She refuses to rape and child murder, also refuses underhanded measures like poison and verbal deception, wanting to take care of her targets in person. Her close confidants so far are undecided, as I decided to temporarily shelve the concept.
edited 2nd Mar '15 2:49:23 AM by Kanonite
Into Oblivion
A Mary Sue parody I'm planning for a Kingdom Hearts fanfic. Warning, the spoilers contain spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 358/2Days.
- Name: Maryx (if you have a better name, do suggest)
- Age: Appears around fifteen, has actually existed for about six weeks
- Personality: Most of the time, a worse Alpha Bitch than Larxene. Has the usual token short temper, and absolutely hates Xion (I plan to use her to parody the Hate Dumb against Xion as well, but I'm afraid that would come off as an Author Tract. What do you think?). Despite this, everyone (well, almost everyone) loves her. Has no real personality otherwise...
- Abilities: Has six fake Keyblades and controls reality. This generally manifests in blatant mind control.
- Weaknesses: She's not very bright, and can be distracted by her anger if she's pushed hard enough.
- Goals: Take over Organization XIII, get rid of Xion.
- Motivation: For the first goal, she's really just power-hungry. For the second goal, as a fellow Replica, she sees Xion as a rival.
- Role in the story: Parodies blatant Mary Sues and self-inserts. Serves as the antagonist to Roxas. There's not much else...
- Backstory: She claims to have seen both of her parents killed by Heartless, seen all her true loves killed the same way, etc, etc, etc. She's actually a Replica, created shortly after Xion by Vexen and Xemnas as part of their plans.
- Relevant Tropes:
- Alpha Bitch: Yup.
- My Parents Are Dead: So she claims, anyway.
- Reality Warper: And good at it.
- Villain Sue: Invoked.
If I think of more, I'll add them.
edited 2nd Mar '15 5:14:15 PM by TooManyIdeas
please call me "XionKuriyama" or some variation, thanks! | What is the good deed that you can do right now?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I can't really offer a very in-depth critique of her, because my familiarity with Kingdom Hearts is a bit limited. That being said, from what little I do know of it she seems like a pretty good parody of Kingdom Hearts sues, and fandom sues in general. The profile is a bit brief, and she seems more defines by her abilities and role in story than her personality, but considering what she is that might be the point. The only other thing I would mention is not to go too over the top with the parody: many sue parodies give off an overwhelming feeling of smugness. The name is clever, but don't let that kind of cleverness take over your story.
Ok mine Name: Dave
Age: Unknown, but the knowledge he possesses makes the date he was built irrelevant.
Personality: Dave is as cool as they come- of course, it would be hard for him to be otherwise, due to the fact that he was not programmed to have emotions. He thinks in terms of pure logic, but at the same time is driven by an overwhelming desire to help mankind. Aside from that, he is know to have a surprising affinity for jokes, though anything dirty sails right over his head.
Abilities: He has complete control over the city in which Lesbots takes place. Any and all officials answer to him, and he employs enough Sinister Surveillance to make Big Brother jealous. Dave is also a supercomputer in the most powerful sense: he has nearly unlimited knowledge, flawless logic skills, the ability to solve complex problems in the blink of an eye, and great wifi. Oh, and he also shoots lasers and can turn people into robots.
Weaknesses: Being a computer, Dave lacks the ability to empathize or truly understand humans. As a result, he is often blindsided by illogical or unpredictable actions taken by the protagonists. The robots he uses to control the city are an asset and a liability, because despite their alliance with him, they retain the personalities and free will of their human selves. This poses an issue when some of them decide to rebel, as they are also the only ones with a chance at defeating him.
Goals: To maintain his control over the city, and eventually subjugate the entire human race.
Motivation: A burning desire to protect humanity.
Role in the story: Big Bad.
Backstory: A group of bored university students tried to make a robot that could understand dick jokes- their efforts resulted in the most powerful supercomputer ever built, albeit one that didn't really get dick jokes. When the government realized what happened, they quickly intervened and managed to program a desire to help the human race into the thing. Unfortunately, their efforts the prevent a robot apocalypse were exactly what caused one, as Dave's idea of helping was somewhat incompatible with their own. Dave now sits at the heart of a powerful web of infrastructure, everything perfectly in its place, and everyone perfectly safe... well except for those pesky rebels of course....
Relevant Tropes: A.I. Is A Crapshoot Big Bad Big Brother Is Watching Gone Horribly Wrong/Gone Horribly Right Sinister Surveillance Straw Vulcan The Computer Is Your Friend What Is This Thing You Call Love
@Too Many Ideas
You need to comment on somebody else's entry before people comment on yours. I will note that most Mary Sue parodies just end up becoming Mary Sues so be careful.
@Kanonite
That's a profoundly limited standard. I for one wouldn't be able to cheer for her, though that doesn't necessarily mean others wouldn't.
@Nick The Swing
Well, right off the bat there's a problem with the name. Somebody's going to think you're ripping off Tolkein. Or is that deliberate? Otherwise, he sounds like a complete jackass, which is what you seemed to be going for. I can't help but wonder if the audience will get tired of him though. Going off your description, it doesn't sound like he'd be a lot of fun to watch, more of a "would you please die already" type.
@Serocco
You're correct about Avar's original motivations. His resentment towards those who have more than he does is what drew the Lord of Vice's greed aspect to him in the first place. By the time he enters the story, however, a lot of that is gone, subsumed beneath the greed aspect which ratchets up his avarice to ridiculous levels, and slowly starts overlaying his personality.
@salander
First off, computerised character named Dave? Do I detect a 2001 reference? Anyway, his backstory is utterly ridiculous. Is this supposed to be a comedy, or not? If so, great, that's pretty funny. If no, you're going to want to work on that. Beyond that I don't have a lot to say. Evil overlord computers are fairly common, so what will matter is how you execute it.
This next character is from the same story as Avar, so for the whole story see here
. She's head of another of the 7 Companies, and is the one in charge of the lot.
Name: Princess Kaisereen, Captain of The Disinherited. Aliases and nicknames include The Exile Tyrant and The Wandering Queen.
Age: Physically somewhere in her late thirties or early forties. In reality she's pushing a hundred and fifty years.
Appearance: Kaisereen's a tall, broad shouldered woman, with a muscular build, and an imperious countenance. Her ears, cheeks, and lower lip are pierced and joined with chains in honour of the Lord of Vice, and there are more piercings under her armour where they can't be seen. The armour in question is massive, black and gold, and set with crowns from a dozen different kingdoms and empires. Around her neck she wears a necklace of crocodile teeth, from her time as a chieftain in the far south, while her helmet is topped with the crown of whichever state she ruled last (in this case, the Empire of Xei Wan). Beneath the helmet her hair is golden blonde, streaked with black dye, and she always wears the circlet that marks her as a Princess of Hygardia. She carries a massive black sword, edged with gold, and a thirty foot lance (that length will make sense when you read further).
Personality: Kaisereen was imperious and tyrannical, and that was before she gained control of The Disinherited and started acting as host to the 7-Faced Lord of Vice's pride. She expects her every whim to be obeyed immediately, and the sheer force of her personality—coupled with her Compelling Voice—usually means that it is. She's charismatic and frightening enough to bring almost anybody under her sway, and anyone who questions her tends to die very, very messily, with impalement being a preferred form of execution (provided she doesn't just lose her temper and incinerate you with magic). The company motto is "What was rightfully ours shall be ours again" and nobody believes that more than Kaisereen.
Abilities: Over the past century Kaisereen has fought campaigns on every land mass, on every scale from the tribal to the continent-spanning. She's never failed to win a war she was hired on for, and no matter what name The Disinherited are using, they're never out of work for long. In a fight, she's absolutely devastating, partly because of her decades of experience, and partly because she's played host to the pride aspect (the strongest of the aspects) for as long as she has. She's a brutal swordswoman, a skilled rider and lancer, and one of the most powerful sorceresses in the world, capable of simply blasting apart most opponents with a wave of her hand. And that's without mentioning Tyrant's Fist, the giganotosaur who serves as her mount. Wrapped in several tonnes of armour, capable of swallowing a man whole, and completely bound to Kaisereen's will, he's a force multiplier in any battle.
After the conclusion of her last campaign, Kaisereen and Tyrant's Fist are the only members of The Disinherited (not an uncommon occurrence in a company where the recruitment criteria is unbridled egotism). The moment she raises her flag in Hygardia, though, there will be a flood of exiles, disaffected nobles, and other opportunists flocking to her, all believing—without necessarily knowing why—that she will give them the place in life that they think they deserve. The captains of the other six companies will also obey her without question.
Weaknesses:' Kaisereen was already self-absorbed and deficient in empathy when she started acting as host to the pride aspect. Nowadays she's completely incapable of accepting that anyone's opinion but her own matters in the slightest. Whenever she manages to gain control of a kingdom she inevitably runs it into the ground, prompting one revolt after another until she's forced to cut her losses and run. Worse still, she can't learn from her mistakes. Every time she takes over a country, she disbands The Disinherited, convinced that this time, she will be queen for life. And every time, it all comes down around her ears. Additionally, the fact that joining The Disinherited amplifies a person's pride means that anybody Kaisereen recruits is pretty much guaranteed to become The Starscream at some point, and the company has collapsed into internal civil war on several occasions; even when that doesn't happen, Kaisereen is now so paranoid that she tends to conduct a lot of purges, which is why the company is currently just her and her dinosaur.
Goals: Kaisereen wants to be queen of something, it doesn't really matter what. Over the last hundred years she's worked for dozens of regimes under dozens of different names, overthrowing them all and installing herself as ruler in the aftermath of the victory. Yet, it never works out for, and typically, within a couple of weeks of assuming the throne, she's been driven into exile again. Now, however, she's finally gotten the chance to go home to Hygardia, the country she was supposed to be queen of in the first place, and the Lord of Vice is telling her that this time it really will be different.
Motivations: Kaisereen would have been Queen of Hygardia if her father hadn't lost a civil war. Everything she's done since then is motivated by a desire to gain back her lost status by becoming queen of, if not Hygardia, some realm, somewhere. The pride aspect only makes it worse, of course, to the point where her every moment is filled with obsessing over power. She doesn't take time off or have fun, she doesn't have friends, or lovers, or anything of the sort. All she can think about is obtaining higher rank and holding onto it.
Role in story: Kaisereen's the leader of the 7 Companies, and the ultimate Big Bad of the story. When Prince Lynake contracts The Platinum Blades, it opens the door to the other six companies, whom he is persuaded to hire, one at a time. Finally, Avar persuades him to contract Kaisereen, who is advertised as a mercenary general; she immediately seizes the throne from Lynake, makes him one of her Disinherited, and tries to take over the country for herself.
Backstory: Kaisereen's father was a dreadful king, whose people eventually rose in rebellion against him. Driven into exile, alongside his family, he sought refuge in one of the Ten Republics, which had broken away from the kingdom earlier in his reign. He was granted asylum, but forced to live out his life as an ordinary citizen, something he found painful, and Kaisereen found stifling. Raised to believe she would be queen one day, Kaisereen left home and began recruiting a mercenary army, composed of other exiles and disaffected, with which she hoped to take back her birthright. She never got enough to invade Hygardia, but she did find some renown as a soldier-of-fortune, at which point she was approached by the current captain (and last surviving member) of The Disinherited, who wanted to take over her company himself. She killed him in combat, and in doing so, became the new host of the pride aspect and transformed her company, The Queen's Companions, into the new Disinherited. Since then, she and her band have wandered all over the world, capturing kingdoms, sometimes on their own, sometimes with the rest of the 7 Companies. Various versions of The Disinherited have come and gone, but Kaisereen always remains, as determined to be queen as she was the day she first set out, 110 years ago.
Relevant tropes: BFS, Blade On A Stick (her lance), Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, Dark Action Girl, Everythings Better With Dinosaurs (Tyrant's Fist), The Evil Princess, God Save Us from the Queen!, It's All About Me, Magic Knight, Names to Run Away from Really Fast (Tyrant's Fist again), Narcissist, Pride, Sorcerous Overlord, Super-Reflexes, Super-Strength
Into Oblivion
...Oh, fudge. All right, I'll review you, hold on...
please call me "XionKuriyama" or some variation, thanks! | What is the good deed that you can do right now?
Into Oblivion
Okay, I like what I see. Very good royalty villain. I also like how she is so bad at actually running things that she doesn't usually stay queen very long. My only real complaint is that she does seem a little bit like a generic Evil Queen. Still, you did way better than me here, and I like it.
please call me "XionKuriyama" or some variation, thanks! | What is the good deed that you can do right now?
Essentially, he is a complete jackass, and Khaos well...he tried to name Silmarill for the Silmarillion, thinking to make someone after the books' mythical heroes. This is what he got.
Even though I probably didn't include the trope, Silmarill is a tremendous ham. Once he reveals himself, he leaves very little of the scenery alone.
Re Kaisereen: I like her. She sounds like an interesting example of the strong, warrior queen, conqueror type. Her habit of running the kingdoms she conquers into the ground is also an interesting aspect that I haven’t seen too often in fantasy. Usually everyone thinks once a conqueror has won, it’s game over. They never really consider maybe that conqueror is excellent at waging war, but sucks at basic administrative duties after they’ve won. I wonder if part of her incompetence at ruling comes from self-sabotage due to Wanting Is Better Than Having. Like she thinks being in charge of any kingdom at all will fill a void, but once she takes control she finds it doesn’t satisfy her like she thought it would, because it’s not the kingdom she “knows” belongs to her. I am also curious how much control the Lord of Vice has over his hosts, since he sounds like he takes the negative traits they already have and ratchets them up a couple of notches. Do you have a plan for the Lord of Vice? Will he ever make an actual appearance within the series or does he remain a Bigger Bad? Does he have a specific goal or does he just empower his hosts in the pursuit of their own goals?
This is from a trilogy that I was previously working on. It’s on the backburner now as I work on some other stuff, but I hope to finish it someday. It’s set in 2574 and is a basic alien invasion story where a species calling themselves the Benevolent Ones takes over earth and enslaves humanity. The story would have multiple point-of-view characters and tell the story of a rebellion rising up against the planet’s oppressors. The three most prominent characters would be Desmond Ashford, the heir of the family that governs the city of Red Bastion and an ally of the local rebel cell, Cordelia Lockwood, The Mole within the Benevolent Ones’ Office of Information and Desmond’s lover, and Marcus Sellers, a Transhuman leader of the Red Bastion rebellion.
Name: The Righteous, "Sebastian Greig"
Age: Mid-forties.
Appearance: A completely unremarkable-looking man, the Righteous has the ability to disappear in a crowd of one, leaving no impression whatsoever in the minds of those he meets. His nose is perhaps a little too long, his hair is a mousey brown, and his pale green eyes are covered by round glasses. Once his true identity is revealed, he often wears his gray military uniform with black trimming.
Personality: The Righteous presents himself as a mere servant of the Benevolent Ones, an extension of their will who is completely dedicated to their cause of advancing humanity no matter how morally reprehensible his actions may be. He believes himself to be a pure man, one who is immune to corruption and temptation, unfettered by the restraints and limitations of most humans. The reality is quite different. The Righteous is a sadist who’s had a pathological need to dominate and hurt other people his entire life. As a youth, he was constantly plagued by guilt and insecurity for these impulses, but, not wanting to give up the pleasure his actions gave him, he began weaving a complex web of lies to justify his crimes. He blamed his victims for "making him" hurt them, and began seeing his fellow man as meaningless, destructive and selfish beings who deserved to suffer. Eventually his guilt faded as his misanthropic conviction strengthened, and he yearned to be set apart from the humans he despised. This dream was realized once the Benevolent Ones conquered the world. Not only did their State Sec Transhuman experiments offer him the chance to finally become something more than human, but their stated goal to "advance humanity" confirmed his belief that humans were naturally lesser beings that needed their worst elements culled before they could become something meaningful.
Strengths: As a Transhuman altered by the Benevolent Ones, the Righteous has strength, speed and toughness far beyond that of normal humans. He excels in the use of firearms and is proficient in many forms of hand-to-hand combat. He’s also a Master Actor, which greatly comes in handy during his deep cover roles.
Weaknesses: His temper. Beneath the stoicism, the Righteous is a dangerously unstable individual and when his buttons are pressed, he can make huge errors in judgment. In particular, he goes berserk at any mention of his past as it ruins the myth of himself he’s built up in his own mind.
Goals: To fulfill his mission in eradicating rebel cells opposing the Benevolent Ones, and later crush the human rebellion when they wage all-out war.
Motivation: Sadism, a need to be superior to other humans, and a need to devote himself to a higher purpose.
Backstory: As with all Sedition Agents, most of the Righteous’s past is shrouded in mystery. From the one existing file on him, Cordelia is able to discover he was born in London and had a criminal record centered around multiple instances of theft, vandalism and assault. His parents died in a fire while he was a teenager. Foul play was suspected. Two years later, a friend of his mysteriously vanished. When the Benevolent Ones invaded, he was drafted to fight them, but when the aliens crushed humanity’s defenses, he was one of the many humans to voluntarily go over to their conquerors’ side. He joined their Academy, rose through the ranks and eventually became one of their top Sedition Agents. The reader would never find out his real name, the closest being Cordelia calling him "Gi—" before he flips out and tries to kill her.
Role in the Story: Halfway through the first novel, the Righteous takes on the role as The Heavy and de facto Big Bad from Governor Malcolm Ashford. Sent by the the Benevolent Ones, his task is to locate and eradicate the rebel cell subverting his masters in Red Bastion. Taking on the alias of Sebastian Greig, a new servant for the Ashford family, he begins gathering information to weed out the rebels, and succeeds in exterminating them, the Ashford family, and Decoy Protagonist, Desmond. For the rest of the trilogy, he acts as the unknowing Archenemy of Cordelia, the Foil to Noble Top Enforcer, the Just, and The Dragon to Starkeepers Cassiopeia and Scorpius during the war between the Benevolent Ones and humanity that starts at the end of book two until his death at the end of book three.
Fate: He’s killed during a long, drawn-out fight against Cordelia while she tries to deactivate the defenses protecting the Benevolent Ones’ base, thus ensuring their destruction.
Tropes:
- Ax-Crazy: He hides it beneath a veneer of stoicism but he can’t quite conceal the pleasure he takes in torturing and killing others, particularly since he performs these acts with so little pretense. Desmond and Cordelia quickly get the impression that it would only take the push of a few buttons for the Righteous to go off the deep end. And Cordelia proves it at the end of book three by sending him spiraling into a Villainous Breakdown at the mention of his past.
- Boomerang Bigot: Absolutely despises humans despite the fact that he is one. He willingly aligns with the Benevolent Ones and succumbs to their Transhuman experiments to set himself apart from them completely.
- The Dragon/The Heavy: Acts as the de facto Big Bad of the first book given that the two Benevolent Ones he serves, Starkeepers Cassiopeia and Scorpius, only appear twice briefly in the first story. Once they take up the reigns as the Big Bad Duumvirate in book two, he serves them as their most prominent minion.
- The Dreaded: All Sedition Agents are dreaded in the setting, but the Righteous is hands-down the most feared among them, with a mountain of corpses in his past. When the members of the revolution in Red Bastion learn he’s on the hunt for their rebel cell, they’re quickly horrified, and for good reason as he ends up nearly killing all of them.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: From a nobody street punk to one of the most powerful figures in the resident alien overlords’ State Sec. Reminding him of just what a nobody he was is enough to send him into a homicidal rage.
- Holier Than Thou/Knight Templar: As illustrated by his title, which he picked for himself. While not affiliated with a religious organization, he looks down on other humans, believing them to be weak and corruptible, whereas he is moral and justifiable in his actions because he serves a government that serves a higher purpose by "bettering mankind." Unfortunately, his idea of bettering mankind includes culling the worthless and undesirable elements of society.
- Kick the Dog: Pretty much every action he undertakes after the reveal, particularly everything he does to Desmond. He tortures him physically and psychologically, implants him with an Explosive Leash, forces him to watch as he tortures and executes all of his family and friends, then confirms Desmond’s status as a Decoy Protagonist by saying the kill code which renders him brain-dead. He follows it up at the end of book two with the nuking Blue Bastion in retaliation for the death of Starkeeper Scorpius.
- Master Actor: He takes on a number of different characters in his work as a spy, the most prominent disguise being a seemingly bumbling but earnest servant named Sebastian Greig.
- Misanthrope Supreme: A major justification he supplies for his acts is that humans are inherently evil and worthless and that makes it okay for him to torture and slaughter them. According to his rhetoric, the Benevolent Ones are aiding humanity’s evolution and those who hinder their efforts deserve whatever punishment that befalls them for holding back the species from achieving something greater.
- The Nondescript: His completely unremarkable appearance coupled with his Beneath Notice disguises, ensures nobody ever suspects his true identity until he reveals it to them.
- Psycho Supporter: While he believes he believes in committing atrocities for the sake of order and the extermination of weakness in humans, in reality he’s a completely depraved sadist but is so insecure about his proclivities that he needs to come up with elaborate justifications as to why it’s ok for him to act as he does.
- Sadist: A major part of his character. He doesn’t just like hurting people, he needs to hurt people, and he usually ends up leaving far more bodies in his wake than is theoretically required for his job.
- Self-Made Orphan: Strongly implied to have murdered his parents in a fire.
- The Spook: He has many different aliases and like most Sedition Agents employed by the Benevolent Ones, his past is a complete mystery with all records of his identity and history erased. The Benevolent Ones do keep one comprehensive file on each of their agents, however, and Cordelia is able to find his. This does not make him happy.
- The Stoic: When outside of his role as a Master Actor, he makes a point to keep his emotions concealed.
- Transhuman: Like all Sedition Agents, he’s been altered by the Benevolent Ones into being far stronger, faster and tougher than an average human.
- Torture Technician: One of the most effective torturers the Benevolent Ones have at their disposal. While his masters use his "talents" for gathering information and making examples of their enemies, he often does it for pleasure. He does realize he enjoys it too much and makes efforts to "pace himself" when he gets his hands on particularly valuable prisoners so as not to kill them when they’re still needed. He instead gets release from torturing and killing not so important prisoners.
The Silly Gloom
I'm going to note the name before all else, because when a character has a name like this, s/he instantly has my attention. "Righteous" doesn't make for a good-aligned sounding character at all, for one thing, which is nice, especially for a sadistic bastard like him. He has things that I usually look for in villains as well, like the insecurity about his 'evilness' and the sheer sadism he displays. In fact, he has traits that my own favorite villain also has. Shame about his fate![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
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This is my Player Character from an old RP I played a good ten years ago, set in a Magitek-esque world. Note that when I say people and nations and stuff, I mostly mean the other players and nations or groups run by them.
Name: Aisel
Age: Around 36, but officially "dead"
Personality: The Aisel of Garilia is a highly chaotic creature. On the surface one will see a calm, collected, and by all means ice-cold woman always plotting something beneath that unfeeling mask, but deep down, she's just a wrathful beast. Purely driven by the hate she has for all beings, Aisel is ever so eager to bring death and destruction to anything that stands between her and her master's goal. In a sense, she's more of a wild beast than she is a person, albeit a tremendously dangerous one.
Abilities: Matirialization and reality bending. Aisel, especially in her last stage as a fully developed 'Chrodia', possesses the power to shape the world's fundamental elements at will. She's capable far beyond summoning a fire storm or creating an avalanche out of thin air, and can in fact create a short-living pocket dimension of her own. Also unique to her, as a netherkin, is the ability to phase into the Nether, completely removed from the current level of reality and absolutely undetectable. In physical form, Aisel can manipulate her muscle and bones however she likes, up to and including creating a gigantic bone blade which erupts from her forearm, and exploding into a shower of lethally toxic blood. Due to these, she's effectively immortal and intangible.
Weaknesses: While practically immortal, Aisel can really affect anything to a substantial degree only when she's in her physical form, which, if destroyed, needs at least a few weeks to rebuild. A certain type of creatures or mages specialized in manipulation of space and time can also limit her abilities considerably. Also, she's not exactly the wisest thing in Garilia, which comes with being a creature driven by rage and hatred. It's her master's duty to do the planning. Her, she's just an attack hound.
Goals: To serve Renard Lumirale of Garilia in whatever way she requires, and to enjoy it along the way.
Motivation: One can easily mistake the level of devotion Aisel had for her service to Renard Lumirale as a sign of extreme loyalty, but in truth, Aisel only used her status as Renard's minion as an excuse to kill thousands and fuck the world up even further for her own amusement. Not to say that she had no love for the girl, as Aisel's certainly very fond of Renard and her twisted ideology. In the end, she's rather aimless, and chose to go along with the chaos that was the war between Garilia and the other nations of Terra simply to see where she'd end up, and how much misery she can bring.
Backstory: Given to the Garilia of the Magi as "tribute" by the dimension-faring city Klatrov when the two formed an alliance, the story of how Aisel, a netherkin, ended up in the hands of these powerful cities never came to light. Klatrov had no official record related to her, and any attempt to gain information directly from her turned out utterly fruitless. Aisel herself never spoke of her past. The only thing known for certain is that she's a netherkin, and that a netherkin is an alien race to Terra, never before seen. Rather tame and obedient, she was given to the young mage prodigy Renard Lumirale as a plaything, but Renard managed to befriend her and turned her into a personal agent of the sort. When Garilia's plan to invade the rest of the world's nations was put in motion, she was 'loaned' to the city as a war asset and sent out to travel the world, acting as she was ordered. During these years, Aisel fronted as wandering mercenary, but many times involved herself in various events that became critical to Terra's stability. She, for example, was behind the destruction of Garden Neu, one of the world's premier military powers, and also the killing of the Yrel expedition to search for a highly sought-after mineral, an occurence which spawned a host of complications. Most notably, however, she's one of the two responsible for the attack on the World's Council, an event that nearly single handedly plunged the world into chaos, and was the starting point of the ongoing worldwide conflict. As the hostilities came to the boiling point and open warfare was eminent, Aisel returned to Garilia, prepared to finally go in the field and kill anyone and anything that tries to stop her.
Tropes
Ax-Crazy: The most prominent case in the RP.
The Bad Guy Wins: For a long while it appears this way. Aisel and her then partner Victor successfully sabotaged the World's Council's defense systems as well as its most important, extremely high-tech facilitites, damage cost being in the trillions, not to mention the absolutely staggering amount of personnel they both killed along the way. She held the highest bounty record for a time, and everyone once considered hunting her down, with some of them even disregarding the money and simply wanting to bring her to justice. Those who tried failed. The woman also has an entire collection of other atrocities under her name, including the massacre of the Yrel expedition, which she initially pretended to be a part of. By the end of the last part, Aisel is still at large, and in a way she gets everything she wants by turning the world into such a miserable place.
Body Horror: Her physical form. Aisel appears as a tall, lean woman in most circumstances, and considering her powers wouldn't be this trope at all if she didn't love to play with it so much. Her usual method when attacking people, that is when she stops pretending to be anything normal, is to turn her forearm bones into huge blades that protrude out of said arms. Tearing off her own flesh to expose the bones or cutting herself to let loose the toxic blood is something she does frequently enough that they're not so much tactics as they are her habits.
Complete Monster: Certainly a popular opinion of her that most of the heroes of Terra seem to have, especially after the war broke out.
Crapsack World: She enjoys creating it.
Evil Versus Evil/Eviler than Thou: Being that Terra is full of nasty people, this is inevitable. While also having to contend with the force of good, Aisel finds herself clashing with the evil empires and such just as frequently. A notable case is the Ednus Eid empire, ruled by the self described 'Dark Lords', for whom Aisel holds a special contempt, and against whose people Aisel herself committed various atrocities, simultaneously invoking Even Evil Has Standards from them and securing her place as the eviler one on the spectrum. In an effort to undermine Ednus Eid, Aisel did things such as releasing Garilia killer dolls on one of its towns as part of the field test, killing hundreds of unarmed and helpless citizens in the process, for example, something that even some of the higher-ups back at Garilia were shocked by. Then there's the attack on the World's Council, which everyone (including Ednus Eid) agreed was pure evil.
Immortality: Aisel can't be killed. Her physical form can be destroyed, but her conciousness will just shift back to the Nether, where she waits for her physical form to rebuild. It takes time, but she always comes back. Theoretically, if one is to access the Nether, one can permanently kill her true form there, but none of the Terra denizens seem capable of that, not yet anyway.
For the Evulz: When she began her 'pilgrimage' around the world she's not entirely sure of it. Initially, Aisel just wanted to live a human life and fulfill a function of a human society, if only to see if it could keep her entertained and suppress the natural hate she harbors for humans. It couldn't, but she soon found the things that could entertain her, like mass killing and terrorism for the hell of it. Some people think she did all the monstrous things out of the loyalty she had for Renard, but in reality she just played along for the entertainment value. When Renard was finally put to rest and Garilia collapsed from internal conflicts, Aisel left and continued merrily on her quest to ensure the world's misery.
Karma Houdini: A branded terrotist, a mass murderer, and servant of what turns out to be an ultra-aggressive nation that plans to conquer the world using the most hideous of means. By the end of it all? She's still somewhere on Terra, waiting to have more fun when another war ineviatbly breaks out, and no one can stop her.
Knife Nut: As part of her front as a wandering mercenary, Aisel almost exclusively wielded a knife in combat. She discarded the knife fetish after the war broke out.
Knight of Cerebus: Despite not being the actual Big Bad, Aisel's arrival made for a seriously darker, moodier atmosphere in the RP, and it only got worse the longer she stays. Starting with the complete destruction of Garden Neu via reactor overload, with the casualty reaching hundreds of thousands, Terra stopped being a world of adventure and headed instead to the Crapsack World direction.
Kill Them All: Her modus operandi.
Reality Warper: A minor case. Aisel can create a pocket dimension and pull anyone close into it, sometimes without them realizing. In this pocket dimension, she controls everything, and can break the rules of elements in ways that will leave even the greatest of mages baffled. This pocket dimension cannot be sustained for long, however, and has a cooldown period of days before Aisel can focus enough to create it again. Outside of that, Aisel has great control over the elements as well, but nothing of such level.
Terrorist Without A Cause: It's her master who had a cause, not her. She's just in it for the thrill.
edited 20th Mar '15 12:16:01 AM by arreimil
On the foundation of glass a dream is built. And, like glass, it shatters.
I always love names like "the Righteous" or the "Benevolent Ones" for villains, because it's pretty much a step away from calling them "The Incredibly, Very Nice People Who Definitely Aren't Planning on Horribly Killing Everyone." I'm just hoping being beaten to death by the woman whose friends and lover he killed is satisfying enough for readers.
Re Aisel: I'm pretty fond of psycho characters if only because I Love to Hate them. In my opinion, audiences always need at least one character to hate in a work, so they may as well be as horrible as possible. Aisel seems like she fits pretty well in that regard, she's certainly got enough bad deeds to her name. Are you planning on her getting any comeuppance in future RPs? If not, I might recommend tuning down her evil a bit or giving her some redeeming qualities, if only because, in my personal opinion, it seems like readers are onboard with following irredeemably evil villains because they fully expect them to meet appropriately painful ends. If an irredeemable villain gets off completely free of consequences, then it's not cathartic for the reader. Especially if heroes and much more sympathetic villains kick the bucket instead. Though I suppose it could work if you're intentionally letting her live in order to display the injustice of the work, ala The Wire and No Country for Old Men.
Here's another character from the same Sci-Fi trilogy as the Righteous.
Name: Francis Ashford
Age: 19
Appearance: Tall and thin with gorgeous, almost feminine features. He has deep blue eyes, and his hair is golden, curly and worn down to his shoulders. He often wears ostentatious and colorful outfits of the latest fashion, with a particular affinity for red.
Personality: Raised as a member of a higher echelon of society has turned Francis spoiled, selfish, entitled and greedy. Unencumbered by responsibility and having his every need catered to his entire life, Francis is used to getting what he wants, whenever he wants it. Despite all of the privileges afforded him, however, he's always been envious of his more beloved and talented brother, whom he's lived in the shadow of his whole life. This also manifests as a yearning to be recognized by the uncle who adopted them but neglected him in favor of Desmond. A common outlet for his bitterness is to abuse those lower in social standing to himself. He sees himself above the common folk, as one of the chosen few selected by the Benevolent Ones, giving him a kind of divine right to rule over them. Should those "lesser" than him disappoint or fail him, he sees absolutely nothing wrong with abusing, brainwashing or killing them, depending on the severity of their "crime." Besides, others do it, so why shouldn't he? It's just how the world's supposed to work.
Abilities: Despite initially appearing as a spoiled bully, Francis is actually a great deal more cunning than he first seems and is capable of forming surprisingly clever gambits. He has a knack for anticipating how people will react to events and plan accordingly. Also, as a member of Red Bastion's ruling family, he's in charge of local law enforcement, and once his uncle approves his request, he's able to gain limited aid from the Office of Information.
Weaknesses: He's not a combatant himself so if anyone ever gets him alone and tries to kill him, he's screwed. He also has a habit of underestimating the rebels because of their lower class and his own unbridled arrogance. He doesn't inspire much loyalty in his servants, bodyguards and mooks because of his poor treatment of them. His lifelong use of drugs has also turned him into an addict, and while he tries to reign these qualities in while commanding the search for the rebels, his dependence is too great and he becomes even less rational and composed while suffering from withdrawal.
Goals: To crush the rebellion and replace his brother as the next Governor of Red Bastion.
Motivations: The desire for personal pleasure and happiness, the belief that he's entitled to whatever he wants because of his high social status, envy of his brother, and a need to be loved and accepted by his uncle.
Backstory: The younger son of Matthew and Gloria Ashford, his parents died when he was four-years-old during an outbreak of Gray Plague, a disease inadvertently caused by the Benevolent Ones’ presence. Instead he and his older brother Desmond were raised by their uncle, Malcolm Ashford, the Governor of Red Bastion. Five years younger than Desmond, his brother was a prodigy and Francis frequently felt overshadowed by his sibling, especially as Malcolm chose him to be his heir following the death of both his wife and child in childbirth. Francis was mostly raised by his grandmother, who gave him the attention Malcolm never did. He's spent most of his life, living in luxury and indulging in all of the pleasures that come with being born as a member of the elite. Recently, however, as his brother and uncle begin butting heads, Francis senses an opportunity to replace his brother as heir to Red Bastion. All he needs to do is prove himself, and increased attacks by the local rebellion may just give him the chance he needs.
Role in the Story: One of the primary antagonists early in the book, while Malcolm Ashford is the leader of the house and Governor of Red Bastion, Francis is the one looking into the rebellion and trying to crush it to score brownie points with his uncle and alien masters. He's a prominent threat to Marcus, who tries to liberate slaves and damage Benevolent One operations, as well as to his brother, Desmond, who tries to gather information for the rebellion while ducking his brother's investigation.
Fate: Murdered by Desmond after revealing he has evidence that a member of their household is a traitor. His death is the final straw for the Benevolent Ones who send in the Righteous to handle things.
Tropes:
- Aristocrats Are Evil: In addition to being a fairly awful human being, he’s the setting's equivalent given that the "Governors" who run the Bastions are more akin to ruling families chosen by the Benevolent Ones to act as overseers and administrators.
- Bad Boss: He's a terror to his servants, belittling them, abusing them and threatening those who particularly disappoint him with demotion to slave labor, brainwashing, or execution.
- Cain and Abel: Francis is everything Desmond isn't. He's selfish, cruel, arrogant, and displays a disturbing Lack of Empathy towards anyone not of his social status. He frequently has servants who disappoint him sent to hellish slave labor, brainwashed, or executed, and encourages his uncle to increase work quotas and ignore safety conditions in factories where most of Red Bastion's populace work as slaves, resulting in numerous accounts of death and injury. While he does want to usurp Desmond's status as heir to the Ashford family, he doesn't want to actually harm him and it’s more of a Sibling Rivalry thing from his point-of-view. Desmond's the one who has to kill Francis for endangering the rebellion, and he's wracked with guilt and nightmares for the rest of his life over it.
- The Dandy: He prides himself on wearing the latest fashions and looking immaculate and stylish.
- Disc-One Final Boss: To an extent. While Governor Ashford is the main villain for the first half of the novel, it's really Francis who's leading the effort to find the rebels in Red Bastion and whom Desmond has to tiptoe around while leaking information to his allies. He's killed halfway through the book by Desmond, and then the Righteous comes in as the main threat as a direct response to his death.
- Driven by Envy: He's really insanely envious of the love and respect his brother gets, along with the recognition given to him by their uncle. Despite his envy though, he can't bring himself to hate his older brother, even if their relationship is strained.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Desmond injects him with a fast acting poison when his back is turned. Francis has just enough time to realize his brother's killed him before he dies, and the look of absolute betrayal on his face and his last words, a confused and terrified, "Why?", are burned bright in Desmond's mind for the rest of his life.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He doesn't really remember his parents too much, but he loves his grandmother because she's the one who raised him and gave him the most attention while his uncle was preoccupied with teaching Desmond. Even after she's gone senile, he still visits her and makes sure her every need is attended to.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's completely devoted to his uncle and not just for reasons of succeeding him as Governor. Also, despite all the anger, resentment and bullying he directs at Desmond, it's pretty clear that he does love his brother and actually tries to comfort Desmond after they get news a childhood friend of Desmond's has died. He also has a fiancée whom he often writes flowery love poems to. Of course, it doesn't stop him from cheating on her, but he does actually love her.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He's honestly completely perplexed by Desmond’s kindness and concern over their servants and the citizens of Red Bastion, even as Desmond tries to educate him on the virtues and benefits of being merciful and compassionate. In Francis's mind, why should they? After all, they’re the ones who have been chosen by the Benevolent Ones to rule, why care about lesser people?
- He Knows Too Much: He stumbles upon a piece of evidence that would implicate Desmond as a traitor. Not knowing the item belongs to Desmond, Francis tells Desmond his theory that there's a traitor in their household and asks Desmond to help him convince their uncle. Desmond agrees, then kills him his guard is down.
- The Hedonist: He believes his station means he can act however he wants, and as a result he does a lot of drugs, drinks a lot of alcohol, and has a lot of sex with his attractive servants. When the opportunity presents itself to advance his station, he tries to reign this part of himself in to prove himself to his uncle. He's not entirely successful, but he gives it the old college try.
- It's All About Me: He has a massive sense of entitlement and really only cares about his own comfort, happiness and advancement at the expense of anyone else.
- Jerkass: In particular he's an asshole to everyone he views as "lesser" than himself, but even when dealing with fellow Governing families he comes across as self-absorbed and inconsiderate of others' feelings.
- Moral Myopia: He thinks nothing of the deaths of countless lower-class humans, either through factory accidents or execution for dissention, but he's outraged at the news of rebels murdering other members of Governing families and calls them animals for their disregard for life.
- The Quisling: Like all Governing families of the Bastions, he's aligned with the Benevolent Ones to gain a position of power and makes frequent speeches about how humanity needs to obey their conquerors for their own good.
- The Resenter: Towards Desmond, because he's their uncle's heir, and is beloved by both the Ashford household as well as the other Governing families.
- Smug Snake: He's vastly overestimates himself, and his brutality, arrogance and ineffectualness in crushing the rebellion ensures he's not admirable in really any way.
- Starter Villain: While a threat because of his resources and ruthlessness, Francis is just the opening act and he's nowhere near the threat level of the Sedition Agents and Starkeepers.
- The Unfavorite: Desmond is Malcolm's heir and favored nephew, since Malcolm believes Francis is too incompetent and selfish to make an effective leader. To be fair, Malcolm isn't wrong.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: To his uncle, Malcolm, instead of his parents, who are both dead. A major part of Francis's motivation is to impress his uncle and earn his approval and love.
edited 21st Mar '15 4:47:17 PM by OccasionalExister
Serocco
Francis Ashford strikes me as a Spoiled Brat given a biiit too much power, kinda like Joffrey Baratheon. I don't think Francis is as horrid as Joffrey, though, which is a plus.
Another concept for Eclipse, of course. I'm heading into more world building, and I thought of this as an idea.
- Name: Anais Seyrune (uh-nae-us sye-rune). I'm debating over whether to call her Syerrun (pronounced siren) instead. For now, I'm going with Seyrune since it's the first name that came to mind, but I'm open to changing it to Syerrun.
- Appearance: Clad in heavy armor that is best described as a cross between a futuristic/steampunk knight and a riot officer, but lacking the helmet. Her hair is silver, her eyes are bronze, and curved gray marks were under her eyes and curved through her cheeks. Seyrune is fairly youthful, appearing in her thirties.
- Backstory: Seyrune is a Cleric, a Knight-based enforcer for stability and security. She was born in a time where her home realm of Diocese was wracked with what she termed as "The Discord," where Clerics were divided into separate Orders with their own Code of Honor. Tension over differing philosophies led to much unrest as the various Orders jostled for greater influence in current, previous, and future generations over the "proper conduct" of a Cleric. Seyrune saw the Discord as antithetical to the existence of her species, and believed that unification under a single Order, a single Code/Oath, and a single cause was the only pathway necessary to stabilization. When the main character began her rampage throughout the realm of Diocese, Seyrune took full advantage and converted hundreds of thousands to her banner, using the main character as the perfect scapegoat to parade her ideology to other Clerics. Upon repelling the rampage, which killed off most of her rivals and competitors, Seyrune's implementation of centralization and her philosophy was termed "The Awakening," as it, according to Seyrune herself, "instilled a rebirth in society."
- Personality: As a Cleric, Seyrune sees it as her duty to uphold justice and maintain order over discord in the universe. Her main ideology is that Clerics are the self-evident enforcers of heroism and chivalry, but she disavows all attempts at redemption for her enemies or rehabilitation for violators. While she believes that Right Makes Might, and consistently parades such virtues as chivalry, order, heroism, and justice, her defining philosophy is unremitting ferocity towards anyone deemed as "filth" for infringing upon Order. No mercy is showed and little regard is given to the perspectives of her enemies unless they are her prisoners. Her neo-colonialism (where she forces through a form of protectionism into other more minor species for the sake of expanding territory) stems from her belief that only Clerics are worthy of pursuing justice and practicing in chivalry. She regards most other beings with a combination of disdain (for challenging her pursuit of justice), mistrust (believes they are susceptible to discord), and condescension (seeing them as inadequate guardians at best and worthless cannon fodder at worst), believing that she is experiencing something of a White Man's Burden in upholding order; she is rather resentful of her job. She privately relishes in the personality cult created around her, in spite of promoting modesty to her followers, and constructed a hierarchy where, even as she does not micro-manage anything, Diocese would return to discord without her in the eyes of many Clerics.
- Abilities: Utilizes a lance that functions as a polearm, a sniper rifle, a javelin, and a machine gun all at once. She utilizes a shield for both defense and offense, as the shield both entraps her enemies in cells and ricochets attacks back at her opponents.
- Role: Seyrune was the primary authority behind the (temporary) imprisonment of Alice Sitchri, the main character, into the hellish prison-realm of Nether in the backstory. She now reigns as the Arbiter, the Clerics' supreme authority. For her "Awakening" of Diocese during and after The Discord, and role in the imprisonment of Alice (whom Syerrun/Seyrune aptly called the Nightmare), Syerrun/Seyrune is a beloved Paragon in Diocese; she's derisively nicknamed "Saint Annie" by Alice.
- Goal: Upholding justice above everything else, because Right Makes Might.
edited 24th Apr '15 8:15:35 PM by Serocco
In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.
Oh hey Seiryu, you're even more psychotic than when I last saw you.
Aside from the expy thing, I like her. She's justice-crazy, she's got a lot of problems upstairs, and well...I hope the scene where she reveals she has machine guns in her everything makes an appearance. Because I will not lie - that was morbidly funny.
That aside, she is definitely a new kind of villain. Knight Templar isn't very new, but a villain who talks about justice and good is not exactly done material.
Its refreshing...innovative. Just don't make her hinge on notes on Seiryu.
- Name: Zachaia Elmsdotter
- Age: 19?
- Personality: Zachaia has a very odd personality - she seems to have had her personality deleted at one point, and then became a whole different villain after she built herself up again. Despite her gruesome powers, she maintains a rather pseudo-innocent persona that sees nothing wrong in fulfilling her desires as she sees fit, because that is how she perceives most people. Motive? What is that, she asks. To her, it seems morality and people's actions are nothing but fulfilment of desire. While she tries to be manipulative and cunning, it is clear even though she formally lacks morality, that there are some things she just doesn't like. She seems to view her old memories as things she really wants to be rid of, and that they are apparently really traumatic. She also dislikes meeting people who know her from her old life, stating she is a new Zachaia, and even if she was a bad person in her last life, she doesn't want to be known for the things she did back then, because "she was not the real me." She also seems to possess certain Wild Card traits, such as her tendency to stick to one person if she likes them, and if they switch sides, so will she. She has extremely harsh visual standards, though, and views certain traits as attractive and meriting her attention and others less so. Zachaia also seems to have no concept of privacy or personal space. It appears that Jason Druford has deeply intrigued her, and resulting in her spending a lot of time following him around. Zachaia also functions, usually, as a Dark Chick, either being intrigued by a villain's group, or just joining because there's a cute guy on the team. As a whole, she is very emotionally immature, and this makes it easy to think she is not intelligent – which is not exactly true.
- Abilities: Her Demon Ability is called Alien Matter, which lets her shapeshift, and also results in her body actually being made of a huge collection of parasitic, carnivorous shapeshifting slugs of a variety of natures. Essentially being a sentient hive of slug-like Tyranids, she can create new ones to send off to either attack, or more nefariously, infect other people and make them become zombies, which she can assimilate into her body. She then gains any magic or Spell Core power they had. Her most common way of fighting is making three slugs, then conjoining them and making a very flexible staff. At present, her collection of Spell Core abilities include; Corpse Puppeteer (she can hide inside corpses and manipulate them), Cellular Regeneration (From a Single Cell, basically), Ice Queen (turns sound into ice) and Killer's Knife, which lets her add blades to any of her "limbs" which means in this case, she gets to create very, very sharp Combat Tentacles. She even has a collection of One-Winged Angel forms she can turn into.
- Weaknesses: It appears that attacks which linger and deal massive damage on a cellular level inflict massive damage to her. She is also weak to close range explosions.
- Goals: Fulfill her own desires.
- Motivation: She doesn't really have one, but I guess one could say she wants to be rid of the person she used to be. And given the number of abilities she has and the kind of demonic ability she has, its clear she believes the person she once was was a total psychopath. And she's right.
- Role in the story: Usually The Dark Chick, though she had a stint in Viandas as The Dragon, which is the "old Zachaia" mentioned before. She also does the job of being The Vamp and a Black Widow toward targets assigned to her by Hector Gibbs.
- Backstory: Zachaia is actually only half a demon, and was born into nobility on Gaea, but was so detested for the way her mother was so "weak" to not commit suicide after a demon had relations with her that she was thrown into the position of being a maid. She started to fall for a young, handsome knight, but he rejected her affections after he married up, and told her to never speak to him again. This was followed up by her sociopathic elder brother throwing her down a well, and then throwing pig blood down on her. At which point her power activated, and without even knowing it, she devoured her elder brother, and the other two watching the occasion. After this, she decided while evil sucked, she was not gonna complain, it was the only route open to her. It did not take long for her to turn into a sadistic psychopath herself, tormenting Johnson Viandas over his adventure as Caelan's Dragon, and only being stopped when he obliterated Zachaia with a blast from Valdafard (or so he thought.) She actually survived this, and while she lost her memories, she found her way to Earth through a portal opened for her by Lord Eclipse, who thought she would cause chaos on Earth.
- Relevant Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: And brothers. She cannot go near wells for damn good reasons.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: The root of her problems. She has a very villainous reputation, and a tendency to use it for her own ends, whatever they may be.
- The Assimilator: She can even assimilate inanimate objects to add to her abilities. She eats a collection of diamonds in Book II to give herself Made of Diamond abilities.
- Ax-Crazy: Her old self. It appeared she derived pleasure from the very thought of killing people, especially those who wronged her in the past.
- Bi The Way / Depraved Bisexual: She alleges she doesn't limit her affections to the opposite gender. Though she may have just been saying it to make Matthew picture it. Though we do see her with another young woman later.
- Black Comedy: A lot of her funniest moments come at someone else's expense. She says she saw something in an anime and then forces mooks into a huge bag, shapeshifts her arm into a blender piece, and turns the enemy mooks into a “human slurry”. While having her arm make the stereotypical blender sound.
- Bloody Hilarious: A common trait in some of her darker funny moments.
- Blood Knight: While she still makes some comments to the tune of "how...exhilarating..." she is still nowhere near as bad as she once was.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: She even has internal arguments between what she identifies as her “blue” and “orange” tendencies.
- Body Horror: Some of her One-Winged Angel forms make her seem monstrous, and despite Bishōnen Line being played straight elsewhere, some of her more monstrous forms are blatantly extremely powerful.
- Chaotic Neutral: At the best of times, she is simply someone following her own interests.
- Chaotic Evil: Almost a gender flipped Joker in her previous self.
- Combat Sadomasochist: Initially, as the First Zachaia - not so much now, but some vibes of this still remain.
- Deadpan Snarker: She even has Snark-to-Snark Combat with Ein Woe when the two start rooming together (yes, really). She has a tendency to deliver lines in a disbelieving or ashamed-for-you tone in her new personality.
- Demonic Possession: What Corpse Puppetry was initially thought to be. It turns out it was much worse.
- Distaff Counterpart: She is basically a female version of the standard perverted anime guy.
- Eating the Eye Candy: She is essentially a Gender Flip of the standard anime perverted guy - she even tries to peak at the guys in a Hot Springs Episode titled, well, Not What You'd Expect. While Liam tries to peak at the girls, Zachaia sneaks around to get a better look at Matthew and Shane.
- When she was hurt by one of Sharon's enforcers, she manages to get Matthew to carry her back to his base. She spends the entire time feeling his back, and even remarks, “You have a very muscular back.”
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played With - who she loves tends to vary by the month, but she will never exactly forsake an old flame. Unless they do something that offends her.
- Everyone Has Standards: Hilariously, both Ein Woe and Zachaia try to play this on one another when they fight on Gaea, when she was in her old personality. Essentially, its a fight of "Who, between us, is the most depraved and thus, the most willing to use any dirty means to succeed?" Woe ultimately wins by using poison very creatively.
- Currently, even she found the reasoning for the Midab War "honestly kind of stupid." When this woman thinks its a Silly Reason For War...
- On a vastly more serious note, this woman is the living incarnation of Body Horror, but in Book IV, when her boyfriend becomes Weiss Mk.0, and has some...interesting...alterations, she is visibly horrified.
- Evil Is Petty: She is prone to siding with people based on someone's looks or appealing traits.
- The Fake Cutie: She acts cutesy and boy-crazy, but just remember that this woman is Lovecraftian Superpower incarnate. She is also very obviously unaffected by the realities of fighting, and acts nonchalant or enthusiastic even after killing people.
- Fetish: She seems to have one similar to Sookie Stackhouse - a love of dangerous, strong guys, bloodied and "raw" from combat. It is portrayed as yet another piece of evidence that she's not all the way right in the head.
- From a Single Cell: One of the strongest healers in the verse. She even survived getting ripped to shreds by Elijah Gibbs and The Heretic and only complained because that made her leave and not be able to watch whatever was going on.
- Genre Savvy: She seems to have knowledge of tropes and idioms common to certain themes.
- Healing Factor: She takes a very novel approach to it, with her limbs usually regenerating as a massive amount of tentacles and mouths before calming, shapeshifting and turning back into whatever she lost.
- The Hedonist: She lives for pleasure and enjoying herself fully.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Not always on the hero's side, but she is very much a hilarious and odd person whose antics are played for comedy just as much as they're played for seriousness.
- It Amused Me: Zachaia's primary inspiration for her acts.
- Lack of Empathy: She is honestly kind of confused by empathy - she knows she's supposed to feel it, but she just doesn't, most of the time.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: She is this – in that its what her body is actually composed of. Slugs, tentacles, mouths, all very, very disgusting. If her blood doesn't melt you, it'll turn you into a zombie.
- Made of Plasticine: Before she added diamond to her composition. She comes apart very easily, its getting her stay apart that's the problem.
- Made of Diamond: After eating diamonds, she becomes almost indestructible.
- Master of Illusion: Using a specific biological construct, she can induce visions in people. She seems to have some say in what they see.
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Accidentally most of the time. She simply walks through a SWAT Team's barrage of gun fire and then walks up to one of them, looking horrifying...and tells him she thinks he'd look better with longer hair rather than a buzz cut. She then leaves.
- One-Winged Angel: She is very capable of turning into more powerful forms, one of her more common resembling Nyarlathotep's Crawling Chaos form curling around a vaguely human figure.
- Poisonous Person: She has a poisonous mist she can call on.
- Redemption Demotion: Averted – she can make use of all of her villainous abilities while fighting on the heroic side, and makes use of the fact she's a shapeshifting poisonous thing to battle Tobias during Book IV, as being what she is, none of his poisons work on her.
- Shout-Out: Her first fight, the build up to it, and the initial lines and moves are based on the battle with Mistral, from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. Jonahs seems to fill the role of Raiden in their fight. She even flirts with him as they fight.
- The Sociopath: Goes from a very malignant and disturbing one to a funnier Heroic Comedic Sociopath after she loses her memories.
- Sword Beam: By swinging her "Errant Staff" (3 of her slugs combined into a staff weapon), she can have them "sing" and create a wave of black energy to throw at her foes.
- The Vamp: Skilled at using sexuality to get what she wants.
- Made even odder by how asexual her old personality was - her old personality hated the idea of feeling anything for anyone else.
- Token Evil Teammate: Zachaia functions as this during Book II, somewhat. She's not exactly all that malicious, she just likes doing whatever she wants. Even so, Matthew manages to get Vingomo Roman to step down from his terrorist bomb threat using her presence to the tune of; "You're right, I'm not the kind of guy who'd torture his enemies. But I bet SHE is.”
- Too Kinky to Torture: Zachaia is a kinky, kinky woman.
- Villains Out Shopping: Matthew runs into her in an interim novel while she's shopping for a new dress and some shoes. Ein Woe is not too far behind in a human disguise, having to carry a ton of merchandise she wanted.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: During the time she dated Liam Eckart, hurting her "Liammy" is a very bad idea. Despite not getting anywhere with him, hurting Matthew is also not a good idea when the two are on the same side.
- Wild Card: Her position on events is seemingly randomized, despite how well connected each of the villains is with each other.
- Yandere: Insanely protective of her beau of the month? Check. Does not have a normal human's idea of love? Check. Enforced a Training from Hell program on an old flame who gained some weight? Check. She is probably one of the few promiscuous examples, but its there.
- Zombie Apocalypse: She is a living trigger for one.
edited 26th Mar '15 12:13:57 AM by NickTheSwing
Serocco
I... never knew the similarities Seyrune has with Seryu until you point it out. Even their names are similar. I swear to you that was not intentional. Word of request: should I spell it as Seyrune or as Seyrun?
Jesus, Zachaia is a disturbing creature. She's like The Vamp, but much, much more terrifying. I like it.
Another Eclipse concept. I wanted to play around with the idea of a true-blue warlord in the story, and this is what I've come up with. Note that the only reason I'm doing brackets is to make readability better.
- Name: Ephrael Sedyrow (eh-fry-elle seh-dee-roe).
- Appearance: Sedyrow is a youthful seven foot woman with a diagonal scar on her face, a pair of aquamarine eyes, slanted pupils, and wavy chin-length denim blue hair. Sedyrow wears a white Commissar Cap with a fourfold tomoe symbol at the center, knee-length midnight blue boots, and an upturned collar. She has a white and blue buttoned-down front-zip mini-dress that exposes her back and zips down to reveal the top half of her cleavage.
- Personality: Having lived through the Cataclysm Backstory, Sedyrow is proud, uncompromising, and willful, marching at her own beat with impunity. She tends to be derisive and patronizing to people, talking down to them with the knowledge that they will almost never retaliate. She is a perfectionist, so she tends to be overly demanding, and is almost never satisfied with the results. She holds an authoritative flare, ruling with an iron fist, refusing criticism, and intimidating people into falling in line or using her power to attract followers. She is bombastic, flamboyant, and braggadocios; an Attention Whore who indulges in her opulence. She is a calculating pragmatist, preferring to think her way out of a situation, and generally resorts towards violence as a way to remove annoyances without fear of punishment.
- Sedyrow is far from a monster, however; more of a controlled weapon. While she remains as vicious as any warlord, she possesses a sense of ruthless efficiency, preferring an industrial scale precision in how she suppresses her opponents (like keeping track of their names and how they were killed and promoting an entire meritocracy around that suppression, even if it mostly involves just fighting the Blackout). For instance, she abhors torture, or any form of prolonged suffering - preferring quick and clean kills to abuse, rationalizing that "war is about winning, not bragging." She lacks any real attachment to her disciples, rationalizing that they are opportunists who catered to the strongest force in the region as opposed to true loyalty. Sedyrow intends to make the Sabaoth as beholden to her command as possible, to make sure nobody stages coups against her rule or leave for other Seraphim. To achieve this, she is seeking a worthy and attractive male to serve as both her pleasure servant and as the father of her children. She succeeded, and was able to produce a grand total of eleven daughters from her boyfriend. She positioned her daughters as direct leaders in her army.
- Backstory: In the distant past, Siacade (the Reapers' heavenly realm) suffered through the Blackout, a period of massive degradation and erosion due to Alice Sitchri's darkness seeping into Siacade and corrupting it. Sedyrow was born during the Blackout; she was forced to survive on her own for most of her life. Sedyrow drew attention from her ability to combat the Blackout's darkness-oriented properties; she was one of the few Reapers who had the power to fight back the Blackout at the time. Sedyrow forged her own assortment of followers and recruits over the years, personally training them in order to gradually erode the Blackout from their part of Siacade. Her guerrilla tactics helped to stabilize the eastern area of the realm, gradually "purifying" the land from the shadows; her followers had repopulated the area and formed a mini-empire under her control. She was awarded the rank of Seraph, a title reserved only for the greatest warriors of Siacade.
- Abilities: Ephrael Sedyrow utilizes light-based powers characteristic of a Reaper. Her medallion absorbs the energy released by people when they die (AKA souls), and she is armed with a cross as her personal weapon. Her cross is Descorrer (opening), and it takes the form of an eleven-inch double edged blade with two prongs curved forward like knives at the base of the blade. When a subject is stabbed by Descorrer, the eleven inch blade explodes inside the wound site and demolishes the opponents' organs; a new blade is materialized in its place. The two prongs are ejected like ballistics and burrow into the flesh of their targets, constricting them. Other properties include repeatedly firing blade after blade as explosive projectiles; contracting the prongs into extra blades; and retracting the blade closer towards the prongs, allowing the tips of each blade to materialize energy, concentrate it into the middle blade, and fire a barrage of kopis-shaped missiles.
- As a Reaper, Sedyrow has a "crucifix," or holy form, where her wings and star-shaped halo materialize as she unleashes her full might. Her pure white wings to negate attacks, melt weapons and flesh, produce streams of white energy that incinerate people, leaving after-images that blind people, and illuminating her entire body as she lunges herself like a javelin. In this angel form, Sedyrow produces pentacles on her palms; they manifest columns of pentacle-shaped objects that serve both to shield from attacks and to carve up areas. These columns can be utilized as buildings when left alone for long enough. These pentacles can be used as explosive shuriken as well.
- Role: She is as close to a warlord as possible in Siacade, with a personal army of followers formed and trained by her. As a Seraph, she normally holds authority over most Reapers, but her disciples have effectively pledged their loyalty only to her; Chloe Aeyslou, the Suzerain (supreme commander), had to establish a new battalion of soldiers specifically made for her and comprised of her disciplines. This new battalion is known as the Sabaoth (hosts of heaven), who are tasked with continuing the suppression of the Blackout, repelling the creatures materializing from the Blackout, recruiting lone-wolf Reapers into Siacade's military, and killing those who were corrupted by the Blackout. However, Sedyrow used her authority to establish barracks throughout Siacade, ostensibly to "deepen the wound" on the Blackout; several Seraphim have taken pause at her overreach, likening her as an attack dog - "feed her or she will eat you." While Chloe positioned Sedyrow as a useful weapon against the Blackout, Sedyrow is at the point where the frontier will descend into chaos as the Blackout re-erupts, any effort to displace her would shatter the cohesion with the Sabaoth, and the Sabaoth themselves will splinter into competing factions. This led to increased tension between the Sabaoth and the Seraphim; Chloe is the only one keeping things from boiling over, for now.
- Her disciples, the Sabaoth, are a Reaper subspecies birthed from the Blackout; many Reapers were cut off from their ability to access basic abilities, effectively depowering almost an entire generation. It was only when they came in close proximity to Sedyrow's pentacles that they gained access to their abilities; said abilities were heavily affected by Sedyrow's unique pentacle energy. their wear different uniforms than most Reapers, as a way to differentiate them from the rest of Siacade. Sabaoth crosses are three-tine pitchforks that extend and contract similar to Gin Ichimaru's Shinso. Instead of medallions that absorb energy from others, Sabaoth have sigils embedded in their palms that manifest their own energy into Battle Aura Powered Armor, although those remain unique; these are their Holy Forms, which are more reminiscent of the Angels at their worst. Sabaoth are most distinguished by their high-collared tunics, tricorne hats, white trousers with sashes on the left pant leg, and cleats at the bottom of their shoes.
- Goal: Expanding her mini-empire within Siacade, not necessarily to overthrow the leadership in Siacade, but to forge an array of weapons against the source of the Blackout, Alice Sitchri.
edited 23rd Apr '15 12:33:01 PM by Serocco
In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.
She is quite a fearsome individual, being a warlord in a world that already has problems aside from a person leading a rampaging group of soldiers within a society. That she's a perfectionist who also gives off strong Smug Super attitudes is also interesting, combined with what we see of her.
I am slightly reminded of someone, but I'll spare you that.
- Name: Ishaka Reiou / Lord Eclipse
- Age: 22
- Personality: He is by all accounts seemingly one of the dumbest and most short sighted characters present, invoking Dumb Blond and generally seeming like a short sighted thug with delusions of grandeur. He is associated with a group of Yakuza thugs, functioning as an enforcer. He messes with foreign gangsters, United States Special Forces out to find a terrorist, and stronger gangsters he should know are out of his league. He makes the grand claim he's involved with the Eclipse Society, he messes with people seemingly far above him in the criminal hierarchy and even bullies Matthew and Shuuji when they show up to investigate a Psychic-Assisted Suicide – calling Matthew “Chad Mcbabyface the virgin” and Shuuji “Stupid Inadequate Successor Faggot.” He's just asking for trouble, and he seems to enjoy it when he brings bedlam down on everyone associated with him, outright giggling like a loon when one of his own mooks heads gets shot and pulling the bullet out. Surely this idiot couldn't be associated with Lord Eclipse, right? He got himself killed by people who should be on his side because he was such an idiot that he went and alienated all his potential allies too. No chance he was telling the truth, right? WRONG. Underneath the lowly thug appearance and apparent death he suffers for his idiocy is an brutally and horribly cunning Lord Eclipse. As far as he's concerned, he's seen the future – and its cold, miserable, lonely and full of death. A world of the strong and only of the strong is the logical procedure, and that “humanity's zenith can only come when the weak and the imbeciles are excised by a cleansing of the world in fire.” Once he ditches the teenage language and fanboying, he shows a detached, clinical approach to villainy, even calmly explaining to his former boss that “I'm Lord Eclipse. I'm touching you with Khronos. You will age to dust before you can say another word.” He has utterly no attachment to anyone, and even says of his apparent love interest “she whined and whined and whined...now she's dead. Can't say I'll miss her.” While he loves talking in his act as a glorified Elite Mook, as Lord Eclipse he actually gets angry and kicks Matthew in the throat during his Kirk Summation, and says he cannot stand people who prattle on about righteousness and good “its all worthless. No matter what you do, it'll all be eroded away like sand castles on a beach.” Nothing but serious as Eclipse, he pulls a lot of Dangerously Genre-Savvy stunts, including listening for a heartbeat using Mana Sensor, skewering someone fifty more times using Complete Kugalatach to avoid a Made of Iron character coming back again, and using any disgraceful tactic he can think of to increase his advantages.
- Abilities:
- I'm a People person: Gets his gang in trouble every twist and turn. Is actually very manipulative, just in a different way.
- Gunslinger?: Claims to be a good shot. He can't hit the broad side of a barn.
- Fist Fighter?: Gets himself beaten up in a drunken brawl. Is actually a master user of Pencak Silat. He just disdains using his real abilities on anything but “prime rib”.
- Complete Kugalatach: A blade that only exists in a fourth dimension, he can call it into this dimension, coming out as a snake-like blade with many sections, dripping with red fluid. Apparently it has more than a hundred blades attached to its “body”, and can extend 500 feet.
- Khronos: Common to all Lord Eclipses, but his seems extremely fine tuned. He aged a 7 year old into an 18 year old as part of a plan to make sure his young hostage couldn't be recognized. And is just as capable of decaying the flesh from your bones or turning your weapon to ash.
- Mantra: Summons Dark Golems, which can include huge fliers, dragons, demons, ogres, fiends, and even a gigantic mook army that he uses to massacre the special forces hunting him.
- Invocation: Can call upon the natural forces for his spells, making them innately more powerful.
- Weaknesses: An idiot and a poser. After The Reveal, his Achilles' Heel is that Complete Kugalatach can be spotted coming before it does its thing. And fundamentally his lack of respect for his underlings means they're not exactly inclined to want to keep info about him quiet.
- Goals: be taken seriously. His actual goal is to take the crime riddled Ambherla City, and turn it into his own Social Darwinist Dystopia and then expand it outward.
- Motivation: His Backstory.
- Role in the Story: Big Bad Wannabe / Big Bad
- Backstory: He claims he had a normal childhood, but turned to crime for the fun of it. His attitudes become slightly more understandable when its revealed he used to be a part of a Child Soldiers military outfit, passed along from country to country, never allowed to socialize with anyone except the unit, and occasionally forced to kill his own allies and old friends when they questioned “The Five Powers”. No matter how he tried to maintain his optimism that life would get better, it never did. He participated in Somalian wars, the Libyan Conflict, he even fought in Iraq and Afghanistan in various militant outfits. By the present day, he has become a complete and total nihilistic wreck, living based on the gunslinger movies he was allowed to watch, all while following the instructions of the Lord Eclipse Society, which he joined after finding his Spell Cores. What he observed during all of this is human malice and idiocy is to blame for the ills of society. People prefer simple, cheap solutions. “In their own way, everyone wants the world of the strong. A time of justified slaughter, of you versus a bunch of idiots and weaklings.” His first love – the said love interest – met him during his later Child Soldiers days and lied about getting him out of the unit just to get further with the Five Powers.
- Tropes:
- The Aloner: He only humors who we think is his Love Interest. He believes that he is best served by being alone most of the time. Given what happened to his Big Brother Mentor and the countless Child Soldiers he served with, its understandable he'd have...trust issues.
- Amazon Chaser: One way he and Chaka are still very much alike. He whistles when Miralia starts slaughtering goons while pursuing him, even ogling her. He even reacts with slightly subdued glee when Sorata fights him in his Lord Eclipse guise.
- Art Shift: Of a sort. While he's pretending to be a low level thug in over his head, he's described unflatteringly, getting drunk and high all over the place, super-sleazy, and with a bad haircut and laughable fashion to match. Once he becomes able to be taken seriously, the descriptions change.
- Badass: Double Subverted – he claims to be “the ultimate Badass”. Well, he's more dangerous than Caine. So he might be just a really, really powerful Lord Eclipse.
- Beneath Suspicion: Who'd suspect the expy of the stupid, idiotic gangster of being anything but the Asshole Victim? Possibly calculated.
- Blond Guys Are Evil: You disgusting, irredeemable fuck. After The Reveal, its still played straight.
- Blood Knight: Acts like one, but is way in over his head. Under the surface, he really is one, due to combat and battle being the only thing that let him feel alive.
- Child Soldiers: He was a member of an outfit of these controlled by the Ambherla City crime outfits, possibly adding another interpretation of his goals – Revenge. He mentions his first kill came at age 7.
- Combat Tentacles: True Kugalatach seems to be sword-tentacles, held in a different dimension.
- Crazy-Prepared: A Mantra copy of himself just in case he might be a target for murder? Six sets of bombs, which can be detonated from his car, by his watch or by voice command? Disarming the bombs will set off the summoning circle to bring a Last Slave into Ambherla, defeat the Last Slave and he's still got plans ready to go, including forcing the US Colonel hunting him down to defect by threatening his family, and finally just executing the entire Five Powers at once with a deadly Kansas City Shuffle. Stupid and thuggish, he's not.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Shun slices his hands off to stop his wild shooting, and then blasts him outside with another slash.
- He then returns the favor after a Wham Line. True Kugalatach makes the ensuing battle almost comically easy.
- Deadly Dodging: He seems to run haphazardly to get out of the incident described below, only getting out due to luck. Turns out there was more than luck to that.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: When Chiaki starts putting things together that could implicate him in ways he didn't intend. He calms when she comes to a wrong conclusion.
- Dumb Blond: he looks like one, and is remarkably shortsighted. I mean, really, threatening to kill a teenage boy right in front of his gangster dad? he did that to get his current gang and that other gang at war with each other, combined with some Deadly Dodging in the ensuing fire fight.
- Dumb Muscle: He acts like it, in between showing off “the gun show” to a Yakuza Princess of a rival group, and bragging of “my indomitable master-class super-skills at killing folk with my gun.” Averted – he's many things. He's not dumb.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Shuuji's own gang call Ishaka “A stupid mutt. It runs around barking at people, and now its gonna be shot dead.” Later, he's on the opposite end of it. He says “I'm a monster. But you make monsters.” Right before killing an old man in a hideously painful – but completely, completely deserved – way.
- Expy: Essentially just Chaka in a different genre. Averted. For one, his idiotic thug act is just that – an act. For one thing, he's not stupid. And then he reveals the him that died was a Mantra Golem.
- Facepalm of Doom: With Khronos. Essentially grabbing your face means you'll be turned into ash.
- Faux Affably Evil: A messed up in the head, cruel, jackass of a gangster. That said, he has some oddly hilarious lines. “Scadoodledoo my chickydoos, time for I-Masta to go!” anyone?
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Everyone who he pissed off storms his hideout at once, he gets ripped apart and thrown in a river. Pity about how Mantra works...
- Kick the Dog: His pointless acts of malice are what he's known for, besides Chronic Backstabbing.
- Licks the Yakuza Princess' face as a final display of contempt.
- Shoots his mooks in the foot to make them unable to run away from a fight.
- Uses a lot of marijuana in Marina's place to bring the cops down on her due to the sheer smell.
- Spits in Matthew's hair during his first scene.
- Calls Shuuji lots of homophobic names, purely to rile up the (technical) new gang lord in town.
- Jerkass: Jerk. Fucking. Ass. Though there's a good reason he's so prickly around other gangsters.
- Made of Iron: After revealing the real him, he outright tanks Shuuji and Ayumu's strongest spells, gets back up afterwards and unleashes Kugalatach on them when they think he's done.
- Madness Mantra: “His fault. His fault. His fault. His fault. His fault. His fault. All his fault.”
- Morality Chain: [[spoiler: He is a Lord Eclipse. He still has one person that, despite his protests to the contrary, he cares for. Chiaki. Tellingly, when his last target makes the mistake of threatening her life, Isha makes that guy's life's last moments an exercise in agony.
- Mr. Fanservice: More like Mr. Fan Disservice at first. He's technically good looking. But again, seems like and acts like Chaka. Once his true past and activities come to light, the descriptions of him change. Amazing what a change of posture, behavior and attitude can do.
- Not So Different: During the fight scene with him in his lair after The Reveal, he makes a surprisingly well formed argument he and Matthew aren't that different. Given Matthew's Mage Killer training and past, it stuns Matthew long enough for Ishaka to get away.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: On two levels, at first he seems like a childish fanboy. Then he's exposed as a Psycho for Hire who changes employers like most people change socks. Then it turns out he was telling the truth about his “connections” to Lord Eclipse. HE IS ONE.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: He plays the stupid evil, malignant psycho gangster really well.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: He remembers his most abusive boss. He visits the old guy when he was feeling up his nurse in the hospital. Ishaka proceeds to age him to dust, and walk out smiling sincerely.
- Person of Mass Destruction: His control over Kugalatach's true form allows him to essentially wage war on a city, carving the whole place up. He later chops a group of helicopters and fighter planes to pieces. He then destroys some tanks, and fights Matthew, Shuuji, six of Wolfang's kids, and a lot of superpowered gangsters. And only had to run away because his Internal Mana started to run low and his control of Kugalatach was slipping as a result.
- Psycho for Hire: “The Isha-Sama's services are available to all buyers!” He's using this kind of job to get closer to those who made him a Child Soldier, and killing them and destroying their organization by bringing bedlam down upon them.
- Psychopathic Manchild: He's incredibly immature, thinks gunslinger movies are how reality works, and cries and has a temper tantrum after Shuuji won't go a round with him. Again, an act, but one he seems to enjoy.
- Rapid Aging: When he kidnaps a young boy, in order to conceal the boy better, he uses Khronos to age the boy to 18. He comes to comically regret this decision.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His entire career as a criminal is this. He brings ruin to an entire massive city's criminal empires, devastates the city, and even gets his revenge on his fake love interest, and given her licentious, sexual undertones, delivered to her quite a Karmic Death.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: One of the first hints he's not who he looks like – he is remarkably clean spoken. Later played straight. He lets loose an impressive string of profanities on the guy who made him shoot his Big Brother Mentor dead. Similarly, he deals out a Cluster F-Bomb on each successive Boss following.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Such a huge ego, such a lowly criminal. At first, at least...
- The Social Darwinist: Unlike most Eclipses, he believes that is the way the world is - the weak are victimized by the strong, so he has to provide magic and enable a new class of the strong to rise up and become powerful. He wants to spread strength.
- The Sociopath: A cruel, crude and low-functioning example. Either actually falls into Sociopathic Soldier or not at all, being how despite empathy being beaten out of him, its implied he never quite managed to abandon all feeling.
- The Starscream: He just seems to betray everyone for shits and giggles, bringing a massive gang war on for poorly defined reasons. The truth being its a vastly more calculated ploy.
- Stupid Evil: He bullies Matthew, he calls Shuuji a faggot, he makes sexual moves on a Yakuza Princess he's supposed to be reconciling with, he shoots his own bodyguard in the face and then says oops, then betrays his whole current group, he then goes about taunting his Human Shield's Sworn Defender with a Reason You Suck Speech. He's not as stupid, but still very, very evil.
- Tin Tyrant: His Lord Eclipse Armor really takes the cake, given he walks out after “his” villainous breakdown. It more or less resembles a large number of mirrors connected to armor, his face plate more or less looking like a mirror stretching around his head and a jaw piece.
- The Unsmile: Matthew foreshadows his later role early by saying “His smiles...they don't...seem to reach his eyes.
- Walking Spoiler: Lots of white area here...wonder what his real deal is...
- Wham Line: “Oh, you thought I was gonna drown? That was Mantra. And this...this is Kugalatach's True Form.”
- Villainous Breakdown: He apparently ends the same way as his apparent basis – heroes storm his hide out, he gets kicked in the groin by Matthew for comedy, Shuuji smacks him silly, and then he freaks out as Shun cuts him to pieces and throws him into the river to drown. Averted, like Expy. “Psych. That...was a golem.” Followed by skewering every single one of the Enemy Mine'd goons storming his lair.
- Villain Protagonist: He gets a story about his side of the story in New Crime City.
edited 2nd Apr '15 12:37:39 AM by NickTheSwing
Divine Burden
I like it ! Usually, villains who act all goofy and dumb but reveal themselves to be actually cunning and dangerous are my favorites. I think that it's certainly interesting, especially because it's pretty funny how these serious villains had to act like complete idiots for a long time period. The character seems to be a badass too !
My turn ?
Name: Nargi
Age: Over 40 years old.
Personality: A true Affably Evil villain, Nargi is very thoughtful of his troops and keeps throwing parties for his minons, even if they always fails or disobey orders. He also keeps trying to act more like a random office boss rather than some kind of evil overlord.
He also see his current conflict with the good guys as some kind of funny joke, and keep acting as if he's simply hanging out with them. He actually really try to kill them tho, but usually asks if they're okay with dying, and won't try to murder them if they are scared.
However, Nargi is usually a bit incompetent because of his behavior and he's usually disrespected by his minions and Dragon because of this, and therefore, his plans are often ignored. That said, they do appreciate him as a clown and act nice to him when he's not trying to be an overlord.
When he feel that one of his lackeys, however, he's more than ready to prove that there's a reason he's the main villain, and he's ready to focus on the task at hand and go seriously on the heroes if spurred on.
A big fan of pop-culture, he therefore styled up his air Elvis-Style, wear sunglasses and speak in some weird teenager slang. If any harm is inflicted on the sunglasses, or someone derides his speeches however, he's ready to drop his affable attitude and will crush his enemy with all his might.
However, his fascination with America end there and he usually lets a bunch of geeks deal with the charge of the kingdom, instead of relying on more successful systems. He do feel that ruling is his "destiny" and get angry when he's accused of doing a bad job.
Abilities: Can manipulate a pink energy. Nargi is actually extremely powerful and can easily demolish armies or countries with his power if he desires so.
Nearly of his moves are based on power alone and he'll usually deal with problems by trying to beat the snot out of them. Given his nature, he actually never pull up force behind his assaults when he attacks, and give loud warning signs when he's about to get serious.
Otherwise, he knows how to shape the energy to fly around or do something else than spam but he rarely use fine controls, instead relying on his strength. At full power, his attacks can be seen from space.
Also very fast and extremely resistant with huge stamina.
Weaknesses: Not a tactician, and usually prefer to defeat enemies the old way. Rarely kills, his biggest attacks take time to form and if he's attacked while doing them, it'll blows up on his face. Also more vunerable when he's unleashing too much attacks and is in danger at close-range, since his attacks could wound him.
Goals: Trying to capture the heroes. Otherwise, he has no real goal and just try to take over nearby countries.
Motivation: Wanted to know how it feel to rule a country. When he actually got there however, he got a bit corrupted by power and decided to rule the country alongside a bunch of non-trustworthy individuals, feeling that it's his destiny. He now seeks a bigger territory, just for fun.
Role in the story: Big Bad, the typical cliché Overlord. The heroes are trying to take him down because the country is a hellhole (since he's not fit for ruling/his government itself is evil) and also because he wish to conquer other countries.
Backstory: No one knows !
It's a bit of a draft but I think I'll update him a bit after some advices.
edited 2nd Apr '15 8:31:54 AM by Bolded1
Fallout 2? More like Fallout 2 bad.
He seems rather...no, very cliche. Unless you're going for a none too serious at all story, well, I cannot say much, because there's just so much cliche and strange enforcement of dead horse tropes.
- Name: Jemmiel the Equalizer
- Age: easily over 3000 years old.
- Personality: Jemmiel seems at first like a charming and happy individual, different from The Calcifier's maniacal hatred for the world, and existing in a seemingly perpetually serene state. As if he cannot become agitated or displeased. Even he seems to exult in the “utopia” he offers – specifically, Jemmiel is different from the Calcifier Midrael in that he views the world as full of downtrodden and “needy masses” and that in his capacity as an angel, he must provide for these masses. The problem is that he doesn't view the masses he claims to provide equality and assistance to with empathy – he views them with pity, and very subtle condescension. He notably never once faces defeat head on, nor does he get angry that easily, resulting in a character dissonant to his surroundings and the expressions of those around him. He took the command to minimalize human suffering much further than he was intended to. Specifically, his creed is that “by providing equality, I make a unique world where there are no victims nor victimizers. Exceptionalism creates pain, by inciting jealousy and disparity.” He takes Always Someone Better and turns it into a life philosophy, believing that as everyone was created equally in the eyes of the creator, to ascend higher above your Fellow is to create ripples and “disrupt the world, creating filth and pain”. Notably, despite proclaiming Mankind to be equal to one another, he is one of the more powerful of the New Angelic Council, and makes no attempt to hide his status or his nature as an Angel. As the Angel of Arches, Jemmiel considers it his duty to safeguard and insulate mankind, in ways that will ensure their peaceful compliance with a “silent, peaceful world.” He voices a disdain of dreams, stating they always lead to nightmares, and insinuating whatever he does to his followers removes their ability to dream, both in a metaphorical sense and in the real sense. Jemmiel views humanity perhaps ironically in more flattering terms than what Midrael or Makhiel have, but even in this there is evidence of condescension and a view of responsibility for those he considers pitiful. As far as he is concerned, there is one fate ahead of each and every man – be happy, exult in yourself, preserve the world. There is no room in his point of view for deviation from this norm.
- Abilities: Much like Midrael has Calcification, he has the Angelic Magic called Equalizer. Specifically, it draws on the tale in Genesis of Man created by God, in a specific state that only altered due to the Tree of Knowledge. He can return people to a uniform, equalized state – not particularly exceptional, but equal to others in all ways. “You will be appealing, but never handsome. You will be strong, but never incredible. You will be deft, but never fast.” He seems to prefer a type of magic that involves a lot of projectiles such as Holy Arrow, and employs many of these at once. At best, it can result in a rain of exploding light-blue spears. Notably, he couples his brainwashing magic implicit in Equalizer with Sensory Deprivation spells that can cause torture right on the spot.
- Weaknesses: he is utterly paranoid – if someone has the potential to betray or act against him, he'll assume he will, and will take any measure necessary to ensure that doesn't happen. While Dangerously Genre-Savvy, he takes it into paranoia. In terms of combat, there's also the fact his sole close combat ability is making a Mana Sword and slashing with it.
- Goals: he wants the same “faithful world” / World of Silence the other New Angel Council members want, he just has his own way of going about it.
- Motivation: He came to Earth during a time wherein “some men lived in the lap of luxury, while others eked out an existence in front of a fire. I saw the depths of disparity, and I was disgusted.”
- Role in the story: In all the stories he appears in, he is something of a cult leader type of villain, offering a much more cerebral type of villainy than what is usually offered.
- Backstory: Jemmiel was one of the angels who went down to the earth to escape Queen Anathema during the Roiling Heavens, but found himself trapped down here. Deciding to form a new council with others, they decided to forge ahead and create their own “ideal world plan”, and see whose ideal was the most successful. Jemmiel decided to create a following of devoted individuals, who “cast aside land, title and nature to become as one Mankind underneath this Ideal.”
- Relevant Tropes:
- Always Someone Better: Has this ingrained in him as something of an obsession – according to him, this very concept causes humans “tremendous pain and emotional anguish”.
- Black-and-White Insanity: He quite oddly applies this in that he believes any expression of human exceptionalism is evil, and any action to combat this is good. Hence his heavily implied assistance granted to the Khmer Rouge. He believes his specific kind of equality is good in contrast, and any differentiation is met with surprisingly deadly rage.
- Brainwashed: Equalization changes your personality drastically, as covered below. It also has a chance of resulting in...
- Brainwashed and Crazy: When certain factors align themselves. Normally quite calm and placid Jakob seems to go frothingly insane when his little brother asks why he can't go outside the Paling into the outside world one time too many.
- Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage: He arranges marriages so as best to create natural Equalites, as well as best create his deadly Enforcers, an albine, mostly crazy race of eight foot tall executioners, created using arranged marriages and genetic engineering.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: Jemmiel despite being at the top of the bureaucratic heap voices irritation with the sheer bureaucracy of it all.
- Concepts Are Cheap: Eventually, Matthew comes to believe that Jemmiel's constant shouting and talk about equality is simply self-serving justification for his own actions, and that “he probably doesn't know what, exactly, he'll do when he gets what he wants.”
- Condescending Compassion: He talks about wanting to help people, but in practice his ideals and concepts are all rooted in a naturally low opinion of what humanity can do without him.
- Council of Angels: Composed of Midrael, Jemmiel, Gendriel, Makhiel and Djuriel. The first is a purity obsessed wacko who seems to have two personalities, the third is a weird enigmatic minion who murmurs about plans, ideas and thoughts during sessions, the fourth is a strange Super-Objectivist who sees no problems in his faith and his objectivism, and the fifth seems utterly indecisive and changes what he wants every time we see him.
- Not So Omnipotent Council Of Bickering: They also tend not to get along. Jemmiel claims Makhiel has forgotten his compassion, Midrael claims Gendriel is a scheming little bastard, and Djuriel is just sick and tired of meeting with these guys and wants to go home.
- Crapsaccharine World: Initially, his enclave is presented as a place where everyone is perfectly happy. Well, except the Rejected, who are apparently The Heartless, living in The Gutter. Except...
- Crapsack World: The truth is, the Rejected are those who refused his ideals, and were twisted into monsters in a process not even Jemmiel apparently understands.
- Dangerously Genre-Savvy: He acknowledges certain dystopian literature tropes in how they relate to his dystopia, and knows that usually its a member of the society who falls in love with the new people in town and brings the whole thing down from within. So, he removed the ability of his “Equalites” to feel intense love.
- He acknowledges that Engineered Public Confession is a problem. So he has a memory charm prepared just in case he needs to mind wipe people en masse.
- Dissonant Serenity: Until you start disrupting his society. Then you get white hot flashes of anger, followed by even more dissonant calm.
- Dystopian Edict: “There can be no exceptional man. All must be equal.”
- Egocentrically Religious: Being an Angel, of course he's religious, but his belief seems to be slanted heavily in the direction of control over human nature. And he also believes only he is sufficient to bring about this “necessity.”
- Eldritch Abomination: He looks like a smiling, silver skull-face, surrounded by six wheels, four silver wings, five arms, and a tail at the middle of it all.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Unlike Midrael, who does discriminate, Jemmiel does not, and in fact voices disgust at the idea. If anything good can be said of Jemmiel, it is that he is egalitarian.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even he thinks that Alianna is going too far after she comes back following his initial plan for her.
- In addition, in Tri Age, he doesn't seem very comfortable with the SMT Angels, and noticeably squirms when asked to purge a slum for not matching “development expectations”, even sneaking in a covert insult at Merkabah when he accepted his duty, “I cannot reject the order of one higher in station than myself for obvious reason, this being the present company. That there exists no alternative...perchance, also attributed to something immediately reminiscent.”
- The Evils of Free Will: “Mankind cannot exist in harmony if one fellow has a different level of talent than another fellow. It simply cannot be. I simply remove the option – to prevent this sort of pain brought about by the tyranny of a powerful person's free will.”
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He absolutely cannot fathom any differentiation from his ideal society, and believes such differences are caused by human greed and desire to dominate others.
- Evil vs. Evil: In Tri-Age Tyrant's Downfall, The New Angel Council vs. The TCB results in Matthew not knowing which side it is he's supposed to root for. Mikh outright says, “Better the Order Nutbars we know than the ones that look like ponies. That's common crossover knowledge.”
- Fatal Flaw: His paranoia and disgust toward the motives of others that he cannot know. He never even gave the original inhabitants of New Haven a chance before turning them into his “Equalites”.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Matthew outright asks him why he's gone to such trouble to do all this across the “Wings” books. His answer? “You oppress me, and others who cannot be what you are naturally, with your disgusting little existence.” It is hinted that Jemmiel is repressing and trying to justify his envy of Mectonis.
- The Fundamentalist: His fundamentalism manifests differently than in Midrael – while Midrael espouses his holiness, Jemmiel focuses on notions of grace, “help” and benevolence. He doesn't necessarily care if people don't want what he offers, he will give it to them.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: What Equalization also does – you're less inclined to be competitive, you become more positive and optimistic, and you're less inclined to disagree and argue.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: His followers cannot curse any more, and even he follows this as well. The strongest curse word he ever utters is “well...Damn.” When his Dancing Deliverer plot failed, and he was just about to get hit with a Wave Motion Sword attack.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: Unhappiness means you're not satisfied. Not being satisfied means, to Jemmiel, you're thinking of somehow attaining more. Which is greed. Which is a sin. Which means you need some...education.
- Individuality Is Illegal: “Individual, exceptional ideas are forbidden. I cleansed them with...magical intervention. If we have magic, why can we use it, if not to solve these problems.”
- Knight Templar: Very thoroughly believes himself to be in the right, and justifies everything as being actions of basic goodness, and that such shouldn't require questioning.
- Light Is Not Good: Tying, perhaps ironically, into actual Biblical myth – Mikh, the good angel, wears black, and the New Council presents itself as nothing but shades of light. Perhaps they didn't get the memo.
- Misanthrope Supreme: Its not intentional, but despite his words to the contrary, he is by behavior a misanthrope with no faith in human ability to do things without guidance.
- Moral Guardians: He maintains such a group for his “utopia”, namely, auditing and ensuring people don't see anything that could make them feel envious or inadequate.
- Not Himself: Whatever Equalization does to you, you cease to be you after its done. Given its the same school of magic as deadly Calcification, its a hint that this spell is not to be messed with or used in the way Jemmiel is using it.
- Political Correctness Gone Mad: his society is based on this, together with a bad misinterpretation of a selection of books he used to create his society in the more advanced ages.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He eventually gets sick and tired of everyone else in Tri Age, shuts Midrael up by slapping him in the face, and outright leaves before the final battle came about.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: He responds like this twice to show just how little he cares for other people's thoughts on matters. The first time he interrupts Matthew's Kirk Summation with a Holy Arrow spell, the second time a barrage of Holy Arrows.
- Stealth Parody: his society is basically a parody of what Americans think when they hear “socialism”. His equal and opposite in the Council, Makhiel, is exactly as villainous as he is.
- Sugary Malice: He speaks in a sing song tone, which makes him threatening to boil Sorata in oil chilling. Similarly, when he threatens to skin Matthew alive to “erase his appealing features forever”, its done with a smile on his...face...and a clap of his hands.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: In his perspective, “Humanity becomes better not by advancing themselves and causing pain to others, but by cutting down those who would dare cause pain through their existence in an elevated form.” As far as he's concerned, admiration and adoration are “despicable lies”.
- Tautological Templar: Unlike Mectonis, he is uncompromising. Anything that differentiates from his ideals is considered aberrant, and any exceptional behavior is to be culled.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: He wants to spread his unique World of Silence across the globe, which would entail everyone giving up their unique personalities and talents, and becoming “exactly like everyone else”. Super-Objectivist Makhiel is utterly disgusted, though in his own way, he's not any better.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He means well, but has a fundamental distrust and dislike of certain aspects of human nature.
The Rogue Classicist
edited 19th Apr '15 2:21:31 PM by ZalDastan
Serocco
I like the thinly veiled reference to fundamentalist Christians, politically correct liberals, and social conservatives. Having an actual Council of Angels clinches it. Your Angel names are cool - what inspired them?
- Name: Cleyes Valorum (also an Eclipse concept character).
- Appearance: Valorum is lanky and tall, similar to Nnoitra Gilga. His eyes are small and pupil-less, his skin is beige, his face is narrow, and his hair is in dreadlocks. He wears a three-piece brown suit with a contrasting double-breasted waistcoat and a pocket watch.
- Backstory: A Self-Made Man who was born with nothing, Valorum clawed his way into wealth and fortune through underhanded, unethical, and at times illegal methods, including cutting deals with unsavory figures in the criminal underworld, corporate oligarchs, crooked bureaucrats, and (most infamously) a warlord rumored to have committed genocide in his region. Whether undercutting shares of profits from his associates, swindling corporations for their money, sucking entire communities of their fortunes, or eradicating financially well off communities, Valorum committed, thereby amassing fortune; despite admitting that money holds no personal value to him.
- Personality: Valorum is an abrasive, confrontational man, whose straight-talking candor and hatred of criticism leads him to deride people he dislikes at best, and physically assault them at worst. Valorum has a profound Lack of Empathy, utterly incapable of understanding that not everyone can force their way into power like he did; he sees those of a lower social standing as "lethargic deadbeats" who want handouts from their superiors, and anyone of such social standings who turn to activism is derided as a criminal. Annoyed at the establishment in Cailliau being less vicious than himself, Valorum pursued a massive program dressed up as "responsible governing," "moral values," "law and order," and "limited ordinances." In reality, his policies led to immense suffering for those who were not in his immediate circle, and ultimately himself, stripping people of their benefits, trampling on their rights, incarcerating them for minor or manufactured offenses, punishing people of lower or less than pleasant standings for "not caring about succeeding," carving up their communities and transferring the profits to his buddies, and so forth, purely to enrich himself further and primarily to strike back at what he viewed as "a lesser me"; which he thinks is reflected in the poor and working classes.
- Role: He serves as an extreme example of an arrogant, yet self-loathing who takes his frustrations with himself onto other people. He intends to burn the bridge to anyone in his country that could've been able to get by life in ways that he feels is tantamount to "cheating." As head of Cailliau, Valorum is the jingoistic, militarist chief executive of a "mercenary state" that operates like defense contractors with their own country. He sets himself up as a credible independent third party during the Cold War, intending to profit as much from the conflict as possible.
edited 31st Jul '15 3:28:38 AM by Serocco
In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.
Divine Burden
He looks pretty interesting overall. Especially with the era he's working in, he's a pretty realistic villain, and a scary one at that ! Conbravo.
Name: Marceline
Appearance: A rather tall young woman, with long ginger hair. She always wear a black suit with a yellow tie when she's not busy being a jerk, or at least, she always wear some fancy clothes whenever she can, only pants or long-sleeved shirts though, and always has sunglasses and gloves.
When being a jerk, she dress in military gears, with the occasional balaclava to hide her identity. She also has the same sunglasses of earlier and keep her hair in a bun. Marceline also has a few handguns with her, just in case.
Backstory: Unknown for story reasons, but she does hail from France, being born from a French Father and an American woman named Jeanine who came to settle there. Her mother died when she was about 17, because of some issues with her father's friends, and they both left France to explore America a bit, inspired by the death of Jeanine. That was just a reason to left, alongside plenty others that forced them to settle in America.
The pair proceeded to join some evil cause for a spoilery reason.
Personality: An arrogant young woman, Marceline speaks and act in a rather crude manner all the time, flipping off people whenever she want and always acting in a derisive manner toward others.
Marceline never display any remorse for her action, even making quips among all the carnage and spouting out ironic one-liners after brutally murdering somebody, keeping a straight-face during all her carnage. She does let children or elder people live but her choices are usually very random and she can try to murder them all over again, always with a straight face.
The young woman really enjoy pain (or inflicting pain on others) and fights, especially fist-cuffs. Making her enemy bleeds (and bleeding herself) tends to usually reveal a much more unstable, yelling and laughing as she fights a "worthy" foe.
Otherwise, she never lose her cool outside of such fights and usually make plans for the group, even if she usually ends-up Leeroy Jerking out of nowhere. Also hates it when people mock her for her slight french accent, or rather, she reacts in a bad way to any criticism, and reacts in vulgar ways to the lightest remarks.
Curiously, she enjoys American and French pop-culture and style her hair in a Elvis-like Pompadour sometimes, which can end up as rather narmy given her usually stoic face.
Abilities: A very proficient close-combat user, who learned it all from her father and took self-defense class, she use quick, albeit deadly blows on vital organs and always act in a rather methodic way when she fight, blinding her opponent and usually trying to quickly kill them.
When excited though, she fight with a chaotic style, with wild haymakers and other rather predictable moves. Her speed and astounding strength makes up for it however.
Also knows how to use guns or weapons but usually goes in for the punching fight whenever she can.
Role: A rival for the protagonist, also meant to be the most down-to-Heart of the villains and perhaps the one without too much on-screen silliness.
edited 1st May '15 10:56:58 AM by Bolded1
Fallout 2? More like Fallout 2 bad.
PAINKILLER
Marceline seems two-dimensional, to be honest.
"When being a jerk" gives me a hint she isn't always a 'jerk' (from what I got, she's just a cold bitch for no reason) but I got nothing from outside that. I think if you mention her back story beyond where she hails from, maybe why she's like that, would make her more three dimensional.
I've seen people add in spoilers to their story/character on here In spoiler tags, no less and it helps people get the full picture of their character.
She still seems cold-hearted even if she's supposed to be one of the more lighter gray of the villains. Is there anything she wouldn't do that the others would? Does she have a more morally good reason to be on the team?
Most of my questions are "Why?" to most of your statements (save for appearance, certain ingrown personality traits [sometimes you're just like that, no reason whatsoever] and such quirks, even though a couple are weird).
I'll work on one of these some day but it might take awhile.
Life is hard, that's why no one survives.
Hi everyone! New here, but want to get some advice regardless.
Name: Alivus II, Grand Lich
Personality: Appears calm, confident, and friendly, but that is simply a mask. In reality, Alivus is a cold, calculating manipulator who doesn't care about anything, save for himself and his dark god. In other words, think The Sociopath + Religion of Evil
Abilities: Alivus is a master of magic, particularly necromancy and divination. He can raise the dead with the wave of a hand, fly of his own power, kill with a word, and see into the future. He also possesses above average, but by no means superhuman, physical strength. Also, being a lich, Alivus cannot truly die without the destruction of his phylactery.
Weaknesses: Alivus is extremely reliant on magic for nearly everything he does. Even his existance is magical in nature. If Alivus' magic is stripped from him, he becomes a withering skeleton in a tattered dress, effectively useless.
Goals: His main goal is to release his dark god (Cthulhu, despite the fantasy setting), who will proceed to systematically destroy reality. Alivus doesn't know that his patron will destroy reality. He was simply promised power.
Motivations: In case you couldn't have guessed, power. His main motivation is personal power, though it gradually shifts towards revenge against the protagonists as they refuse to stop getting in his way.
Role in the Story: Big Bad mostly. Also serves as a dark counterpart to the Sociopathic Hero Lancer.
Backstory: Alivus the Second was a seer who looked to far. He peirced the veil between realities and found Great Cthulhu, slumbering in Ry'leh, a universe or more away. Looking at Cthulhu slowly drove Alivus mad. After two weeks without sleep, listening constantly to incomprehensible whispers, Alivus turned to his darkest texts. He pored over tomes of blood magic, preforming profane rituals in order to ward off the voices.
He eventually realized that the voices were not coming from his mind, but his soul. Desperate to regain his mind, he decided to bind his soul in an artifact, becoming a lich. His body and emotions alike decayed to a skeleton of their former selves, but the voices were gone. Except for one. Cthulhu's voice remained. Now in this world, Liches are Always Chaotic Evil or more accurately, always The Sociopath on account of not having souls. Cthulhu offered Alivus power beyond anything, and gave him a taste of what that meant. Alivus had found a new dark god.
Relevant Tropes:
Arch-Enemy To the Lancer, an undead fallen Paladin. Also considers himself this to the Big Good but is infinitely weaker than she.
Ax-Crazy Kills without so much as a second thought. Appears to enjoy others' pain.
Back from the Dead As a lich, he can kind of just... do that.
Badass Capable of going toe to toe with the entire team of heroes at once.
Badass Grandpa Is well over a thousand, and was 76 by the time he became undead.
Bad Boss The Cult of Cthulhu remains loyal out of not only devotion, but terror. Alivus has a tendency to torture would be deserters, as well as failures, until they beg for death. And then heal them to do so again, letting them die only when he's bored of the sound of screaming.
Berserk Button Don't touch his phylactery. If you do, you will die in the most painful way imaginable. And then be raised as an undead slave, your soul bound in absolute agony forever.
Big Bad Yep, pretty much.
Black Cloak Wears a tattered black robe.
Break the Haughty Towards the Lancer, with a Not So Different speech. Also gives one to the Wild Card but that one doesn't really work out.
The Charmer Appears like this at first glance.
The Chessmaster Routinely manipulates beings of godlike power, such as the Big Good largely through future sight, though partially through charisma and intuition. Manages to ensure that he is the greatest piece on the board at all times.
Crazy-Prepared Has invented a spell for virtually every scenario he can possibly think of, in an attempt to solve all problems, though he can't really combat Anti-Magic yet.
Creepy Monotone Has an echoing, monotone voice. Also a case of Dissonant Serenity.
Crippling Overspecialization In situations where magic is useless, he's suddenly quite vulnerable. A bit of a Subverted Trope though, as seen the one time he is successfully caught within a dimension where magic doesn't work. He manages to kill several men with his bare hands before being dying (He got better, thanks to his phylactery).
Curb-Stomp Battle Suffers one at the hands of Orcus Tenebrous Thanatos, a Demon Lord. Suffers another one from the Big Good. Delivers one in pretty much every other fight.
Disproportionate Retribution See Berserk Button above.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good On an intellectual level, sure, he gets us. But he can't see any reason why humanity doesn't simply join him and seek the powers of eldritch abominations. At all. Evil Counterpart To the Sociopathic Hero Lancer.
Evil Overlord Wants to be this.
Evil Plan Release Cthulhu to gain unlimited power.
Evil Sorcerer Very evil, very sorcerer.
Fate Worse than Death Bestows these upon people regularity, espescially if undeath can be considered one.
Faux Affably Evil At times. His favoured disguise of a friendly old man only makes his true self even more horrible in comparison.
Flight Can do so, like most powerful mages.
From Nobody to Nightmare From a simple seer to the Grand Lich.
Glamour Failure When injured, his guise starts to rot away rapidly, into the skeleton he is now.
Hero Killer Racks up a death count of every single major character to ever face him, save for the Five Man Band and Physical Gods.
Humanoid Abomination Undead are this to begin this, but post One-Winged Angel...
It's All About Me He's a sociopath, so of course it is.
Killed Off for Real By the Big Good.
Knight of Cerebus When he shows up people die. Period. He's never Played for Laughs nor is anything he does. He slaughters millions before he's put down.
Manipulative Bastard Pretty much. Manages to be this against gods, largely because they disregard him.
Murder Is the Best Solution If someone poses any problem, killing them will fix it. If they have important information or skills, their undead self will too.
Obviously Evil In his main form, yes. Under disguise, no. Unless all old guys are evil.
Oh, Crap! When the Big Good shows up in the end.
Omnicidal Maniac Unwittingly. But when the true nature of what he's doing is revealed, he doesn't care.
One-Winged Angel Turns into a shadow monster in the final battle.
Our Liches Are Different Standard fantasy, barring their role as Always The Sociopath instead of Always Chaotic Evil of course.
Red Eyes, Take Warning Has glowing Red eyes, like most undead.
The Sociopath What I was aiming for.
Soft-Spoken Sadist Never raises his voice, except for his death scream.
Soul Jar The Phylactery.
That Man Is Dead "The Alivus you knew is long dead".
The Unfettered It's him. And power. And revenge. Stand in the way of any of those things, and you and everything you love experience a slow, painfully horrible, death.
We Can Rule Together To the Lancer, who declines. Alivus later reveals he was lying anyway.
You Have Failed Me Gods have mercy on your soul if you have.
edited 28th May '15 10:36:08 AM by Oudynfury
Great blue orb of void.
For one mixing lovecraftian elements and fantasy could have interesting results. I am a bit of sucker for dark cults I like that there a bit more detail to how one was establised. I think liches tend to be a bit over used although you could make it work.
Name: The Raven Bride / Shyed Eyed Irene
Age: Unknown but older than any human has ever lived.
Species: Demon.
Apperence: Her humanoid form is rather pretty just do not photograph her. This is only a thin shell that can be stripped of at any moment she desires. the true form is winged, taloned and darker than night. The eyes, the eyes a single gaze will literarly tear into the human soul, desicrate the spirit and hurle the mind into the abyss where only depravity entwined with despair remain.
Personality: Has a rather cheery persona. Always looking for fun. Too bad her idea of fun is spreading pain and missery. She is rather stuborn and can be a bit arrogant especialy towards human beings. Although she was impressed when Zora tracked her down. Otherwise she considers humans extremly stupid and deserving to be toyed with.
Abilities: Can shift between two form although she has others those are hard to maintain. With her Misstresses help she travel between dimentions. She sign pacts with mortals and has general magical abilities to grant wishes. Irene is extremly resistant to bodily harm.
Even if she is wounded it will not kill her only merrily bring out her true form. Her real demon body is inhumanly strong, she is capable of flying and otherwise moving so quickly that she is seem only with the corner of the eye. She can enter peoples dream and the minds of the intoxicated.
Weaknesses: She often underestimates her human target. Has a hard time stomacking deafeat. Will ocassionally lash out in blind rage. She cannot lay a fingure on someone who is truely innocent. She is repulsed by certain symbols. It is possible to turn her own pact on her and lock her abilities.
Motivation: To have a good time and to avoid her Misstresses wrath.
Goals: Freeing herself from her Misstress. What she will do afterwords she has no idea.
Role in story: Villain protagonist.
Tropes:
The sadist.
Humans are stupid.
Nigh invulnerable- Her true form is.
Brown note- Eyes contact with her true form. Just taking a photo of her faux body or otherwise capturing her image can have this effect although it is weaker than seeing her in person.
Corrupt the cutie- Attempt to do this with Zora.
The starscream- Rebels against the Misstres by summoning a void entity. It doesn´t end well for either of them.
Jerkass genie
Shapeshifting lover- Was trapped on earth by a powerful socceror who put her under a obedience hex. Her Misstress found out and removed the hex. They decided that someone who is depraved enough to want a demon for a wife deserves one. Irene promptly turned his life into hell on earth.
Deal with the devil
I am a humanitarian
Winged humanoid
Beserk button- Do not harm her ravens. Or summon her for trivial reasons.
Bad boss- Her Mistress is a extreme example. Is willing to torture Irene if she fails to claim a soul.
Disproportionate retribution- One of the socerer´s friends insults her. Irene kills him by twisting his head off.
Even evil has standards- Subverted. Zora notices Irene never harms children and animals infact she punishes those who do so. It turn out she does so because she is only allowed to go after people who have done something cruel. To break that rule would mean to direct divine wrath at herself.
Evil is not a toy.
Woman in black/ woman in white- Firebrust lampshade this.
The rival- The succubus Firebrust is after her position within the clan.
Interspecies romance- She find the idea digusting. One of the reasons she hates Firebrust. When the sorcerer revealed his intentions she react by saying "You might as well go fuck a dog."
Your soul is mine.
A fate worse than death- Comdened the sorcerer to one. He ends up as an undying decapitated head and the demons stress release...
Your a credit to your race- Tend to flatter Zora with this. Is also impressed that the sorcerer managed to trick her till he tells her his intentions...
Asshole victim- The sorcerer. Also a woman who got her to kill her husband to claim his property. It turns out he changed his will and if Irene didn´t stop her,she would had escalated into a murder roulet including the widow´s own young children.
Black widow- Helps a woman become one.
Poison person- Direct contact with her bodily fluids is potencially deadly to humans.
The dog bites back- The widow attempts to stab her to death when Irene turns on her.
Mindrape- Can inflict this on the sleeping or drunks. Her Misstres does this to her also.
Summon the bigger fish- In order to break free from her Misstres she calls a void entity.
Irony- An insanity causing pact sealing demon summons an abomination with who she seals a deal. The creature drives her into madness and contaminates her mind.
Empty shell- Ends up as one when the void entity is done with her.
Did we just have tea with Cthulhu- Takes Zora out drinking.
Flowery insults- Irene tells Firebrust she´s dressed like a fruit salad.
Immortality hurts.
edited 16th May '15 12:55:11 AM by manicnightmarepixie
Crappy Dali imitator and producer of generalized bad art http://kamilkovakaramelka.deviantart.com/
Great blue orb of void.
Quick question how do I write something so it shows up as a spoiler?
Crappy Dali imitator and producer of generalized bad art http://kamilkovakaramelka.deviantart.com/
You put it in brackets with "spoiler:" inside and in front of it.
Self interest, and attachment to property - she fundamentally cares only about the things that belong to her...damn, that's some self interest. And going by the rest, it seems she's definitely the type Wolfang would get along with.
Now, for a redo of Silmarill...
edited 7th Mar '15 12:40:27 AM by NickTheSwing