_______________________________________________ Idles-In-Shade He/Him | ~200 | Squirrel | 12 in | ~2.2 lb _______________________________________________ Territorial _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "Don’t ask why I know these things." ___________________________________ Knitting ⫻ During his relatively brief time in Glare, between periods of attempting perfection, Idles-In-Shade became in a way somewhat bored. Hobbies, frowned on as they were, were scarce and he garnered one of the few that appealed to a meticulous nature. These days, the Aberration makes scarfs, socks, and little mittens for his own bemusement. Unnatural Arrogance ⫻ Confidence unbounding towards his superiority to Blinds and even to a degree Adepts, he can be considered supremely lacking in most forms of fear against them. A failure to prepare is the only fault in Idles-In-Shade’s mind which could undo him. | Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "It’s not a perfect fit, I admit, but not much is." Once a common enough American Red Squirrel, he has entirely kept the veneer of being a common enough American Red Squirrel. Measuring in total just 12 in, to include the tail, and having a normative weight of around 2.2 lbs, Idles-In-Shade is of the complete opinion that altering this arrangement would generally also defeat the purpose of the arrangement. Only a few markers might differentiate him from another, that being a number of small enough scars about the back as well as, at times, a small enough scarf about his neck. A minor concession to pride as it is, the Aberration remains quick enough to put such an item away before a Blind might take any measure of notice. |
Psychology
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"Why do you ask?"
MAIN GOAL ⫻
His ultimate goal in life is to create the fortress that he was made to build and maintain, yet failed to before. After this, in an odd enough way, he would have found his independence entirely despite having been intended to make the fortress for another.
PHILOSOPHY ⫻To survive is to succeed, to retain oneself despite the pressures of all against you is to flourish, and every inch towards a goal is an inch worth fighting to keep: these are the creeds which Idles-In-Shade values, holds close, and cherishes despite lacking any of importance to share them with. Entirely self-concerned - because, after all, no-one truly matters in a life than the life being lived - the Aberration finds some passing amount of pride in the casual helping of another, some minor degree of joy in that, but finds his true reward in building that which he’d been tasked to, in the hedgerows, in the trenches no one could see until they ensnared them. He finds some joy in doling out what could perhaps be called justice, too, the enforcement of his own law in his own domain.
SECRETS ⫻Everything. Nothing. Idles-In-Shade has everything to hide, no one to pry against him, a perfect creation of that fortress in his own self. He hides from himself why he came to Dazzle in the first place, why he strode between those worlds, hides from himself that deep shame of creating an incomplete fortress, a failed fortress, a broken thing. He hides from himself that his maker is dead by his own failure, his own inaction. He hides from himself the question that, perhaps, he might have had the opportunity to have prevented that failure if he had done more than watch when the fortress burned. Idles-In-Shade has so many things he would hide to the world if the world ever thought to ask.
SEXUALITY ⫻Asexual
FEARS ⫻What if the fortress was built for no one? What if there was never a point to it, an answer to the question of who would sit in that seat when the walls were finally complete? It is a question the Aberration has no answer to despite his deep-seated, irreconcilable urge to create that fortress. It is a question that haunts him in the still nights.
What if the urge to speak to another was something more? He watches them from the trees, from the ground, watches and listens and knows. Some little part of that soul wants to reach out to them, speak to them, interact in some way. What if he did? What if that would compromise the fortress?
WHAT DID THEY DO DURING THE CATACLYSM? ⫻ What if the urge to speak to another was something more? He watches them from the trees, from the ground, watches and listens and knows. Some little part of that soul wants to reach out to them, speak to them, interact in some way. What if he did? What if that would compromise the fortress?
When the Cataclysm came, he was in Berny Park in Cloverfield and throughout the Cataclysm, Idles-In-Shade remained in Berny Park. Protecting it, hiding it, applying his Abstraction against it to defend the fortress against the thing that raged against the city, that’s all the Aberration did during that period.
FLAWS ⫻Idles-In-Shade’s deep-seated, psychological inclination to be shut-in from that world at large gives him a great, grand pause to actually ever interact with that world. He is internally conflicted, divided as a soul ever could be, between that fortress mentality and a soulful wish to join the world.
Backstory
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"They screamed then, and I wasn’t sure if I should weep or laugh."
Made in the universe known hereafter as Glare, Idles-In-Shade was created as an Apparition by an Adept, Charles Cain, in a great gambit to secure a fortress Cain had been building in the Appalachian Mountains. Once a coven leader of other Adepts in that region before slowly, painfully, secretly consuming them, Cain had begun several campaigns to effectively perform the same process to cults of the Blind. Endeavoring with the consumption of souls to elevate himself to the position of an Apparition, immortal in all ways, in an effort to achieve this Cain deigned to create a fortress, let leak to the great many groups of Adepts who find themselves wanting to lay down their law, and in a grand ritual ultimately die. Through this, he planned to become what he believed to be an Angel, a creature of undying and eternal power, and to achieve this fortress the Adept summoned forth an Apparition.
He was born into service, morality not touching his being as Idles-In-Shade labored to bring about his creator’s vision. Years passed by as he did so, the Abstraction of his power formed by the demands of Cain, yet eventually his master grew impatient. The hounds of the Brotherhood, far-flung as they were from their European haunts, had begun to smell the heretical foundations in the Appalachians while the numerous mass deaths - each conducted by Cain with the terrible magician’s flair of feigning his own demise - had begun to attract Blind law enforcement as well as the Adepts who played at that same game. He felt walls close in that may have been only imagined, felt that his fortress had been perfected far enough as any would wish, and thus began his plan.
The endeavor failed. The endeavor succeeded. Cain died, the fortress ensnaring so many of the Adepts, of the Brotherhood, of Blind caught in the play who thought they were simply enforcing Federal laws, and then the fortress erupted in fire. Souls caught by Cain’s magic flowed like rivers, some of these Cain consumed in his death-throes, the magic in the air rending the fortress open to the space between realms. Glare bled out into that space while the space itself flooded in. As chaos grasped hold of all, a question appeared in Idles-In-Shade’s mind, a curiosity, and he indulged in it. He consumed some of the souls, too, and slipped out through the cut in Glare into that space between. Glare ended, Cain dead, but he, he was free.
Idles-In-Shade would land in Dazzle, though he wouldn’t know its name, and set about achieving that fortress which he had once been commissioned to make. A grand misunderstanding - and a grand built-in urge - had resulted in this as Cain had never truly divulged his plans to the Apparition he had created and the demands which he had made upon his creation left the deepest of imprints. He took the guise of a squirrel, a creature few even batted an eye against and fewer still took the great times to interact with in any way, and took residence in an old, disused park in a place known by the Blind as Cloverfield. It was to be the foundation of that fortress, Berny Park in the lower district, a citadel that none would suspect to be a citadel and none would be capable of breaching.
Then the Cataclysm came and then the Cataclysm went. He took to ground, like so many others, focusing his magic such that the park itself became impossible to traverse, such that every shard of Nyrah’s power which ever would cut against it, every stray belch of acid, every coincidental cut of talon, could make little headway. It was taxing and hard, brutally hard, but through it all he and the fortress survived. Through that fact that the fortress had never been seen as a fortress, all remained unnoticed, unfocused by those who would seek to destroy, and the Idles-In-Shade found it all to have been tested satisfactorily…though never tested to completion. There was still work to be done. There was still work to be built. The itch in the back of his mind would not be satisfied by the mere fact of survival, especially when others had survived it by their mere force of will.
He has since become a coincidental, partially benevolent spirit of Berny Park. Though humanity at times baffles him, at times confounds him, the Aberration has taken some degree of pleasure in using his creation towards more present goals. Teenagers who wish privacy might find it in the park where a trail becomes cloistered from even the most prying of eyes, thieves might run from their targets through its trails to become just another face in the crowd, though he takes some degree of satisfaction in giving particular attention to certain individuals. Those who do harm in his fortress, or seek to use his fortress to conceal their deed, do so at their own peril. Idles-In-Shade finds that to be the critical line before the limits of his charity, the obligations of the host, are broken.
He was born into service, morality not touching his being as Idles-In-Shade labored to bring about his creator’s vision. Years passed by as he did so, the Abstraction of his power formed by the demands of Cain, yet eventually his master grew impatient. The hounds of the Brotherhood, far-flung as they were from their European haunts, had begun to smell the heretical foundations in the Appalachians while the numerous mass deaths - each conducted by Cain with the terrible magician’s flair of feigning his own demise - had begun to attract Blind law enforcement as well as the Adepts who played at that same game. He felt walls close in that may have been only imagined, felt that his fortress had been perfected far enough as any would wish, and thus began his plan.
The endeavor failed. The endeavor succeeded. Cain died, the fortress ensnaring so many of the Adepts, of the Brotherhood, of Blind caught in the play who thought they were simply enforcing Federal laws, and then the fortress erupted in fire. Souls caught by Cain’s magic flowed like rivers, some of these Cain consumed in his death-throes, the magic in the air rending the fortress open to the space between realms. Glare bled out into that space while the space itself flooded in. As chaos grasped hold of all, a question appeared in Idles-In-Shade’s mind, a curiosity, and he indulged in it. He consumed some of the souls, too, and slipped out through the cut in Glare into that space between. Glare ended, Cain dead, but he, he was free.
Idles-In-Shade would land in Dazzle, though he wouldn’t know its name, and set about achieving that fortress which he had once been commissioned to make. A grand misunderstanding - and a grand built-in urge - had resulted in this as Cain had never truly divulged his plans to the Apparition he had created and the demands which he had made upon his creation left the deepest of imprints. He took the guise of a squirrel, a creature few even batted an eye against and fewer still took the great times to interact with in any way, and took residence in an old, disused park in a place known by the Blind as Cloverfield. It was to be the foundation of that fortress, Berny Park in the lower district, a citadel that none would suspect to be a citadel and none would be capable of breaching.
Then the Cataclysm came and then the Cataclysm went. He took to ground, like so many others, focusing his magic such that the park itself became impossible to traverse, such that every shard of Nyrah’s power which ever would cut against it, every stray belch of acid, every coincidental cut of talon, could make little headway. It was taxing and hard, brutally hard, but through it all he and the fortress survived. Through that fact that the fortress had never been seen as a fortress, all remained unnoticed, unfocused by those who would seek to destroy, and the Idles-In-Shade found it all to have been tested satisfactorily…though never tested to completion. There was still work to be done. There was still work to be built. The itch in the back of his mind would not be satisfied by the mere fact of survival, especially when others had survived it by their mere force of will.
He has since become a coincidental, partially benevolent spirit of Berny Park. Though humanity at times baffles him, at times confounds him, the Aberration has taken some degree of pleasure in using his creation towards more present goals. Teenagers who wish privacy might find it in the park where a trail becomes cloistered from even the most prying of eyes, thieves might run from their targets through its trails to become just another face in the crowd, though he takes some degree of satisfaction in giving particular attention to certain individuals. Those who do harm in his fortress, or seek to use his fortress to conceal their deed, do so at their own peril. Idles-In-Shade finds that to be the critical line before the limits of his charity, the obligations of the host, are broken.
Abstraction
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"Power is what you hold, what you control, what you claim."
TYPE ⫻
Aberration (Abscised)
ABSTRACTION ⫻Where The Hedgerows Start
A twisting of paths one should know and the warping of a region such that the ways there no longer make sense
ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻A twisting of paths one should know and the warping of a region such that the ways there no longer make sense
The affliction of this Abstraction causes the area about the user to become twisted, winding, and generally unable to be navigated by any save for the user. This twisting is not based on geography or distance; paths between two points twenty feet away may then take eighty feet to traverse while incorporating many more turns, blind corners, and alternate pathways which would lead to dead-ends.
Constant Application
LIMITS ⫻Constant Application
The constant affliction of this Abstraction on a space will cause that area to continue to retain these qualities for some time after the affliction ends, though at a far lesser degree and only for a month. The degree of severity for the affliction in that area is dependent on the amount of energy placed into it at a time, normally through meditation over a period of hours, though the Abstraction’s effects themselves feed on negative emotions generated while traversing the afflicted area such as fear and panic.
Entity CreationMuch as when one pours water into a cup, some will slosh away or evaporate into the air, with the application of this power some portion will necessarily not be placed within the land itself. This overflow or spillage manifests itself as the normal land might otherwise dictate in animals or insects, beings that would normally inhabit such places, but with connections to the Abstraction and by extension the Aberration which created them in the first place. More capable than their normal counterparts with few markings that would distinguish them apart, they remain linked with Idles-In-Shade throughout their existence. He may command them, garner information from them, and otherwise utilize them for the defense of his fortress.
ImmunityIdles-In-Shade himself can travel his own afflicted areas, though only with strong, markedly focused concentration upon forcing the effects of his Abstraction to give way to normal reality, much as one might work to shovel snow to create a path. Such concentration is subject, of course, to his own mental states and possible panics.
Range
WEAKNESSES ⫻The affliction of this Abstraction is centered about the user and can only affect a radius of two hundred feet at a time. If such affliction overlaps from uncultivated land to afflicted land, the latter simply has greater severity developed.
DetectionIts existence can be detected by Paranormal beings, though the required sensitivity is tied to the severity of the effect in that area. Generally speaking, such individuals must concentrate in order to detect the affliction if it is not being actively applied.
TeleportationThe Abstraction hampers but does not completely deny the use of teleportation, allowing individuals to enter and leave but severely altering the accuracy of such if the exit point is within the afflicted area. The hampering of teleportation accuracy is generally dependent on the severity of the afflicted area, with less severe regions being subject to differences of up to a dozen feet while the most severe afflictions actively attempt to shift teleporting individuals into solid objects. Teleportation which holds exit points at least five feet above the ground is unaffected.
Different MindsCreated entities hold the same intellectual capacities as their normal counterparts and thus may struggle with more complex commands or instructions. They may also not venture more than a hundred feet outside the radius of an afflicted area; should they do so, spontaneous combustion occurs with the release of magic.
All White Lux Adepts have an innate ability to navigate the abstraction. They will be able to find the correct path without any effort due to their Lux. As well, once an area has been afflicted it is very difficult to pick up and move to a new location. He will need to either pick the best spot right away, or prepare for a prolonged ordeal to move.
Entity Creation
Entity Creation
Idles-In-Shade will have a strong psychic connection with these entities. As such, if something were to happen to them he will experience a psychic backlash that will bring pain and discomfort. The level of which has two factors. First, the backlash will be based on the size of the creature. A single mosquito will bring only a small discomfort, whereas a creature his size could cause him to be in pain for many moments. Second, it will depend on how many creatures have perished. The more of these connections that get severed the greater the impact it will have on him. Thus, he will need to be careful to not put those who call his park home at risk.
Other
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"There's never much."