The Grand OC! [CONTEST XXX: HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEN]

Username: Schazer
Name: Talasarch
Race: God of the lower pantheon
Gender: Neuter-he
Color: Sunset boulevard

Description: Talasarch's mortal form comprises about ten feet of well-built snake, with a vaguely-draconic/seal-like face, fabulous eyelashes, bristly whiskers, and a crown of tangled antlers in which four bird-shaped blobs of light flit about. His scales are dull blue, the color of the night sky just before the first stars come out. From his throat, along his belly, and to the tip of his tail runs a band of true darkness, from which any number of similarly pure-black limbs freely sprout. His preferred locomotion is the stately undulations of a millipede, but when unduly excited he'll drag himself and rapidly scramble along and over anything in his path.

Being the founder and chancellor-for-life of the finest university Praeterwater, and boasting a full university's worth of research staff at his disposal, he's got a hell of an ego and tends to sulk when there's nobody to boss around. He's polite to authority if they maintain transparency and avoid cramping his scientist style, but by deific standards, he's a petulant child when he doesn't get his way.

If he locks eyes with his reflection on any reflective surface, the two swap places. Talasarch's reflection operates independently of the original, but cannot exert any forces on the world unless there's an observer to its antics. This means it can be trapped in a room, unable to open a door or break a window until there's someone who can see it do the above in a reflection. It can be said to simultaneously exist and not exist throughout any contiguous space that a nine-foot snake could squeeze through, but if said space is split in two (a bathroom door closed off to a mirrorless hallway, for example), the reflection will be restricted to the space with a reflective surface.

Talasarch's reflection, in contrast to the real deal, is irritable, rude, and more prone to violence (but still prefers to talk things out, and he'll still treat university property like it's his own). Any newcomers to the university who meet him are duly informed by him that he's the real Talasarch, and the sham one wandering around escaped the mirrors. If you see the reflection, though, rest assured you're more-or-less physically sharing the room with 9 feet of invisible, bad-tempered godlizard.


Weapons/Abilities: He's a god of the domains of Discoveries, Rivers and Mirrors, and through sufficient quantities of these elements he gains the power, via Acts, to shape reality to his godly will (the reflection, however, cannot). Talasarch doesn't have much practice at it, as he's spent most of his existence in a mortal form which makes most of his Acts only work on a local scale. He's biologically immortal, and is incapable of dying by stupid accident. Someone who wants to kill him, understanding he's a personfication of certain aspects, won't have this problem due to the "godslayer narrative" clause in reality.

The Talasarch outside the mirror doesn't instinctively know where the mirror-self is, which can prove inconvenient. Because the mirror-self retains the ability to dissipate for a day and reappear in a reflective surface near Talasarch Alpha, Talasarch is not at liberty to travel further than the university grounds. He's only free to leave the sanctum when his aides have confirmed the doppel's manifestation somewhere in the mirrors, and even then only for a half-day at most. The mirror-self cannot act on the real Talasarch's physical form, but can indirectly hurt it through dropped/thrown objects.


Biography: Talasarch was one of the most recent immigrant gods to Middle Ocean and the Praeterwater, and one of the younger "civilised" ones who especially stood to benefit from the systems set up therein. He didn't have to worry about setting up afterlives or balancing an ecosystem, he could just mess around with mortals and work at a scale a bit friendlier to the apotheotically ascended. His first order of business was creating mortals in his image, the Talas-men, and then building with the devout a lovely commune-iversity at the base of a waterfall. The Talasarchon cave network eventually expanded up the cliffside into Univer City, capital of the Talas-men.

Talasarch's reflection always roved around the inner sanctums of the university (unable to escape due to a large "No Mirrors" zone), but didn't become especially belligerent until some weird magic research went down a couple years back. After that incident, Talasarch's reflection has been quite vocal about how he's unfairly incarcerated. A few close aides to the godling have the sneaking suspicion the one in the mirror's swapped a couple times, but life and research has gone on either way so nobody complains.