Tempest - OOC Topic

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43

the visual references will be via third party resources unfortunately
my attempt at a picture has not been translated to digital medium yet

The Failed Writer, Present-Tense

HUMAN

Name: William Pinbacker

Gender: Male

Age: 25

Appearance: A gaunt fellow about 5’4", painfully average in terms of looks. He has short-cropped black hair and wears a mix of grey hoodies and sweats, and black longshirts with sweats. He has a pair of sunglasses he rarely uses, mostly because he gets weird looks for them, and a full beard (black, like his hair). Always ready with an easy smile, though his genuine ones are rare.

Tools/Weapons: An ancient and nigh-unusable screwdriver. A snubnose .38 inherited from his uncle. A beat up, dark red Toyota Corolla with chipped paint and never more than half a tank of gas.

Personality/Bio/Motivations: The son of two convenience store workers, Will’s accustomed to living with little and scraping to survive. He grew up in Tempest and left the instant he could get his hands on a car, chasing a job offer that dried up before he got there and subsisting on odd jobs and luck. He’s been working on about ten drafts for novels he hasn’t finished, and hoped to find some inspiration at “Communicating Harmoniously Across Our Souls”.
What he’s found is an entirely different story.

He’s outwardly friendly, but inwardly guarded. Growing up his folks were courteous but unwilling to truly let others in, and their unwillingness has led Will to form a crippling distrust of…most other people, generally. What if they’re out to get him, or rob him, or worse yet, cheat him of what he has? No, he can’t trust them…but he can notice things about people. Little tics, small traits, anything he can rip out of them and put in a character or a setting in one of his drafts.

He’s not a cruel man, per se. But if he thinks you’ve done or plan to do him wrong, he’ll dig some cruelty out of his heart to throw at you…whether you’ve done something or not.

His main goal is to find a truly radical source of inspiration and use it to finish his drafts and ride the inevitable wave of fame his genius will accrue to the easiest life possible. If he can help his folks or the town that’d be swell too.

The All-Knowing, Future Tense

Name: Striding Supervening Horizons

Gender: None

Appearance: A tall humanoid figure clad in a set of knightly armor, with a fanciful train of fabric tassels affixed to it. Horizon’s physical body inside the armor resembles a mass of skinless, fused flesh, culminating in its head (resembling a rose, composed of that same flesh). Inside the armor and its head hide a staggering number of tendrils, sensory organs that can be used to touch or smell items…capabilities Horizon would not otherwise have.

The object SSH is tied to is a gutted notebook filled with red strings instead of pages.

Powers/Abilities:

Like other Revenants, SSH has inhuman strength, durability, and can float freely through the air.

“By The Way, I Know Everything” - SSH can manipulate, control, and erase information around them. Written words, spoken language, depicted, all these things can be changed, and even projected onto surfaces or objects in the nearby area. SSH can also absorb the information into itself, leaving empty signs and silenced conversations in its wake.

“Self-Erasure” - SSH can selectively edit the perception of other beings, removing itself from their perception. In effect, it becomes invisible to them, and can move, strike, and analyze them. This can only be done on up to three people at a time in a localized area. While this power is active, SSH cannot use its normal info-alteration abilities. Additionally, this perceptual editing does not disguise SSH’s effects on the environment; if it kicks a wall at someone, they will see the wall, the direction its coming from, and so on.

“Drink Deep, and Descend” - After storing a sufficiently sizable backlog of information, SSH can focus its attention on a single target (in line of sight) and expose them to a hazardous level of combined information. The affected specimen will be rendered catatonic until their brain can parse through the information overload…which will take more than a few minutes.

Personality/Motivations: Striding Supervening Horizons has existed for a matter of hours. Or was it longer? Such memories elude it, and it does not care. Its history is unimportant - but the history of everything else?

Absolutely vital. Horizons is enamored and obsessive about learning, understanding, and cataloging information onto its “secondary body”. It has little understanding of human culture or thought, or why they are the why they are.
So much information. So much data.

It must have it. It must have it all.
And entropy take anything, or anyone, that would keep secrets from it.

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:dizzy_face:

Not really helping your chances

So his base form is the most generic looking guy possible with no defined features.

Uh huh :imp:

What

Negates all powers and amps up those of others, forcing them into combat until there is a winner?

Bruh :dizzy_face:

This is not only really railroad-y and godmod-y, it basically forces the pace of everything to hold until the forced combat is over with.

Nuh uh. No way The Undying Spirit is getting approved with something so ridiculous and game-breaking as that, not to mention painfully unfair to any other player caught in the ring.

Reviewed both of these in PM and ironed out the few kinks in the designs.

William Pinbacker and Striding Supervening Horizons are Both Approved. I’m willing to give Striding Supervening Horizons more than one power because most of his skillset is specifically oriented around very obvious trickery and avoiding combat. Really helpful if he’s willing to share info he finds with his host while making sure others get the wrong details; makes for a fun character.

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man legit just made litch from lancer and I am here for it

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inspired by that among other things, although the ability names were the main thing. the info-manipulation idea was from a very old list of powers i wrote up on a google doc.

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yeah that was the last straw on me making a lancer topic here lol
you should uhh… go take a look or something… maybe say somethin or whatever

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HUMAN
Name: Henderson “Young Man” Henderson

Gender: Male

Age: 27

Appearance: Young Man Henderson is a lanky man of average height and has a disheveled look to him. His brown hair is long and unkempt. The color of his eyes is hidden by his constant wearing of aviators (they are also brown), and are constantly bloodshot. He wears combat boots, tan cargo shorts with multiple pockets, and a unbuttoned blue Hawaiian ■■■■■ worn over a black t-■■■■■.

Tools/Weapons: Henderson owns an old Nokia phone and 2000 Jeep Wrangler TJ, which he has stunt driver and racing expertise with. His jeep is packed with survival equipment that includes a large backpack, MRE’s, flares, rope, a high-powered flashlight, water bottles, and a tent. The truck has a secret compartment where he stores a spas-12 with plenty of ammo.

Personality/Bio/Motivations: Young Man Henderson has inherited the madness that overcame his grandfather, although he is handling it much better than his grandfather ever did. No one really knows where he came from, as he genuinely doesn’t remember either since his grandfather never made any mention of it. This lapse of knowledge is so bad that he doesn’t remember if Henderson is his first or last name, so he uses it for both. He blames all of his current misfortunes on Operation Iragi Freedom, despite never serving or joining the army in any way. He is suspected to have a very mild case of Schizophrenia and paranoia, yet he acts generally laid back due to have an optimistic view on life.

Despite the madness and mental limitations that Henderson experiences, he loves his grandfather dearly. He is in town because he believes that a cult stole their garden gnomes, which lead Henderson to Tempest. Whether or not that is actually true is heavily debatable, but Young Man Henderson genuinely believes this and will do anything to get them back. The current plan is to infiltrate the suspected cult who call themselves “CHAOS” and figure out where they hid the gnomes.

REVENANT
Name: Dev

Gender: Male

Appearance: Dev takes the appearance of a hairless, and completely translucent humanoid, with a tint of light blue. Traveling within him are billions of microscopic lights, all of which randomly turn on or off. These lights seem to flow within a slow, unseen current.

Powers/Abilities: Dev has an ability that he refers to as his “patch notes.” Whatever that he touches with his right hand can become stronger or buffed in some way. For example, a knife will be sharper, a watch more accurate, a car more fuel efficient, and a person more flexible. The effects of this ability don’t happen instantly, but instead there is a delay depending on how strong the buff is and how complex the object is. Dev can determine the nature of the buff.

The stronger the buff and/or the more complex the object, the longer that Dev will need to touch it before the buff is applied. Humans are by far the most complicated object in terms of this ability, and so it takes a longer time for Dev’s powers to affect them compared to any other type of object. The left hand does the same thing, but with making what he touches weaker/nerfed.

Dev can also turn one object into a completely stronger/weaker version of itself or what it represents. This usually transforms the item in some way, if not completely. For example, a nerf gun or sword can be turned into an actual gun or sword, a wooden baseball bat will be turned into a metal one, a $1 bill to a $20 bill, a flip-phone into a modern smartphone or vice versa on each of these examples if done with the left hand. Using Dev’s power in this way takes a lot of time, and requires constant touching of the object. Otherwise, Dev will have to completely restart the process if it was not finished.

Dev can daisy chain the transformation application of this ability if it is safe and sensible to do so. (Humans are a case where it is neither for example.) Transformations that utilize daisy chaining negate the restarting downside somewhat, as each chain counts as a full use of the ability. However it still takes the same amount of time, if not longer, if daisy chaining is utilized compared to if it isn’t done.

This ability can also fix anything broken or otherwise “bugged” with the right hand, and add “glitches” to things touched with the left hand. For example, with the right hand Dev could cure a cancer patient, completely repair a broken window, or remove a virus from a computer. With the left, Dev could give someone a disease (cancer), cause a car’s engine to near constantly misfire, or cause someone’s dice to constantly roll 1’s.

Personality/Motivations: Dev claims to be an advocate of balance, although his definition of balanced and fair is inconsistent and changes frequently. He does, however, consistently wish to do things that would “empower the player,” whatever that means, and will try to follow through to this end above all else. Otherwise, he will sit back and observe, taking mental notes of anything and everything around him. He is not quiet about his observations though, and will frequently speak out loud things which are completely nonsensical.

Object: A USB drive.

NOTE: edited Henderson to fall in line with comments
NOTE 2: edited Henderson again

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So what do people call him? :imp:

This is code for ‘infinite money’, which I won’t be allowing.

Not sure someone taking tokes on the regular is gonna fly on the Boards tbh

Too overcomplicated. Requires a lot of subjectivity regarding what is and isn’t better, a lot of making me come up with approvals or dismissals for proposed buffs, and just makes things take a lot of extra steps to get done. I’m all for wacky and off-the-wall ideas and powers, but the simpler in their in-rp execution they are, the better.

It’s easier to have a power that does a clearly-defined thing than a power that does a whole number of different things and requires a lot of extra steps as well.

Also welcome back, it’s been a hot minute

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Alrighty

Made some edits to Henderson.

I will get to Revenant edits later. More than likely I will come up with something different to use.

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:disappointed:

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Shh ghid, you know when I say a week its three, and a day is four.
Plus I had to rewrite it remember

HOOMAN

Noise to get attention: Cody Hendricks
Dude or Dudette: male
How many laps: 16 (if you ask him, he’ll add in that he’s really 16 and a half, but nobody really cares)

Describe the man who threw the brick at you:
Cody has lots of thin, light brown hair, with what hangs out past a ballcap being fairly sunbleached. Freckles and hazel eyes create a splash of color across his face. He is lean, and has good strength for someone his age, but is hardly an ideal model of physical shape. Cody can most often seen wearing beat up jeans and one of his prized shirts featuring different grunge or rock bands, and occasionally a light jacket overtop to hise his perpetual farmers tan.

His stuff n’ things:
Cody is often found with a few things on him, notably a pocketknife, a beat up, secondhand ipod nano with a pair of skullcandies permanently occupying the headphone jack, a few bucks cash floating alongside some change, and a backpack filled with a mix of schoolwork, snacks, a small AM/FM radio, and whatever knicknacks happen to find their way in there. Cody is also often found riding around on his bike, despite having known how to drive for a couple years now

Whats the kiddo want:
Cody always wanted to be “a cool kid”, but he feels his typical midwestern ag family and upbringing are anything but. Usually the young one in a group, he’s constantly trying to show himself off as whatever he thinks is cool at the time, though usually its somewhat clear he isnt really all he wants people to think he is. With his fronts stripped away, the only thing left is a rowdy, but sweet kid who loves listening to music, spending long hours outside exploring or just hanging out with his friends or siblings and hates being told what he cant do. Though he will listen to authority, Cody doesent always follow the rules when those who enforce them arent around, sometimes doing something for the thrill, and other times specifically because someone told him he couldnt but he really wanted to.

REVENANT

Name: Emm
Gender: Female
Appearance:
A small, bipedal, beetle-like creature a little bigger than a soda can. Her leathery skin is cool to the touch, and has the appearance of aged pewter, while a pair of large eyes give off a dim blue luminescence, usually only noticeable at night

Powers/Abilities:
Has the ability to warp and reform wood and metal, though only small amounts. The most common use of this results in numerous intricate trinkets being made out of boredom. the second most common use for this is as a means of getting around since Emm is very very small and most people are not

Personality/Motivations:
Probably the best way to describe Emm would be a rule follower. If a rule exists, it has to be followed, unless it would lead to death or grievous injury. This contrasts a bit with Emm’s abilities, since deforming something that specifically was one way feels like its “against the rules”, and she tends to try and re-form the original shape after changing something. Similarly, lying is something Emm dislikes, though necessity may leave it the best or only option to ensure her safety. Since size difference is a very large factor in many interactions, Emm tends towards some amount of shyness and introversion.

Object:
A wooden game peice reminicient of a pawn or bishop

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Really giving me a good feeling about your ability to post consistently :dizzy_face:

I’ll wait til these are filled out before commenting

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Okay fair point. Im usually better with RP posts than getting characters up or anything else super long

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Alright, let’s see if I did any better with round two. I’ll probably replace Vyvian with a better foil, but don’t have much writing time left for this week. Holidays and family, all that jazz.

Revenant: Blockade

REVENANT

Name: Blockade

Gender: N/A (male voice)

Appearance: A solid white 6’x4’x4’ rectangular cuboid, usually standing up longways. It appears to be made of largely smooth and solid material, like a column of drywall or an eggshell. Though faceless by default, it can project an old LCD-style face anywhere on its body.

The face is three solid circles, two for eyes and a larger one for the mouth. These circles can become half-circles, quarter-circles, or bars for additional expressions. As the face can be projected anywhere on its body, its face moves surface location rather than rotating form. Like old LCD screens, it leaves phantom black coloring where it used to appear for a second or two.

Redacted Public Info

Warning - Hidden character information. Only for DM and those who can trust their ability to keep player and character knowledge separate.

Should Blockade’s form be damaged enough, it will crack and chip until the true form underneath hatches. It will now appear as a mix between a snake and a centipede; still largely white, though the connective tissue of each segment is green. Its long tubular body is made of rounded cuboid segments. Each segment are roughly two feet in diameter and has a two pairs of insectoid legs.

The only segment significantly different is the head, which is slightly longer and more serpent-like. It has glowing red eyes, six fangs (two hidden), and several smaller teeth. The head can unhinge both the lower jaw and its two side jaws; each side jaw has a hidden fang and when opened, these side jaws can move forward and function like mandibles.

As its chitinous scales get damaged or blasted off, a secondary and weaker green layer is revealed. If the head is ever destroyed, one of the two end segments will grow into a full centipede head. With enough time, it will transform into the snake-like head again. Though at any time, pairs of mandibles can grow out of the non-head segments.

At the start, Blockage is only six feet long, but can grow in length and add more segments to its body. See powers.

Powers/Abilities: Blockage can make any object or area act like it’s a super bouncy rubber ball, so long as he’s concentrating on it. While concentrating on this thing/area, any force against it is not transferred into that thing/area, but redirected back into the thing exerting force.

For example, if Blockage was concentrating on a person and they took a step, all the force of their step would not go into the ground. Instead, all that force would go right back into them, launching their foot/leg back up. Likewise, if concentrating on the ground and a person steps on that area, that force is redirected back into the person.

If desired, Blockage can amplify this force redirect to double the original force exerted. A person taking that step would find themselves being thrown back with twice the amount of energy put into that step. However, both the regular and amplified redirect need something to direct said force into. If struck by something of pure energy, or close enough to it, no redirect will happen and the thing/area will take the full force as normal.

Though Blockade needs to concentrate on the thing/area, he does not need to be actively looking at said thing/area. He could concentrate this power on his body without needing to look at himself, for example. Or if someone was using a gun, he could concentrate on the bullets inside without needing to see them. That said, he still needs aware of the thing/area to concentrate on it and within its general vicinity. Anything beyond a fifty foot radius is outside of his influence. He also can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

Aside from this, Blockade can levitate and has very ridged movement.

Redacted Public Info

Warning - Hidden character information. Only for DM and those who can trust their ability to keep player and character knowledge separate.

Once in the hatched form, Blockage can grow new and additional body segments if he successfully destroys/defeats an attacking target with his force redirect. For example, if he was concentrating on himself and was shot by a tank, if that redirected projectile destroys the tank, he gains a new body segment.

Personality/Motivations: Blockage believes itself to be a defender of reality against a grand threat. Although he doesn’t remember what this threat is, he knows there’s still a score to settle. And is pretty certain he failed to stop two, maybe three, attacks against this sector specifically. Highly competitive, always determined to win.

Redacted Public Info

Warning - Hidden character information. Only for DM and those who can trust their ability to keep player and character knowledge separate.

In the egg state, actions are largely defensive. Staying back and near whatever should be protected. Once hatched, though still for the purpose of defense, he is proactively on the offense. Running out to intercept incoming damage and attack foes.

Object: A wooden table tennis paddle with the rubber black on one side and red on the other.

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A very wack idea ngl

Ok, this is the kind of goofy powers I was looking for :goo:

Completely off the wall, makes very little sense, but extremely fun to play around with, with simple execution and horrifying implications :smirk:

Only thing I wanna mention is that I wouldn’t allow him to use it on more than one thing at a time, so no blocking automatic gunfire. Although he could focus on the bullet or its casing, or on a shotgun shell, to exert the rather minimal force of the hammer/striking pin back on the gun itself rather than firing the bullet. Food for thought :goo:

Yeah good luck with that one :smirk:

As for the dropdown info

I’m not sure what the hatched form you’re referring to is. Unless you’ve DMed me something and I’ve missed it.

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Oh, right. Knew I was leaving something out. Yeah, he can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

Dropdown stuff

The snake/centipede form is the hatched form. Egg state is his rectangular cube form, hatched is snake/centipede.

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That’s kinda wack :goo:

If the proportions of that (length, anyhow) match the length of the first (the longest part), then I have no objection. Also, I’m getting deja vu to that other rp I co-GMed… :smirk:

Once your human character is finished I’ll slap 'em both into the approved part of the first post.

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Alright, I’ve had this draft laying around for four days now. It’s finally time to complete it

Here are my goobers:

HUMAN: Kay Martins

Name: Kay Martins (an unfortunate combination of sounds that earned him the nickname “Kmart” among his peers, much to his dismay)
Gender: male
Age: 19
Appearance:
[Drawing to be added here when done]

Standing at 5’11”, Kay is of above average height. He has a fairly muscular build and is quite athletic, due to attending the local gym regularly and his work at his father’s car repair shop. Spending a lot of time outside, he has a bit of a tan.
His face is fairly attractive, but there isn’t much extraordinary about it. He has straw-coloured messy short hair and dark eyebrows, his eyes are of a dirty, unidentifiable colour, and a bit of stubble can be perpetually seen on his chin. He looks quite significantly older than he actually is, which often leads him to being mistaken for an adult.

All of Kay’s clothes are quite old and worn, bought exclusively in thrift stores or flea markets, or passed down from relatives. Currently he’s wearing a patched up red flannel shirt with rolled up sleeves over a black tight-fitting tank top with a print of an old band he’s never even heard of (Guns N’ Roses), black baggy cargo pants and bulky leather boots. He can often be seen wearing old round sunglasses.

Tools/Weapons:
Currently Kay is wearing a toolbelt from his father’s shop, which houses several sizes of wrenches, a pair of pliers and, most importantly, a hammer. He also knows where his father keeps his old reliable six-shooter, but he’d need to drive all the way home to acquire it.
He has a 4th generation IPod and old Toshiba headphones on him.
Drives a rusty old red Vespa.

Personality/Bio/Motivations:
Kay dropped out of high school for bad grades and has been working in his father’s car repair shop on the very outskirts of the town for two years. He knows quite a lot about cars and can make substantial repairs if given the resources, but cannot drive one himself.
Kay has never been out of his hometown and, not having much access to technology apart from an iPod and an old computer at home, has very little knowledge about the outside world, nor is he particularly interested about it. On the other hand, he has explored every and each corner of Tempest and knows the town like the back of his hand.

Despite his lacking academical knowledge, Kay is far from stupid. He has good intuition and can act decisively in difficult situations. He is observant, prudent and reliable, even if his general lack of knowledge can sometimes be a drawback for his decision making.

He is not an internet-savvy person in the slightest and takes everything he reads there at face value, leading him to believe in all kinds of urban legends and early 2000s creepypastas. This very belief is what ultimately led him to the Communicating Harmoniously Across Our Souls meeting, which he decided to check out on his way to buy a replacement car part for his dad’s shop. Little did he know that this decision would change his life forever.

He doesn’t really have a motivation and has absolutely no clue what he wants to do in life. One could argue that his goal is to find something to be passionate about

REVENANT: Zenn

Name: Zenn
Gender: female
Appearance:

IMG_5435
IMG_54353120×4080 1.36 MB

(Drawing by yours truly)

Zenn takes the form of a tall muscular humanoid with four arms, blue skin, a pair of straight horns on the top of her head and geometric tattoo-like markings all over her body. She has lightly coloured slightly glowing blueish medium length hair with a fringe covering her eyes, which are bright yellow and glow as well.
Her clothing consists of indigo and violet robes, scarlet bead bracelets around her wrists and ankles and a necklace of the same kind.

She has the ability to walk, but prefers to float around several feet above the ground, being too lazy and not wanting to waste energy on it

Powers/Abilities:

Revenant power: Balanced exchange

Zenn is able to convert all physical damage that she does to people, Revenants and non-living objects into healing power that she can apply to humans and Revenants to heal them and to objects to repair and restore them by touching them with the palm of any of her four hands. The longer her palm stays in contact with the target of her healing, the more healed it becomes. The more severe the damage, the more healing power it takes up and the more time she needs to heal it (for instance, she can heal a scratch instantly, needs fifteen seconds to heal an open wound, thirty seconds to heal a broken bone, a minute and a half to regrow a missing hand, and so on). The more powerful the thing she damages is, the more healing power she gets from it (Revenant > human > object). The amount of stored healing power is showcased in the form of a glowing blue ring around her body, which she can summon at will. (Has no use in game, is only here to justify the element of the character design)
If her power is applied to an injured person for longer than needed or a perfectly healthy person, it calms them down and brings them the feeling of peace, “healing” them emotionally. This effect is temporary.

Limitations:

  • Zenn cannot use the healing ability on herself
  • All damage translates into twice as little healing (basic example: needs to break two tables in order to repair one table)
  • Healing power acquired from dealing damage to an object is insufficient when applied to a human or a Revenant (apart from minor injuries), and healing power acquired from dealing damage to a human is insufficient when applied to a Revenant (apart from minor injuries), however it works the other way around.
  • healing objects does not apply to mechanical damage (example: cannot repair a broken car engine or a fried phone)
  • only the damage done by her fists is counted

Strength: Zenn’s ability has no offensive applications whatsoever, which is compensated by her superior physical strength compared to an average Revenant

Personality/Motivations:
Zenn has an outwardly cheery and mild personality, but it’s completely impossible to tell what’s going on in her mind, as she isn’t particularly open about her thoughts. She is exceptionally laid back and calm and wears a peaceful, calm expression with a slight smile at most times. One could even say that she’s extremely lazy, not wanting to involve herself in any activities or act on anything if not pressured into it, or unless her human host is in immediate danger. She doesn’t know where she came from or for how long she has existed, nor does she particularly care about those things.
She is perpetually sleepy and has a tendency of falling asleep at completely random times, which is enabled by her floating form that allows her to take naps anywhere and anytime.

Zenn is a being who doesn’t have a single care in the world. World domination, unlimited knowledge or great power do not concern her whatsoever. The only thing in the world that she desires is more freedom to do whatever and nothing in particular, having as great of a time as possible. Which can only be achieved if her life stops depending on another living being, especially a human, something that is significantly more fragile than her.

Object: Zenn can take the form of a scarlet bead necklace, much like the one seen on her primary form.

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Kay Martins and Zenn are both Approved.

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I could see some fun ways this character could be introduced.

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Bro, I don’t think people apart from the GM are supposed to know this stuff. I’m pretty sure ajtazt wants to keep whatever this is a secret from the other players, including me and everyone else reading the message, for quite a while, and you might be spoiling it a little

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