- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
In the name of getting some input on other portions, I'm going to elaborate on the actual character idea.
Essentially, it's for a quest on this site that uses a modern-day-ish AU for the setting:
Basically, the Second Usurpation went off without a hitch, with all 300 Solar Exaltations being captured in the Jade Prison; then the Sidereals' cover-up job fucked the Mask a little harder than usual, creating a conceptual veil over all things supernatural - enough that your average mortal needs multiple exposures before memories of gods or magic will stick in their minds, but that wasn't really a big problem at the time.
Things then continue largely on-schedule until we hit the Great Contagion: the Scarlet Empress never managed to get into the Imperial Manse, and the crisis instead ended when the insane rush of souls into Lethe caused a system glitch of unspeakable proportions that accreted most of Lethe's occupants into some sort of Neuromancer hivemind, which then turned Creation pineapple-sandwich-batshit for a bit in its efforts to stop the constant influx. By the time the dust settled, Creation had been reshaped into the solar system we know and love, with history as it's currently known starting shortly thereafter at ~5000 BC. The mass collapse of civilization, however, let that aforementioned veil build up over a majority of the mortal populace, and the Dragonbloods and Sids decided that the extra security was worth maintaining it. On a positive note, the reordering of reality also pushed the Underworld away from Creation by a bit, enough to stop Shadowlands from forming, and the Wyld proper got much more difficult to access from either direction, restricting the majority of Wyld Zones to Bordermarch or Middlemarch strength and forcing anyone trying to jump into or out of the new universe to go through extra hoops.
From there, history proceeds sort of like our own - with the exception of points where Sidereal/Lunar/Dragonblood bullshit fucks it up. For example, the American Revolution failed hard, only for several radical right-wing Terrestrial Exalt houses in Britain to head overseas some time later and basically seize the colonies for themselves; at this point, this new Empire is an insane juggernaut of bastardry backed by Heaven itself, which is even more fucked up after millennia of time for corruption to set in and older, wiser heads to die off, retire, or otherwise get taken out. Things like war gods helping throw campaigns in the Empire's favor in exchange for kickbacks, conquered regions having their cultures held ransom in exchange for their gods' collaboration with the new regime, and their army being as big a sack of dicks as they can get away with in order to fulfill deals with gods of racism, cruelty, oppression, and other concepts they can easily promote by just appealing to their subjects' basest instincts.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world has bunched up into the European Union and Chinese Federation, each propped up by their only Dragonblooded conspiracies who have tried to gather all the allies they can lay hold of. Barring the Empire's dickishness, things aren't exactly grimdark, but an unfortunate amount of bad shit happens outside of the Empire because the other world leaders are too busy trying to hold them off.
Finally, the Neverborn manage to realign the Underworld with Creation, prompting massive shitstorms everywhere as the gods and Sids hide in fear of a second Great Contagion, Shadowlands spring up all over the damn place thanks to 'Murica and its love of douchery, and the Yozis seize the opportunity to team up with their dead siblings and smash the Jade Prison wide open.
It's now been five years, and the situation is still evolving.
Things then continue largely on-schedule until we hit the Great Contagion: the Scarlet Empress never managed to get into the Imperial Manse, and the crisis instead ended when the insane rush of souls into Lethe caused a system glitch of unspeakable proportions that accreted most of Lethe's occupants into some sort of Neuromancer hivemind, which then turned Creation pineapple-sandwich-batshit for a bit in its efforts to stop the constant influx. By the time the dust settled, Creation had been reshaped into the solar system we know and love, with history as it's currently known starting shortly thereafter at ~5000 BC. The mass collapse of civilization, however, let that aforementioned veil build up over a majority of the mortal populace, and the Dragonbloods and Sids decided that the extra security was worth maintaining it. On a positive note, the reordering of reality also pushed the Underworld away from Creation by a bit, enough to stop Shadowlands from forming, and the Wyld proper got much more difficult to access from either direction, restricting the majority of Wyld Zones to Bordermarch or Middlemarch strength and forcing anyone trying to jump into or out of the new universe to go through extra hoops.
From there, history proceeds sort of like our own - with the exception of points where Sidereal/Lunar/Dragonblood bullshit fucks it up. For example, the American Revolution failed hard, only for several radical right-wing Terrestrial Exalt houses in Britain to head overseas some time later and basically seize the colonies for themselves; at this point, this new Empire is an insane juggernaut of bastardry backed by Heaven itself, which is even more fucked up after millennia of time for corruption to set in and older, wiser heads to die off, retire, or otherwise get taken out. Things like war gods helping throw campaigns in the Empire's favor in exchange for kickbacks, conquered regions having their cultures held ransom in exchange for their gods' collaboration with the new regime, and their army being as big a sack of dicks as they can get away with in order to fulfill deals with gods of racism, cruelty, oppression, and other concepts they can easily promote by just appealing to their subjects' basest instincts.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world has bunched up into the European Union and Chinese Federation, each propped up by their only Dragonblooded conspiracies who have tried to gather all the allies they can lay hold of. Barring the Empire's dickishness, things aren't exactly grimdark, but an unfortunate amount of bad shit happens outside of the Empire because the other world leaders are too busy trying to hold them off.
Finally, the Neverborn manage to realign the Underworld with Creation, prompting massive shitstorms everywhere as the gods and Sids hide in fear of a second Great Contagion, Shadowlands spring up all over the damn place thanks to 'Murica and its love of douchery, and the Yozis seize the opportunity to team up with their dead siblings and smash the Jade Prison wide open.
It's now been five years, and the situation is still evolving.
tl;dr - think modern-day Earth, except there was no WWII, America is basically Britain's psychotic evil twin, and Yu Shan is backing them because they've gotten unspeakably decadent and corrupt over the intervening 5 millennia and 'Murica has the least restrictions on what they're willing to give them in exchange for favors.
The Sidereal I'm thinking of is a Chosen of either Battles or Serenity who just didn't fit in with his household.
- If he was with the Crimson Panoply, the sheer enormity of the conflict between 'Murica and the rest of humanity just got to be too much. Eventually, there was no way for him to twist his orders into something that would let him meet his own face in the mirror anymore. He'd never quite fit the contemporary mold for Heaven's Soldiers, anyway - his main perspective on conflict was that they should be working with the other households more closely, doing their jobs as keepers of Creation instead of using their power to enable the gods' private agendas and help one country stomp all over the rest.
- If he was of the Cerulean Lute, on the other hand, he got sick of having his efforts to bring a little happiness to mortalkind bogged down in the cesspit of backroom deals and bureaucratic motherfuckery Yu Shan had become; even disregarding the omnipresent corruption of the Celestial Court, the sheer preponderance of attention and infrastructure given over to 'Murican interests made it damn near impossible to help the billions of people outside the Empire. Why bother helping those Germans now, when improving their lives after we conquer them will make things go more smoothly? Hell, you should be pulling as much of your fellows' work off of non-Imperial concerns as possible!
Either way, he ended up angry, bitter, old before his time, and deeply in need of something to hit. So he left.
He just got up and started walking the earth, looking to help wherever he could and desperately ignoring the sheer insignificance of his efforts. The Fivescore Fellowship doesn't care much; he's only in his 90s, after all, and general opinion paints him as a burnout (unfortunately somewhat true) who can be easily pulled back in if needed.
Personality-wise, he's basically a blend of various 'cheerful irrelevant martial artist past the flower of youth' archetypes being worn like a mask to hide a deeply troubled man who's been nearly broken by decades of soul-crushing overwork and is trying to find some solace in playing mysterious stranger and punching out uppity gods, Dragonbloods, elementals, raksha, or whatever other dickass walks into his knuckles.
He's still in a phase where he moves on almost desperately after the major problems in a given city or town have been resolved, just so he doesn't have to see it if things go to shit afterward. Maybe he'll try to cobble together some sort of long-term plan for making things better (if only for one or two countries) after another few years, but for now he's got way too much in common with start-of-series Vash the Stampede or Zifnab of the Death's Gate Cycle to be called okay, emotionally or psychologically. Angry, fucked-up, hiding it behind a mask that embodies what he really wishes he was.
Stat wise, he's still pretty skeletal, but so far I've got:
- Str 2 / Dex 4 / Sta 4; Cha 3, Man 3, App 1; Per 4, Int 2, Wit 3.
- High Compassion and Valor, low Temperance and Conviction
- Probably has Specialties in things like "Mockery", "Improvised Weapons", "Resisting Alcohol", and "Lying".
