The Grand OC! [CONTEST XXX: HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEN]

Username: Garuru
Name: The Incendiary
Race: Human? Spectre
Gender: Varies
Color: This one
Biography:

Feb 24, 2014

You are at your friend's birthday party. You're having a blast, eating snow cones, playing games, all that. He even has a bouncy castle in his backyard! You're thinking that this just might be the best birthday party ever! You are about to tell your friend that, when all of a sudden, here comes Janice. Ugh, Janice. Who invited her to this party? You suck it in, and prepare for the onslaught of passive aggression that is sure to follow. But, this time, you can tell that something is wrong, as you make eye contact with her. She's always had a nasty glint in her eye, but this time... it's almost tangible. Like, a spark runs between the two of you, visible only to you. She has a present in her hand, wrapped in red and gold paper. As she gives it to your friend, she only says, "Happy birthday. Hope you're having a blast." As your friend rolls his eyes and sets it on the table, you can tell something is off. But what?

You try to tell your friend this, but no words come out of your mouth. Suddenly your movements feel sluggish. You feel like you are walking through molasses, and every step takes great effort. You look back at the table, driven by an instinct. The present has already turned in a strange metal apparatus, but nobody else seems to have noticed. It was a sphere, and it had a clock on it, ticking down from 5 minutes. Suddenly, you realize what this must be, and you try to warn the others: your friend, his parents, everybody. But you still cannot say anything. As you gesticulate wildly in slow motion, they can only look at you oddly, and laugh. Good one, they would say. You look around for Janice, demanding an explanation, but you can't find her. Instead, in her place is a huge fiery face, only looking at you. It leers, demonically. Once again, nobody notices her. Tears running down your cheeks, you make the toughest decision, to save only yourselves.

As you start to run, the fiery spectre opens her mouth, and screams, in the voice of "Janice". "It's a bomb!" Finally, some people start to catch on, and notice the rather obvious beeping. They run, but it is too late. The bomb is at 5 seconds.

You run, but your legs are burning with pain already.

4 seconds.

Your lungs are on fire, you struggle to take a breath.

3 seconds.

Everybody rushes past you.

2 seconds.

You begin to really wish you had gotten more in shape, even though this level of exertion is abnormal for you.

1 second.

You look back, and the damn demonic face is still there, leering at you.

00:00

Description: The Incendiary is a spectre. Its normal form is that of a huge, leering, demonic face on fire. However, it is capable of taking on the form of just about anybody. Nobody knows what happens to the people he imitates. This imitation is perfect, and people will never suspect a thing. That is, except for you. Yes, you. To explain, the Incendiary also likes to "mark" people. You see, it feeds off of panic, literally, and it likes to start with slow nibbles. And now, you have been marked. The person it imitates will usually be someone you know, but you're maybe not on good terms with. Being around this mockery will make you feel like something is off. Yet, whenever you try to explain, nobody will believe you.

As it becomes time for the Incendiary to feed, it will try to seek out, or create, the situation with the most people together in one place. It will then make a bomb, and watch you panic, feeding off of you all the while. To this end, it will glare at you, causing you to move sluggishly and be unable to speak. Finally, it will make others aware of the bomb, just before it is too late. The sight of this mass panic causes the greatest feeling the Incendiary will have, and the reason it keeps doing this. Mysteriously, this bomb doesn't appear to actually kill anyone, everyone having gotten away. Though, of course, you don't know that. The shockwaves have finally caught up to you. Congratulations, you're the next Incendiary.

Items/Abilities: Mimicry, distortion of belief, making bombs, causing sluggishness.

So we have 6 submissions and 8 awards, we need some more submissions! You still have time to write something up. If you are having trouble thinking of something good, remember, the theme nightmares does not necessarily mean 'dream oriented' Scary or Spooky things also fit the theme. Build a good bogeyman and I'll be happy to accept it into the fold.

IT AIN'T HAPPENING THIS WEEK alas too busy

Alright, I've been a bit busy today, This will close in an hour or two. If you want to get a last minute post in now's the time to do so!

Best Of Show Award: I really do like this submission. It's exciting, and the method of attack is certainly unique. I am of course talking about the panic devouring nightmare known only as The Incendiary

The Above The Fold Award: This award HAS to go to The President. Species: Rick Santorum. Color:White Like Jesus. Hilarious! Incidentally this is the second time Loather has posted a character, and the second time she has won this award.

The Iron Chef Special Ingredient Award: While we had many wonderful and iconic nightmares one stands above the rest theme wise. Come on up Embarrassment, the socially awkward nightmare we call "Barry".

The Backdoor World-building Award: I wasn't sure who to give this award to. Then I read the post for Sir Sebae. I have a sneaking suspicion that this comes from a Godgame somewhere on the forums, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to know more.

The Diligent Gentleman Award: This is where Sir Sebae really shines. His corruption abilities would be amazing to see in game. I for one would love to see how he reacts to being thrown into a cramped spaceship or a claustrophobic facility.

The 20Q Award for Confusing Me: I really don't understand Arinaye. An evil, conniving, Demon Summoning, Witch in a comical witch costume? I have no idea how it would work, but I can't say I'm not curious.

The Synergy Award: This was perhaps my favorite submission of all and this award is certainly earned. Margaret "Maggie" Neison is perhaps the most normal character of the bunch but her power is one of the most interesting. Simply, she's done this before. I am truly sad that this is not a real battle and that I will not get to see how Maggie's story plays out.

The I See What You Did Award: How can it not go to The President? Every line of this profile is a joke but I have no idea how it would be played in game. It would be a really weird battle that's for sure. Let's all give Loather a hand for this one.

And that wraps up Nightmares. Thanks for the great posts guys. I look forward to seeing the next host and his topic!

Alrighty, I've got the reigns this time. Keep my dumbass tastes and opinions in mind when you submit a character with the theme of...

...

Boreal!

Have fun, dudes and ladudes.

Username: ~TRUEGREEN~
Name: Fr'Zen Nord
Species: Coldman
Gender: Icicle
Color: A deep arctic blue

Description: Fr'Zen appears as a scraggly old man dressed in layers of cold weather gear in varying shades of blue. What skin you can see through his assembly of garments looks blistered and frostbitten. Two beady yellow eyes peer analytically from deep within a mountain of hats and scarves. His crooked fingers extend from moth-eaten fingerless gloves. His fingernails are yellow and ragged. If you catch a glimpse of his mouth you might notice row upon row of thick grey chompers designed specifically for grinding and crushing. He has a vaguely lumpy shape and walks with a ponderous gait as though his limbs are incredibly stiff.

Weapons/Abilities: Fr'Zen's strengths comes from eating snow, ice, or anything that's cold really. The more he eats the larger he gets and the lower his body temperature. Usually his skin is cold enough to freeze whatever he touches. This effect is limited to the skin area touching the target. His touch can shatter metal, freeze water, and give people frostbite in a matter of moments. He can grow to immense sizes, but the larger he gets the more single-minded he gets. If he gets too large he will eventually be overcome by exhaustion and sleep it off.

Biography: Drake hated the snow. Right now he'd rather be anywhere than here. The minivan was freezing inside, even with the heaters turned on max. The snow just wouldn't stop falling. It came down in flurries and drifts, piling up on the windshield almost too quickly for the wipers to deal with it. The headlights were completely useless, doing nothing more than making the dark wall of falling snow a slightly lighter shade of white. The van continued to push on despite the thick blizzard pressing in on all sides, but eventually with a depressing ‘Thunk’ it submitted to the unrelenting assault. Drake sat in the stopped car for a moment. His wife, Clarice, shifted in the dark passenger's seat. "Drake?" He could hear the exhaustion in her voice, she had been working late this past week, this trip was supposed to be their vacation. "Drake why have we stopped? Are we there?" "No dear, we're probably just stuck, I'm going to go see if I can dig us out." he mumbled grumpily. "Alright...be careful ok" "Yeah sure thing." Drake slipped out of the car pulling a thick woolen hat over the top of his head. But as Drake moved towards the trunk of the car he noticed something in the snow on the side of the road. He could barely see it in the dark, but it appeared to be a hand, sticking stiffly out of the snow. "Honey" Drake called "yes?" "Call 911, there's someone in the snow..." He heard his wife rummaging through the compartments in the car as he grabbed the shovel from the trunk. It didn't take very long to uncover the body, the man was dressed from head to toe in thick clothes. Drake stared for a second, he had never seen a dead body before and wasn't sure what to do. The man's face shifted in the snow and a low groan emerged from his lips. Drake rushed forward, the man was alive! he could still be saved! The body was surprisingly light, Drake managed to get it into the backseat with only a little trouble. He placed a blanket over the cold figure and closed the car doors, hoping the heat would be able to help. "They're sending an ambulance and a tow truck" Clarice said when Drake reentered the car. "Is he going to be ok?" she asked looking towards their unexpected passenger. "I don't know" Drake replied "He's probably been stuck out there for hours, we'll just have to wait for the doctors and hope we can warm him up a bit."

"The doors were closed and locked, the windows were closed, and it couldn't have been more than an hour after the call but both bodies are covered with frostbite. The woman mentioned someone found in the snow, but there is no other body, just her and what we assume must be her husband. We've searched the surrounding area, but we found no signs. Even stranger there are these...claw marks on the windows, like someone was trying to scratch their way out. What do you think happened here Officer?" The paramedic looked towards the policeman desperately hoping he had an explanation. "Can't be sure right now, we'll have to see what forensics says. Between me and you, there's been some weird shit going on lately." The officer absentmindedly brushed some snow off his jacket. "I mean just the other week we were getting reports of some sort of 'Frost Giant' can you believe that?" The paramedic shook his head "We live in interesting times." "HAH!" The Policeman grinned "You're telling me!" He watched as the snow gathered around the unusual scene. "Interesting times indeed"

Username: Ixcaliber
Name: Skeleton Key
Gender: Some of both
Species: Anguilla Cavota (more commonly known as Rhenic tunnelling eels)
Text Colour: #4682b4
Items/Abilities: Anguilla Cavota is a species of eel most commonly known for its capacity to eat through almost any material. A swarm of Anguilla Cavota typically consists of approximately fifty specimens. They have an unusual mouth structure which can completely rotate. Any individual rhenic eel has a typical lifespan of two weeks and when fully grown can reach two metres in length. The species is unable to survive for long outside of a thin band of temperature near freezing. Despite this they are surprisingly hardy; it has been noted that they have the ability to survive outside of water for up to five minutes. They are native only to the polar Rhenic Ocean, which because of recent rises in global sea temperatures cannot no longer support them. It is believed that they have become extinct in the wild.

Their behaviour follows a typical pattern; if their current environment becomes uncomfortably warm they will make their way to the nearest body of sufficiently cold water, eating through whatever gets in their way. It is believed that they have some kind of natural sense which allows them to locate nearby bodies of water, even if these bodies of water are not connected. Various experiments have been carried out which seem to prove this hypothesis, but no conclusive evidence has ever been presented as to how their sense works.

They are carnivorous and it is considered a bad idea to be in the same body of water as they are.

Description: 'Skeleton Key' is a swarm of Rhenic tunnelling eels contained in an unmarked mobile refrigerated tank. They are icy blue in colour and range in size; approximately half of the population are fully grown, while the other half is in varying stages of maturity. Their behaviour matches that typically observed in other swarms of Anguilla Cavota.

Biography: This particular swarm of Anguilla Cavota belonged to a laboratory doing research upon the species, until an unscrupulous researcher with just the right level of access, illegally sold it and reported it stolen. The buyer was an expert thief, looking to get an edge against the most technologically advanced vaults. He worked out a system wherein he would plant a tank of refrigerated water in the vault, bring 'Skeleton Key' to the vault entrance and raise the temperature of the tank containing the eels to force them to tunnel through the vault door to the stored refrigerated tank. It was a good trick but it only worked a couple of times before banks became wise to the trick and disallowed the storing of refrigerated tanks.

At the time of their abduction into a battle the thief was still working on another way of utilising their skills, but lacking any concrete ideas for the moment he had been perhaps neglecting them to a certain extent. They hadn't been fed in days and the battery on their refrigerated tank was running extremely low.

Username: DragonFogel
Name: Nikolai Tramontane
Race: Proud Northern Kescheffian! (Which is to say, human.)
Gender: Proud Northern Kescheffian Man!
Text Color: #6A5ACD

Biography: About six hundred years ago, the Kingdom of Kescheff was ravaged by internal strife and split into North Kescheff and South Kescheff. At the time, the rift was based on intractable political disagreements, but over the years both sides of the border have seen major political upheavals, and in fact their current governments follow generally similar policies.

That isn't to say that North Kescheff and South Kescheff get along well, or ever have. They aren't at war, at least right now, but there's barely a Northerner alive who won't explain at length how much better the North is than the South, and vice versa. This despite how similar the two cultures have managed to remain over the years - most of the actual difference is comes down to emphasis. For example, even though most of the population eats both goat-sausage and dried cabbage, the Northerners declare the sausage as their national dish and the Southerners declare the cabbage as theirs.

And Nikolai Tramontane was a Northerner, through and through. Indeed, he thought most other Northerners too soft - they didn't even spit in their dried cabbage before eating it!

This often got Nikolai into fights, such as the numerous occasions where he spat in another man's cabbage, but he hardly cared. He only wanted to show his love for North Kescheff. What did he need friends, family members, or employers for if they got in the way of that? Besides, he generally emerged conscious, that was proof enough that he was the truest patriot.

Description: Nikolai is a burly man with a thick beard and heavy fur clothing. He always has a scowl on his face, or at least he does whenever someone else is around to see it because most likely they don't love North Kescheff enough, or worse, don't hate South Kescheff enough.

Nikolai is very passionate about North Kescheff and how much better it is than South Kescheff. Because of this, he's quick to anger when he sees something from North Kescheff being disrespected, which may include not being present when he thinks it should be, or when he sees something from South Kescheff not being disrespected. Given that, outside his own universe, almost nobody will know anything about what traditions either North or South Kescheff have, this means he's likely to get into a lot of fights.

Weapons and Abilities: Nikolai carries no weapons except his fists. He finds they're enough for most arguments. Other than that, his only particular special ability is the fact that he will be perfectly comfortable in his outfit no matter how warm or cold it is. And, of course, his boundless love for North Kescheff, which is a much better place than South Kescheff.

Username: Agenposterity
Name: Professor Albert Schmidt
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Text Color: #0A1A10
Description: Albert is an incredibly normal human, not quite senescent but definitely not young, more white than brown in his hair. He gets up every morning at 8am sharp, brushes his teeth, shaves, takes a shower, and drives his old beater of a car to the nearby University. He walks up to the staff room and pours himself a cup of bad instant coffee, adds two sugars and a liberal splashing of milk, and stirs. He takes the coffee up to his cramped office. He is a professor of optics, and bits of equipment litter the not-large room. He marks papers and reviews research articles. Half an hour later, he goes to the bathroom. At noontime his coffee cup is empty. Carefully, he picks his way past the clutter and walks to the Harvard Manne Lecture Hall, which can seat up to 500 students. On a good day, it actually seats up to 34. The students call him 'Soporific Schmidt'. After his lecture, he hands out and hands back assignments and takes questions. There are never very many. He doesn't mind; he has tenure. At three, he pours himself another cup of coffee. He sits back down at his desk and continues the morning's work. At four, he pours himself another cup of coffee. At five, he goes to the bathroom again. At six, he picks up a folder of papers and walks back to his car. He drives home. Sitting at a worn plastic table, he reviews the optics papers. Whenever anyone asks him about what he does in the afternoons, he says 'light reading' and thinks himself incredibly hilarious. He is not. At eight, he prepares a small dinner for himself. At nine, he watches television. By ten, he is getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth, having another shower. By eleven he is asleep.
Items/Abilities: Professor Schmidt has some rudimentary knowledge as to how to live life on a daily basis. He also has a comprehensive knowledge on optics and radiation, but he finds that the latter is never really in demand, whereas the former always is.
Biography. Professor Schmidt is not interesting or important enough to have had a biography written about him.

Username: Dalmypoo
Name: ICE-Qube
Species: African-American Android
Gender: Identifies as male, biologically genderless.
Colour: Bmm pa tsch bmm bmm pa tsch bmm

Biography: In the year 2XXX, words have power, and not like the whole metaphorical 'pen is mightier than the sword' rubbish, I mean like they actually can kill your ass.

Back in 2XXX, some chump be all up in designing some kinda crazy psychic field type jazz, but shit went wrong or somethin'. That's what I heard anyway. There was all like screamin n' brains explodin' and stuff? I didn't see none of that I was like a kid at the time all i got was one cray ass crudsack of a headache or whatevs. You dig my jam, like that kinda headphonesy headache you get when ya drink like fifteen god damn root beers and have a sugar crash strong enough to throttle a tank? Yeah that's the one i mean.

Anyways up until then Ice Cube had been like some sub par rapper or whatevs, the only real thing he did right was like invest a lot of money in cybernetics or whatevs cos he thought "them human-ass robots is hella sweet." Turns out to be a good decision too cos like he died like X years later from rabies. haha, yeah, got bitten by a rabid snoop dogg on stage aint that crazy? He insisted on finishing the show tho he was going for guinness, for the longest rap in the world and it lasted like a few months before he died of an infected wound and like, rabies.

Whatevs. Anyway, what was i sayin.... oh yeah, words have crazy ass powers or sommat. Yeah i know that's pretty damn obvious shut up and let me tell the god damn story.

So like anyway ya can like use crazy powers by like keeping a verbal flow nshit, works well with rhythm but ya can like do it with a song or a speech or whatevs. Rap works pretty damn well with it tho, so like, long story short a buncha them chump-ass geezers is like "hey tells ya what we could totes use this for like crazy crime sprees or whatevs ya know?" and their wee mates is all "Yea man lets do it." So then like they did.

And like the worst one a them was this crazy dude Macklemarauder an' like this one time he was all doing his crazy ass fuckin thing where he lasers peeps nstuff an like sings songs about how theys lame for gettin all dead nshit and then suddenly like this crazy ass robot like comes down from the ceilin' and it's like you know them things from invader zim right? The lil' screens that whatsisface's dad talks on all the time? Yea it's like that but on the screen is Ice Cube and he's all like "HELL naw man" and then just lets loose this insane ass fuckin rhyme that like.. You ain't never seen a rhyme that good. I can't even repeat it without the ground shakin and gettin a real nasty cough.

Anyway after that? The iceman plain up an' vanished as quick as he came all up into old mac's bizzle. I ain't seen him. Then, i ain't never seen him before then anyway.

Stop givin me this look kid you weren't there i ain't lyin.
Shut up an eat your god damn corn flakes.

Description: ICE-Qube is the next evolution in rap physiology. He is a metallic cube, roughly a meter in length, with a flickering LCD screen on the front which broadcasts his glorious visage upon the world. The screen only seems to display shades of green, and it is constantly striped and tearing, but it seems to serve. Two speakers are situated on the side, as well as a clumsy manipulator claw on his right that looks about as authentic as a robot's arm from a 1950s scifi movie, complete with shoddily fitted rubber grip. He flies in the air with helicopter blades situated on the top, and has very poor mobility.
ICE-Qube's voice actually sounds /better/ through a heavily distorted speaker, sounding sort of like someone's voice overlayed with sample of them speaking in a vocoder attempting to do an impression of T-Pain. He always speaks in rhyme if he can help it because he thinks he's cool. He is capable of beatboxing while talking which actually is pretty cool.

Weapons/Abilities: ICE-Qube can sort of fly for values of fly equal to "especially clumsy helium balloon with a TV screen attached." He can sort of pick things up without dropping them sometimes with his manipulator.

ICE-Qube, like everyone from 2XXX until 2XXX, when a cure was found, has mysterious vocal powers, which can do almost anything provided he can match it to the flow, an enigmatic force which no one understands, especially not ICE-Qube. ICE-Qube can write some half decent lyrics given enough time. His main vocal power is being able to broadcast his sick rhymes very, very loudly. He could probably harness it better if he was an actually good rapper.

ICE-Qube needs to charge at a power outlet every few hours, because contrary to popular opinion running a small helicopter rotor and a shoddy TV screen 24/7 actually does use up quite a sizable amount of power.

Username: HUGE LOATHSOME DUMPPZ
Name: Ice Cube
Species: Ice
Gender: Cube
Color: Anything cool

Biography: A perfectly ordinary cube of ice, created in an ice tray left in a dead god's freezer.

Description: A perfectly ordinary cube of ice.

Weapons/Abilities: Cold.

Wet.

Dangerous.

Username: wheres sol
Name: Dwidia
Species: Monster, Sougth-Eestern
Gender: Female
Color: chilly sorta blue
Description: Blue-ish humanoid, only partially there, whispy. What passes for hair flows down and around her and around her, usually in circles, flows along with her movement. For the most part, shes colored while and light blue, unnaturally thin.

Due to her places of origin, Dwidia has little mental activity. That is not to say that she is unintelligent, only that she is more akin to a force of nature than to a sapient being. She simply wishes to reach a place of comfort, and isolation, something that is rare in her world.

Weapons/Abilities: As a spirit reminiscent of cold winds and permafrost, Dwidia is of course immune to cold temperatures and is very attuned to the world around her. She can control the winds that surround her and direct them towards others, and additionally take over the winds of the round around her.

However, there is a twist to her winds and the winds that touch her. Her coldness does not only outwardly affect others, but additionally affects them spiritually. What this is to say is that those who come near her or are touched by her wind will start to not only have their temperature lowered, but they will also feel colder and more distant.

Biography: "Haven't you heard, that wind is coming over here!"

Two Wehstern creatures were speaking as the sun set, the more worried one was lizardlike, while the other had a straw hat, tusks, and thick black fur.

"Uh... which wind? There's like, so many... do we really need to make such a big deal out of this one?"

"No, this one is different, it isn't like the other winds!"

"Dude... it's wind. It moves, it has some sort of intensity, and it has a temperature. Not that big of a deal."

"Not this one, this one has some other properties, I think it's that Eestern stuff..."

"The Eestern wind? That... that is weird..."

"Yeah, so come on."

"Nah, I think I'll see for myself."

"Whatever buddy, don't say I didn't warn you..."

The strawhat sat and waited for the odd wind to appear as the sun set. As it turned to night, the temperature got colder, much colder than it usually would at this time of the year.

"Not feeling all that different from a normal Wind here."

The strawhat then saw a figure floating in the distance, bright blue floating slowly towards the town. Rather than wait for the figure to come closer, they ran out to it. When they felt close enough, the strawhat asked, "Hey, wind, where are you going?"

The wind was silent, continuing its movement forward. As it passed near the strawhat, they suddenly felt cold, but more than just cold.

"Hey, what's the big idea here, I just want to talk!" They reached for the wind, and tried to grab at it, but upon touching it they felt sad and alone and like they would never be warm again, as if every emotion that was once a bright color had just turned into dull grey.

They fell backwards, breathing hard and heavy, terrified of the winds that had passed them by. As they started to cry, they heard the winds carry, with the saddest voice they had ever heard, "I want to go home."

Username: That one asshat
Name: Caille Caprice
Race: Tetraul
Gender: Male
Text Color: Taiga taiga, burning bright

Items/Abilities: Caille, like most Tetraul, is an excellent climber, has keen senses of smell and hearing, but poor eyesight. He's a travelling mage (druid, I suppose, if you want to be pedantic) who specialises in forests, but operates well enough in meadows, scrublands, and swamps. He prefers cooler climates, but thanks to Tiveden copes fine even in tropical or desert regions.

Caille's key power is to extract the spirit of a forest, drawing it into a form with which he can communicate. They'll manifest as mounds of earth in the shape of the forest's largest animal, bedecked with vegetation. These spirits will happily aid Caille, guiding him through it, commanding the beasts of the forest, and finding shelter and food. Their capabilties are tied, however, directly to the health of the forest. A spirit whose forest is being destroyed by clear-cutting or overhunting, or a spirit of a swamp with poisons being dumped into it, will be frail and sickly in turn.

Caille has the ingredients on hand to act as short-term painkillers for said spirits, but ultimately he'll seek to fix whatever's making the forests sick (which usually entails explaining the problem to whichever town hired him). Sometimes, whoever hired him doesn't want to change their destructive habits, and Caille's fine with that. He'll just take the spirit (in a form less golem-y and more spirit-y) and leave, effectively ripping the vital force from the woods and leaving it to die.

He's carried a few spirits around in this fashion, eventually finding a nice spot and putting them down somewhere climactically appropriate so they can regenerate. As of his abduction into a battle, Caille's only on-hand spirit is Tiveden (Tivvs for short), the spirit of the boreal forest he grew up in. Tiveden is not very useful in combat, never leaving Caille's clothes, but can maintain the temperature within said clothes to something that keeps the Tetraul comfortable.


Description: Tetraul are native to North (no relation to magnetic poles), a cold region characterised by a giant aurora-spewing planthydra that's right in its centre. Tetraul are roughly the shape and size of dwarves, but with bearlike faces and short, sharp horns. They have thick, coarse fur, fine and short on the body but dense and shaggy on the backs of their hands, their faces, and their feet (all the exposed bits). The fur on the snout is cream-coloured, and Caille's brow is marked with a thick, caked-on red paint in the shape of a V (the mark of a Tetraul magician).

Their build is rendered even lumpier by the many layers they wear, and Caille dresses heavier than most Tetraul. He wears a floppy-brimmed hat pinned on his horns, and a scarf which goes around him about twelve times. He keeps warm in assorted sweaters and bandoliers and bags on his belt and tops it off with a coat several sizes too big where the back is constantly dragging. The entire outfit is more pocket than outfit, and is at least 70% dirt and vegetation by weight. It smells heavily of loam, much like Caille himself.

Inside the most easily-accessible pockets are pinecones, other seeds from Caille's forest home, and little stoppered bottles and powders tied in envelopes made from leaves. These are medicines to be administered to forest spirits. In the less-accessible pockets and folds of the fabric, there's a whole bunch of moss, fungi, lichens, hardy grasses, and even a dozen-odd seedlings (spruce and pine, mostly). All the plant life is alive and healthy despite growing on a mobile surface.

Caille is friendly and open-minded, except when you stick him somewhere with no trees. It is beyond his mortal comprehension why anyone would voluntarily live in a city. On the few occasions he's been stuck in one, Tiveden tries to make him feel better by leaving plants growing in his wake. If nothing else, this usually earns him a quick ticket out of the city.


Biography: Caille is a travelling mage, which is an uncommon if respected profession in the lands around North. He enjoys discounted or free accommodation wherever he goes; he's renowned for destroying livelihoods of those who piss him off. It's not like he makes a habit of either, though - he's happy sleeping under the stars, and it takes a special kind of village to make him consider revoking their natural resources privileges.

He'd just finished a month-long stay in a nice, if struggling village in the sad and soggy middle of Sjaunja Marsh, negotiating with its spirit to accommodate a one Kolmarden Wood for the townsfolk (who deserved it more than Kolmarden's old neighbours). Caille and the villagers had just released Kolmarden into the replantings when the Tetraul was whisked away.

Username: Garuru
Name: Sosnovom Lesu
Race: Avatar of Evolution
Gender: Male
Color: the color of Nature
Description: Lesu is a brown bear. He is entirely indistinguishable from an ordinary brown bear, even to other bears. However, he is unique, largely due to his potential of evolution. He is the avatar of evolution, and he has been around for much longer than you'd expect. Also, he hates humans. A lot.

Items/Abilities: He has an innate knowledge of genetics, and can fully analyze any organism's genetic makeup via a single touch. He has a highly advanced brain for all this, but he has never used it much, in order to fit in the animal kingdom. Thus, in terms of functionality, he is little more than a brown bear. He can, however, willfully manipulate his own evolution. If he had to do so, he could evolve, say, advanced vocal cords for communication with humans. But of course, he has never needed to. This is due to his other ability. Namely, he can revert any nonorganic construct into natural minerals, a power which he would never use if it were not for the humans. Whenever they became too advanced for their own good, doing things such as shooting animals with those god-awful guns, he would have to forcefully de-evolve those guns, then kill them. He has demonstrated advanced control over this ability, being able to dismantle such constructs down to the molecular level, and even simply eliminating any manmade elements. Additionally, it appears that he can only be harmed by natural means, such as claws or teeth.

Biography: With his potential for evolution and his immensely long life span, it's possible he has been around since the first living organisms began to exist, living as a specimen of those organisms and evolving alongside them. At the moment though, he appears to be stubbornly stuck in the Boreal climatic phase (around 9000 BC - 6000 BC, according to you humans), which also happens to be the time that brown bears settled in their little evolutionary niche. Around this time, humans started painting on caves, making stone knives, and what have you. They discovered technology, and it is through this that they skyrocketed in terms of evolution potential, though it was of course all unnatural. From this point, humans became weaker physically, even losing fur to the point where they got burned by the very sun. Logically, they should have been weeded out due to natural selection and predators becoming stronger. However, they began cutting down trees and razing the land, planting farms and controlling Nature. This is the point where other animals stopped evolving, because the more dangerous they got, the quicker they would be killed by humans. Later, much later, more species would become extinct, leaving humans to be the only species still alive. Then, they would learn how to upload their brains into cyborg bodies, becoming immortal and putting an end to evolution permanently. This, Lesu prophesized would happen. It was antithetical to his purpose on Earth, so he set out to stop this future from ever happening. Apparently, the human genome was the key towards unlocking advanced evolution, so his main goal was to put a stop to (read: kill) humans whenever they made a huge technical leap, such as discovering how to harness fire, or discovering agriculture. He has, however, allowed natural evolution of their bodies. It has been some 5,000 years since the cessation of the Boreal phase, and humans remain stuck in their tribal hunter-gatherer phase, thanks to him.

Alright everyone, time for some AWARDSNOUNECEMENTS! Without further ado...

The Best In Show Award: This one has to go to Caille Caprice, for just being all-over generally interesting. He could have won any number of awards, and the fact that he could have gotten so many of them in other situations makes this the best one for him.

The Above The Fold Award: Congratulations to Ice Cube, for truly being one of the coolest contestants where it really counts.

The Iron Chef Special Ingredient Award: I'm giving this one to Nikolai Tramontane; there are a lot of ways you can go with a word like boreal in a context like this one, but making it literally just about northernliness with nothing else the word usually implies is an interesting twist, and one nobody else really used. Nice work.

The Backdoor Worldbuilding Award: Obviously, this one has to go to ICE-Qube. Who among us can honestly say they wouldn't read the hell out of a story or comic set in the rhyme-busing year of 2XXX?

The Diligent Gentleman Award: The most battle-appropriate character to me seems to be Fr'Zen Nord. He's got dangerous abilities but motivations that seem like they wouldn't make him immediately nuke everything, enough mystery and vagueness to flesh out nicely over the course of the narrative, and the potential for some truly apocalyptic end-of-round scenarios.

The 20Q Award For Confusing Me: This one was a hard pick, since most of the entries were pretty straightforward and sensible, but I think it's most appropriate to give it to Sosnovom Lesu for his abilities that took a couple of readthroughs to properly parse. As well as the name. Who named him that? How do you pronounce it? What does a bear need with a name, anyway?

The Synergy Award: Perhaps surprisingly, this one goes to Svalbard. With so many of the contestants focusing on cold or geography or environment, a literal island monster with a frozen wasteland on its back ties them all nicely together. And would be a good place for a round.

The I See What You Did There Award: booooooooore

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels

I knew I should have entered his wife Alice.

Alrighty! And that wraps up a very successful consecutive eight weeks of Grand OC-ing! Great work, everyone!

For Week Nine, in the fine Grand Battle tradition of placing a ridiculous amount of significance on the number 8, we'll be doing an All-Stars week!

So here's Week Nine's Theme: (choose any 2-3 of) Flight, Light and Darkness, Sirens, Command, Cannons, Form, Nightmares, and/or Boreal! That's right, for this week you take two or three of the last eight weeks' themes, and make a cohesive character that incorporates/embodies them!

A couple of ground rules:
No two entries may use the same set of themes. So if someone makes Flight+Sirens before you, you're shit out of luck - making Flight+Sirens+Form is just fine though.
There is no reserve system. Anything is free game until a profile goes up, first come first served.
You've got a week! Week 10 we can be back to the usual single-theme arrangement.

Provided we have at least nine entrants, there will be an additional award - the Space Jam Remix Prize For Cross-Thematic Cohesion. I'll give this to the entry whose constituent themes are the least likely to work, but somehow do.

Themes: Nightmares, Form

Username: Truth in a Green Shirt
Name: Timeo Ainmos
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Color: A quiet shade of green

Description: Tim is a rather tall and lanky fellow with the facial expression of a deer trapped in a busy intersection. He is constantly moving, he just can't seem to sit still. He constantly fidgets and shakes, jumping at the slightest of disturbances. His nervous tics alone could fill several large encyclopedias. His eyes are bloodshot with great dark bags below them as though he has not slept for days. His hair is an unkempt bird's nest, unevenly cut and scraggly. His clothes are ragged and dirty and seem a size or two smaller than their owner. He constantly counts, always mumbling numbers and calculations under his breath.

Weapons/Abilities: Limited Subconscious Mathomancy: Probability manipulation, Low level physics bending, Short range teleportation in times of extreme distress, Aggressive Imagination: High level manifestations, can create creatures as large as skyscrapers and just as deadly as you would assume. All manifestations want to injure their creator, destructive tendencies of manifestations vary. Survival Skills: Running from his nightmares has made Timeo adept at escaping from threats and surviving in hostile environments

Biography: Timeo has a talent for Mathomancy. In another life he could have been one of the most powerful Mathomancers in the multiverse. Unfortunately he was born in a world where magic was exceedingly rare to the point that most people in the universe simply didn't believe in it. He grew up with no knowledge of his abilities, but they have manifested in small ways. This is not why he was entered into the battle. Everyone has an imagination, some are bigger or fancier than others but Timeo's is unique. He is the only man in his universe to suffer from an aggressive imagination. His nightmares are fastidiously detailed and horrible. In his waking hours he is haunted by terrors and fears. When it first began to manifest in his high-school years, Timeo fled from it, seeking solace in logical sciences and his beloved mathematics. As the years passed it only grew worse. His imagination became stronger and stronger, soon it could effect more than just Tim's mind. it began knocking things over and throwing cutlery around. Before long it became strong enough to flip tables and knock over vending machines. Then it started to drag his terrors into the waking world. Images from his nightmares began taking on a physical form, it started out as illusions. They were scary, but intangible. But soon they became more and more complex. The worst was when giant monsters that could breathe fire, or rip apart city blocks would emerge from his thoughts, destroying everything in their path. Big or small, destructive or not his fears would torture him. They would scratch at his flesh, destroy his home, or chase him into the wilderness. They were always malicious, none cared who or what got in the way. Some even seemed to enjoy causing as much collateral damage as possible. And then he was chosen. To battle he would go, a chance to be rid of his curse, to stop the destruction and the horrors. A chance to once again sleep without fear. All he would have to do is survive.

Command and Nightmares

Username: Dragon Fogel
Name: Lt. Karl Weiman
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Color: #BF304D
Biography: He had failed them.

Three whole divisions had died, following his orders. It was his fault. And worst of all, he was still alive to regret it.

More than once, Karl had thought about ending it all, that it would be fairer if he paid the price for his own mistake, even if it wouldn't fix anything.

But he couldn't. The General had made it quite clear - there was too much for him to do.

So much, in fact, that he could never remember what he'd done when he returned the next night for another briefing. But no doubt it was important. Perhaps it would even help him make amends.

Description: Karl wears a very dirty and ragged military uniform, and hasn't bathed in years. Despite this, the medals on his chest are always meticulously polished.

He isn't much of a conversationalist - he tends to babble to himself, and barely acknowledges anyone else, even if they're attacking him or he's strangling them to death. But to anyone who gets close enough to listen, it sounds like he's muttering something about obeying orders, and that he doesn't want to disappoint the General.

His behavior is highly erratic, and usually violent. Despite this, it always seems like he has some sort of goal in mind, whatever he's doing, and he never lets anything get in the way of it.

Weapons and Abilities: Karl carries no weapons - whatever firearms or other standard-issue weapons he might have once had were lost long ago. He doesn't seem to need them, however, as he has surprising strength and durability for someone who looks to be an ordinary human.

He does have one major weakness - his tendency to fall asleep at seemingly random intervals. When this happens, he tends to flail wildly and scream at nothing for several minutes, before calming down briefly and then getting up again to resume his erratic waking routine.

It makes you wonder just what he's dreaming about.

Form, Flight, and Light and Darkness. Also, I'm sorry.

Username: Garuru
Name: The Battle of the Temple of Skulls
Race: Event
Gender: Meta
Color: THIS ONE

Description: ???

Items/Abilities: ???

Biography: Let me tell you a story. Once, there was a temple, made out of skulls and bones. It stood alone in the desert, beckoning passers-by to walk in its ornate entrance, decorated with black-and-white tiles, made with dried blood and bone. A lone wanderer chanced upon it. He looked like he was running away from something... or someone. He ducked in, briefly, and ran all the way to the back. He went through several rooms, and, just when he realized that the temple was much bigger on the inside, he chanced across a room with a pool inside. The ceiling was huge, and pillars lined the room. As soon as he entered this room, this wanderer doubled over and threw up. Nothing came out but water, so he went to the edge of the pool until this spell ceased. As the watery discharge touched the pool, it began to coagulate into a rather large snake-like organism. Right away, this serpent began swimming around quickly, snout bumping into the edges of the pool. Finally, its head raised out of the surface and it began slithering over to the pillars, then coiled around it. Outside, a man with six glowing angelic wings soared over the temple. He stopped for a moment, then, glowering at the rather ugly temple, flew inside. Once inside, though, he could not help but shudder. The place was repulsive. Cherubic angels were depicted on the vaulted ceiling of the antechamber. They were laughing, as if mocking the angelic figure. He flew left, towards the closest exit to this chamber.

Elsewhere, a group of giant mechas flew through space in a pyramid formation. Their enemy was the notorious Spacefucker, who would form wormholes in space, and send its victims into them. The yellow one made to blast at it, while the green one formed a shield, ready to repel any attacks. Under the order of the magenta head, the cyan mecha formed a giant jet, and readied its position. They were just about to dock into the Galactic Hero form, when a wormhole formed behind them. They were sucked in, then they popped out in a wasteland with nothing but a temple of skulls inside.

The wanderer could feel that his brother, the angel, was coming closer. The snake did not seem to want to go anywhere for the time being, so he made to leave, but he got a pounding headache. A siren echoed in the hall, and he suddenly saw three eyes. Bemused by the sudden disappearance of the odd man, the snake nonetheless went on about its duties. Its angle dongle glowed, and water churned inside the pool. Suddenly, the water erupted forth, and rushed into each of the halls. He would need more water. The angel had been chasing after his charge for quite some time, and he was rewarded. His brother stood in the middle of a pure black, smirking. In a fit of pure rage, he flew forth and punched straight through him, his hand on fire. This figure, clearly not his brother, was continuing to smirk. Behind his back, he conjured a metal sphere. It began ticking down at the same time that the doors closed, sealing the angel in. As he panicked, he could have sworn he heard an ominous Latin phrase.

Elsewhere, in Nowhere, an epic battle was raging. Three blue eyes stared right back at three red eyes, the siren-like ambience continuing to build, until the man could not take it anymore, until he snapped back into existence. Still recovering from the pain, he was carried by the water. He coughed, and sneezed, and out of his nose a great mass of fur flew out. It congealed into a bear, which then swam to the surface of the torrent. Its legs cracked, and formed into fins. Its neck rippled, and grew gills. Its head swished around, and saw this human. The human was wearing a skintight suit made of artificial materials. It would die. He roared and swam forth.

Outside, the giant mechas resumed their docking, and now found themselves as a 50-foot-tall metallic humanoid, much too big to enter the temple. Nonetheless, they flew to the front, and blasted their way in. The temple did not appear to like this, judging from the ominous rumbling. Nevertheless, they flew forward, walls breaking down. Back in the black room, the demon savoured the angel's feelings of panic. The rumbling interrupted things, however, as a club broke down one of the walls, and water poured in from another now-broken wall at the same time, carrying a man, a giant snake, and a bear with fins. Man looked at angel, and the world seemed to slow down. A siren filled the air, and each entity in the room prepared to leap at the entity next to them. In a flash of light, everything disappeared. And that is all that anybody knows about what happened at the Battle of the Temple of Skulls.

Sirens, Command

Username: not creative
Name: Corrstable
Species: Law Elemental
Gender: Male
Color: Justice
Description: An eternally frowning face is what is first noticed when you see the tall and imposing figure that is Corrstable. Clad in a dark, almost black blue, the Law Elemental wears gloves, a long sleeved shirt, heavy pants, boots, a helmet, and sunglasses. He is usually surrounded by a black wispy aura that hides his skin, if actually has any.

Corrstable is one minded and that mind is a book of rules and regulations that follows The Law. He will follow the Law, he will ensure that others follow the Law, and he will go out of his way to restrain lawbreakers and place them in the hands of Justice. If Corrstable was to be without laws, he would likely default to fear and uncertainty.

Weapons/Abilities: Corrstable, by virtue of his element, has complete knowledge of any and all laws in the world around him as well as who enacted them. Laws of the land, the world, and the various communities that he visits are known to him, and he is compelled to ensure that all follow them. To aid him in this somewhat futile quest, Corrstable is very strong, fast, loud, durable, and commanding. In addition to these boons, he can also force people to follow the law and force law breakers to listen to him, with the effectiveness of this skill depending on how much they respect the law.

Lastly, while he does not like using it, if he needs to, he is capable of making a loud siren-esque noise for the purpose of making crowds disperse.

Biography: Upon entering the world, Corrstable immediately got to work. While he originally stuck to big cities for his patrol, taking out crime syndicates and other large scale crimes with his close ties to Law, his exploits inspired enough non-elementals to the call of justice that he decided to change his Modus Operendi.

After a heart-felt good bye, with many officers crying and reluctantly letting their great inspiration and symbol of Law and Justice leave them, Corrstable traveled along the countryside, learning the local laws and learning how to bend a bit further than he had before on his quest to punish those who broke the Law.

It was after a few peaceful days in a small farming town that had been overrun with hoodlums, that he just disappeared. While no one ever saw him again, many say that he still lives on, in each of their hearts, silently guiding them towards Justice.

Form and Light and Darkness

Name: Reyna Ale

Gender: Female standard pronouns

Race: Human, shape-shifter

Color: Standard Grey

Description: Ale bears all the markings of a native born Futurian: thoroughly mixed-race, black hair cut of neatly at shoulder length and gleaming with carcinogenic artificial luster, grey-green eyes always pointed halfway down. She’s modified her Standard Grey™ Futurian Life Uniform as much she could get away with, boosting her self up to average height with elevated shoes and adding on an extra layer or two to cover up twenty pounds of excess weight.

Wildlife is rare in Futuria, so Reyna’s various animal forms are often overlarge or small, vaguely anthropomorphic, or bizarrely proportioned. Animals that she’s seen caged in her neighbors’ yards are the easiest for her to get right: squirrels, robins, earthworms, occasionally dogs. At this moment, Reyna is an elephant from a Circus Channel broadcast, airbrushed lean and angry and defiant, however being a large, heavy animal won’t serve her well in a battle to the death, so it won’t be long before she’s turned into something small.

Reyna aims to conform, despite her extraordinary nature. She spends her days at the Public Education Center absorbed in her studies, silently forcing herself to smile and hoping to look like someone who doesn’t need any help. She thinks she’d prefer the company of animals, because animals are too stupid to ask questions. She’s trapped inside the minds of her peers, imprisoned by judgment and social norms and cameras. All she wants, all she needs, is some space to breathe.

Abilities: Reyna possess two extraordinary abilities. First, the nature of circumstances, situations, and human behaviors around her changes in relation to her weight. As she gets heavier, the world becomes more grim, people become more inclined to selfishness, greed, murder, backstabbing, cruelty; the problems that affect the world become more pronounced; death is both more likely and more gruesome; etc.

Human weight gain and loss, however, doesn’t happen on a large enough scale or quickly enough to allow for any significant use of this power. To make up for this, Reyna is able to shape-shift into any animal that she can conjure up an image of in her mind. When she takes the form of a cat or a field mouse, people around her will tend towards kindness and cooperation, while as a cow or a horse she creates nastiness and bloodshed.

Biography: Reyna Ale has spent the entirety of her life in the city of Futuria, and though she has almost completed her public education, she has no idea what the world is like outside. In reality, the world is a wasteland, utterly ravaged by war and natural disasters. But Reyna was meant to change all of that. Reyna has been raised in ignorance of the grim state of the world because it is widely believed that her unique abilities are the only thing left that can save the planet. It is thought that if Reyna can leave Futuria in the form of a very light animal, still unaware of what lies ahead of her, she could emerge in a world with hope for survival. So when Reyna reached the age of ten, she was given awareness of her powers by a remote source, and forces both inside of Futuria and out have been biding their time, waiting for her to master her abilities.

Unfortunately, nearly a decade later, Reyna would attempt to become an elephant and fall through the fabric of space into a battle to the death.

Flight, Sirens.

Username: Totally not ripping off solaris.
Name: The Fuzz
Race: The Law
Gender: The Pigs
Color: NEE NAW NEE NAW.

Biography: COME OUT WITH HAND UP !!!! YOU'R SURROUND BY POLICE !!!! YOU CAN NOT ESCAPE THE POLICE !!!! COME OUT WITH HAND UP !!!!

ARE YOU A RAD ENOUGH KID TO ESCAPE THE FUZZ ????
FIND OUT NOW IN NEW !!!! FUZZ ESCAPE !!!! 20% OFF !!!!

CALL NOW AT 0118 999 88999 9119 725 3 TO SUMMON THE FUZZ !!!! THEN ESCAPE !!!! PROVE YOU'R RAD !!!!

ESCAPE THE FUZZ !!!!



Description: The fuzz is a hit new ARG game by developer Hippoguts, which pits YOU against the top crime solving unit in [$country], to prove that you are innocent you must escape long enough to find the real guilty! Flashing lights and sirens are the herald of the fuzz! Hide in barrels as the fuzz passes! Keep the fuzz on their toes with powerful new abilities such as guns, cars, fire breath. Beware, though, the fuzz learn from their mistakes! The same tactic might not work a second time!

Items/Abilities: The fuzz are very strong! The fuzz have walkie talkie to communicate what they know with other fuzz! The fuzz have powerful baton stick to whack! The fuzz have the taser to zap! Watch out, the fuzz can run very fast, and can even catch you in a car if they know it's you! You'd better be prepared, because the fuzz have long arms of law! Strong arms of law! Make sure they don't catch you, or you'll have fought the law and the law will have won!

yeh bigro thats wht im talkin abut