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[b]Archetype:[/b] Dead Apostle (Magically Transformed)

[b]Name:[/b]Ahmicqui

[b]Titles:[/b] Tlacatecolotl, Nahuālli

[b]Sex:[/b] Male

[b]Personality:[/b] A man who once loved all of creation, from a single pebble to the gods themselves, but above all he loved mankind for a single human was of greater value upon the altars of gods than a world’s sum of vibrant feathers and jade. He embodied the very ideal of self-sacrifice and service to the world, thinking of all but himself. Content to die an insignificant death so that others might know the love of the gods, and through it be transformed into divinity itself. A true patriot who believed in the divine mission of his people to be the stewards of the world, and in turn its saviors. 

Yet nothing lasts, as his people faded from history and mankind forgot how to love another, the man who once loved all unconditionally came to despise it, loathe it and pity it and still could not stop loving it. Civil words and sentiments are but masks for the mockery that lies beneath, carrying himself like a flamboyant jester ever in spite of the world that he inhabits. To stave off boredom a little while longer, to not think too long on the future, or rather lack of one that he wanders towards. Yet the embers of the man of old have yet to die out, ever prone to perhaps have hope in mankind when those of promise show themselves, those who evoke but a hint of displaying love towards another. Even when met by disappointment, it never deters him from raising his hopes the next time. At times he may offer the rare kindness to others, for when man reaches the end of their days, he will be there to offer them death in battle where they may join the gods instead to die insignificance. What must not be loved in life can perhaps be loved in its demise.

Whether the spirits of the past are worth his respect is another, but those who represent the pinnacle of humanity be it in their worst or best, are certainly to be honoured in their own way. To be watched and witnessed, and to feel nostalgia for a time where humanity still knew how to love another, and perhaps supported to offer them but another chance to pursue what is most dear to the heart and in turn perhaps to bring out the man who once loved all of creation.

[b]History:[/b]
Once in a land where men lived not for themselves, but solely for others and the world. In the white lands and beyond, the land of the Aztecs and their subjugate, did Ahmicqui live. Sworn from birth to the priesthood, his fate was shaped on the very day he was born and deemed worthy to pursue it. The gods had sacrificed everything for mankind, the world had to be preserved at all costs lest it be torn asunder once more. As the strongest and wisest of the lands, the Aztec were fit to rule and to serve as stewards of the world, such did Ahmicqui believe and he was proud to uphold that duty.
His was a love that enveloped all, expressed upon the fields of battle most keenly where he captured many and dragged them across the steps to be sacrificed upon blood-soaked altars. Offering the defeated the chance to be hallowed in death, to become divine itself through their consumption. In turn allow the most honoured of the Aztec to consume the flesh of the newly-minted divine and through it commune with the gods themselves, becoming greater and more powerful through it. Ahmicqui laboured not for his lifetime, but for his successor to consume him like he had consumed his own master and inherited his Jade Heart. All for the purpose of gathering wisdom and knowledge should the sun be torn from the skies and the world to end once again.

All things were destined to end, such was the nature of all things. Yet even if death itself could not be stopped, it is the privilege solely of man to choose the manner of their own passing. To be able to die with honour, to be loved by the gods to die through conflict, be it in the heat of battle or on the throes of child-birth. Such were deaths to be cherished and honoured. To slip away in the night or to die miserably from disease were not fates to grant to any man. It is why Ahmicqui pursued the power of healing, to heal the spirit from the ails of the wind itself. Even if only to buy enough time for a diseased man to find death in battle, enough time for one to be loved by the gods. 

Man was the greatest of things to be loved, for even the most miserable wretch was suitable to be sacrificed to the gods where even a king’s hoard of jade was to be turned away from any altar. Such is how it was meant to be, how it once was. Yet as Ahmicqui raised the next generation of warriors time and time again he wondered who would come to love his people, for the ever-victorious could never know death in battle, their allotted time would expire one day and who would love them then. The greatest warrior would wither away and die an insignificant death if he was never bested. It was the sole source of sorrow for Ahmicqui.

Thus he believed it to be a sign of the gods themselves when Quetzalcoatl and his pale kindred descended upon the land itself, waging war upon the chosen of the gods.. Either his people would prevail, devour the gods and know even greater glory, perhaps endowed with true divinity itself, thus to know love. Or they would fall, trampled beneath the feet of their divine conquerors and sacrificed on altars to know love. The cycle would advance once more and another to take their place. Ahmicqui was ecstatic, the sole source of sorrow erased as he prepared himself and his students for glorious battle. Donning the garbs of the Tlacatecolotl, or owl man, emissaries of the underworld and arbiters of life and death. One of the most prestigious orders of sorcerers in the land. 

A few minor victories over the pale invaders preceded the far greater calamity the land, for those that died on the battlefield were far outnumbered by the countless that perished from a deadly ailment of the soul, one that stilled the anima that gave life to the flesh. A plague spread upon the winds of Quetzalcoatl, one that shook Ahmicqui’s faith, his students that had died before his eyes in battle were sent off with laughter, but those that died from this plague were the ones who he truly wept for, as they were unloved by the gods, less than man. Yet it was not an assessment that he agreed with. He could not stop death, but he could at least allow man to choose their own end. A curse of such power was beyond his ability to heal, so instead he took the curse upon himself, one patient at a time. The Tlacatecolotl were said to be immune to disease, for it was their fate to perish in battle and indeed Ahmicqui fared better than his patients. 

Yet even that small mercy was not meant to last, for when he had taken on the curses of too many to count, even he started to submit to it. Bleeding from every orifice in his head, his time was drawing to an end. Even then he still continued to treat this pestilence in others, for every two that he cured it surely surpassed the weight and worth of his own being. If he was to die an insignificant death, let it be so, for those to perish to a god would surely be loved even more than the greatest warriors in the times of yore. As the dead stacked up to the tens of thousands in the capital city of Tenochtitlan, the few survivors came to fear Ahmicqui for his disease, and in turn exiled him. He was heart-broken, but did not fight the decision.

The only thing that had kept him going was the pure will and resolve to save others, but deprived of that his end came quickly, in the midst of a place of little significance, suffering a fate of no significance before breathing his last. Or so it was meant to be, but the sum of curses of many and his status as an emissary of the underworld shaped a different fate for Ahmicqui. Forced to wander the world as a mindless ghoul, his toil was a long one, consuming the blood and flesh of many before finally regaining his sapience decades later. Finding himself weeping over his latest victim, blood still upon his tongue.

He had changed, that much was clear when he stepped out into the sun and experienced agony unlike any other. The sun, the gods were rejecting him, they no longer loved him, for he had died a dishonourable death, perhaps many times over by taking that fate from hundreds if not thousands. This was his punishment, his penance, for he was a sinner scorned by the sun itself. In time he would come to learn of the world, yet finding himself disappointed when learning of the fate of his people and the true identity of the one they had thought to be Quetzalcoatl in the flesh. In the end only a single truth prevailed, his people and their legacy had been crushed by a people who did not know how to love. Who valued shiny metals and beans over the lives of humans, such were the heirs to their lands.

Coming to terms with his own existence, Ahmicqui desired to learn more of the world and its people now that he had nothing to hold him back. What he discovered was but the same truth told over and over again. Man fighting over soil to grow seeds in, wasting precious human life solely for the acquisition of transient things. There was no love, no higher purpose but pursuing the accumulation of wealth and power. They knew not sacrifice, they knew no duty. The bonds between people fray ever more as each pursues their own ambitions. Nevertheless, in an effort to understand he tried to live the lives of the people of the old world as best as he could, to see if their love took on a different shape only to find himself disappointed by the limits on their capabilities to love. 

Returning to a husk of his former life, he settled in his former homeland and began to teach the young and those endowed with the talent for magecraft in every discipline that he could teach in. From the secrets of magecraft to the simple wisdoms to live as a good person. Teaching them how to love and be loved, before finally ending each and every last of them. Some of them struck down in a betrayal, others simply struck down for being too weak to endure and overcome what is yet to come. It is his mercy, his love to allow those promising seeds of humanity to remain worthy, to be worthy of love and to be forever embraced and hallowed in the afterlife. In the end consuming their blood and flesh, to slake the thirst for blood, to gain wisdom and to get ever closer to obtaining the eternal wisdom of what he now knew to be the root. 

Even if humanity no longer knew how to love, the world was still there. There was nothing on it that he did not wish to disappear were it to end, but he also could not abandon what his people had once sworn to protect. So the sacrifices continued, laying the seeds for an eternity of conflict and bloodshed within his former homeland now known as Mexico. Feeding the greed and want of the drug cartels that inhabited it and driving them to fight amongst another, at times only stepping in to prevent an end, to maintain instability. To many it seemed like a bored Dead Apostle playing with humans, but to Ahmicqui it was alike to watering his garden. A daily ritual that he offered little thought to but still was part of his routine.

As he was going about his daily routine, he learned of the ritual that was to take place north of him. Perhaps a vacation was in order, and his garden would survive without him, it had not been the first time he had left it unattended for a time. It was the first time in decades that his heart beat with a certain trepidation, for perhaps he could finally fall in love with humanity all over again. 

[b]Quality of Magic Circuits:[/b] B

[b]Quantity of Magic Circuits:[/b] A

[b]Abnormal Abilities: [/b]

[i]Dead Apostle Parameters and Abilities:[/i]Power to crack concrete in his hands without reinforcement. The speed to dodge bullets without foreknowledge. His physical stats are high above any human, although in comparison to servants they do not quite match up.

[i]Cocoliztli:[/i] Out of love, Ahmicqui had claimed the fate of thousands of his kinmen by claiming the pestilence that plagued their bodies and brought devastation across the White Lands. A curse that normally stills Tonalli, the anima that gives life and animates the flesh, instead inspired a hunger within Ahmicqui, one for blood. Ever seeking to stave of stagnation and avoiding the end of his cycle. There is a great power in the curses of many joined into one, wielded by an emissary of the underworld. One twisted by his resolve and his tattered love, it has become alike to a weapon to be wielded for he can impart a fraction of that curse upon others, like a disease, and for a time still their prana and through it inspire the same lust for blood, so that they may too finally know what it is to love another. 

[i]Third Soul - Tonalli:[/i] Unlike others, the ancient Nahualt possessed three souls. One of which is known as the Tonalli, coloured upon the day of one’s birth and tied to an animal spirit of the very same day. Ahmicqui was born under the sign of the owl, an auspicious sign, surpassed only by that of the jaguar. The owl is one of the three animals tied to the underworld and a spirit that lends its power to Tlacatecolotl, or owl men. Their talent for destruction and curses have left them to be remembered as demons in the history of their conquerors. 

The Tonalli is a very physical soul, one present in the blood and in the head. One that can be lost if one is not careful, and one can augment their Tonalli by consuming that of another, and with it giving the opportunity to consume the animal spirit tied to it. Ahmicqui is the heir of the Tonalli of his predecessors amongst the priesthood, commanding the mystery of not only his own great owl, but all the other owls that he consumed. To further his bond, he was implanted with a heart made out of blue jade, a substance tied to life and death and suffused in the blood and Tonalli of his predecessors. Something not unlike what a magic crest would be to a western magus.

[i]Horned Nagual:[/i] A form of shamanism unique to the Nahualt people. Through the bond between man and animal tonal spirit, one is capable of communing, processing and operating spirits, especially those of animals. One’s affinity with the spirit of one’s birth is the greatest, but it is not unknown to be able to gain control over the spirits of others by consuming their flesh and blood, and through it inherit their Tonalli. The most powerful of sorcerers amongst the Nahualt people were always said to be Naguals, as even the God of Sorcery, Tezcatlipoca, was said to possess an animal spirit in the shape of a Jaguar. 

Ahmicqui’s tonal bond with his great owl grants him the affinity to surpass the normal bounds of nagualism and to merge his own essence with that of his owl and through it endow the concept of the owl in the concept of Aztec mythology. Such transformation grants him not only the physical features and capabilities, but also endowed him with spiritual qualities. Owls were the messengers of the underworld, controlling life and death and representing the evils of the world. To hear them in the night was to know that someone was fated to die, a harbinger of misfortune.

Death is the end of all things, the end of a cycle of consumption for even the spirits that overcome all trials of the underworld are in the end reduced to nothingness before its king. Such is the fate that the owl heralds, and one that Ahmicqui can project when joined with his owl spirit. Fortune and luck fades if not dulled as the fate of death is made more likely, the end drawing closer the longer he is allowed to remain. Cycles come to a halt, or are at least slowed as things like regeneration and growth are stunted if not impossible within his presence. For if the owl of the underworld makes itself known, so must death follow. 

Ahmicqui can only transform during the night, a constraint that limited all Naguals of his time.

[i]Ticitl:[/i] An extension of his skills as a Nagual to interact with spirits. Through it Ahmicqui is able to heal the body without using even a single surgical implement. Healing the spirit and through it the result manifests upon the flesh itself. His tonalli, the great owl, permits him even more delicate control over it for life and death are its domain. In the past Ahmicqui has employed his talent in spiritual healing to take the pestilence of others upon himself, transferring curses from one to the other. To solely call it spiritual healing would be a misunderstanding of the full scope of it, for Tlacatecolotl are known to at times to twist and bring ailments upon the spirits of others, such was witnessed by the invading Spaniards themselves when faced against Montezuma’s Tlacatecolotl.

[i]Attendant of the End:[/i] As an emissary of the underworld, it is his privilege and duty to attend the death of man. A final safeguard to prevent those from cheating death or forging a different fate for themselves. When this owl man chooses to observe one’s end it is a solemn send-off but also a confirmation of the truth. Transforming their grudges, regrets and other stray remnants into wraiths unique to his people’s understanding of the world. Often manifesting as butterflies who are said to tend to the world a little while longer before truly passing on. 

[i]Nahuatlatolli:[/i]A language practiced solely amongst the priesthood, one that was kept secret from the common man. A tongue meant for the weaving of magecraft and oft employed in rituals and spells woven amidst battle. Effectively allowing Ahmicqui to reduce the activation of his thaumaturgy by half. Not unlike common forms of high speed incantation.

[b]Equipment:[/b] Three Owl Statuettes, Two Monkey Statuettes, Two eagle Statuettes, One Jaguar Statuette, with each having their respective animal spirit tied to it. The shrivelled arm of a woman perished in childbirth. An obsidian-tipped Aztec Spear, and a ceremonial owl garb.

[b]Miscellaneous:[/b] A wide variety of flower seeds, a bird cage with a Quetzal in it, various suitcases filled with clothes and other essentials. Connections with various central american drug cartels and other crime syndicates.

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