[hider=Mirithal]

[center][color=green][i]"Where there is life there's hope, and life is everywhere."[/i][/color][/center]

Name: Mirithal the Nidhogan

Appearance: 
As it can change form, it does adopt a few consistent depending on what it faces.  It also can make a smaller more approachable avatar, see the Manipulation Magic below.

[hider=Forms]
[center][img]https://artfiles.alphacoders.com/388/388.png[/img]

[img]https://img00.deviantart.net/49a5/i/2011/170/c/d/life_colossus_by_abuze-d3jbeq4.jpg [/img]

[img]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-sbW57OsRDSo/UYLrugUKsOI/AAAAAAABJvA/FGiHeqio-r8/w1012-h575-no/life_colossus_akimen.jpg [/img][/center]
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[hider=Description]
Age:  339

Race: Veidish

Height:  12 feet at the shoulder, slumped on four legs usually.

Weight:  About 4000 lbs (Weight of a Tree)

Composition:  Its most common form is a creature that cannot be confused as anything else than a being composed of bark plates mixed with all manner of plant matter writhing underneath the bark like internal organs.  Everything only looks vaguely organic in shape but the wood can grow, be reabsorbed or shape itself at will, forming limbs and appendages.  Only the head seems to retain a shape for any stretch of time and it looks like a artistically modeled mask of twisted warpped wood that only slightly looks like a face but with near two dozen slots for eyes and no mouth.  Its mouth is actually a series of mandibles composed of grinding roots and snapping flytrap leaves.  Thankfully this is hidden underneath its' 'face'.  Generally the moss and leaves on its back supply it with nutrients and it will sit in water for drinking.  While it can grow edible fruit and seeds, it flatly refuses to eat them.  

When it uses another form, the bulk of its matter is left behind as a husk, appearing to be a heavy piece of wood sculpture.
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Personality:  A gentle giant.  Wise as it is childish.  Strong as it is fragile.  Destructive as it is innocent.  Approaching with hands open, the Nidhogan will claim you as a creature worthy of life and protection, tending to your needs for life.  Attack with the fires of rage and fear, and it will be as if the very earth itself will rise to snuff out the embers.  The Nidhogan is a creature of extremes, and it knows not of restraint, save for its infinite mercy and forgiveness for the ones who let their fury subside.  Indeed, the Nidhoggan has no memory of such grudges, instead indulging in the love and joys of life itself.  How it does so is potentially dangerous to those nearby.

The Nidhogan is completely alien to most other civilized species as it does not seem to have the same mannerisms, motivations, and cultural identity, more or less deciding things on a whim.  It has habits of trying to understand and mimic other cultures but utterly fails to understand the subtleties.  As a being of life, the concept of death and heavens and even the gods are difficult for him.  Even when something stops moving, it just fades and becomes flowers and grass and trees

Additionally, the Nidhogan is unpredictable.  It seems to react like a dog would.  Against rage, anger, fear, it responds in kind.  Against gentleness and compassion, it responds with affection.  At times it seems distracted.  Other times it seems to talk to itself before wandering off on some errand.  It claims that it hears voices and knows the names of very prominent gods and demons but fails to grasp what they are exactly.  

[hider=Persona]
Gender: Fluid, it will take on the gender of its form and normally isn't concerned with what it's called.  Like most plants, it has male and female parts.  

Sexuality: Poly-amorous.  It is attracted to others by biochemical signals they unleash during emotional states.  Like sunshine, it is attracted to positive emotions.
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History:  The creature was not born.  It was made.  Maybe it was a tree given life and sentience.  Maybe it is alike an elemental.  Maybe it is but a golem of wood.  Who can say really other than Nidhogan itself.

What it believes happened was that something created it.  Its faded, but it was something with hair and two legs.  That's what it thinks.  And when its creator finished with it, the creator seemed to not really know whether Nidhogan was what it wanted and so, it abandoned the Nidhogan, leaving it more or less to its own.  At that time, it was more a beast.  It grazed, it hunted, it chewed on trees, and it swam in lakes.  It was an aimless monster, at many points running into the other civilized races and attacking them.  It became a creature of myth.  It chewed at the Roots of the Tree in Salern before being driven off.  It tried to smash the machines of Arkon before they burned a forest to kill it, only to see it douse the flames with dirt and root.  It fueled stories and became just another reason not to go in the woods at night. 

One such event in its life, the Nidhogan approached a plume of smoke and stumbled upon a camp of soldiers.  The siege camp of some crusade that had reaped the land of life in their petty war and fire.  The nation and the peoples, unknown to the Nidhogan.  These squishy races were to be feared, feared as they attacked the creature.  Now, it watched, it watched as hundreds of souls smelled the red of hate and anger.  The Nidhogan lost control, it roared, bellowed across the forest, its truest power unleashing as the forest itself followed it in a tide of wood and thorn.  The army was slaughtered.  The survivors spoke of the forest attacking, and the only rational explanation was that some sorcerer of their enemy made this happen.  The war and crusade escalated elsewhere, but when the forest reclaimed the land on that bloody battlefield, the Nidhogan’s rage subsided.


During the battle, the Nidhogan braved walls of fire and fields of metal thorns.  Its wood burned, its bark lashed with blade, yet it fought like the elements have come alive in fury.  It fought with the forest behind it right into the heart of the army, right towards the sorcerer priest that had led this bloody campaign.  Their battle was a clash of titans, and at some point, the Nidhogan had received a terrible wound by the priest's enchanted staff jabbed into its neck but ultimately the giant felled him, crushing the priest's unholy body under its bulk.

The Nidhogan changed that day.  The staff lay still embedded in its form, its shaft woven impossibly among the creature’s girth.  Through it, it heard whispers.  Through it, the Nidhogan felt other colors.  It had other thoughts.  The Nidhogan as a dumb animal heard those whisper and learned things over the decades.  It attempted to copy what it heard.  It went to places, using might and magic to destroy or create at its whims, incidentally answering the prayers of one person or another.

Eventually the Nidhogan began to understand civilization and itself as a person, of sorts.  But finding no home among others.  It experienced loneliness but its power allowed it to grow and manipulate life.  It experimented with this power.  It made things of plants, with voices and minds all their own.  With no concept of family, sometimes these early Veidish went on their own, other times they stayed together.  There was no purpose to them nor was their great wisdom to guide them.  The Nidhogan only made these beings cause he could and being not much more intelligent than the beings it created, despite its longer life and divine voices.  It was the blind leading the blind.  They were like a gaggle of children, creating, watching, playing, learning, together with no supervision.  At last, the Nidhogan was no longer truly lonely.

Yet the voices continued, and so did the Nidhogan grow as it has always done.  It desired what other creatures had.  It desired a place among them, it desired great homes, be surrounded by ‘family’.  It wanted to be hear the colors of green and yellow.  It wanted to know what gods were, and magic, and love.  But still, despite going to places in need of a miracle, the creature of brambles was met with only red and purple.  Thankfully other Veidish, being smaller did not have the same trouble.

It suddenly had a great idea.  The Veidish should make a city!  A great place where they can grow and grow and grow.  Then the other creatures will accept them.  And then they'll make friends.  And those friends will make friends.  And everything will be good and happy and fun.  The Nidhogan finally made an order and all the Veidish it could find all loved this idea.  They needed somewhere safe though.  Nidhogan still remembered the terrible red he saw when he crushed that army, and it didn’t like it.  So they all agreed to search for a home.

They split up, traveling all corners of the world.  Most Veidish in their innocence forgot what they were looking for, but Nidhogan, it just grew, getting smarter and egg’d on by the voices in its head.  It didn’t forget its goal.  Find a safe place to build a home.

Magic:
Elemental Wood:  Master
To the Nidhogan, the Element of Wood, the Element of Life is its purview and domain.  Reacting more as instinct than actual spell casting, Nidhogan can make nearly anything happen as it portains to plants.  Trees will swing their branches, thorn bushes grow in a moments notice, before bursting in a shower of thorns.  Fungus will grow to incredible sizes and shower the land in noxious and coughing spores.  Roots entangle.  Moss devours.  Grass slices.  Herbs tangle themselves as living bandages.  The list goes on, and its more than welcome to teach the Element of Life to prospective students.

Elemental Earth:  Novice
As the Earth is so tied to the life of plants, The Nidhogan has slowly learned some of the spells that effect the earth.  This is very limited, cracking the ground, pushing it up, smoothing it out.  It uses this more for landscaping than anything considered attacks or defenses, but it does have its utilitarian uses.  Shaping stoneworks for one.

Manipulation: Limited
Not really magic, but more of a way of interaction.  The Nidhogan can take on multiple forms.  All of these forms are limited to something inherently plantlike, either looking to be made of leaves, vines, wood, flowers, or some combination of the plant matter.  Invariably these forms are mimicry of something else the Nidhogan wishes to embody.  Out of its body of wood, a blossom will emerge and step out.  While the husk remains inert, the blossom will unfurl into the form the Nidhogan wishes to interact as.  This form is further enhanced by a type of pollen or spores which have a slight hallucinogenic effect as well as pheramonal.  It allows those afflicted to perceive the plant as something more approachable.  For example, the forms below,
[hider=Female Elf]
[center][img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2d/bb/4e/2dbb4eba5c7c9b8ad8e454f7f9a0bf28.jpg[/img][/center]
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[hider=Male Human]
[center][img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/9b/5d/ca/9b5dca9787b60abd33c2468764a2e398.jpg[/img][/center]
[/hider]
-will be more easily accepted as what it is trying to mimic, giving its form a more accepted quality, maybe even a semblance of beauty.  Nidhogan uses this to interact with other creatures.  It can only change when stepping back into its bulky husk.

Conjuration: Unique
While the Nidhogan has absolute control over plants, causing them to grow, bend, and act at its will, something rather extraordinary happens when the Nidhogan is grounded in a place long enough.  Materials that it works on, a process described as both garden, cultivating, and pruning gain a semblance of sentience.  The Nidhogan has been known to surround itself with creatures that are not quite Veidish and act more like elementals of wood and earth with their own goals, will, power, demeanor, and even intelligence.  It is currently ever curious about what it can create, and has claimed that it has 'grown' or 'birthed' other Veidish in its life.  With a below however it can summon these creatures, beasts, and other spirits of the forest to its service.  It has only done so in times of war and great jubilation.

Skills: 
Gardening, Cultivating, Wood Carving, Stonework, Medicine, Basket Weaving, Topiary, Farming, Cooking, Sewing
The Nidhogan seems a creature that hungers for the skills and talents that create.  It has been asked to grow homes and build furniture with admirable gusto.  It will sit itself down in sewing circles.  It has constructed statues and seeded farmland.  The creature is fascinated with what happens with life, love, and some other bits and bobs come together

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