Name: Piety
Epithets: Saint of Vvardgard, World Redeemer, First Penitent, Slayer of Reckoning.
Age: 28 biologically, 389 chronologically.
Home-Plane: As far as the scions of chaos go, this world changed very little as Piety took it over. It started as a classic and diverse terrestrial planet, and it remained a classic and diverse terrestrial planet, with significantly more humidity and marshlands in question. This allowed the planet-wide cultivation of rice and widespread diseases whipping the populace into repentant fervor, and strengthening their resistance to the diseases. The labor-intensive process of rice cultivation is an impulse for paternalistic and totalitarian culture. In contrast, common diseases render the populace highly immune to pathogens, and likely to come out on top of any equivalent of Columbian Exchange. Indeed, pain is power, regret is fuel, and hell is full: The last thing you want is its denizens breaking loose. With the planet's core being cold, hell supplies the heat necessary for life in its stead.
Description: Piety once swore to mask her face, and wear very little clothing until forgiveness was granted. Once it was, she got some clothes: Saintly robes jam-packed with symbols of her faith and red seals. But she never bothered taking off her headwear, covering all her face. She can see through magic much better anyways. If she showed her face, it'd be a perfectly average, slim face with a small chin and large pointy ears.
Her story rendered her a hard-boiled, stoic beyond imagination: She never displays emotions like anger or wrath. Deeds, not words, express her wroth: Assuming she even feels emotions anymore. Those who know her, say she doesn't, and that she approaches everything in rational terms... at least as far as truly brutal justice is concerned. She has an utterly cynical view of people, especially those beyond her control: What a man can do is what a man will do unless he takes penance like she once has that is...
Backstory: Piety's real name is lost to time. She rose to prominence when the Reckoning happened: Her racial supremacist elven civilization of elves, have neglected the worship of their Creator: Atheism and extreme debauchery, alongside brutal exploitation of slaves of other races, ran rampant. The Reckoning involved turning the slave races into rabid monsters empowered by baleful energies, turning on their masters, and snuffing out their civilization. When most elves fought each other, a few begged the Creator for forgiveness and sought penance: Piety most prominent among them. Tired of her people bickering and enslaving each other to cope with the loss of lesser races, she oversaw not only war on the Reckoning, but brutal subjugation of Elves into what was best described as her cult: An insane posse of penitents turned a cult, turned a nation just as cruel as these elves ever were, but no longer decadent. Piety claimed to hear voice of the Creator: First commanding her to take charge, then telling her the monsters of the Reckoning were concatenating, and that her final trial for forgiveness of the Elves was to obtain a Shard of Chaos that He left for her, and use it to destroy the Reckoning. Long story short, she did just that. The Creator, however, changed his mind. Those beyond Piety's control were sinking further into cruel decadence. So, releasing Piety from her oaths, He admonished her race, claiming that without iron-fisted control, they'd fall for decadence again, and commanded Piety to ensure they never would. With the baleful powers of Chaos, she bent the very magical system of her world to her will, and established a divine empire, whipped by guilt over the sins of an entire race: with Piety as its deity, as the Creator would leave them forever, which had a profound impact on Piety herself, who hoped for redemption the most. All that was left is to do as she was told: Make others repent for their rotten natures, until the Creator, whoever He really is, finally meets her again. By then, she's set to be her peer, not her servant. For she remembers why exactly her people grew decadent. His presence faded. She will not make the same mistake.
Shard: It's one of many seals adorning Piety's clothes... only this one is fused with Piety's left collarbone. The seals, essentially rosettes with incantations tacked on, represent major penances committed by individuals wearing them. The seal will be left in a chest or at home if penance is ordinary. If it is major, you may wear it. If it is extraordinary, you may fuse it with any of your bones: The most painful and prestigious acknowledgment. Piety's rosette attunes her power to Chaos, allowing her to seamlessly convert it to her world's native magic and vice versa, granting her substantial reserves of magical energy.
Powers: Piety is essentially a god, all-knowing and practically all-powerful in the home realm. Outside, she can call upon Chaos to evoke versatile energies, manipulating gravity, air, fire, lightning, and water. But her greatest weapon is her holy energies. They can be summoned directly from her realm, and be impressive, but their greatest power is when they're empowered by prayer. That energy can be used to smash anything undead or demonic or be seamlessly converted into thermal or physical energy. Who wants a faith-powered steam engine? Even stranded in a fully faithless realm, Piety boasts superhuman strength and endurance, as well as inner instinct of how magic works.
Assets:
Soldiers: Every soldier of Piety is a dark-skinned Elf who's been forged in a warm embrace of guilt, painful penance, and magics fuelled by them, elevating their mind and body, making them nearly invulnerable to pain, temptation, and suppression. Their survival instincts work, and their strength grows as they take damage. They can be trained with various melee and ranged weapons from most eras. Indeed, Piety suited her military to be adaptable to any plane it operates on. It is also adept in construction and engineering, capable of slowly erecting means of making sophisticated war supplies.
The cultists: Those within the invaded plane who accept Piety's teachings are divided by fighters: Irregulars who fight fervently and assist the professional forces and civilians, who contribute prayer to fuel the magical powers of Piety's cult and labor.
The Reckoning lives on: A shattered and crippled magical force, entirely subdued to Piety's will. She can use it to transform and subjugate almost any lifeform, sentient or otherwise. Dogs become baleful war hounds; lizards become flying drakes, and humans become rabid zombies. It's crucial to subverting and utilizing the local environment against the targets. Piety's biggest magical boon is her ability to convert magical energies generated from worship and pain into any energy in existence. Such magics can be stored in rosettes, seals, and other objects, and made to activate on a simple condition, usually to shield the wielder from harm.
Order of Ceased Memory: Dedicated to every act of forgiveness ever committed by Piety, The Order harbors exceptional individuals capable of retaining their cognition in the face of Piety's transformative magics and the Reckoning energies. They harness various magics and corruptive powers to strengthen themselves and cripple the enemy's bodies, hearts, and minds. Wearing huge coned helmets, thorned crowns, and masks, they are Piety's special forces. Their bodies are enlarged, monstrously agile, strong as chimpanzees, and quite literally know no fear.
Inquisition: The witch-hunters, once mere secret police enforcing Piety's dogma upon her priesthood and people, takes on an added purpose within invaded realms as paranormal investigators, meant to research magical and supernatural powers, and bend them to Piety's will, or purge them if no other solution is there. Their agents are versatile experts on all things magical.
The Noosphere: An all-consuming network within Piety's home plane, which holds complete power over everyone's mind, it allows Piety to transmit information (or influences like guilt, shame, fear, joy, and motivation) directly into anyone in her plane. Some time ago, Piety realized she could also transmit pure information with it, and fish out ideas of the wandering minds among her people. Such a direct way of communicating discoveries has ensured a breakneck speed in technological advancement.
The Noosphere can be erected in any plane Piety holds influence over with significant effort. Its influence would then be far from universal (scaled to the fervor of her followers and their quantity, it'd persist on prayers), and be only capable of rudimentary emotion transfer and most straightforward concepts, at least initially. It is at its best as a means of spreading Piety's faith, in which she's the central deity, dispensing judgement and absolution.
Artifacts: As already mentioned, Piety and her people are well-versed in creating magical artifacts, always in form of religiously-relevant jewelry. They can be wards, databanks (as seen with Sith Holocrons) and curse-based traps.
Gladius:
A good-looking Spanish-style cathedral on the outside, Piety's gladius is a single building, internally multi-storied, good enough to host a cohort of soldiers and civilian experts. There, Piety hosts her rosaries and seals that allow her for doing command and control over distant planes, as well as choirs of faithful to power them, but her throne in front of the cathedral's altar in its majestic end is usually empty: Piety prefers to lead from the front.
Theme: The ambience of Piety's realm. Also serves as her calm theme:
https://youtu.be/26RHtrCXiSwYou know how in total war music changes when your units move for first time? This is her theme for that
https://youtu.be/8UaQ251kgEMhttps://youtu.be/V8kdtxPvCCE And so we depart from Blasphemous OST. Full scale engagement with Piety's forces is every bit as vicious as the worst world wars.
Misc: She managed to weave the faithful thoughts into the noosphere of her realm, and with unstable and hard work, she can either invade the existing thought networks with them or create her own, in other realms.
Member
Kuro,
Vampiretwilight,
Single Malt,
Tyler Night,
Cao the Exiled
