RE: [Rage at the Eclipse] - The First Phase [Applications now Open again!]
04-16-2019, 10:44 PM
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SpoilerName: Mnestia Laona
Species: Siphra, a species of shapeshifters from the disaster-stricken oceanic world of Zaraz. In their natural form, they look somewhat like large sea slugs, with modified cerata serving as limbs. The origins of the species is unclear - they appear to have arisen from an unclear source after their homeworld was stricken with a planetary-scale disaster that entirely wiped out its original intelligent inhabitants. Might have just been natural evolution influenced by the advanced contamination of the planet. Regardless, the Siphra are nothing if not resourceful, and they managed to rebuild their predecessors’ spacecraft and take to the stars. Much of their technology is based partly in magic, owing to the thaumaturgic traditions of the extinct civilization, and they understand relatively little of it.
The Siphra are a fairly uncommon sight in space - or at least, it seems that way. You never know with shapeshifters, and it is considered fairly rude in their culture to go gallivanting about in slug form. Rude on the level of “public nudity”, specifically. Culturally, the Siphra are heavily focused on analyzing and understanding the past in order to sustain the future, and they have both historians and engineers (or maybe reverse-engineers) in large quantities.
Obviously, their shapeshifting has its limits. Mass is conserved, so size is a definite limiting factor - anything under, say, the size of a large dog is too dense to function, and anything larger than a cow is likely to be similarly useless - or maybe blow away in a strong enough wind. The sweet spot between those two, fortunately for the Siphra, is where most of the galaxy’s sapient life falls. Even in the form of something like a human, it’s not too hard to tell that something is wrong - unless the individual in question has been particularly meticulous in their shapeshifting, some details won’t line up right. Plus, Siphra don’t have bones, even if they’re good at faking it. Stuff bending wrong is a pretty good indicator.
Description: In her base form, Mnestia appears to be a large, pale sea slug-esque creature about 10 feet long, vaguely reminiscent of Cratena peregrina. Of course, it’s not very likely you’ll see her in this shape. Instead, her current preferred form is that of a six-foot-tall humanoid, with pale blue skin, six purplish eyes arranged in two clusters, long and altogether too flowy dark blue hair, and two pairs of arms. This doesn’t really make her look like any particular species, but she’s not really trying that hard to blend in. Regardless of the form she takes, Mnestia also has pale markings in purple running vein-like across random portions of her body, the evidence of some past magical poisoning she’s never fully recovered from.
Bio: Mnestia, like many of her species, was born on Zaraz, near the shores of the Great Ocean - the magically-contaminated ocean that covers the vast majority of the planet. She grew up apprenticed to one of the world’s many historian-explorers, accompanying them on numerous dives into the contaminated waters to uncover remnants of the world that was lost for study and preservation. It was dangerous, of course - hazardous thaumic phenomena, deadly monsters, and even mundane things like collapsing ruins were always a problem - but this all fascinated Mnestia more than anything. As time went on, she grew from a salvager to a scholar of the occult, seeking to understand the mysteries lying beneath the skin of reality. This resulted in at least one severe case of magic poisoning, but you know, she lived.
Her tendency to dig a little too deeply into things led to her being strongly encouraged to leave the planet, which, you know what? Fine. There’s only so many occult mysteries to uncover on one planet, after all - and there’s a whole universe of planets out there! And so it was that Mnestia became a freelance occult archaeologist, seeking those mysteries lost to the ages, those left behind by wizards and liches and gods of old, or at least, whichever of those things actually exist! And… between those, taking on freelance mercenary jobs, because she was good with guns and archaeology pays miserably. Honestly, it’s mostly the latter these days.
Skills: Mnestia is an occult-focused archaeologist, and is thus well-versed in magic, thaumaturgy, the arcane, or whatever you want to call it. Practical uses of this mostly extend to various rituals she’s picked up knowledge of along the way, rather than, say, shooting lightning out of her hands.
More practically, Mnestia is skilled with weapons and their use, particularly the use of energy-based firearms. She’s also “skilled” at engineering, insofar as she’s good at jury-rigging things together from scrap and broken bits. MacGyver would be proud, but anyone with a degree would be so, so very sad.
Finally, like the rest of her species, she can shapeshift, within the bounds described above. She’s not great at it, so she’s not likely to fool too many people.
Equipment:
- Armored spacesuit designed to roughly fit her preferred form
- Refurbished datapad storing the bulk of Mnestia’s recovered occult data
- Jury-rigged ancient thaumic rifle, able to fire bursts of electricity, cold, or gravity-esque force, with at least four more settings of unclear purpose that have yet to be repaired. Tends to break down at inconvenient times.
- Two regular-ass laser pistols, because sometimes your fancy magic rifle breaks.
- A big, fancy cloak that just screams “I know about magic!”
- A random assortment of duct tape, glue, and various tools used for jury-rigging. And lockpicking.
Species: Siphra, a species of shapeshifters from the disaster-stricken oceanic world of Zaraz. In their natural form, they look somewhat like large sea slugs, with modified cerata serving as limbs. The origins of the species is unclear - they appear to have arisen from an unclear source after their homeworld was stricken with a planetary-scale disaster that entirely wiped out its original intelligent inhabitants. Might have just been natural evolution influenced by the advanced contamination of the planet. Regardless, the Siphra are nothing if not resourceful, and they managed to rebuild their predecessors’ spacecraft and take to the stars. Much of their technology is based partly in magic, owing to the thaumaturgic traditions of the extinct civilization, and they understand relatively little of it.
The Siphra are a fairly uncommon sight in space - or at least, it seems that way. You never know with shapeshifters, and it is considered fairly rude in their culture to go gallivanting about in slug form. Rude on the level of “public nudity”, specifically. Culturally, the Siphra are heavily focused on analyzing and understanding the past in order to sustain the future, and they have both historians and engineers (or maybe reverse-engineers) in large quantities.
Obviously, their shapeshifting has its limits. Mass is conserved, so size is a definite limiting factor - anything under, say, the size of a large dog is too dense to function, and anything larger than a cow is likely to be similarly useless - or maybe blow away in a strong enough wind. The sweet spot between those two, fortunately for the Siphra, is where most of the galaxy’s sapient life falls. Even in the form of something like a human, it’s not too hard to tell that something is wrong - unless the individual in question has been particularly meticulous in their shapeshifting, some details won’t line up right. Plus, Siphra don’t have bones, even if they’re good at faking it. Stuff bending wrong is a pretty good indicator.
Description: In her base form, Mnestia appears to be a large, pale sea slug-esque creature about 10 feet long, vaguely reminiscent of Cratena peregrina. Of course, it’s not very likely you’ll see her in this shape. Instead, her current preferred form is that of a six-foot-tall humanoid, with pale blue skin, six purplish eyes arranged in two clusters, long and altogether too flowy dark blue hair, and two pairs of arms. This doesn’t really make her look like any particular species, but she’s not really trying that hard to blend in. Regardless of the form she takes, Mnestia also has pale markings in purple running vein-like across random portions of her body, the evidence of some past magical poisoning she’s never fully recovered from.
Bio: Mnestia, like many of her species, was born on Zaraz, near the shores of the Great Ocean - the magically-contaminated ocean that covers the vast majority of the planet. She grew up apprenticed to one of the world’s many historian-explorers, accompanying them on numerous dives into the contaminated waters to uncover remnants of the world that was lost for study and preservation. It was dangerous, of course - hazardous thaumic phenomena, deadly monsters, and even mundane things like collapsing ruins were always a problem - but this all fascinated Mnestia more than anything. As time went on, she grew from a salvager to a scholar of the occult, seeking to understand the mysteries lying beneath the skin of reality. This resulted in at least one severe case of magic poisoning, but you know, she lived.
Her tendency to dig a little too deeply into things led to her being strongly encouraged to leave the planet, which, you know what? Fine. There’s only so many occult mysteries to uncover on one planet, after all - and there’s a whole universe of planets out there! And so it was that Mnestia became a freelance occult archaeologist, seeking those mysteries lost to the ages, those left behind by wizards and liches and gods of old, or at least, whichever of those things actually exist! And… between those, taking on freelance mercenary jobs, because she was good with guns and archaeology pays miserably. Honestly, it’s mostly the latter these days.
Skills: Mnestia is an occult-focused archaeologist, and is thus well-versed in magic, thaumaturgy, the arcane, or whatever you want to call it. Practical uses of this mostly extend to various rituals she’s picked up knowledge of along the way, rather than, say, shooting lightning out of her hands.
More practically, Mnestia is skilled with weapons and their use, particularly the use of energy-based firearms. She’s also “skilled” at engineering, insofar as she’s good at jury-rigging things together from scrap and broken bits. MacGyver would be proud, but anyone with a degree would be so, so very sad.
Finally, like the rest of her species, she can shapeshift, within the bounds described above. She’s not great at it, so she’s not likely to fool too many people.
Equipment:
- Armored spacesuit designed to roughly fit her preferred form
- Refurbished datapad storing the bulk of Mnestia’s recovered occult data
- Jury-rigged ancient thaumic rifle, able to fire bursts of electricity, cold, or gravity-esque force, with at least four more settings of unclear purpose that have yet to be repaired. Tends to break down at inconvenient times.
- Two regular-ass laser pistols, because sometimes your fancy magic rifle breaks.
- A big, fancy cloak that just screams “I know about magic!”
- A random assortment of duct tape, glue, and various tools used for jury-rigging. And lockpicking.