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[Girasol of Chaos]

Name: Beatrice Thallium
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Physical Description: 5'5", Beatrice has semi-long black hair that looks rather untamed. Her dark brown eyes shine brightly in contrast to her drab clothing, often now a white lab coat over a blue top and jeans. The coats are not always clean, having various bloodstains that accumulate before she replaces it. When feeling more human she will don her denim jacket over a red shirt, decorated with a faded leaf motif.

Bio: Beatrice is a veterinarian in training, or at least was. Her life in college was going swimmingly, she was the top of her studies, enjoyed a good roommate at the dorms, and couldn't want anything more out of life.

Unfortunately, she woke up in some form of nightmare, covered in blood and bodies in one of her labs. The last thing she had remembered before waking was an unsatiable hunger welling inside her, one that not even the doritos she snuck in could sate. Frightened, she fled the scene, wanting nothing more than to nurse her sore body and wake up from her sleep. Waking only led to more hunger, and the bloody scene at the dorms convinced her that her college career was over.

Ever since, Beatrice has attempted to keep the beast inside her down, and examines herself with upmost curiosity and caution. When the need arises, she stalks the city in search of a shady individual, someone whom society would not miss. She rather enjoys these moments, swimming in her self-righteousness as an excuse to not feed on the animals that she cares for more. Once in a while the beast will run rampant, but she is more than capable of retreating to the shadows, or simply slaughtering any human witnesses.

Monster Form: Rift

Rift is a lanky, reptillian monster made for agility. It is longer than Beatrice is tall, approximately 7 feet not including the tail.



Despite being eyeless, this does not prevent it from having vision, being able to use echolocation and other sensory organs that line its body between leathery flesh-segments on the skin. Pores line its body which can spew toxic gases, either as an attack or as a means of a minor distraction.

It's crest, jaw, and joint-covers are almost metallic, giving off a faded gleam and being the only 'true' armor this beast has. The segments act as toughened leather tightened over flesh, and the pores dot the real 'skin' of Rift, being white. The translucent segments are made of tough cartilage and are somewhat flexible, acting as a secondary defense mechanism when thrashing. These are rather sharp on the inner edge and points.

Abilities: Poison mist- Rift can eject toxic gases from any of the pores in its body, but only in patterns. For instance, the main section of the body cannot fire gases while the limbs are, the neck and tail act as one unit. Her mouth emits similar gas, but is concentrated and has a rotting odor. If Rift has eaten recently, the poison will be a little more potent

Swift feet: Rift has little strength or defensive capabilities, but she is fast. When encountered with something that *can* fight her, she is more likely to bounce off in a hurry and hide. If trapped she will attempt to outmaneuver her opponent, but would never win an arm wrestle.

Alright lemme know if anything needs changing.

[Astral Harmony]

I shrunk down the range of Devouring Void to pretty much just out of Mawface's melee range and made her first and only transformation much more recent.

I had two other ideas, one being a sand monster and the other being a hovering collection of basketball-sized organic spheres, but I had a feeling that you wanted the monsters to be more realistic and tanglible.

And Digital Devil Saga is fucking awesome. Especially the music. I like Shoji Meguro's work on Persona, but I prefer the DDS stuff so much more.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

batgirl how dare you have more impressive horns than me. This will not stand! Battle of fire and ice GO!

Nice to see some more elementals this time round, we had a crippling lack of them last time.

And Swarm reminds me of Legion from the last RP. Beware Arcanum; fire is not your friend.

[Astral Harmony]

Explosions are also pretty devasting to hordes of miniature monsters like a Swarm (Dead Space 2 sets a great example of that). I bet my own character's Gastric Purge could do some serious damage if the swarm flies into the stream of acid.

...Actually, there's an idea. If Swarm gets into trouble, he could fly inside my maw and be somewhat protected so long as he steers clear of the acid. Failing that, he could escape through any small hole given time.

[Toastburner B]

Originally Posted by Riin Whitewind

A more normal monster-thing!

Huzzah for normal!

Anyways, looks good.



lazy guy

Your character’s an electrical engineer that get’s turned into a lightning monster?

That’s…



...shocking!

…I had to do it. I had to do it. Seriously, someone came into my room, put a gun up to my head, and said I had to do it. I’m sorry, it’s not my fault.

Anyways, looks good. Just don’t go too overboard with the electrical stuff to start with, okay? You’ll grow into that much like Hawk’s character will grow into fire control.

(and before anyone asks, yes, I did notice this in the related videos)



batgirl:
Looks good, approved.

…Just a few more elementals and we’ll be able to summon Captain Planet. Who wants to be heart?!



Girasol Everything looks alright approved.

…Your character’s a vet? Mines a vet tech! Can he have a job?!

I’m just kidding.



Arcanum While I am not fully against the idea (other than the fact I was totally going to use Legion again), but you are right, I do have concerns with it.

The biggest one for me is “lose my mind instead of getting hurt.” Like is said when I was talking to aerozord, it’s hard to do give a number to something like sanity. How do you measure it out? Do you start to hear voices if you lose X amount of bugs, start to see hallucinations if you lose Y amount, or go completely bonkers if you lose Z amount? With physical hurt I can pretty much spell out what that implies (in that last battle your broke your arm, so you can’t run as fast as a monster, etc). What am I supposed to do with “sanity” (you…er…see little pixies flying around in your vision. Yes I said pixies!). It would be easier all around if it came down to physical hurt like everyone else, really. It would save both of us a lot of headaches.

All that isn’t even taking into account the entire “the most bodies I have, the more minds I have” thing. I get the idea in general, but it seems…gah, I don’t know how to phrase it. For example, what if someone walks up to you with a high-pressure water hose and starts to squirt off bugs? Do all those count as separate minds? If someone cuts off your arm, does that count as a separate “body” until it can form back into the main form? If someone suck some of the swarm into a vacuum, what happens to the bugs trapped in there when you turn back into a human, or can you not turn back into a human unless all your bugs are accounted for?

Just a lot of questions. Many questions. If you can give me good answers, I’ll let you stick with it, but I’m uneasy about it. Sure, Legion was basically the same thing, but we also basically the boss for the first chapter, and even he had a central body, and wasn’t just bugs.

And just a note, you character doesn’t have to go vagabond just because he’s a paradox. Characters are able to function in society, they just have to be really careful about controlling themselves.

So…um…yeah.

Originally Posted by Hawk

And Swarm reminds me of Legion from the last RP. Beware Arcanum; fire is not your friend.

Originally Posted by Armored Bishoujo

Explosions are also pretty devasting to hordes of miniature monsters like a Swarm (Dead Space 2 sets a great example of that). I bet my own character's Gastric Purge could do some serious damage if the swarm flies into the stream of acid.

Meh, could be worst. I believe the primary tactic for beating Legion in the last game was to have lazy’s character pick up Ifrit and swing him around in a circle.



Side notes: You people and sanity. WTF? Do I need to get the Lovecraft out of my sig or something?

The more monsters I see, the less happy I am with Wirehair. I guess that’s one of the benefits of being the GM is that I can change my monster and approve it all at the same time!

[Astral Harmony]

Damn it, Swarm is so cool.

I can just see it now. Swarm sends in a handful of bugs who start expertly stealth-killing enemies while the rest of the swarm flies in and yanks the corpses into dark corners and shit.

It looks like that would really...

*puts on sunglasses*

...bug the enemy.

Be careful, the guy who threatened Toasty has a teleporter and is probably already at your house.

[lazy man]

Yay, approval! And sunglasses!

But yeah, don't worry about the electrical thing, it'll just be a field about, say, 10 feet around him? Maybe I'll tweak how far it goes, but it won't go too far, it'll just have an obscenely high current and voltage.

Originally Posted by Toastburner B

Meh, could be worst. I believe the primary tactic for beating Legion in the last game was to have lazy’s character pick up Ifrit and swing him around in a circle.

This is the main reason why I'll miss my other guy. So many possibilities for shenanigans. And angry fire-bombs.

[Overcast]

Teeth can talk, it is just a voice that comes out out of the Maw, and later on I was planning on him, even when he is suppressed, being able to whisper out of any mouth in the vacinity even if it is in a picture or a deer trophy or anything. Mostly to fuck with Earnest, he'll be doing a lot of esoteric shit just for that purpose.

[Steel Shadow]

I actually figured Amorphia couldn't talk. Understand people speaking, sure, no problems. I imagine it'll go like this!

"What's that Morphy?"
*Impassive stare*
"Lil' Timmy fell down the old well?!"
*Impassive stare*
"And the ranch is on fire?! I'd better get the gang together and sort this out!"
*Impassive stare*
"Good job Morphy!"

And then the Blob theme would play!

[Arcanum]

EDIT 2 -- Changed my mind about some stuff. Refer to my latest post for the new proposal. It makes a lot of the stuff I said here irrelevant.

The biggest one for me is “lose my mind instead of getting hurt.” Like is said when I was talking to aerozord, it’s hard to do give a number to something like sanity. How do you measure it out? Do you start to hear voices if you lose X amount of bugs, start to see hallucinations if you lose Y amount, or go completely bonkers if you lose Z amount? With physical hurt I can pretty much spell out what that implies (in that last battle your broke your arm, so you can’t run as fast as a monster, etc). What am I supposed to do with “sanity” (you…er…see little pixies flying around in your vision. Yes I said pixies!). It would be easier all around if it came down to physical hurt like everyone else, really. It would save both of us a lot of headaches.

I could narrow down the insanity to severe split personalities. Basically the more damage done to him while he's Swarm splits his mind more and more, depending on the severity of the damage. Essentially he would start arguing with himself, distracting himself, even have personalities take control of groups of Swarms, which could cause even more mental trauma. The number of personalities and the amount he argues with and distracts himself would be directly proportionate to how debilitating the damage would be on a regular physical creature.

The personalities would eventually fade or be repressed with time, but it would take longer than a normal wound to heal, making the damage slightly more long term too.

All that isn’t even taking into account the entire “the most bodies I have, the more minds I have” thing. I get the idea in general, but it seems…gah, I don’t know how to phrase it. For example, what if someone walks up to you with a high-pressure water hose and starts to squirt off bugs? Do all those count as separate minds?If someone cuts off your arm, does that count as a separate “body” until it can form back into the main form?

Yes and yes. When Swarms are physically interlinked their minds are interlinked as well. As soon as that physical link is broken so is the mental one. That's why breaking apart Swarm can be devastating to both parties involved. For example if someone cuts Swarm in half, he could easily recover from the sudden mental split and counter attack as two creatures.

However on the other side, a single attack could briefly remove him from battle if it shatters him into enough pieces. I say briefly because every living creature has a primal subconscious mind (dubbed the Id by Sigmund Freud). When Swarm is broken apart into so many pieces that he can't sanely control all of them, his mind defends itself and tries to sever the links. This would result in a state of almost catatonic shock, letting the primal minds of the individual Swarms take over, which would then try to group back together so that when Swarm comes out of the shock he won't be a fragmented psychopath.

If someone suck some of the swarm into a vacuum, what happens to the bugs trapped in there when you turn back into a human, or can you not turn back into a human unless all your bugs are accounted for?

I knew I was forgetting to add something in the extra notes. When Eric changes back into a human, he does so with all of the Swarm, whether they are present or not. Preferably he is in the shape of a human when he changes back, returning him to his original form. If some Swarms were killed, or isolated from the rest, they would turn into small pieces of flesh, and Eric in return would have pieces missing from him (which would then heal at a regular human/Paradox rate).

Like I said, Swarm is difficult to wound or kill, but it's not impossible. Kill enough Swarms and Eric might be missing an arm when he reverts.

EDIT! MORE STUFF!

And just a note, you character doesn’t have to go vagabond just because he’s a paradox. Characters are able to function in society, they just have to be really careful about controlling themselves.

Nah I wanted a character who was flipped on his ass because of facing an impossible situation. Eric was smart and successful, now he's half-crazed (and it will only get worse) and too afraid to contact anyone he knows out of fear that the police are trying to find him. He's homeless because he turned into a paradox, not because he is a paradox, if you get what I mean.

Side notes: You people and sanity. WTF?

Personally I really enjoy writing mentally unstable individuals. They are fun.

Also, AB, Swarm can't fly. They either take the shape of something mobile or skitter across the ground as an amorphous insect blob.