Terminal

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

@Terminal OVER 2 THOUSAND WORDS, WHAT IS THIS.

@MegaOscarPwn

Not the character limit for a standard post.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

The journey to the 𝙻𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚋𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚗 range from Saarbrücken was eventful. The distance was fair; a conservative twenty days by way of foot. An estimate not accounting for the dim nature of Purgatory and the Stygian sentiments of its inhabitants. The actual journey itself had taken an amount of time, nevermind exactly how long, approaching a Kalpa - not only in what had been felt and endured along the way, but also in the intensity of how nebulous and uncertain the journey had been in the quaint dimensions of time and space. In perpetuity, Amaign had held within his heart the fear the call of their labors would precede them, only to be constantly - endlessly derided and chastised in turn by the unchanging assurance:

"We shall arrive in the fullness of time; as it is willed things be in their proper place we trespass widdershinwise across the currents. Victory is preordained, and so we must be there."

An assurance as bleak in its incredulity as it was bleak in its daunting immensity. They had stopped, countless times, to permit the Questor to hare off on some other allegedly fated errand. Twice were they beset upon by men who held malign will upon their hearts. Once did the shadows themselves shudder and writhe, clawing like blades of earth to claim them. Twice, to inspect upon the wholeness or else the riven tapestry of a settlement. Four times in what must have been as many weeks - months? Years? - they waged battle against gruesome and appalling standard-bearers.

Once, in an encounter that had stolen away Amaign's awe and breath, an enormity of both light and dark - a singular being of ineffable power had lightly trod through the air, forcing them to bask in its presence and either yield or perish, as certain as sorrow.

Yet the Questor had done neither. She had planted the haft of her partisan into the earth, stood in open defiance of that chthonian being, and said the same thing she might have flung at the faces of any of the damned, great and small.

"Our victory is preordained! Our rendezvous is greater still than ye, stand aside lest I be forced to upbraid and find you wanting."

The trembling of the whole of the world as the sky itself fragmented to pieces and bled starlight, Amaign was certain, must have been that principality's laughter.

But it had passed them by, like a glacier screaming.

When Amaign had ventured to ask why she had not insisted on confronting it, she spoke in a manner he rarely saw her demonstrate. A seemingly rational and collected mind, far departed from the all-too-zealous crusader and warrior he often bore witness to.

"Bear in mind, our quest is not to bring war to the adversary. Our quest is to find the Herald of Light. There shall come a day when we array and present ourselves before the end, but this is not that day. It is possible that we might have prevailed had we been forced to confront that grave fiend, but while our ultimate victory is preordained...I admit I am not wholly certain it was due here. To fall at this juncture would have been a travesty, and so we shall continue as planned."

But that moment of lucidity was brief. As long as those individual journeys had taken, as far abroad their chosen path as they strayed, still did the Questor insist that they would arrive on time, as certain as steel. Madness.

They risked sanity and haleness camping out in the open, for the Questor would insist they were not common vagrants or blackguards who would lurk in the dark. They risked being hunted and prosecuted by agents of the adversary, for the Questor brazenly bore an illuminated Emblem of the Seekers upon the face of their plate armor, softly alight with a faint glow by way of some nameless ritual she had evoked. They risked theft and needless confrontation, for the Questor insisted he openly carry their arms and kit rather than endeavor to conceal it. At some point in their journey, Amaign had been stabbed in the thigh by some wretched, ragged being that attempted to make off with his purse and his shortsword, though thankfully the Questor had smote the thief upon the stark road before it could flee through the shadows.

The Questor, they could see now, was mad. Their senses had taken leave, departed to some forgotten land. They would fight and die in pursuit of their goal. They had fought and died in pursuit of their goal. They threw their defiance against the endless, ravenous clutching shadows of Purgatory despite the futility of doing so, all in service of a single forlorn hope. He had known that was the case, of course. He had been warned his choice would bring him nothing but grief and misery. The naysayers and doubters had been right, Amaign was now certain. This was a fruitless, damned, and futile endeavor. Naught but death and anguish awaited him, and he had every cause to know that his demise would be as slow as it would be gruesome.

But he had given his word.

And at times, in the occasional moments of Purgatory's twilight as the Questor marched on, head held high, emblem of the Seekers brightly shining upon her breast, unafraid and full of certitude - Amaign felt something other than despair and the grim tedium that had plagued his former life. For the briefest of moments, he knew that salvation was not only possible, but entirely at his own hands. These moments were fleeting and in his many moments of introspection upon the road he would cynically curse himself for such foolishness, but in the secret, sacred depths of his heart did he find himself changed for the better.

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"There is nothing but death in there." Amaign said with some disgust as they approached the wall of the forest between them and the mountains. A morass of dead wood, muck, swamp and countless horrors writhing in the damp.

"No different than the remainder of purgatory. The forest is simply less deceitful in its appearance." Levia replied. "You may cover the kit, bind it all tightly against the damp but keep the javelins at-hand. While you do that...I shall prepare to light our way through the murk. Hand me one of the whetstones and bottles." She set down upon a nearby bolder, and once Amaign had fetched her a a small pocket-stone from one of his bags and a small tin bottle with a top that was corked and tied with cloth she began to hum, faintly. The ritual she was about to perform was not a hymn, but the familiar practice assisted with her concentration as she wove an occult force upon her partisan's blade.

"Are you certain that is wise? The inhabitants will be drawn to the light..." Amaign protested, albeit not with gravity.

"If the choice is to blunder head-first into them in the dark or to work our way through a maze of their thronging hordes in the light, I choose the light." Levia muttered back in reply. "We need not remain therein for long. We shall rush through to the mountains, and hopefully outpace and outmaneuver the remnant denizens."

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Thankfully, the gleaming, empyrean starlight shining from the blade of Levia's partisan proved to be less a danger to them as Amaign had anticipated. The decayed were present in great number, yes - but not so great as he imagined. They would arise from the mud and sodden earth sluggishly by the dozen, not by the hundreds as he had imagined. Illuminating the forest and casting away the shadows as though day had visited them, the two were able to clearly find their way around the monstrosities where they were encountered - and in the one instance where it would have been too dangerous to go around, the Questor made short work of the dregs, her blade cresting through the air like a trace of lightning as the glowing weapon cut down the ravenous dead, their dulled senses flinching and recoursing from the brilliance of the light in close proximity. The two did not stay to permit for the decayed to rise again where they had been maimed, simply cutting through the gap in their numbers and trailing off at speed, leaving the dreck behind.

They were making good time, with suspiciously few mishaps - until, in the far distance, accompanied by a scream, a ring of fire appeared. It was obscured by the maze of intersecting trees and boughs, but the wavering flecks of its light and wavering shape could be made out as the two moved through the brush.

888888888888

“We will have died just as well without the fire, as with it. Unless thy useless tongue hath some brilliant plan to save us then still it, and let me think!”

Corbric

Not but a moment later, as his mind raced to formulate an escape or tactic of some kind, he spotted a bobbing light, dancing in the distance. Like a will-o-wisp, but less ephemeral. The light was more solid somehow, and clear, like gleaming starligh - and it was rapidly approaching. As it wove between the many trees, he caught sight of two figures.

One was a man-at-arms, wearing full plate armor and bearing a long partisan, which was the source of the starlight. The blade was aglow by means of some occult hymn, casting the knight's surroundings in a bright, discerning light. Emblazoned upon the breast of their armor was the emblem of the Seekers, wrought in crimson. Just behind the armored figure was what clearly must have been their squire, a young man of perhaps fifteen or sixteen summers wearing light chainmail and burdened with several packs of gear and a long leather and cloth bolt filled with what appeared to be, of all things, javelins.

The knight appeared to have appraised Corbric and Nimson's situation, for having come within twenty meters he heard a feminine voice shout and call out in Latin to the thronging hordes of Decayed that had started to arise and throng about the ring of fire.

"Hark and behold, nameless curs of the wanton and filthy earth! Behold fabled starlight! Come and have at ye, I shall laxen and ease your suffering forevermore!" Using their offhand, the knight reached into the bolt their squire clutched between their arms and hefted one of the javelins aloft.

"Come hither, and be smote to return to this world untainted once more! Follow the light! Come unto me, stray away from the fires of damnation!"

By now, most of the Decayed had turned away from the flames - unable to clearly discern the two men within the ring with their dulled senses - and paid heed to the brighter, farther-cast light source and the shouting figure calling to them all. They began to shamble towards her, though some remained behind out of listless confusion.

"Ye shall abandon your savage ways and be returned, pure and hale, nevermore to cast ill upon your fellow man! For victory..."

The knight cast the javelin through the air, the weapon arcing through the span of trees with a perfect trajectory.

"...is preordained!" The javelin flew over the heads of the first row of Decayed and bit into the body of one who stood in the second, who stumbled back from the force, knocking over their neighbors and those immediately behind them. Now fully interested in the attacker that had assailed them from their circle of light, the throng of Decayed began to swarm towards the knight and their squire.

Continuing to shout promises of castigation and rebirth, the knight waved their partisan in the air as they started to retreat, pulling the horde of Decayed away from the ring of fire. More Decayed also appeared to be closing in on them from the opposite direction, but the light from their spear let them see most of the threats coming, and the knight seemed to have an escape route planned as they gestured to their squire to follow.

Escape through the dark of the woods was still not certain for Corbric and Nimson, but the odds looked ever-so-faintly better than they had a moment before.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

Post coming soon.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

@TerminalAbout Hecuba. Do you want to control her as a hostile encounter, a secondary character of sorts, maybe of chaotic allegiance? I'll list her under Environment details and monsters, but you can control her if you so desire.

@Poet

I would appreciate being able to write for her during encounters. That said, you are free to summon/throw up signs of her approach at-will, and I will also defer to your judgment about the will of the entities controlling her. Since she is ultimately a pawn of the adversary, she may be recalled to the dark places of the world at any time - or, alternatively, may be capriciously subjected to torment at an inopportune time.

I will go ahead and exercise those incidents at my own discretion, but since the adversary's cards are ultimately in your hand, I will also defer to your own judgment there.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

The Questor

_{QUESTOR LEVIA GERLINDE}

_{"Cherish this moment of bleak anguish.
These dark times are but all of ruth the adversary shall ever know.
Hold pity and relish in your heart for those who will know no further the ineffable grace of their own veracity, come the time of the infinite."}

Prior Life

The precise date of Levia's birth has been forgotten by her, in the jumble of lives and deaths she has since experienced, though she remembers well enough the day where, amongst a crowd of thousands, she witnessed the burning of Joan d' Arc during the year of our lord 1431 - still a young and budding maiden, recently arrived in Normandy from Carthage where she had been born of a missionary who had forsaken his vow of celibacy. Levia's following life was ordinary and uninspiring - she was married off to a tanner in 1940, dutifully bearing him children and tending to his home until the great calamity that was purgatory came upon the land. Levia was amongst the first ream of victims to fall before its horrors, suffering rapine and anguish before being cast to the dark.

And so it followed; again and again, the memories that were Levia striving to lead an ordinary life even amidst the horror, made all the more trying as with each life spent she would shuffle her mortal coil earlier and earlier each time, and almost always by violent means whilst having suffered indignities. After several such times, Levia broke, and in her fugue did she discover her virtue. Her mind sundered to match the impossible darkness of purgatory, the impossible was branded into her being with hallowed clarity, the fractured and riven tears in her being woven into a new whole that would become the fabled maiden questor, Levia Gerlinde.

She would go on and, though beset by trial and many deaths, she did overcome many terrors and anathema, amongst them the dread Chalarensis, Hyperion, and Belphagor. Arising from common obscurity and achieving great success across time despite many setbacks, Levia briefly became a beacon of hope and inspiration amongst the masses...

Until the servitors of the adversary arrayed themselves against her, fearful of her prowess and burgeoning following. Seeking to forever curb her ability to lead and inspire others, the mortal agents of the enemy did weave the most insidious rumor of ridicule and doubt amongst the lands - that Levia herself claimed to be the Herald of Light. Scarcely over the course of a fortnight, Levia found herself jeered and set upon by those who might once have arrayed themselves under her command, and in her ignominy she was eventually slain by another Seeker who had followed the rumors and found her to be wanting.

Reborn in time, Levia did her utmost to trail without the vast shadow of her now besmirched repute. Now, her name is forgotten by many but known to some - and it is remembered as the name of a charlatan and a harlot, a false prophet and a pretender. A memory not abetted by her unfortunately traditional mores and behavior...

The Questor's Sins

Levia, in her life prior to purgatory and even during many of her initial lives in purgatory, lived in the traditional sense as a woman of her caste and upbringing was expected to have lived. She would labor and toil as a caretaker, bearing her mates many children, rarely speaking defiantly or acting without leave. Even the harsh and brutal revelations of purgatory itself have been unable to dissuade her from this manner of living; the habits and conditioning of her first life having ingrained themselves somehow irreparably from her. Her meekness was what led to her permitting her own upbraiding and destruction at the hands of a fellow Seeker, and in failing to speak out against the false rumors set against her by the adversary's servitors. Her past beliefs, forged upon her mind with callous fists and rods, taught her that as a woman, she was slippery, weak, untrustworthy, devious, deceitful and stubborn - and so, unconsciously and in her efforts to adopt the habits of strength, she strives to be as 'unwomanlike' as possible by being forthright, wholly truthful, straightforward, and accepting - disastrous and inadvisable qualities for one such as she in the lands of purgatory, and all come upon in a manner failing to dissuade her own self-internalized sense of inferiority and submissiveness. Levia is the servant of man - literally, figuratively, and much to her own misfortune - and that of those she intends to save from damnation. Thusly, Levia's cardinal sin is that of Sloth, her own willful and self-imposed indolence and stagnant moral character depriving her of the fullness of her own virtue.

The Questor's Failings

• The Meek - Levia lacks agency, and left to her own devices will usually seek help or else do nothing. In particular, she will endeavor to attach herself to a reliable male authority figure for guidance, and is dismissive of her own judgment as well as that of other women.
• False Light - The adversary's servitors wove a plot most wicked in their efforts to destroy Levia's fame amongst the peoples of purgatory. Those few who remember her, remember her poorly, as a charlatan and conceited pretender not worthy of the aid afforded to most seekers - and occasionally, sometimes even meriting punitive action.
• What Strength, Veracity - In her own, perhaps inadvisable efforts to attain greater virtue and strength, Levia will know no deceit. It extends further than refusing to lie on her own behalf; Levia will actively out the existence of any lie she is aware of. She will permit omissions of truth and white lies, except when directly confronted or confused of doing so, which can lead to the equivalent of a full avowed confession from her.
• Burdensome Lunacy - Levia, despite having been awakened to certain aspects of her own virtue, is still bound by many of the more unfortunate aspects of her strict, traditional religious upbringing. One of the more prominent aspects of her original life and the new ways of living in purgatory that have overlapped is the notion that mankind is to propagate and spread across the earth, and therefore even before her duty to find the Herald of Light and serve as Seeker, it is her duty to bear children upon the world. Thus giving way to the nearly intolerable and nigh-impracticable efforts by her to find willing suitors by whom to become pregnant, and then to carry and bear children - whilst simultaneously waging a horrid and eternal battle with the malevolent forces of the void itself.

The Questor's Strengths

• No Man Wields Such Power - By some twist of providence, Levia is profoundly adept not only with the Partisan and Estoc, but is perhaps one of the finest mortal warriors in purgatory. If she is not the most adept with the blade, she is certainly amongst the most balanced and able-bodied of fighters not only in skill and talent, but also in ingenuity and experience brought on through many lifes - and deaths - worth of battling the forces of the adversary, great and small.
• Such Impossible Reserves - Levia's intolerable and backwards mental state has the noteworthy advantage of making her mind and soul nearly unassailable by most methods of corruption and temptation, as well as making her nearly immune to efforts of intimidation and coercion (with the notable exception of those who prove low enough to exploit her deferential mindset), which is what allowed her to garner her initial fame during her early tenure as a Seeker - she knows not any despair or suffering, and there is no enemy so great that might cause her to balk. She is certitude manifest. To her, victory is not only inevitable and certain, but preordained, and these dark times are but a passing moment of concession to the forces of darkness to permit them some small token of solace. Almost nothing could change her outlook in this way, and as such she can act as a beacon of invigorating confidence, bolstering others and steadying the nerves in trying times simply by existing.

The Questor's Virtues

• Violence: VII
• Fortitude: VII
• Soul: III
• Passion: V (+I)
• Perception: II
• Command: II

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

@Poet Second profile for you; more of a secondary character than anything else. You may want to stick her in your portfolio with the monsters and NPCs you mentioned to Raddum a while ago. Let me know what you think.

The She-Devil

_{She-Devil Hecuba}

~ALL THINGS UNDONE~

Prior Life

Hecuba, born in 1422, was the rebellious daughter of a minor German land-baron. Known to have been somewhat mean-spirited and irreligious (due in part to the extreme corruption of the local Roman Catholic Church). In particular, the parish's habit of selling indulgences and bestowal of religious artifacts led to Hecuba's collection of such curios and items of interest as a hobby, branching out naturally to the procurement of heretical and heathen tokens gained through coercion and blackmail of the baron's servants and staff. Hecuba's father spent most of his time abroad away from home in response to property he owned in Normandy being placed endlessly at risk by the conflicts of the Hundred Years' War, while her mother had died during childbirth, leaving the pernicious and capricious girl run of her father's estate. Not content to let her guards and servants do all the dirty-work themselves, Hecuba became obsessed with acts of violence, starting first with merely learning how to hunt and butcher animals, moving on to trapping and torturing animals, and then eventually to imprisoning and personally beating and torturing peasants and unfortunates of the barony itself. Her father's court became a haven for heretical figures who curried favor with her with offerings of obscure artifacts and pagan knowledge, further fueling her godless proclivities.

Precisely what transpired in the barony come the twilight of purgatory is poorly understood. A large amount of heavy fighting between the armies of men and the horrors of the abyss took place therein and nearby, with stories indicating Hecuba had fought on both sides. Some hypothesize she was captured or enslaved and forced to fight, others claim she had merely been given the excuse to devolve into her true violent nature by the mass outbreak of horror, but it is otherwise agreed that at the time she did not yet possess even but an inkling of the might wielded by the later figure of the She-Devil. As the reality of purgatory settled and the peoples of the land began the cycle of death and rebirth, Hecuba's estate became the focal point for countless desperate rituals, the ignorant, the malign, and the curious making use of encouragement and coercion alike, making use of her vast collection of relics and texts to perform all manner of profane acts in the earlier days of anguish.

The experiments culminated in Tiamat's Eclipse. The bloody events therein are not recounted in any written record, those few reborn lucid enough to recount it retelling incoherent, rambling, and disjointed tales of arms tournaments presided over by anathema and powers, disgusting and woesome orgies conducted by abominable fiends from the depths of the world, baleful displays of light that cut through the retina and mind like razors. Hecuba features in many of these retellings, with no rhyme, reason, or pattern as to her significance or actions beyond her mere presence, but whatever role she played, the She-Devil was the ultimate product of that awful affair.

Branded upon their flesh is the mark of the Seeker - and all who see it know true despair, in knowing that amongst the servitors of the adversary there are those who seek out and embrace the light intending only to snuff it out.

She-Devil Hecuba is a monstrous foe to all who would seek the Herald of Light, more a hellish beast than human now. Her immense strength and ability, already great on their own, have been heightened to inhuman proportions by the countless, profane and sickening powers acting upon her form and mind. She has taken unto herself and her soul - some say even willingly - the influence of multiple dread powers, such as the Erinyes, The Naked Complex, the Barbed Wheel, the Sterile God. Although lonesome, Hecuba is a Legion of the dark, for those that lay claim to her mind, body, and soul are many. A semblance of the being she once was remains still, cogent and capable of being reasoned with if only for a time. Some speculate that the mere presence of the Seekers' Sigil upon her body is evidence that she might be saved and redeemed one day, to then fight on the side of the light. What is most clear, however, is that in the relative present she is a nearly insurmountable (if thankfully rarely encountered), monstrous physical threat to any who would seek the Herald of Light, requiring significant guile and cunning to surpass where strength of arms would otherwise fail.

The She-Devil's Sins

Hecuba is a being of lightly fettered rancor made manifest. Her sins are boundless and without limit and pointless to recount in any detail. Her greatest flaw of benefit to Seekers is her profound susceptibility to occult forces. The same means by which she shackles and is shackled to the various beings that empower her renders her supremely vulnerable to arcane and esoteric power. It is also worth noting that for somebody so far-gone, she can be surprisingly coherent when caught in-the-moment. If she can be caught up by some means in conversation, she can be waylaid and distracted for a time - and perhaps even bargained with, coerced, or even momentarily turned. Her loyalty and focus are therefore questionable. In the same manner, Hecuba is much akin to a siege engine - only loosely directed in any kind of confrontation, she makes only the most pitiful of distinctions between her foes and will not prioritize. She will just as willingly charge into an assembled group of a Seeker's comrades as she might try to pursue the Seeker, or an unarmed and fleeing group of peasants, and is thus easily distracted and evaded.

The She-Devil's Failings

• Lost in the Dark - A Seeker she may technically be, but Hecuba is a slave of the adversary and therefore subject to their whims. They spend most of their time in the dark places of the world, and cannot harry and pursue Seekers for long before her dread masters call upon her to withdraw.
• She Was Never One of Us - Hecuba is reviled and hated by anyone and everybody with common sense and more than two neurons. Even cultists and other mortal servitors of the adversary will refuse to work with her, or even to remain in her presence without fleeing or resorting to violence. Many will simply attack her on sight. The sentiment is mutual, of course.
• Her Body is a Marred- Twisted as it is, Hecuba is only very vaguely and indistinctly recognizable as Human once the armor is peeled away.
• Her Mind is Damaged - She is just foolish enough to consistently make tactical blunders and be outwitted, and just intelligent enough to be bargained with and coerced.
• Her Soul Is A Wound - The very process which created the She-Devil and grants her power also renders her especially susceptible to occult and arcane powers and influence.
• Just Another Plaything - Although she is readily counted amongst the greatest of the adversary's mortal servants, she is just another mortal. The very beings she serves and that grant her power will turn on her in a heartbeat, torturing her and afflicting her with incalculable suffering for any or no reason, at any time they choose.
• There Shall Come a Reckoning - Hecuba's passage is not subtle. There shall be plenty of forewarning with her approach.
• And Ye Shall Bear Their Punishment - Hecuba's connection to various abyssal entities subjects her to resonance from their upbraiding. Injuring or slaying them will injure and impair Hecuba substantially, for a time.

The She Devil's Strengths

• Witch Engine - Hecuba is almost unmatched in physical altercations, be it in duels or in pitched, thronging battles. Trying to confront her head-on as anything other than a feint or distraction would likely end in misfortune without careful planning or nigh-miraculous skill and ability exceeding her own.
• Their Hand Upon Our World - Hecuba is under the influence of a number of powerful abyssal entities which, in addition to twisting her form and granting her profane might, can bestow her with additional, twisted boons as they deem fit.
• Guttering Hope - Hecuba is branded with a corrupted Seeker's Sigil, allowing her to track the Herald of Light - and to respond to the presence of other Seekers.
• The Dreaded - Mere word of Hecuba's approach is enough to send most normal folk, soldiery, and even comrades following Seekers running for the hills in terror.

The She-Devil's Tainted Virtues

• Violence: VIII
• Fortitude: VIII
• Soul: VII
• Passion: - (Whatever Womanly charms she had are long gone.)
• Perception: II
• Command: - (Not even cultists are foolish enough to work with her. Only inhuman forces beyond the ken of the just might appear with her, and even then it is more likely that she shall follow them than the other way around.)

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

@TerminalLooks well put. Would you like an edited version of the character image?

@Poet

Sure thing. Much obliged.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

@Poet First profile for you. Holding on to the second for a moment, I would appreciate some feedback here so I can fine-tune the next one. As a qualifier to reading, let it be known that certain, squickier aspects of her biography and failings (you will know them when you see them) will not be quite so greatly emphasized IC as stated here. Think of them more as profound, underlying psychological aspects that are not immediately evident except through careful scrutiny over time in person.

The Questor

_{QUESTOR LEVIA GERLINDE}

_{"Cherish this moment of bleak anguish.
These dark times are but all of ruth the adversary shall ever know.
Hold pity and relish in your heart for those who will know no further the ineffable grace of their own veracity, come the time of the infinite."}

Prior Life

The precise date of Levia's birth has been forgotten by her, in the jumble of lives and deaths she has since experienced, though she remembers well enough the day where, amongst a crowd of thousands, she witnessed the burning of Joan d' Arc during the year of our lord 1431 - still a young and budding maiden, recently arrived in Normandy from Carthage where she had been born of a missionary who had forsaken his vow of celibacy. Levia's following life was ordinary and uninspiring - she was married off to a tanner in 1940, dutifully bearing him children and tending to his home until the great calamity that was purgatory came upon the land. Levia was amongst the first ream of victims to fall before its horrors, suffering rapine and anguish before being cast to the dark.

And so it followed; again and again, the memories that were Levia striving to lead an ordinary life even amidst the horror, made all the more trying as with each life spent she would shuffle her mortal coil earlier and earlier each time, and almost always by violent means whilst having suffered indignities. After several such times, Levia broke, and in her fugue did she discover her virtue. Her mind sundered to match the impossible darkness of purgatory, the impossible was branded into her being with hallowed clarity, the fractured and riven tears in her being woven into a new whole that would become the fabled maiden questor, Levia Gerlinde.

She would go on and, though beset by trial and many deaths, she did overcome many terrors and anathema, amongst them the dread Chalarensis, Hyperion, and Belphagor. Arising from common obscurity and achieving great success across time despite many setbacks, Levia briefly became a beacon of hope and inspiration amongst the masses...

Until the servitors of the adversary arrayed themselves against her, fearful of her prowess and burgeoning following. Seeking to forever curb her ability to lead and inspire others, the mortal agents of the enemy did weave the most insidious rumor of ridicule and doubt amongst the lands - that Levia herself claimed to be the Herald of Light. Scarcely over the course of a fortnight, Levia found herself jeered and set upon by those who might once have arrayed themselves under her command, and in her ignominy she was eventually slain by another Seeker who had followed the rumors and found her to be wanting.

Reborn in time, Levia did her utmost to trail without the vast shadow of her now besmirched repute. Now, her name is forgotten by many but known to some - and it is remembered as the name of a charlatan and a harlot, a false prophet and a pretender. A memory not abetted by her unfortunately traditional mores and behavior...

The Questor's Sins

Levia, in her life prior to purgatory and even during many of her initial lives in purgatory, lived in the traditional sense as a woman of her caste and upbringing was expected to have lived. She would labor and toil as a caretaker, bearing her mates many children, rarely speaking defiantly or acting without leave. Even the harsh and brutal revelations of purgatory itself have been unable to dissuade her from this manner of living; the habits and conditioning of her first life having ingrained themselves somehow irreparably from her. Her meekness was what led to her permitting her own upbraiding and destruction at the hands of a fellow Seeker, and in failing to speak out against the false rumors set against her by the adversary's servitors. Her past beliefs, forged upon her mind with callous fists and rods, taught her that as a woman, she was slippery, weak, untrustworthy, devious, deceitful and stubborn - and so, unconsciously and in her efforts to adopt the habits of strength, she strives to be as 'unwomanlike' as possible by being forthright, wholly truthful, straightforward, and accepting - disastrous and inadvisable qualities for one such as she in the lands of purgatory, and all come upon in a manner failing to dissuade her own self-internalized sense of inferiority and submissiveness. Levia is the servant of man - literally, figuratively, and much to her own misfortune - and that of those she intends to save from damnation. Thusly, Levia's cardinal sin is that of Sloth, her own willful and self-imposed indolence and stagnant moral character depriving her of the fullness of her own virtue.

The Questor's Failings

• The Meek - Levia lacks agency, and left to her own devices will usually seek help or else do nothing. In particular, she will endeavor to attach herself to a reliable male authority figure for guidance, and is dismissive of her own judgment as well as that of other women.
• False Light - The adversary's servitors wove a plot most wicked in their efforts to destroy Levia's fame amongst the peoples of purgatory. Those few who remember her, remember her poorly, as a charlatan and conceited pretender not worthy of the aid afforded to most seekers - and occasionally, sometimes even meriting punitive action.
• What Strength, Veracity - In her own, perhaps inadvisable efforts to attain greater virtue and strength, Levia will know no deceit. It extends further than refusing to lie on her own behalf; Levia will actively out the existence of any lie she is aware of. She will permit omissions of truth and white lies, except when directly confronted or confused of doing so, which can lead to the equivalent of a full avowed confession from her.
• Burdensome Lunacy - Levia, despite having been awakened to certain aspects of her own virtue, is still bound by many of the more unfortunate aspects of her strict, traditional religious upbringing. One of the more prominent aspects of her original life and the new ways of living in purgatory that have overlapped is the notion that mankind is to propagate and spread across the earth, and therefore even before her duty to find the Herald of Light and serve as Seeker, it is her duty to bear children upon the world. Thus giving way to the nearly intolerable and nigh-impracticable efforts by her to find willing suitors by whom to become pregnant, and then to carry and bear children - whilst simultaneously waging a horrid and eternal battle with the malevolent forces of the void itself.

The Questor's Strengths

• No Man Wields Such Power - By some twist of providence, Levia is profoundly adept not only with the Partisan and Estoc, but is perhaps one of the finest mortal warriors in purgatory. If she is not the most adept with the blade, she is certainly amongst the most balanced and able-bodied of fighters not only in skill and talent, but also in ingenuity and experience brought on through many lifes - and deaths - worth of battling the forces of the adversary, great and small.
• Such Impossible Reserves - Levia's intolerable and backwards mental state has the noteworthy advantage of making her mind and soul nearly unassailable by most methods of corruption and temptation, as well as making her nearly immune to efforts of intimidation and coercion (with the notable exception of those who prove low enough to exploit her deferential mindset), which is what allowed her to garner her initial fame during her early tenure as a Seeker - she knows not any despair or suffering, and there is no enemy so great that might cause her to balk. She is certitude manifest. To her, victory is not only inevitable and certain, but preordained, and these dark times are but a passing moment of concession to the forces of darkness to permit them some small token of solace. Almost nothing could change her outlook in this way, and as such she can act as a beacon of invigorating confidence, bolstering others and steadying the nerves in trying times simply by existing.

The Questor's Virtues

• Violence: VII
• Fortitude: VII
• Soul: III
• Passion: V (+I)
• Perception: II
• Command: II

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

Hmm, I was going to offer up my Sad Berserker Guy but we seem to be having an utter sausage fest at the moment. Reconsidering character plans.

@Dead Cruiser

Both of my character ideas are going to be Women, if that at all affects your plans.

𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑

@TerminalI've been thinking about painted worlds, and maybe using ancient literature in the same fashion. But these are details that I thought I'd work on while this initial OOC is up. Did you have anything in mind?

@Poet

Well, it is a common occult literary theme that light is law and order, manifest. This is true in Dark Souls where the First Flame essentially spread the energy necessary for life and time to exist throughout the static grey universe (the age of Dark possibly representing the assertion of Entropy), and in the setting of Fallen London/Sunless Seas, where the stars themselves, including the Sun, are all actual gods, and the light they shine permits them to control reality itself (which is used to explain why most 'abnormal' events occur during the night in those settings). The purgatory described in our setting appears to have afflicted the land of Evropa with nearly endless light, the tenure of daylight being brief, so why not borrow the same corollary?

During the night - or even during the day, this is just suggestion after all - the laws of creation slacken and falter, even those of time and space. Worlds and realities might conjoin and mix, briefly, which might lend us some pointed advantages - and threats. The cycle of death and renewal for Seekers seems limited in that we have to wait for their new vessels to reach puberty before they awaken to their memories; by permitting for the tendency of Seekers in any given universe and the intermingling of those universes and the inconstancy of time itself, we might be able to replace our fallen characters sooner rather than later.

Contrawise, this same flux might mean that no specific threat might be gone for good once slain, or that some ineffable horror from a bleaker, alternate realm of deeper anguish might briefly visit despair upon us.

Like in Dark Souls though, what little light remains is probably sufficient to mostly sustain the stability of the realm as well as to excise uninvited guests from others, so these periods of intermingling would be brief (with some exceptions; likely specific to revived Seekers).

Character profiles coming, though I will wait for your answer before posting them.