I've been busy with IRL stuff lately, and I feel like I lagged behind a bit so I'm not caught up on events. I do have a character idea though. A ghost posessing some armor after the last war, who never really "died" but was around for a long time, and happens to be along for the ride against Daddy Dragon
Edit: His role in the group would essentially be "the absolute unit whos here under weird circumstances." Freakishly strong, built like a tank and has a giant sword, but can't use magic in any capacity whatsoever because hes not a homonculus of the gods. He fought for humanity to survive, so he has a common interest in the form of fighting for them a second time.
"Somewhere out there, underneath a different sky full of different stars, I think they sing of me. They’ll sing of us together one day, if we make it far enough."
Name Strata
Nicknames The Drifter from the Light
Starface
"Arveia-toth"
Age 108
Gender Nonbinary | They/Them
Ship Role Singer of shanties, pleaser of pissed off, people pisser-off of pleased people, and knower of things.
Race
Strata is a plasmoid. Plasmoids are a species of formless, gelatinous creatures with enough intelligence to equal other sentient creatures. Plasmoids lack a defined shape, and therefore are capable of some minor shapeshifting. Their bodies are made of plasma, as the name implies, and the only organ in their body is what is called a ganglia. This can be found where a human's heart is, and simulates everything from five senses to every function needed for survival. The plasma that makes their body simulates touch, and is incredibly stiff. Because it's essentially slime, it means bullets or other puncture wounds are largely harmless to them. Pieces of their bodies cut away can be stuck back together with some effort, and a plasmoid is never truly dead unless the core in their body is destroyed completely.
Plasmoids tend to take on characteristics of the environment they live in, which is why Strata looks like a walking galaxy.
Personality Strata is the definition of “chaotic neutral.” They hold no respect or disapproval for authority figures, they make friends and enemies as their heart desires, and are as honest or cheating as is suitable for a given moment. Strata is naturally an easygoing and free-spirited slime creature, and easy to get along with despite their track record of gaslighting the most threatening people in a room. When Strata takes a liking to people, they follow them like lifelong friends with the intention of being there for the laughs and shenanigans. The stories that are to be told and the battles to be fought are like guilty pleasures to Strata, and are as tempting to them as the prospect of getting drunk is to someone after a hard day’s work.
Strata doesn’t seem to take many things seriously unless they threaten someone’s life. If it’s their life on the line, the first sign of Strata acknowledging so is a sudden spike in humor, and maniacal cackling that someone usually needs vocal chords for. Strata treats moments of peril and disadvantage like pure comedy, and these are the times when their less restrained side can be seen. When Strata is in the right situations, they’ll go from the calm and mellow bard with a story to tell to the maniac that jumps into the mouth of a giant monster just to throw a grenade down its throat. Strata’s philosophy of life is to never let it get one over on you; If you laugh at death as hard as you do at a man falling over drunk, you stay winning either way.
Powers/Skills Shapechanging While Strata can’t impersonate someone else, they are capable of altering their body’s shape in some ways. This can include growing extra arms, becoming a ball of sludge on the floor, or oozing their way through holes in a floor. If you ever wonder why Strata doesn’t wear pants, this is why.
Plasmic Body Certain things, such as the vacuum of space or a lack of breathable air, tend to do little to affect Strata. They can survive being stabbed or slice up, but taking out their ganglia would be like decapitating a human. It’s also pretty easy to imprison Strafa. Plasmoids revert to a blob state in their sleep, making them very suitable for being put in a glass jar and stored on a shelf.
On top of all that, plasmoids might be hard to kill, but they literally don’t have muscles. Don’t bet on Strata in an arm wrestling competition.
Musician Drifting alone through space for a century, you tend to get good at entertaining yourself. Strata is a damn fine musician capable of playing virtually any instrument. Their personal favorite are the ones with strings.
Been Around the Block Strata’s older than your grandparents, and probably their grandparents too. There isn’t much that surprises them anymore. You name it, they’ve probably heard of it once or twice before.
Equipment Mysterious Lute Something Strata has had with them for decades now. It resembles a guitar, and has a very foreign and almost regal aesthetic. Strata claims was once a vessel for magical power that they were gifted when they saved a priest from a burning ship, but no longer has any power left. A wild claim, and likely just another story, but it sounds beautiful in Strata’s hands.
Laser Gun A very simple and mundane pistol that fires lasers. It has six shots that it can fire before it must be reloaded. Surprisingly enough, Strata doesn’t haven’t a fantastical story attached to this weapon, and according to them, they bought it in a back alley somewhere next to a bakery. It’s always good to have an actual weapon.
Storybook Strata’s pride and joy. A very old, and very full notebook full of everything Strata has done in the last century. It is full of all manners of things, ranging from accounts of naval warfare to the last wishes of old friends whose names have been forgotten by all but Strata. Somewhere in this book’s few thousand pages is the exact hand that Strata used to win a poker match against a dragon… Assuming such a tale is true.
Biography Many, many years ago, there was an empire. This empire was one of truants who held a galaxy in its hands and devoured planets a whim, with not so much as a passing though spared for its trillions of victims.
This empire no longer exists.
The legend says that after the empire was destroyed, its capital fell inwards to the star which it orbited, and from the resulting chaos emerged a meteor. On that meteor was a creature who would sing of lost comrades and freedom for decades, streaking across the dead empire’s territory in such a spectacle that many believed a god had fell from the heavens. Alas, that creature was not a god, and would never be seen again.
Billions upon billions of light years away from the greatest tale Strata ever witnessed, the meteor they rode through space one day crashed against a planet in this region of space. When Strata managed to jump off, they landed on solid ground. Strata stayed on that rock for a few hours, reflecting on the events of their journey, and mourning the fact that they’d never hear the ending of that story. And then they collected their things, and did as they’d always done: Move on.
Strata’s life was a long and erratic one. Years would pass without any interaction with intelligent life in space, and then they would spend a decade living more thrills than one lifetime could handle. In recent memory, they traveled from place to place, entertaining crowds across the galaxy with their songs, and getting into more bar fights than they could count. One of these bar fights was where they met the Star-Breakers. A drunken rat thought Strata insulted his mother, and Strata simply clocked him over the head with their lute. After the incident, Strata offered to join the group and get off that rock to start the next chapter of their life.
I just remembered I have a characters who’s a pyromancer blacksmith. Makes magic stuff using fire magic and enchanting, and have more creative energy than an entire mountain full of dwarves lol. Everything he owns is capable of spewing fire on its own because he’s like that, and it’s badass.
This reminds me of an old idea I had for a dnd character once and I can probably adapt it to this
A warforged built by a cultist to server his god. He was found just before the machine was officially set loose upon the world, and the robot was put in a coffin or some other hidden compartment, and found way after. This machine was "coded" for lack of a better term to have forbidden magic up its sleeve, but doesnt really know how or why.
All he knows is that he has a weird innate ability to use these forms of magic, but for some reason he can't use any others. Likely because hes a literal robot and shouldnt have magic abilities anyway.
Hmm... Her hand signs could be one of the runic systems for the Arcane Tongue, kind of like a magical version of sign language. In written form, it could look something like Kanji, with different slashes and curves matching the formation of the hands and fingers. That would actually allow her to use magic that maybe she isn't able to write down, like: "Crap, I forgot my notebook!" and she uses hand signs to shape out the runes instead.
That being said, I've been thinking about the individual spells, and I'm wondering if it would be easier for storyflow to just lump similar effects together. For instance, instead of having stuff like Fireball, Burning Hands, Fire Blast, etc. as separate spells, maybe have those together like Firebending in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Manipulating existing Fire/Air/Water/Earth or converting Mana into those elements could be done at will, kind of like how powers work in X-Men, but through a Conduit. And then the more complex stuff could be where written spells in the Arcane Tongue come into play.
So, if you have a magic stick, you wouldn't necessarily need to have a specific spell attached to it, you could just use it to fling out Force Pushes at will or something. That was fall under Universal Magic, and if you choose Air Magic as your elemental affinity, you could jump and flip around like an airbender and also use lightning with your staff, kinda like this:
And you could also have Arcane Tongue runes tattooed on her arm or wrists to fire Force Pushes out of her hands like:
You know damn well I'm gonna have her do some arcstrider bullshit. I was thinking of hydromancy but electromancy sounds cooler now lmao
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