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EliteCommanderOkay, tell me what you think of this. If Hiraga and Gaon Latze's players want to give their input too, please do. I've played off them a bit more than other characters:
Name: Shoshar, the Water Dragon
Age: Ancient
Appearance:
Shoshar's body is that of a finned serpent, always wet with a layer of water. He changes his size if he needs to fit into a compact space, but prefers the spectacle of a monstrous size to crush ships and intimidate mortals.
Nature: God
Connections:
Shoshar's body is that of a finned serpent, always wet with a layer of water. He changes his size if he needs to fit into a compact space, but prefers the spectacle of a monstrous size to crush ships and intimidate mortals.Ever since he was created, Shoshar's heart has been encrusted with a painful frost. He is proud, petty, bitter, jealous, quick to anger, and holds eon-spanning grudges. Unfortunately for him, his pride makes him vulnerable to flattery and temptation as much as insult, leaving him manipulable, even for an ancient being. Despite his emotional and reactive nature, Shoshar is also committed to what he sets his mind to, no matter how angry it makes him. This can make Shoshar's retribution slow in some cases, but no less devastating.
Where Shoshar's personality is redeeming is his commitment to his sphere of influence; water. He is dutiful in nurturing the kingdoms of the deep and tossing vapour into the air to feed the rivers and wetlands of the world as if bound by an ultimate contract. Even the gravest of insults cannot stray him from such tasks.
As his name suggests, Shoshar holds a degree of power over all water, whether it be in the ground or the air, but is fearful to separate from it at all due to the heat of Aun thawing and killing him. In this, he can control the way water flows to affect tides, current, as well as temperature and physical state. In the local sense, he can control water to the point of making liquid water flow in flying eddies and streams through the air and to use it as a means of transport. If he is out of the water, he is fond of getting around by flying through the air encased in a layer of water to keep his icy body cool. It is said that the clouds in the sky are created in the wake of Shoshar meandering through the skies either as part of his duties to toss water over Ceyr.
His scope of power makes him a force to be reckoned with if one is near the ocean, a large lake or a river, though his emotional nature limits his potential for conquest. The only territory he claims fully is that of the seas. Even though he commands rainfall, he cannot preside over the sky or the land.
It is said that Shoshar was born of the coldest parts of Ceyr's oceans. His body was initially wrought of ice, but changed to flesh as he consumed the creatures of the seas and rivers. The ice lives on as part of his being, however, keeping him from leaving the water for fear of melting. The Golden One gave him company in the form of more sea creatures, complimented by a reclusive underwater sentient race of cephalopods, the Reods. Most of these creatures are scarcely seen by other races unless they are fished. With the power bestowed upon him, Shoshar nurtured all of these creatures as his only friends. Few if any other spirits would suffer the cold, crushing depths that made up his home, so a loneliness hangs about him, perpetuated by his insufferable personality.
When the Golden One suddenly cut itself off from all the spirits, Shoshar feared that he could not protect his realm of the sea any longer. He was thrown into a fit of paranoia and took to the War in Heaven as a wildcard, viciously defending his holdings. His madness grew to the point where destruction would be wrought upon the lands in the form of floods, massive tides, cyclones, and tsunamis. This was partly out of fear for the safety of his own domain and partly out of jealousy for those who could walk freely upon land without the gaze of Aun threatening their existence. He fought for both sides at different times, a victim of trickery and manipulation. However, his ideals remained with protecting his realm, not to allegiance to the Golden One or ambition to harvest what was left of its power.
All that is known of what became of Shoshar after the Golden One's death is that the seas suddenly calmed. There were no more storms, no rain, even. A worldwide drought stood for a full year. Shoshar had frozen himself to the bottom of the ocean, having expended his rage and shut down. He took the time to ponder, he perhaps spoke to spirits who sought him out. Whatever conclusions he came to while slumbering for a year have been kept a closely guarded secret, one of many that he keeps. As he returned gradually, his madness had been levelled. He was balanced in his approach to those on land, no longer terrorising them out of his own fear.
The ice around Shoshar's heart has mostly remained intact up until this point, retaining his personality and perpetuating loneliness. He has connections to other spirits, but right now he is mostly concerned with his duties and has little patience for anyone. News of the Golden One returning is something that he has deemed as being in his interests to hear about, but he is wary of trickery after being manipulated in the war for so long. Not that there is much he has done about his flaws that allowed such manipulations.
ANCIENTS:
Hiraga:
Being that nature and water are spheres intertwined and overlapping in many ways, so too are Hiraga and Shoshar. Of all the ancients, Hiraga is perhaps the only one who can placate Shoshar with a stern word. Hiraga holds some kind of control over Shoshar that keeps him from acting against her. The exact nature of this control is yet another secret that Shoshar keeps to himself, but it has halted Shoshar's retribution on many occasions. Shoshar's reaction to Hiraga's presence and influence appears to be begrudging, bound by an agreement signed ages ago.
Danives: (If Vilhelm changes his mind)
As the depths of the ocean are a realm steeped in shadows, Danives is sometimes seen slinking through in the presence of Shoshar, shaping various creatures without permission. The shadow god's tricks and games rapidly grate on Shoshar's patience, no doubt providing Danives with no end to fun. After at least a century of being the butt of Danives' jokes for the sake of goading a reaction, Shoshar has taken to the habit of merely grumbling and trying to ignore the ancient.
Voana:
Shoshar and Voana have the same understanding as any general and the sea. Shoshar's realm is often used as a platform to defend and attack, but it is not a territory that can be held. She has not been miserly in her offerings to him for permission for safe passage on ships, and has thus not invoked his wrath. Such is the extent of Shoshar's interests in mortal conflicts.
Sohena:
Sohena and Shoshar have barely even been introduced. Her presence always garners anxiety in Shoshar, her natural serenity unnerving. No doubt Sohena herself is not the kind to socialise with a wrathful god of water.
Agimar:
Agimar was responsible for manipulating Shoshar to unwittingly carry out his agenda on a couple of occasions. Shoshar himself is uninterested in his work and tends not to socialise with him. Agimar himself has never directly offended Shoshar, as his scheming was never revealed where Shoshar was involved.
Yakushi:
If there was ever a more annoying, relentless, and never ending torment for Shoshar's patience, it is the incessant inquiries of Yakushi. Being proud of his realm, Shoshar initially satisfied much of Yakushi's curiosity about the oceans, wary to keep important secrets to himself. Unfortunately, her hunger for knowledge was insatiable and Shoshar began to cast her away in impatience. Yakushi's questions did not stop, however. She kept coming back and attempting to pick Shoshar's brains further. Thankfully her mercurial attention cuts her questions short after a while. Despite the annoyance of her presence, Shoshar secretly regards Yakushi with an odd fondness, perhaps for relieving his loneliness at times. It is probably why he does not feel justified in attacking her for her insolence.
Neveras:
Shoshar and Neveras are not on good terms. In protection of mortals during various conflicts, Shoshar and Neveras did battle in an attempt to turn Shoshar's wrath aside. Neveras generally won, making their relationship adversarial. Shoshar had a say in detaining Neveras during the War in Heaven, but at a point during the following years, knowledge of the seal enchantment was taken from him by Hiraga under circumstances that Shoshar, again, keeps a secret.
Myra:
Shoshar is jealous of the joy spread by Myra's open and warm heart. This makes interactions with her curt on Shoshar's part. Shoshar can barely stand her presence.
Vyra:
While Myra would barely have the opportunity to interact with Shoshar due to his view of her, Vyra, her twin, actively seeks Shoshar out when it suits her to have an the Water Dragon on his side. Shoshar may or may not be aware of how hollow her interactions with him are, but she is deceitful enough to charm the sea serpent until he is wrapped around her little finger like a ring. In that sense, Shoshar is a victim of Vyra's machinations when others are not there to talk some sense into him.UPSTARTS:
Varavana:
Some mortal legend. They have never personally met. Shoshar has little interest in changing that himself.
Dust:
Dust's influence is barely apparent wherever Shoshar is present. The water dragon is not even aware of his existence.
Itone:
Shoshar is actually unaware that Voana is even married, much less that this Itone, an upstart, is her partner. Having never known true love or marriage beyond watching mortals making cold plans and arrangements to continue bloodlines, Shoshar is bound to be confused by their unorthodox pairing of sexes.
Gaon Latze:
Shoshar has never shared his version of the story of Gaon Latze's ascent to power, even to Gaon Latze himself. The encounter with the now upstart obviously had a profound impact on Shoshar's view of mortals, enough to make him spare the child's life. However, after the fact, he has had little interaction with the upstart. The most popular legend for the reason of Shoshar's gift to Gaon Latze is that the fisherman's conviction resonated with Shoshar's own, causing the god's heart to partially thaw for a moment.Many seafaring nations have temples to Shoshar in each of their cities. He is seen as the true sovereign of the sea and the storms, and they pay their respects to him. In order to secure a save voyage across a body of water, Shoshar must be appeased by a fruit of the land that he cannot reach himself. This can be an animal or a plant sacrifice. Failure to make a sacrifice puts a ship or a coastal or river city at risk of facing Shoshar's anger.
Shoshar's influence is widespread enough, but his true nation is made up of hidden kingdoms under the sea that few enough mortals are aware of. A community of intelligent, cephalopod-like humanoids known as the Reods tend to their underwater agriculture in peace and harmony under Shoshar's watchful eye. The only connection, if any, which they have with the land is the occasional Reod druid of Hiraga among them to aid in nurturing nature in seas. They are a reclusive and secretive people, avoiding conflict and contact with surface dwellers, but their generosity and kindness far surpasses their patron's in most cases.