Muttonhawk

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

Hey, I said that the likelihood was low. There'll probably only be isolated incidents...

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

<Snipped quote by Muttonhawk>

"Sorry Toun. This one gotta go. And that one. And probably that one too." -Reathos.

@Legion02

Yeah, I imagine it'll be fun if and when it happens.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

You know, it's just occurred to me that I might be taking a few liberties with the soul lore with the creation I've put forward. Even though I've sent it through to Rtron already for approval (he's probably sleeping), I think I'll leave the draft here so you guys can give feedback.

Let me know if I'm screwing anything up too badly.

White Giants

White Giant

Lifespan: Ageless - does not reproduce.

Appearance:
Take the limbless, headless body of an elephant. Attach six, bulky, hairless arms shaped like that of a gorilla's on either side, each measuring at least a quarter of the torso's body weight. On the front is a long, flexible neck that squirms like a worm and can reach almost any part of its body. This is capped with a smooth, mostly featureless ovoid head that scans the surroundings and peers at you like it knows whether you are being honest or lying. Like mandibles, two small arms extend from this head and end in spindly, clawed hands for fine manipulation. Every surface on this creature is then covered with thick, interlocking plates of white porcelain that clink and scrape softly as it slowly strides through the wilderness. Only in the tiniest gaps between these plates can you spot the unnatural arrays of designed flesh reinforced with metal underneath. What you just saw was a white giant.

Description:
The white giants are a side project of the Porcelain Sire made for two reasons. The first reason was simply to have something to do while he tried to ponder what he should do about the mess that was the universe. The second reason was as a temporary buffer against the horrors that could assail the developing world of Galbar from the outside. Predominantly, Jvan's horrors of flesh and Mammon's demons.

To call the white giants 'living creatures' is a stretch, because they do not breathe, they do not eat, they do not defecate, they do not reproduce, and their intelligence is rudimentary at best. They are better described as automatons of flesh and clay, sustained by internal siphons of magic designed by Toun himself to exploit his intimate knowledge of the design of the universe.

For the most part, white giants are incredibly gentle creatures. They wander the world apparently aimlessly, but for a particular patrol pattern devised by Toun. They make pains to harm as little life as possible, with compromise to small things, like stepping on grass. If they hear an alarm cry of a creature in need, they will occasionally heed the call and investigate, but they will only help if it doesn't have to harm or adversely obstruct another creature in the process. For instance, they will help a cat get down from the top of a tree, but they will not help a gazelle being chased by a pride of lions. Funnily enough, their gentleness may allow them to be exploited by life in various ways, mostly stemming from riding on its back. While plants may simply start growing on the scattered soil that gets stuck on a white giant, animals may ride on one for transport. Their patrol patterns are nothing if not consistent after all.

The senses of a white giant are limited to touch, sound, and a special life-sense. The latter takes the form at the end of their ovoid head, as it pulses like an extra-dimensional sonar and detects the reflected signals of any living creatures. Otherwise, a soft, regular ticking from the head is evidence of a separate echolocation system, but it is limited in its effective distance compared to the life-sense. Tremors and textures are detected through nerves laced into their porcelain, but is not particularly sensitive. They are otherwise blind and do not detect scent.

For all their apparent aimlessness and assistance, white giants have a hard-wired imperative that reveals a much more violent side. If their life-senses detect aberrant life (that being, creatures not native to Galbar, but with other specific exceptions), they sound an angry rumbling from their cores and fly into a fit of rage, charging whatever aberrant creature is detected and assaulting until the creature is dead. Any creature may disguise themselves from a white giant by bearing the touch of either Slough or Toun in their being, or by simply being obscured completely by a life form of similar description.

As Toun did not create white giants as a renewing species, there are and will be no more than two billion on Galbar. The number will only decrease as they may be destroyed, unless more are made for some reason. To counter this, white giants do not die from old age. Their flesh heals and continues to function so long as the magic siphon in their bodies is not breached. If this happens, there is an outburst of entropic magical power that can cause 'undefined behaviour' in the immediate vicinity. When this dissipates, the corpse of the white giant is left behind; an empty husk of clay, flesh and metal. You monster.

White giants do not favour any particular biome. They are evenly spread across Galbar in any place that they will not be trapped. Currently, the only way to truly avoid them is to climb a mountain or go to the shattered lands.

Flaw: (This section will be included for all of Toun's creations.)
Toun assembled the intelligence of the white giants from manufactured imitations of soul components. In order to make these compatible with the body, empty slots for remaining soul components currently fit the consciousness of white giants. This is such that a white giant may be 'empowered' by a soul, causing it to become sentient in a WALL-E-esque fashion. It will still be a slave to its imperatives, but it could be considered truly sentient at that point. Without doing this in a controlled fashion, the end result may mean taking on strange habits and interests. It might start collecting rocks, playing with infant creatures, falling in love, or something similar.

The true flaw is that Toun could not guarantee that this could not happen accidentally during the lifetime of a white giant. If there is a strange scattering of spirits nearby a white giant, one could accidentally inhabit said white giant and trigger sentience. The chance of this happening is, of course, incredibly narrow and may make certain curators of spirits a little frazzled.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

G'night!

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

<Snipped quote by Hael>

This is a 9-body problem we're talking about, though. 2-body is perfectly predictable, but as soon as you have so many as 3 bodies things start getting chaotic, in the technical sense. Sure, Vulamera would be able to simulate ahead for a couple trillion years without any issues and find a solution which did not involve any collisions with Galbar, but all it would take is a little nudge _{*cough*Vestec*cough*} to potentially screw us all over in a few billion years.

@BBeast

You could...you know...'works in mysterious ways' it.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

In response to Ri'vashi's reminiscing, Gallus raised an eyebrow. "Hmm, you have a way of creating more questions than you answer sometimes, clan leader," he mused. He then headed towards the second sandpit, "Still, it sounds like that kind of upbringing would make anyone a strong fighter."

Gallus paused before stepping into the sand pit, turning to Ri'vashi. "Would you mind if we tried something? Hey, Lorag!" Gallus shouted past Ri'vashi, "Let's see if Ri'vashi can take us, two on one! If you won't, I'll have to pick Peiter instead, and he's been practicing with the wrong sword for weeks!"

After a small laugh at Gallus' comment, Janius gave Kaleeth a grin. "Well, just for you, darling, as rough as you want." He suddenly raised a hand to add, "Just...let's avoid the head and the groin, alright?"

---

Again, Tzirret took in as much information as he could without staring for too long at the nauseating details. While the lungs and the heart were off-putting, they were not as bad as he thought they would be. They were actually quite interesting to see the insides of. The way the tubes in the lungs split over and over again made an interesting pattern.

In the end, looking over the great gaping hole in the corpse's chest made Tzirret feel the most uneasy. He had a feeling there would be worse sights in the lower body.

The heart was larger than Tzirret expected, but he was not unfamiliar with them in other creatures. Gallus always enjoyed grilled heart meat, Tzirret just found it tough. This heart was no exception upon prodding its surface.

With a expression that was finally more curious than worried, Tzirret asked a question. "Why does the heart have four chambers? Or even three? Wouldn't one chamber be enough?"

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

... That Header...*drools*

@Kho

I am not proud of the time it took for me to make that.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I'll be heading to work soon. So on, so forth...

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Gallus blinked and turned his head to a space next to Ri'vashi. "Alright, suit yourself," he said with a smile and mild disappointment.

The follow up question caused Gallus to refocus before he could turn to ask Lorag to spar. "Hm? Well..." he glanced to the sand pit, "It is just a bit uncanny how you can predict things. Someone with less benefit of the doubt than I would think that there was some kind of magic afoot," he snickered, "Then again, I could just be jealous."

Janius stopped and turned to Kaleeth when she asked about weapons. "Hmm," Janius itched his shoulder and looked up at the ceiling, thinking, "Actually, I reckon I'd like to try out what Ra'kalesh had been teaching us." He stepped into the sandpit and raised his fists, "Let's go for some hand-to-hand first."

Although he didn't say so, Janius knew that Kaleeth got more enjoyment out of fist fighting than sword fighting. It was a little favour to her.

---

Tzirret wasn't quite sure what was churning his stomach the most. The glistening sight of the organs running through the corpse, the strange meaty smell, or the sound of the squelching flesh and cracking bones as it was all manipulated. He kept his lips tight and tried to keep his stomach calm.

As for removing the ribs, Tzirret followed Ma'tanza's lead. "So..." he tried to hook his fingers underneath the lowest rib, "...he just...breaks them out?" Tzirret tried anyway, pulling with one hand and pushing against the sternum with another. With a bit of effort, a dull crack sounded and Tzirret accidentally tore at the surrounding flesh as the rib was displace. The bone slid out, but he tensed his brow at the sickening sounds.

"Ugh. Sorry for being clumsy. This is not normally part of butchering," Tzirret mentioned tightly as he carefully placed the rib beside the corpse's head.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

I borked the sex joke. Sowwy.