The Grand OC! [CONTEST XXX: HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEN]

HA HA HA I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THIS GIVE ME A BIT.

Best of Show goes to Colleen Ector and her rockin pal Henry, because I really like witches but also because she's probably collected way more swag than these others.

Speaking of phat lewts Backdoor Worldbuilding goes to Glastom because I totally wanna know more about these crazy magitech jazz and robots and aa it's so cooool also they vaguely sound like a risk of rain character or something what with just having all that loot stuck on. They also get Iron Chef for exceptional bling.

Who's that comin Above the Fold? It's Dere! They also win the confusion award cos it took me a while to get.

Diligent Gentleman totes goes to Saurfire Detectives cos they're raaad. Also gets I See What You Did There awardddd cos yea

Synergy Award goes to Luter because they got some hecka street cred all up in this joint. I wonder what kinda secrets they'd pick up in a battle? We will never know...

l8r nerds

Okay, although I haven't done one of these in a while, I think I'm going to throw in a theme.

Your next theme is...

TOGETHERNESS!

Okay. So I notice that no one, myself included, has posted a profile for this in nearly two weeks. (For what it's worth, I did have a vague plan in mind but didn't get anywhere with it.)

So what do people want to do here? Options I can see:
-People come up with Togetherness stuff anyways and we actually have some judging and then continue.
-Garuru comes up with a different theme that will hopefully generate more ideas.
-Same as above but somebody else comes up with a theme.
-Give up on the whole thing and let the thread die.
-Less drastically, give the thread a break and schedule a new round for next month or something if the main problem is that most people are preoccupied and/or burned out on GROCeries at the moment.

So what are the thoughts here? Is this just a tough theme for people to work with or is it a sign of some kind of more general issue?

not sure. personally, I just can't think of anything good for this theme *shrug*

It's been over a month, it's time to bring this back from the grave.

This week's theme is...

POSTAL

really dini? mail theme? what is this, 1999? /s

Name: Sir Marcus the Deliverer
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Text Color: #6666FF
Biography: In medieval times, travel was very rare among the lower classes, save for soldiers marching to war. Yet those soldiers still had messages for their families back at home, families they might not live to see again.

But there was hope for them, and its name was Sir Marcus the Deliverer. Marcus would ride onto battlefields in full armor, giving soldiers on both sides words of encouragement from home, and taking messages back in return.

So respected was Marcus that most battles paused while he did his work. Or perhaps it was feared. The stories say that only one soldier ever dared to interrupt Marcus' work and ended up fighting him. But the soldier's blade could not pierce the tightly linked chains of Marcus' armor at all, and Marcus knocked his opponent to the ground with one strike from his sword.

True or not, the story spread, and every soldier recognizes Marcus' armor on sight and stays out of his way.

Description: Marcus is a rather tall man, and his chain armor only makes him look more imposing. Despite this, he's quite gentle most of the time. He reserves his anger for those who interrupt his work. He gets especially upset if his armor is damaged.

He will also go to great lengths to deliver anything entrusted to him. Usually this is a letter, but he does handle packages at times.

Weapons and Abilities: Marcus has a sword, a suit of armor, a bag for holding letters, and a horse.

The sword is the most ordinary of these. There's really nothing particularly unusual about it, though few have seen Marcus draw it.

The bag is also fairly ordinary, but there are tales that it can hold thousands of messages, yet will always be as light as if it were empty. At the time of abduction, who can say how many letters were inside?

Nobody has dared ask Marcus if the horse has a name, though the stories go that it is the fastest horse in all the world, and will readily go wherever Marcus asks it. Rumors abound that the horse can even cross the tallest mountains or the deepest oceans.

The armor, however, is Marcus' most famous possession. Crafted from linked chains of metal rings, it provides incredible protection. None know who made it. The armor is so renowned that in some kingdoms, Marcus is known only as "the mail man".

oh look at that the theme after mine got a profile.

sorry for a terrible theme i guess??

(nah i know it was because of general fatigue)

Username: Truegreen
Name: Grothar Destroyer Of Valued Objects
Species: Human?
Gender: Male
Color: GROTHAR FAVORITE COLOR...GROTHAR...GROTHAR FORGET NAME...IS COLOR OF WARPAINT!

Description: Grothar very big, very strong. Grothar wear pelts of fallen enemies, warpaint of blood! Grothar have many scars. Grothar sometimes wear broken things, not on per...por...not cuz Grothar want to.

Weapons/Abilities: Grothar strong. Grothar VERY strong. Grothar very very very very very strong. Have never met one strong as Grothar. Things break alot round Grothar. This make Grothar angry, then more things break. Grothar usually have plenty of warpaint after angry time. Grothar try to hold spear once. Spear snap in two. Grothar try to slash with sword. Sword bend and shatter in grip. Grothar once try to wear helmet...Grothar never want wear helmet again. Grothar seem not be able to touch much without breaking thing. Once left town through forest. Walked back through empty plain...

Biography: Grothar once part of mighty tribe. Proud people teach Grothar honor and fighting. Grothar have happy childhood, though much yelling from ripped hides and flimsy tent poles. Grothar not know what to say 'bout that. One day Grothar get very drunk. When Grothar get drunk Grothar get ANGRY! Must have made tribe look at Grothar in new light. Warleader want speak to Grothar. Say very special mission. Grothar eager to help tribe. Grothar sent far over mountain and stream, deliver magic rock. Grothar find towns, cities, armor men. Grothar deliver rock to Armor Men. They tell Grothar to leave. Grothar get ANGRY!...Not much left when Grothar Angry... Grothar try to return to tribe. Tribe left, not tell Grothar where going. This make Grothar ANGRY! Grothar eat well that night. Grothar wander through world. Met big monsters, met slimy gobbins. Once even become squirrel by witch. Kill witch, be strong once more. One day Grothar find cave. Cave sounds strange. Sounds make Grothar ANGRY! Grothar not remember Angry that day. Grothar instead remember strange talky man. Talky man tell Grothar to kill. Grothar not like being told what to do...but Talky man promise reward. Promise find tribe. Grothar Angry, but really want tribe. So Grothar kill you now. Keep head still, Grothar not want to be angry.

Username: Schazttergories
Name: Magnus Pica, villain alias The Deliveryman
Species: ex-magpie, now magpie-man
Gender: He figures a deliveryMAN is a guy, right? Right.
Color: Burdnished Bronze

Biography: So one time, you've got a zoologist/biologist/mad scientist supervillain type, codename Dr. Avarice. He's pretty normal for where he comes from, so nobody bats too much of an eye when he hires out an abandoned warehouse, experimenting on birds to make some kind of army of hyper-evolved dinosaurs. Supervillainy grant schemes being what they are, though, he works with pigeons and chickens and other easy-to-acquire samples, rather than cool critters like a cassowary or an eagle or something.

As it turned out, most of his birds just straight-up weren't smart enough to make good minions, and Dr. Avarice is still tied up trying to get enough funding for a parrot chick from a pet shop. The only half-decent birdman he made was from a Eurasian Magpie, smart enough to have intelligence on par with a human but distinctly... bird brained. Dr. Avarice gave his test subject a name and a reasonably stable childhood, which explains a lot about why the supervillain wasn't that great at his job.

Anyway, Magnus was homeschooled in all the sciences, but given free run of the city by his dad figure. His avian ancestry started kicking in in his teenage years and giving him a real thrill when seeking out shiny objects that didn't belong to him. He made the news headlines, unattributed, a couple times in some smash-and-grab robberies of jewelery stores, but achieved infamy after raiding a military museum and running off with all their war medals. He's so far escaped arrest by acting like his bird-head is a weird mask during a raid, so cops get really confused when they frisk him on a street and his face actually moves. A bird-dude certainly isn't the weirdest thing living in this city, so he gets away with a fair bit.

If anyone bothered to ask him why he steals war medals in particular, he's got a great spin about how war shouldn't be glorified or something. Really, though, he just likes nicking shiny shit and hasn't really registered on the scale of major villainy in Genericopolis.

The Deliveryman was last spotted in a road chase, riding a stolen police horse dressed in full finery. Freelance hero Gliderboy had just cut him off when the birdman and the horse vanished in a flash of light.

Description: Magnus is a couple inches short of six feet, built like a scaled-up crow-sorta bird, but with disproportionately longer legs. You can probably lift him with one hand, what with his hollow bones. His upper limbs are wings, kept folded to his sides and covering his robotic arms which emerge from his lower back region. The arms have gooseneck cables and a full range of motion, and were surgeoneered onto him by a friend of Dr. Avarice. His head basically looks like one of those shitty rubber bird masks, but with more feathers and he can actually move his face.

His streetwear is a pullover hoodie with useless dangly sleeves (the arms snake out from underneath), baggy pants and custom-made shoes for his bird feet. When on heists he ditches the sweater, and arrays his wings with war medals and other memorabilia he's stolen. People tend to forget he's got wings, so them blasting open and rattling medals in their face makes for a good distraction.

Weapons/Abilities: Magnus can see into ultraviolet and can vocalise on the inhale and exhale, because birds. He can also jump pretty high on account of being light, and can fly in a very ungainly fashion if his wings are free. He's got a lot of war medals, and also a very confused horse. His dad made him carry a pistol, although he only knows enough to know there's something called a safety, and not so much how to check that it's on.

Name: Express Delivery
Race: ing Snail
Gender: Male
Text Colour: #0C63B0
Description: Express is an oxford blue snail with a high tech white shell modelled in the style of a mail van. He has a pronounced jaw, a winning smile and a tiny little snail postman's hat. He is hard working and dutiful, he takes great personal pride in both the speed of his deliveries and the safety of packages in his care. He was boundless enthusiasm and an easy confidence. He has no problem making friends though he seldom listens to anyone who isn't himself.
Weapons/Abilities: This snail is fast.
Biography: For years Express served as the mascot for small delivery company Lightning Distribution. Eventually the business came upon hard times and it seemed like it was going to have to shut down. Stranded in the middle of a freak thunderstorm Express was struck by lightning and somehow survived unharmed. Not only unharmed but somehow supercharged. Express found he could move at lightning speeds, and it was through the use of his newfound abilities that he and his human friend Raoul managed to save the ailing business, renaming it Express Distribution in honour of Express' newfound celebrity status. After that Raoul constructed a little town for snails and Express had a whole bunch of misadventures racing against various other creatures which sought to prove their speed and delivering the most time-sensitive mail.

Username: SupahKeebash
Name: That Mail Guy
Species: Human... probably
Gender: Male
Color: A S(l)ick Maroon

Description: That Mail Guy, or 'Him' as he is also referred to as, looks like a typical adult male in the postal worker business. He has an average build, being not too skinny or overly muscled. His brown hair is close cropped, almost always hidden beneath his hat. He tends to speak very rarely, his most common sentence being "Here's your mail".

His uniform consists of a pair of black slacks, a pair of black shoes, and brown polo shirt with threads sticking out of the upper right hand chest area, as though there was a pocket or patch there that was ripped off. He also has a brown baseball cap that is often tilted down so that the bill is obscuring his eyes. A mail bag is constantly slung over his shoulder. He's also constantly splattered with blood.

Weapons/Abilities: That Mail Guy possesses superhuman strength, able to crush someone's skull with his bare hands. That strength is further amplified when he enters one of his 'attack states'. Said attack states happen somewhat frequently, and cause Him to shrug off or ignore any incoming attacks, as well as being able to act as though his current injuries aren't there. His mail bag acts as a hammerspace or summoning bag of sorts, allowing him to pull out anything that could be conceivably used as a blunt or bladed weapon.

Biography: Though most information about Him is unknown, there are many reports of how That Mail Guy operates, as he typically does the same thing every time he appears. That Mail Guy typically arrives in any small town with a post office in the spring months. He, somehow, manages to get a job at said post office, and proceeds to serve his job diligently for about a year, give or take a few weeks. After that year, he disappears for a month. Once a missing persons report goes up for him, despite the minimal information, he'll reappear, clothes torn and splattered with blood. Despite his poor state of health, he will insist that he continue to deliver the mail. At this point, the reports tend to vary. Sometimes, they let him, and things continue relatively normal for a while.

If he is refused, however, then things get messy. Whenever That Mail Guy is, in any way, shape, or form, prevented from delivering mail, he will shift into a state of psychotic and unrelenting anger. His strength and stamina increase exponentially, and he will frequently reach into his mail bag, bringing out a weapon to use against anyone near him. The only way That Mail Guy exits his 'attack stage' is when he is either allowed to deliver mail or the thing preventing him from delivering mail is destroyed/dead.

After a few months of this behavior, That Mail Guy disappears, leaving the town he was in fearing for their lives. Or a ghost town.

Username: chwoka
Name: Chwoka
Species: 25 + 1 individual consciousnesses
Gender: Plural
Color: 我는izquierdadeздравомыслие

Description

• RAGSDAA
  
• RAGSDAA
  
• RAGSDAA
  
• RAGSDAA!
  fouristhenumberofdeathsthedeathsongofliberationfromthishell
  

Weapons/Abilities

The infestation is truly magnificentnificent. My earth -- it teemsteemsteems with minds thrivingbreedingcopulating like filthy FILthyTHYTHY woorms words birds
does it haveknowmeet limitsboundsdelineations?
我他你没有

Biography

WE CRY TEARS OF COFFEE

YOUyourselfHIVEdevourYOUbreadINFESTATIONmyUPONuponMYinfestationBREADyouDEVOURhiveYOURSELFyou

LET DRIP MILKY SORROW FROM THE TEATS OF PLATITUDES

it hurts mama it hurts

when can i go home
go home
let me go home, mind
mind go home

I explicitly said I would give the 24-hour warning on time but then exams happened so here you go it's your 24-hour warning.

Username: Pala
Name: Roger Brant
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Color: A good blue will do

Description: Roger is a large, malformed person, with a particularly big left arm and hand that make dealing with anything requiring delicacy or precise movements a big hassle. He's also a fair bit asymmetrical, with the right side of his body (especially the arm and torso) being as a whole smaller than the left, and a large space between his neck and right shoulder taken up by a scar.

His eyes are constantly switching from looking totally absent to completely crazy, and Roger has a fair amount of difficulty forming complex sentences or thoughts.

Weapons/Abilities: Roger possesses great strength and resilience, able to throw and take swings with the best of them. However, this comes at a cost - only his left arm has any real power, and it basically can't be used for anything other than smashing and other simpler activities. While his right arm is better suited for more mundane tasks, it takes a great deal of effort and time for Roger to position it just right and it's extremely weak. His natural resistance is similar to this, with him easily being able to shrug off blows to his left and lower body but taking far greater damage to his upper right torso.

He also has a simple, almost childish mind and worldview which has served to both make people more lenient overconfident in dealing with him, though it also makes him incredibly easy to manipulate.

Biography: Roger was actually born as a conjoined twin with his brother, Albert Brant, who only really took up the pair's upper right side. While Roger was born the stronger of the two with great control over most of their body, Albert had a brilliant mind and more than made up for his twin's simplicity.

As the years went on (miraculously with no major health issues), the pair became accustomed to relying upon each other for everything. Albert counted upon Roger's strength and actual body for day to day business, while Roger relied upon Albert for social and mental situations (and, to a lesser extent, upon the control Albert had over their weaker but more dextrous right hand). However, while the bond between them brought them closer together as brothers, Albert often took advantage of his dumber twin to gain things for himself, then blaming it on Roger whose imposing looks and simplicity got him out of most trouble. Unfortunately, this led to the impressionable Roger assuming that the misdeeds Albert was always tricking him into were the right thing to do, and this in turn inspired Albert to continue and expand upon his selfish manipulations.

Eventually though, this ended up being their undoing. Albert and Roger became small time criminals, and shortly thereafter suffered a terrible accident while trying to evade the police. Albert died from a grievous head wound, and to prevent it from rotting away and killing his twin it had to be amputated - much to Roger's dismay. Without Albert to turn to Roger began to lose control over what was little mental faculties he had to begin with, and after a series of rampages (which he claimed Albert had 'told' him to do) he was captured and brought in for psychiatric treatment.

He was only there for a few months before vanishing, but in that time he had managed to gain some small control over the right arm that his brother had always managed, and while he still seemed extremely upset about the death (often to the point of violence) he no longer believed Albert was still telling him what to do. While Roger is still having a lot of issues to work through before he could come close to being a working member of society, for now at least he could function without Al to guide him.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these entries from swift judgement in this competition.

I probably should've expected an overwhelming turnout of male men when I picked this theme.

Magnus Pica flies around the theme and steals The Best of Show Award out from under the other contestants, in addition to nearly thieving Backdoor Worldbuilding (as always).

He's not fast enough to keep Express Delivery from snatching up The Above The Fold Award, handily sweeping it out of the reach of

Chwoka, who wins The 20Q Award For Confusing Me and The I See What You Did There Award concurrently for well I think this needs no explanation.

The Iron Chef Special Ingredient Award goes to Marcus the Deliverer for being a mailman that's ready to get medieval.

Also willing to get medieval but presumably from a sillier world than Marcus's, Grothar's self-narrated history is broken enough to warrant The Backdoor Worldbuilding Award. I'm sure that Warleader has a story or two to tell.

The Diligent Gentleman Award is more of a Diligent Gentlemen Award this time around, as Roger Brant and The Mail Man co-hoist the trophy over whatever poor soul tried to get in their way.

Finally while meddling with everyone's perceptions and context in general Poe's Stall takes The Synergy Award for making whatever Grand Battle it's in a huge joke.

Thanks for turning out this week after the break, and here's to many weeks to come.

Welcome back to the Grand OC. I am The Truegreen and I am glad to be your host this week (that is if no one has any objections). I have taken the liberty of drawing a theme from the great theme hat. Let's see it.

Ah

Yes

This is one of my personal favorites.

The theme this week is....

Kill It, Kill It With Fire!

Username: Sai
Name: Gurska Karr - "The Immolator"
Species: Taurus
Gender: Female
Color: Never really liked coloring

Background:

When explorers discovered the literally and figuratively bull-headed sentients living on the fifth planet in the Zeta Tauri system, they were shocked by the race’s humanoid appearance. They believed that they had to be either the result of a seed ship that had been lost in that sector whose colonists must have undergone some sort of accelerated speciation or the result of a genetic experiment whose creator had since perished without releasing his notes. The latter was a far more popular theory on account of their resemblance to the minotaur of Earth’s mythos, but remnants of a seed ship’s materials found scattered throughout the Tauri settlements gave credence to the former. Because they were believed to be an offshoot of an existing spacefaring civilization, they became partially integrated into galactic society before a more comprehensive analysis could be performed. As fate would have it, the Tauri technological ascension occurred at the same time as the border skirmishes which would eventually escalate into the Nyxian-Nihensei War, so most of the galaxy paid little attention to the fairly isolated world as its denizens began to adopt modern weaponry and spacecraft.

As it turned out, they were natives to the planet, and at least as violent and bloodthirsty as humans had ever been in their own developmental period on Earth. Having already destroyed a human colony with only medieval weaponry, their rapid ascension to space age technology without a corresponding cultural acclimation would prove to be devastating. Within a decade, almost a quarter of their population had been wiped out. A decade more and fully half of their species was dead and a significant portion of their population centers had been rendered uninhabitable. A response force was finally sent to help deal with the planetary conflict from the Nihensei Republics, but with no true global government to work with, there was little that they could hope to do to help establish peace and were at first limited to providing humanitarian aid. Their support instead helped spark the first wave of mass emigration from Tauri V, and there was little they could do to ensure that the departing Tauri would remain (or, indeed, ever were) peaceful. While most of the refugees genuinely sought an escape from the catastrophic destruction of their homeworld, a significant number were devoutly warlike. These emigrants scattered across the galaxy, with most joining the burgeoning Mercenary Coalition, where their aptitude for destruction was welcomed with open arms, while others would join various pirate collectives hidden in backwater worlds. Meanwhile, the war on Tauri V raged on.

The ineffectiveness of the task force in even reducing the violence surrounding them would prove to be too frustrating for many of their members to stomach. A rogue detachment led by one of the group’s sociologists, Dr Timothy McCullen, decided that the only way to ensure peace would be for one faction to attain total dominance of the planet. Supporting one of the largest clans, the Karr, they began to fight in the world wide war themselves.Tauri histories would later elevate these humans to mythical status, especially given the fact that the genetic lock on their weapons initially prevented them from being used by the Tauri themselves. Following a human’s demise in combat, highly ranked members of the clan they supported would use preserved parts of their body to allow them continue to use these tools in combat. As a result, swearing by body parts of the fallen leader of this group entered the the Tauri lexicon (eg - “Timmy’s Fist, that’s a fine gun!”). Additionally, because native weapon technology would not catch up with the galactic standard for years to come, the Karr were able to maintain technological dominance until they finally achieved total victory in their war for unification. Though he did not live to see it, Timmy’s rogue detachment succeeded in bringing some measure of peace to the Tauri and preventing their self inflicted genocide.

Gurska was born in the middle of the winter birthing season of 11 BKD (Before Karr Dominion). In her childhood she saw her clan win battle after battle, subduing numerous rival tribes as their domain expanded to encompass the entirety of the supercontinent on which the Tauri lived. In her teenage years, the first ever Tauri world peace began to show cracks as numerous minor revolts broke out amongst the conquered clans and political conflicts between neighboring groups turned violent. Though these were quickly and brutally put down by Karr soldiers, the clan elders realized that without a global project to capture the focus of their people, their empire would collapse a mere generation after it had been established. Though being small and out of the way allowed them emerge as an independent world, their race was far too small and technologically primitive to hope to challenge the pan-galactic establishments themselves. Through the Tauri emigres that had enlisted in the Mercenary Coalition years before, the Tauri elders were able to make contact with the now vast nomadic fleet and concluded a formal alliance between their world’s government and this wayfaring bloc.

With their aid, the Karr began to take control of multiple neighboring star systems, but the close contact with the Coalition began to influence them culturally as well. While the Tauri as a whole and the Karr especially valued loyalty to the clan above all, the Mercenary Coalition thought differently. A large portion of the Coalition’s revenue came from small groups leaving the fleet to provide support in smaller conflicts wherever they may break out, and as a result they placed a high value on individual initiative. Additionally, the very nature of their organization made loyalty to a specific cause (aside from violence itself and self interest) an unreasonable ideal. The fact that they were the stronger partner in their relationship made these values seem appealing to many of the Tauri. None felt this more strongly than Gurska’s generation, which were just then entering adulthood and seeking to prove their worth.

With conquest still in the Karr clan’s eyes as she was growing up, Gurska lived and breathed warfare, learning everything from her race’s traditional style of combat with horns and melee weapons to the use of their distinctly modern arsenal and tactics. Her heritage as a member of the core family of the Karr clan, which essentially placed her amongst the aristocracy if not outright royalty as far as the Tauri were concerned, allowed her to receive training in both the cutting edge of Tauri technology and adopted alien materiel. She spent the years of peace frustrated and joined her clan’s suppression forces at every available opportunity. When their alliance with the Mercenary Coalition allowed the Tauri to begin waging war on neighboring worlds, she quickly became recognized for her talents as a combat pilot. While she was not particularly talented when compared to those born on the migratory worldships of the Coalition, the Tauri were generally awful at flying, and simply being adequate amongst the spacefaring mercs made her an ace amongst her own kind. Constantly seeking to improve herself, she spent more and more time amongst the other races of the Tauri’s allies, and eventually accepted a contract to become a full fledged mercenary soldier. She quickly came to adopt their migratory lifestyle for her own, and left the territorial wars of her people to lead small strike forces in minor conflicts across the galaxy. Born to battle, she soon acquired a reputation as a bloodthirsty warrior and a fearless commander.

Description:

Standing a full ten feet in height and bulging with muscle, Gurska is an intimidating figure even without her arsenal. With it, she is simply nightmarish. Clad in overlapping plates of reflective metal over the black gel of her modern encounter suit, her combat garb looks anachronistic in design, as though a medieval knight were to have their mail commissioned from modern materials. Designed to reduce the impact of lasers, small arms fire, and even melee weapons in the rare instances which they are used, the similarities carry over to its function as well as its form.

If her armor gives the impression of a mix between a medieval aesthetic with modern utility, her weaponry solidifies it. Her weapon of choice is a 40 mm autocannon which had been torn from the smoking hull of a downed interceptor. Designed for ship to ship combat, wide, black heat sinks run down the length of the weapon. Though large enough for a human force to consider it an artillery piece, she wields it as a hand-held device fed from a belt that feeds out of a case of ammo that she wears on her left hip. When not spitting out depleted uranium death to an effective range measured in kilometers, this weapon is worn on a strap slung over her back. When facing enemies at closer ranges, she uses the weapon with which she earned her nomme de guerre - a massive flamethrower, capable of emitting blue streams of fire that can arc out over thirty meters. Given the importance of oxygen in ships and stations, few of her opponents expected the use of this weapon, which is easily capable of clearing out corridors of enemies that she will never even see while alive. She wears this weapon in mirror to her autocannon, slung over her back when not in use and fed from a tank on her right leg. For melee combat, in the few times in which she is granted that particular pleasure, she wields an axe. Her axe, as can be expected given her size and inhuman strength, is heavy, blunt, and just as effective at taking down a door as it is at killing an enemy. It has, in fact, been used far more often as a tool than an actual weapon. Though this allows her to logically justify carrying it, it is still the source of some private embarrassment.

She bears the gravitas of those assured of their competence, and speaks with a low, firm tone. Her speech is characterized by the elongated vowels and guttural slur which are endemic to the Tauri. She prefers to phrase questions as requests for information (eg “Tell me how this device works.” rather than “How does this device work?”) and tends to be more comfortable in a position of command than speaking to others as equals. It is in part on account of this trait that she prefers to spend so much of her time deployed with soldiers under her command rather than surrounded by the generally egalitarian minded bulk of the Mercenary Coalition. It would be safe to conclude that Gurska does not know the true meaning of friendship.

Name: The Final Blasphemer
Race: Appears to have once been human
Gender: Unclear, and largely irrelevant
Text Color: A fiery red

Biography: The nation of Aethra was once a theocracy, and the Grand Church oversaw all. Every city was bound by their laws, and the most important law of all was that you Believed.
Those that did not Believe were given the opportunity to Repent, which involved granting all their property to the church. Most agreed readily, considering the alternative was being tied to a stake and then set on fire.
But there were a few who refused to Repent, or agreed to Repent and then went on to Blaspheme once they thought the Church was out of earshot. (It never was.) And these Blasphemers were burned, prominently and publicly, to inspire others to Believe.
Yet there was one Blasphemer who continued to decry the Church even as their body burned on the stake. The flames burned harder and harder, and the Church's men added more kindling, poked the body with swords and spears, yet the Blasphemer's voice would not stop. Indeed, it grew louder with every moment.
Then the fires started raging out of control. The inquisitors tried to douse the flames, but no amound of water seemed to slow the inferno. And the voice continued shouting, continued to curse the Church for its crimes.
The flames engulfed one of the inquisitors, and as he burned in agony, the Blasphemer named those who had died by his hands, one by one. And the flames continued to spread.
By morning, every inquisitor had burned to death. There was no sign of the stake the Blasphemer had been tied to, nor of the flames themselves.
The next night, the Grand Church in Aethra's capital burned to the ground. In a panic, the blasphemy laws were overturned and the church disbanded. There would be no more Blasphemers.
None knew what had happened to the last one. There was not even any record of who they had been.

Description: The most prominent feature of the Final Blasphemer is that they are on fire.
Indeed, the fire is all that can really be seen. There's a large wooden post in the center of it all, and if you squint you can see the silhouette of a human in there, but it's impossible to make out any identifying features.
In fact, it would be easy to believe there was no one in the flames at all if not for the voice. The voice screams about corruption and hypocrisy, in very specific terms. It seems to adjust its speech to relate to the government of whatever area it's currently in.
It also doesn't seem to like any sort of organized religion. This is not really all that surprising.

Weapons and Abilities: The Final Blasphemer's main ability is being on fire. This has fairly obvious implications.
It also appears to have complete knowledge of the actions of anyone in its vicinity. If someone is near the Blasphemer and it deems them to be good of heart, it will use its flames to protect them. If it deems them to be wicked, it will burn them and call out their crimes one by one.
It is naturally drawn to what it considers "agents of sin", mostly those most complicit in the crimes of whatever government or religion it's complaining about. It seems to have an inherent knowledge of the local political systems, as it usually starts screaming about specific scandals within moments of crossing a national border.

This theme will end tomorrow afternoon and the awards will be handed out later that evening.

consider this the 24 hour warning

Now would be the time to get those last minute submissions in!

There's still some time to get in a submission for this theme.

Submissions will close in 2 hours.

Username: Schazing rituals
Name: Piro, aka The Almighty Daymaker
Species: Stiggan Meiyr
Gender: A one-man meiyr-band
Color: Racnoc Blue

Biography: After the cleanup concluded following all hell breaking loose on the Praeterwater, the founding gods agreed to step back from omnipotence and let some new fish have a go. Least amenable was the youngest god of the four, Catcher, who'd barely had a chance to flex his deific might before being relegated to a celestial desk job. Law and Solbruin figured his complaints fair, and let him make a few new mortal races of his design (under the tutelage of the experienced newcomer, Wootz.) Even Egal was gracious enough to not judge him for making more dog-creatures, and Catcher ascended satisfied into the Echelon.

From Wootz' generic terrestrial mammaloids, Catcher uplifted the lively Marche, the ponderous Fenne, and the introspective Meiyr. The Marche, already scavenging on the edges of Seakin cities, integrated themselves swiftly. The Fenne trundled into civilisation in their own time, but the Meiyr preferred the dark corners - and the sunless world of the Praeterwater was full of them. The Meiyr became a diaspora, every dark ruin a home to a different set of stories and myths and insects for dinner.

The Almighty came from what he'd call dull and uninteresting origins, though it's thanks to the Marmoral-carved histories on the walls of his home that he even knew what a sun was, let alone that the Praeterwater had ever sported one.

Feeling deeply unappreciated on an intellectual front, and not seeing the irony of such, he left his storied home to spread the truth of light, or at least to find out the true motives of Solbruin, god of darkness and monsters. The goddess in question has been monitoring this legend-in-the-making, and finds his self-proclaimed title to be rather amusing. Personally, she thinks Saint Piro has a much nicer ring to it.

Description: Stiggan Meiyr are long-furred, bipedal, long-faced creatures with shaggy, dragging tails that counterbalance their considerable height (a good six feet at the shoulder, plus prehensile, heronlike necks). Their ancestral stock were termite-eaters, and their long faces house longer, sticky tongues designed to lap up insects. Piro's den cultivated the bioluminescent larvae of the winged insects called Racnoc, which leaves a blue glow most conspicuously on the tongue but also tints the fur over a lifetime of eating them. The Racnoc just as readily take up residence in dark Meiyr fur, making the young Piro's bodily glow distinctly spotty. Despite his worship of all things luminescent, he's got poor vision that works best in low or no light, and is blinded by direct bright light.

Being ill-equipped to go adventuring in general, let alone slaying a god, he's cocky but politely curious about the world around him. Journeying to strange lands to meet strange people will probably do him some good if he comes back alive. Probably.

Weapons/Abilities: The Almighty left home equipped with a portable termite farm on his back, which is more like a box of dirt than anything. There's probably more Racnoc in his fur than in the farm, but considering his claws are better built for digging/ripping than building, he didn't do a bad job. If he had better fine motor skills he'd probably be an inventor-type or such. He also thinks he can control light, although that's not actually a thing anyone can do.

Username: Garuru
Name: Mr. Last Minute
Gender: guess
Race: ghost
Color: didn't pick one in time :(
Description: Mr. Last Minute was always procrastinating. One day, a god, who was truly green didn't like that, so this god sent a fiery meteor towards him, and killed him. Now he's a ghost. Who procrastinates.

Abilities: He's always too la