#better days by strangecloud

[strangecloud]

Character Bio - Thistle the Antlerthorn

"All I see is all I dream, animals and tambourines, and all I can hear is night"

Some gods see the affairs of mortals as some bizarre spectacle, a good show that must go on. Not so much Thistle, who sees beauty in all of the unchosen creatures: the rabbit, the rose and the fishes and trees. The squabbles of humans always ends the same, she thinks, they either kiss or kill one another. There's much more drama in the unseen world of flora and fauna.

She is the supernatural nature specialist, an unrepentant misanthrope who will not hesitate to throw a man into the wolf's den to save a few pups. With a thirst for knowledge only matched by her love of all of the land's critters, she nonetheless employs acolytes to carry out research and aid operations targeting the woodlands.

Her one mission is simple: make sure all of mankind knows, the natural order has a ruthless deity on its side.

[strangecloud]

Character Bio - The Mad God

"What a terrifying work of art"

The mortality of the gods is often called into question. As it stands, it seems gods are mortal in fact, but only temporarily. They can be killed until such time as the deity deigns to walk the earth again. They cannot age, but that's hardly the same as invulnerable, as given enough time any number of possible accidents can happen to a hapless god. Death walks behind all of us, and that handsome devil needs but to get lucky once.

That said, there's certain conditions that would leave one outside of the grasp of death, assuming they're an ageless god. Being buried alive under tons of rock, for example. That's the consensus of the incident behind Twyncyn's oldest entity, known only as the Mad God.

Little is known about this elusive troublemaker, but most scholars believe this deity to have originated far before the Astral Entities ever had any interest on a big mossy rock such as Twyncyn. Before the planet was a planet, when an experiment or some kind of "astral voice crack" gave birth to an isolated, immortal man walking on a darkened moon. Some misadventure caused this unfortunate soul to be buried alive under piles of rock (or perhaps he was born inside a rocky grave, who's to say) to be unearthed by insatiable drills, hammers, diggers and picks, aeons later.

That's when the troubles began.

[strangecloud]

Character Bio - Antaeus

"You've seen the exact color of my blood"

Antaeus is a mythic concept that speaks of an eternal warrior, destined to die and be reborn again and again. Some claim this is due to the residual song of a dying star that scattered one person across time. Others believe a rogue constellation of Astral Entities conspires to call such avatars into existence. Rarely, two instances of Antaeus will occupy the same general time vicinity and possibly interact.

Much like the gods, if Antaeus is killed, the Astral powers that be will usually bring another form of such back. Unlike the gods, Antaeus is, for most of his life, unaware of this divine ascendancy. When the ultimate design of his puppet masters are revealed, an epiphany grips this entity and it is then left to wrangle with conflicting human-demigod emotions, as customary.

[strangecloud]

Character Bio - Sunjammer

"I can't be the one to free them, I am a puppet of the priests"

It's understandable that one might ignore the quieter Astral Entities. Most of the important ones that can affect change in the world in any form are loud, and sing the song of creation, to commune with ALGO and enact their will upon the material plane.

Not Sunjammer.

The Quiet Star doesn't speak any language ALGO understands. It can, however, whisper in the tongue of humans, subtly eroding their will and pressuring them to mount cults and worship in its name. Its highest acolytes are used as mouthpieces to cast spells designed by Sunjammer, with the ultimate goal to convince ALGO that an avatar of the Quiet Star is brought to life.

Sunjammer has walked the earth a couple times at most. Even corporeal, he is much weaker than any God, at least individually. His true power lies in the feverish worship of his priests, sowing chaos to accomplish some grand design.

Scholars who study this forbidden entity have long debated what the endgame of such cults is. The most obvious conjecture is that Sunjammer wishes to be elevated into a replete star. Others still believe his obsession with the material plane conceals some knowledge of its true potential. Whatever it might be, we are fortunate that he is as weakened as he is, for the moment.

[strangecloud]

Character Bio - A'kor the Red

"Holy mother of God you've got to go faster than that to get to the top"

The God known as the Eternal Mountain of Stone might, or might not, be an actual mountain. The eponymous geological feature in the northern highlands is, as far as is known, the highest peak in Twyncyn. This legendary summit is, depending on who you ask, A'kor, A'kor's lair, or the site of a terrible battle between A'kor and a number of different legendary figures. Any of these and versions thereof are equally as likely.

Regardless, the Eternal Mountain (that is, A'kor the man, not the mountain) shuns magic entirely, despite his stellar ascendancy. No one is sure why. He has fashioned himself the God of weapons and combat, and lives up to his name spectacularly. His favorite weapon is a meager iron ax and a shield, both of which have never been observed to dent or break despite being made of quite ordinary, non-magical materials. In fact, A'kor is fond of leaving his armaments behind whenever he is terrestrially indisposed. As far as anyone knows, the arms are still original from the first time they were fashioned.

Other than that, A'kor likes to fight. Beasts, monsters, mortals or gods, it doesn't matter. He will try to beat the piss out of it for any number of reasons.

[strangecloud]

Character Bio - Blessed Lady

"The stars in the sky were lonely tonight"

The patron deity of sages and sailors, the Queen of the Night Sky is known as the Blessed Lady. It's not known whether she's the construct of a specific constellation, cluster, or individual Astral Entity. She is by far the most amicable towards mortal humans out of all Gods. She revels in observing mortals and enjoys their shenanigans, and is known to intervene when too big a disaster would befall them.

Her favorite means of keeping an eye on her chosen is by splintering parts of herself into ravens that she has control over and can see out of. She is also fond of lightning magic.

[strangecloud]

BETTER DAYS - Intro

"I crammed in a thousand hours to fight with the shaded quicksilver moon"

Deep in the yawning void, a consciousness ferments. It is the oldest, although it's never been. It sees all but watches nothing, the ever-hearing Listener that dreams the world.

ALGO.

No one knows if ALGO is real, but imagination can often bring to life the impossible. The dominant religion in Twyncyn, the Astral Science, suggests the sound of the stars that so sail the inky depths to reach the planet are a language of creation that the Listener hears for, and understands as the living, breathing planet. Magic is nothing more than talking to the arbiter of reality itself, convincing it of supernatural phenomena that then become true.

The Gods are no less bound by this system of knowledge. They are thought to be avatars of the stellar entities that dot the sky at night, singing lullabies to ALGO so that they might experience the life in our fortress of sand, the Twyncyn-rock. Gods have been observed to will spells into existence with nary a breath, shapeshift and disguise themselves to mislead mortals, as well as battle and die only to live again.

BETTER DAYS is the story of the best laid plans of Gods and men. The magical pocket of life has attracted unsavory attention from entities who see it as the key to infinite power, and others still wish to use it to unlock the secrets of the universe. Amidst all of this, the ant colony top-dream of life in quiet peace rings in the hearts of mortals.

We have been here before.