers, which astonishingly can protect them from arrows.

Persona:

Exacting and intransigeant, the Maiden of the Hunt seems to have been shaped to fit her seat among the gods in spirit as thoroughly as in body. She is meticulous about her duties, yet at the same time dispassionate and detached, as if to underscore that she is the mistress of her divine aspect, and not merely its attendant. All that pertains to the equilibrium of life in the known world is a challenge to herself first and foremost, to be surpassed with aplomb befitting one of her stature. No error nor imperfection can be countenanced, for that would be a failing on her part and a slight to her pride, that inalienable attribute of godhood. Such lofty notions having been impressed upon her since the earliest days of her existence, it is little wonder that she should be disarmingly candid in her superciliousness, and indeed that she expects the same of her peers; few things are stranger and more suspicious than a humble deity.

For all that, Artemis cannot truly be said to be self-absorbed. It is no secret among the Olympians that her greatest yearning is for something she can never obtain - purity, that which neither her ascetic habits nor her chaste life can give her. Ever conscious of her nature as an amalgam of life and artifice, hybrid and commingled, she turns outwards in search of her ideal, to the marvels of the natural world and the human spirit. The beauty of an unspoiled field, of a crystalline spring, of just and clear laws, of unsullied maidenhood all captivate her to the point that she will impose upon the mortal peoples and their ways to preserve them, through the stifling and sometimes arbitrary dictates of her veiled priests. Woe upon those who ruin something she cherishes, even inadvertently; deadly vengeance will inevitably visit them in the shape of a fearsome beast.

Despite the uneasy fame her bearing and fascinations have woven for her, the goddess is surprisingly tractable in person. Aloof but not reclusive, despite her habit of wandering the wilds of the world as much as she resides in the Heavenly City, it is rare for her to dismiss a visitor or supplicant out of hand, and, though stern and inflexible, she has patience to spare even for her most eccentric fellows in the pantheon. Only blatant irreverence from a lesser, or naked contempt for the things she prizes, will rouse her ire, dry, venomous and swift to action.

Background:

The current Artemis was not the first to take up that name. Originally, it belonged to one of the erstwhile Zeus' crew members, a specialist in ecology who had joined the mission to ensure that the lost colony's biosphere was stable. Having become an accomplice to the Captain's plan, she took her place among the new gods as the keeper of the forests, whose animal population she revitalised with new species bearing her mark. Yet, despite her mastery of life, she could not wholly avert the aging of her own body. It was thus that she devised a successor, neither an offspring, for she had none, nor a clone of herself, for over the years she had come to doubt her abilities in this superhuman role. No, her inheritor was to be an improvement, with none of the weaknesses of mankind. By arts unknown, and most likely not without assistance, she grew the divine homunculus who would become her successor. This was centuries ago; now, little or no memory remains in the world beyond Olympus that Artemis was not always as she is.

Relationships:

Zeus: The long arm of the King of the Gods reaches even the most hidden lairs, and for all that Artemis knows, this has always been the case. Though none too fond of his wanton habits, a sentiment that rose to bilious spite on those occasions when he menaced the virtue of her clergy, she saw his authority as indisputable and was content enough to pledge her submission so long as no interference came of it to her own devices, offering him tribute in the guise of savage creatures for his menagerie. The excesses of the wilful ancient had all the same left little room for genuine respect and reverence, and it was not without relief that she met the news of his demise, seeing in the inexperience of the new Zeus a chance to curtail further indignities and perhaps mold greater swathes of the world more to her liking.

The Court of the Gods

Posting something, may still edit a bit as necessary.

Artemis

Artemis

Watcher of the Woods, Maiden of the Hunt, Aegis of the Pure

A creature of Hellas through and through, Artemis has never borne a name not of this world, even as her duties have never truly been those of her Arithborn predecessor. Where the latter monitored the biosphere of the planet, content to ensure that it did not risk growing untenable for human livelihood and expansion, her new namesake takes a far keener interest in the affairs of mortals. The hunt, the fundamental struggle between man and wilderness, she makes her domain, and even beyond it she jealously works to keep the balance of nature and civilization even, so that both may remain in the form most pleasing to the masters of Olympus. Where life grows and mutates in dangerous ways, she prunes it, and where mortal ambition encroaches too deeply upon the wilderness, she smites it harshly, lest it turn to hubris. In every city, her her temples stand like watchful eyes, even as her bestial emissaries prowl the deepest forests.

Artifacts and Powers:

Autotheina: Though the gods are inextricably bound to their supernal nature by the nanites coursing through their blood, for few are these ties as deep as for Artemis. She was not born from a human womb, but crafted from vat-flesh and metal-bone by her creator, a perfect child by artful calculation. The might and grace of divinity are embodied in her without effort; her strength, agility and resilience are preternatural, and, though she is rarely seen wearing more than a plain short tunic and a simple hairpin, her mere presence never fails to inspire reverent awe. Senses keener than any animal make her the mistress of the wilds in more than name alone; she has been known to disappear into the most insidious forests and swamplands for months at a time, only to emerge as flawless as she had entered, with neither a scratch nor even a single hair out of place. If nature had an apex, it would surely be her - were it not that the source of her strength is most unnatural.

The Thanatephore Bow: Though all weapons are made with the purpose of bringing death, few are as deserving of proclaiming their attribute openly as Artemis’ silver bow, whose unseen arrows never miss their mark, and slay even the largest of beasts without leaving a wound larger than the bite of a mosquito. The secret of this power does not lie in the bow itself, which is perfectly ordinary, but in the unassuming bracelet the goddess wears on her right wrist. When she releases her empty bowstring, it fires a minuscule flechette, strong enough to pierce through armour. Sometimes it is imbued with a quick toxin, or a painful one, or even a virulent engineered disease, depending on the intent of its wielder. The dart can be fired with a simple contraction of the wrist, without drawing the Bow, but Artemis never forgoes the charade to maintain the weapon’s mystique, and keep its secret hidden.

The Apanchomenis Grove: Hidden deep within the impassable wilds of Hellas, the Grove of the Hanged is the beating heart of Artemis’ power over the planet. Not so much a true grove as a frightful biotechnological factory, whose inchoate sentry-beasts, bound to strange machine-trees by organic filaments, lend it its name, this site contains the genetic records of every animal species of the known world, and, esoteric rumours claim, some from Arith. In the bowels of the Grove’s protoplasmic ponds, these sequences can be combined to create impossible chimeras, or monsters of myth, empowered with cybernetic organs in the same way as Artemis’ own body, or even lineages of entirely new animals, bred to fill a particular ecological niche. Some such terrors are given over to Zeus’ bestiary, while others are turned loose upon those unfortunate mortals who have displeased the goddess. The Grove cannot, however, give birth to human beings, and imperfect attempts will emerge from it as witless apes.

Notable Creatures of the Grove

Moon-elk: So named because of the crescent shape of their antlers, the gibbous heads of these beasts suggest that they have as much in common with moose as they do with elks. Although large and heavyset, they are remarkably agile thanks to their flexible legs, and fond of eating moss and tree bark even in the warmer seasons. Found all over Hellas, moon-elks are sacred to Artemis, and hunters who kill one must make an offering to her temple.

Lystos bear: Dreaded predators of the woodlands, lystos bears bear some resemblance to badgers or wolverines, with their lean bodies, elongated snouts and vestigial tails. Notoriously ill-tempered and ferocious, they do not hesitate to attack humans who stray too close to their dens, but only rarely approach inhabited areas to prey on livestock. Legend has it that bears were once mortals who incurred Artemis' wrath, and were punished by being transformed into animals.

The Boar of Kalydos: While there have been numerous boars over the centuries, such was the terror caused by their first appearance that they are still remembered by the name of the region they first plagued. As large and heavy as hippopotami and tremendously strong, these biomechanical monstrosities are the favoured instrument of the goddess' retribution. The Boars have six tusks and quills like porcupines on their back and flanks; fortunately, they are sterile and only ever appear one at a time.

Stymphaloi: Rapacious birds with steely-gray feathers, the Stymphaloi are known as the hunting-bird of the Watcher, occasionally depicted as taking flight from her wrist to pursue their quarry. Illustrious mortals favoured by the goddess are sometimes gifted with a tame Stymphalos, a great honour as well as an admonition, for they have a ravenous appetite and are quite partial to human flesh. In the wild, they are feared for their sharp beaks and hard, rigid feathers, which astonishingly can protect them from arrows.

Persona:

Exacting and intransigeant, the Maiden of the Hunt seems to have been shaped to fit her seat among the gods in spirit as thoroughly as in body. She is meticulous about her duties, yet at the same time dispassionate and detached, as if to underscore that she is the mistress of her divine aspect, and not merely its attendant. All that pertains to the equilibrium of life in the known world is a challenge to herself first and foremost, to be surpassed with aplomb befitting one of her stature. No error nor imperfection can be countenanced, for that would be a failing on her part and a slight to her pride, that inalienable attribute of godhood. Such lofty notions having been impressed upon her since the earliest days of her existence, it is little wonder that she should be disarmingly candid in her superciliousness, and indeed that she expects the same of her peers; few things are stranger and more suspicious than a humble deity.

For all that, Artemis cannot truly be said to be self-absorbed. It is no secret among the Olympians that her greatest yearning is for something she can never obtain - purity, that which neither her ascetic habits nor her chaste life can give her. Ever conscious of her nature as an amalgam of life and artifice, hybrid and commingled, she turns outwards in search of her ideal, to the marvels of the natural world and the human spirit. The beauty of an unspoiled field, of a crystalline spring, of just and clear laws, of unsullied maidenhood all captivate her to the point that she will impose upon the mortal peoples and their ways to preserve them, through the stifling and sometimes arbitrary dictates of her veiled priests. Woe upon those who ruin something she cherishes, even inadvertently; deadly vengeance will inevitably visit them in the shape of a fearsome beast.

Despite the uneasy fame her bearing and fascinations have woven for her, the goddess is surprisingly tractable in person. Aloof but not reclusive, despite her habit of wandering the wilds of the world as much as she resides in the Heavenly City, it is rare for her to dismiss a visitor or supplicant out of hand, and, though stern and inflexible, she has patience to spare even for her most eccentric fellows in the pantheon. Only blatant irreverence from a lesser, or naked contempt for the things she prizes, will rouse her ire, dry, venomous and swift to action.

Background:

The current Artemis was not the first to take up that name. Originally, it belonged to one of the erstwhile Zeus' crew members, a specialist in ecology who had joined the mission to ensure that the lost colony's biosphere was stable. Having become an accomplice to the Captain's plan, she took her place among the new gods as the keeper of the forests, whose animal population she revitalised with new species bearing her mark. Yet, despite her mastery of life, she could not wholly avert the aging of her own body. It was thus that she devised a successor, neither an offspring, for she had none, nor a clone of herself, for over the years she had come to doubt her abilities in this superhuman role. No, her inheritor was to be an improvement, with none of the weaknesses of mankind. By arts unknown, and most likely not without assistance, she grew the divine homunculus who would become her successor. This was centuries ago; now, little or no memory remains in the world beyond Olympus that Artemis was not always as she is.

Relationships:

Zeus: The long arm of the King of the Gods reaches even the most hidden lairs, and for all that Artemis knows, this has always been the case. Though none too fond of his wanton habits, a sentiment that rose to bilious spite on those occasions when he menaced the virtue of her clergy, she saw his authority as indisputable and was content enough to pledge her submission so long as no interference came of it to her own devices, offering him tribute in the guise of savage creatures for his menagerie. The excesses of the wilful ancient had all the same left little room for genuine respect and reverence, and it was not without relief that she met the news of his demise, seeing in the inexperience of the new Zeus a chance to curtail further indignities and perhaps mold greater swathes of the world more to her liking.

[...]