| 1 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | !Main Characters |
| 4 | [[folder:The Last Castoff]] |
| 5 | !!The Last Castoff |
| 6 | ->''"Did I learn that? Or remember it...?"'' |
| 7 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JeffSchine (Male) and Shannon Torrence (Female) |
| 8 | |
| 9 | The Last Castoff is simply that: the latest in a long line of bodies cast off by the Changing God after being created to house his consciousness and serve the needs of his current agenda. That so many of the Changing God's bodies still live might suggest something about how much (or how little) he values them, how readily he walks into danger and how readily he flees, and the sheer survivability of any given castoff. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | Most if not all tropes which apply to the Last Castoff apply to the other castoffs as well, and in fact, being so new, considerably less to set them apart from others of their kind -- not even so much as a name to call their own. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ---------- |
| 14 | * AmnesiaDanger: The lack of memories makes things naturally harder for you. |
| 15 | * AmnesiacDissonance: Central to the game -- your recovered memories are not your own, but rather those of the Changing God, who has created and worn countless bodies for his own inscrutable reasons over hundreds of years. [[spoiler:One possible interpretation of the ending Reveal is that this trope is actually being played totally straight.]] |
| 16 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: ''[[ArcWords "What does one life matter?"]]'' The game gives you a chance to choose your answer, though you may find your definition changes over the course of the game's story. |
| 17 | * ArtificialHuman: Created by the Changing God to serve as a temporary body, then cast aside. |
| 18 | * BackFromTheDead: Constantly. The Changing God builds his bodies to last, so the Castoff is able to recover from otherwise lethal injuries. |
| 19 | * BadassBookworm: The Last Castoff sure updates their journal a lot. Emphasized by certain descriptors and foci, and assumed if you're playing a nano. |
| 20 | * BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: All the time, with the Sorrow and others attempting to gain a foothold in your mind. |
| 21 | * BornAsAnAdult: Like all castoffs, whose bodies seem to be almost grown or sculpted rather than born, going by some of the memories you recover. |
| 22 | * CameFromTheSky: The Last Castoff enters the game by waking to life and consciousness... in complete freefall, hurtling towards the Earth. You have just enough time before impact to remember being attacked and falling out of something in orbit, and to realize that wasn't you in that memory. [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere Appears to be standard procedure for the Changing God.]] |
| 23 | * CatchPhrase: "Updated my journal." "Making a note." "Annotated my logbook." |
| 24 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] The five Tides allow the player to carve out their Castoff's personality. Rather than ''D&D''[='s=] two axes allowing up to nine combinations, however, it's possible and indeed common for a given Last Castoff to combine multiple Tides, with different names for each -- a character who manages to somehow balance all five in one game is referred to as an Idealist. |
| 25 | * CharacterCustomization: The game offers few ways to customize the Last Castoff's looks beyond a choice of gender. That you cannot customize the Last Castoff's appearance is actually a plot point, however, as the game intentionally thrusts you into a situation where you have to wear someone else's face, and by extension carry the weight of their past, while trying to work out what you are and how you want to be remembered. |
| 26 | * ChasteHero: The Last Castoff doesn't get the chance for any explicit romance arcs in this game, and eventually it's revealed to you by the chiurgeons in the Bloom that your naughty bits as a castoff are completely nonfunctional -- either for recreation or for reproduction. (Note that while your body may always have been sterile, the Changing God ''was'' completely capable of having sex while he inhabited it, carrying on a long and torrid affair with the nano Salimeri before abandoning it and her, meaning that leaving you in your sexless state was one of his many {{Jerkass}} moves.) |
| 27 | * CloneAngst: All the castoffs have this to some degree or another. How much you let it affect the Last Castoff is up to you as a player. |
| 28 | * ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: You're the most recent in a very long line of bodies cast off by the Changing God. Whether or not you'll actually be [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters the very last]] remains to be seen. Likewise, the descriptor and focus you choose are basically a declaration of intent for your character: a Slick Jack who Brandishes a Silver Tongue or a Tough Glaive who Masters Defense, for example. |
| 29 | * {{Expy}}: For a certain other nameless amnesiac with regenerative powers in [[invoked]][[SpiritualSuccessor another game]] called ''[[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment Torment]]''. |
| 30 | * EyeScream: One possible body modification at the Chirurgery: yanking out one perfectly functional eyeball and installing a swanky new one in its place. |
| 31 | * FashionableAsymmetry: The Castoff's tattoo is on their shaved right temple. |
| 32 | * FeelNoPain: The Last Castoff can transmit their suffering to others nearby. Alternatively, they can take on the burden of their pain. |
| 33 | * FighterMageThief: Glaive, nano, or jack, respectively. The player also gains access to one of three different foci, representing [[CombatDiplomacyStealth defense, stealth, or social expertise]], respectively. Unlike the original Torment, this choice is set early in the game and cannot be changed. |
| 34 | * GadgeteerGenius: The Mechanical descriptor and Nano type. |
| 35 | * GameplayGuidedAmnesia: As in ''Planescape: Torment'' before it, the Castoff's amnesia is used to provide justification for explaining the setting in simple terms, dropping not one but two [[MrExposition companion guides]] in your lap -- or rather, having you crash in on them through a glass dome. Others who recognize you as a castoff may be more willing to put up with your general cluelessness and answer your questions sincerely. [[TheCon Or not,]] especially if you're [[ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin pretending to be the Changing God]]. |
| 36 | * TheGenericGuy: Compared to the other castoffs, you start out this way, lacking their specialized knowledge or long histories with each other. You're even outwardly human with a neutral light brown skin tone, whereas other castoffs have been alien species, cyborgs, mutants, and [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation Amazing Technicolor People]]. Being a castoff might make you unique compared to most non-castoffs, but this being the Ninth World, even that is something of a sliding scale. [[spoiler:Ultimately, you do have a unique purpose, in that your body was built to the exacting specifications required to activate the Resonance Chamber: no other castoff can.]] |
| 37 | * GodGuise: If you pretend to be the Changing God to gain the allegiance of his cult. It's actually not that hard to do (and you even get an achievement for it) since they are pretty eager to believe it. It's possible to slip up and reveal the deception, but unleashing a Tidal Surge will "convince" them that you're the real thing. [[spoiler:It also shifts your Tidal domains to more closely match the Changing God's Blue and Silver, since abusing the Tides to force people to serve and worship you is ''totally'' something he would do.]] |
| 38 | * GuileHero: The Charming, Clever and Slick descriptors, and the Brandishes A Silver Tongue focus. |
| 39 | * HealingFactor: Although unlike the Nameless One, it only kicks in if you take damage that would otherwise kill you. |
| 40 | * TheHero: Of the whole videogame. |
| 41 | * IdentityAmnesia: Your character doesn't have any memories of their life before the Changing God left. Unlike most examples of the trope, though, this is mainly because your character, quite literally, did not ''have'' a life before the Changing God's departure -- the Last Castoff is born the moment the Changing God departs his body. The Last Castoff is not recalling their own life, but fragments of the Changing God's life. |
| 42 | * ImmuneToFate: As with the Nameless One, the Last Castoff's future can't be read, even when your companions' can. |
| 43 | * ImpersonatingTheEvilTwin: If you're lying when you say you're the Changing God, and if the Changing God is as evil as some people (like Aligern) say he is. |
| 44 | * InMediasRes: The Last Castoff is "born" this way, waking up as the Changing God leaves their body, falling to Earth from around cloud level. |
| 45 | * JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind: The Last Castoff enters a representation of their own mind called the Castoff's Labyrinth when they die. |
| 46 | * KleptomaniacHero: Downplayed. Standard RPG rules apply, but chances to swipe loot in [=NPCs'=] homes and camps are relatively rare. It's far more common to find numenera in [[ScavengerWorld the rubble of the setting's countless fallen civilizations]] instead, where it may have lain undiscovered for thousands if not hundreds of millions of years. |
| 47 | * MentalTimeTravel: One of the Last Castoff's unique powers -- anyone can use a merecaster to simply have a {{flashback}} of the past by reliving another person's memories, but only the Last Castoff can actually retain their full consciousness in the mere and ''change history'' by making different decisions while possessing the other person's body. The few other characters who realize you have this power are shocked by the amount of power this gives you. |
| 48 | * MindHive: The Last Castoff can become this over time, as you gain the opportunity to absorb the memories/ghosts of the dead into your personal "Labyrinth" and gain bonuses from them. [[spoiler:{{Foreshadowing}} for the Changing God's plan to put an end to the Sorrow's pursuit and the Endless Battle with his castoffs by drawing all their minds into himself, a plan you can finally bring to fruition.]] |
| 49 | * MindRape: Unleashing the Tides against people to force them to cooperate has this effect. This usually shifts your Tidal domains to Blue and/or Silver[[spoiler:, the same as the Changing God's. Assaulting someone's mind with the Tides to extract information and/or to force them to do your bidding suits the Changing God perfectly.]] |
| 50 | * MoreThanMindControl: Via MindRape. Not everyone is susceptible, however -- it seems most effective on beings who are somehow connected to the Changing God or the Tides, such as the Cult of the Changing God or [[spoiler:the Bloom]]. The sanity of ordinary humans tends to be affected poorly as well, and with it their [[PsychicNosebleed physical health]]. [[spoiler:Altering the past via the Tides, the Last Castoff's unique ability, may also be involved.]] |
| 51 | * NaiveNewcomer: There are plenty of opportunities to play the Last Castoff this way, if you choose. Moreso than the Nameless One, where the nature of your starting surroundings tended to force you to be more cagey and ready for a fight. |
| 52 | * NoNameGiven: The Last Castoff technically has no name, although the Changing God went by [[MythologyGag Adahn]] while traveling in what would eventually be your body. |
| 53 | * NotTheFallThatKillsYou: |
| 54 | ** Averted in the beginning. You can try a number of things to slow your fall at the beginning of the game, but in the end, even Aligern's hastily deployed esotery can't slow your fall enough to save you. GoodThingYouCanHeal. |
| 55 | ** The earliest NonStandardGameOver can be achieved by going into a straight dive and ''[[TooDumbToLive accelerating]]'' [[NoOneCouldHaveSurvivedThat your descent]]. |
| 56 | * OppositeSexClone: [[spoiler:The Last Castoff meets their "prototype", who's one of these, in the Labyrinth in the endgame. Apparently the gender is usually the last thing the Changing God commits to a decision on before jumping into a new body.]] |
| 57 | * PowerIncontinence: The first time you resurrect from death and your soul returns from the Labyrinth, your body releases a wave of energy (which you later learn is called a Tidal Surge) that seems to affect Aligern and Callistege's minds, driving their negative emotions to the surface and causing them to suddenly break off their relationship. You eventually learn that even if you never gain the skill to use Tidal Surges consciously, the nature of being a castoff means you constantly "disrupt the tides" wherever you go, causing conflict and hatred to arise among the people you interact with. (Lampshading how, as an RPG protagonist, [[TheMainCharactersDoEverything you always seem to happen by when NPCs are undergoing some kind of crisis]] and you frequently end up an UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom.) |
| 58 | * PowerTattoo: Somewhere between this and BirthmarkOfDestiny. Whatever else they might look like, all castoffs have the same pentagonal tattoo branded on their heads. Whether or not the tattoo itself has anything else to do with their shared abilities (or the weirder powers of the Changing God) is unclear. One character later implies that [[spoiler:the tattoo makes it easier to access your mind. Presumably, the Changing God gave his bodies tattoos to make it easier to BodySurf.]] |
| 59 | * ReallyWasBornYesterday: Effectively true -- the castoff's body was created artificially in a lab, and they only awaken during [[InMediasRes the fall that kicks off the game]]. They have the wherewithal to think and function as an adult, but almost no knowledge of the world other than the piecemeal memories left behind when the Changing God abandoned them. |
| 60 | * ResurrectiveImmortality: Dying is necessary for solving some of the puzzles, and is likewise required if you want to return to the Labyrinth. |
| 61 | * TheSmartGuy: Certain builds, if you put most of your points into Intellect. Also the Clever, Intelligent, Learned, Mechanical, and Mystical descriptors. |
| 62 | * StealthExpert: The "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin stealthy]]" descriptor and the "who breathes shadow" focus. The "breathes shadow" focus eventually makes you a {{ninja}} archetype, with the ability to do relativistic ([[ArmorPiercingAttack unblockable]]) damage on a [[BackStab sneak attack]] and the ability to become truly [[{{invisibility}} invisible]] at will. |
| 63 | * SternChase: Is being pursued by the Sorrow for their sire's crimes. |
| 64 | * StoneWall: The "who masters defense" focus, which among other things is the only way to build a character who can use plate armor without penalty. (Also the "tough" descriptor.) |
| 65 | * SuperiorSuccessor: There are a number of ways the Last Castoff can surpass the Changing God himself, accomplishing things he never had the ability to do (or, in some cases, the courage to attempt). [[spoiler:These include helping Callistege ascend to the Datasphere to become a virtual god, successfully binding the Bloom to your will to become the new Memovira, becoming the host and user of the Words of Q'ra, learning to use the merecasters to [[MentalTimeTravel actually change history]] and not just relive it, and, in the ending, finding a way to destroy the Sorrow outright rather than merely staving it off.]] |
| 66 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Like the Nameless One before them, with the right build the Last Castoff can convince others to stop fighting, stop living, or even ''stop existing'' with the right dialogue choices. [[spoiler:At various points, other characters such as the Specter and Sorrow try to talk the Last Castoff to death. The player has the option of [[PressXToDie letting them succeed]].]] |
| 67 | * {{Telepathy}}: As a nano with the Scan Thoughts ability, you gain additional insight into the thoughts and motivations of [=NPCs=] while speaking with them. Even if you're not a nano, it's possible to buy an artifact which grants the ability once you reach the Bloom. |
| 68 | * {{Tykebomb}}: Like all castoffs, the Last Castoff was purpose-built. [[spoiler:You were designed to use the Resonance Chamber, and only you can use it. In addition you have the ability to use Meres -- recordings of the past -- to actually change the past they recorded.]] |
| 69 | * TheUnchosenOne: If the Last Castoff chooses to put an end to the Changing God's millennia-long machinations or hijack them for your own purposes, it won't be because of destiny. Like any other castoff, your survival was an accident. |
| 70 | * WolverineClaws: One of the more situational upgrades you can buy at Cliff's Edge (although they make a decent weapon if you build your character around optimizing unarmed combat). The narration lampshades that they're mostly for RuleOfCool. ("They look amazing!") |
| 71 | * YoungerThanTheyLook: The Changing God's bodies are [[BornAsAnAdult created as fully formed adults]], some of them barely getting any use before being discarded. Castoffs are effectively "born" in the moments when the Changing God's consciousness leaves them, which is confusing and can be quite traumatic, since he frequently leaves bodies that are about to die. |
| 72 | [[/folder]] |
| 73 | |
| 74 | [[folder:The Changing God]] |
| 75 | !!The Changing God |
| 76 | ->''"It's time for some hard truths, child."'' |
| 77 | |
| 78 | The Last Castoff's erstwhile sire, a man who has been around for thousands of years, hundreds of centuries. So named because he uses the numenera to craft new bodies for himself, transplanting his consciousness between them, constantly changing his appearance and rendering himself effectively immortal. |
| 79 | ---------- |
| 80 | * AbusiveParents: Plenty of the castoffs seem to think so, although there are just as many that disagree and believe the Changing God has purpose in mind for them, or is at least benign for giving them life. [[spoiler:Latter parts of the game reveal he's even worse than his enemies think. His plans involve a GrandTheftMe on the Last Castoff and using the Resonance Chamber to kill all the castoffs to escape the Sorrow. And if you reveal that his long-lost daughter, Miika, the [[ChekhovsGunman Ghostly Woman]] of the early game, could finally be brought back to life and cured, he refuses to believe it's her.]] |
| 81 | * AmbiguousGender: Although he has taken many bodies, male, female, and neither, there still seems to be an in-universe tendency to refer to the Changing God by male pronouns by default. [[spoiler:His original body was male.]] |
| 82 | * BeenThereShapedHistory: A major theme of the story is finding out that most of the big historical events of this part of the Numenera setting were either caused by him or one of his castoffs. He's the one who stopped the Tabaht empire from conquering the world and ultimately destroyed them, he's the one who brought the Aeon Priests "beyond the Beyond" and started their chapter in Sagus Cliffs, he's the one who discovered the Revivifier in the ruins of Archopalasia and used it to create Sagus Cliffs' levy system, the Dendra O'Hur and the Children of the Endless Gate were ''both'' started by castoffs of his using magical techniques he originally discovered and then abandoned, etc. |
| 83 | * BodyBackupDrive: Always has a fresh body ready to go. In the event of any threat to his current body, he abandons it and transfers his mind into the new one. He's been doing this for thousands of years at this point, and his castoff former bodies are numerous enough to practically form a kind of subspecies of their own. |
| 84 | * BodySurf: The Changing God obtained pseudo-immortality by constantly moving his consciousness into new bodies as necessary over many aeons. There's technically nothing apart from distance and convenience stopping him from taking back any of his old bodies, if he wanted them, but since he makes incremental improvements on each new body, his older castoffs are all but obsolete to him at this point. [[spoiler:The Specter, an AI backup of the Changing God's personality, tries to take back the Last Castoff and pick up where the real Changing God left off during the endgame.]] |
| 85 | * BrainUploading: His early research into prolonging his life delved into this, but he ultimately dismissed it -- he wanted to live on personally, not create a copy of himself. [[spoiler:His insistence on making this distinction can end up being a means of TalkingTheMonsterToDeath when you confront the Specter, an AI backup of the now-dead Changing God, during the endgame.]] |
| 86 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] Events late in the game indicate that the Changing God's own tidal affinities are [[spoiler:blue and silver, as seen when seeing his consciousness jump out of the Last Castoff in a flashback]]. Fitting for an immortal scientist who will do anything for more knowledge and to keep himself alive. |
| 87 | * ClonesArePeopleToo: He expressly doesn't think of the castoffs as people, so he feels no sympathy for them at all. [[spoiler:Played with when it's revealed that the original Changing God is dead, and the Specter is actually just a neural clone recorded before he died. While the Specter is quite convinced that he's the real Changing God, or at least the closest thing to continuity possible, you can convince him that he's just a copy too -- at which point the Specter [[GracefulLoser admits defeat]], and promptly [[FaceDeathWithDignity gives up the ghost]].]] |
| 88 | * ContrastingSequelAntagonist: |
| 89 | ** ''Tides'' essentially turns the dynamic of the original ''Torment'' on its head, with the Changing God being the Nameless One if he were a villain. [[spoiler:Well, more of a villain. Another kind of villain. It also makes the Sorrow, which superficially looks like the Transcendent One, into a WellIntentionedExtremist trying to curb the harm Changing God is doing.]] |
| 90 | ** Also interestingly the case with the main antagonist from its fellow [[invoked]]SpiritualSuccessor ''Pillars of Eternity'', the two branching in some interesting ways. [[spoiler:Thaos being an entirely selfless villain, with the horrors he commits being calculated, deliberate actions taken to stave off the worst excesses human beings are capable of. By comparison, the Changing God's uses for his immortality are petty and self-absorbed, entirely indifferent to the damage he does, setting off a neverending war largely by accident.]] |
| 91 | * CrazyPrepared: Like any good [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]], the Changing God has multiple contingencies in place for any possible risk to his person. Part of what makes the Sorrow so dangerous to him is its ability to blow through his defenses -- physical ''and'' mental. [[spoiler:Presumably to defend against exactly the kinds of abuses and defenses summoned up by others who abused the Tides in the time when the Sorrow was first created.]] |
| 92 | * TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: Was originally trying to [[spoiler:save his dying daughter, but is now only concerned with keeping himself alive]]. |
| 93 | * DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:The big {{reveal}} at the end of the game is that his attempt to bug his consciousness out of the Last Castoff's body ''failed'' at the beginning of the game -- his Tides were intercepted by the Sorrow and destroyed, and now there's nothing left of him but you as his body and the Specter as the last good backup of his mind.]] |
| 94 | * ExpendableClone: He views his castoffs as this. [[spoiler:The Specter, who started out as a full-personality backup of the Changing God, also started out of this, aware of and accepting the fact, at least until the ''real'' Changing God was, in fact, killed by the Sorrow.]] |
| 95 | * {{Expy}}: |
| 96 | ** He's essentially a villainous version of [[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment the Nameless One]], without the downside of losing his memories with each death. With his egotism, superficial charm, hyperrationality, endless strings of contingency plans, and, shall we say, practical nature, he's a dead ringer for one of the Nameless One's nastiest and yet most influential incarnations. |
| 97 | ** He started out searching for the secrets that eventually fueled his own immortality out of an earnest wish to help those close to him ([[spoiler:his daughter, the First]]), before losing his humanity and compassion somewhere along the way... Not unlike Jon Irenicus, the BigBad of ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII.'' |
| 98 | * FauxAffablyEvil: He's noted for his easy superficial charm. [[spoiler:And you're exposed to it firsthand whenever you speak with the Specter.]] |
| 99 | * GadgeteerGenius: His mastery of the numenera is what fuels his immortality and a large portion of what makes him so dangerous. |
| 100 | * AGodAmI: After so long, it's not clear who came up with the name, or indeed if the Changing God himself takes his divinity as a given, but he does openly refer to himself as the Changing God [[spoiler:or at least the Specter does, after TheReveal]]. He certainly does nothing to dissuade his worshipers in the Cult of the Changing God, nor the castoffs who serve him in the Endless Battle. |
| 101 | * AGodIAmNot: Seems far more interested in cynically manipulating his believers than in actually being the central figure of their religion. From the Last Castoff's memories of him, he seemed to find their worship more convenient than flattering. |
| 102 | * HiddenVillain: You don't actually encounter the Changing God [[spoiler:at all, since [[TheReveal he's revealed]] to have been [[PosthumousCharacter killed by the Sorrow]] during the opening moments of the game, shortly before you awakened. You don't discover this]] until about halfway through the game, at [[spoiler:[[HiddenElfVillage Miel Avest]].]] |
| 103 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: He brought the Sorrow upon himself. |
| 104 | * ImmortalityImmorality: There are immortals who don't abuse their long lives, or grow distant from their humanity. The Changing God isn't one of them. Yet even then, what makes him worse than his various castoffs or other immortality seekers is how ruthlessly driven the Changing God is to prolong his own life, no matter the cost to others. |
| 105 | * ImmortalitySeeker: The crux of his background as well as his current motivation. He's lived for thousands of years, yet in the process he's made many enemies, including the relentless Sorrow. Everything he does now is simply a means of buying time until he can find a way to save himself from the Sorrow. [[spoiler:He ultimately fails -- before the game even began, in fact, since his consciousness never actually made it into another body after abandoning the Last Castoff.]] |
| 106 | * IronicName: "Changing" is fitting, but "God" is debatable. [[spoiler:Everything that happens in the game is a result of him trying and failing to save his daughter, eventually giving up even that in favor of prolonging his own life -- here meaning that he would wipe out all his castoffs, even the ones still loyal to him, in an ultimately selfish bid to stave off the Sorrow's hunt for him.]] When not appearing before those who actively worship him, he acts anything but godlike, being remarkably cynical, practical-minded, and self-absorbed. |
| 107 | ** Likewise, "Changing" itself is ironic if you think about it -- the Changing God has changed all of the superficial aspects of his body and personality over the years (his species, his gender, his skills and interests, his profession) but deep down he's still always been the same toxic, manipulative {{Jerkass}} who is unwilling and indeed unable to change his fundamentally selfish nature. This is lampshaded when it's revealed his Tidal Alignment has always been Blue and Silver, and Blue/Silver choices in the game are always a giveaway that you're doing what the Changing God would've done in your place. |
| 108 | * ItsAllAboutMe: He only cares for his own existence, to the point that he's willing to kill hundreds of people and endanger the very fabric of reality if it means he can live forever. |
| 109 | * LackOfEmpathy: Big time. Especially apparent in his behavior towards the First Castoff. |
| 110 | * LivingForeverIsAwesome: He cares about nothing else, and given [[TheSociopath his personality]], he does seem to enjoy himself when he's not on the run from the Sorrow. |
| 111 | * ManipulativeBastard: He's capable of being quite charming to those he wants something from. |
| 112 | * MotiveDecay: Lampshaded in the ending. His experiments with immortality started with the noble-seeming goal of bringing his daughter Miika back to life, but over time this goal went more and more OutOfFocus until now he's all but forgotten it in favor of seeking more life and power for himself, with the excuse that once his "distractions" like the First Castoff and the Sorrow are out of the way he'll be able to finally save Miika. His defining StartOfDarkness moment, revealed in a mere in the ending, is when he abandons Miika's body to be destroyed by the Sorrow in favor of saving his own skin. [[spoiler:It's even revealed that he invented the resonance chamber technology long before he even became the Changing God and could've used it to save Miika by absorbing her into his own body at the cost of his own consciousness, but was unwilling to pay that price and instead went looking for an alternate solution.]] |
| 113 | * MythologyGag: Uses the alias Adahn, a name that the Nameless One frequently gives when asked as a RunningGag in ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment''. |
| 114 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: By unlocking [[spoiler:the Tides over the course of trying to save his daughter from a weapon based on related technology]], the Changing God brought the wrath of the Sorrow down upon himself. All his subsequent abuse of what he'd learned to stay alive and one step ahead of the Sorrow only made matters worse, as the Sorrow [[spoiler:is an ancient security system designed to prevent the Tides from ''ever'' being used]]. |
| 115 | * NoNameGiven: We never learn the Changing God's real name. It might even be Adahn, for all we know. |
| 116 | * OurLichesAreDifferent: Resembles one of these, being a powerful "magic" user who has survived far beyond the normal span by projecting his soul outside his body. Actually something of a inversion -- rather than leaving behind undead beings and a trail of bodies sacrificed to keep him alive (like the Nameless One, however unwittingly), the Changing God actually leaves behind new life in his wake, albeit life which is often deposited unprepared and alone into incredibly perilous situations. |
| 117 | * PosthumousCharacter: What he essentially becomes for each of his castoffs, abandoning them in their new bodies to their imminent deaths and flitting off to the next. It's noted that there are castoffs who live and die without ever having met him. [[spoiler:FromACertainPointOfView, the Changing God has been DeadAllAlong since his most recent consciousness didn't actually make it off the moon at the beginning of the game, leaving only the Specter, an AI backup of his personality which he used as a sounding board.]] |
| 118 | * {{Pride}}: He does [[AnswersToTheNameOfGod go by the moniker]] of the Changing God, and PlayingGod is his stock in trade. His FatalFlaw is hubris, and his unshakable belief in his own genius, as represented by the Blue and Silver Tides, has driven him to unspeakable acts simply because he is so certain he can succeed. |
| 119 | * TheSociopath: A charming, manipulative, self-aggrandizing megalomaniac who only cares for himself and his own goals. [[spoiler:But once, a very long time ago now, [[TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget he was a loving father just looking for a way to save his daughter.]]]] |
| 120 | * SternChase: Is being pursued by the Sorrow for his crimes, with his castoffs caught in the middle. |
| 121 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: It's possible to convince [[spoiler:the Specter that since it's only a copy of the Changing God's memories, it's not really the man himself, and therefore the Changing God has been DeadAllAlong]]. If persuaded, [[spoiler:the Specter promptly vanishes]], making it true, one way or another. |
| 122 | * ThatThingIsNotMyChild: The Changing God doesn't even consider the castoffs to be people, much less his children. [[spoiler:The First Castoff is hit particularly hard by this. He also refuses to believe that Miika is anything more than a reflection, not really alive since she's "just a copy" of his daughter's consciousness. Which is pretty rich coming from [[BrainUploading the Specter]].]] |
| 123 | -->'''[[spoiler:Miika]]:''' My father fled, saving himself. Maybe he figured he could bring me back without my body. It's the kind of thing he would assume. ''[{{Beat}}]'' Maybe he didn't care. |
| 124 | * TimeAbyss: As mentioned above, the Changing God has been around for a ''long'' time. |
| 125 | * TooCleverByHalf: His greatest weakness [[spoiler:and the source of many of his worst qualities is his assumption that [[ItsAllAboutMe he is irreplaceable]], his knowledge and experience making him inherently more valuable than any shorter-lived individual. Assuming he knows better and is simply more important than others drives most of the conflict in the game, including the ones that began well before the Last Castoff ever existed.]] |
| 126 | * TheUnfettered: Has abandoned any sense of morality or empathy in his quest for immortality. There's nothing he won't do, nothing taboo or sacred if it means he can stave off his own death even a little longer, and no person he cares about more than himself. |
| 127 | * VoluntaryShapeshifting: Of a sort, since he can transfer his consciousness into any body, not all of which have been human, or, it's implied, humanoid, depending on the planet/dimension/time period in question. |
| 128 | * WhatMeasureIsANonhuman: ''[[ArcWords What does one life matter?]]'' The Changing God places no inherent value on consciousness itself or individuality. As such he doesn't view the castoffs as anything more than pieces of himself, to be [[ExpendableClone discarded]] [[spoiler:or reincorporated]] as needed. |
| 129 | * WhoWantsToLiveForever: Conspicuously averted and repeatedly discussed. Despite being thousands of years old (at least, not counting time spent in other dimensions and at other points in history), the Changing God's entire motivation is to stave off his own death a little longer. |
| 130 | * YearInsideHourOutside: Spent a good deal of his already long life traveling between dimensions, across time, and inside the confines of his own elaborately constructed memory palace, making his exact age difficult to pinpoint. |
| 131 | * YouCouldHaveUsedYourPowersForGood: Frequently expressed by various characters. Averted by his followers, castoffs and otherwise, who believe he already ''is'' using his powers for good. [[spoiler:Deconstructed in that the Changing God's research had its roots in trying to save his daughter, Miika, from a wasting illness.]] |
| 132 | -->'''Aadiriis:''' Were it not for the Sorrow... I honestly believe that he would lift us into a new age of human achievement. [...] He has also systematically destroyed every relationship he ever built. |
| 133 | [[/folder]] |
| 134 | |
| 135 | [[folder:The Specter]] |
| 136 | !!The Specter |
| 137 | [[quoteright:210:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/portrait_thespecter.png]] |
| 138 | [[caption-width-right:210:I'm ''you''. A piece of you that broke off when the Sorrow attacked us as you fell.]] |
| 139 | |
| 140 | ->''"What else is in here? You mean apart from the cabaret acts, distilleries, and endless adventure just behind the next wrinkle in your mind...? Ha! And if you believe ''that''..."'' |
| 141 | |
| 142 | A fragment of the Last Castoff's mind and memories, and your ally and sounding board in the unfamiliar Labyrinth of your own mind. |
| 143 | ---------- |
| 144 | * BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: As he only exists as a spectral image in the Last Castoff's mind [[spoiler:and whatever backup systems the Changing God left behind]], this is effectively the only place he can fight [[spoiler:other than by somehow communicating with the Changing God's proxies in the real world]]. After Miel Avest, [[spoiler:he reveals himself as the Changing God, and if he can't convince you to give up your body willingly, he tries to take it by force]]. |
| 145 | * {{Expy}}: Moreso in the beta than the released game, but his glib demeanor and MrExposition role as he guides you through your first waking steps in the Labyrinth are similar to your lovable sidekick Morte the floating skull from ''Planescape''. [[spoiler:His actual role as the manipulative figure trying to steal your very life away from you while remaining hidden himself, as well as being a "posturing shadow" making claims to greater importance than he has earned both echo the part of the Transcendent One more closely than the Sorrow ends up doing. As a splinter of your mind with his own agenda who tries to take over and has no compunctions about what he's done to benefit himself, he's also more than a little like the Practical Incarnation.]] |
| 146 | * GuestStarPartyMember: During one of the betas, the Specter briefly joined you to help [[spoiler:[[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind fight off the Sorrow]] as the creature attempted to siphon off portions of the Last Castoff's memory.]] |
| 147 | * JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind: He only exists in your head, where he's always there waiting for you in the Labyrinth [[spoiler:until he reveals himself as the Changing God and tries to take your body back at Miel Avest]]. |
| 148 | * MrExposition: For the Fathoms, the Sorrow, the Labyrinth and the Tides. He's your guide for the vast mental construct inside the Last Castoff's mind. Also subverted, as he often tells you the Labyrinth is your mind, so it's your job to poke around it, not his. |
| 149 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: As a purely mental construct, talking to others is about all he can do [[spoiler:unless he can take the Last Castoff's mind and body for himself]]. |
| 150 | * TalkingToThemself: Describes himself as a splinter of the Castoff's memories, and a part of them. [[spoiler:Subverted, as he's revealed to be the Changing God -- or at least a figment of his consciousness.]] |
| 151 | * TomatoInTheMirror: Other than being a part of the Last Castoff's mind, he doesn't know who or what he is any more than you do. [[spoiler:This is a lie -- he's actually just an ArtificialIntelligence based on a backup of the Changing God's memories, and waiting for his chance to steal the Last Castoff's body back for himself. This is a TomatoSurprise for the player, but the Specter knew this [[EvilAllAlong all along]]. This moment comes for the Specter, however, if you convince him that since he's just a copy, that the real Changing God is truly dead -- at which point the Specter acknowledges defeat and [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath promptly vanishes]].]] |
| 152 | [[/folder]] |
| 153 | |
| 154 | [[folder:The Sorrow]] |
| 155 | !!The Sorrow |
| 156 | ->''"That thing that was here... that enormous shadow... that was just the smallest piece of it. You felt it. You saw it. It's our death."''%%TheSpecter |
| 157 | |
| 158 | Twisted, shadowy beings, capable of breaching any barrier whether of matter, energy, time, dimension, or even of the mind itself, in their relentless pursuit of the Changing God, shredding the minds and bodies he cast off wherever they can be found. '''Spoilers follow.''' |
| 159 | ---------- |
| 160 | * BadassLongRobe: Takes the form of a towering [[InTheHood hooded]] woman, whose lower body gives way to a mass of tentacles. |
| 161 | * BigBad: To the extent this game has one, with the caveat that the Changing God provoked it rather than the other way around; it isn't a danger to the world, it's a danger to ''you.'' |
| 162 | * CombatTentacles: The Sorrow seems to be mostly tentacles, and they're quite deadly, capable of impaling its victims and holding them in place while it burns out their minds. |
| 163 | * ContrastingSequelAntagonist: |
| 164 | ** Similar to the case mentioned under the Changing God's entry, the Sorrow is interesting for the ways it differs from the antagonists of both ''Planescape: Torment'', as well as ''Pillars of Eternity'' -- in this case to [[spoiler:Thaos again]]. Spoilers for that game follow. [[spoiler:Both Thaos and the Sorrow are ancient, immortal [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well-Intentioned Extremists]], willing to commit atrocities in the name of an abstract greater good. Unlike Thaos, however, the Sorrow can be reasoned with, and it offers you a choice, and a sacrifice, you might actually be willing to make. In a sense, this makes it something of an [[AntiVillain Anti-Villainous]] counterpart to both Iovara and Woedica -- willing to allow you the freedom of your own choices, but also enforcing the consequences of those decisions.]] |
| 165 | * CosmicKeystone: [[spoiler:As a defensive system for the Tides, the Sorrow serves as a "lock" that prevents them from flowing freely.]] Killing it causes [[spoiler:the Tides to flow forth]] and drives thousands of people insane. |
| 166 | * DeusEstMachina: Like much of the Ninth World, it turns out to be an artificial construct. |
| 167 | * EldritchAbomination: It takes the form of a psionic mass of sentient tentacles that can exist in multiple places and timelines at once. |
| 168 | * {{Expy}}: |
| 169 | ** For ''Planescape: Torment''[='=]s shadows, both in terms of appearance and in purpose: to hunt down and kill the player character. Inverted in that rather than being many distinct entities hunting one man with many minds, the Sorrow is one mind and will with multiple bodies hunting many individuals. In a further twist, none of its victims actually harbor the mind of its true prey [[spoiler:but they do make use of the Tides, one way or another, so they do fall under its purview.]] |
| 170 | ** The Sorrow (not its fragments but the Sorrow itself) is a towering hooded figure with jagged red tentacles, which drifts slowly over the map, its bloody energies falling over objects and people like a shadow, and destroying them utterly, from which the only choice the player has is to run -- much like ''Planescape''[='s=] Lady of Pain, whose bladed shadow cuts anyone it falls upon to ribbons. |
| 171 | ** The Sorrow's twisted, patchwork appearance also resembles the tattered, branching, armor-like silhouette of the Transcendent One. The similarities between the two [[spoiler:end up being largely limited to those of their appearance.]] |
| 172 | ** Its hood, masked face, implacability and impartial dedication to its purpose also echo [[spoiler:Kelemvor, God of the Dead, in NeverwinterNights2/MaskOfTheBetrayer. Like him, it has no problem with you personally, only that you and others who have powers like yours threaten the domain it was bound and charged to protect.]] |
| 173 | ** The ending reveals some similarities to [[spoiler:the Catalyst from ''Franchise/MassEffect''. An artificial construct which was created by an advanced civilization to stop a problem which was damaging it, ended up solving it by destroying the civilization completely, and now eliminates those following its path. Finally, it's confronted by the hero (who just forced a major antagonist into suicide), and offers them some unpleasant choices.]] |
| 174 | * IHaveManyNames: Death's Mistress, Soultaker, Ender of the Cycle. |
| 175 | * ImplacableMan: The Sorrow makes personal appearances in two of the game's (unskippable) Crises, and cannot be harmed in either of them. Being attacked by one is a OneHitKill. Like everyone else in the game, the Sorrow is vulnerable to Relativistic damage, which ignores armor and resistance. Naturally, this led [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Torment/comments/5yqd1v/spoilerkilling_the_sorrow_during_first_encounter/ one enterprising player]] to build their Castoff around Relativistic damage and... err, kill the Sorrow, earning praise from the devs. The LordBritishPostulate strikes again! |
| 176 | * InTheHood: Any head or face is hidden within the shadows of the Sorrow's cowled cloak. |
| 177 | * InspectorJavert: The Sorrow's central motive is to punish the Changing God. The problem is, it seems to believe that all his castoffs are guilty as well. [[spoiler:Which they are, in a sense. Whether they like it or not, all castoffs are aberrations in the Tides, created by it and capable of manipulating it for their own ends, and as long as they exist, the threat the Tides pose to other humans -- madness, [[TitleDrop torment]] -- will continue.]] |
| 178 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: ''The Sorrow''. Renamed from "The Angel of Entropy", which wasn't a lot better. |
| 179 | * SealedEvilInACan: It only appeared after the Changing God first ventured into the Tabaht's city of the Underspine. [[spoiler:Because the Sorrow's creators believed that the Tides were evil, and conceived of the Sorrow as a means to ensure that [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow the knowledge of how to manipulate them]] was sealed away forever.]] |
| 180 | * SilentAntagonist: The Sorrow does not speak, only hunts and kills, its purposes ineffable and its judgment seemingly inevitable... until the very end. [[spoiler:With the Resonance at its metaphorical throat, it tries to reason with the Last Castoff instead.]] This is the first time in thousands if not millions of years that the Sorrow has felt compelled to communicate in any form other than destruction. |
| 181 | -->'''The Sorrow:''' Agony bleeds from the world at your passage. The choices you make, no matter how you intend them, describe an arc of pain. |
| 182 | * SternChase: The chaser in question, hunting the Changing God and the castoffs and killing them, forcing them to flee. |
| 183 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Unusually, given the game's pedigree, you can't. [[spoiler:Or rather, while you can destroy the Sorrow with [[CutscenePowerToTheMax cutscene power]] following a dialogue choice, you cannot convince it to give up its goal of destroying the castoffs and restoring the Tides. You must choose: either destroy the Sorrow, releasing the full force of the Tides upon Sagus Cliffs and its surroundings and driving everyone who isn't a castoff to madness; collapse all the castoffs into a single being (the Last Castoff, the First, Matkina, or a resurrected Miika), severing their connection to the Tides; destroy all castoffs, period; or do nothing, leaving all the castoffs alive, the Endless Battle ongoing, and the Sorrow hunting down the castoffs one by one.]] Essentially, it's possible for the Sorrow to actually talk ''[[InvertedTrope you]]'' to death. |
| 184 | * WellIntentionedExtremist: It has killed many, even wiping out entire civilizations ''single-handedly'', and executes those who attract its ire ruthlessly. But in the end, [[spoiler:when you manage to communicate with it, the Sorrow is revealed to be a defensive system left behind by a previous civilization to prevent abuse of the Tides. It has nothing against you personally, but as a castoff you unconsciously warp and distort the Tides around you and that is why you have to die. It is perfectly content with letting you decide ''how'' the castoffs will remove themselves from existence, as long as the Tides are healed.]] |
| 185 | -->'''The Sorrow:''' I offer oblivion. Not everlasting torment. Not punishment. I offer your immortal companion the death it has always dreamed of. |
| 186 | * YouAreWhatYouHate: The Sorrow's powers are fueled by the same [[spoiler:Tidal energies]] which empower all those which it hunts. Then again, who else could the Sorrow ever trust with such a power? |
| 187 | [[/folder]] |
| 188 | |
| 189 | !Companions |
| 190 | [[folder:Aligern]] |
| 191 | !!Aligern |
| 192 | !!!A Hardened Nano who Fights With His Demons |
| 193 | [[quoteright:210:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/portrait_aligern.png]] |
| 194 | [[caption-width-right:210:They never seem to run out.]] |
| 195 | ->''"You've ruined lives. Committed crimes. And now, it seems you've forgotten the harms you've engineered."'' |
| 196 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Jonny [=McGovern=] |
| 197 | |
| 198 | A former Aeon Priest on the outs with his order, now living as a scavenger and tinkerer in the city's Underbelly. He has some unpleasant history with the Changing God. |
| 199 | ---- |
| 200 | * AnimalsHateHim: Oom can tell he doesn't like him, and the feeling seems to be mutual. Maybe Aligern just isn't a blob person. |
| 201 | -->'''Aligern:''' Can you keep that blob away from me? ''[Oom hisses]'' Because of ''that.'' Is it trying to eat me? Is it defecating? What is it ''doing?'' |
| 202 | * AnimatedTattoo: The snake-like tattoos on his forearms can be activated in combat to grant him a stacking buff when he repeatedly undertakes similar actions such as attacking, healing, casting buffs, and so on. |
| 203 | * BadassLongcoat: He wears a ragged, battered grey duster. |
| 204 | * CombatMedic: He's basically the cleric to Callistege's SquishyWizard. His esoteries are support and healing-based, and he's markedly tougher and better-suited to melee combat than she is. |
| 205 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] Red and Indigo. He's a seething cauldron of emotion who tends to trust his gut instincts, but he's also an intensely loyal person. [[spoiler:Which is why he hates the Changing God and by extension the Last Castoff so much: they took ''everything'' from him, his family and the whole town where they lived.]] |
| 206 | * DarkAndTroubledPast: Implied by his grudge against the Changing God, but he refuses to talk about it. [[spoiler:He saw his family devoured by the shadowy horrors summoned by the black frame the Changing God gave him to unlock.]] |
| 207 | * DelinquentHair: A grey mohawk. It's hard to see in his portrait, since he doesn't seem to go to much trouble to keep it standing, but it's visible in-game and on the box art. |
| 208 | * DoomedHometown: His home village, [[spoiler:or rather all the villagers, including his family,]] vanished after [[spoiler:the Changing God gave him a strange black frame to unlock.]] |
| 209 | * EvilStoleMyFaith: Not in a literal God, but close enough to this trope; Aligern was once a loyal member of the Order of Truth who was also a follower and admirer of the Changing God. The Changing God betraying him by tricking him into using the Black Frame to destroy his own village and the Order of Truth seeming ambivalent about trying to help him figure out what happened and how to fix it destroyed his faith in both, making him a "fallen" Aeon Priest. |
| 210 | * FateWorseThanDeath: Suffers one if [[spoiler:you bring him to the final dungeon and destroy the Sorrow. Somehow his living tattoos go haywire, leaving him almost comatose and in excruciating pain.]] |
| 211 | * {{Foil}}: For Callistege. The two of them [[OppositesAttract used to be]] [[OddCouple an item]], but whatever it was they used to have, it's long gone now. Aligern accuses her of being a lying, backstabbing, [[ManipulativeBastard conniving bitch]] in so many words; Callistege says she can't stand his relentless negativity and constant feeling sorry for himself. Both are nanos who worked for the Order of Truth, past or present, but there the similarities end. Callistege has bright pink hair and is wearing a kind of cherry-red party dress, while Aligern is scruffy and tattooed, his coat grubby and drab. Aligern is a laconic, [[BrutalHonesty tell-it-like-it-is]] loner who has no time or patience for niceties, and consequently has few friends. Callistege is a loquacious social butterfly constantly surrounded by her "sisters" who's a skilled player of politics within the Order of Truth, able to talk a great deal while revealing little. Finally, mechanically, while both are nanos, Aligern's a healer/support caster who supplements his esoteries with brawn, while Callistege starts off with a couple of attack powers and an emergency teleport. |
| 212 | * GadgeteerGenius: He's a nano and former Aeon Priest, so his esoteries (read: "magic" spells) come from his expertise with the numenera. |
| 213 | * GeniusBruiser: He's no glaive, but he's no slouch when it comes to getting up close and bashing people over the head. |
| 214 | * GoodIsNotNice: Despite his abrasive personality and personal dislike of most of the your companions, he's a caring, compassionate man, who can eventually be persuaded to put aside his personal feelings for your sire. [[spoiler:There's even an achievement for earning Aligern's friendship and then becoming/revealing that you ''are'' the Changing God.]] |
| 215 | * IWillFindYou: His primary motivation is to find [[spoiler:his wife and daughter, who disappeared when he came to after activating the black frame]]. In the end, it turns out [[spoiler:they've been transformed into his ''[[AlwaysWithYou tattoos]]'' and with Orth Faung's research in hand, Aligern manages to restore his family and the village where they lived.]] |
| 216 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He's a hard-bitten scavenger who bears a grudge, but everything he's done is to get his family back. |
| 217 | * KeepingTheEnemyClose: Seems to be traveling with the Last Castoff to keep an eye on them, on the off chance that they're actually still the Changing God. [[spoiler:He turns out to be justified in doing so, one way or another. The achievement for convincing Aligern you ''are'' the Changing God, or as near a thing as possible -- while ''also'' keeping his approval -- invokes the trope by name.]] |
| 218 | * KnightInSourArmor: A man of principle, despite how much the Ninth World has ground him down. Rhin describes him as sweet but sad, "like an uncle no one goes to visit." |
| 219 | * LickedByTheDog: Rhin and Erritis come to like him (despite his best efforts). |
| 220 | * MagicKnight: Despite his lack of attack magic, he can be built into a highly durable frontline fighter who also slings cyphers. |
| 221 | * {{Mangst}}: A textbook example. His wife and daughter [[spoiler:and the whole ''aldeia'' where they lived were wiped off the map when the Changing God came along and had him open up a piece of numenera in the shape of a black folding frame]]. It's this attitude that's actually a major bone of contention between him and Callistege. |
| 222 | * MightyGlacier: Solid Might and Intellect, high hit points, Armor, and Resistance, but a starting Speed pool of 2. Not much reason to increase it, either, since Aligern doesn't really have skills or abilities that use it. |
| 223 | * MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers: He and Callistege ''hate'' each other. They make you choose between them as you leave the Reef of Fallen Worlds, after which you can't add one to the party while the other is in it. |
| 224 | ** For his part, Aligern is quite open about his resentment of Callistege for her coldness and emotional manipulation, although he's probably exaggerating her ruthlessness. The reason for this is [[spoiler:because the Last Castoff's rebirth after crash-landing in the Resonance Chamber warped the Tides around them, leading the friction in their relationship to build to a sudden head. They exchange some very harsh words, and know each other well enough to really twist the knife. Meanwhile being around the Last Castoff causes those same emotions to flare up all over again.]] |
| 225 | --->'''Aligern:''' A parasite disguised as a scholarch. Don't be surprised if she betrays you before the day is done. Actually, that would be slow for her. |
| 226 | * MythologyGag: His living tattoos resemble the Tattoo of Bloodletting the heavily inked Nameless One could get. The black frame from his personal quest was, in the original ''Torment'', a spellbook belonging to one of the Nameless One's past incarnations. [[spoiler:That incarnation was cast into an extradimensional maze for several years -- meanwhile, the black frame is an artifact which trapped Aligern's whole village inside his tattoos for years.]] |
| 227 | * PerpetualFrowner: He generally comes across as pretty dour toward the Last Castoff and their companions, but as he says to Tybir: |
| 228 | -->'''Aligern:''' I smile. You might give some thought to why you, personally, never see it. |
| 229 | * PreacherMan: Was the Aeon Priest (a kind of non-spiritual community leader) for his ''aldeia'' (a kind of small, remote village) before [[spoiler:the Changing God [[DoomedHometown wiped them out]].]] |
| 230 | * RedMage: His higher-tier focus abilities increase his armor and weapon accuracy, and while he doesn't have Callistege or a nano Last Castoff's selection of offensive esoteries, he does still have a nano's cypher progression for offense. |
| 231 | * TheSnarkKnight: Sarcastic snark and world-weary disdain for ''everyone'', check. Not such a bad guy underneath it all? [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold ...Check.]] |
| 232 | -->'''Aligern:''' ''[after seeing the Last Castoff come BackFromTheDead again]'' Are you enjoying this death and resurrection thing? You're certainly doing it enough. |
| 233 | * SourSupporter: Justified, in his mind. He despises the Changing God. He thinks you might ''[[KingIncognito be]]'' [[KingIncognito the Changing God]]. Then again, Aligern's pretty sour about everything. [[spoiler:Not without reason, admittedly.]] |
| 234 | * SquishyWizard: Averted. He's quite durable ("Hardened", in fact) and starts off equipped with a mace. |
| 235 | * SupportPartyMember: He starts with the healing spell Innervate, and the majority of active abilities he can take are buffs. |
| 236 | [[/folder]] |
| 237 | |
| 238 | [[folder:Callistege]] |
| 239 | !!Callistege |
| 240 | !!!A Dimension-Shifting Nano who Pierces Realities |
| 241 | [[quoteright:210:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/portrait_callistege.png]] |
| 242 | [[caption-width-right:210:In this world, then.]] |
| 243 | ->''"We are a part of each other, sisters across infinite realities. We share our experiences... and power."'' |
| 244 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/LaniMinella |
| 245 | |
| 246 | Another Aeon Priest, and unlike Aligern, still in good standing with the Order of Truth. She's constantly surrounded by otherworldly echoes of alternate versions of herself. |
| 247 | ---------- |
| 248 | * AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Her goal is to attune herself to the Datasphere, a collection of nanites in the Ninth World's atmosphere that holds the collective knowledge of Humanity's past. [[spoiler:In the final dungeon you can use the Resonance to let her do exactly that, making Callistege abandon her bodies and become a permanent part of the Datasphere.]] |
| 249 | * BadassBoast: Also a BattleCry. |
| 250 | -->'''Callistege:''' Probability ''shakes'' at my coming. |
| 251 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: According to Aligern, although the two of them did go through a pretty nasty breakup. |
| 252 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] Red and Silver. A creative scholar, interested in appearances and how the numenera can serve her personally. Her passion is knowledge, but to benefit herself and her reputation rather than for its own sake. |
| 253 | * ExpendableAlternateUniverse: She considers most of her "sisters" expendable in attaining her goals. To be fair, several of her sisters are doing the same... but ''that'' in turn (combined with her basic arrogance) makes her like the Changing God. |
| 254 | * FashionableAsymmetry: Her dress after Lady Anshe's upgrades leaves her left arm with a sleeve of mixed brown leather and numenera. |
| 255 | * FateWorseThanDeath: Suffers this if [[spoiler:you help her ascend to the Datasphere, but then destroy the Sorrow. Apparently the Tidal forces this unleashes [[NiceJobBreakingItHero botch the ascension]], leaving her in an irreversible state of delirious, immobilized agony.]] |
| 256 | * {{Foil}}: For Aligern. The two of them [[OppositesAttract used to be]] [[OddCouple an item]], but whatever it was they used to have, it's long gone now. Aligern accuses her of being a lying, backstabbing, [[ManipulativeBastard conniving bitch]] in so many words; Callistege says she can't stand his relentless negativity and constant feeling sorry for himself. Both are nanos who worked for the Order of Truth, past or present, but there the similarities end. Callistege has bright pink hair and is wearing a kind of cherry-red party dress, while Aligern is scruffy and tattooed, his coat grubby and drab. Aligern is a laconic, [[BrutalHonesty tell-it-like-it-is]] loner who has no time or patience for niceties, and consequently has few friends. Callistege is a loquacious social butterfly constantly surrounded by her "sisters" who's a skilled player of politics within the Order of Truth, able to talk a great deal while revealing little. Finally, mechanically, while both are nanos, Aligern's a healer/support caster who supplements his esoteries with brawn, while Callistege starts off with a couple of attack powers and an emergency teleport. |
| 257 | * ForScience: Her motivation is to learn as much as possible from her condition and see how best to exploit it. |
| 258 | * GadgeteerGenius: Like any nano, what appears to be magic is in fact science, and Callistege is more than a pretty face when it comes to the numenera. |
| 259 | * GodhoodSeeker: She makes no bones about the fact that leaving her physical body and merging with the datasphere will make her a kind of intangible information elemental, the closest thing the Ninth World can have to a true god. |
| 260 | * HiveMind: Self-described, though she and her sisters are not perfectly in sync, in thought or deed. This latter fact gives her pause, uncertain as to whether she truly wishes to give herself over to the datasphere and risk being overwhelmed. Of lesser concern, but still noted, is that she would be forcing the same fate upon any other undecided Callisteges across the multiverse. |
| 261 | -->'''Callistege:''' I am what you might imprecisely call a nascent, cross-dimensional hivemind. What I must decide now is whether to continue this experiment. |
| 262 | * InsufferableGenius: Depending on who she's talking to, Callistege can be very arrogant, although she pours on the sugar when someone has something she wants. Thus, this is often averted in the Last Castoff's orbit. |
| 263 | * ItsAllAboutMe: And there are a lot of her, too. Again, she seemingly tries to tone it down around the Last Castoff, but it shines through in pretty much all her interactions with other characters. |
| 264 | * LadyOfBlackMagic: A regal noblewoman scholar who specializes in destructive "spells" and cyphers, seeking knowledge and power for their own sake. |
| 265 | * LightIsNotGood: Despite her bright taste in fashion and her superficially pleasant, cheerful demeanor, she's quite ruthless and does not suffer fools gladly. |
| 266 | * ManipulativeBastard: According to Aligern. She's definitely holding a few things back, especially noticeable if you're a nano and can read minds. Notably, one of the skills Callistege can learn and [[TheFace excel in]] is Deception. |
| 267 | * MesACrowd: Her translucent [[AlternateSelf alternate selves]] are constantly visible around her, usually just slightly out of sync with every move she makes. |
| 268 | * MeaningfulName: ''Callistege'' is the Latin name for a genus of moths, and Callistege is a human in the process of metamorphosing into something more. Specifically, ''Callistege mi'' is the scientific name of the Mother Shipton moth, a moth whose English name comes from a famous 16th-century seer and witch. |
| 269 | * MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers: She and Aligern can't ''stand'' each other, and will refuse to be in the same party together once you leave the Reef of Fallen Worlds. |
| 270 | ** Part of the reason they hate each other so much is [[spoiler:because the Last Castoff's presence warps the Tides around them. During your rebirth in the resonance chamber, this caused the mild animosity between the two, then still a couple, to flare into an extremely nasty, personal breakup. Their insults hit extremely close to home for both of them, leaving them unable to be around each other. This actually goes a long part of the way toward explaining why Callistege goes out of her way to seem ''nice'' to the Castoff -- they've seen a part of her she'd normally keep hidden.]] |
| 271 | --->'''Callistege:''' He's useful... At least he was, once. If that pompous laak-nibber -- forgive my language, dear -- finds one more fault with me, I expect my sisters will murder him in several realities... Hm. There goes one now. |
| 272 | * PimpedOutDress: Pretty much an [[TheEighties '80s]] prom dress, bright red and gold, all ruffles and fluffed-out lace. |
| 273 | * SquishyWizard: She starts out with some decent ranged powers and a teleport, and she definitely needs them, as she's rather fragile. |
| 274 | * SwapTeleportation: Her unique starting ability lets her teleport by swapping physical locations with another version of her who was already standing there in another universe. |
| 275 | * TermsOfEndangerment: Refers to people as darling, dear, and child even while threatening or insulting them. |
| 276 | -->'''Callistege:''' Darling, take your thugs and go home. Otherwise we'll have to rip you to pieces, and the world is already ''so'' untidy. |
| 277 | * TokenEvilTeammate: Callistege is arrogant rather than straight up ''evil'', but it's telling that the actions she most supports are the ones that drive the Last Castoff's alignment ever closer to that of the Changing God. |
| 278 | * TheSmartGuy: Starts out with specialised Lore: Mystical, can learn the other Lore skills, and gains tier bonuses that boost Lore. |
| 279 | * WickedWitch: Rhin perceives her as something akin to a wicked sorceress/stepmother from a fairy tale. She's not far off. |
| 280 | -->'''Callistege:''' Come now, child. What could my sisters ''possibly'' want from you?\ |
| 281 | '''Rhin:''' I don't know. Hair. Blood. Fingernails. My dying breath caught in a bottle.\ |
| 282 | '''Callistege:''' Children have ''such'' imaginations.\ |
| 283 | '''Rhin:''' You can't have that either. |
| 284 | [[/folder]] |
| 285 | |
| 286 | [[folder:Tybir]] |
| 287 | !!Captain Lanchian Tybir |
| 288 | !!!A Cagey Jack who Knows How To Take Care of Himself |
| 289 | [[quoteright:210:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/portrait_tybir.png]] |
| 290 | [[caption-width-right:210:You look like someone who believes in justice...]] |
| 291 | ->''"Unsure, are we? Wise lad. Most days, I wouldn't trust me either."'' |
| 292 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Sean Crisden |
| 293 | |
| 294 | A roguish veteran soldier and retired mercenary who enlists the Last Castoff to help him save his friend Ris from the executioner's block. |
| 295 | ---------- |
| 296 | * AnAdventurerIsYou: Mitigation Tank. He's got a good Speed defense, and he starts out with the ability to issue a challenge to enemies, compelling them to focus their attention on him. |
| 297 | * BreakTheHaughty: The Dracogen's reason for seeking him out, while he is being paid to find him, is mostly for the pleasure of taking him down a peg. [[spoiler:He more than succeeds.]] |
| 298 | * TheCaptain: His rank before he retired. |
| 299 | -->'''Tybir:''' Captain Lanchian Tybir, retired. Extremely retired. Once a soldier of fortune, now its plaything. |
| 300 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] [[TheHedonist Red]] and, [[LovableRogue surprisingly]], [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Gold]]. |
| 301 | * ConMan: A large part of how he makes his living. |
| 302 | * CynicismCatalyst: The way he tells it, Tybir was an earnest, honest, callow farmboy when he set out to earn his fortune. He had the serious misfortune of joining up with a mercenary band that, in addition to having a sergeant who cheated and robbed him, went on to fight in the [[ForeverWar Endless Battle]]. |
| 303 | -->'''The Last Castoff:''' Toughen up, Tybir.\ |
| 304 | '''Tybir:''' Oh, I've had all the toughening I can stand. [chuckles] I'm more leather than man every day. |
| 305 | * DespairEventHorizon: If he kills [[spoiler:Auvigne's killer]] and does not reconcile with Auvigne in the Labyrinth, he abandons whatever morals he has left, sinks even deeper into a life of crime, and ends up [[spoiler:being executed and consumed by the Devourer of Wrongs]]. |
| 306 | * DirtyCoward: If you kick him out of the party, he can be found huddled behind a stack of crates wearing some nondescript robes out of fear of retaliation by [[spoiler:his "friend" Ris, who he likewise abandoned to the guards at the first sign of trouble]]. |
| 307 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: He has decidedly few scruples, but he's a dashing con man and soldier of fortune who dislikes needless violence, and as he points out if you put Rhin in the party, even ''[[PetTheDog he]]'' [[PetTheDog wouldn't]] [[WouldNotHurtAChild drag a child]] into danger like that. He will also object if you [[spoiler:send her back to the slaver]] and goes so far as to [[spoiler:seduce the slaver as "payment" to buy Rhin's freedom. You even get an achievement ("[[IncrediblyLamePun Buckle Down]]") for it!]] |
| 308 | * ExtremeOmnisexual: He's slept with men, women, at least one non-human... Whenever you summon him using the bronze sphere, it's to the sound of pleasured moans in the background. |
| 309 | * TheFace: His skills lend themselves to this, and if it's not the Last Castoff or Callistege, this role will generally fall to Tybir. |
| 310 | * GentlemanThief: On occasion, as during one story where he accompanied a noblewoman to a ball. [[spoiler:As it turned out as she was dragged off by the guards, she wasn't noble at all, but rather a [[ClassyCatBurglar gentlewoman thief]] herself.]] |
| 311 | * TheHedonist: A shameless flirt and ExtremeOmnisexual. |
| 312 | * HeroicSelfDeprecation: Not out loud, but his opinion of you goes down significantly when you go along with his own more nefarious suggestions, and when you dismiss him from the party he says it's "probably for the best," all signs of the intense guilt he feels for the kind of person he's become. |
| 313 | * IShallTauntYou: Like Morte before him, Tybir can taunt others into a frenzy, forcing them to focus their attacks on him rather than others. |
| 314 | * ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: Also something of an ArmorPiercingQuestion. |
| 315 | -->'''Rhin:''' He acts nice, but I don't think he likes me. I wonder if he really likes anybody.\ |
| 316 | '''Tybir:''' What a thing to say, lass. How could anybody not like you?\ |
| 317 | '''[[WiseBeyondTheirYears Rhin]]:''' ''That's'' the part of what I said that bothers you? |
| 318 | * IndyPloy: Favors playing things by ear, since he has a [[TheCon con]] for every occasion. |
| 319 | -->'''Tybir:''' Everything's possible when you keep your wits about you. |
| 320 | * JackOfAllStats: He deals decent damage, has fairly solid evasion and willpower, and can taunt and DrawAggro. His skillset also makes him great for TalkingTheMonsterToDeath, picking locks, and disarming traps. |
| 321 | * KickTheDog: Some of the cons he wants to try out are pretty brutal. If you can scan his thoughts, you discover that he is thinking of ways to swindle Piquo, which can come across as downright loathsome given Piquo's desperate circumstances. |
| 322 | * LastNameBasis: He introduces himself using his full name and title, but out of all the many characters you meet who seem to have met him, no one ever calls him Lanchian. |
| 323 | * LightningBruiser: In combat, he's more of a warrior than a rogue, but he still relies on his agility to avoid taking hits rather than heavy armor or a large pool of hit points. |
| 324 | * LovableRogue: Cultivates this persona, with his affable demeanor, bright clothing, and tales of his dashing exploits, which downplay his achievements just enough to make him seem like the underdog. |
| 325 | ** Deconstructed in-game, however, as his actions downplay his lovability and focus on his roguishness, the people he hurts by even his most (supposedly) victimless crimes. |
| 326 | * LoveHurts: Pretty much everything about [[spoiler:his relationship with Auvigne after finding the mind-link rings]] gets cast in this light. See NeverBeHurtAgain for more details. |
| 327 | * LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: The only party member to start off equipped with a shield. |
| 328 | * MasterOfNone: A mild case, but combat-wise he's not as tough as Aligern, doesn't hit as hard as Erritis, or as fast as Callistege. He does a little of everything, but the main reason to keep him around is if you need a party [[TheFace face]] or thief. |
| 329 | * MilesGloriosus: Despite being a mercenary with a ton of old war stories of the [[BoisterousBruiser stock type]] [[{{Expy}} common]] to Infinity Engine[=/=]Creator/BioWare games. He's not ashamed to cut and run, and if he exaggerates his stories, it's to make them more entertaining, not necessarily to make himself look good. He's also more than willing to admit WarIsHell and that he's much happier to be well out of it. |
| 330 | * MythologyGag: It's not quite as preternaturally powerful as Morte's Litany of Curses, but Tybir does start out with the Taunt ability. [[spoiler:Also like Morte, his supposedly harmless lies and deceptions have led others to harm and even death, regardless of his intentions.]] Finally, he'll proposition anything that stands still long enough -- though unlike Morte, he doesn't limit himself by gender. |
| 331 | * NeverBeHurtAgain: A significant part of his motivation. Oh, he'll brush it off in conversation with his usual glibness, but the truth is that he's reluctant to get too close to anyone [[spoiler:and, especially, to let anyone get to close to him, for fear of hurting them. This is the crux of his background with [[TheOneThatGotAway Auvigne]], the first person to truly love him after his career as a mercenary stripped away much his youthful innocence. Tybir is actually the one who left Auvigne, rather than the other way around, in part to spare Augie the pain of Tybir's own failings, but also to spare himself the possibility of Auvigne leaving him, or worse, seeing him die.]] |
| 332 | ** Mercilessly deconstructed, as [[spoiler:Auvigne never stops loving Tybir and spends years searching for him, dying in poverty with their mind-link rings still in his hands. Discovering this is the resolution of Tybir's sidequest in the Bloom. It's sufficiently shattering that the normally chatty Tybir is left at a loss for words.]] |
| 333 | * PsychicLink: The mind-link rings provided an empathic link between him and Auvigine. [[spoiler:Tybir gave his ring to Dracogen as compensation years ago, as something he would definitely come back for. He never did -- but Auvigne came looking for him.]] |
| 334 | * SadClown: Especially if the Last Castoff has [[MindReading Scan Thoughts]] -- his friendly banter, his cynical quips, even his apparent fondness for a little light theft, it's all his way of [[NeverBeHurtAgain insulating his bruised]] idealism from what he sees as the "real world". |
| 335 | * SeenItAll: He seems to have a story for ''every'' weird event the combined strangeness of the Last Castoff's journey and the Ninth World in general throws at him. Even near the very end, [[spoiler:when he's dragged into [[MentalWorld the Labyrinth]]]], he mentions it is ''not'' the first time something of the sort has happened to him. |
| 336 | * ShellShockedVeteran: His years as a mercenary took a toll on him, though he remembers them with a strange fondness now. |
| 337 | -->'''Tybir:''' Some of the best days of my life, those. Despite the tears. |
| 338 | * SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: |
| 339 | -->'''Tybir:''' Simply this -- I was once an honest fool, and now I'm not honest and less foolish. |
| 340 | * TheSocialExpert: He's a fast-talking ConMan with a SilverTongue, and if the Last Castoff [[TalkerAndDoer doesn't have Persuasion or Deception trained]] Tybir can make an excellent [[TheFace party face]]. |
| 341 | * TheTeamNormal: Out of the recruitable party members. Everyone other than Tybir has some strange talent or piece of the numenera that's unique to them, but Tybir is an ordinary human with no castoff enhancements, nanites, magic tattoos, otherworldly siblings, nor even a possessed pet rock. He holds his own regardless. |
| 342 | * TricksterMentor: Self-styled, but no one's really buying it. He uses the idea that his cons will teach others the lesson that SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids to justify himself, but really he's just a coward [[spoiler:who let the world break him down... and far worse from his point of view, in so doing, he helped the world break Auvvie, too.]] |
| 343 | -->'''Tybir:''' Everyone has their lessons to learn in this life. Best that your teachers are kind men, I always say. |
| 344 | * WideEyedIdealism: Describes himself in these terms, as a farmboy who joined a mercenary warband and fought in the Endless Battle, seeing its horrors firsthand. |
| 345 | * YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Auvigne thought so, and the Last Castoff can try and help Tybir live up to that. |
| 346 | [[/folder]] |
| 347 | |
| 348 | [[folder:Erritis]] |
| 349 | !!Erritis |
| 350 | !!!An Overly-Impulsive Glaive who is as Heroic as he Believes Himself to Be |
| 351 | [[quoteright:210:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/portrait_erritis.png]] |
| 352 | [[caption-width-right:210:I am the very soul of action!]] |
| 353 | ->''"Are we heading into a fight, or should I start one?"'' |
| 354 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Cayenne Chris Conroy |
| 355 | |
| 356 | A cheerful and strong warrior, constantly bathed in an aura of glowing golden light, seeking adventure and excitement wherever it may be found. |
| 357 | ---------- |
| 358 | * AllergicToRoutine: Seems compelled to constantly distract himself, and becomes evasive and uncomfortable when questioned about where he comes from or who he used to be. [[spoiler:The nanotech in his head basically keeps him that way on purpose, as self-reflection weakens their hold over him.]] |
| 359 | * AttentionDeficitOohShiny: So much so that it's reflected in his combat style. He has an ability giving you a bonus to critical hits the first time you attack a new opponent, rewarding him for jumping back and forth between different enemies in a battle. |
| 360 | * AudienceSurrogate: Not Erritis himself, but [[spoiler:the nanomachines which are controlling him, and slowly killing him, call themselves the Audience and are a rather dark dig on [[ThisLoserIsYou players in general]].]] |
| 361 | * BadLiar: The absolute worst. When he doesn't evade questions by babbling about his heroics, he defaults to blunt and obvious denials. |
| 362 | -->'''Erritis:''' Oh. [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace The Valley of Dead Heroes]]. I like it here. There's [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial absolutely no place we should avoid completely]]. |
| 363 | ** And if you can read minds, [[spoiler:the Audience]] somehow manages to be even ''worse'' than that. |
| 364 | --->''[Scan Thoughts]'' [[spoiler:IS THAT SUBTLE ENOUGH ''we will have to see'' [[ThatMakesMeFeelAngry WE ARE FULL OF SUSPENSE]]]] |
| 365 | * BadassBoast: To kindred spirit (and fellow windmill-tilter) Quijano del Toboso: |
| 366 | -->'''Erritis:''' We seek challenges that will test our very limits! And then, we will ''shun'' those challenges as unworthy of us and seek quests that shake the foundations of the possible. That defy belief! For we are not just adventurers, noble stranger. We are the breath of Adventure herself! |
| 367 | * BadassCreed: Erritis's blessing, bestowed upon Quijano del Toboso. |
| 368 | -->'''Erritis:''' May your glory always find you. May your burdens only strengthen you and each of your scars tell a better story than the last. And when your enemies are too many and your wounds too severe, may you fall with a smile on your face and peace in your faltering heart. |
| 369 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: [[spoiler:In his original identity he had the classic Luke Skywalker Hero's Journey desire to escape his humdrum shepherd's life for something better. What flashes of consciousness the true Erritis has had since then have given him ample opportunity to regret it.]] |
| 370 | * {{BFS}}: His starting equipment includes a two-handed sword. Erritis can do very well with any two-handed sword you find throughout the game, too. |
| 371 | * CaptainCrash: He's recruited while standing amid the wreckage of an airship which he "borrowed" in Sagus Cliffs' Caravanserai district and then ''immediately'' crashed into neighboring Cliff's Edge. Other characters point out that this is supposed to be basically impossible, since airships are so slow and easily piloted that pretty much anyone can do so safely. |
| 372 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] Associated purely with the Red tide, he's a recklessly impetuous self-proclaimed "hero". |
| 373 | * CloudCuckooLander: He's not really all there, to put it mildly, and seems willing to do almost anything (provided he can interpret it as heroic) to escape boredom. |
| 374 | * DealWithTheDevil: If you take looking into Erritis' condition to its conclusion, [[spoiler:the nanotech in Erritis' head will offer to "upgrade" him if you will just leave them alone, shaving years off his lifespan in return for greater performance.]] |
| 375 | * DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:Nano-demons, anyway. This is obvious from the get-go if you play as a nano.]] |
| 376 | * DestructiveSavior: Racked up substantial property damage in Caravanserai and Cliff's Edge merely looking around for acts of daring to accomplish and good deeds to do. He'll also unleash [[GreyGoo the Iron Wind]] in the Bloom if you let him, resulting in a NonStandardGameOver. |
| 377 | * TheDitz: His outlook ends up making him jump into a rash of very poor decisions, some of whom can give you a NonStandardGameOver if you don't talk him down from it. |
| 378 | * DumbMuscle: The only recruitable glaive, with respectable Might and Speed pools... and an Intellect pool of only 2. |
| 379 | * {{Expy}}: A dangerously impulsive individual obsessed with a single concept that is nonetheless weirdly innocent [[spoiler:and made that way by a faceless master, initially against his will]]. Squint and you have an inverted Ignus who causes just as much headache and destruction as his arson-based counterpart. |
| 380 | * FearlessFool: Being afraid would require Erritis to stop and ''think'', which -- for him -- is completely off the table. [[spoiler:He literally cannot reflect upon his actions since it dampens his power, as it betrays that he's not actually in control of his body.]] |
| 381 | * HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: He's a straw-haired blond even ''without'' his halo, and he almost always objects to cruel, cowardly, or selfish actions. |
| 382 | * TheHero: Self-proclaimed and not entirely undeserved, but deconstructed: in the absence of anyone to "save", he quickly becomes a nuisance, then a liability, and his simplistic definition of heroism [[DestructiveSavior often causes more problems than it solves]]. |
| 383 | * IJustWantToBeNormal: [[spoiler:His true personality, when spoken to in the labyrinth, misses his farm and regrets ever seeking adventure.]] If you manage to [[spoiler:destroy the nanites controlling him]], he gets his wish, retiring to live a quiet [[spoiler:but free and safe]] life. |
| 384 | * IJustWantToBeSpecial: He wanted an exciting life, and boy did he ever get it. [[spoiler:The shepherd he used to be is regretting it now.]] |
| 385 | * InHarmsWay: If there's no "adventure" -- i.e. life threatening danger -- at hand, Erritis will seek some out or make some of his own. |
| 386 | -->'''Erritis:''' I should climb a building. No. A tower. And jump off the top. Should it be on fire? Yes. Yes and yes. |
| 387 | * ItsAllAboutMe: |
| 388 | -->'''The Last Castoff:''' I shouldn't have to say this, but this journey of ours is ''not'' all about you.\ |
| 389 | '''Erritis:''' ...Of course it is. I'm the hero, here. I know, I know. You're a hero too. No one's disputing that you're almost as important as me. |
| 390 | * LeeroyJenkins: Without you there to rein him in, and sometimes even if you are. |
| 391 | -->'''''Descriptor: Overly-impulsive.''' Act first! Let someone else ask questions later - if then! Erritis has yet to see a downside to this plan.'' |
| 392 | * {{Manchild}}: He has less emotional maturity and common sense than ''Rhin''. |
| 393 | * MultipleChoicePast: |
| 394 | -->'''Erritis:''' I came out of the west! Travelling day and night to escape the hired killers hounding my every step! [...] From the storms of the south. At first, I think I was only an outline in the clouds of dust, but then... I emerged. Swords in every hand! Cape swirling. You should have been there! |
| 395 | * NiceGuy: Sort of. He's a genuine hero, for a certain definition of "hero" -- at the least, he's usually the first person to object if you do anything malevolent or underhanded, and he never hesitates to throw himself into danger for the sake of others. However, he's such a CloudCuckooLander that he can come off as egotistical -- not to mention nonchalant about the collateral damage that his antics inevitably cause. |
| 396 | * OlderThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:Erritis was a middle-aged shepherd prior to his possession.]] His golden glow has put him in his physical prime in more ways than one. |
| 397 | * OneOfTheKids: He's a bundle of childish energy, naive and impetuous. It makes it easy for him to make friends with [[IntergenerationalFriendship Rhin]]. |
| 398 | * PossessionBurnout: In no immediate danger of this [[spoiler:unless you [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential accept the bargain with the Audience]]. While he's not on the verge of death while you meet him, they do seem to have [[RapidAging aged him prematurely]] when you see him without his glow.]] |
| 399 | * TheSleepless: The Last Castoff can point this out. Erritis claims it's because he doesn't want to miss a second of his adventure. [[spoiler:This is true. The Audience won't let him rest for that reason.]] |
| 400 | * SuperSoldier: His numenera-fueled abilities actually make him a mild form of this. [[spoiler:If you take the Audience's deal, they enhance him even further, at the cost of further shortening his life.]] |
| 401 | * SplitPersonalityTakeover: A very, very complicated case. [[spoiler:Erritis is possessed by ancient nanotech known as "the Audience", which was used to create SuperSoldiers in a bygone era. "The Audience" has two types of nanite in them -- one wants to preserve Erritis to seek "adventures", while the other wants to have him killed spectacularly, which is why he's suicidally heroic.]] |
| 402 | * TalkativeLoon: Sometimes, given his combination of hyperactivity with a total lack of any sort of personal filter. |
| 403 | * ThisLoserIsYou: He's a riff on the stereotypical fantasy hero. [[spoiler:Who's [[DemonicPossession controlled by]] sentient {{nanomachines}} who call themselves [[AudienceSurrogate The Audience]], and consist of [[CapsLock PARAGONS]] ([[StupidGood bullheaded generic do-gooders]]), and ''[[SoftSpokenSadist *cathartics*]]'' (who want to see the hero suffer and die [[ForTheEvulz because they think that's funny]]). Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.]] |
| 404 | -->'''Erritis:''' [[spoiler:''[actually the Audience speaking through him]'' THIS VESSEL CAME TO US ''damaged'' BORING ''useless'' AFRAID. WE ARE SAVING HIM FROM COWARDICE ''fear'' BECAUSE WE ARE HEALERS ''voyeurs'' NO WE AREN'T STOP SAYING THAT.]] |
| 405 | * TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Being possessed by nano-demons]] means he's ''usually'' strong enough to survive his own stupidity, but this has its limits. Specifically, if the Last Castoff doesn't stop him from messing with [[spoiler:a jar containing a sample of the Iron Wind]] the results are catastrophic. |
| 406 | * UnnecessaryCombatRoll: |
| 407 | -->'''Erritis:''' I know what you're thinking. 'How in the world did you survive that crash, Erritis? The answer is, as it always is, 'backflips.'\ |
| 408 | ''[Scan Thoughts]'' [[spoiler:TELL THEM ABOUT THE BACKFLIPS ''no one cares about the backflips'' TELL THEM]] |
| 409 | * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: One of the most diabolical choices in the game: [[spoiler:give the nano-demons infesting him full control of his body, ramping up his power but making him burn out and die within a matter of weeks.]] What makes it worse is that [[spoiler:the remnant of his old persona knows exactly what you have done, but is powerless to resist]]. |
| 410 | * WalkingArmory: Overlaps with InformedEquipment -- regardless of what weapons you equip Erritis with, he also always has two swords on his belt and a dagger on the other hip, though he never actually uses any weapon other than the one on his back. |
| 411 | * WrongGenreSavvy: Acts like the heroic lead in a HeroicFantasy story and judges actions by what is most "heroic". |
| 412 | [[/folder]] |
| 413 | |
| 414 | [[folder:Rhin]] |
| 415 | !!Rhin |
| 416 | !!!A Lost Child who Shapes Gods |
| 417 | [[quoteright:210:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/portrait_rhin.png]] |
| 418 | [[caption-width-right:210:Trust and honesty are our bonds.]] |
| 419 | ->''"Learning begets doing... or is it the other way?"'' |
| 420 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Callie Okun |
| 421 | |
| 422 | A lost little girl, far from home and on the run from slavers, with only a stone -- containing a god, or so she says -- for company. |
| 423 | %% |
| 424 | %% *** PLEASE NOTE *** |
| 425 | %% Tropes pertaining to Rhin following her PlotRelevantAgeUp go under Temporary Character. |
| 426 | %% |
| 427 | ---------- |
| 428 | * ApologeticAttacker: She can fight (most likely at range), but [[WhatTheHellPlayer she really doesn't want to]]. |
| 429 | -->'''Rhin:''' ''[on killing an enemy]'' Oh.. Oh gods, did I just... |
| 430 | * CharacterAlignment: Indigo and Gold. [[invoked]] "Trust and honesty are our bonds" indeed. |
| 431 | * ChildhoodBrainDamage: PlayedForDrama. She has recent scars and suture marks along the side of her head from what appears to be invasive surgery, and there's some question in-game as to whether her ability to talk to gods is mystical or the result of this. |
| 432 | * ChildrenAreInnocent: Rhin is sweet-natured and kind at heart, which makes Sagus Cliffs a frightening place, with its slavers and crumbling cliffs. Taking her with you means being on the receiving end of several instances of WhatTheHellPlayer even if you treat her as well as possible -- the hellish [[SealedEvilInACan eldritch prison]] of the Endless Gate and the non-optional WombLevel of the Bloom are especially traumatic. |
| 433 | * CompanionCube: She carries a small stone with her, and says that it's the home of her friend Ahl, a god. |
| 434 | * {{Foil}}: Her circumstances mirror the Castoff's: abandoned in an unfamiliar place, hunted, new to the world, suffering from memory loss, and talking to the voices only she can hear -- right down to even bearing a mysterious mark on the side of her head. |
| 435 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: With or without your help. If you send her through the House of Empty Time, she's adopted by an elderly couple (700 years in the past) and grows up to become a renowned toymaker. [[spoiler:After running away from home after the old couple dies and leaves her in the care of their abusive son.]] On the other hand, your only other options other than abandoning her outright or selling her into slavery are to take her with you through hell dimensions and war zones. Her best ending involves [[spoiler:sending her through one of the Bloom's slavering maws]] -- and the alternative to ''that'' is to drag her through TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, at which point you can declare that she and the Last Castoff are in fact family. There's an achievement for each of these. |
| 436 | * GameplayAndStoryIntegration: The best build for her? Carrying huge amounts of Cyphers. [[spoiler:Sure enough... when she gets a restat in the endgame, she's a ''powerful'' Cypher user.]] |
| 437 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: Very strongly implied if you [[spoiler:send her home properly -- meeting you was just a strange, relatively brief interlude on her way to bigger and better things.]] |
| 438 | * ItemCaddy: Since she doesn't have many other options, loading her up on cyphers, artifacts, and regular healing items that can be used on other party members is generally the soundest strategy for her, particularly if you've got the Rings of Entanglement, which mean that any [[StatusBuff positive fettles]] and healing received are shared between the characters who are wearing the rings. |
| 439 | * KidHero: Downplayed. Rhin has powers most children her age would not, but her prowess is specifically much less than that of your other companions. |
| 440 | * TheLoad: A bit harsh, perhaps, but she takes up a companion slot, has no combat skills whatsoever, and her starting stats are less than half that of any other character. Justified in that she's only a child -- if you bring her with you, it's to help her ''because'' she's not as capable as your motley crew of warriors and wizards. |
| 441 | * MadeASlave: She escaped, but the slaver Tol Maguur wants her back. When you meet her, she's hiding from a few men Maguur has paid to bring her back. |
| 442 | * MagikarpPower: A downplayed example. She starts out nearly useless in combat, with penalties to every single weapon type, low hit points, no activated abilities, her first bonded item slot permanently occupied by an item that does nothing, and her only ability a bonus at hiding that doesn't even make her any better than a specialist, with no way to exploit it. On top of this, you can't even remove her from the party temporarily -- if you remove her once, she's [[PermanentlyMissableContent gone]]. Also, she starts at the very bottom of Tier 1 (everyone else starts with at least some progression), and her individual level-up bonuses are worse than everyone else because she lacks a character type. She ''eventually'' unlocks some extremely powerful abilities -- but they're still tied to her GlassCannon body. [[spoiler:PlayedStraight if and when you recruit her again after sending her home. See the spoiler character for more details.]] |
| 443 | * MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Is Rhin delusional, or is Ahl real? Unlike in most settings, the nature of the numenera means an ancient being inhabiting a seemingly ordinary rock isn't out of the question. It could be an artificial intelligence, a telepathic echo, some kind of transmission device from another world or dimension. Or she might have a split personality. |
| 444 | * MoralityPet: Definitely acts as one for the player -- [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential possibly]]. |
| 445 | * MultipleChoicePast: Her fragmented memories mean that several of the things she tells you don't line up. |
| 446 | -->'''Rhin:''' I remember... running. And a... fire? But it wasn't the right ''color'' for a fire. I don't know... Then I just remember being here. And nothing making sense anymore. |
| 447 | * MysteriousWaif: Made all the more mysterious by her head injury and contradictory accounts of her past. |
| 448 | * OddJobGods: Everyone from the village where Rhin is from carries their gods around with them. Rhin's is Ahl, a river god. Not the god of rivers, but rather ''a'' god of ''one'' river in the village where Rhin used to live. |
| 449 | ** She later shapes a God of Hiding which grants her a passive +30%(!) bonus on Stealth tasks. |
| 450 | ** [[spoiler:If you help her find her way home, her parting gift to you is the God of Finding and Meeting Again which, true to its name, leads a fully grown-up Rhin straight to the Castoff after the Specter traps you [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon inside the Calm]].]] |
| 451 | * OracularUrchin: A Lost Child Who Shapes Gods, or, as she appeared in the beta, "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin A Lost Child who Talks to Gods.]]" |
| 452 | * RealityWarper: By virtue of being able to "shape" gods -- [[spoiler:it's even how she wound up in the Ninth World, as she'd "cut" a hole in space-time while fleeing soldiers]]. |
| 453 | * SacredHospitality: Many of her quotes suggest that her home of Baranth places a high value on the sanctity of the hearth and the treatment of guests. |
| 454 | -->'''Rhin:''' My food and fire are yours to use before you go. |
| 455 | * SplitPersonality: One possible interpretation of Ahl -- that he's simply a symptom of Rhin's head wound. |
| 456 | * SquishyWizard: She [[MagikarpPower matures]] -- a little -- into one of these, with her ability to hold onto a greater-than-average number of cyphers. Initially, though, she only has the "squishy" part and not the "wizard" part. |
| 457 | * StealthExpert: She's only a child, so her skills are limited and combat is far too dangerous for her, so instead, her unique abilities help her to avoid attention, granting her a large bonus to Stealth tasks. |
| 458 | * TheresNoPlaceLikeHome: Rhin doesn't know how she came to the Ninth World or how to get back, but the object of her personal quest is to find her way back to her home village. [[spoiler:The way turns out to be a maw, a living portal in the Bloom, which has taken up residence in the body of a mutant in Little Nihliesh.]] |
| 459 | * TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler:A huge one. If she is sent back to her homeworld, she returns in the final stage all grown up and with a huge array of powerful abilities.]] |
| 460 | * UtilityPartyMember: Items are powerful in ''Tides of Numenera'', and a dedicated ItemCaddy can be a lifesaver. |
| 461 | * TheUnreveal: You never really get to learn [[spoiler:the origin of her scars, or the true nature of Ahl, or whether the place she came from is another world or time or dimension or what. Part and parcel of her being the HeroOfAnotherStory, really.]] |
| 462 | * VideoGameCaringPotential: Nothing like coming to the rescue of a lost, amnesiac waif who just wants to go home to bring out the best in a PC. On the other hand... |
| 463 | * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Be rude to her. Drop her off at a timeshifted orphanage. Sell her into slavery -- several opportunities arise to do so, including one who [[spoiler:"preserves" her by ''cutting off her head'' and [[BrainInAJar storing it in a jar]] until it can be installed in the chest of another "Decanted" construct]]. Try to kick her out of the party in the Underbelly, or the Necropolis, or the Bloom, or inside the ''Endless Gate''... you monster. She'll refuse to leave in some places -- you can't dismiss any party members after you pass through the Endless Gate -- but the game goes out of its way to make you feel like a heel for abandoning her. |
| 464 | * WiseBeyondTheirYears: Possibly, depending on Ahl's true nature. She's certainly had to grow up fast, and she's positively down to Earth compared to Erritis. |
| 465 | [[/folder]] |
| 466 | |
| 467 | [[folder:Matkina]] |
| 468 | !!Matkina, the White Death |
| 469 | !!!A Furtive Jack who Murders |
| 470 | [[quoteright:210:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/portrait_matkina.png]] |
| 471 | [[caption-width-right:210:Like a whisper.]] |
| 472 | ->''"We all use each other for our own ends, and someone always gets broken at the end of it. Even us."'' |
| 473 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/MarissaLenti |
| 474 | |
| 475 | An assassin, a feared name in Sagus Cliffs' criminal underworld, and a fellow castoff. The first leg of the game begins with a quest to seek her out, in the hopes that she can educate the Last Castoff on the nature of their condition. |
| 476 | ---------- |
| 477 | * AmnesiacDissonance: In addition to the blank slate dissonance all castoffs face, Matkina's mind was riddled with gaping holes for ''years'' following an ill-fated parting with another castoff. She wandered through Sagus Cliffs in this confused state for years before the Last Castoff found her. |
| 478 | * BerserkButton: She ''despises'' the First. |
| 479 | * BigSisterInstinct: To some extent with the Last Castoff -- she keeps her guard up -- but she forms an OddFriendship with Rhin. She's friendlier and more open with her in a way she is with no other companion, almost to MamaBear levels in some later conversations. |
| 480 | * BrokenBird: A stone-cold badass with serious trust issues. |
| 481 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] Red and Silver. Tends to stab first and ask questions never. A colder shade of silver than most others in the game, she's a loner who cares little for her own reputation but has an extremely low opinion of others in general. |
| 482 | * CharacterDevelopment: Matkina is asocial and surly, but if you can overlook her casual attitudes towards death and murder, she can be drawn out of her shell and learn to trust again. |
| 483 | * DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: She stumbled into a life of crime, and became an assassin because she had no other skills or ideas at the time. By the time she reconsidered, she was already in too deep. |
| 484 | -->'''Matkina:''' Look at all our siblings, what they've done. And here I was, a simple thief, hiding in the country, making no name for myself. Making no ''difference'' in the world. Didn't want to be a king. I just wanted to... to be something. |
| 485 | * TheDreaded: Everyone in the Underbelly is terrified to even speak about her. |
| 486 | -->'''Matkina:''' You fear me. You know you fear me. |
| 487 | * EtTuBrute: She hates betrayal, after suffering plenty of it. [[spoiler:As it turns out, much of it were as much her fault, or simply PoorCommunicationKills, as the fault of the other party.]] |
| 488 | * {{Expy}}: Out of all the castoffs in the game, Matkina perhaps most closely mirrors the Paranoid Incarnation from the original ''Torment'', a ruthless, paranoid murderer gone to ground in the Underbelly (literally, in her case) of the city. She's fortunately not as deranged. |
| 489 | * FragileSpeedster: Great speed. Incredible evasion. Okay mental stats. Terrible Might, and no skills that use it. Of course, if you never get hit in the first place... |
| 490 | * HealingFactor: Her Castoff Vitality means she regenerates her wounds upon death. While she doesn't regain all her health like the Last Castoff, this means that despite being a FragileSpeedster otherwise, this makes her a good frontliner because she suffers none of the Lasting Wound penalties for being knocked out in combat that non-castoff party members do. |
| 491 | * HeelFaceTurn: She wants to care. She's just lost too many people and been betrayed too many times over the centuries. [[spoiler:If you choose Matkina as the recipient of the Castoff merge, and you've treated her nicely, she uses her new life in the epilogue to subdue The Bloom to minimize the damage from the last Memovira's death and then retires into becoming a community leader. In the end, the stories of The White Death die long before she does.]] |
| 492 | * JackOfAllStats: Fittingly, as the party's other castoff (and the other recruitable jack): as an assassin, she's fast and deadly accurate, with one of the best damage tracks in the game; on the other hand her incredible evasion and HealingFactor means she's actually one of the better frontline tanks, as well. Meanwhile, she gains access to a number of AOE debuffs which also do decent damage, and can train in the Cypher Use skill (which lets her carry more cyphers at once), meaning she can also sub in for a dedicated nano in a pinch. |
| 493 | * LickedByTheDog: Oom seems to like her right away, and she doesn't snap or snark at it except to say its eagreness to serve makes her uncomfortable. |
| 494 | * MindRape: In her backstory. A fellow castoff she worked with tore random holes through her memories when he betrayed her, and her mind is a bit of a mess when you first meet her. [[spoiler:The Last Castoff can use their ability to alter reality via Mere to RetGone the entire procedure, leaving Matkina with two sets of memories, the RippleEffectProofMemory of having her memory be full of holes, and the memory of your alterations keeping her mind intact. Despite the MindScrew she considers this an immense step-up.]] |
| 495 | * MsExposition: She knows a lot more of the castoff community than you do, and bringing her along often gives you extra bits of dialogue or options when dealing with them. |
| 496 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "The White Death". |
| 497 | * NeverBeHurtAgain: She was "born" in the Bloom, forced to kill just to survive. Every time she opened herself up, usually to another castoff, she was betrayed. She's made it a rule ever since to never trust anyone. |
| 498 | -->'''Matkina:''' You want to know why I was hiding before you found me? It's because I learned that I'm best on my own. If you don't have people, you can't be betrayed. |
| 499 | * NoJustNoReaction: If she's in a party with Erritis, he immediately tries to cast her as the Love Interest. This is her response. |
| 500 | * NoSocialSkills: She's untrained in Persuasion, and can't ever take it above this level. It fits neatly into her character and backstory, as well. |
| 501 | * OhMyGods: "Great weeping mechanical gods." |
| 502 | * ProfessionalKiller: She occasionally does jobs for Fulsome, the Underbelly's de facto leader. She also used to work for the Memovira, the leader of [[EldritchLocation The Bloom]]. |
| 503 | * RavenHairIvorySkin: Her hair is jet-black, and seems to be the only part of her that has any pigmentation. Erritis finds her impossibly beautiful. |
| 504 | * ShroudedInMyth: |
| 505 | -->'''Crooked Qeek:''' They say -- they say she can freeze your blood by speaking your name. And if you look her in the eyes, all of your hair will turn white! |
| 506 | * SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: In the Cave of Last Words: |
| 507 | -->'''Matkina:''' I'm not hiding! I'm strategizing, planning. Why would someone live voluntarily in a place like this? It's... this is where I stay. |
| 508 | * TooMuchAlike: With the similarly cynical, forceful, rather heartless Callistege -- and, it's suggested, with the First and Paj Rekken and the various other castoffs. She always hated [[{{Irony}} the idea of becoming as callous as they are]]. |
| 509 | * VillainRespect: She and Callistege are TooMuchAlike, but they eventually come to an accommodation of sorts. |
| 510 | -->'''Matkina:''' I admire your ruthlessness, Callistege, if not necessarily your methods.\ |
| 511 | '''Callistege:''' And I feel much the same, my dear. So are we allies, then? Friends?\ |
| 512 | '''Matkina:''' It would be inconvenient if you died. Let's start from there. |
| 513 | [[/folder]] |
| 514 | |
| 515 | [[folder:Oom]] |
| 516 | !!Oom, the Toy |
| 517 | !!!A Loyal Guardian who Flows with the Tides |
| 518 | ->''::blrb::'' |
| 519 | |
| 520 | A sentient numenera construct with a mysterious connection to the Tides and the Changing God. |
| 521 | ---------- |
| 522 | * AllAnimalsAreDogs: Acts rather like a skittish rescue dog, constantly nervous and on guard even around those it's come to trust. |
| 523 | * BadassAdorable: As Tybir remarks, Oom manages to be quite cute, in spite of being a knee-high blob. |
| 524 | -->''[Let it touch you.] The tendril coils around your ankle, cool and dry. Nothing else happens. Apparently, Oom just wanted to give you a hug.'' |
| 525 | * BlobMonster: Is an amorphous, shapeshifting creature composed of grayish silvery ooze. |
| 526 | * CharacterAlignment: [[invoked]] Whichever Tide the Last Castoff tells it to be. |
| 527 | * CoolToy: Oom was referred to as The Toy throughout the game's development. At the end of his personal quest, it's revealed that [[spoiler:Oom was literally nothing more than a child's plaything, used to instruct the children of an advanced, extinct civilization in how to observe and manipulate the Tides.]] |
| 528 | * DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Treat it cruelly enough, and it will let the Sorrow kill it if you bring it into the Labyrinth. If you try to stop it this becomes the only time Oom directly defies you.]] |
| 529 | * TheEmpath: As Oom levels up it gets the ability to align itself with the Last Castoff's tides, with each alignment offering a set of gameplay perks. |
| 530 | * EquippableAlly: Oom's Haptic Armor allows it to convert part of its mass into wearable armor which gives one ally a substantial buff to Armor and Resistance as well as ''all'' Might and Speed attacks, while preventing Oom from taking actions during combat time or assisting on skill checks. |
| 531 | * {{Expy}}: For T3-M4 from ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords''. Both are knee-high CuteMachines who are remarkably personable despite being TheUnintelligible, with each having a major connection to a central, enigmatic figure from the setting's past[[note]]the Changing God for Oom, Revan for T3[[/note]]. Even Oom's skittish demeanor echoes T3's nervous, eccentric personality. |
| 532 | * ExtremeDoormat: A sentient being with no agency, it literally has no choice but to teach the Last Castoff the Tides. The Last Castoff can abuse it at every turn, up to and including lending it to [[spoiler:a pair of mad surgeons who vivisect it]], and the most it can do to defy you is refusing to let you pet it... until the very end of the game, when it [[spoiler:allows the Sorrow to kill it if you mistreated it enough]]. |
| 533 | %%* HeartIsAnAwesomePower |
| 534 | * ItemCaddy: As with Rhin, even when denied its actions (such as when using Haptic Armor), a dedicated item-based healer can still be quite useful. |
| 535 | * KickTheDog: How others treat Oom generally gives them the opportunity to either PetTheDog or do this. |
| 536 | * LovableCoward: Oom seems slightly afraid of most of the people and things it meets, even the ones it likes. |
| 537 | * MoralityPet: Can be one for the Last Castoff, depending on the player. Also is one for Tybir, who reveals that he is quite fond of it if you ask him. |
| 538 | ** Averted with the Changing God, the people who owned it and its siblings before the Changing God, and its creators. |
| 539 | * PetTheDog: A fairly literal example, as the TeamPet. |
| 540 | ** Serves as a weird example of this for [[spoiler:the Sorrow, which is polite and even apologetic to it]] if you bring it with you on the journey through the Labyrinth. |
| 541 | * PsychicLink: With the Last Castoff. |
| 542 | * RobotBuddy: As a synthetic being, despite its amorphous appearance. |
| 543 | * {{Shapeshifting}}: Shapes its semiliquid body into weapons and armor, the shape of which varies depending on the Tides to which the Last Castoff and Oom are attuned. |
| 544 | * StarfishAliens: Oom's creators, [[spoiler:the Dalad]], were quite unlike humans. This makes Oom itself a sort of Starfish Android. Judging by how much trouble Oom has communicating with anyone, it seems that their very language cannot be understood by humanoid life forms. |
| 545 | * StuckItems: Oom's Sploorch (a projectile weapon), its Blbblt and Sploot (bonded items), Oom's Mass and Epidermal Casing (body item and cloak respectively). All of Oom's equipment slots other than ornament are taken up by bits of its own body which can't be swapped out. Which is fair enough, given that Oom doesn't really have hands or a neck, and can't exactly wear clothes. |
| 546 | * SuicideByCop: [[spoiler:Accepts the Sorrow's offer to join its creators in death]] if its opinion of the Last Castoff is poor enough. |
| 547 | * SupportPartyMember: While [[EquippableAlly Haptic Armor]] is active, Oom loses its action on each turn, but can still move and [[ItemCaddy use items]]. Later, Oom can be aligned to the Last Castoff's dominant Tide(s), providing passive benefits to skills and health, as well as a unique additional ability based on the Tide selected. Silver, for example, gives Oom the Incite Action ability, through which it can command another ally to attack (perhaps somehow indicating an opening for them). |
| 548 | * TeamPet: Passive, obedient, and loyal to a fault, unable to speak but surprisingly personable. |
| 549 | * TomatoSurprise: Oom is actually [[spoiler:another construct of the ancient Dalad -- the same as the Sorrow.]] |
| 550 | -->'''[[spoiler:The Sorrow]]:''' I understand your companion more than you can imagine. We are created beings, each with a purpose. We are servants of [[spoiler:the Tides]]. [...] I was created with agency. Your companion has none. It ''must'' [[spoiler:teach the Tides]] just as you must breathe, even though it knows the ruinous cost. |
| 551 | * TouchTelepathy: Can share its memories with the Last Castoff when they touch their hand to its "eyes". |
| 552 | * TraumaCongaLine: An aeons-long one. |
| 553 | ** Was built [[spoiler:by the Dalad]] to serve as a [[spoiler:sentient educational tool to teach children how to use the Tides]]. As long as it could fulfill its purpose, it was happy. |
| 554 | ** Got discarded by its owners after it was no longer needed. However, it was built so well that it was still perfectly functional, and was thus aware (and profoundly ashamed) of the fact that it was no longer useful to its makers. |
| 555 | ** Saw the Sorrow [[spoiler:destroy the Dalad's civilization for abusing the Tides]], sparing it but leaving it utterly alone. |
| 556 | ** Somehow ended up in the hands of extremely cruel captors, implied to have been [[spoiler:the Tabaht]], who used it as an endless Tidal battery of sorts. During this, they kept it locked in a burning electrified cage and permanently wired to machines that extracted its Tidal energy, causing it agony every second for centuries. |
| 557 | ** Apparently was forcibly split into multiple pieces by its captors, each of which became "another Oom" (in the Last Castoff's words) that was used as a power source. |
| 558 | ** Was taken by the Changing God, who left its budded "siblings" behind in their burning cages, and used it as a lab rat in his experiments on the Tides, before imprisoning it in a mirror when it was no longer useful. |
| 559 | ** Was left alone, trapped in a mirror lens, in a hidden underground laboratory for years. |
| 560 | ** Finally gets found by the Last Castoff, who can be kind or very, very cruel to it, depending on the player's whims. |
| 561 | ** The worst part? Throughout all of this, Oom truly wanted to serve its various owners. Its programming forces it to want to be of service. |
| 562 | * VideoGameCaringPotential: Oom's most basic desire is to be a loyal servant, and to be appreciated by its masters. Think of a blob-shaped ScienceFantasy [[Literature/HarryPotter house elf]]. |
| 563 | * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Is entirely at the player's mercy and compelled to obey your commands. |
| 564 | * VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Of a sort. If you are cruel enough to it, it will disobey you at the very end of the game, by [[spoiler:letting the Sorrow kill it]]. |
| 565 | [[/folder]] |
| 566 | |
| 567 | [[folder:Temporary Companion (spoilers)]] |
| 568 | !!Rhin |
| 569 | !!!A Brave Shaper who Walks Between |
| 570 | ->'''Voiced by:''' Alexa Kahn |
| 571 | |
| 572 | Rhin, all grown up. She returns to aid the Last Castoff in the final stage of your journey, provided you sent her home through the maw in Aen-Tozon's chest in Little Nihliesh. |
| 573 | ---- |
| 574 | * BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Because you helped send her back home, despite the danger both to yourself and to Rhin, she seeks you out in the Calm and helps you fight your way to the final confrontation with the Specter and the Sorrow. |
| 575 | * ButNowIMustGo: She helps you fight your way to the doorstep of the inner recesses of the Labyrinth, but stops short of seeing your decision play out. Her instincts, as usual, are right, and any fighting is done by the time she goes back to her own quest. |
| 576 | * CompanionCube: She still carries Ahl, but gains a number of additional gods by the end of the game. |
| 577 | * ExtraDimensionalShortcut: How Rhin reaches you in the Labyrinth. She implies that this is commonplace for her now. |
| 578 | * {{Expy}}: A lost little girl who summons gods, then goes off to a mysterious OtherWorld and returns after a PlotRelevantAgeUp? The similarities with ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV''[='s=] Rydia are likely intentional. |
| 579 | * KidHeroAllGrownUp: And considerably happier than she was when you first met her. |
| 580 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: Stated outright in the ending crawl: a story for another day. Rhin herself says she was in the middle of her own adventure and dropped it to help you. |
| 581 | * JackOfAllStats: She's a decent fighter at both melee and range, knows a few esoteries, and is the best Cypher user in the game bar none. Naturally she's only with you for a very short while. |
| 582 | * MagikarpPower: And how. PlayedStraight after you activate the resonance chamber, if you previously returned Rhin home -- the God of Meeting Again she gave you as a parting gift draws her back to you after she's spent a decade refining her skill of making Gods. Her title on return is now "Brave Shaper who Walks Between". |
| 583 | * MythologyGag: Wields a sentient crossbow, not unlike a certain backward modron in the original ''Torment''. |
| 584 | * OddJobGods: Her skill at crafting Gods has only grown stronger, making her a powerful magic user, a decent warrior, and allowing her to carry the maximum number of Cyphers, eleven. In addition to still carrying Ahl, she now carries the God of Change, which grants her a number of esoteries. Her weapons, a sword and crossbow, are gods as well. |
| 585 | * PlotRelevantAgeUp: If you help her find her way home in the Bloom, she shows up [[SheIsAllGrownUp all grown up]] in the final dungeon and helps you fight your way through it. |
| 586 | * RealAfterAll: Adult Rhin's reappearance and the powers she displays when she comes back leave it pretty unambiguous that the gods of Rhin's world are and always were real. |
| 587 | * RealityWarper: She walks between worlds, to the point where she enters the Labyrinth under her own power and hardly seems to break a sweat while doing so. |
| 588 | * TimeTravel: It's not entirely clear how she spent the intervening years or how long she's been traveling through time and across dimensions, but it doesn't seem like it's her first time doing either. |
| 589 | * WalkingSpoiler: Just in case you were wondering how Rhin got along after you sent her on through that gut-portal in the Bloom, wonder no longer. |
| 590 | * YearInsideHourOutside: Possibly. We don't really know enough about the nature of Rhin's home to know for sure. |
| 591 | [[/folder]] |
| 592 | |
| 593 | !Notable Castoffs |
| 594 | [[folder:The First]] |
| 595 | !!The First Castoff |
| 596 | ->''"She serves us still."'' %%The First Castoff's Tomb |
| 597 | |
| 598 | A female Castoff who was the Changing God's closest collaborator until she rebelled against him. Although now deceased, many of the castoffs followed her and continue to fight in the Endless Battle. |
| 599 | |
| 600 | ------------ |
| 601 | * AntagonisticOffspring: She came to hate the Changing God and became his greatest nemesis. |
| 602 | * CallingTheOldManOut: Did so when she realized that the Changing God had no interest in [[spoiler:curing her failing body, and by extension didn't care at all for any castoff.]] |
| 603 | * EveryoneCallsHerBarkeep: The First. [[spoiler:And the Memovira. And the Chimaera]]. Her real name is [[spoiler:Maralel]]. |
| 604 | * FlawedPrototype: Unlike later castoffs, her body began to fail [[BodyHorror to the point where she would resemble a rotting corpse]] if not for the artifact mask she wears, [[spoiler:which allows her to take on [[{{Humanshifting}} any humanoid guise]] she wishes.]] |
| 605 | * ForeverWar: She and the Changing God started the Endless Battle between them, for reasons that are lost to history. Her death hasn't even slowed it down -- the chance at revenge against the Changing God, as well as the centuries-old vendettas between various castoffs, seem to be more than enough to keep the fighting going. |
| 606 | * KingIncognito: In her guise of [[spoiler:the Memovira]], she was able to work next to [[spoiler:Matkina, who despises the First and was a longtime rival of the Memovira's even before her ascension]] for years. She's played the part of [[spoiler:at least one other distinct crime lord, the Chimaera, in the time between her "death" and becoming the Memovira]]. |
| 607 | * MalevolentMaskedWoman: Her followers gave her a mask which allowed her to conceal her disfigured face. That's her on the box art. [[spoiler:It also allows her to take on a variety of [[{{Humanshifting}} human]] [[MasterOfDisguise disguises]].]] |
| 608 | * NonIndicativeName: She wasn't actually the first body the Changing God cast off, although she was one of the earliest, and seems to be the oldest surviving human castoff. |
| 609 | * PosthumousCharacter: She's been dead for centuries by the time you come around. Her followers still keep up the war in her name. [[spoiler:You later discover this is less than true.]] |
| 610 | * SheWhoFightsMonsters: Most people who ''aren't'' her followers seem to agree that her hatred drove her to become every bit as bad as her sire. |
| 611 | -->'''Aadiriis:''' She was driven, ambitious, and strong, and she cared deeply for all of us, but... her hatred obscured the bonds between us, and she drove us into war. |
| 612 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: One possibility. [[spoiler:If you merge all the castoffs into one body, depending on the body, assuming it isn't hers, she can be persuaded to go willingly.]] |
| 613 | * WalkingSpoiler: She's been dead for years, but that's her mask on the cover. The game involves [[BodySurf Body-Surfing]], TimeTravel, and clone bodies. You know this is going to get complicated. [[spoiler:That she has simply been FakingTheDead all this time and has been masquerading as the Memovira for years comes as something of an in-game MindScrew for Matkina.]] |
| 614 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: The breaking point between them was the absolute indifference of the Changing God toward his castoffs. From a flashback [[spoiler:as the First relives the experience in the Labyrinth]]: |
| 615 | -->'''The First:''' You have a daughter. [[TearJerker Right here!]] The one you're talking about has been dead for centuries, but I -- I am flesh and blood. I am alive and begging for your help to stay that way!\ |
| 616 | '''The Changing God:''' [[ThatThingIsNotMyChild You're not my daughter.]] You're a creation. You're a shell. Do you feel shame when you discard your old clothes? Do you feel pity when a doll burns? I feel as much connection to you as I do that mask. |
| 617 | [[/folder]] |
| 618 | |
| 619 | [[folder:Melmoth]] |
| 620 | !!Melmoth Leviarm |
| 621 | ->''"Show me someone without pain and I'll show you a corpse. And then I'll eat it."'' |
| 622 | |
| 623 | The castoff founder of the Dendra O'Hur, an order of cannibals who eat the dead, absorbing their memories. He's been in hiding for centuries. |
| 624 | ---- |
| 625 | * BrilliantButLazy: Is pretty shameless about how he uses his immense power and wisdom just to navel-gaze and to be the "memory" of the human race without doing much to change it. |
| 626 | * CannibalismSuperpower: Like the rest of the Dendra O'Hur, Melmoth knows a technique for eating the bodies of the dead to gain their memories. Melmoth's the one who pioneered the technique. |
| 627 | * DarkIsNotEvil: He's not exactly a good guy, but he can be helpful to the Last Castoff, and the people he eats are already dead. He certainly hasn't committed the atrocities as several of several other castoffs you meet. Even the attempt on Matkina's life [[spoiler:[[PoorCommunicationKills wasn't actually him]].]] |
| 628 | * EatBrainForMemories: Not limited to the brain, but otherwise the principle's the same. |
| 629 | * GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: The only way to keep him from committing suicide-by-sorrow during the Miel Avest Crisis is with an Intimidate check. |
| 630 | * GoodScarsEvilScars: Has a nasty pitted scar on one side of his face. |
| 631 | * HeroicBSOD: Decides to give up and let the Sorrow take him when it finally attacks Miel Avest. |
| 632 | * ImAHumanitarian: Unapologetically so. The Dendra O'Hur believe they're doing the Ninth World a service by preserving the memories of the dead. If they get a meal out of it, so much the better. |
| 633 | * InterrogatingTheDead: Melmoth's disciple Imbitu notes that the dead occasionally resist having their memories absorbed even as they're being eaten. |
| 634 | * IWasQuiteTheLooker: His description says that he might have been handsome once, though that was centuries ago, and the years of neglect have taken their toll. |
| 635 | * PoorCommunicationKills: His feud with [[spoiler:Matkina, from when they were both part of the past Memovira's organization]] forced him to flee Sagus Cliffs some decades ago in fear for his life. [[spoiler:Except it wasn't Melmoth, but rather their mutual colleague, the woman who would go on to become the next Memovira.]] |
| 636 | * Really700YearsOld: Makes special note of the benefits of being able to spend centuries on research and scholarship, and points out somewhat condescendingly that he can't simply impart all he knows to the Last Castoff in one short conversation. |
| 637 | [[/folder]] |
| 638 | |
| 639 | [[folder:Aadiriis]] |
| 640 | !!Aadiriis |
| 641 | ->''"You are most welcome here."'' |
| 642 | |
| 643 | A castoff herself, Aadiris acts as the caretaker of the sanctuary of Miel Avest, a safe haven from the Sorrow and a neutral ground in the Endless Battle. |
| 644 | ---- |
| 645 | * AllLovingHero: She strives to be this, at least where her fellow castoffs are concerned, in part to make up for the harm they cause as well as the suffering they endure. |
| 646 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: The game's {{tagline}} question is hers. As in ''Planescape: Torment'', your answer is your own, and there's an ample number of options accounted for in the dialogue tree. |
| 647 | -->'''Aadiriis:''' ''What does one life matter?'' |
| 648 | * BadassLongRobe: Wears a long robe of many colors and is a powerful nano. |
| 649 | * BewareTheNiceOnes: Her go-to attack is Maelstrom, which deals 2 damage of each type and means she's at least a Tier 4 nano. [[spoiler:Of course, since she's fighting the Sorrow, who has 300 hit points, is immune to any damage type other than relativistic, and deals thousands of points of damage with a single hit, the most she can hope to do is offer a distraction while her fellow castoffs escape.]] |
| 650 | * BigGood: A wise mentor figure to younger castoffs, and the caretaker of the one safe haven most of them have. She even guides the Last Castoff to a crucial secret hidden in Zerian's mere. [[spoiler:She appears to be this, but then Miel Avest comes under attack by the Sorrow and she gives her life buying the other castoffs, yourself included, a few moments to escape.]] |
| 651 | * HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:During the Sorrow's assault on Miel Avest, as mentioned above.]] |
| 652 | * IHatePastMe: The Changing God was in her body when he brought the [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized revolutionary group]] known as [[NamesToRunAwayFrom the Jagged Dream]] to Sagus Cliffs. Even after she was cast off, the members of the organization came to her with their plots, seeking her approval. |
| 653 | -->'''Aadiriis:''' I have never taken a life, but blood stains me. I can't feel that again. Ever. |
| 654 | * JustTheFirstCitizen: Aadiriis doesn't even have a title, and even goes so far as to deny that she's the leader of Miel Avest. Subverted in that she actually means it in both cases, just wanting to give the other castoffs some sense of respite, and maybe help find an end to the pointless conflict that characterizes so many of their lives. |
| 655 | * MentorOccupationalHazard: She's taken it upon herself to offer shelter to all castoffs, and advice and guidance to the younger ones, such as [[PlayerCharacter yourself]]. [[spoiler:She sacrifices herself, drawing the Sorrow's attention in an attempt to buy the other castoffs a few more moments' time in which to escape.]] |
| 656 | * MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch: Matkina lampshades in one of her conversations that she can't think of ''any'' castoff who wasn't some flavor of asshole and whose impact on the world wasn't net negative for all the normal humans around them. Aadiris is the closest one to averting this, and that's mostly by not interacting with ordinary people at all, and trying to persuade her fellow castoffs to stop doing so. |
| 657 | * MythologyGag: Jointly with Aadiris, referencing [[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment Ravel Puzzlewell]]. While Aadiriis is also sequestered away from the world at large, it's of her own free will, and she is not alone or lonely. Like Ravel, however, she does get to ask the game's [[ArmorPiercingQuestion big thematic question]] of the player. |
| 658 | * PlaceOfProtection: Miel Avest is shielded against the Sorrow and hidden from its awareness. [[spoiler:Or so the castoffs hope. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Soon after your arrival]], the Sorrow attacks and kills Aadiriis and many of her charges. Aadiriis never blames you and it's implied that the Spectre might have disabled the sanctuary's defenses, but the result is the same.]] |
| 659 | * TruceZone: Miel Avest, a domed, cloaked, shielded garden sanctuary, is one of the only places where castoffs are safe from the Sorrow. It's neutral ground in the Endless Battle, where castoffs from both sides meet and speak on relatively peaceful terms. Aadiriis, who supports neither the Changing God nor the First Castoff, is the de facto leader of the place, despite her claims to the contrary. |
| 660 | * VitriolicBestBuds: She tends to call the other castoffs her friends and tries to see the best in them, whether or not they return the favor. |
| 661 | -->'''Aadiriis:''' Sometimes I feel that the Sorrow must hunt us because so many of us are so very disagreeable. |
| 662 | * YoungAndInCharge: Comparatively. While castoffs don't really age, at only a hundred-odd years old, Aadiriis is a young idealist by their standards. She calls Matkina "big sister". |
| 663 | [[/folder]] |
| 664 | |
| 665 | [[folder:Inifere]] |
| 666 | !!Inifere |
| 667 | ->''"No door opens without a toll, brother."'' |
| 668 | |
| 669 | The castoff founder of Children of the Endless Gate, a murderous splinter sect of the Dendra O'Hur, reduced to a madman clad in rags waiting within the heart of the Gate itself. |
| 670 | ---- |
| 671 | * AntiquatedLinguistics: With a touch of SesquipedalianLoquaciousness. Chances are many players had to look up what a "poetaster" was, even if it was just to be sure.[[note]]A bad poet, in case you were wondering.[[/note]] |
| 672 | * ArcVillain: For the Valley of Dead Heroes, as the leader of the Children of the Endless Gate. |
| 673 | * BerserkButton: He's surprisingly hard to rile, given his reputation, but out of all the people who've died at the Children's hands, Inifere tells you not to mention Choi Cai'sul's name. If you ignore the warning, the battle begins immediately. |
| 674 | * CastFromSanity: His basic superpower, opening the Endless Gate, does a serious number on his mental stability every single time he uses it. |
| 675 | * CatchPhrase: "I am no better." |
| 676 | * CrypticConversation: He speaks in [[RhymesOnADime internally rhymed]], repetitive, figurative doggerel and seems fascinated by the sound of his own voice, [[spoiler:although given his long confinement it might be the only voice he had for company for most of that time.]] |
| 677 | -->'''Inifere:''' You've come too far. Too far by far. There is no escape. None leave the gate. [...] This is where pain flays vain lies that hide from our despising eyes the flaws inside our sorry selves. |
| 678 | * DarkMessiah: The Children of the Endless Gate embrace madness and murder in Inifere's image. [[spoiler:Their worship [[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame fills him with disgust and self-loathing.]]]] |
| 679 | * DefectorFromDecadence: Played with. The Children broke away from the Dendra O'Hur, who consume the flesh of the dead to keep their memories and knowledge alive, literally absorbing them into themselves. The Children, on the other hand, believe that the flesh is a prison, leading them to commit brutal murders in order to "liberate" the spirits of those unfortunate enough to cross their paths. The Children do not eat the flesh of the dead, believing their predecessors' actions to be as abominable as the Dendra O'Hur do theirs. |
| 680 | ** For his part, Inifere is [[spoiler:disgusted by his 'followers', and in truth he's much more a prisoner of the Endless Gate (he describes himself as a zoo animal) than he is the Children's master. If you can convince him to trust you, you can convince him to kill himself to atone or close himself inside the Gate, eliminating the reason for the Children's takeover of the Valley of Dead Heroes.]] |
| 681 | * DirtyCoward: As miserable as his existence is, he'd rather live on in the Endless Gate than die. [[spoiler:The real reason why he retreated into the Endless Gate was to flee to a place where the Sorrow could not follow.]] |
| 682 | * EldritchAbomination: Not him, but rather the unspeakably powerful entities which circle around him, filling the darkness inside the Endless Gate. |
| 683 | -->'''Inifere:''' Better two ants make war upon the seasons, brother. |
| 684 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[LoveMakesYouCrazy Marcysa]] was the closest thing to love Inifere, or possibly the Changing God, had felt in a very long time. [[spoiler:Too bad she was far worse than Inifere ever was.]] |
| 685 | * {{Expy}}: His madness, long imprisonment, and CrypticConversation style closely resemble the confrontation with Ravel Puzzlewell in ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment''. |
| 686 | * {{Foil}}: To fellow castoff and death cult founder Melmoth Leviarm, who is, among other things, sane. [[spoiler:Both have gone into hiding from the Sorrow, but Melmoth's sojourn in the Endless Gate is considerably more comfortable than being trapped on the other side of the Endless Gate.]] |
| 687 | * ForWantOfANail: The Children would never have existed [[spoiler:if Inifere had faced his fears and confronted the Sorrow when it came for him, all those years ago. The Last Castoff can, if you choose, use the twisted merecaster to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath convincing the younger Inifere to fight the Sorrow]], even if it means his death.]] This adds up to a lot of people being spared a horrible death at the Children's hands over the years. |
| 688 | * GateGuardian: He has the power to open and close the Endless Gate [[spoiler:yet the Children -- and the things inside the Gate -- won't let him leave.]] |
| 689 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: The Changing God used his mind to delve into [[ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow forbidden knowledge]]. The Changing God's consciousness was able to leave Inifere's body behind, unscathed and unburdened by the worst of what he learned. Inifere, meanwhile, had to live with all of it. The [[GoMadFromTheIsolation isolation]] of being trapped with the horrors beyond the Endless Gate with only his own mad followers for company can't have helped any. |
| 690 | * LeanAndMean: He's NothingButSkinAndBones, clad in rags, and he's responsible for the atrocities of the Children of the Endless Gate [[spoiler:by inaction if nothing else.]] |
| 691 | * LikeFatherLikeSon: Of the ways castoffs resemble their father, and what kind of person the Changing God must be for that to be the case: |
| 692 | -->'''Inifere:''' Isn't the make of the man obvious from his misbegotten offspring? Or do you find yourself so fine that you dream yourself a kingly sire? |
| 693 | * LoadBearingBoss: The pocket of relatively normal reality he's living in beyond the Gate is maintained by his power; killing him destroys it and forces you back out of the Gate to the normal world (which is preferable to the other alternative). |
| 694 | * TheManInFrontOfTheMan: The beings which dwell beyond the Gate are far more terrible than Inifere. [[spoiler:It's the Children of the Endless Gate who actually keep Inifere captive, seeking his approval for acts that [[YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame fill him with the deepest loathing and horror]].]] |
| 695 | -->'''Inifere:''' In any case, I fear your folly is quite profound. One does not say to the caged calyptor, 'Prithee, teach they zookeepers better manners.' |
| 696 | * PowerBornOfMadness: Appearances can be deceiving: but scrawny and half-starved as he appears, Inifere is tough enough to present a challenge to your entire party [[spoiler:even before the lurking horrors within the Gate start to come to his aid.]] |
| 697 | * PsychoSupporter: Inifere is mad, but [[spoiler:Marcysa, the leader of the cult which became the Children,]] is actually even worse. |
| 698 | * RetGone: One possible way of dealing with him. It involves [[spoiler:persuading the past Inifere to redeem himself by facing the Sorrow even if it means his death, and has the added benefit of ensuring the Children of the Endless Gate never come to exist.]] |
| 699 | * RhymesOnADime: One of his vocal tics. |
| 700 | * ScrewDestiny: Using the twisted metal merecaster to change Inifere's past [[spoiler:can persuade him to go to his death against the Sorrow, averting years of suffering on his part, preventing the Children of the Endless Gate from ever existing, and putting the memory of Choi Cai'sul to rest.]] |
| 701 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: You can persuade, bluff, or intimidate him into giving up without fighting you. [[spoiler:If you have his merecaster, you can also convince the past version of Inifere to face up to his fears and confront the Sorrow head on. It gets him killed, but it also means the Children of the Endless Gate never existed, undoing years of misery and death.]] |
| 702 | * WouldHurtAChild: The sacrifice of the girl Choi Cai'sul. |
| 703 | * YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: [[spoiler:Despite being their leader, [[EvenEvilHasStandards Inifere himself]]]] is disgusted by the Children's actions, particularly the idea that [[spoiler:they believe they're following in ''his'' footsteps.]] |
| 704 | [[/folder]] |
| 705 | |
| 706 | [[folder:Mazzof]] |
| 707 | !!Mazzof the Lost |
| 708 | ->''"She ''had'' to reveal herself now. Right before I finished my work."'' |
| 709 | |
| 710 | A genius with mechanical numenera, who originally designed and created the resonance chamber for the Changing God and then switched sides to reconfigure it for the First Castoff when he discovered the consequences of the Changing God's plan to stop the Sorrow. |
| 711 | ---- |
| 712 | |
| 713 | * AttentionDeficitOohShiny: The very first of the Changing God's memories you navigate in the prologue of the game involves trying to keep Mazzof on task when he gets lost in the weeds tinkering with a device he's using to infiltrate the Oasis of M'ra Jolios. |
| 714 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: Repeatedly. First he's too late to put together the fact that the Changing God's plan to stop the Sorrow using the Tides will kill all the castoffs by merging their minds with his own; ''then'' he doesn't realize the First Castoff's counter-plan to stop him from doing this by destroying the Labyrinth will simply kill all the castoffs outright. It seems the power of the resonance chamber to exploit the power of the Tides on a global level was so tempting from a ForScience perspective he ''keeps on'' trying to mess with it despite the obvious dangers. |
| 715 | * GadgeteerGenius: He has no equal when it comes to understanding machines and technology, even including his sire. He's the indispensable element of both the Changing God and the First Castoff's plans to exploit the resonance chamber technology to stop the Sorrow once and for all. |
| 716 | * InsufferableGenius: No one who works with him seems to like him very much as a person, given that he's far more interested in his machines themselves than in the people who use them or the consequences of them doing so. |
| 717 | * LivingMacGuffin: Spends much of his time in both the backstory and the current story of the game as a DistressedDude who's been captured for his knowledge by one powerful figure or another. His tendency to get kidnapped is a big enough part of his personality his epithet "the Lost" comes from it. [[spoiler:Currently he's experiencing a FateWorseThanDeath in one of the Bloom's cysts, as the Bloom tries to figure out what secret he was keeping for the Memovira.]] The overall plot of the first half of the game involves looking for him as the only person other than the Changing God who knows how to repair the resonance chamber; after making it all the way to Miel Avest only to find out there's still no other castoffs there who know where he is, [[spoiler:you eventually stumble upon him by accident in the Bloom when you find out he and Ishen are one and the same.]] |
| 718 | * MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: The Changing God abandoned him ''twice'', first by jumping out of his body to create him as a castoff in the first place, then by leaving him to be captured in the Oasis of M'ra Jolios. It's his fear of abandonment and his helplessness without his machines that form the basis of his torment in the Labyrinth in the endgame. |
| 719 | * NonActionGuy: Without any numenera to rely on he's pretty helpless in direct combat. |
| 720 | * SayingTooMuch: [[spoiler:Mazzof instantly spills the Memovira's secret identity as soon as you rescue him, and then chews himself out for it, blaming it on still being loopy from the Bloom's torture -- although as lampshaded later on, the jig was pretty much up as soon as you saw him and recognized who he was.]] |
| 721 | * SherlockScan: The first time you meet him in the flesh he immediately figures out you're the being who was possessing Zerian through the merecaster, just based on the context of the situation and via your facial expression and vocal intonation. |
| 722 | * TwoAliasesOneCharacter: [[spoiler:Just as the Memovira and the First Castoff turn out to be one and the same, the Changing God and First Castoff's [[TheSmartGuy smart guy]] Mazzof turns out to be the same person as the Memovira's Smart Guy Ishen. "Ishen" turns out to just be a nickname he picked up when he moved to the Bloom, after his resemblance to some of the local wildlife. The tabletop RPG reveals that an "ishenizar" is a kind of enigmatic crystalline creature, and naming Mazzof after one was probably a way of ribbing him for being TheSpock.]] |
| 723 | |
| 724 | [[/folder]] |
| 725 | |
| 726 | !Other Characters |
| 727 | |
| 728 | [[folder:The Levies]] |
| 729 | !!The Levies |
| 730 | The purple-clad city guards of Sagus Cliffs, upon turning sixteen (or the equivalent age of majority for their species), any person may walk into the Order of Truth and apply for citizenship. Upon doing so, they enter an ancient piece of the numenera -- which drains a year of their life and uses it to build up an artificial humanoid out of gray sludge, which then serves the city in the new citizen's stead for one year. |
| 731 | ---- |
| 732 | * AllThereInTheManual: The ''From the Depths'' novella ''Blue - The Last Days of Archopalasia'' reveals a little bit about why the hell these guys exist; the Lost City of Archopalasia was built around a device known as the Revivifier that purported to give ResurrectiveImmortality to all its denizens but was actually a cloning machine that transferred their consciousness into a BodyBackupDrive. One of the guises of the Changing God apparently salvaged this machine and found a way to put it to use that was slightly less metaphysically disruptive to society ([[spoiler:and that, unlike the original Revivifier, didn't abuse the LawOfEquivalentExchange to drain all life from the surrounding landscape to keep its users immortal]]). |
| 733 | * CastFromLifespan: Sagus Cliff's levy machine directly subtracts a year of life from the user in order to create one of the city's ArtificialHuman CityGuards, called levies. This ages the person directly, as is the case for Levy captain Sigyn, who gave up multiple years of her life, making her much OlderThanSheLooks -- but it also apparently somehow preemptively voids the ''events'' of those years, such that [[spoiler:you meet a former thief who would have died in a fire that wiped out a whole neighborhood -- he didn't, but his levy remembers, and still feels the extraordinary guilt of it.]] |
| 734 | * CityGuards: Sagus Cliffs' police force is made up of levies, created by a machine that [[CastFromLifespan subtracts a year from a person's life]] to create an ArtificialHuman which will live for only one year before disintegrating into its component matter. Doing this is mandatory to become a citizen of the city -- essentially, it's done in lieu of [[{{Conscription}} military service]]. Nobody seems at all concerned for [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman what this means for the levies themselves]] -- they seem intelligent, but also happy. Whether they're either is debatable, though guard captain Sigyn says they ''are'' sentient, and [[StepfordSmiler they aren't happy]]. |
| 735 | * InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals: All levies look identical, at least at first glance, and are all blandly smiling well-built generic-looking men who serve as CityGuards. It's only by looking closely at them that you can tell the difference -- or by noticing each of them carries a charm that reminds them of the core memory linked to the year of life their originating human donated for their creation. |
| 736 | * ItRunsOnNonsensoleum: The more the process by which the levy machine's life-draining process is explained, the less it makes sense -- it's not just a physical year that's taken, but somehow the events/memories ''of'' that year. |
| 737 | * MeaningfulName: A levy is a tax or seizure of property by force. Levies are created by volunteers, but still, a physical toll (of exactly one year) is exacted. |
| 738 | * StepfordSmiler: The Levies of Sagus Cliffs are incapable of any emotion other than pleasant blandness. This makes finding one who's quite visibly stressing out in the middle of Cliff's Edge decidedly odd; he turns out to have gotten a "bad year" from the citizen he was made from... and he wants another one. |
| 739 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Are the levies happy? Are they even capable of ''being'' unhappy? How would you tell? Their human captain, Sigyn, says they're definitely not happy, and she would perhaps know them best, having [[CastFromLifespan given up upwards of two decades of her life]] to create more of them, but no one else in Sagus seems to mind or care. |
| 740 | [[/folder]] |
| 741 | |
| 742 | [[folder:The Sticha]] |
| 743 | !!The Sticha |
| 744 | A stichus (plural: sticha) is a kind of insect-like humanoid. Originally from another dimension, a few of them were transported into the Ninth World, and subsequently abandoned. Recently a community of sticha have begun tunneling through the Underbelly of Sagus Cliffs, bringing them into conflict with the inhabitants of the city. |
| 745 | ---- |
| 746 | * {{Expy}}: Of the dabus from ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'': an extradimensional species with a [[StarfishLanguage bizarre alien language]], which the player character can alternately learn/remember. |
| 747 | * FastTunnelling: They are remarkably proficient burrowers. Unfortunately their tunnels have resulted in several collapses in the city above, most notable in Cliff's Edge, where several buildings along the cliffside have all but fallen into the sea below. |
| 748 | * InsectoidAliens: Insectoid visitors from another dimension. |
| 749 | * PunctuationShaker: The few stichus names we see contain a lot of apostrophes. |
| 750 | * ShockAndAwe: They don't eat organic food, but rather feed on the electricity from Ninth World power sources, as well as the friction produced by striking their claws while burrowing. |
| 751 | * ShroudedInMyth: The first sticha eggs to come to the Ninth World were brought through the Bloom; Ch'kekt tells you that the sticha community here knows nothing about their homeworld or what the original sticha civilization (if any) was like. |
| 752 | * StarfishLanguage They speak in clicks, UsefulNotes/SignLanguage, and {{Pheromones}}. Humans find them difficult to understand, while the sticha don't really grasp the subtleties of human expression or tone. |
| 753 | * VideoGameCaringPotential: Rescuing the nameless outcast stichus from the angry mob. |
| 754 | * WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Played straight and inverted. The natives of Sagus Cliffs and the sticha each believe the others to be of limited sapience, and consequently have no qualms about undermining (literally in the sticha's case) or killing one another. |
| 755 | [[/folder]] |
| 756 | |
| 757 | [[folder:The Fifth Eye]] |
| 758 | !!The Fifth Eye |
| 759 | ->''"The scars of a thousand mental battles slip away here. We can let our guards down. And so we do."'' %%Dhama of the Bloom |
| 760 | |
| 761 | The burnt-out veterans of a psychic war, who now own, operate, and lend their name to a bar built inside what appears to be an ancient factory. |
| 762 | |
| 763 | !!!The following tropes apply to the psychic veterans of the Fifth Eye: |
| 764 | * ArtificialHuman: [[spoiler:Ziobe is a mlox, outwardly indistinguishable from a human unless she opens her third eye, connected to her mechanical mind.]] This doesn't make [[spoiler:her]] the example listed under LivingMemory, however. |
| 765 | * AstralProjection: As part of [[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind battling in the heart of the mind]], they're all trained in this. They can aid the Last Castoff in joining them [[spoiler:to confront the Adversaries]], if you wish. |
| 766 | * TheBartender: Feriok, [[MindOverMatter who never actually touches the glasses]]. |
| 767 | * BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Their bread and butter, as psychic mercenaries. If the Castoff asks, they'll recount psychic war stories, with varying degrees of willingness. |
| 768 | * BlessedWithSuck: |
| 769 | -->'''Feriok:''' You know what it's like to be psychic? Let me paint a picture. Imagine every time you're going to sleep, someone comes and starts screaming in your ear. Or objects in the room start whispering about how they want to ''burn''. Or they might tell you their secret names and how to make them float and dance at your command. Or maybe every person you meet is like a house with all its doors and windows thrown open, and you can't help but look in to plunder their secrets. And underneath it all you hear their silent judgments, the truths they hide even from themselves. |
| 770 | * BlindSeer: Subverted. Leto can still see normally, but her perception of the future is blocked by the Adversaries. Probably still counts as a nod to [[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment Ravel Puzzlewell]]'s collection of planar avatars. |
| 771 | * BrownNote: [[BlackSpeech The Words of Qra]], a [[MindVirus weaponized meme]]. For now they're safely contained in Theboros's mind, but once they infected and laid waste to an entire nation. |
| 772 | * CombatClairvoyance: Feriok again, as the group's spotter, keeping his third eye peeled for any invisible psychic entities or attacks. |
| 773 | * CoverBlowingSuperpower: [[spoiler:Feriok isn't a telekinetic and shouldn't be able to tend bar without touching the glasses,]] which is a big hint that they're the member of the Fifth Eye who fell in battle. |
| 774 | * DrowningMySorrows: They spend all their time in the bar they own, reminiscing on past battles and memorializing the one who didn't make it. |
| 775 | * DudeWheresMyRespect: The Fifth Eye saved Sagus Cliffs from the Adversaries, but since non-psychics can't see or sense the Adversaries in any way, nobody knows or thanks them for it. Theboros is particularly bitter about it. |
| 776 | -->'''Theboros:''' Best part is, we've sacrificed our lives, our friends and our sanity for a city that'll never know. |
| 777 | * EmptyChairMemorial: Of a sort: one of the five of them is only a psychic projection, and running the bar is a memorial to them. |
| 778 | -->'''Ziobe:''' We beat it, though. [[spoiler:So as long as I'm breathing, I'll keep his memory alive. [[TearJerker He'll serve his drinks and make his bad jokes, and everyone here will feel welcome.]] It's the least I could do in his name.]] |
| 779 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: The Words of Qra, as a "weaponized meme", spread from one mind to another and drive people to madness and death. |
| 780 | * HeroicBSOD: After battling the Adversaries and losing one of their own in the fighting, the Fifth Eye suffered (and are suffering) a collective breakdown, and retreated into the bar they run. |
| 781 | * HeroOfAnotherStory: They were an adventuring party in their own right, and they've assembled in this bar to serve as a bulwark if and when their old enemies return. |
| 782 | * HumansArePsychicInTheFuture: It's the (very) distant future, and they're psychic. Of course, the Ninth World being what it is, nobody is particularly impressed by them. |
| 783 | * LastStand: It only ''looks'' like the Fifth Eye spend all day sitting around the bar and drinking. In reality, they're preparing for what might easily be a hopeless final battle against the malevolent [[EldritchAbomination Adversaries]]. |
| 784 | * LibationForTheDead: Like the example under EmptyChairMemorial, they're drinking to the memory of the one they lost, even though to outsiders it appears that all of them are still there. [[spoiler:In a bit of irony, Feriok is the one serving them drinks, but, as a telekinetic projection of Ziobe's, not drinking anything himself.]] |
| 785 | * LivingMemory: One of the Fifth Eye didn't actually make it back from their FinalBattle with the Adversary, and is only a psychic projection crafted by one of the other four. Ziobe will set you the minor quest of figuring out which of the five of them it is, noting that she wouldn't rule out herself. [[spoiler:It's Feriok. Talking to the others will reveal that he wasn't a telekinetic, he was their spotter.]] |
| 786 | * MindOverMatter: Ziobe, who was their fiercest and most direct warrior, and Feriok, who bartends without ever actually touching the bottles or taps. [[spoiler:Ziobe is actually bartending for them, as the Feriok the player sees is just a mental projection generated by Ziobe in tribute to the real Feriok, who died in battle with the Adversaries.]] |
| 787 | * MindVirus: The Words of Qra, which Theboros has contained in his mind but has no way of permanently destroying, and which are slowly wearing down his mental defenses. He plans to kill himself in order to ensure the Words die with him. [[spoiler:The Last Castoff can persuade him to pass them along to the Castoff instead, allowing them to deploy them as a weapon in a few later conversations.]] |
| 788 | * MySignificanceSenseIsTingling: Feriok, as the group's spotter, specialized in catching invisible psychic attacks before they hit the rest of the group. |
| 789 | * PsychicBlockDefense: Theboros's specialty. He created the mental walls the other members of the Fifth Eye took cover behind. |
| 790 | * PsychicPowers: They're psychic warriors, each with their own specialties. |
| 791 | * PsychicRadar: Feriok again, as psychic lookout and spotter. |
| 792 | * PsychicStatic: A necessary skill for any psychic. [[spoiler:Used against them by the Adversaries, as without Feriok, they're blind to their presence.]] |
| 793 | * RecruitedFromTheGutter: Not exactly a RagsToRiches story, but Dhama of the Bloom is, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the name suggests]], a native [[WrongSideOfTheTracks of the Bloom]]. He made it out, which not many people born there can say. |
| 794 | * ScryVsScry: Leto, who can read minds and see the future, commonly engaged in this. |
| 795 | * SealedEvilInACan: The Fifth Eye couldn't destroy the Adversaries, so they sealed them away... Temporarily. |
| 796 | * SecretWar: Nobody in Sagus knows the trouble the Fifth Eye have saved them from. [[ArbitrarySkepticism Nobody would believe them if they told them.]] |
| 797 | * {{Seers}}: Leto reads minds and sees the future and can tell you something about each of your companions, but not [[ImmuneToFate the Last Castoff]]. |
| 798 | * TheStrategist: Theboros planned the Eye's battles, acting on information from Leto. |
| 799 | * ShellShockedVeteran: All five of them were broken in the fighting the Adversaries, and even more so when it killed one of them. |
| 800 | * ShoutOut: |
| 801 | ** [[Music/BlueOysterCult You're seeing now the veterans of a thousand psychic wars...]] |
| 802 | ** Theboros's ([[MeaningfulName try saying it out loud]]) appearance, personality, and hat are based on author Creator/WilliamSBurroughs, who'd also know a thing or two about words causing the reader physical pain. |
| 803 | ** Leto can see the future, like a certain [[Literature/{{Dune}} God-Emperor]] of the same name. |
| 804 | * ShrineToTheFallen: The bar is a tribute to the loss they took fighting against the Adversaries. The pipes and archways even give the place a cathedral-like quality, and [[spoiler:having Feriok as the bartender keeps him front and center at all times.]] |
| 805 | * SurvivorGuilt: Their mercenary band was called the Fifth Eye, but now there are only four of them, and they spend their days DrowningTheirSorrows and reliving past glories. Safe to say they were all hit with a bad case of this. [[spoiler:Telling as well that Feriok seems to feel the loss the least -- where he's gone, that kind of pain can't hurt him.]] |
| 806 | * {{Telepathy}}: They're psychics, so they all have a degree of this. Dhama's ability to coordinate between the others makes him their natural leader. |
| 807 | * ToAbsentFriends: All day, every day. The friend in question is [[spoiler:actually [[LivingMemory Feriok]]]], who despite appearances was killed by the Adversaries. |
| 808 | * VaguenessIsComing: It's a shapeless malevolence that most people cannot see or sense, but it's not only coming, it's already been -- the Fifth Eye fought and died against the Adversaries, beings of pure thought, and they're getting ready to do so again. |
| 809 | * WarIsHell: Certainly the case when it comes to fighting the Adversaries in the battlefield of the mind, as the Adversaries may conjure up any horrors the human mind can fathom. |
| 810 | |
| 811 | !!!The following tropes apply to the patrons and other denizens of the bar: |
| 812 | * AnthropomorphicPersonification: O, as a sentient vowel and embodiment of an underlying precept of the universe. As in the original ''Torment'', he can expand the player character's perceptions of reality, giving them, in this case, a boost to Intellect and Health. |
| 813 | -->'''O:''' Continue. Live. Breathe. |
| 814 | * CanonImmigrant: Part of the Fifth Eye's nature as an InnBetweenTheWorlds is the high percentage of characters in it who weren't created by the ''Torment'' team. (Sir Arthour is a character from the Numenera tabletop game, O is a character from the original ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'', and Almas the Soul Keeper is a character created by a Kickstarter backer.) |
| 815 | * {{Expy}}: From ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'': |
| 816 | ** The bar as a whole is one to the Smoldering Corpse Bar, right down to its factory-like appearance, interdimensional clientele, and sapient letter O being a regular. As with the Smoldering Corpse, the Fifth Eye offers the player characters a number of unconventional ways to kill themselves... among them sampling the stronger drinks. |
| 817 | ** As experienced adventurers who wandered too far and were never quite the same afterward, the Fifth Eye veterans are similar to the tout Candrian Illbourne [[spoiler:and Dak'kon.]] As a group of war veterans, they resemble the fiendish Blood War veterans Aethelgrin and Tegar'in, as well as the long-serving Mercykiller patrons in the back of the bar. |
| 818 | ** Sir Arthour Torein, a recurring character from the sourcebooks, is of a similar age to retired Harmonium Guardsman Ebb Creakknees, and will likewise happily exposit at some length on the setting and rules thereof. |
| 819 | ** The apparition of the Ghostly Woman is even somewhat smokier than she normally appears, and like Ignus, she's dangerous to the Castoff. Unlike Ignus, she's not the main draw of the place, as it's not clear how many of the other patrons can even see her. |
| 820 | * HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:Malaise]], who you won't even be able to see without the right combination of mind-affecting chemicals from the Fifth Eye's special taps. |
| 821 | * InnBetweenTheWorlds: Most any bar in Sagus could be this, depending on the night, owing to the city's proximity to [[PortalNetwork the Bloom]]. |
| 822 | * LocalHangout: As a bar in the Cliff's Edge district in southeast Sagus Cliffs. |
| 823 | * MyGreatestFailure: Almas the Soul Keeper asked [[ArmorPiercingQuestion a question]] which led to the ruin of his entire civilization. You can convince him this wasn't his fault, [[spoiler:[[NiceJobBreakingItHero but you'll probably wish you hadn't]], since the vision (or memory?) you experience suggests that the empire he would rebuild was a despotic nightmare, and Almas taking the throne would make it even worse than it was before.]] |
| 824 | * WarIsGlorious: Clarion seems to think so, and as a recruiter for the Endless Battle, cheerfully proclaiming as much is her way of enticing the Fifthy Eye mercenary band back into action. After their experiences fighting the Adversary, and noticeable after talking to them for even a few moments, [[WarIsHell you can observe that her approach is way off]]. |
| 825 | [[/folder]] |
| 826 | |
| 827 | [[folder:The Adversaries]] |
| 828 | !!The Adversaries |
| 829 | ->''"Meaning itself is sickness."'' %%Malaise |
| 830 | |
| 831 | Intangible beings of pure, malevolent thought which entered the Ninth World via the interdimensional maws of the Bloom. The veterans of the Fifth Eye fought them off and sealed them away, but the Adversaries continue to seek a means of returning to Sagus Cliffs. |
| 832 | |
| 833 | ---- |
| 834 | * TheCorrupter[=/=]TheCorruption: As much a malevolent force as they are distinct entities, but they seek a "compatible" intelligent lifeform to inhabit. Things that increase compatibility: riots, chaos, murder, global devastation by unstable reactors... |
| 835 | * DemonicPossession: The Adversaries seek physical forms with which to merge and thus gain access to the Ninth World. |
| 836 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: As terrifying as the Adversaries appear, they ''can'' be defeated by mortals, and O tells you that if Malaise is defeated here and now the setback will keep the Adversaries from [[SealedEvilInACan emerging from their can again]] for a whole age. |
| 837 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: ''The Adversaries''. [[spoiler:''Malaise''.]] |
| 838 | * PokeInTheThirdEye: Mental contact with the Adversaries is extremely unpleasant at best, outright lethal at worst. |
| 839 | * SealedEvilInACan: The Fifth Eye managed to create a barrier beteween the Adversaries and the Ninth World, but by their own admission it's tenuous and the Adversaries may already be finding ways to circumvent it. [[spoiler:In fact a projection of the Adversaries is sitting in a corner of the bar and watching them all the while, in the form of a seemingly invisible, intangible tavern-goer named Malaise.]] |
| 840 | * {{Superboss}}: If you choose to confront them with the Fifth Eye, you do so on a [[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind Psychic Battlefield]]. [[spoiler:Malaise splits into eight featureless, shadowy humanoid bodies, each of which grows progressively stronger as the others die. Depending on your party makeup and how much experience you have when you attempt this fight, it can be either extremely difficult, or fairly trivial. It is, nevertheless, one of only a few crises in the game which is entirely combat-based.]] |
| 841 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: If you confront them alone, [[spoiler:Malaise tests you through a series of questions. Defeating it means either succeeding at a fairly difficult Intellect check... or unleashing the [[BrownNote Words of Qra]] upon it. Either way, this is done entirely through dialogue.]] |
| 842 | [[/folder]] |
| 843 | |
| 844 | [[folder:The Genocide]] |
| 845 | !!The Genocide |
| 846 | ->''"I no longer fight with a blade. My weapon is time."'' |
| 847 | |
| 848 | The last of the warlike Tabaht, an invading horde which once laid siege to Sagus Cliffs, nearly conquering the city thousands of years ago. |
| 849 | ---- |
| 850 | * AndIMustScream: Made immortal but forced to stand next to the portal in Circus Minor for all eternity, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking answering questions for passersby.]] |
| 851 | * BloodKnight: One of the leaders of a ProudWarriorRace, he'd kill you where you stand if it were within his power. |
| 852 | * ChekhovsGunman: Something of a retroactive case. [[spoiler:The Genocide isn't the gunman himself, but rather the man from his story who stopped the Tabaht invasion -- the man who would eventually become the Changing God.]] If not for the Tabaht invasion, [[spoiler:the Changing God's daughter would never have died of the wasting illness caused by their Tide-based weapons. If he had never begun his research into the Tides, he never would have become immortal, and never would have created the castoffs, awakened the Sorrow, and started the Endless Battle -- effectively, [[ForWantOfANail he never would have become the Changing God]].]] Much of this is only revealed to you in the very last leg of TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, and only if [[spoiler:you finished the Ghostly Woman's sidequest.]] |
| 853 | * CoolAndUnusualPunishment: He was made immortal, but only so he could serve what amounts to a life sentence that would last an eternity. |
| 854 | * CruelMercy: Kept alive, made immortal, but unable to move from where he's standing and never allowed to [[BloodKnight fight]] ever again. |
| 855 | * {{Expy}}: Huh boy... |
| 856 | ** For a character who's largely optional, he's basically a walking tribute to ''Planescape: Torment''. His blood-red bladed armor resembles that of [[TabletopGame/{{Planescape}} Sigil's]] [[CityGuards Harmonium]], even though the Tabaht were pretty much the exact opposite of the modern Harmonium -- although they did share the latter's overarching goal of spreading order through military might. [[spoiler:It was only the presence of the Lady of Pain in Sigil that kept the Harmonium from invading wholesale.]] In the Genocide's long imprisonment standing in a single spot and PurposeDrivenImmortality, he's an Expy of [[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment Vhailor]]. As a character who was trapped in one place and made immortal as a punishment for bringing ruin to the city -- a legend you hear about several times while wandering through Sagus -- he's a lot like Ignus. Finally, being forced to stand in a single spot and answer inane questions for years on end, he's also similar to the Post, a zombie in Sigil's Hive Ward, covered in flyers and graffiti and commanded to give directions (by pointing) to anyone who asked. |
| 857 | ** As the sole survivor of a warrior race defeated by an enemy they made the mistake of thinking was weak, he's also reminiscent of Mandalore the Preserver, Canderous Ordo, from ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' -- "the shell of their armor on the shell of a man." |
| 858 | * GeniusLoci: The Tabaht lived in an intelligent city called the Underspine, which they also worshiped as their god. |
| 859 | * TheHorde: The Tabaht swarmed over Sagus Cliffs in the ancient past, in the name of conquest and [[SubvertedTrope bringing their particular brand of order]] to the city. |
| 860 | * HumanPopsicle: The Tabaht as a whole were awoken from hibernation after untold ages. |
| 861 | * IHaveManyNames: |
| 862 | -->'''The Genocide:''' I was Ogesti tel Kotu, the Firm Hand of Tradition. They called me one of the Black Three. Enemies did not understand us. They took my name to mean death in a dozen extinct tongues, called me Orphan-maker, Hopesmasher, Death's Child. My armies blackened the earth and the skies. My dragoliths scoured the land. Domination was my duty. If they had known, if they had welcomed us, they might have been our thralls. Instead they became dust. |
| 863 | * KillTheGod: Their god, a numenera construct called the Underspine, was killed in revenge for their conquest. |
| 864 | * KnightTemplar: The Tabaht believed they were bringing order, of a kind. Even if it meant killing everyone who dared to resist them. |
| 865 | * LastOfHisKind: The last surviving member of the Tabaht. |
| 866 | * LostSuperweapon: The Tabaht had a whole arsenal of them, and were nearly invincible [[spoiler:until a lone nano stopped them with his own mastery of the numenera, erecting an unbreakable shield over the city. Those weapons of the Tabaht's, though? They were based on [[AppliedPhlebotinum the Tides]], and the man who stopped them, in researching the underlying forces that powered the Tabaht's arsenal, would one day become the Changing God.]] |
| 867 | * MakeAnExampleOfThem: He was [[CruelMercy spared]] and [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment made immortal]] as this. |
| 868 | * MeaningfulName: His people killed untold numbers of innocents during their conquest... and were wiped out, almost to the very last man. |
| 869 | * MightMakesRight: Essentially the Tabaht philosophy. |
| 870 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: '''The Genocide.''' The Underspine [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace doesn't sound particularly friendly]] either. |
| 871 | * MrExposition: In-universe -- the sole reason for his continued existence is to act as a tour guide of sorts, recounting the history of the Tabaht invasion of Sagus Cliffs to anyone who asks. |
| 872 | * ProudWarriorRace: The Genocide was a shining example of the Tabaht, a race of supersoldiers who arose from their underground chambers and set about conquering Sagus Cliffs and the surrounding territories in the distant past of the region. |
| 873 | * PurposeDrivenImmortality: Immortality was forced upon him, to serve as a living reminder of the Tabaht invasion, as well as to punish him for his part in it. |
| 874 | * ReligionOfEvil: The Tabaht's purpose was given to them by their god, the Underspine. |
| 875 | * RestrainingBolt: He is incapable of acting independently, and is compelled to answer the questions of anyone who approaches him. His one small freedom is that he needs only answer any given line of questioning once. |
| 876 | * SealedArmyInACan: The Tabaht were sealed underground as {{Human Popsicle}}s by some previous civilization. |
| 877 | * TheStoic: From what he says, part of this might have been Tabaht discipline, though a larger part of it is the extreme restrictions placed on his actions and behavior as part of his punishment. |
| 878 | * ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: Part of his punishment is to be unable to act on the seething hatred he feels. He can tell you what he's feeling, if you ask, but he can't show it. |
| 879 | * TimeAbyss: Thousands of years old. |
| 880 | * UndergroundCity: The Tabaht hailed from an ancient underground city which was also their god, called [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace the Underspine]]. |
| 881 | * UniqueEnemy: You can't fight him. He isn't crucial to the plot and no quests point to him. He's just there to fill in the backstory of the game, in fact, yet he has a unique model and a significant amount of dialogue. It's likely that the Tabaht, like [[DummiedOut the Oasis of M'ra Jolios]], were at one point going to play a larger part of the game, but ended up being written out over the course of development. |
| 882 | * WhoWantsToLiveForever: ...As a stationary tour guide? Probably no one, least of all a bloodthirsty champion of a ProudWarriorRace. |
| 883 | * WrittenByTheWinners: Averted. The Genocide seems to be free to editorialize to a degree as long as he's answering the questions he's asked. |
| 884 | [[/folder]] |
| 885 | |
| 886 | [[folder:Ghostly Woman]] |
| 887 | !!Ghostly Woman / [[spoiler:Miika]] |
| 888 | ->''"You're a... castoff. A spark of life leftover when your body was otherwise abandoned."'' |
| 889 | |
| 890 | A strange, spectral figure, a woman who appears in the dreams of certain women in Sagus Cliffs, gradually changing their appearance and thoughts until they finally become her avatars in the real world, a process which has been occurring largely unnoticed in Sagus Cliffs for hundreds if not thousands of years. |
| 891 | ------------ |
| 892 | * AscendedExtra: Her associated sidequest ''seems'' like flavor for the CityOfAdventure that is Sagus Cliffs, but she's intricately tied into the city's history [[spoiler:along with that of the Changing God]]. |
| 893 | * BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: The only way you can meet and converse with her, inside the Labyrinth. |
| 894 | * CloneByConversion: How she propagates in Sagus Cliffs, gradually taking over the body and minds of living women in the city, a process that begins in childhood and usually drives the victim insane in the process, unless they somehow manage to fend her off. |
| 895 | ** The "empty reflection" [[spoiler:Seria]] was changed by the ghostly woman but had a portion of her consciousness preserved [[spoiler:as a fragment in the Labyrinth by her foster father, the castoff Orseolo, before her death demoralised him into committing suicide by the Sorrow. Their relationship serves as an early foreshadowing of the Ghostly Woman's relationship with the Changing God.]] |
| 896 | ** Loss-of-Self in Cliff's Edge is in the last stages of being taken over by the ghostly woman, to the point where she can hardly remember anything of her past life. |
| 897 | ** The young orphan girl Avina is in the early stages, occasionally haunted by visions of a woman she doesn't know telling her she's not herself. |
| 898 | ** Sigyn, who now commands the [[CityGuards city's]] [[ArtificialHuman levies]], gave up [[RapidAging year after year of her life]] to create new levies, aging herself out of the ghostly woman's influence. [[spoiler:The levy created by her twentieth year is noted to have been [[BodyHorror utterly horrifying]], and was immediately put out of its misery.]] |
| 899 | ** Hearing the woman's voice in her head drove [[spoiler:Kiyatawa]] to become a murderer just to shut her up, even before she [[spoiler:found a sense of purpose in serving the Endless Gate.]] |
| 900 | ** Made considerably worse with the knowledge that this has been going on for [[spoiler:thousands of years.]] |
| 901 | * ChekhovsGunman: Her sidequest is optional, but depending on how you resolve it, it can affect the ending. [[spoiler:It turns out she's the "ghost" of the Changing God's daughter, Miika, her memories and consciousness. After she was injured by a numenera weapon during the Tabaht invasion of Sagus Cliffs, her father, the man who would one day be known as the Changing God, began searching for a cure. He uncovered the secrets of a past civilization, the Dalad, which in turn led him to the Tides -- the use of which in turn drew the Sorrow to him, forcing him to accelerate his research and use that technology to prolong his own life, eventually losing sight of why he'd started out on this path in the first place and abandoning a daughter who, for him, had been dead for thousands of years. Her presence during your final confrontation with the Changing God opens up the alternate solution of convincing the God to give up his own existence to finally return his daughter to a life of her own.]] |
| 902 | * DrivenToMadness: The fragment of her you meet in the Fifth Eye tavern has had this happen to her; she gets better once she's inside your mind and can start to put herself back together. |
| 903 | * TheEndingChangesEverything: A natural consequence of said ending revealing her ''very'' relevant [[WalkingSpoiler identity]]. |
| 904 | * {{Expy}}: She superficially resembles the similarly ghostly Deionarra from ''Torment'', but her madness and ties into the history of her surroundings are more like the twisted fire mage Ignus. [[spoiler:The way she destroys lives with her every reincarnation makes her an Expy of that aspect of the Nameless One, for whom another life was snuffed out and made into a spectral shadow each time he died and was reborn.]] |
| 905 | %% * FightingFromTheInside |
| 906 | %% * FlawedPrototype |
| 907 | * ForWantOfANail: A great deal of pain was brought about by the circumstances of her death, spread out across the whole Sagus Protectorate. After she fell ill [[spoiler:after being wounded by a Tide-based weapon employed by the [[TheHorde invading Tabaht]], her father sought a cure,]] which [[spoiler:kicked off his research into the Tides]] which indirectly [[spoiler:led him to become the Changing God, inadvertently creating the castoffs (who then went on to found most of the major factions in the game), awakening the Sorrow, starting the Endless Battle, and eventually leading to the events of the entire game.]] |
| 908 | * GrandTheftMe: What she (gradually) does to victims of her CloneByConversion. |
| 909 | * MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter: As it turns out, she was this in life. [[spoiler:Although her father didn't really go mad until after she fell ill.]] |
| 910 | * MoralityChain: She was this for her father. After she died and the chain broke, he eventually became [[spoiler:the Changing God]]. |
| 911 | * OurGhostsAreDifferent: This one is, taking over the bodies of countless women across Sagus Cliffs' history and driving them to madness. [[spoiler:She's a fragment of her original consciousness, and her continued existence is more or less an unwanted side effect of the combination of numenera her father tried (and failed) to use to bring her BackFromTheDead. The technology used to bring her back is Tide-based, which might explain why the Last Castoff can sense her when others can't.]] |
| 912 | * SoapOperaDisease: The cause of her death, [[spoiler:induced by a Tide-based weapon.]] |
| 913 | %% * SplitPersonalityTakeover |
| 914 | * StringyHairedGhostGirl: She's this kind of being; a spectral woman who's even known as "Ghostly Woman". |
| 915 | * ThatThingIsNotMyChild: When confronted with her existence [[spoiler:during the endgame, the Changing God refuses to accept that she is anything more than a mere copy of his daughter's memories, and not really real -- hypocritical coming from a man who has spent thousands of years transferring his memories from one body to the next, and who in that moment is a backup copy of his own mind]]. |
| 916 | %% * VideoGameCaringPotential |
| 917 | %% * VideoGameCrueltyPotential |
| 918 | * YoureNotMyFather: On the other hand, if you give her a chance to confront her father and what he's become [[spoiler:in the form of the Specter/Changing God, she doesn't recognize him at all, either. This is in part because he's an ArtificialIntelligence based on a backup copy of the Changing God's memories, but also because as the Changing God he lost all compassion or empathy for others, a far cry from the loving father who raised her. You can point out to the Specter that he can't possibly be the real Changing God if even his own daughter doesn't recognize him, but if your persuasive skills aren't up to the task, this can also [[ThatThingIsNotMyChild backfire]].]] |
| 919 | * WalkingSpoiler: Her true identity makes her this. [[spoiler:She's the Changing God's daughter, Miika.]] |
| 920 | [[/folder]] |
| 921 | |
| 922 | [[folder:The Bloom]] |
| 923 | !!The Bloom |
| 924 | ->''"The pathways of the Bloom are strange, and not all its roads are pleasant."'' %%Dracogen |
| 925 | |
| 926 | A repulsive, vaguely spheroid blob of undulating flesh nearly as big as Sagus Cliffs by itself. Pockets in its interior are populated by humans, visitants, and abhumans, who find their own uses for the extradimensional portals which open when the Bloom is fed. |
| 927 | ---- |
| 928 | * AbstractEater: Some of its maws hunger for certain emotions or memories, instead of or in addition to meat, limbs, and various inorganic materials. |
| 929 | * AlienGeometries: Fortunately disguised underneath all that nice, comfortingly solid [[WombLevel meat]]. |
| 930 | -->'''Merchant:''' But you told us this was the way.\ |
| 931 | '''Grisseler:''' Used to be. Now it ain't. The Bloom does what it likes. |
| 932 | * AmbiguousGender: As with the Sorrow, it's not clear what it would even mean for the Bloom to have a gender, but those familiar with it seem most comfortable calling it "she/her". (Which has some Freudian implications given its nature as a WombLevel.) |
| 933 | * AscendedExtra: The most notable one from this game -- started as a minor background detail of the setting, expanded into a 150-page design document by George Ziets, who saw it as a bit of a CreatorsPet, ended up displacing the Oasis of M'ra Jolios as the final hub environment for the game, and is by far the one element of this game that's been most fully integrated into the latest edition of the ''Numenera'' tabletop RPG. |
| 934 | * BerserkButton: It does ''not'' like any technology designed to harm it, block it or control it, especially the Transdimensional Scalpel. (If you show it to Grisseler the Bloom-Guide he'll tell you he can hear the Bloom ''screaming'' in response to the Scalpel's vibrations.) You take a major hit to your "reputation" with the Bloom if you ever use it to cut open a Maw, whereas you get a massive boost if you give it up to the Bloom to be destroyed. |
| 935 | * BiggerOnTheInside: Given that it's a living portal network, it's implied that it can use its extradimensional connections to renovate its interior as needed. Part of what makes it difficult to navigate is that areas within the Bloom can not only move and shift, but don't necessarily make sense [[AlienGeometries in real space]]. |
| 936 | * BirdPeople: A murder of crow-like [[BeastMan murden]] have taken up roost in the Old Slave Block. They're treated as a minor rival gang by the Memovira and her people. |
| 937 | * BlobMonster: An amorphous, shifting mass the size of a city, made up of twisted flesh, teeth, and organs. |
| 938 | * BlueAndOrangeMorality: Its only interest in other creatures is to feed, and it doesn't necessarily kill what it eats. |
| 939 | * {{Cephalothorax}}: In addition to the maws growing out of its huge bulk, the Bloom can also create "corpuscular"[[note]]Referring to an unattached free-floating cell or mass, as in red blood cells, AKA corpuscles[[/note]] maws, which are tentacled mouths which float around under their own power. |
| 940 | * CharacterAlignment: The Bloom generally likes you more the more people you've killed, deceived or intimidated, which in game terms usually translates to Red or Silver choices. (Chila the Great, the first Memovira and the one human with whom the Bloom had the greatest rapport, is considered the living embodiment of the Silver Tide.) |
| 941 | * DerelictGraveyard: A starship and an airborne passenger train are among the vessels lodged inside the Bloom's guts. |
| 942 | * EldritchAbomination: A colossal amalgamation of flesh whose tendrils reach into other worlds, with little understanding and less regard for the comparatively tiny creatures it allows to colonize its living body. |
| 943 | * EmotionEater: Strong emotions are just one of the many things upon which the Bloom feeds. |
| 944 | * TheEmpath: Can sense strong emotions... and ''[[EmotionEater hungers]]'' for them. |
| 945 | * {{Expy}}: |
| 946 | ** A slow-motion [[Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness shoggoth]] big enough for people to live inside it. |
| 947 | ** The neighborhood inside is a slum of Sagus Cliffs populated by the poor and disposessed, ruled over by a crime lord, and riddled with portals to other worlds, elements it has in common with ''Planescape: Torment's'' Hive Ward, Buried Village, and the gate-town of Curst. [[spoiler:The [[BirdPeople murden]], psychic vermin-like [[BeastMan abhumans]], resemble the cranium rat collective in the Warrens of Thought, Many-As-One, on a much smaller scale -- but the manner in which you finally confront the Bloom's Heart is effectively that same moment taken up to eleven.]] |
| 948 | * EvilCounterpart: To the Sorrow. They're both {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that seem to operate on BlueAndOrangeMorality, but the Sorrow is ultimately a KnightTemplar acting in what it thinks is the best interests of the world while the Bloom is an openly amoral and selfish predator who admires and encourages predatory traits in others. The Bloom is one of the only beings in the Ninth World powerful enough to stand up to the Sorrow, so much so that the Changing God used one of the Bloom's Maws as an [[GodzillaThreshold emergency panic button]] for the city of Miel Avest if the Sorrow ever penetrated its defenses. The Sorrow's minions -- Sorrow Fragments -- and the Bloom's -- Corpuscular Maws -- are basically {{Palette Swap}}s of each other, one being made of shadow and one being made of gray flesh. |
| 949 | * GeniusLoci: {{Justified}}. A giant sentient meat-blob with a diffuse consciousness and PsychicPowers. |
| 950 | * GodzillaThreshold: The big {{reveal}} of Act Two is that the "panic button" the Changing God hid in the city of Miel Avest inside the feretory was one of the Bloom's Maws. |
| 951 | * MindHive: Is made up of millions of interconnected minds distributed throughout its vast, amorphous body -- some less than animal, some more brilliant than any human. |
| 952 | * PerpetualMotionMonster: It's advancing toward the ocean at a rate of perhaps an inch a year. Records in the region show that it's been traveling this way for thousands of years -- it wasn't always connected to Sagus Cliffs, for example. |
| 953 | * PickyPeopleEater: It won't eat just anyone. A Castoff with Scan Minds can pick up what an individual maw wants, but for most Bloom dwellers there's no choice but to experiment. It also doesn't kill everyone it eats -- sometimes it only takes a limb or a portion of its victim's thoughts or emotions. |
| 954 | * PortalCrossroadWorld: A rather unpleasant variant, and more of a neighborhood/slum than a whole world. |
| 955 | * PortalNetwork: Its maws, toothy orifices that open when fed what they desire, link to other planets, other dimensions, and even other times. |
| 956 | * PsychicPowers: Considerable ill-defined telepathic and empathic powers, along with its ability to create interdimensional shortcuts, and its corpuscular maws have to float somehow. |
| 957 | * TheSocialDarwinist: The Bloom sees itself as the ultimate apex predator, and seeks out other apex predators to consume their strength. To gain the Bloom's favor and become the Memovira requires proving your callous willingness to exploit and prey on others, and we get hints that even ordinary people living in the Bloom become more violent and feral over time based on its influence. |
| 958 | * SuperPersistentPredator: Once the Bloom decides it wants to eat you it won't give up until it does, even if it takes it decades or centuries to get past your defenses -- unlike a simple animal predator, ItCanThink and it holds grudges. It helps that, while the massive body of the Bloom itself can only move at the rate of about an inch a year, it can open Maws in arbitrary locations across all of time and space following laws only it understands. [[spoiler:One of the endings describes Matkina becoming the Memovira, then trying to avoid the fate of all Memoviras by fleeing across the desert to M'ra Jolios for ten years before the Bloom catches up with her.]] |
| 959 | * SymbolicHeroRebirth: A belly of the whale is the place of the Last Castoff's symbolic and literal rebirth following [[spoiler:the Sorrow's cataclysmic assault on Miel Avest and the revelation that the Changing God is alive in the form of the Specter and determined to reclaim your body for himself. The Bloom's own consciousness serves neatly as TheShapeshifter for this portion of the Castoff's [[TheHerosJourney Hero's Journey]].]] |
| 960 | * TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Despite the vast and decidedly alien intelligence of the Bloom, it's possible for the Last Castoff to communicate with it if you have the right skills. [[spoiler:If your Mind pool, Intellect defense, and Willpower skill are high enough, you can even temporarily beat back the Bloom's consciousness and take the knowledge you need from it, something not even your sire could claim.]] |
| 961 | * TranslatorMicrobes: Literally -- drinking "Bloom-juice" sends tiny microscopic fragments of the Bloom into your blood and your brain, allowing its voices to speak to you and influence your thoughts and actions. ''Comprehending'' this influence is another matter, though, and much of Act Three revolves around finding the Magmatic Annulet, a UniversalTranslator device used for this purpose by the Changing God. |
| 962 | * WombLevel: Caverns of meat differentiated into various organs, mouths, sphincters, and other structures. It's as gross as it sounds. Nevertheless, people have been living inside the thing long enough to build more conventional buildings as well, or take up residence in the various structures that have become lodged in the Bloom over the millennia. |
| 963 | [[/folder]] |
| 964 | |
| 965 | [[folder:The Memovira]] |
| 966 | !!The Memovira |
| 967 | ->''"So untrusting. So wise."'' |
| 968 | |
| 969 | The ruler of the Bloom, and not the first of her name. |
| 970 | ---- |
| 971 | * TheDon: The great benefit of being the Memovira is being able to open the [[PortalNetwork Bloom's]] many [[ExtraDimensionalShortcut maws]] and plunder other worlds at will, and several recent Memoviras have also been crime lords and patrons of thieves and assassins. |
| 972 | * EvilPowerVacuum: [[spoiler:In keeping with the Torment tradition of eschewing easy happy endings, if you pick what seems to be the "best" ending where neither you nor Matkina become the new Memovira because both of you pursue a life of compassion and peace, the fact that there ''is'' no Memovira throws the Bloom back into the bad old days of constant warfare and bloodshed, with only a few civilian survivors holeing up in the old Memovira's Fortress praying for a new one to arise.]] |
| 973 | * {{Expy}}: Takes on [[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment Pharod's]] role of a crime lord and QuestGiver with a mysterious interest in the player character. |
| 974 | * FluffyTamer: Being the Memovira means being a sapient humanoid person who's able to pull this trick on ''the Bloom'', the largest and most terrifying predatory animal in the multiverse. |
| 975 | * FriendlyNeighborhoodGangster: More or less rules the Bloom as her own personal fiefdom, or at least the courtyard surrounding her tower. She sets patrols and guards, policing the area as she sees fit. [[spoiler:The ongoing nuisance of the murden and the growing influence of Little Nihliesh are among several signs her power is waning, and her time as Memovira is coming to an end.]] |
| 976 | * LegacyCharacter: There have been a great many Memoviras, who only last as long as the Bloom favors them. What draws the Bloom's attention and what loses it are unclear, but the current Memovira has been in her role for about ten years, and the Bloom is already losing interest. |
| 977 | ** By all accounts, there's nothing at all pleasant about the way the Bloom disposes of the old Memovira when the time comes to choose a new one. [[spoiler:The previous Memovira is still alive, a withered, semitransparent shadow of his former self; barely recognizable to even Matkina, who served under him in his heyday.]] |
| 978 | * MouthOfSauron: The stated nature of the Memovira is as a "human interface" for the Bloom's HiveMind, although given that the Bloom is an EldritchAbomination with BlueAndOrangeMorality that barely seems aware of normal human-scale interactions, it's hard to say which party is exploiting which in this relationship. (Except for the fact that when the Bloom tires of the current Memovira it [[KlingonPromotion always ends poorly for them]].) |
| 979 | * TheReveal: [[spoiler:The current Memovira and the First Castoff are TwoAliasesOneCharacter; the First [[FakingTheDead faked her death]] a long time ago so she could pursue her schemes unmolested, one of which was seizing control of the Bloom.]] |
| 980 | * SchmuckBait: The eventual fate of all Memoviras is to have the Bloom betray them and be devoured by it once it tires of them. [[spoiler:Not even the first Memovira, Chila the Great, was an exception.]] The Changing God investigated the process of becoming the Memovira -- discovering the use of the Magmatic Annulet in the process -- but eventually rejected it as too dangerous and abandoned the Bloom after he got what he wanted from it. (It still wants to extract its price from him for doing this, and will take it from the Last Castoff if necessary.) |
| 981 | * TheStarscream: The title of Memovira normally passes by KlingonPromotion, but the current Memovira is especially disliked by the former one's minions -- including Matkina -- because of how in hindsight she clearly entered his service with the ulterior motive of overthrowing him to pursue her own private agenda from the beginning. Matkina is especially bitter that her first act was to send all of the old Memovira's minions into exile without even giving them a chance to choose their loyalty. |
| 982 | * TreacherousQuestGiver: She says she has no qualms about betraying [[spoiler:the First Castoff -- because she ''is'' the First Castoff --]], but she's not-so-secretly hoping you'll get yourself killed by the Bloom. |
| 983 | * WalkingSpoiler: She's not just the Memovira, she's also [[spoiler:the First, who's been FakingTheDead for centuries.]] |
| 984 | [[/folder]] |
| 985 | |
| 986 | [[folder:Dracogen]] |
| 987 | !!Dracogen |
| 988 | ->''"Inquisitive minds are the sharpest minds. Though perhaps the dullest to speak with."'' |
| 989 | |
| 990 | A fixer and numenera dealer of uncertain species who operates in the Bloom. |
| 991 | ---- |
| 992 | * AffablyEvil: He's always polite to the Last Castoff, and deals fairly with those who deal fairly with him. |
| 993 | * BestServedCold: Tybir owed him a favor, which he neglected to repay. The Dracogen's way of getting back at him is... [[RevengeByProxy elaborate]], to say the least. |
| 994 | * TheDon: The Dracogen is a prominent crime lord in the Steadfast (appearing in the tabletop game), which is far to the west of Sagus Cliffs and the Bloom. Although he's smart enough to know that he's on the Memovira's turf, and avoids stepping on her toes. |
| 995 | * DragonHoard: The most likely explanation for his motives is that [[spoiler:he's collecting treasure on behalf of the True Dracogen, a greedy dragon-like creature from another dimension.]] |
| 996 | * EvilVirtues: Dracogen is a man of his word. This is true whether he promises you a favor in exchange for your service, or whether he promises to kill you and your family for crossing him. |
| 997 | * TheFixer: Very effective at procuring items and favors. As long as he limits his activities to this, the Memovira seems content to let him hang around. |
| 998 | * IGaveMyWord: His credo. Whether that word is a promise or a threat depends. |
| 999 | * LegacyCharacter: Every human(oid) to bear the name "Dracogen" is actually [[spoiler:the representative of the "True Dracogen," a super-intelligent dragon-like creature. Presumably the real Dracogen knows that it needs agents who are less likely to excessively terrify the people it cuts deals with.]] |
| 1000 | * NobleDemon: See also EvilVirtues. He's a ruthless professional thief and is extremely dangerous to cross, but he is also scrupulously honest and equitable to the people he works with. |
| 1001 | * RevengeByProxy: He would dearly love to have a little chat with your friend Tybir. [[spoiler:Tybir has been ducking the Dracogen for years, after unspecified favors Dracogen did for him. If he hadn't, however, he would have known -- Tybir's beloved Auvigne came looking for him in the Bloom after Tybir vanished without a word. Dracogen didn't hurt him, but rather, took him for all he was worth, while searching for their mutual friend Tybir. Auvigne eventually died, in poverty and obscurity, having never found Tybir again. The Dracogen's revenge, then, is letting Tybir find all this out for himself, knowing that he will suffer for it in a way no beating or torture could match, exacting a revenge Auvigne never asked for and would have never wanted.]] BestServedCold, indeed. |
| 1002 | -->'''Dracogen:''' I want you to recall the many ways you could have [[spoiler:saved Auvigne. To think of how he might have died. To reflect on the depths of his devotion to you... and shallowness of yours to him.]] |
| 1003 | * {{Tuckerization}}: His name is a reference to the [[http://dracogen.com/ venture capital company]] founded and run by Steve Dengler, who was a major financial contributor to both this game and the ''Numenera'' tabletop RPG (in which the character also appears), as well as several other game projects. (You can also see the "Dracogen Inn" with an innkeeper named "Dengler" in ''VideoGame/PillarsOfEternity''.) |
| 1004 | [[/folder]] |
| 1005 | |
| 1006 | !Factions |
| 1007 | [[folder:The Order of Truth]] |
| 1008 | !!The Order of Truth |
| 1009 | ->''"Knowledge seekers, the learned who try to wrest secrets from the hearts of the prior worlds."'' %%They gather in the city to exchange their findings and help humanity to build a better future. %%Callistege |
| 1010 | |
| 1011 | A library and laboratory space shared by seekers of knowledge and working scientists and inventors, the Order is a wealthy but exclusive organization which seeks to relearn what humanity has forgotten about the numenera. |
| 1012 | ---- |
| 1013 | * AdventurerArchaeologist: Many of them operate this way, venturing into the abundant ruins that dot the Ninth World in search of Cyphers and other forgotten technologies. Just as often, however, they employ run-of-the-mill adventurers (and petty thugs) to do their dirty work for them, however. |
| 1014 | * CorruptChurch: Aligern defects from the Order and accuses them of having become corrupt and only interested in serving the interests of the wealthy and powerful -- largely because of his personal grudge at what he sees as them dragging their feet on helping him with his problem. [[spoiler:He changes his tune once Aeon Priest Orth Faung reveals to him that he finally has solved the mystery of the Black Frame.]] |
| 1015 | ** In terms of how corrupt they are from an objective POV, they actually seem to be a lot ''less'' so than their parent organization back home in the Steadfast (which is currently launching a KnightTemplar crusade against the Gaians for political reasons). Min of Tan Liang, their current leader, will freely (and wearily) admit to you that he works very hard to keep the Council of Sagus Cliffs happy in order to keep the Order's bills paid and its members out of prison, but trying to get the other Aeon Priests to go along with this agenda is like herding cats. |
| 1016 | * CrystalDragonJesus: All the trappings of the medieval Christian church, much of the same organizational structure, and the same role within society as a whole, but adamantly secular, even though its members are called Aeon ''Priests''. More pronounced in the tabletop game than in ''Tides'', however, since Sagus Cliffs is so far removed from the Order's power center of the Steadfast that it's unlikely the Amber Papacy even knows of their existence -- the Order in the city is even more secular and informal than its parent church. |
| 1017 | * DoingInTheWizard: Quite determined to prove that the numenera is just technology they don't understand, with a marked dislike of using more mystical terms to describe it. |
| 1018 | * ForScience: The truth they seek is that of the numenera, the collected knowledge and science of the ancient world. |
| 1019 | * GadgeteerGenius: What they aspire to be. Membership requires some proof of the applicant's expertise in the numenera. |
| 1020 | * MadScientistLaboratory: The Order in Sagus Cliffs has all the appearance of one: beakers, tubes, books, sparking lights. and weird organic amalgamations. At one time it was a starship, but it hasn't functioned in millennia. |
| 1021 | * MagicFromTechnology: The area of their expertise is the numenera. |
| 1022 | * OurFounder: There's a large statue of the founder of the Order in Sagus Cliffs outside their headquarters -- Diviaticu, a [[AliensAmongUs varjellen]] [[GadgeteerGenius nano]]. [[spoiler:Who was actually the Changing God at the time. You meet his castoff self as a reflection later on.]] |
| 1023 | * WizardingSchool: Either this or Mad Science University, take your pick. One of the various options for advising the mutant Piquo is to suggest he see if the Order will take him on as a student. Turns out that, after a little donation, they will. |
| 1024 | [[/folder]] |
| 1025 | |
| 1026 | [[folder:The Cult of the Changing God]] |
| 1027 | !!The Cult of the Changing God |
| 1028 | ->''"We seek to study you... so that we can become more like you."'' %%Casmeen |
| 1029 | |
| 1030 | The Changing God's true believers, who gather to study his works and offer their services to his castoffs. |
| 1031 | ---- |
| 1032 | * {{Cult}}: [[AtLeastIAdmitIt Helpfully,]] they put it right in the name. They're fairly innocuous as cults go, doing little more than camping out in Circus Minor, offering a few items for sale and a place to rest for those who can't afford a proper rooming house. |
| 1033 | * CultOfPersonality: Subverted. They worship the Changing God, with varying degrees of literalness, but he barely even acknowledges their existence. They like to believe that they can bring themselves closer to him by serving and aiding his castoffs, but they don't seem to realize that the Changing God sees his castoffs as even less than human, nothing but tools to be used. They have little in the way of power or influence in Sagus Cliffs, and are generally written off as crackpots at worst, and irrelevant at best. |
| 1034 | * ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: They're a cult that worships the Changing God. |
| 1035 | * ForScience: A few of the cult's members venerate the Changing God with something less than religious devotion, but rather seek to devote themselves to the study of the numenera and attain a measure of the Changing God's knowledge... and power. |
| 1036 | * AGodAmI: The player character has the option of convincing the cultists that s/he is, in fact, the Changing God... |
| 1037 | * AGodIAmNot: ...but you can also deny it, or just freely admit you're not. |
| 1038 | * INeverSaidItWasPoison: The Cult of the Changing God aren't as much the WideEyedIdealist as they seem. If you try to claim to be the Changing God, Casmeen and Mimeon will try to catch you out with this kind of trick -- having been played by castoffs claiming to still be the Changing God's host before -- and if they succeed they ''will'' hold it against you. |
| 1039 | * KingIncognito: There's always the chance that their god could walk among them in a new body, and they'd never know it. There are even a number of castoffs living in the city who the Cult never knew about. |
| 1040 | * ProperlyParanoid: It wouldn't be the first time a castoff tried to pass themselves off as the Changing God, so before accepting you as their god, they ask a [[SarcasmMode grueling series]] of [[RuleOfThree three questions]] to prove you are who you say you are. Of course, you can just use a Tidal Surge to [[MoreThanMindControl force them]] to greet you with the respect due to their god. |
| 1041 | * ReligionOfEvil: Subverted. The cult doesn't actually know enough about the Changing God to emulate him, and are benevolent and community-minded, eager to help one another follow in the Changing God's footsteps -- all qualities and goals their figure of worship decidedly does not share. They're well-intentioned, but for the most part ineffectual. |
| 1042 | [[/folder]] |
| 1043 | |
| 1044 | [[folder:The Dendra O'hur]] |
| 1045 | !!The Dendra O'hur |
| 1046 | ->''"Death is a waste of history. We eat the dead that we might remember the lessons of time."'' %%Melmoth Leviarm |
| 1047 | |
| 1048 | A cannibal cult, they believe that the strength and knowledge of those they devour will pass on to them. Worshipping their Great Queen Sar'Lavun, the Lady of Maggots, they roam the land in search of new prey, cloaked in rags and tatters and leaving only gnawed bones in their wake. |
| 1049 | |
| 1050 | ---- |
| 1051 | * CannibalismSuperpower: They have mastered a technique, presumably relying on some form of numenera, which allows them to consume the bodies of the dead and absorb their memories. They avoid most of the problems inherent in doing this (parasites, diseases, some forms of brain damage) by using tubes that grind up and sterilize the meat before consuming it. |
| 1052 | * DarkIsNotEvil: Yeah, they're a bunch of freaky cannibals. But they don't kill the ones they eat, Imbitu and Gh'zei are perfectly affable people, and the ones who aren't didn't get that way from the Dendra. Should the player character's body fall into their grasp and come back to life they'll ''very politely'' request to continue, paying handsomely for the privilege and offering making sure whatever information they gain goes to the one they took it from. Imbitu even apologises for how vague it is. With Gh'zei, a nonhuman from a world where funereal cannibalism is routine, it verges on BlueAndOrangeMorality |
| 1053 | * EatBrainForMemories: Except they don't stop at the brain. |
| 1054 | * {{Expy}}: Of ''PST''[='s=] Dustmen and Collectors, with the latter's position in the city of collecting the bodies of the dead, and the former's necromantic powers and grave appearance. Their emphasis on preserving the knowledge of the dead and cannibalism are uniquely their own, although they also slightly resemble the ghouls who lived in Sigil's undercity. |
| 1055 | * ForScience: Established to safeguard knowledge by their vanished founder Melmoth. |
| 1056 | -->'''Melmoth Leviarm:''' Each of the Dendra is a library of experience. [...] Every life that vanishes is a loss. Every person has a story. The secret keys of history hide there. I want truth. I want exposure. I want knowledge to ''live.'' |
| 1057 | * ImAHumanitarian: They're cannibals, although they don't kill those they eat. Or at least they're not supposed to -- it's their function in the city to collect the dead and dispose of the bodies. They try it on the Last Castoff, should they happen to die within Sagus Cliffs somewhere the body will be located, but the Castoff wakes up before they go ahead. They'll offer to continue anyway -- but only with your permission, of course, and the promise that they'll share what ''you'' know from the memories they harvest from your flesh. |
| 1058 | * InterrogatingTheDead: A core tenet of the faction is the preservation of knowledge by absorbing the memories of the dead. One even functions as a public servant -- the Devourer of Wrongs, who consumes the bodies of executed criminals to help expose accomplices and locate stolen property. The dead occasionally seem to be [[AndIMustScream aware during this process]], and occasionally resist, falling into this trope. |
| 1059 | -->'''Melmoth:''' You get the occasional disease, a strong mind that doesn't want to share its memories with you, but everyone wants to be remembered. Talk to the voices long enough, they realize you're their only true heir. |
| 1060 | * MeaningfulName: The name of their leader Imbitu is probably derived from "imbibe", which means both drinking, usually alcohol, and absorbing knowledge. Knowing his penchant for puns, it's quite possible he came up with it himself. |
| 1061 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Their patron goddess, the Great Queen Sar'Lavun, the Lady of Maggots. |
| 1062 | * NightmareFuelStationAttendant: Current leader Imbitu is a perfectly pleasant old man who's just a ''little'' too fond of morbid humor, and seems to enjoy [[CollectorOfTheStrange collecting misfits and ne'er-do-wells]] to fill out the Dendra's modern ranks. |
| 1063 | -->'''Imbitu:''' Oh dear. They really ''are'' a suspicious lot, aren't they? Mallet enjoys hurting people, Kiyatawa tells her little lies, and Gh'zei... well. She's quite ''unique''. All in all, they're a horrifying bunch, aren't they? I hadn't really noticed before. |
| 1064 | * TimeAbyss: Even the ones who aren't hundreds of years old may well contain the memories of their forebears, in effect gaining the memories and experience of many lifetimes. |
| 1065 | [[/folder]] |
| 1066 | |
| 1067 | [[folder:The Endless Gate]] |
| 1068 | !!The Children of the Endless Gate |
| 1069 | ->''"See us! Claim us!"'' |
| 1070 | |
| 1071 | Death worshipers, some call them. They think of themselves as spirits trapped in flesh, and the horror of their cage pushes them to atrocity. They call themselves liberators and agents of freedom, and they leave no evidence of their passing but a tracery in blood. |
| 1072 | |
| 1073 | ---- |
| 1074 | * BloodKnight: A small, close-knit army of serial killers who relish violence and torture and seek to bring the 'gift' of painful death to as many people as possible. |
| 1075 | -->'''Klin'Kar:''' I will flay the skin from your muscles, the muscles from your bones, and free your light into the Endless Gate! |
| 1076 | * CatchPhrase: The above "See us! Claim us!" |
| 1077 | * DeathSeeker: Missionaries of death who seek to free others from the prison of the flesh, and welcome their deaths in bloody battle. |
| 1078 | * {{Expy}}: They take on the Dustmen's belief that the mortal body is a prison, while their enemies the Memorialists believe that there is a better life awaiting us once we surrender our ties to this one. Believing the former without the latter turns out to make the Endless Gate into a bunch of ravening murderers. |
| 1079 | * NonIndicativeName: Lampshaded: |
| 1080 | -->'''Mallet:''' Strange name, though. If it don't end, it ain't much of a gate, is it? It's more of a hallway. |
| 1081 | * RenegadeSplinterFaction: They split off from the Dendra O'Hur years ago. While they disdain cannibalism of dead bodies, they're far more violent to the living. |
| 1082 | [[/folder]] |
| 1083 | |
| 1084 | [[folder:The Memorialists]] |
| 1085 | !!The Memorialists |
| 1086 | ->''"This world is the afterlife, and the graves here are our own."'' |
| 1087 | |
| 1088 | A small cult who inhabit the Valley of Dead Heroes and the Necropolis, self-appointed caretakers who spend their days researching the pasts of those interred there. They believe the Ninth World is the afterlife, and seek a way to return to the real world memorialized by the Valley and its countless gravestones. |
| 1089 | ---- |
| 1090 | * DeadAllAlong: The core of their belief -- everyone in this world is dead, and it is only through acknowledging this that one can begin to find their way out of the EpiphanicPrison of this reality. |
| 1091 | * DeathSeeker: Considerably nicer than the Endless Gate, seeking mostly to curate the tombs of the Necropolis and give aid to pilgrims, and certainly not hastening anybody to the better world they describe. They do believe, however, that it is only through their deaths in this world that they will find their way to the "true" afterlife. |
| 1092 | * EpiphanicPrison: Everyone in the Ninth World has in fact been DeadAllAlong, trapped in a false afterlife. The Memorialists believe the countless graves of the Necropolis hold some secret which will allow them to transcend this world and go on to something better. |
| 1093 | * {{Expy}}: Like the Dendra O'hur and the two cults' mutual enemies in the Endless Gate, they represent another aspect of the original ''Torment'''s Dustmen, in this case the belief that the world in which they "live" is actually the afterlife, an EpiphanicPrison from which they seek some escape. |
| 1094 | * {{Protectorate}}: The Memorialists dedicate themselves to tending the Necropolis and its surroundings, learning as much as they can of those interred there, in the hopes that they can find some hint to their own past lives that they might also escape from this false life. |
| 1095 | [[/folder]] |
| 1096 | |
| 1097 | [[folder:Bloom Cultists]] |
| 1098 | !!The Extremities of the Great Devourer |
| 1099 | ->''"To be devoured is to know salvation!"'' |
| 1100 | |
| 1101 | Worshipers of the Bloom, an interdimensional parasite the size of a city and whose countless maws open to other planets, other times, and other dimensions. The Bloom's cultists seek to feed its hunger for things which may be physical and may be wholly conceptual, yet for the most part they remain beneath its notice. |
| 1102 | |
| 1103 | ---- |
| 1104 | * BlueAndOrangeMorality: In embracing the Bloom as their god, they must accept that its whims are entirely alien and its perspective one that regards individual humans as something infinitely lesser than itself. This means that the Bloom Cultists' actions are barely comprehensible even to themselves. |
| 1105 | * GoneMadFromTheRevelation: Living inside [[WombLevel the Bloom]] isn't exactly conducive to one's sanity to begin with. Communing with the Bloom by imbibing its fluids and volunteering their bodies to its maws hasn't helped most cultists any. |
| 1106 | * JunkieProphet: Most of the cultists are hooked on bloom juice, one of the various... secretions produced by the Bloom. It causes visual and especially auditory hallucinations produced by a temporary telepathic connection between the drinker and the Bloom's MindHive. |
| 1107 | * MadOracle: Of the standing-on-a-street-corner, ranting-and-handing-out-pamphlets variety. |
| 1108 | [[/folder]] |
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