My history was not supposed to be so long...
Oh well, gogo mythology mishmash, with some originality sprinkled in for flavour.
Known Name: Stareater, Dweller in the Darkness, Hollow Dreamer
Actual Name: (Pm this information, as knowledge of this allows certain mechanics to be activated)
Ideals:
The propagation of the number eight, arachnids, octopi and darkness.
To smell the scent of a flower covered with the blood of blind child, at least once a year, thereafter the flower must be dissolved in acid.
To read with the touch of fingers upon writing.
If a fowl is slaughtered, it's heart must be crushed under a bare foot.
If you trip over a tortoise you must feast upon it's flesh within a eight days.
Followers must consume something toxic at least once every eight years.
Sleep dreams must be recorded. Waking dreams must never be shared with anyone.
Scatter mothdust over your threshold once every eight months.
Repulsive Ideas:The destruction of light, of sight, of eyes. The sun is the greatest foe, the moon its vile ally. Any follower must be missing function in at least one eye, whether from deliberate maiming/removal or other reasons. Blindfolds are encouraged. Lighthouses must be razed to the ground, streetlamps snuffed out, fireflies exterminated, eyes gouged from their sockets.
Time unchained is anathema, it must be bound by clocks and calendars, by schedules and recorded histories, future and past, corralled, the present, imprisoned by constant ticking.
If a beetle or millipede is seen, must vomit to purify self, preferably on it.
May not build wooden buildings
History:The Stareater was old when the world was newborn. When the Sunbeetle broke open the cage of dark imprisoning the earth's heart of fire and stole the sun, pushing it high, high into the sky, where the Stareater could not reach. The Stareater was shimmering with fury, and even as it desperately tried to repair the hole in the nets of darkness, even more sparks of fire slipped through, burning it in their passing. The stars flickered into the sky, joining the Sunbeetle, gathering around the bigger light as was in their nature.
The bright shining burned the very soul of the Stareater as it chased after them, onto the surface, causing it to begin shriveling up even as it desperately fled into the protective embrace of the earth. But the sun could not last forever. Each night the Sunbeetle had to push it past the horizon, into the earth, all the way back to the heart of fire. This regular travel created pinholes in the darkcage that the Stareater eventually gave up on repairing, fire pushing through the pinholes up to the surface, erupting into fire mountains.
The Stareater seethed, but it was patient, it was cunning. The Sun was too bright, too strong to attack directly. But each night the Sunbeetle entered the earth, it was followed by its flock of stars. The clever Stareater, stalked this flock, and if any star wandered off from the main swarm it would quickly catch them in webs of darkness. The darkwebs did not burn and did not melt, and the stars were caught fast.
The Stareater flowed in hunger as it stared at them, but it feared to eat this catch, the prey would burn it up from the inside out. Hunger and spite warred with caution, twisting the Stareater into a paroxysm of knots, what was it to do with these stars? As it was gripped by indecision, its hate and anger grew and grew feasting eagerly upon frustration, growing and growing, bigger and bigger, until finally it began to slowly seep out of its manifestations, and drip-dripped onto the stars.
How strange the stars became when the hate given liquid form dripped on them, yet to its joy the Stareater found that this transformation allowed to eat them without worry. Indeed doing so granted strength and power! Slowly, each night the Stareater would stalk the swarm and grab a few stars. The Sunbeetle was at a loss, for the stars were simple things and it could not get them to stop following.
It was then that the moon, which had been hiding in the sky, showed its face, pale white, shining with a clear steady light. It offered to look after the stars when the beetle traveled into the earth. The beetle trusted, and went alone into the darkness.
At first the Stareater was angry, and each night when the beetle went underground it would go to the surface and throw great rocks at the moon, for its strange light did not burn it like the sun did. Yet the moon endured, seemingly unfazed by the barrage of stones, and eventually the Stareater relented, giving it up as a futile struggle for now.
Instead it turned hungry eyes on the Sunbeetle, who was now entering the darkness all alone each night.
It clogged up tunnels and caves with thick cloying webbings of darkness, turning the air thick and sticky with malice. And then at the center of the mass of silken darkness, it waited for the Sunbeetle to begin its nightly journey. Sunbeetle came, it moved forward into the webs, not caring. And they burned, and the melted, not slowing down the stately progress of the Sun, for what was solidified malice before that searing light.
Stareater, though disappointed, was not surprised. If it could have so easily caught the Sunbeetle it would have eaten the beetle long ago. While the beetle pushed the Sun in front of it, the Stareater sprang from a sidetunnel behind it, attacking it desperately before it could hide behind the sun.
He slashed and cracked, assaulting the upstart Sunbeetle that had been the thorn in its side for so many, many years.
And then the beetle spat fire at him.
It is said that the keening screech that the fiery agony dragged from the Stareater cracked mountains and splintered glaciers. He was burning, and burning, and the fire did not burn up.
Then the Sunbeetle spat fire at him again.
Desperately, the Stareater started scuttling away, sensing death dancing upon strings and curves. The Sunbeetle had been injured by the Stareater, but pursued, the sun it pushed growing ever close to the increasingly weakening Stareater.
It could feel itself shriveling up, as the fire still continued to burn and burn. Finally, half-mad from pain it started budding off the the parts of itself connected to the unending flames. The heat of the sun beat on its back, desiccating the oozing wounds within blinks, leaving only flaking dust, the Stareater squeezed its remaining bulk into a tiny sidetunnel, where the beetle could not follow due to its own size.
On the verge of depth, it somehow managed to claw deeper and deeper into the ground, finally stopping in the deepest, darkest scrap of space it could find. Far beneath the sun-ravaged surface, far beneath even the heart of fire. Deep-deep, where time groans and water fizzes, where space distorts and the air hums soundlessly, there it finally stopped, as a barely alive husk. There it fell into a deep sleep, in which it has remained to this day, slowly recovering from its grievous wounds as it gnaws and chews at the roots of an apex fig tree in its sleep.
Intelligence: +2 (The Stareater is quite quick and cunning it believes)
Guile: -10 (Food. Not-Food. Slaves. Thing that has to DIEDIEDIE. Useful Slave.)
Will: +4 (Even in dreaming it plots and plans)
Luck: +2 (Lucky to be alive)
Power: +2 (They answer the call. Sometimes.)
And because my muse isn't done yet,
Bonus Material! (Feel free to disregard)
The flaming chunks the Stareater had cast off did not in fact ever stop burning. They burned until the flesh was gone, then burned till the rock melted, and burned more until they sank deep enough into the bowels off the earth that the darkness managed to smother their flame enough that they could no longer melt rock. Then, over centuries, under the compressing pressure of the enveloping dark, they slowly congealed into small beads. A wyrm slithered through the cavern in which the glowing beads lay, and swallowed them. It exploded spray of bloody chunks within a few minutes.
Scavengers, attracted by the scent of blood, converged upon the chunks. One of them, a gigantic salamander, managed to fend off the others and swallow several large chunks, some of which contained beads. It burst into fire, and yet it did not burn. Something was stuck in his throat. He gave a hacking cough, and a glob of fire shot out, setting some of the swarming bats on fire. The stone started melting beneath his feet and the air crackled with heat. Fearing that his feet may get stuck in the rock, he lumbered into a swaying gallop, instinct driving him to a nearby river.
[and the inspiration dried up here]
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Topic: You are a Sleeping Power (0/4) (Decision of who are participants on 3/15/15) (Read 4481 times)