Very much still a WIP:- [hider=Morningstar] [b]Yggdrasil Username:[/b] RuinInRed [b]Name:[/b] Morningstar [b]Race:[/b] Angel [b]Gender:[/b] Female [b]Character Level:[/b] 92 [b]Alignment:[/b] Lawful Good [b]Guild/Party Affiliation:[/b] None, formerly Sephirot [b]Appearance:[/b] A slight and slender creature wrapped entirely in an ornate white and gold metal shell, resplendent with eight shining white wings reaching far behind her, it is clear that Morningstar is not human. The intricate halo glowing behind her close-helmed head provides a further clue, should one be necessary, and golden light spills through the eye-holes of her Masque, as final punctuation. It is just possible to discern that Morningstar is - or prefers to be - female from appearance alone; some subtle shaping of the breastplate and the general impression of her Mask's impassive face are the only visual clues. Her voice, however, is unusually resonant, particularly given her relatively small stature, rich and clear and undeniably female. It has an odd half-echo to it, and the perceptive might deduce that she uses a minor cantrip to alter the sounds in some way. Should her armoured skin be broken, damaged enough that it fractures and peels away - or should Morningstar deem it expedient - what lies underneath fits very few people's idea of 'angelic'. The higher Morningstar levelled her racial classes, the more inhuman that inner form became, and now what lies beneath is a twisted mass of pulsing red-raw meat, tortuous purple arteries and organs of indeterminate function throbbing beneath straining membranes, baleful and lidless eyes glaring at everything and nothing, jewelled pins and golden rings driven at random through her flesh...all in all, a far cry from the 'divine' outer shell. [b]Racial Class:[/b] Angel [15/15] Archangel [10/10] Principality [10/10] Dominion [10/10] Seraph [5/5] [b]Job Class:[/b] Wizard [15/15] War Wizard [10/10] Archmage [5/5] Artificer [10/10] Architect [2/5] [b]Fighting Style:[/b] A powerful angel and sorceress in her own right, Morningstar fights at range whenever possible, raining down divine and arcane fury from afar. A host of lesser angels attend her, sword and shield against enemies trying to close to melee range. She uses blessed items to aid her allies, and does her level best to remain aloof from the fray of combat. Morningstar can frequently be found flying serenely far above the battlefield, coolly choosing her targets whilst her host and her allies engage below. [b]Strengths:[/b] Powerful magic and puissant lesser angels at her command enable her to rain destruction from afar whilst keeping herself safe. As an angel, she bears innate protection from death magic and the forces of corruption, and requires neither food nor air for her continued existence. [b]Weaknesses:[/b] Focusing almost exclusively on arcane annihilation and divine conjury, Morningstar is incapable of using any physical abilities, and as a creature aligned with Law and Order, she takes a great deal of damage from the inimical energies of chaos. [hider=Items] [b]Basic Items:[/b] Greater Healing Potions, Lesser Healing Potions, Greater Mana Potions, Lesser Mana Potions, Exchange Box [hider=Significant Items] [b]Name of Item:[/b] Sceptre of the Host [b]Rank of Item:[/b] Legendary [b]Appearance:[/b] A slender ivory field-marshal's baton, impressed with tiny glimmering golden laurel leaves and topped with an exquisite golden angel figure. [b]Description of Item:[/b] Morningstar's favourite item, the sceptre bolsters divine authority and has a chance to rip control of enemy angels away from their summoners. The level of angels affected is contingent on the wielder's own, and the levels of their racial classes. [b]Enchantments:[/b] Glow (40m, dispels magical darkness), Divine Law (chance to forcibly shift control of enemy angels to the wielder) [b]Class/Racial Restrictions:[/b] Seraph (Angel) [b]Downsides of Item:[/b] Restricted to angels; it cannot be wielded by mortals. Even then, command of the Host is reserved for the very highest Circle; whilst lesser angels may hold the sceptre, they will receive continuous damage as a rebuke for their hubris. [b]Name of Item:[/b] Distance-Hungry Ring [b]Rank of Item:[/b] Legacy [b]Appearance:[/b] A slender golden band set with eight burning diamonds [b]Description of Item:[/b] The enchantment laid into the foundation of this item drains a portion of the mana purposed to enemy teleportation magics. The functional effect of this leeching is to force a slight delay on enemy teleportation powers, and a second enchantment provides warning to its wearer. [b]Enchantments:[/b] Collapsing Distance Drain (five second delay to enemy teleportation powers, both incoming and outgoing), Silent Alarm (warns the wearer of its activation, without alerting anything else) [b]Class/Racial Restrictions:[/b] None [b]Downsides of Item:[/b] None [b]Name of Item:[/b] Infinite Flask [b]Rank of Item:[/b] Low [b]Appearance:[/b] An ivory-and-gold pitcher. [b]Description of Item:[/b] Even the driest desert holds little fear for a holder of an Infinite Flask. This useful little artifact never empties, providing sweet spring water in perpetuity. [b]Class/Racial Restrictions:[/b] None [b]Downsides of Item:[/b] None. [b]Name of Item:[/b] Armour of the Herald [b]Rank of Item:[/b] Legendary [b]Appearance:[/b] A set of elaborate armour, designed to fuse with and modify the naturally-armoured forms of the angels. Morningstar has customised it heavily from its original, rather plain appearance, turning it into a glitteringly ornate riot of gold and white that draws the eye with its intricate filigree-work. [b]Description of Item:[/b] The Herald's armour halves the chance that enemy attacks will disrupt its wearer's concentration when summoning angelic forces. It also cuts received physical damage by 20%. [b]Class/Racial Restrictions:[/b] Angel/Holy Saint, only Lawful Good characters. [b]Downsides of Item:[/b]If it is wielded by anyone other than a lawful Good angel or saint than it is useless. [b]Name of Item:[/b] Masque of the Herald [b]Rank of Item:[/b] Low [b]Appearance:[/b] Created by Morningstar, the Masque complements the Armour of the Herald. It is shaped in the form of a serene, youthful face in lustrous white and gold, merging seamlessly with Morningstar's armour. [b]Description of Item:[/b] The Mask provides Morningstar with a small boost to her charisma. Post-Yggdrasil, this means that the mask replicates facial expressions consonant with her emotions and speech, although it is naturally very clear she is not human. [b]Class/Racial Restrictions:[/b] None. [b]Downsides of Item:[/b] Not particularly useful to any human or humanoid race. [/hider] [/hider] [hider=Skills & Spells] [b]Basic Skills:[/b] Holy Protection (Undead, Evil), Bless Weapon, Bless Armour, Detect Magic (Greater, Mastered, Almighty), Magic Shield (Greater, Mastered), Universal Appraisal, Magic Ward (Evil, Undead, Fire, Water, Earth, Air), Message, Prestidigitation, Craft Golem (Greater, Mastered, Almighty), Craft Magic Item (Greater, Mastered, Almighty), Speak Holy Tongues, Fly, Holy Immunity, Repair, Disease Immunity [hider=Favoured Skills & Spells] [b]Name:[/b] Call Upon the Second Circle (12/day) [b]Racial Class Specialization:[/b] Seraph [b]Effects of Skill:[/b] Summons an angel of the Second Circle to the side of the caster. [b]Side Effects of skill:[/b] Alignment must be Good. [b]Description of Skill:[/b] The side of the angels never fights alone. They may call upon their divine right to summon help to their side. With this skill, the caster is powerful and righteous enough to bring forth Dominions, Virtues and Authorities to aid in their endeavours. The maximum level summonable through use of this skill is 50. [b]Name:[/b] Call Upon the Third Circle (20/day) [b]Racial Class Specialization:[/b] Dominion [b]Effects of Skill:[/b] Summons an angel of the Third Circle to the side of the caster. [b]Side Effects of skill:[/b] Alignment must be Good. [b]Description of Skill:[/b] The side of the angels never fights alone. They may call upon their divine right to summon help to their side. With this skill, the caster is powerful and righteous enough to bring forth Angels, Archangels and Principalities to aid in their endeavours. The maximum level summonable through use of this skill is 30. [b]Name:[/b] Retribution [b]Racial Class Specialization:[/b] Angel [b]Effects of Skill:[/b] Enhances the damage done to evil and undead-type foes and raises allies' defences against evil magic. [b]Side Effects of skill:[/b] If the caster is killed or knocked out, the backlash reverses the skill's effect. Alignment must be Good. [b]Description of Skill:[/b] The good don't sit idly by whilst evil moves abroad. They prepare to defend, and they prepare to punish. [b]Name:[/b] Gate [b]Job Class Specialization:[/b] Archmage [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] The spell opens a stable rift in reality itself, joining two far-distant locations together. [b]Side Effects of Spell:[/b] None, save for its significant mana cost. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] The pinnacle of transportation magic, sitting at the Tenth Tier, Gates are reliable, quick and usable by others, undeterred by lesser disruption attempts, although they come at the cost of considerable magical expenditure – around 10MP. [b]Name:[/b] Water into Wine [b]Racial Class Specialization:[/b] Angel [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] Turns water into a wine of the caster's choice. [b]Side Effects of Spell:[/b] Drunkenness from over-indulgence. Hangovers the next day. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] Water into wine is a classical angelic miracle. Time and practice refines the spell, allowing the user to specify the wine's strength, character and vintage. It has no combat application and is part of the Zeroth Tier. [b]Name:[/b] White Lance [b]Job Class Specialization:[/b] Wizard [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] Conjures a coruscating beam of white light that inflicts Fire and Holy damage on the enemy. [b]Side Effects of Spell:[/b] None. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] A useful, rapidly-cast spell for killing low-level enemies. It is particularly well-suited to the extermination of the undead. It requires little mana, around 2MP, sitting at the Second Tier. [b]Name:[/b] Creation [b]Job Class Specialization:[/b] Archmage [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] It is a super-tier spell that could change the terrain itself. In Yggdrasil, it was used to guard against the heat of volcanoes or the cold of freezing lands, reshaping entire landscapes to the caster's will and whim. [b]Side Effects of Spell:[/b] If interrupted, the spell goes awry and randomly changes the immediate surrounds, rather than affecting the caster's target or performing to the caster's design. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] Powerful and wide-ranging in its effects, Creation has a sixty-second casting time which must not be interrupted. Part of the Super-Tier, at her current level Morningstar may only use it three times a day. [b]Name:[/b] Arcane Aegis (Specific) [b]Job Class Specialization:[/b] War Wizard [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] Protects the caster or their designated target from the specified weapon(s). [b]Side Effects of Spell:[/b] None. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] Manifesting as a rippling green dome (if on the ground) or sphere (if airborne), this powerful ward is a shining defence for whatever it is specified against. A Tier Five spell, mundane weapons are easily shattered, although magic weapons of a potency greater than the Aegis will break [i]it[/i] instead. They may be layered. [b]Name:[/b] Greater Magic Seal [b]Job Class Specialization:[/b] War Wizard [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] Three magic circles appear, each one blasting thirty White Lances at the target(s). [b]Side Effects of Spell:[/b] None. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] Gleaming white magic circles scribe themselves in glittering light, oriented towards the targets, before unleashing a hail of white beams at the enemy. Once their volley has been fired, they dissipate harmlessly. A Tier Three spell. [b]Name:[/b] Panoptic Eye [b]Job Class Specialization:[/b] Wizard [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] The caster may survey areas far-distant to her current location, or focus on someone or something to which they have a connection. The Eye itself is completely invisible, and may move from its initial position at a rate of 20 miles/hour. [b]Side-Effects of Spell: [/b]If disrupted, the Eye cannot be reformed for six hours. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] A gleaming silver mirror pops into existence in front of the caster. It reflects distant people and places, and may be moved by the caster. Powerful anti-scrying defences, at a Tier higher than the spell itself cause the mirror to shatter and the Eye to discohere. A Tier Three spell. The Eye will only observe friendly or neutral entities and the area around them; any attempt to force a vision of an enemy results in immediate discoherence. [b]Name:[/b] The Thunder of Heaven [b]Racial Class Specialization:[/b] Seraph [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] Ten projectiles of incandescent plasma explode forth, splitting into innumerable smaller spheres and arcing to hit far-distant targets, immolating them - and the surrounding terrain - in explosions of solar fire. [b]Side-Effects of Spell:[/b] None. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] A powerful barrage from heavenly artillery, this spell calls down the thunder of heaven on the caster's enemies. [b]Name:[/b] Hallowed Ground [b]Racial Class Specialization:[/b] Principality [b]Effects of Spell:[/b] Consecrates an area - land, sea and air - to all that is Holy, Light and Good. Within this area, the dead are granted permanent rest and the undead suffer penalties to their attack, defence and resistances, whilst those fighting on the side of Good are purified and gain bonuses to the resistance and repudiation of all that is Evil, Dark and Undead. The area affected can be up to Level + 10 metres. [b]Side-Effects of Spell:[/b] None. [b]Description of Spell:[/b] The caster glows with holy light and beams of golden radiance pour out from them, bathing the area to be consecrated in the light of Heaven. This ability may also be used by clerics. Repeated devotary casting of Hallowed Ground, once a week for a year in the same place, renders the effect permanent. [/hider] [/hider] [b]How a normal human would view me:[/b] A normal human would feel awe and fear at the resplendent sight, inspiring and inhuman in one. If they saw her inner form, shorn of its glorious shell, then revulsion and disgust would wipe away any awe previously felt. [b]Personality:[/b] Driven and focused, Morningstar can come across as distant and cold. She cares, but her care is a calculating one, focused on institutions and ideals rather than individuals, in the main. Ruin tended to roleplay her as inscrutable, someone as far removed from mortal affairs as mortals are from the doings of ants. Ruin as a player liked to be the finger on the scales, tilting delicate situations one way or another for power, for favours, or perhaps even for her own amusement. Since the change, in the post-game world, Morningstar has begun to focus more on the immediate and the individual. A modern, educated human's mind in a world more-or-less frozen in medieval stasis, everywhere she looks she sees ways and means of improvement, of the introduction and propagation of good order and safety to offer to friends and allies. She [i]also[/i] sees - up close and personal, visceral in a way a game can never be - the darker side of life; the pirates and bandits, the slavers and brigands, all the unpalatable flavours of evil, and is quick to the crusade against these things wherever they rear their head. [b]Bio/Lore:[/b] Outside of the game, Ruin was a corporate engineer, specialising in arcology design and construction. The game provided an escape from her technically-demanding job, and allowed her to indulge her more creative impulses and flights of fancy, free from the spectre of the bottom line that ruled most corporate arcology designs. An atheist in real life, she chose to be an angel in the game primarily on the basis of aesthetics, but now that the game world has become real, she is beginning to experience an inner conflict between the hard-science of what had once been the real world and the new - to her - forces of faith and divinity. Looking for God - whether to honour or supplant - may become more than a metaphor for her. Her job was a demanding but very well-paid one, and whilst having less time than some to spend on the game and her character, she compensated for this with the liberal use of cash-only items, bolstering her gains and her powers during the times she was able to devote to the game. Although angels were Good and Holy, the aberrant exception to most NPCs' revulsion of heteromorphic races, they were still counted amongst that number by the game itself, and thus were prime targets for many other players. Morningstar was no exception, particularly since, during her initial forays into the game, she preferred to play solo. Angels, however, in particular the lower ranks, were never meant to fight alone, and after several abortive attempts to go solo, Morningstar caved to the game's system and found a small group of nine other angel players, banding together for mutual support - the clan that became known as the Sephirot, after the Judaic concept. Whilst initially brought together by the hunts against them, the Sephirot members found a shared joy in the roleplaying aspect of the game. To [i]be[/i] the divine envoys, the harbingers of light and hope the angels were portrayed as in the game's lore, however, the Sephirot first had to be strong, strong enough to counter the hunts. Heteromorphs in general had several strategies for surviving in that time, but, like the Nine's Own Goal, the Sephirot focused on strength and knowledge - the one feeding into the other until, collectively, they were a very prickly proposition indeed. It was very hard to kill the Sephirot themselves whilst countering waves of lesser angels and a continual barrage of spells and powerful racial abilities. The Sephirot never became an official guild, remaining at ten players, resonating nicely with the symbolism of their name and largely preventing factionalisation and splintering. They explored far and wide, and were generous with their coin and their favours in the field of information, holding fast to the belief that knowledge was power. Over time, the various members specialised; Morningstar became the clan's artillerist, raining down divine and arcane doom from on high, and later their strategist, coordinating the lesser coterie of angels they controlled. Staying true to their roleplaying roots, the Sephirot campaigned as high-level leaders of the angelic Host, frequently in the vanguard against evil events and guilds, but always fading back from the limelight once the job was done - recalled to Heaven, in their own cant. In truth, their more sporadic style of play was necessitated by their jobs; many of the original Sephirot were skilled employees, their talents in demand. To make up for their lack of playing time, the group was well-known to liberally use cash items, closing the gap and cutting - as much as possible - the wearying grind of levelling, combining this with copious information bought, found or traded into a lethal combination. Time was the downfall of the Sephirot, and to a lesser extent the advent of the Guild system. Players were promoted in real life, or married, settled down, found other interests and hobbies and slowly drifted away, particularly since the Guilds both reduced the need for defenders of the weak and made outright conflict with many of them unwinnable for a small ten-member clan, stockpile of cash-only items or no. The Sephirot played the game for a long time - since they lacked the numbers to be a side on their own, they became the tipping points, the pressure which tilted events one way or another, but something of the wild freedom of the earlier days had gone and their choices seemed lesser. Eventually, only Morningstar was left, a solitary Herald where once ten had stood, roaming the empyting worlds of Yggdrasil even unto the final night. [/hider]