[hider=Prabhalocta Dhaumir]

[color=ed1c24][h3][b]HEART AND MIND - WHO YOU WERE BEFORE[/b][/h3][/color]
[color=7bcdc8][b]Name:[/b][/color] Prabhalocta Dhaumir
[color=7bcdc8][b]Sobriquets:[/b][/color] [i]The Night-Ghoul[/i]

[b][color=7bcdc8][b]Concept:[/b][/color][/b] A morbid truant twice touched by fell forces, scarred by greed and driven by fear.

[color=7bcdc8][b]Origin:[/b][/color] The land Prabha once called home was, while not as splendid as Yachiel, blessed with peace and prosperity. It was far enough from the Edge of the World not to be beset by its monstrous denizens, and, while it had once been steeped in the shadow of mighty sorcerers, dreaded and revered as figures of myth, men and gods had slowly encroached upon it and driven away its dark masters. Some roving fae and spirits were rumoured to still haunt the woods, but none had seen them in decades. The people of its fields and hills were, for the most part, bold and industrious, and did not let themselves be frightened by old tales.

But every fold has a prodigal son. Born among commoners, Prabhalocta was never content with his station. He listened with secret longing to the hushed legends of the olden sorcerers, and, rather than heed their cautionary moral, envied the awe these necromancers were said to inspire into their thralls. Often he would swear to himself that he would one day become as mighty as them, whether as a lord or even a king of the land. And, though his lineage was humble, he did not lack determination. First, he tried the way of wealth. He did not have the patience to follow it honestly, and kept company with deceit and subterfuge. As a merchant, he sought to buy cheaply and sell dearly, and did not disdain any treachery in doing so. When his ill-gotten gains did not satisfy him, he gave himself to gambling, and when he became shunned even among the rabble, his skill with mimicry and disguise came to his aid. He posed as a saintly pilgrim, a corrupt magistrate, even a druid collecting the offerings for his god. These escapades bore good fruit, but, after narrowly avoiding the gallows one time too many, Prabha decided to abandon this path.

In his avarice, he came to tread one more perilous still. One night, he ventured into a forlorn wood where the savage fae were said to gather. What transpired there, no one knows, but, when he walked out from among the trees the day after, he had a wild light in his eyes and wielded terrible witchcraft. For a year from then, the entire land came to dread his ravages. He preyed upon any he could catch outside the reach of their gods, and delighted in tormenting them as would an evil spirit. Seized by a fiendish glee, he prided himself of having surpassed the ancient sorcerers themselves.

Yet, as time went by, he fell himself prey to terror. He had been given power in exchange for a promise of which he had then thought lightly, but which returned to haunt him more and more often. Any day now, the fae would come to claim their due, and what could a reviled marauder give them? Nor was this his only concern - the people of the land had grown weary of his vexations, and had begun to set out on their own hunts. In desperation, Prabha turned to the legends whose perverse temptation had led him to that point. The sorcerers were long gone, but perhaps their power lingered. He went to find it in their forsaken abodes, and once more the night transformed him, this time forever. The morning found his eyes dull, but manifold.

Not long afterwards, golden clouds began to gather on the horizon, and armies to march through the once peaceful fields. Knowing that, whether the Circle of Light triumphed or was repelled, his life there was forfeit, Prabha slipped away into the shadows while he still could. Elatreis was not far, and in a city as great as Silver Spear he could disappear long enough to plot his next move. Besides, he had been dreaming of it since his third eye had opened...

[b][color=7bcdc8][b]Appearance:[/b][/color][/b] As is becoming of someone who has worn many a visage, Prabha seems to disappear when out of his disguises. He is neither tall nor short, neither dark nor fair, and his round, amiable face and short dark beard can become lost among the hundreds of a crowd faster than one can blink, though, if one looks closely, his cold, empty eyes can give one pause. Until recently, his shaven head completed the impression, but of late he has taken to wearing a turban to cover the large blue eye with a snake-like pupil that sits in the middle of his forehead. His gait is cautious and his tones hushed and conspiratorial, though he seems to take pains to conceal this.

[color=ed1c24][b]Skills and Flaws[/b][/color]

[color=6ecff6][b]Quick Words, Quick Hands:[/b][/color] Everyone struggles to live, but not everyone struggles equally. Over his life, Prabha has perfected the craft of taking much and giving little: an improvised tale to dupe a fool out of his coin, a deft nudge to the bones at the gambling table, the right amount of praise to adorn the meagre wares he peddles. And, above all, never dropping the mask of trustworthiness, or at least credibility.

[color=6ecff6][b]Cutthroat’s Wiles:[/b][/color] As a combatant, Prabha is neither talented nor skilled. Seeking, as in everything, an easy solution, he prefers to compensate with what he calls resourcefulness and others base tricks. From dirt in the eyes to knives in the back, nothing is beneath him when survival is concerned.

[color=6ecff6][b]Man of Many Faces:[/b][/color] Ever since his childhood, Prabha displayed an uncanny gift for disguising his features, voice and mannerisms, and this has served him well to this day. As occasion required, he has been a soldier, a beggar, a noble, a druid, a beast, a spirit, and someone who is ostensibly not a sorcerer. With but some rags and stolen clothes, he can become any of these and more yet at any moment.

[color=0072bc][b]The Unrelenting Beast:[/b][/color] It was fear that drove Prabha down the path of sorcery. Fear hounds him still wherever he goes. He dreads the nameless being in whose debt he is, the wrath of God and her heralds, the spirits with whom he deals, the old gods and their followers, the visions that haunt him and the death he so relished inflicting on others. Ironically, this fear can drive him to reckless acts, for he will seize at anything that seems to offer freedom from its clutches.

[color=7bcdc8][b]Hooks:[/b][/color]

[list][*]Prabha once struck a bargain with a fey. He never kept his end, nor does he intend to.
[*]There is only one thing worth seeking, and that is power that strikes fear into all, God and man alike.
[*]Ancient, forgotten things are sunken in the Sea of Dead Stars. They are terrible, yet they have a strange lure.[/list]

[color=ed1c24][h3][b]SOUL - WHAT YOU ARE BENEATH THE SKIN[/b][/h3][/color]
[color=7bcdc8][b]Initiation:[/b][/color] When Prabha came to the ruined haunt of an infamous vanished sorcerer, he sat outside it and listened to the stars, as the necromancer was said to have done. Though he had little hope of succeeding, he thought he heard the distant tones of a dream-song, and persevered. It seemed to him that the truth he sought - for it was, he now understood, a truth - was just before him. He reached for it, but time and again, the truth eluded him.

The stars did not answer, but something else did. All he recalls is a shape cloaked in darkness deeper than the night, bearing the pain of revelation in its hand. It hurled him into oblivion, and it was long before his three eyes opened. He saw what he had been pursuing, and was more afraid than he had ever been before.

[color=ed1c24][b]Weirds[/b][/color]

[color=6ecff6][b]Loathsome Conquerors:[/b][/color] At Prabha’s call, motes of translucent blue fog arise out of the ground and coalesce into the forms of four monstrous worms. They have mouths like lampreys, are each twice as long as a man’s arm, and, though they appear dim and wraith-like, their swollen bodies are as strong as iron chains. The spectral worms obey their master’s bidding, and can hear his whispers wherever they might be, but they are clumsy and dull, and, though robust, can be slain by mortal weapons. They are also gluttons after carrion.

[color=6ecff6][b]Nightfall:[/b][/color] Prabha can conjure up a cloud of thick inky mist, which crawls and seeps through the air in strange forms like a viscous, living darkness. Those caught within it are beset by horrifying sounds and hallucinations, which seem as though horrors as dire as their own mind can paint them are lurking just out of sight, ready to pounce on them. The fainter of heart may well be driven mad by the experience, and any who have breathed long and deeply enough of the black vapours will be plagued by nightmares and echoes of the illusions for a few days.

[color=6ecff6][b]Baleful Gaze:[/b][/color] The third eye carved into Prabha’s forehead sees visions of death and putrescence so terrible that the world itself withers when they are projected onto it. When it is fully opened, it radiates a chilling, sinister light. Dead wood and flesh touched by it rot, metal grows dull and rusted, and plants and small animals are stricken with a wasting blight. Men and greater beasts will not suffer such afflictions unless they are already debilitated, but will find themselves paralysed in fear and unable even to think if their own gaze is caught by that of the unnatural orb.

[color=ed1c24][h3][b]BLOOD AND BONE - THE NEPHILIM[/b][/h3][/color]
[color=7bcdc8][b]Nephilim:[/b][/color] Tide of Day’s Undoing
[color=7bcdc8][b]Sobriquets:[/b][/color] None. The Tide is the Tide.

[b][color=7bcdc8][b]Concept:[/b][/color][/b] Vast of wit and cunning, yet a thrall to primal hunger.

[b][color=7bcdc8][b]Form:[/b][/color][/b] A towering, foetid mass of animate slime, the Tide has no single shape to define it. Its gelatinous body flows, shifts and ripples constantly, crawling and pouring like a river as it moves and rising and ebbing like a monstrous fountain when it stands still. The pitch-black sludge is run through with veins of cyan, which sometimes seem to twist and intertwine in strangely meaningful patterns, and, now and then, a few great burning eyes will open in the amorphous giant, only to be submerged by new waves and spouts. The fragments of its broken sarcophagus cling to its surface, never remaining in the same spot for more than a moment.


[color=ed1c24][b]Abominations[/b][/color]

[color=6ecff6][b]Anathema of the Earth:[/b][/color] Wherever the abhorrent mass of the Tide touches the soil, whether it be swampy or arid, the latter is transformed into a vile, clinging fluid, only slightly thicker than the black ooze itself. Only stone and rock can resist this corruption, and mires and puddles follow the Nephilim wherever it goes like the trail of a colossal slug. The creature can put the liquefied ground to a variety of uses, such as fashioning bludgeons and projectiles out of it, or even submerge into it entirely and swim through the earth for brief tracts, bursting to the surface where its foes least expect it.

[color=6ecff6][b]Breathe in Life:[/b][/color] Having no discernible organs of any sort, the Tide breathes through the entirety of its body. As it inhales, it can draw in air with such strength as to raise hurricane winds that converge upon it, strong enough to uproot trees, topple houses and lift man and beast from the ground. For as long as the Nephilim draws breath, and on such occasions this can last for several minutes, these howling streams of air will carry any unfortunate enough to be caught in them towards it to be consumed in its formless maw.

[color=6ecff6][b]Breathe out Death:[/b][/color] Those who, by some miracle, have been spared by the Tide’s drawing in all that surrounds it should not rejoice too soon. Its breath is a twofold weapon, wreaking ruin whichever way it blows. When it exhales, the monstrosity can spew out clouds of noxious smoke, coating itself in them or spreading them upon the wind. These fumes corrode all living matter they touch, turning flesh and bone into ghastly puddles within seconds and tainting the earth where they sink into it.

[color=0072bc][b]Deep Waters Run Low:[/b][/color] While the Tide’s oozing body is tremendously flexible and agile, it is far weaker and less resilient that the solid bulk of other Nephilim. It cannot lift weights that would be trivial for them, and, while it is not by much easier to injure for its yielding consistency, it affords little protection to its master should it be struck by a direct blow while he is within it.
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