Ligament
Tinker, the Flayed Fellow, Vertebral MechanistDemiboy- That is, nonbinary, but humans are allowed to use male pronouns, and they don't mind being called a boy or man.
Appearance Once, in long-gone days of peace under Rieth's reign, Ligament had a body typical of gods- Large, humanoid, and too beautiful to hide with all but the most elegant of clothing. As the Lesser Lord of Change, however, this did not last.
Since birth, Ligament has been fiddling and tampering with their divine body. Amputation meant little to them, and they felt no pain from the self-mutilation that defines their role. With each iteration of his designs for himself, Tinker lost more and more of his size and conventional attractions, replacing the godly flesh he inherited with a tangle of his own arcana.
By divine standards, Ligament is now a disfigured midget- And yet, despite lacking the patience or motivation to assume any kind of disguise, their continuing modifications might just enable them to pass as something almost mortal.
Standing at a lanky 5'9, Tinker is tall, lithe, and boyish in form; Fairly broad-shouldered, and adequately muscled- At least in shape. His breasts are middling, leaning to the smaller side. His body lacks any kind of skin, or conventional tissue. Ligament is made entirely of dark, blueish-grey organic mechanisms, roughly resembling the arrangement of human muscle and sinew. Many sections, however, are replaced by alternative shapes, or simply empty space in order to minimise weight. There is no single skeleton supporting Ligament's body- The contractile 'tissue' itself is more than strong enough to take their weight, and thin strands of rigid structural material crisscross their body in a haphazard organic sprawl, often taking the place of adipose tissue.
Numerous functional devices are hidden in this mess of modifications. Each finger on Ligament's dainty, delicate hands has a different tool hidden in it, the index and middle fingers of their left hand forming the electrodes of an arc discharge, for example. Several of these are weapons, and most of Tinker's body can be disassembled as required. Notably, an array of spring-loaded blades in his back prevents attack from that direction, small jets in the back of his shins allows him to leap further than even his augmented body would usually allow, and a durable wheel can unfold from each of his heels, for traversing flat ground quickly with little energy expenditure.
The only part of Ligament that remains much the same as it was at their birth is the stretch of skin over his belly. This is where their centre of power is pierced into, and serves as a reminder of that first change, and how far they've come.
In terms of clothing, Ligament's preferences are minimal. A pair of old brown trousers and a leather belt is all they wear below the neck. Lacking hair, but oddly conscious of being 'bald', Ligament wears a fashionable, very wide-brimmed black
hat. Rumour has it that this hat has been grafted onto his skull so that Tinker won't leave it lying around and forget about it. Blue
welding goggles are worn at all times, not to shield him from anything, but rather to protect mortals from the full brunt of his divine gaze, which ignites in magnesium white when he gets too excited.
An energetic and upbeat figure, Ligament bounces quickly between ideas and is easily distracted. While adequately respectful to their family, formality is unknown to them, and Ligament is deeply uncomfortable with having to feign something they consider so utterly barren of purpose. Indeed, Tinker plays much of his life with his cards on the table.
Tinker is merrily honest with others where he doesn't stand to gain from lying, which he doesn't do particularly well anyway. Colloquialism picked up from mortal followers riddles his speech. The idea of temporarily changing forms or assuming disguises confuses him- Ligament's own body and identity works perfectly well for them, and if it doesn't, well, they'll modify it. Again. And again. And again and again and again
Indeed, any significant amount of time in the Flayed Fellow's company is spent learning the passionately erratic nature of their obsessions. Tinker is a mutterer in all moods, and his stream of thought often flows too quickly for his breath, catching and stumbling into a string of nonsense, profanity, or melodic gibberish. Always working on something, Ligament will jump at any opportunity to tackle an entertaining new problem, no matter who poses it. None of their projects are ever really completed, and the purpose of each tends to get muddied or fuse with others over time.
Ligament is known to harbour a fascination with the humans they have made themself resemble. Many of their projects involve the creation of new beings from mortals of various kinds, and Tinker enjoys watching their determination to survive for as long as possible, chatting and living alongside them, often helping them. Still, it is ultimately the desire to experiment that draws him to humans, or so he believes- A trait that sometimes leads to him being labelled as cruel or two-minded, or at least selectively amoral.
And yet, for all this, Tinker holds feelings towards his lab rats that he doesn't really understand, and tries to suppress. The idea of loving mortals for what they are is foreign to his nature as a God of Change. Ligament believes that their true desire is to become like other gods, setting aside human empathy in order to fulfil their divine role unhindered, taking Immortals as company. Why this idea of their future feels so bleak to them is something they try hard not to think about.
Domain Change - The Major Domain of the new and different, and yet not of creation. Ligament's is the domain of process and adaptation, learning and leaving behind, applying resources in unorthodox ways.
Transcendence - A Minor Domain defined by mortals, of ultimate change as an individual. To become something so different from what once was that one cannot be considered the same kind of being anymore is to realise Tinker's dreams. Those who sacrifice comfort to grow into something beyond what they were born as, whether physically, socially or spiritually, are the most favoured children of Ligament.
Corruption - This Minor Domain is characterised by the twisting of identity. Corruption is change that perverts original function or purpose, separating the changed party from who or what they once were. A core trait of corruption is that it is, by definition, never a total change- What remains is still bitterly recognisable in all but a few key ways. Ligament favours the physical applications of this domain over the psychological ones.
Avatar The Mangler is a vehicle that Ligament built over many years out of arcane materials and the leftover scraps of their own body. Aglow with arcane glyphs, the device consists of a huge outer wheel grafted onto and powered by a human-shaped construct with a single ocular lens for a face. To the left of the gyroscopically balanced wheel extends an array of segmented tentacles, while the right side is adorned with a vast, clawed arm. A patchwork construction, the Mangler's design is cluttered, unrefined and irregular, with pieces bound together with cable and dubiously rigid joints.
Like all avatars, the Mangler is an intelligent construct, though not very much so. While mute, it acts in response to Ligament's wishes, sometimes without them even knowing what they wanted. The Mangler tends to solve problems quickly and bluntly when its creator fails to do so, and acts as their decisive conscience. None of the emotional doubts that plague Ligament exist in the Mangler. In a way, its presence reminds the deity of their ostensible goals. Without their knowledge, Ligament's avatar acts as a psychological block that validates and enables the denial of their own feelings.
Not strictly built for combat, the Mangler has many uses, foremost among them being transport. Ligament is not a particularly powerful entity, and finds teleportation difficult. Grafting themselves into their avatar is a fast way to get around. Their avatar also assists them in their attempts to help mortals, acting as a crane, plough, and wrecker. Of course, the Mangler is still a reasonably potent weapon, if only by virtue of its speed, flexibility, and the amount of sharp things attached to it.
Stance For Ligament, the encroaching conflict operates on two distinct levels. As a deity, especially one inexperienced in conflict, no less, the threat of violence is of significant concern. Ligament values their safety, and doesn't particularly enjoy the idea of seeing their family wipe itself out.
However, the scenario changes if a clash over the throne spills over into the mortal realms. Ligament stands to gain tremendously from chaos. Their fascination with mortals will be fuelled with centuries worth of new material once more powerful deities start funnelling resources into their nations. Refugees and deserters may swell Tinker's own mortal flock to numbers yet unseen, from which he can take his leisurely pick of experimental subjects.
Loyalty During the Rebellion Again, Ligament's nature as a war profiteer displays itself. In this situation, however, an even more difficult dilemma raised its head. To support the God of War might continue the favourable set of circumstances raised by the revolt, but ultimately the desire for safety and stability won over, and Ligament sided with their father, albeit with a nagging doubt over whether or not they were acting in their best interests. The new conflict seems like a simple free-for-all by comparison, and the decision of whether or not to support the King of the Gods has already made itself.
Center of Power A black metal ornament in the shape of a glyph, pierced into the patch of skin around Ligament's navel at multiple points.
Relations -
Powers Ligament exerts authority over their domain using a unique form of magic. By constructing unusual pictograms and
runes, they can 'bind' spells into a physical shape. The glyphs grow into three-dimensional organic solids with unusual properties, forming objects which can then be crafted and assembled into complex forms.
The magic of change is, however, adaptive rather than generative. The substances formed from Ligament's glyphs are not strongly enchanted, and depend heavily on what they're drawn on for power. In order to get the most out of his own energy, Tinker relies on constructing otherworldly augmentations on living hosts and sources of magic.
In combat, Ligament's powers are not particularly useful. The glyph-forms are too weak and designing bioarcane mechanisms takes far too much time to be done on the go. While the finished products of their craftsmanship can be potent, Ligament is heavily reliant on either constant exertion over their projects or external sources of power to corrupt and improve.
The Mangler itself is, by far, Ligament's most versatile and dangerous piece of equipment. Beyond this, however, Ligament does not have the sheer power required to construct divine artefacts, and certainly not to craft God's Bane weaponry. Everything Tinker has is, as always, just a cobbled-together shadow of the works of others.
Demigods-
Rigwreck
Lands A narrow, indistinct mess of border settlements, Rigwreck is too small and too underdeveloped to qualify as even a city-state. Though fertile enough to eke out a living- A thin, ragged living that's only debatably worth the effort- the Wrecklands have no significant agricultural, mineralogical or strategic value. What wildlife existed before Tinker made it his personal roost had neither the fur nor the meat to be worth hunting, and there is no magic native to the region. There is no beast in Rigwreck that is not a feral descendent of something that belongs in a farmyard, no plant that is not a weed. All in all, Ligament's own presence is the only reason to be in Rigwreck.
People Despite its undeniable worthlessness, Rigwreck does not suffer from isolation. If anything, there's always more people than the land can sustain. The only 'city' in the 'country' is a relatively large town (even that a questionably accurate term) that goes by the same name as the area, but is really just a congealed mass of camps and slums. The old, the sick, the desperate and the perverse flow into Rigwreck from everywhere that's anywhere. Its population is a mess of ethnicity and species, virtually all of which are mortal.
Culture Much of the Wrecklands' population is transient. There is only so much respite it can offer migrants, and many gamble on extending their journey rather than stay. Even among those who consider it home, a significant proportion of the population forms trade caravans. The only permanent dwellings in the settlement are generally considered common property. What remains are shacks, hovels, huts and tents.
Those tired, weak folk who remain either starve or learn fast. Everything in Rigwreck has been recycled and reused a hundred times over. Traditional Wreckland clothing is more patch than fabric, and tents are passed down in families, growing more and more asymmetrical each time a repair or extension is necessary. With no resources to trade, and at the same time reliant on convoys for basic necessities, the Wrecklanders have become an adaptable craft-based culture. Importing metals, fibre, fuel and ceramics from outside, these raw materials return home as manufactured goods of surprising quality, exchanged for far less than their true worth in food and other resources. The constant cycle of trade brings skills and breeds from a variety of regions, and Wrecklanders snap up any opportunity to adapt outside influences to their benefit.
In the face of lethal scarcity, none of this survivalism would be possible without a shared core of hope for a better future, and it is Ligament that provides this hope. Tinker is an ever-present figure in Rigwreck. Neither worshipped as a god nor respected as an elder, Tinker's role is a grimly practical one. His constant experimentation requires living mortal subjects, and the people of Rigwreck live day to day hoping to be chosen to receive his blessing and become Immortal, free of death and despair.
To save himself the hassle of being badgered over his projects by desperate Wrecklanders praying for eternal life, and indeed because he finds it a source of private fulfilment, Tinker tries to keep the reasoning and schedule behind his selections secret, responding to no requests, hiding the true appeal of his presence behind other positive acts for the community. Ever present in the streets of Rigwreck, Ligament offers a hand of sound advice and good humour to those who need it, and some of their creations are (or were meant to be) outright gifts to the settlement. The layers of unpredictability and kind spirit push their blessing of immortality to the side, and the people are grateful enough to respect Ligament as an individual as well as a potential way out of death.
Technology Eclectic. Metalworking is surprisingly advanced in Rigwreck, and yet it has no mines. Carpentry is exquisite, and yet it has no lumber. Refining dyes and weaving clothes are significant industries, and yet what flocks roam its rocky earth are bred to survive and produce milk and meat and anything else that will feed a family in drought or winter. In a world where farming remains the principle source of food and income for the masses, the settlement's dependence on manufacture leaves it in a precarious position, always on the edge of famine, its amassed expertise fragile, its wisdom lost every time a caravan falls to raiders or a plague passes through and reaps the town.
Despite its stark lack of accessible magic, there is nonetheless a culture of sorcery in Rigwreck. With so little to go around, any way to get something out of nothing is incredibly valuable, and so the Wrecklanders have learned to treasure even the tiniest fragments of foreign magic that come their way. No spell is too simple or enchanted item too small to be exploited to its greatest effect or combined with others to do so, even if that's nothing more than keeping a candle alight. A single mage probably has more power in them than all of Rigwreck put together, but any possible bit of magic that does find its way to the settlement will be cannibalised and integrated to existing spells to serve the community somehow.
Beings Ligament's presence in Rigwreck is distinctly visible. The Immortal products of their work form a noticeable slice of the population, but are rarely counted among that number. These odd creatures are called Edits.
Edits are mortals with significant portions of their body removed and replaced by the glyph-harvested augmentations of the Machinist. As none of them are ever truly 'finished', their lifespan is not limitless, but they can last hundreds of years before they accumulate enough faults and defects to die. Additionally, many have curious magical properties, and few need to eat and drink the way they once did, so they can still be said to qualify for immortality.
Edits do not retain the same mind they used as a mortal. Many are incapable of speech, and the rest speak gibberish languages unique to themselves. They appear to be intelligent, but this is difficult to determine. The majority of Edits spend their lives acting strangely out of some mysterious and meaningless purpose, embarking on long, wavering journeys, collecting mundane objects, standing in odd places and staring into the distance. Most stay in Rigwreck, or find their way back there eventually.
Occasionally Edits will interact with mortals. Despite their mystery, they still seem to understand and remember the life they once led, even if they no longer want it. It is not uncommon in Rigwreck to find your property added to be an Edit, or be suddenly assisted by one without asking, or see them engage children in 'conversation'.
The process of creation often leaves Edits with an erratic combination of traits which mortals would consider useful or debilitating, though the Edits themselves don't seem to care whatsoever about comfort. The loss of speech is the most prominent one, but losing legs, hands, or vision is also fairly common. In return, Edits may be hiding a variety of tricks- They might spit fire, levitate, be able to hear all sounds within a mile radius, or breathe underwater.
Animal, plant and inanimate Edits are also possible, though they tend to be called Flaylets, and are not usually augmented to the same degree.
A blind, glowing Edit that speaks in harsh barks.An Edit without a face. She can still see you, though.An Edit with no legs, wandering labouriously on crutches.
Vec,
Timemaster
