Removed - I would like to drop out as life just hit me and I don't think I'd be able to give your game the attention it deserves. I hope those that get in have a grand time though
Last edited by Nomad240; Nov 25th, 2023 at 06:41 PM.
☄️DM NOTE:☄️ I read what you said about walls of text and I promise you I did not mean for my backstory to turn into a whole-ass seven page novella (yes I pasted it into Word to count) yet here we are. My posts in-game would be much more concise lol. Also I kinda took some liberties just on the idea of "flesh horrors" so if anything I wrote is incompatible with what you've got planned, it can all be retconned at some point. Besides that, this is a complete application.
Appearance: If not for his pure white eyes, you might not even know Cyril Harwin was an Aasimar. Falling from the light cost him his halo and his few feathers, and despite being the only known member of his bloodline to show celestial influence, he has his father's raven-black hair. A handsome yet hard-faced man in his late twenties, he is not a friendly looking individual, a few scars line his face from his experiences beyond the walls, and he smiles little. He shaves but a regular crop of black stubble remains.
Personality: A man on the proverbial edge, Cyril has lost his way. Wandering from place to place, taking what jobs he can to survive, he's used to being alone, has been ever since he was cast out. Cyril's exile and brutal path through the first years of the virus have hardened him, put a dent in his ethics. This is a man who doesn't crave wanton violence, but will kill for gold if killing is the best work available. He was once a Paladin of justice and honor, but as far as Cyril is concerned, that man died in the first wave, and this new one lives for himself.
Motivations: The events at Pinefall left Cyril feeling like an outcast with no place in the world. He does what he does for money and to keep the boredom from killing him. He would tell you that he doesn't really know his motivations but he's subconsciously looking for somewhere to call home, even if it's in solitude. He holds a grudge against Tyr for putting so much of his life into serving and defending his people only to have it all taken away.
Flaws: Cyril's detest for gods of law and order have him in an ethical gray area where he finds very few things as truly unforgivable, barring injuring or killing children or harming an animal that isn't a threat. He'll work with cults or necromancers just as soon as he'd take a job from the watch of a Lawful Good city. Whichever one pays more, whichever one he decides.
plink. plink.
Rain on heavy plate. "Shite," thought Cyril Harwin, Paladin of Tyr, "From bad to worse." The rain would turn their battlefield into a swamp. Running around in plate, in a few inches of mud, water dripping over his visor? Hells. He wished his father was here. No Aasimar traits in Roland Harwin, it had skipped who knew how many generations before popping back up in Cyril, but he was a fierce fighter and smart thinker who'd collected military books. Died in a logging accident, years ago. He'd have some input on the clouds covering up the moonlight, certainly.
Cyril looked around at the militia he'd built. Three paladins and a pack of a hundred or so farmers, half of them old men or boys in their early teens, shaking in their boots but standing firm. "It'll have to do." Cyril thought. The village of Pinefall was not a populous one, and the men and women flanking him were the vast majority of its number. The children and the ones who were in no shape to fight were currently huddled in the church basement with a very minimal guard of even greener boys, even older old men. They were few, and they were untrained, but it was their home and they would fight to the death for it.
Word had come ten days ago. Disease had broken out, people were dying or being turned into horrific monsters. The virus was moving west from the city at an unavoidable speed and Pinefall stood directly in its path. With it traveled packs of what were being called "horrors," twisted creatures of misshapen flesh and killer instinct. Cyril had dedicated himself to protecting his home and its people when he'd taken his oath, and he gathered them immediately to discuss what was to be done.
Those who wanted to leave were allowed to leave, which were surprisingly few of them. Small-town people are wary of leaving home and will defend what little they know is theirs with tooth and claw. However, this was not a village made for war. No walls, no towers, no fighting force. Hastily made barricades were thrown up out of scrap wood, shallow ditches were dug and filled with flammable pitch, and Cyril sent all fifteen of the village's messenger pigeons to the other towns in the region calling for aid. Responses were few. The other two holy knights, Seria and Victor, were defenders of an ancient temple to the north and the village surrounding it. They had reported that on their way to Pinefall they'd passed many deserted towns and settlements. The people of theirs had all fled, and they had come to stem the tide that was pouring west before it reached their charge. None of the villages east of the river responded at all. The river was only twenty miles away. Cyril thought about that for a long time.
And then the day had come. Cyril was preparing to leave on a solo scouting run when the ones he'd sent to watch the eastern roads had come in from the hilltops at top speed, horses and men both gasping for air. Cyril felt his blood run cold. "Not now," he thought. "Tonight is the--"
"O-o-o-out of the woods," the scout said. "Monsters, made of broken flesh and corpse parts." They had mere hours. Cyril signaled for horns to be blown, for everything to be mobilized. The men were armed with what weapons they had, the least proficient holding the back line with farming tools and meat cleavers. They formed up, they quieted down, and they waited. In the front of them all stood Cyril, his halo visible in the darkness above his heavy plate helm, his maul in hand and at the ready.
"Gods, I wasn't even supposed to be here," he thought. "The astronomer said--"
A woman's voice from his left. "When they come, Victor and I will fight at your flanks. Consider your rear covered." Seria was trying to encourage him.
He turned to face her. She wore no helm, and though her voice was strong, he could see the fear in her eyes. "And why should she not be afraid?" he thought wryly. "We're all going to die." But he smiled, nodded, and said nothing. Time passed.
When the first horns blew from the scouts he'd sent into the trees, he jolted. He'd nodded off standing up. A last bit of energy conservation, he supposed. At least his body hadn't lost hope. They were coming.
The road into town led downhill, and visibility dropped a few hundred feet from where they stood. Now that the rain had started in earnest, even that much was a struggle. When first they saw motion, there was nothing discernable in it, it was an advancing flesh-colored blur, amorphous and strange. As it got closer, horrific details began to reveal themselves.
The creatures were disgusting abominations of repurposed flesh, the skin of all different races blending together in seamless sheets over scuttling horrors that seemingly ended in random appendages. But as they got closer, it became apparent that these appendages ended in sharp points, killing blades, or spikes. Most of the creatures had visible mouths, and as the villagers were soon to find out, these mouths contained rows of flesh-tearing needles. They came down the road, they came from between the trees.
When the first townsperson screamed, Cyril did not hesitate, he turned and faced his people, trying to make eye contact with as many as possible. "DO NOT FEAR WHAT COMES NEXT!" he bellowed, voice cutting through the sound of the rain and the hushed, uncertain murmur that rippled through the crowd in response to the scream. "DIE IF YOU MUST, BUT DIE FACING YOUR ENEMY. DO NOT SHOW THEM YOUR BACK! STAND WITH ME!" He held his great mace aloft over his head, and when Seria and Victor began clanging their weapons against their shields, the townspeople gathered themselves and joined in weakly with a fearful cheer. "It'll have to do." he thought again.
They'd built a row of spikes at the town's main entrance, surrounding the west side of town in a semicircle was a ditch full of lantern oil and straw. He signaled the farmers and torches were tossed in, a wall of flame appeared between them and the enemy, with only a small gap left for bottlenecking and slaughter. "WHEN THEY HIT THAT WALL, WE CHARGE THE GAP. THOSE OF YOU WITH BOWS, FOCUS ON ANYTHING THAT TRIES TO CLIMB THE SPIKES OR CLEAR THE FIRE." He didn't wait for a response. "STEADY," he shouted, Once, twice, three times. The first of the monsters began lining up to pass between the spikes. "NOW!" And they ran forward.
Two of the more eager young men of the village passed Cyril on either side. He had told them to charge behind him and it seemed they had no interest in falling behind a man in heavy armor. The first of them carried a shortsword and as he approached the front line he yelled in ferocity and raised his sword to strike the first abomination. Cyril saw a quick flash of motion from one of the creature's appendages and the boy spun way screaming, his severed sword arm twitching in the dust. Cyril began to call for one of the other holy warriors to heal the boy, but before he could get a syllable out, the limb stabbed out again, putting a hole through the boy's chest. His eyes rolled back in his head and his body unceremoniously slapped into the dirt.
The second boy had done some training in the city. He was nimble on his feet and dodged expertly as the monster slashed at him with its blade-like arm. He seemed to see an opening, and stabbed forward with his rapier, plunging it hilt-deep into the creature's side. He let out a triumphant sound that quickly turned to a scream of horror and pain as the wound he'd created opened into a gnawing mouth of blades and began pulling him in. Now the others had caught up, and Cyril saw Victor go to the boy's aid before having to turn to his own problems.
The first creature he came to slashed at him, and he felt the rattle of its strength in his armor though it didn't penetrate the plate. Charging through the attack he swung the maul overhand, letting the weight of it do most of the work. The blow hit the creature square, and blood burst from it in an arc. It made a feeble attempt at escaping, and he brought the mace's head down again, trying to keep as safe a distance as possible. It didn't move again. "Can crush the bastards at least" he thought, heading into the fray.
The fighting continued, and the town's peaceful entrance soon became a quagmire of bloody mud. Dozens of farmers lay in the muck, full of holes or torn to pieces. The militia had been forced back, down the town's main road to the church's entrance. The boys and elders protecting the sick and infirm had been called up. A few nurses waited below, knives in hand to cut the throats of the weak should the last bastion fall. They stood, back to the house of the gods, waiting to die. This was their last stand.
Cyril and Seria stood at the front, breathing heavily, bleeding from a dozen wounds. His helmet had been lost somewhere, seemed like hours ago. The damnable things were smart and had started aiming their attacks at the joints of their armor, looking to weaken them. His legs and shoulders were covered with tiny razor cuts. Cyril had passed Victor's corpse near the gate. He'd been torn in half at the waist.
Seria looked up at the sky one last time. The rain had stopped, the cloud cover was blowing away, and she watched in awe as the moon came out for the first time that night, full and bright. She turned to Cyril to make a joke about the rain, gallows humor at its finest, but when she looked into his eyes, she froze. He too had looked up at the moon, but what was on his face wasn't an acceptance of death, or resolve, or anything else you'd expect to see from a paladin facing his end. What she saw on his face was madness. He focused on the full moon with a singular intensity, lost in whatever he saw there. His eyes bright and fearful, filled with more terror than he had shown at any point during all this hell. She took a step away from him, the pack of horrors advancing on them momentarily forgotten, overwhelmed by concern and uncertainty. She said his name with caution, barely audible over the sounds of the injured and the fires. "Cyril?" He turned his gaze away from the moon and met her stare.
She saw him smile.
She saw his eyes turn a vibrant and bestial yellow.
She saw his teeth sharpen and elongate.
She saw a blur as something grabbed her by the throat.
She saw blood as she blacked out.
Cyril awoke. He lay face down in the mud, his mouth full of bloody dirt. His head hurt terribly, and his first weak attempts at movement made it all so hurt so much worse. He struggled his way up to a sitting position, spitting and coughing as awareness slowly crept back in. Had he died? Was this hell? It didn't smell like heaven. What in the hells had happened? He rubbed his face, and suddenly a giant bolt of pain ripped through his head. His senses momentarily heightened, he could smell every corpse, every burned bit of timber. He could hear every branch of the trees moving individually. A squirrel was in the tree closest to him, and the sound of the tiny creature rubbing its paws together was deafening. He let out a soft growl low in his throat and willed himself to silence. Squeezing his eyes together tightly he could only picture the moon, full and fat, dominating the night sky. He knew what had happened. And he'd been so godsdamned careful until now. He'd tried so hard. He forced his eyes open.
Corpses littered the square. Human, halfling, elf, horror. He looked for Seria and could not find her. Motion from the corner of his eye. An old woman sat on a bench. Her name was Eryn, she baked the village's bread. He'd known her his whole life. She looked at him with revulsion and pity. He felt something break in his heart. She looked away from him at a body on the ground to his left. He was a half-elf ranch hand from just outside town. Delivered the meat a lot of the time. He'd had his throat torn out. The wounds were clearly canine. Cyril shut his eyes and clenched his fists. He took a long moment before speaking. "How many did I--"
"Seven." She paused. Cyril knew she was trying to decide how much to tell him. "None of them suffered."
He looked up at her. He didn't know what to say. She spoke first. "How long have you been...whatever you are?"
"My whole life. I was born like this."
She shook her head in wonder. "All those years." She took a deep breath. "When you...changed, you attacked everyone and everything. You grabbed the other paladin by the neck and tossed her aside, then you charged right into a pack of those things, biting and scratching. The last of our boys who weren't injured joined you and while you were busy fighting a lot of the creatures slipped by and continued east. I think you made an impression on them. There was only a handful left when you turned on us. Three of the boys were dead before they could even react and the rest of them tried to fight you. It didn't end well."
Cyril shivered. He could think of nothing to say that wouldn't sound like so much useless gibberish.
"The rest of the folk here fled into the church with the children and the sick. we waited out the night. The rest passed us right by. In the morning we found you out here. Unconscious. Some folk wanted to kill you to keep you from hurting us when you woke up. Some said we should let you leave. You see who got the votes. You think there'll be more of those things?"
Cyril nodded.
She nodded right back. "Yeah. We think so too. We're going to try to bar up the church. It's a lot easier to hide now that there's less of us." She looked around the square, as if trying to remember what it looked like the day before. "We never found the other one, the woman you threw. Either the freaks took her corpse or she wandered off on her own."
He nodded again. Slowly he worked his way back to standing. He glanced around at what was once his home. "I'm sorry." He didn't know who he was saying it to.
"Don't be. We'd all be dead without you. Thirty-something people would have been torn apart by monsters if you hadn't been here. Despite all we've lost, and despite the few who's blood is on your hands, it's too bad your only reward for all these years of protection is to not have your throat cut in your sleep." He looked at her, shaken. She stood up and motioned at the ruins of the town. "Take whatever you need from what's left." He watched her back silently as she walked back towards the church.
Cyril stood in the square, alone. He felt nothing. Emotionless. He'd spent his whole life trying to hide his curse, his father's curse, going back who knew how many generations. He'd failed. And now the few people left in this realm who knew anything of him feared him as a monster. He had nothing. He'd taken up the armor and symbol of Tyr to protect his home, and now he had no home at all. He unfastened his shoulders and chestplate, heavy thuds as the thick steel armor hit the crimson mud below him. His cuirass came next, and his boots. He'd find some new ones in one of the houses or take some off a corpse. He would not wear that armor a moment longer. Tyr be damned. He would fight for himself and himself alone. If the gods of the light rewarded him with this, how much worse could the gods of the dark offer? He rattled off names in his head. Bane, Shar. Nothing was forsaken. Nothing was taboo. He'd thrown Tyr's symbols into the gutter. His oath was broken.
As the Aasimar walked out of the ruins of the village he'd spent most of his life in, as he turned away from his home forever, he did not look back. If you'd told him that as he did so, his halo slowly faded away and the few white feathers that grew from his shoulders fell out into the bloody dirt, he would not have been surprised.
Last edited by Greatsw0rd; Nov 15th, 2023 at 05:02 PM.
Oh, ho! More adventurers looking to get down with the sickness!
I'll get the list updated!
@Nomad240, Let me know when you're ready and I'll get you checked in as "Complete".
@GreatSw0rd, I'll give the substantial backstory a read when I find some time! Definitely appreciate the note about keeping it more concise in-game.
However, there is one kinda-but-not-really sneaky element from the advertisement that you'll need to find before I can get you checked off as complete. Make sure to give every section a readthrough and find the highlighted "thing".
Oh, ho! More adventurers looking to get down with the sickness!
I'll get the list updated!
@Nomad240, Let me know when you're ready and I'll get you checked in as "Complete".
@GreatSw0rd, I'll give the substantial backstory a read when I find some time! Definitely appreciate the note about keeping it more concise in-game.
However, there is one kinda-but-not-really sneaky element from the advertisement that you'll need to find before I can get you checked off as complete. Make sure to give every section a readthrough and find the highlighted "thing".
Your application looks good. I'll be going through them all before the last week to give out any pertinent feedback. Generally, I assume that basic details can be realigned after selections are made, so I'm not being too critical at this stage.
Hopefully this character isn’t too much for this campaign-if it is, I do have another concept, but this character just screamed at me to be written. ☄️
Sorry to be that person, but if you want to talk privately, could you please use Private Messages, rather than send an alert to anyone following this thread? Thanks!
Nov 14th, 2023, 02:50 PM
