RE: The Grand OC! [CONTEST FOURTEEN: SET! SUBMISSIONS WELCOME!]
04-20-2014, 06:28 AM
Username: Slopbronge
Name: The Animal
Species: Unknown
Gender: Male
Color: Sunset Sandstorm Sky
Description: The Animal seems to be an amalgam of several different creatures, or perhaps one that simply resembles them. Each person who has seen it describes it differently: the most commonly mentioned creature is an enormous jackal, the size of a man or larger; often it is described as having aspects of an aardvark, or a lion, or even a giraffe. The only thing consistent across all descriptions of it is its forked tail and hide of such a deep red it seems black in all but the brightest sunlight.
Its personality or even sapience are hard to pin down. It is said by some to have spoken or listened, while others describe it as bestial and mindless. Much like its form, its behavior is catalogued inconsistently and contradictorily. All anyone knows for sure is that it seems to be seeking something. It takes little interest in people most times, but is extremely dangerous despite its lack of overt hostility.
Weapons/Abilities: The Animal has no weapons – although it may have teeth or claws – nor does it seem to have the capacity to use anything but its body as such. It does, however, have one thing that marks it as either having had contact with tool users or the capability to create things itself: around its neck is a black leather band; there is one onyx mounted on the collar, but obvious spaces for four more.
What makes it dangerous, despite its lack of weapons, is what it does seemingly unknowingly or unintentionally to the world around it. Regardless of where the Animal goes or when it goes there, when it arrives night will begin to fall, and morning will not come until it leaves. This, fortunately, does not stop the planet rotating or the sun from moving around it in more exotic realities; rather, it creates a spacial distortion that repositions the area it's in relative to the light source while keeping it contiguous to the rest of the planet. People crossing this boundary rarely notice aside from a small headache, but the psychically inclined can become quite incapacitated, and wizards have been known to explode. Curiously, this also has the effect of adjusting all timepieces in the affected area to display the same time, one that approximately mirrors the hour the effect most resembles and adjusts itself as night continues to fall. Eventually, all clocks will display midnight if the Animal stays in one place long enough. Adhesives within the area harden quickly – but also degrade and crumble quickly as well – and blades seem to sharpen themselves.
Following the Animal is not just night, but a perpetual windstorm. It picks up grit and whips it into a skin-searing, eye-gouging vortex that blankets the entire area of the Animal's influence; sandstorms and dust-storms are common, but in places where no particles exist to fling, metal objects have been known to shed filings to create truly lethal maelstroms, or – more often – large quantities of sand simply come into being.
Worst of all, simply being around the Animal for long periods of time is enough to induce paralysis in most living things. The facial muscles tend to be the first to go, but gradually everything stiffens and eventually becomes immobile, always in the same prone, straight, arms-by-the-side position. This does have the marginal benefit of forcing the bones into the proper place and holding them fast, but few would seek it out for this.
Biography: No-one knows how long the Animal has been around or what it's been doing for that time. All anyone can be sure of is that it's seeking something; the smart money is that it's looking for the missing portions of its collar, or perhaps looking for the proper receptacle for the last gem. Some even hypothesize that it's been sent to find or fetch a person, but nobody knows who or how.
Name: The Animal
Species: Unknown
Gender: Male
Color: Sunset Sandstorm Sky
Description: The Animal seems to be an amalgam of several different creatures, or perhaps one that simply resembles them. Each person who has seen it describes it differently: the most commonly mentioned creature is an enormous jackal, the size of a man or larger; often it is described as having aspects of an aardvark, or a lion, or even a giraffe. The only thing consistent across all descriptions of it is its forked tail and hide of such a deep red it seems black in all but the brightest sunlight.
Its personality or even sapience are hard to pin down. It is said by some to have spoken or listened, while others describe it as bestial and mindless. Much like its form, its behavior is catalogued inconsistently and contradictorily. All anyone knows for sure is that it seems to be seeking something. It takes little interest in people most times, but is extremely dangerous despite its lack of overt hostility.
Weapons/Abilities: The Animal has no weapons – although it may have teeth or claws – nor does it seem to have the capacity to use anything but its body as such. It does, however, have one thing that marks it as either having had contact with tool users or the capability to create things itself: around its neck is a black leather band; there is one onyx mounted on the collar, but obvious spaces for four more.
What makes it dangerous, despite its lack of weapons, is what it does seemingly unknowingly or unintentionally to the world around it. Regardless of where the Animal goes or when it goes there, when it arrives night will begin to fall, and morning will not come until it leaves. This, fortunately, does not stop the planet rotating or the sun from moving around it in more exotic realities; rather, it creates a spacial distortion that repositions the area it's in relative to the light source while keeping it contiguous to the rest of the planet. People crossing this boundary rarely notice aside from a small headache, but the psychically inclined can become quite incapacitated, and wizards have been known to explode. Curiously, this also has the effect of adjusting all timepieces in the affected area to display the same time, one that approximately mirrors the hour the effect most resembles and adjusts itself as night continues to fall. Eventually, all clocks will display midnight if the Animal stays in one place long enough. Adhesives within the area harden quickly – but also degrade and crumble quickly as well – and blades seem to sharpen themselves.
Following the Animal is not just night, but a perpetual windstorm. It picks up grit and whips it into a skin-searing, eye-gouging vortex that blankets the entire area of the Animal's influence; sandstorms and dust-storms are common, but in places where no particles exist to fling, metal objects have been known to shed filings to create truly lethal maelstroms, or – more often – large quantities of sand simply come into being.
Worst of all, simply being around the Animal for long periods of time is enough to induce paralysis in most living things. The facial muscles tend to be the first to go, but gradually everything stiffens and eventually becomes immobile, always in the same prone, straight, arms-by-the-side position. This does have the marginal benefit of forcing the bones into the proper place and holding them fast, but few would seek it out for this.
Biography: No-one knows how long the Animal has been around or what it's been doing for that time. All anyone can be sure of is that it's seeking something; the smart money is that it's looking for the missing portions of its collar, or perhaps looking for the proper receptacle for the last gem. Some even hypothesize that it's been sent to find or fetch a person, but nobody knows who or how.