Post by ParamountKeymaster on Dec 11, 2015 12:35:56 GMT -5
Præt'nos
Location: Ten'dom, the Dark City; can travel to any dimension of their choosing.
Lifespan: Immortal, undead.
Rarity: Somewhat rare, numbers currently growing.
Average size: Varies; can be altered at will. Maximum height is generally between six and a half to nine feet in true form.
Prominent features: All black bodies with ghostly tails that blend into the surrounding darkness, akin to a living shadow. Long ear- or antenna-like protrusions atop their heads, shaped with qualities of the zodiac sign that the soul they were created from died under. Sharp teeth, long claw-like fingers, and solid red, yellow, white or pale blue eyes depending on the army they belong to.
General abilities: Immortality, shadow manipulation, shapeshifting, teleportation via shadow-hopping, opening rifts in the void to travel across dimensions, shifting between a shadow form and a physical form resembling that of their previous, living incarnation.
General weaknesses: Light will weaken and disrupt their shadow forms. They can be temporarily killed if they are wounded in the soft spot between the neck and shoulder and require an extended recovery period in the shadows to reform their bodies.
Alignment: Always malevolent. Though they are capable of independent thought, all Præt'nos are bonded by a hive mind that seeks only to spread darkness. Any who deviate from this mindset are "assimilated" (though no one outside the system knows what this actually entails).
Naming theme: Upon their "recruitment," they are first asked to describe how/what they feel in a single word. This word, or a variant of it, becomes their title (i.e. "Empowerment," "Fury," "Confusion," etc.). Cases of duplicate names are resolved either by dubbing the new Præt'nos with a synonymous title or by dubbing both Præt'nos with a prefix based on eye color (i.e. "Red-Fury").
Hierarchy
Mistress Desire: The ruler of all Præt'nos, the first of their kind, and the living embodiment of Ten'dom; she and the city are literally one and the same. Being the supreme Præt'nos and therefore one of two exceptions to the rule, her eyes constantly alternate between red, yellow, white and blue, and she has twelve pairs of "ears" styled like hair in every zodiac sign.
Generals: The four leaders of individual armies, the most powerful Præt'nos barring Desire. Along with the typical Præt'nos abilities, they each also possess control over a classical element, which their armies are named after.
Fire Army: Lead by General Choleric, populated by souls who died under Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius.
Earth Army: Lead by General Melancholic, populated by souls who died under Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorn.
Air Army: Lead by General Sanguine, populated by souls who died under Gemini, Libra, or Aquarius.
Water Army: Lead by General Phlegmatic, populated by souls who died under Cancer, Scorpio, or Pisces.
Brief history: The Præt'nos lineage began when a princess was assassinated during a war with a neighboring kingdom. Refusing to pass on to the afterlife, she instead bonded her soul with dark eldritch forces and became Mistress Desire. Though the rebirth process destroyed her memories of her human life, she went on to exact revenge on her murderers and bond these four victims' souls with her dark power, creating the four Generals. Together, they eventually wiped out the populations of both kingdoms. Desire then bonded her darkness with the kingdoms and displaced them from their spacial plane, transforming them and herself into the dark city of Ten'dom, and transforming the souls of those she killed into her Præt'nos minions.
To this day, the darkness of Ten'dom calls out through the void to lost souls who refuse to pass on, transforming them into Præt'nos and recruiting them into the hive mind. Along with expanding their numbers, they have also worked to bond entire dimensions with Ten'dom to gain more land and souls. Their ultimate goal is to consume the multiverse and every soul residing in it with darkness; part of this plan involves using the Paramount Key to lock the gates of Heaven and Hell so that no soul can pass on to the afterlife and escape Desire's reach.
A/N: If you want to make your own fully fleshed-out Præt'nos character, please feel free! Just run it by me to ensure you have all the technical details down. Also, considering I have an entire story arc planned around them, if there ever comes a time when there is a battle with a large number of Præt'nos, I offer permission for anyone to assume brief control over generic, nameless Præt'nos soldiers.
Oh, and if you're wondering about the species name, it's just eldritch babble; no one really knows what it means.
Location: Ten'dom, the Dark City; can travel to any dimension of their choosing.
Lifespan: Immortal, undead.
Rarity: Somewhat rare, numbers currently growing.
Average size: Varies; can be altered at will. Maximum height is generally between six and a half to nine feet in true form.
Prominent features: All black bodies with ghostly tails that blend into the surrounding darkness, akin to a living shadow. Long ear- or antenna-like protrusions atop their heads, shaped with qualities of the zodiac sign that the soul they were created from died under. Sharp teeth, long claw-like fingers, and solid red, yellow, white or pale blue eyes depending on the army they belong to.
General abilities: Immortality, shadow manipulation, shapeshifting, teleportation via shadow-hopping, opening rifts in the void to travel across dimensions, shifting between a shadow form and a physical form resembling that of their previous, living incarnation.
General weaknesses: Light will weaken and disrupt their shadow forms. They can be temporarily killed if they are wounded in the soft spot between the neck and shoulder and require an extended recovery period in the shadows to reform their bodies.
Alignment: Always malevolent. Though they are capable of independent thought, all Præt'nos are bonded by a hive mind that seeks only to spread darkness. Any who deviate from this mindset are "assimilated" (though no one outside the system knows what this actually entails).
Naming theme: Upon their "recruitment," they are first asked to describe how/what they feel in a single word. This word, or a variant of it, becomes their title (i.e. "Empowerment," "Fury," "Confusion," etc.). Cases of duplicate names are resolved either by dubbing the new Præt'nos with a synonymous title or by dubbing both Præt'nos with a prefix based on eye color (i.e. "Red-Fury").
Hierarchy
Mistress Desire: The ruler of all Præt'nos, the first of their kind, and the living embodiment of Ten'dom; she and the city are literally one and the same. Being the supreme Præt'nos and therefore one of two exceptions to the rule, her eyes constantly alternate between red, yellow, white and blue, and she has twelve pairs of "ears" styled like hair in every zodiac sign.
Generals: The four leaders of individual armies, the most powerful Præt'nos barring Desire. Along with the typical Præt'nos abilities, they each also possess control over a classical element, which their armies are named after.
Fire Army: Lead by General Choleric, populated by souls who died under Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius.
Earth Army: Lead by General Melancholic, populated by souls who died under Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorn.
Air Army: Lead by General Sanguine, populated by souls who died under Gemini, Libra, or Aquarius.
Water Army: Lead by General Phlegmatic, populated by souls who died under Cancer, Scorpio, or Pisces.
Brief history: The Præt'nos lineage began when a princess was assassinated during a war with a neighboring kingdom. Refusing to pass on to the afterlife, she instead bonded her soul with dark eldritch forces and became Mistress Desire. Though the rebirth process destroyed her memories of her human life, she went on to exact revenge on her murderers and bond these four victims' souls with her dark power, creating the four Generals. Together, they eventually wiped out the populations of both kingdoms. Desire then bonded her darkness with the kingdoms and displaced them from their spacial plane, transforming them and herself into the dark city of Ten'dom, and transforming the souls of those she killed into her Præt'nos minions.
To this day, the darkness of Ten'dom calls out through the void to lost souls who refuse to pass on, transforming them into Præt'nos and recruiting them into the hive mind. Along with expanding their numbers, they have also worked to bond entire dimensions with Ten'dom to gain more land and souls. Their ultimate goal is to consume the multiverse and every soul residing in it with darkness; part of this plan involves using the Paramount Key to lock the gates of Heaven and Hell so that no soul can pass on to the afterlife and escape Desire's reach.
A/N: If you want to make your own fully fleshed-out Præt'nos character, please feel free! Just run it by me to ensure you have all the technical details down. Also, considering I have an entire story arc planned around them, if there ever comes a time when there is a battle with a large number of Præt'nos, I offer permission for anyone to assume brief control over generic, nameless Præt'nos soldiers.
Oh, and if you're wondering about the species name, it's just eldritch babble; no one really knows what it means.
