[hider=Avers Lacht] [color=ed1c24] [h3][b]HEART AND MIND - WHO YOU WERE BEFORE[/b][/h3][/color] [color=7bcdc8][b]Name:[/b][/color] Averz Lacht [color=7bcdc8][b]Sobriquets:[/b][/color] The Stitcher, The Herald of Machines [b][color=7bcdc8][b]Concept:[/b][/color][/b] Former professor gone mad, turned one man technological revolution [color=7bcdc8][b]Origin:[/b][/color] Avers was once little more than an armchair scholar at the University of Havlic at Roehaven, studying ancient alchemy and philosophy. He was a quiet man in those days, not prone to emotion or rash decisions, though beneath his unremarkable exterior, he was deeply dedicated to academia. It was this very dedication that led him to seek the ancient knowledge of astrology, as rumors of the forbidden art intrigued him. Once a man with a social life and a job, Avers became more and more obsessed with consuming every last scrap of knowledge he could gather. His friends slowly drifted away. His fiance left him. Even his parents and siblings soon broke contact with him, as his quest to understand the lost art consumed him utterly. The turning point came one night in a dream. The Dead Stars reached the fringes of his mind and gave him visions of his perfect future for all mankind. A future where the forces of nature were subjugated and the Beasts, the Angels, Even God herself, served and feared mankind. A future where gleaming towers of knowledge cast shadows over ignorance. A future where metal and flesh were one in the same. This was to be Avers mission. This great work. His Crucible of Gears. Avers has heard that the Queen herself is in need of a weapon powerful enough to kill an angel. If his Science can help her construct one, it will be a huge milestone on his mission. [b][color=7bcdc8][b]Appearance:[/b][/color][/b] Avers is a tall, scruffy man with sunken features. He is never seen without a stark white labcoat and gloves. The marks and scars of his self-experimentation are visible on close examination. His hair is unruly and seems to be going prematurely gray. [color=ed1c24][b]Skills and Flaws[/b][/color] [color=6ecff6][b]Secret Histories:[/b][/color] It pays to remember that, even before he was the being he is today, Avers was a respected professor at a university. He possesses an astonishing store of information on subjects historical, linguistic and mathematical. His learning grants him no small amount of insight into the strange and terrible workings of the world, as well as allowing him to finance his projects via trade of obscure relics. [color=6ecff6][b]Master Plan:[/b][/color] Avers lacks anything resembling combat ability in the traditional sense, instead relying on his creations to fight for him. He is, however, a rather talented planner, being able to set traps and calculate optimal maneuvers with fairly impressive speed. [color=6ecff6][b]Crucible of Gears:[/b][/color] Avers's most defining trait is his status as inventor par excellence. His creations, built with visionary technological designs and animated with magic, are one of a kind and require significant time and resources to create. Currently, his panoply consists of: The Deconstruction Apparatus (A harness-mounted muscular arm of clockwork and corpseflesh that ends in a spinning blade), The Impulse Probe (A clockwork spider that broadcasts images to a reanimated eye) and The Inhalater (A breathing apparatus). [color=0072bc][b]Overload:[/b][/color] The same whispers and visions that drive Avers have shattered his mind quite thoroughly. As a result, Avers can be a bit scatterbrained, even incoherent. He is willing to break any taboo to make his future a reality, but often doesn't care if a project is left incomplete or even dangerously unstable when the next bolt of inspiration strikes him. [color=7bcdc8][b]Hooks:[/b][/color] [list][*]Avers's ex-fiance is still out there. Beneath all the vision and madness, Avers does wish to reconcile with her. [*]There is no room for mindless predators in Avers vision of the future. The Beasts must be understood, preferably via vivisection. [*]Is it possible to create an artificial Angel?[/list] [color=ed1c24] [h3][b]SOUL - WHAT YOU ARE BENEATH THE SKIN[/b][/h3][/color] [color=7bcdc8][b]Initiation:[/b][/color] The dream that spawned the Crucible of Fire marked the burning away of the last shreds of Avers's sanity. When he awoke, he had been granted the powers to make his vision a reality. [color=ed1c24][b]Weirds[/b][/color] [color=6ecff6][b]Sparks Fly:[/b][/color] Frequently used to assist in the animation of his creations, Avers has the ability to generate and control electricity, though doing so to any great degree is usually exhausting. That said, exposure to this lightning often leaves mutations and diseases in living organisms, an effect which Avers himself has been studying for quite some time. [color=6ecff6][b]Weird Science:[/b][/color] Avers has mastered the art of using the cast off bits of others and integrating them into living creatures, creating hybrid animals, flesh grafts and partially mechanical beings. [color=6ecff6][b]Automaton Array:[/b][/color] Avers can, with the help of a rusted gear as a conduit, use his skills to hastily assemble and animate clockwork automatons remotely. The automatons individual abilities vary depending on the components available, though what doesn't vary is the ability's duration, which is universally ten minutes, after which the automatons collapse into oddly magic-resistant scrap metal and cannot be reanimated. [color=ed1c24] [h3][b]BLOOD AND BONE - THE NEPHILIM[/b][/h3][/color] [color=7bcdc8][b]Nephilim:[/b][/color] Inviolate Archon [color=7bcdc8][b]Sobriquets:[/b][/color] Vanguard of the Future [b][color=7bcdc8][b]Concept:[/b][/color][/b] Whatever personality Vanguard may have had, years of experimentation and modification have left it functionally mindless. [b][color=7bcdc8][b]Form:[/b][/color][/b] Much like its mind, Vanguard's form has been so thoroughly altered by Avers that it bears little resemblance to its original form. It currently appears as a shambling, lopsided figure of only vaguely humanoid proportions, equal parts mechanical and biological. Its most distinguishing feature is the massive electrical coil protruding from its toothy maw. [color=ed1c24][b]Abominations[/b][/color] [color=6ecff6][b]Evolutionary Artifice:[/b][/color] Vanguard's primary ability is similar in some ways to its wielder's own. Vanguard can hastily incorporate other biomatter or machinery into itself to either repair itself or enhance its capabilities via grafted limbs, size modulation or, occasionally, assimilation of data processing systems. [color=6ecff6][b]Touch of the Machine:[/b][/color] Vanguard's primary offensive tactic is the coil in its mouth, which produces a magical electrical storm that can turn living matter to metal. [color=6ecff6][b]Archon's Warding:[/b][/color] Though utterly broken and remade, trace amounts of the Nephilim that was Inviolate Archon occasionally resurface, as it is sometimes able to manifest warding and binding glyphs on nearby surfaces that prevent damage or prohibit certain actions. Though admittedly useful, Avers has worked frequently to suppress this ability, as he fears that it may bring out the Nephilim's original consciousness. [color=0072bc][b]Hodgepodge:[/b][/color] Given its patchwork nature, Vanguard is sometimes rather unstable and prone to the occasional malfunction. There also exists the slight chance when attempting to integrate a new component that it will reject it, usually with disastrous results. [/hider]