Add:
+Air thickening for trapping & stronger shockwaves
+Runes for remote control crystal growth in a given area
Physical Characteristics
Quebra's body is the result of intense and strict training, fueled by the desire to sculpt it in image of an ancient, herculean sculpture and embody the ideal it represents. Robust and leaning more towards the stocky rather than the lithe side, his muscle is well pronounced, yet bears a more subtle outline, as opposed to a bodybuilder's chiseled form, with its impressive bulk showing that it is built for function as well. Reaping what is sown, he has strength, speed and stamina on the brink what is humanly possible, putting out a 28 mph sprint speed and 800 pound deadlift - together with flexibility and reaction speeds on par with the best of fighters. Standing at 5'7", he weighs in at 210 pounds with his heavy build - most of it being densely packed, granite-toned muscle.
Part of him has been turned into living crystal - and by none other than Quebra himself, aiming to perverse his body at it's peak performance and beauty. The process is arduous and long, spanning over the course of many months, and thus, so far,
only his limbs have been drastically changed, legs crystallized up to the middle of the thigh, arms - from fingertips to just above the elbow. Through reinforcement of the crystal's bonds and a decrease in density, they have been made to weigh no more than originally, adding complexity to the process.
Slightly less noticeable is
the skin covering the rest of his body: usually pale white, it'll faintly sparkle in bright lighting, as it is saturated with tiny crystals that give it a rough, calloused texture and noticeably improved resistance to cuts - something that makes using glass for armor a more sensible of an idea than expected. Underneath said skin, however his body is still flesh, blood and bone.
A
closer inspection of his limbs shows that they aren't uniform chunks of rock, but rather, that they have their overall bone and muscle structure preserved, bone being replaced by crystal, and muscle - by a mesh of a green-hued transparent solid and layers of tough sinew, resembling laminate glass in structure; important to note, the outermost layer of it, where skin would be, is crystal. Blood vessels, on the other hand, have thinned out and migrated inside the sinew, together with nerves, which have had their numbers greatly reduced, resulting in lower sensitivity. The durability of said structure is such that a machete would barely pierce half an inch deep, while snapping the bone itself require putting it in a vice and coming down with a sledgehammer smash; additionally, the heat resistance and electric conductivity both sit at about the same level as tempered glass - unless a current reaches the sinew, sandwiched between the millimeter thick crystal layers.
While called crystal, the
material replacing the muscle is in fact neither, constantly alternating between a crystalline and amorphous state. The reason behind this is that said process changes the material's dimensions, expanding or shrinking the solid to closely emulate the workings of a muscle, electrical current and chemical reaction substituted by Quebra's own aura being used to manipulate the solid's state. The output is vastly superior though, his grip strength enough to dent steel and crush untempered iron, while calves provide greater momentum control, creating a much more stable stance and allowing for quicker, sharper, extremely dynamic footwork. Their effect on his other skills is less defined, but it can be safely said that the power of his crystalline muscle contributed to Quebra's speed and strength records; moreover, they tire at a rate exponentially slower than their organic counterpart.
Magical Ability
Ki: for all his active abilities, Quebra has a single pool of regenerating Ki: starting off at
10/10, it is consumed on the post an ability is activated and starts regenerating on the first post that he doesn't spend any Ki - in other words, doesn't activate any abilities. The rate at which it regenerates starts off at 1 and increases by 1 for each consecutive spent without using Ki, creating a progression of
1-2-3-4 points of Ki regenerated per respective post, amounting to a total of 10 over 4 posts. The regen rate is reset whenever Quebra spends his Ki.
Body Hammer: originating from the perfect synchronization of body and aura Quebra had to achieve in order to being the transformation of his body, this technique employs a resonance between muscle tension and minute oscillations of the aura to amplify both and launch a shockwave from his body, its power far surpassing what his magical aptitude alone could produce.
In its most basic form, it creates a localized shockwave launched in response to the combination a signal from the mind and the flexing of muscle, originating from just above the skin, within the area of the muscle itself, and with power proportional to its strain. Thus, if Quebra were to tense his whole body as hard as he could, it would produce an omnidirectional pulse, sending out massive amounts of force, yet dispersing it over an equally large area, resulting in great pushback, yet low damage potential.
In order to increase it's combat potential, the Body Hammer has been supplemented a
conduit technique, which allows to pull energy from all over his body into a much smaller area, drastically increasing the resulting pressure. The end result, however, is less powerful than one would expect due to energy loss occurring during transportation, the farther a muscle away from the shockwaves origin point, the less of an increase in power it yields. Due to this, an peculiar dynamic in the amount of force can be observed, with the torso, for example, delivering stronger pulses due to a higher concentration of muscle mass than the limbs.
The conduit can be applied to the entirety of the body, or only to part of it, in order to decrease the cost; additionally, it can also distribute the energy between several locations at once, the total amount unlimited. One existing restriction would be the size of the shockwave's origin point: the smallest area Quebra trained its use for is the surface of his fist, unable to use the conduit for any lesser size.
By the use of the the conduit and flex of the muscle, said shockwaves can be divided into
three categories: no conduit, entire body; conduit over part of the body; conduit over the entire body. The latter two can be further broken down into full torso (an area covering the entire from or back of it), focused torso (condensed into the smallest possible area), fist and foot shockwaves, indicating the shockwave's point of origin.
No conduit, entire body costs 3 Ki to launch and produces an omnidirectional wave traveling for about 4 feet before dissipating. Point blank, it is enough to knock down a person 160 pounds in weight; at an arms length, it would make the stumble a couple feet backwards.
Conduit over part of the body costs 3 Ki as well, and creates a more focused blast, which is capable of propelling itself up to 7 feet away from the origin point. Point blank, the full torso blast can push a 280 pound person down to the ground; focused torso blast delivers the equivalent of a mean teep kick; fist hits with the power of a hard jab and foot is comparable to a snap kick.
Conduit over the entire body costs 6 Ki and offers the most powerful shockwaves at Quebra's disposal. Their effective range stays the same, but the blast's power dissipates less over distance. Point blank, full torso can fling 400 pounds off of him; focused torso hits like a ferocious, wound-up sledgehammer strike; fist impacts with the full force of a heavyweight's cross and foot dumps the energy of a roundhouse into its target.
It is also possible for the Body Hammer to be used as a means of
propelling objects - Quebra himself included - but there is a certain point at which the shockwave can't accelerate something any faster. This happens due to the fact that it dissipates over distance, and the faster an object accelerates, the sooner it exits the blast's range. For a full body conduit focus torso blast, said effect reaches its equilibrium at 300 grams accelerated to 120 m/s, marking the upper limit of its power.
Crystalbending: a prerequisite to the process of crystallizing his own body, the creation of base solid itself in a form independent of his being was a technique learned by Quebra as well. Using the crystalline parts of his limbs as conduits, he can do so at combat-efficient rates, shaping various constructs at a whim - a feat impossible with the weak external aura produced by his flesh. The full extent of this power includes growing the crystal, sending cracks through it and fusing pieces together, or with the crystal of his limbs; the latter two - cracking and mending - only require that part of the crystal construct be placed within the aura, Quebra able to conduct the impulses used to create said effects through the material.
Activating this ability, Quebra spends
2 points of Ki on the same turn, but can continue using it for 3 turns in a row without paying, including the one on which it had been activated.
The growth must originate from the surface of Quebra's crystalline bodyparts and can be manipulated within an area extending half-a-foot away from it in all directions; said areas can overlap, creating more space for larger objects to be created. As soon as he wills for it, the crystal starts to appear - its rate of growth, however, is inversely proportional its quality, density and durability dropping the faster it forms.
The quality to speed ratios have three major benchmarks: first grade is the most durable, but the slowest to create; second retains maximum density, but sacrifices durability for speed; third is the fastest, but also the weakest and least dense.
The specifics are such:
First grade takes two whole seconds to make a fist-sized chunk of it and has the toughness and hardness of quartz glass, with a density of 4 g/cm^3 - or, fours times that of water, a little over half of steel.
Second grade can give quadruple the amount in the same span of time, creating the same fist-sized chunk in half a second, and retains all of the aforementioned characteristics - however, its crystalline lattice is riddled with imperfections and weak points, making it much more prone to shattering.
Third grade doubles the speed of the previous grade, but halves the density, as a result of it forming a porous, corral-like structure. The decrease in density is the sole factor that makes it the weakest, no further changes to the crystalline lattice occurring.
ADDENDUM: the 'living' crystal in Quebra's body is of a different composition and cannot be grown at such rates; however, the two crystals can be combined in order to patch up damage, albeit, still resulting in lower effectiveness of the crystal's muscle action.
Pressurized growth: by directing additional Ki into the growing crystal, Quebra can generate a continuous surge of force, pushing it through solid matter and allowing to break apart objects by piercing them with the crystal. Capable of generating forces within the thousands of newtons, a thin spike can generate enough pressure to puncture tempered steel within seconds. The exact amount of additional energy required is
3 Ki per turn, and it must have the regular crystalbending already active as a prerequisite.
The technique has its drawbacks in the fact that it has to be used on a fixed target, as it achieves its power through a constant pressure applied over time, rather than an instantaneous spike; and its inability to affect the body of a sentient creature, as the crystal's growth is stopped by the aura of their lifeforce.
Liquid armor: to keep his painstakingly crafted body on display at all times, rather than wearing bulky armor, Quebra sweats it out of his skin in form of a transparent, sticky and tarry substance with highly potent defensive properties. Said substance is a shear-thickening liquid, quickly solidifying in response to impact, which turns it into a crystalline, allowing to further absorb incoming force by shattering; moreover, it has the supernatural power to disperse force with incredible efficiency as it solidifies and shatters - if struck in the chest by a spear, the substance would harder almost over his entire torso, while shattering in about a 4 inch radius around the point of impact, as he force is carried from bond to bond; if hit by something with a larger surface area, the force will be carried out over an even larger surface.
The resulting degree of protection is enough to stop a sledgehammer strike to the body without any damage to Quebra, almost no force transferred at the cost of the armor shattering all over the entirety of his torso, a multitude of thinner fractures running along the portion covering his limbs. Such efficiency is partially due to the sledgehammer's large surface area, however: weapons with smaller impact points, such as axes, flanged maces, crow's beaks, swords and spears will deal more localized damage to the armor and carry over enough force to penetrate and deal a certain amount of damage to Quebra himself; the severity of it depends on the momentum of the impact, less tip-heavy weapons, such as a longsword, leaving only papercut wounds, while a clean two-handed thrust from a spear could go up to an inch deep.
The activation cost is
3 Ki, regardless of the area being covered - the whole body, or just a palm's size - and it takes about 2 seconds to reach the maximum thickness of 3 millimeters; at said volume, it reaches a weight of about 25 pounds when covering him head to toe.
As an auxiliary power, Quebra, at no cost, can transform parts of the armor into the same sort of crystal grown from his limbs, maximum toughness - the main reason to do this may be the fact that the liquid provides no heat or electrical resistance, unlike the crystal; however, in this form, it cannot adhere to any part of the body but the crystallized limbs. Said crystal is fully susceptible to his crystalbending and can be made thicker, at the cost of weighing him down even more.
Equipment
All Quebra wears to combat is a black leather loincloth with a pouch in front and a thin metal groin cup underneath; and a blackened steel Secutor helmet, worn to intimidate and remove the need to cover his head in the sticky, viscous liquid usually used by him in place of armor.
A predominantly hand-to-hand fighter, the only weapon he carries with him into combat is a rope and leather sling 2 feet in length, kept in the loincloth's pouch.
