- Name: Thirturas
- Titles: The Devourer of Knowledge, the Guide of the Universe, the Leader of Evolution.
- Age: One of the most ancient dragons. Has been around ever since humans decided to live together in a community.
- Gender: Male.
- Category: When put on paper, Thirturas' intentions seem noble, but it's his methods that put him in the category of 'villain. He doesn't seem like one, though, from his rather calm method of speaking to his disgust in regards to violence.
- Appearance: Years of living underground have given Thirturas' body a decrepit nature.
- Personality: An avid lover of knowledge, Thirturas is a scientific man, believing that every action must have a justification based on facts. Ideas as 'subjectivity' hold no grounds with him, as he 'knows' that every action, be it social, physical or psychological can be explained no matter the circumstances that surround it. As such, he completely despises faith, belief, hope, and other childish concepts such as those. He chides those that want to be glorified as gods, not only because he thinks gods are entirely different beings, but also because he does not enjoy violence. He does not even see it as a necessary evil. Violence, in his opinion, brings out factors which interfere with the sanctity of the scientific method, and as such, whoever holds a position of power must remove said emotions through biological means if he wants to exercise his power in the correct manner.
- Abilities:
- The Mind of a Thousand Years: Thirturas' mind is a powerful organ. It possesses the ability to never forget any information, no matter how small or how detailed, that has been relayed to Thirturas. He knows what happened on every day of his life. He can obtain this knowledge through the usual methods (listening and reading) but he may also consume it by eating any other living beings. Knowledge has an addictive taste for him, and as such, if given one page of a book or a bite of an ancient being, he will never stop until he has read the entire book and devoured every bit of knowledge said being has. He can also share his knowledge with other beings.
- Strength of Mind: Thirturas can use his knowledge as various kinds of weapons. With his ability to share knowledge, he may 'bomb' a lesser being's mind with more than it can process, causing an internal failure on it (he requires physical contact for this). And since his knowledge of the inner workings of his body is so precise, he can control it to the tiniest detail. If he has a wound, he may direct his body to focus on healing it. If he desires to expand his wings, he can direct his body towards making them bigger. This organic manipulation can also be used for him to change his shape, although, in a rare sign of pride, he often adds telltale signs of his true form- such as fangs, horns and wings- to his human form.
- Weakness: His ability to manipulate the inner workings of his body can only be used on one section of the body at a time (regenerating his wings can leave other parts of his body open for stronger attacks). The addictive taste of knowledge can be used to distract him from his main objective as well. True to the law of Conservation of Mass, Thirturas can only get smaller, never bigger, and when in human form, he has the same weight as in his true form.
- Assets:
- Hoard: Books. Books. So many books. As mentioned before, the act of obtaining and consuming knowledge is pleasure incarnate for Thirturas. By not having to deal with gold, gems, and noisy adventurers (through methods which we will touch upon in his backstory), Thirturas has managed to amass a book collection that spans millennia and that occupies every nook and cranny of his underground lair. It is said that he has one copy of every book ever produced in the history of this world, and he quite enjoys this rumor. Every book is taken care of and maintained on its pristine, original state. The mere thought of one of them having a scratch on the cover or a bent corner drives him insane, so he has obtained a cult of followers, whose only reason for existence is keeping an eye on his books and making sure they're still in great condition (and as he can remember pretty much everything, trying to hide a tiny scratch or trying to take away a book is almost impossible- for more information on the cult, see backstory). As such, his lair is...
- Lair: ... the city of Sjir. Initially, it was nothing more than an empty plain in the middle of a forest, located underneath an expansive cave system which Thirturas called home in his initial years. However, in the beginning of the experiments that would later shape his life's desire, Thirturas began to do some work on the area, making it look enticing for nearby humans, who began to build on the area. This area, over the years, has evolved to become the birthplace of some of humanity's biggest inventions in the field of communications, and that was all because of Thirturas (see the backstory for more information). The printing press was invented on Sjir, and the first library was built there too. As such, living underneath the city, Thirturas has direct access to the latest batch of books, newspapers, scrolls, and anything he could desire.
- History:
- In the beginning, Thirturas was satisfied with what he knew of the world. It was big, it was his, there was plenty of food to eat, what else could he ask for? On one of his trips to the surface, he consumed a lone human that was trying to look for a new hunting place, and what he found was simply too delicious to pass up. He felt the thoughts of this human melting into his tongue, his scales shivering as every word entered his brain and he was faced with the fascinating theories that this... mortal had on his mind. That was the spark that activated his first desire: to know everything. As such, Thirturas quickly got to work on gobbling up a few other lone humans, but he figured out pretty quickly that if there was one thing that made these humans angry, it was their fear. This fear... it was a very powerful weapon, and Thirturas knew that eventually, they would use it to join forces against the winged beasts that populated his land.
- Interested, he dressed up the area above his cave, and devised hidden surface entrances to be used temporarily. As humans started settling in it, Thirturas began to make appearances in the middle of the night, bathed in the shining moon, projecting his voice as if he was an angel, declaring his intent to protect and to defend this city as long as they never dug underground. Through constant visits and the occasional gift, he soon gained the adoration of the city's population. But that wasn't his objective... he didn't want a religion. He wanted customs to be created after his demands, and for them to become so engrained into the common consciousness of the people that they didn't question why they never dug into the earth and came up with alternate reasons to do so. His visits became more sporadic, and he started to disguise certain actions as Mother Nature acting out against any attempts at digging. What was once something the city of Sjir didn't do to please 'the Guide of the Universe' became something they didn't do to avoid having their city destroyed.
- As the city- and humanity- continued to advance, Thirturas focused his attention on a smaller project. He kidnapped several women who didn't have many connections to the people, ensuring that they would never be remembered. Adopting a human form, he went to bed with several of them, controlling his body so that the would produce offsprings with a biological penchant for submissiveness, by removing genes associated with anger, the desire to revolt, and others. As time passed, he would adopt other forms, always making sure that the next generation would be more submissive than the other, trying to control the natural evolution of his little pets. Eventually, he created a generation that would obey to his every command because it was on his nature. These became the Followers of Evolution, a cult that would serve as his contact between him and the human world. Through the cult, he gave suggestions and ideas to humans, allowing them to come up with new technologies. He had created a knowledge farm, and every week, new scrolls and parchment would come for him to devour.
- Time passed, and Thirturas watched, through cult messengers, as his kin disappeared and as the lesser species gained more ground. He knew that if his plan was to succeed, he would have to disappear. For approximately four years, he ravaged through the world, devouring other species to increase his repertoire, before going down into a glorious battle that was certain to be recorded in the history books. Of course, he had merely faked his death, returning to his cave. From then on, he would only leave it when he needed to contact his fellow dragons. And even then, he'd always fly under the guise of the night, as for the humans, Thirturas was dead. Other dragons took pleasure in knowing something the humans didn't. Through this, Thirturas saw how his actions, how his rampage upon the world, had influenced certain cities to adopt stronger security methods. This, combined with the Followers, made him realize what his real desire was.
- He didn't want to know everything, he wanted to control everything. Knowing everything was just the step towards that plan. If he knew everything, he'd be able to guide this world to a utopia created by him, to the best place it could go. If left to its own devices, the world would destroy itself, eventually. Remembering his old title given to him by the citizens of Sjir, Thirturas decided that this was his mission in this world: to become the Guide of the Universe. To control every action, every choice, every event, every moment of the lives of the beings that populated his world. He would choose who worked and who studied, who died and who lived, who commanded and who procreated... yes, that was it. He even saw in his books how this was the only destiny for him- 'it is the mission of those with power to control the lives of those without it so that society may advance towards utopia'.
- But he needed to prepare if he wanted to make this plan come true. Thirturas continued with his indirect control over Sjir: he consumed their knowledge through the Followers, and for any extra information he needed, he'd eat a being the Followers had captured. Through the Followers, he'd also study his methods for controlled evolution, subjecting them to experiments and seeing what different genes did to each one of them. Years, decades, centuries passed... and now the time has come. Thirturas objective is to rise again, to become all-powerful and to save this world from self-destruction. And, of course, after this world, there were many other worlds to save...
edited 5th Sep '14 8:26:59 PM by TheBigBean
Finished cleaning up my post.
edited 6th Sep '14 5:23:12 AM by sgtpendulum
http://www.last.fm/user/sgtpendulum Yo, check out what I'm listening, it'll be heat, brah :^)Yeah, I think I'm probably going to end up on a waiting list. I think there are already six quality sign-ups at this point so if I join, it's probably because someone drops out.
Because someone always drops out, it's a natural expectation of Play-by-Post Games.
Some people say I'm lazy. It's hard to disagree.Well, it looks like there's a number of sign-ups thus far, but since it's by acceptance rather than post order, I suppose I'll give this a shot.
- Name: Nor-Rokkus
- Titles: "The Wander", "Great Wandering Dragon", and other variations on the title; "Deathfire"; "The Great Inquisitor"; "Lord of the Winds"; "King of Castle Ajanya"
- Age: Relatively young - Nor-Rokkus was first born just about the dawn of when humans and elves were figuring out how to get their act together and make civilization happen.
- Gender: Undoubtedly Male
- Category: "Pragmatic" - Technically, he's probably a neutral leaning towards good, though his actions usually wind up pointing him towards the good side of the scale. Not that he has any problem doing things that most would probably consider evil if he deems it in his best interests.
- Appearance:
- Think a more slender version of Niv-Mizzet and you'll start to get a basic idea of what he looks like. In full-size dragon form, he's in the general range of your standard western-style Dragon. Big, wings and four limbs and a long tail. He's mostly red in color with a dark-blue tint. While scaly, he's smooth to the touch and his scales form together to where they almost feel like a soft, leathery skin. He's got a rather aerodynamic build and appearance, aside from a couple of cool-looking horns on the back of his skull. And perhaps some leathery 'plumes' of what come off as the dragon-version of 'hair' on the back of his head.
- Is capable of shrinking to appear to be a humanoid version of his dragon self, complete with what looks like a simple cloak the he learned to conjure up.
- Personality: Curious and self-assured, Nor-Rokkus loathe inactivity. Whether fighting or simply investigating things - sometimes without actually learning anything - Nor-Rokkus loves it when he's able to be doing, well, something. He's also a very pragmatic individual, interested in the big picture. While he has no doubt of the inherent superiority of dragon-kind, he also thinks it's foolish to simply dismiss lesser species as beneath him. Rather, he's far more interested in learning from and about them, believing that he can benefit himself by aiding those who might in turn be able to owe him favors or allegiance.
He's grown particularly interested in the likes of mankind, elves, dwarves, and others over the years due to his fascination with just how much they've managed to accomplish and build despite their small size and relatively inferior nature - something that he thinks is particularly worthy of note. Of special interest is the various trinkets, weapon, machines, and all other manner of things they have successfully created the likes of which have allowed them to grow into the civilizations they are today.
To this end, Nor-Rokkus is far more interested in forming alliances with lesser species - with them recognizing him as the superior party, of course - than outright destroying or tyrannizing them. While he certainly doesn't settle for anything short of some kind of rulership, he also recognizes that offering them protection or wisdom or other assets he possesses as a dragon is likely to be much more beneficial and offer much greater rewards in the long-run. After all, happy, unterrorized subjects are productive subjects. - Abilities:
- Speed - Nor-Rokkus is fast. Once he's hit his stride in the open skies, Nor-rokkus can reach top speeds that approach the speed of sound. Even when he's not moving at top speed, you'll be hard pressed to find anything that can match his combination of pure speed, agility, and reflexes on land or air. He can also modify his use of this power to create great gusts of wind with his wings, though he can't really control the winds themselves and they mostly just blow stuff around, friend and foe alike.
- Breath Weapon - Nor-Rokkus can use his breath to form a deadly fire breath, capable of shooting out in what appears to be a straight-shooting beam. At it's highest temperatures, his fire breath is capable of melting solid rock or boiling small lakes to a steam. At it's lowest, it's as 'relatively harmless' as a simple friendly campfire. As an extension of this, Nor-Rokkus is incredible heat resistant - he could dive straight into a lake of hot magma and it would feel about as comfortable as swimming around in a hot-tub.
- Sonic Screech - A variation of his fire beam, Nor-Rokkus can uses his voice to unleash a bone-shattering shockwave. Much like his wind gusts, however, he doesn't have much control of it beyond hurting everyone it hits.
- Weaknesses:
- "OOO! SHINEY!" - Nor-Rokkus' curiosity has its downsides. Specifically in that sometimes he's too curious for his own good.
- Nor-Rokkus may be powerful, but's he lacks discernment in battle. Most his life he's managed to get along pretty well simply with his speed and firepower. He's kind of grown complacent about his abilities, meaning he's got a massive weakness waiting to be exploited by outsmarting him in combat.
- While he's fast in the air and to a lesser degree on land, water gives him a lot of trouble. Usually, if he has a problem with water, he'll just be inclined to boil it all away, but if anyone could submerge him his speed would be all but neutralized until he got back on dry land.
- In his smaller, humanoid form, his powers are limited mostly by his physical nature. While still super-strong by human terms, he loses much of his strength and his speed is severely limited. The only thing that's not severely limited by his humanoid form are his heat breath and sonic screech. Anyone who could catch him off-guard while he's in his humanoid form or trap him in such a state would leave him as a severe disadvantage.
- Assets:
- Lair: These days, Nor-Rokkus makes his home at Castle Ajanya. Centered around a tall and once magnificent keep, Castle Ajanya was once the stronghold capital of a kingdom that has long since vanished, torn apart by wars and stronger rivals. Not long ago, both the tower and castle had fallen into disrepair, though since Nor-Rokkus arrival both have started to see things turn around by what few people have remained there.
Castle Ajanya is also surrounded by what was once a magnificent city, but now it is largely abandoned and features a mere fraction of the population it housed at its height. What few people still live there - now under Nor-Rokkus' protection and rule - have mostly migrated to the inner regions of the city and begun work restoring and reviving the place. As of now, it mostly resembles a small fishing community.
The city that Castle Ajanya inhabits is located in an easily-defended gulf area surrounded by a mountain range, offering great access to those who can't fly either by a series of roads that are in great disrepair or by boat.
**Hoard: Stored in the tower of Castle Ajanya is a small amount of gold and riches, but these Nor-Rokkus doesn't care much about. His true treasure is all manner of trinkets and artifacts and machines built by the various races of the world, from elves to human to dwarves to other assorted species. While most were acquired more or less legitimately, a few of the items were stolen. The rarer, the more unusual, and the more advanced, the better.
- Lair: These days, Nor-Rokkus makes his home at Castle Ajanya. Centered around a tall and once magnificent keep, Castle Ajanya was once the stronghold capital of a kingdom that has long since vanished, torn apart by wars and stronger rivals. Not long ago, both the tower and castle had fallen into disrepair, though since Nor-Rokkus arrival both have started to see things turn around by what few people have remained there.
- Misc: Nor-Rokkus currently occupies the barely-inhabited ruins of a once great city, doing so by offering the citizens there his protection and services as a dragon in exchange for their servitude. It is his hope that he can one day see the city restored to its former glory and perhaps even expand to create his own kingdom - not for power or land in and of itself, but for the benefits that he thinks comes from having more people producing stuff under his command.
- History: Nor-Rokkus was born just as humans and elves were starting to get their act together and change from the primitives they were to the civilized races they are today. Naturally curious from birth, Nor-Rokkus was not content to stick to the region where he was born, and soon traveled the world.
In doing so, Nor-Rokkus quickly began to learn a great deal about the world, even as he watched civilization rise and kingdoms subsequently fall. Among the things he learned was the benefits of mutually-beneficial agreements. In doing this, he began to exploit his status as a dragon to trade with the up and coming peoples of the worlds in exchange for whatever caught his fancy at the time. Basically, he lived most his youth as the dragon version of a mercenary when he wasn't busy being inquisitive and looking into whatever news caught his fancy.
As he traveled the world, word of the "Wandering Dragon" spread, becoming a minor legend across the various tales of assorted kingdoms, some of which passed on the legend as they fell and were replaced, though others lost knowledge of Nor-Rokkus as decades, then centuries, went by without seeing him show up again.
In time, Nor-Rokkus grew tired of traveling the world. While part of this was result of figuring that any lands he hadn't seen yet couldn't be that different from the ones he had, the main reason was that he found it difficult to acquire a collection of the various artifacts and machines he grew increasingly interested in if he was always on the move. So he began looking for a place where he could finally call 'home'. He eventually found it at Castle Ajanya, the remains of a once great city that he thought would make for a fun fixer-upper project even as he used it to store his stuff and maybe figure out how to build some new things of his own.
edited 6th Sep '14 9:53:43 AM by TheSpaceJawa
Oh, this looks so much fun.
I was thinking of a dragon so horribly disfigured - due to magicks of old - that you wouldn't tell it's a dragon from appearance alone. Was using this image
◊ for reference when thinking out the idea.
If that would be off-limits, I'm fine with coming up with something different however.
Sorry for disappearing last night, internet troubles. And going by the number of dragons I have to review, I'm closing submissions for now. That'll probably change in the future, but for now I need to keep things at a manageable number.
I'll start looking over everyone shortly.
- EDIT:
- Flexible Silver dragon, is looking shapely. Adelinde-
- The Bloody-Blood dragon, dripping his way to victory. Sangorius the Bloodseeker-
- The Jerk with an unbeatable name is in. Klovengaar'Zoldivur'Thurgruthlaat-
- Brain-Dragon is thinking his way to victory. Thirturas-
- The Collecting-Dragon's collection is now open. Nor-Rokkus-
- Flexible Silver dragon, is looking shapely. Adelinde-
- That's along with:
- Necro-Dragon, Pehi'rahk'shike -
- The Human-whisperer, Kun Wen Yuen -
- Big Bad Bowser's Bigger Brother, Graga -
- Necro-Dragon, Pehi'rahk'shike -
- So that brings us to our line-up:
- Nor-Rokkus — The Space Jawa
- Thirturas — The Big Bean
- Klovengaar'Zoldivur'Thurgruthlaat — Gladonost
- Pehi'rahk'shike — Bassetete
- Kun Wen Yuen — sgtpendulum (Just remember to keep your posts clear, and your fine)**Kruach Mor — Vox
- Graga — goodisgood
- Sangorius the Bloodseeker — Nman
- Adelinde — daltar
For now, that will be everyone. Like I said, that will probably change in time, once I feel I have a good handle on things. I'll be putting up a discussion thread up soon, and we'll probably start the game proper sometime next week.
edited 6th Sep '14 9:01:54 AM by dungeonguy88
Sweet! So when's the RP post gonna be up?
edited 6th Sep '14 9:15:38 AM by sgtpendulum
http://www.last.fm/user/sgtpendulum Yo, check out what I'm listening, it'll be heat, brah :^)I took a look at the Aztec-style dragon. I just had to catch up on a lot of submissions at once. And it's solid, but I kind of want to start small, in number of players, and work up. I've already gone over the number I wanted to start out with, and I feel like I might get in over my head if I had anyone else to the line-up right now. Keep him here, and if space opens up, or if I feel like I can handle more players, Topiltzin will be at the top of my list.
EDIT:
And players probably won't be dying left and right. If anyone dies it'll be with it's players input, and will be used to open up new plots and the like. I'm not terribly worried.
edited 6th Sep '14 11:36:00 AM by dungeonguy88

edited 5th Sep '14 8:00:21 PM by Gladonost
/人◕ ‿‿ ◕人\ Will you make a contract with me?