Re: The Disposable Enquiry
08-15-2011, 01:29 AM
Username: Slopbronge
Theme Words: Sacerdotal, Sailor
Name: Iowen of Sherlibren
Gender: Masculine male man grr
Race: Kretal (plural Kretalt): on Mynnia, mollusks were the dominant colonizing force on land, leading to proliferations of slug- and squid-like species. Kretalt were one of three land-dwelling species to attain sentience; nautiloid in appearance, Kretalt stand about six feet tall from tentacletips to the top of their shell. They have a multitude of short tentacles that ring their mouth and eyes (and sex organs, if you must know, you prurient mammal), and six to eight longer tentacles adapted for locomotion and gross manipulation.
Here is a four-minute sketch. It's not necessarily Iowen, but serves as a good idea of what the species looks like in general.
![[Image: kretalsketch.png]](https://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff258/CeramicOrange/Other%20Adventures/kretalsketch.png)
Color: Deep Blue CCC [#000ccc]
Biography: On Mynnia, like on most worlds, there are differing theories on where life came from. Some religions teach that the spark of life was granted by their god, or that creatures large and small were sculpted by divinity and placed in the world; Mynnian science has recently advanced to the point where their theorists' explanations involve words like "polypeptide" and "primordial soup" and "self-replication"; some philosophers even state that all that is always has been, that life had no beginning and will have no end. The truth, of course, is none of these: life came from Zheeva Juhacko.
In the deepest trench in the deepest sea, back when Mynnia was hot and barren, a world of empty archipelagos and endless ocean, there was Zheeva Juhacko. She'd been brought into being with the planet, and her gelatinous bulk forever seethed in her pit. She was a being of such fecundity that life flowed unabated from her surface; her very touch created bacteria, fungi, algae, simple cells that blossomed and became complex. From her depths would even sometimes crawl more motile life, abyssal creatures of confused anatomy and dark forms. Between evolution's constant tug and the beings that swarmed constantly from her, Zheeva Juhacko populated Mynnia.
The first thalla was not the product of endless aeons of gained complexity; rather, it pulled itself and its mate straight from Zheeva Juhacko's womb, fully formed and intelligent. It was the first glimmer of sentience on Mynnia, and the first of the all-mother's children that could look upon her and appreciate her. For the first time, Zheeva Juhacko spoke to her children, and they revered her.
Centuries followed and became millennia; the first thallas grew to know civilization, and their children perfected it. At the heart of their planet-spanning pelagic empire was their mother's chasm, and she watched over their growth with pride and love. She taught them to love all of their siblings, to revere life and help it always to grow. The most devoted among them were even said to gain fragments of their mother's power and take on aspects of her form. Above them, unheeded and unheeding, that life which had crept onto Mynnia's scarce land grew and changed on its own, ignorant of its mother's love and far beyond the thallas' reach and teaching.
At the height of the thallas' empire, while life above was still languishing in simplicity, the cataclysm struck. It was a plague borne on the tides, a microscopic alga that bred until the deeps were stained indigo with its presence and the thallas choked on its exhalations. Seemingly no treatment could save those afflicted, and no measure could stop the cataclysm's advance. In under a decade, every thalla had been struck down, and their mother could only watch as her favored children were eradicated by another of her unwitting creations. Zheeva Juhacko faded from memory. Never again would intelligence rise from her ooze; never again would she have the ear of an entire race of loving children.
At the surface, life continued its gradual change and growth, ignorant of and unaffected by the cataclysm. In time, sapience manifested itself, this time born of selective pressures rather than the whims of divinity; civilization rose again, this time a multitude of squabbling nations rather than a monolithic culture harmoniously spreading outwards. Art and science and philosophy developed, albeit slowly, and when what little bit of the world there was above the waves had been completely explored and conquered, the deeps beckoned. It was no time at all before divers discovered the remains of the thallas' civilization, and no time after that that scavenging and studying became the order of the day.
Skimmers became the most common profession seemingly overnight; a skimmer was simply a sailor who manned a one- or two-person craft capable of holding cargo as well as carrying and launching a small, pressure-resistant submersible. They would take what they could from the thallas' ruins and bring it back to port to fetch a hefty price from scientists, collectors, and treasure seekers. Skimming was lucrative, easy to get into, and exciting; it was the perfect opportunity for many young beings, and the perfect opportunity for Iowen of Sherlibren.
Iowen of course didn't have the money to buy his own skimship; like many young would-be skimmers, he signed up with a company that owned skimships of their own and hired people to operate them. The profits were certainly much lower than an independent skimmer's, and there was no chance of keeping relics for oneself, but it was a way to save some money and get experience. Iowen was sold.
He spent several years working for the same company; his skill was notable and his hauls regularly lucrative, so he was frequently allowed to test and use new-model submersibles that could carry more cargo and reach greater depths. He was the first skimmer tasked with testing the Deep Eye, an experimental craft that was supposedly able to weather any depth safely; the company wanted to see what was contained within the trench only known as the Black Abyss, and Iowen was the kretal to do it.
On the day of the test, Iowen put out to sea in high spirits and higher hopes. The skimship clipped along, reaching its destination in only a few hours, and Iowen engaged systems that would automatically maintain its position while he was below. He slipped into the Deep Eye and launched, plummeting into the dark abyss below.
Instruments reported safe conditions and an unbreached hull, and Iowen watched a surreal kind of beauty slide before his eyes. Even having spent so much time underwater and among crumbling thallassian architecture, this was somehow different; even the familiar sights seemed tinged with new promise, and as he fell deeper, the new scenery his lamps revealed hinted at even greater things.
Below, Zheeva Juhacko felt the approach of a mind, and she reached up to touch it, to talk to it. After timeless ages of silence, another of her children had returned to her. The Zheeva Juhacko's mind touched Iowen's, and the entirety of the thallas' forgotten faith flowed into him. She poured her power and belief and love into him, and Iowen could do nothing but accept it. He was transformed by her love, and she soothed by his belief; Iowen's mind and body changed with Zheeva Juhacko's touch, like the high priests of old, and he became more than the simple kretal skimmer he'd been.
Iowen kept the Deep Eye by Zheeva Juhacko's side for days, cutting communication with those above and listening raptly to the mother he'd never known he had. The company wrote his disappearance off as the result of malfunctioning equipment or an unfortunate accident and shelved Deep Eye testing until further improvements could be made. In the Black Abyss, Iowen absorbed everything Zheeva Juhacko offered, breathing recycled air and staring into her undulating form with rapt attention.
And then, he disappeared.
Description: Iowen a nautilus dude. He's wearing very little in the way of clothing because Mynnia is too temperate to warrant much for warmth and there's no diving suit that would survived a Deep Eye failure in any case. He's got a tattoo on the back of his shell that is roughly equivalent to a girl in a bikini and a rude phrase, but other than that, there's not much that a non-kretal could use to distinguish him from another kretal.
His personality before his last dive was typical and expected from someone in his place in society; he was a young male sailor, and it showed. Brash, lusty, and exhuberant, he took his job seriously and his time on shore frivolously. His time with Zheeva Juhacko hasn't changed who he is so much as opened his mind quickly and forcibly, and he's likely to be a bit different for the experience.
There's no telling how he'll react to finding life that didn't spring from the all-mother or to being torn fromher.
Weapons and Abilities: Even after being abducted for the Disposable Inquiry, Iowen maintains a connection with Zheeva Juhacko; while it's not the direct mind-to-mind link they shared while he was physically near her, he can still receive thought and emotion and occasionally insight from her.
Additionally, he's begun to develop powers she grants to those who worship her most fervently; areas of his flesh, most notably the lower thirds of his locomotion tentacles, have begun taking on the form and consistency of a purplish-black jellylike substance. Those parts of his body are capable of stretching and reforming a lot, but since they were tentacles to begin with, the change is mostly cosmetic.
More notable is the fact that he constantly creates tiny forms of life from his gelatinous sections. Algae, mold, bacteria, and even some microscopic animals constantly slither out of him, leaving slimy trails on everything he touches. Plus, if he concentrates, he can attempt to create larger life forms, with some degree of control over what he makes.
Also he is a six foot nautilus with a hard shell, strong, dextrous tentacles, and better eyesight than any human. His beak is sharp and his body is toned from a life of constant work.
Theme Words: Sacerdotal, Sailor
Name: Iowen of Sherlibren
Gender: Masculine male man grr
Race: Kretal (plural Kretalt): on Mynnia, mollusks were the dominant colonizing force on land, leading to proliferations of slug- and squid-like species. Kretalt were one of three land-dwelling species to attain sentience; nautiloid in appearance, Kretalt stand about six feet tall from tentacletips to the top of their shell. They have a multitude of short tentacles that ring their mouth and eyes (and sex organs, if you must know, you prurient mammal), and six to eight longer tentacles adapted for locomotion and gross manipulation.
Here is a four-minute sketch. It's not necessarily Iowen, but serves as a good idea of what the species looks like in general.
Color: Deep Blue CCC [#000ccc]
Biography: On Mynnia, like on most worlds, there are differing theories on where life came from. Some religions teach that the spark of life was granted by their god, or that creatures large and small were sculpted by divinity and placed in the world; Mynnian science has recently advanced to the point where their theorists' explanations involve words like "polypeptide" and "primordial soup" and "self-replication"; some philosophers even state that all that is always has been, that life had no beginning and will have no end. The truth, of course, is none of these: life came from Zheeva Juhacko.
In the deepest trench in the deepest sea, back when Mynnia was hot and barren, a world of empty archipelagos and endless ocean, there was Zheeva Juhacko. She'd been brought into being with the planet, and her gelatinous bulk forever seethed in her pit. She was a being of such fecundity that life flowed unabated from her surface; her very touch created bacteria, fungi, algae, simple cells that blossomed and became complex. From her depths would even sometimes crawl more motile life, abyssal creatures of confused anatomy and dark forms. Between evolution's constant tug and the beings that swarmed constantly from her, Zheeva Juhacko populated Mynnia.
The first thalla was not the product of endless aeons of gained complexity; rather, it pulled itself and its mate straight from Zheeva Juhacko's womb, fully formed and intelligent. It was the first glimmer of sentience on Mynnia, and the first of the all-mother's children that could look upon her and appreciate her. For the first time, Zheeva Juhacko spoke to her children, and they revered her.
Centuries followed and became millennia; the first thallas grew to know civilization, and their children perfected it. At the heart of their planet-spanning pelagic empire was their mother's chasm, and she watched over their growth with pride and love. She taught them to love all of their siblings, to revere life and help it always to grow. The most devoted among them were even said to gain fragments of their mother's power and take on aspects of her form. Above them, unheeded and unheeding, that life which had crept onto Mynnia's scarce land grew and changed on its own, ignorant of its mother's love and far beyond the thallas' reach and teaching.
At the height of the thallas' empire, while life above was still languishing in simplicity, the cataclysm struck. It was a plague borne on the tides, a microscopic alga that bred until the deeps were stained indigo with its presence and the thallas choked on its exhalations. Seemingly no treatment could save those afflicted, and no measure could stop the cataclysm's advance. In under a decade, every thalla had been struck down, and their mother could only watch as her favored children were eradicated by another of her unwitting creations. Zheeva Juhacko faded from memory. Never again would intelligence rise from her ooze; never again would she have the ear of an entire race of loving children.
At the surface, life continued its gradual change and growth, ignorant of and unaffected by the cataclysm. In time, sapience manifested itself, this time born of selective pressures rather than the whims of divinity; civilization rose again, this time a multitude of squabbling nations rather than a monolithic culture harmoniously spreading outwards. Art and science and philosophy developed, albeit slowly, and when what little bit of the world there was above the waves had been completely explored and conquered, the deeps beckoned. It was no time at all before divers discovered the remains of the thallas' civilization, and no time after that that scavenging and studying became the order of the day.
Skimmers became the most common profession seemingly overnight; a skimmer was simply a sailor who manned a one- or two-person craft capable of holding cargo as well as carrying and launching a small, pressure-resistant submersible. They would take what they could from the thallas' ruins and bring it back to port to fetch a hefty price from scientists, collectors, and treasure seekers. Skimming was lucrative, easy to get into, and exciting; it was the perfect opportunity for many young beings, and the perfect opportunity for Iowen of Sherlibren.
Iowen of course didn't have the money to buy his own skimship; like many young would-be skimmers, he signed up with a company that owned skimships of their own and hired people to operate them. The profits were certainly much lower than an independent skimmer's, and there was no chance of keeping relics for oneself, but it was a way to save some money and get experience. Iowen was sold.
He spent several years working for the same company; his skill was notable and his hauls regularly lucrative, so he was frequently allowed to test and use new-model submersibles that could carry more cargo and reach greater depths. He was the first skimmer tasked with testing the Deep Eye, an experimental craft that was supposedly able to weather any depth safely; the company wanted to see what was contained within the trench only known as the Black Abyss, and Iowen was the kretal to do it.
On the day of the test, Iowen put out to sea in high spirits and higher hopes. The skimship clipped along, reaching its destination in only a few hours, and Iowen engaged systems that would automatically maintain its position while he was below. He slipped into the Deep Eye and launched, plummeting into the dark abyss below.
Instruments reported safe conditions and an unbreached hull, and Iowen watched a surreal kind of beauty slide before his eyes. Even having spent so much time underwater and among crumbling thallassian architecture, this was somehow different; even the familiar sights seemed tinged with new promise, and as he fell deeper, the new scenery his lamps revealed hinted at even greater things.
Below, Zheeva Juhacko felt the approach of a mind, and she reached up to touch it, to talk to it. After timeless ages of silence, another of her children had returned to her. The Zheeva Juhacko's mind touched Iowen's, and the entirety of the thallas' forgotten faith flowed into him. She poured her power and belief and love into him, and Iowen could do nothing but accept it. He was transformed by her love, and she soothed by his belief; Iowen's mind and body changed with Zheeva Juhacko's touch, like the high priests of old, and he became more than the simple kretal skimmer he'd been.
Iowen kept the Deep Eye by Zheeva Juhacko's side for days, cutting communication with those above and listening raptly to the mother he'd never known he had. The company wrote his disappearance off as the result of malfunctioning equipment or an unfortunate accident and shelved Deep Eye testing until further improvements could be made. In the Black Abyss, Iowen absorbed everything Zheeva Juhacko offered, breathing recycled air and staring into her undulating form with rapt attention.
And then, he disappeared.
Description: Iowen a nautilus dude. He's wearing very little in the way of clothing because Mynnia is too temperate to warrant much for warmth and there's no diving suit that would survived a Deep Eye failure in any case. He's got a tattoo on the back of his shell that is roughly equivalent to a girl in a bikini and a rude phrase, but other than that, there's not much that a non-kretal could use to distinguish him from another kretal.
His personality before his last dive was typical and expected from someone in his place in society; he was a young male sailor, and it showed. Brash, lusty, and exhuberant, he took his job seriously and his time on shore frivolously. His time with Zheeva Juhacko hasn't changed who he is so much as opened his mind quickly and forcibly, and he's likely to be a bit different for the experience.
There's no telling how he'll react to finding life that didn't spring from the all-mother or to being torn fromher.
Weapons and Abilities: Even after being abducted for the Disposable Inquiry, Iowen maintains a connection with Zheeva Juhacko; while it's not the direct mind-to-mind link they shared while he was physically near her, he can still receive thought and emotion and occasionally insight from her.
Additionally, he's begun to develop powers she grants to those who worship her most fervently; areas of his flesh, most notably the lower thirds of his locomotion tentacles, have begun taking on the form and consistency of a purplish-black jellylike substance. Those parts of his body are capable of stretching and reforming a lot, but since they were tentacles to begin with, the change is mostly cosmetic.
More notable is the fact that he constantly creates tiny forms of life from his gelatinous sections. Algae, mold, bacteria, and even some microscopic animals constantly slither out of him, leaving slimy trails on everything he touches. Plus, if he concentrates, he can attempt to create larger life forms, with some degree of control over what he makes.
Also he is a six foot nautilus with a hard shell, strong, dextrous tentacles, and better eyesight than any human. His beak is sharp and his body is toned from a life of constant work.