The Priest

Name: Lark
Age: OLD. (30+)
Contact: Plagueheart#0051 on Discord.
Other Characters: Myrobalan Shivana
Interests: I like playing weird alien critters finding human society wrong and dumb.


Name: Ebon-Plumed Sorcerer Who Frightens Beasts (aka the Priest)
Canon/OC: OC
Canon Point: While dreaming in the void for direction on hunting the apostates.
Journal: divineshadow
Age: Mature adult.

Canon World

Rymning is a broken world circling a dim star in a dying universe. Its sole sapient inhabitants are the djur, a race of eusocial insectoid monsters, who wage constant war against the eldritch predatory beasts that throng the shattered planetoid. Rifts to the lightless void--a realm occupied solely by gods the djur know only as the Divine Shadow--dot the surface, beckoning the foolish to painful, maddening deaths. Only the Priests may pass there, dreaming strange dreams and growing in the magic that is theirs by birthright.

Djur society is founded on the backs of a biological caste system: Queens birth offspring and rule the hives, soldiers defend them, workers maintain them, and males are consorts to queens. The Priests exist outside the structure of the hive and demands of reproduction; they cull the weak and the heretical, enforce orthodox worship of the Divine Shadow, oversee the exchange of males between hives, lead hunts of certain most dangerous beasts, bind djur spirits to the afterlife and service of the living djur--in short, they maintain djur cultural and physical evolution with an iron claw, shaping it in the way the Divine Shadow will. Their religion does not have much of hope or comfort: The djur expect to die in the impending collapse of the universe if they do not please the Divine Shadow, who hold out the promise of worlds without end to conquer should the djur become strong enough.

The djur place great value on strength, obedience, brutal forthrightness; theirs is a ruthless might-makes-right ethos that dictates a defined place for every member of society, enforced by the demands of their biology and the extremity of Rymning's environment. Djur who deviate too far from their role are ruthlessly destroyed if they do not commit suicide--with one remarkable exception: soldiers who are too long away from a queen's suppressive influence may develop into queens on their own, something that has kept the race alive through depredations of queen-killing beasts. Despite this, there have always been apostates who strive for peace and unity between the hives, asserting the djur might yet find their own way to a new home, without the assistance of predatory gods.

Rymning of the Priest's time is very near the end of days. The sky is black and starless, day and night. What djur hives remain live entirely beneath Rymning's surface, huddled in cities their ancestors had the resources to build but they can now scarcely maintain. The beasts have grown larger, more dangerous, more inscrutable as the endless night closes in; and terrifyingly, djur spirits have begun to disappear, apparently dead in combat with bestial pneumavores. The Divine Shadow demand ever more of Their Priests, driving the djur to war more often against each other. Despite this, apostate Priests and would-be queens bent on peace between the hives proliferate. It is all the faithful can do to root them out and destroy them in the Divine Shadow's name.

History

+ Born to the queen of a small hive whose name is now forgotten, one of three sibling-priests in a clutch of thousands. Given the use-name Beasts-Defy by the Priest who oversaw the birth.

+ Had a "stereotypical" djur childhood, kept in a nursery with the rest of the clutch, many of whom starved or were carried off by small invading beasts.

+ Set out to find a void rift as soon as possible, to dream in it and receive a name and power from the Divine Shadow.

+ Passed through the ordeal with a certain fanatical élan and holy awe for the horrifying majesty of the djur's gods; received the name Ebon-Plumed Sorcerer Who Frightens Beasts. Dyed own plumes trueblack to match the name as a sign of fierce devotion.

+ Returned and apprenticed to an older Priest to learn the craft and practice of Priesthood. Developed an intense rivalry-cum-romantic friendship with a fellow apprentice, Servant of Iron and Silk. They were well-matched in their fanatical devotion to their people and the Divine Shadow and grew to regard each other (insomuch as djur can) as the most important person in the world.

+ In the fiftieth year of service, Sorcerer bore witness to a disturbing trend: Elevated soldiers--would-be queens--began appearing by the score. Worrisome by itself, this was made worse by the fact many of the queens were deeply heretical, refusing war in favor of cooperation to make the best of scarce resources. Sorcerer told Servant of these findings and launched a campaign against the pacifists.

+ Sorcerer discovered a male in a pacifist hive who should have been culled years prior by none other than Servant. Furious and betrayed, Sorcerer went to confront the other Priest over this perfidy. Servant attempted reason, laying out the cause for apostasy from the Divine Shadow. Sorcerer would hear none of it and attacked Servant instead. Though the pair were well-matched, Sorcerer triumphed and killed Servant.

+ Grieving, Sorcerer turned immediately to the Divine Shadow, retreating to dream in the void for a sense of renewed purpose and direction on routing the apostates--who must now rival the faithful Priests in numbers. But instead of a dream of direction, Sorcerer found a way to Thedas instead...

Personality

One cannot love gods; the Divine Shadow are unlovable, inscrutable. The Priest's devotion to them is forged of iron duty and genetic obligation. The Divine Shadow created Priests to serve and guide the djur in the path the Divine Shadow would have them go; ergo, this Priest serves with all-consuming zeal, particular in every point down to a flair for understated drama and a kind of deific vanity. The Priest is the gods' terrible instrument; all who look upon the Priest should be reminded of that fact. In this, the Priest stands out from the rest of the caste; few others would be so driven by appearances as to dye their plumes trueblack to match their god-given names.

The djur carry a deep racial animus against their creators: The alfar created them as tools, with every intent of discarding them once escape was secured. Even though the alfar were driven to extinction in the days of the Priest's grandmothers, the Priest keeps the stories of alfar perfidy and decadence alive, and cherishes that hatred keenly, as a personal virtue. Anything that smacks of the djur's creator race or their foul practices is fit for revilement.

Djur do not rejoice in being made, in existing in a world increasingly hostile even to them; they merely survive in hopes of better after death, and it is this "better" the Priest fights to secure. Conventionally fearless in the face of terrible odds--Priests fight and best creatures, including djur queens, many times their size--the Priest nevertheless harbors a great and consuming horror for the fate of the djur race. Anything that might save them from the collapse of their universe is worth pursuing; if the Veil can be rent to secure escape for the djur to Thedas, then that is what the Priest will do. The Priest's determination is absolute in this and much else.

The Priest is capable of deep loyalty. But among the Priests, friends do not die for each other. All Priests will one day die in their office, and Priests who die go gloriously to their deaths in the service of the race--or else, suffer for their own hubris or stupidity or simply age; their deaths are appointed at the hour they arrive and no later, and to sacrifice one's own life to prevent the death of a friend is unthinkable. Outside the caste, a Priest may die to save a queen, may risk death to save males, but will go to no such ends for mere soldiers or workers or even a whole hive, unless the hive's death would mean the death of a queen. The Priest therefore approaches loyalties with a kind of calculation unthinkable to most humans, weighing lives in the balance of utility to the whole race rather than mere personal affection.

Which is not to say the Priest will not mourn those losses deeply--only do nothing to prevent them, if death would result.

Strengths & Weaknesses
+ Determined. Once committed, the Priest does not uncommit, and will do whatever is required (so long as it is moral, to a djur) to accomplish a goal.

+ Hardened. The Priest has been regular witness to eldritch horrors, a regular participant in more mundane ones, and so is not easily frightened or fazed.

+ Survivor. One does not survive on Rymning as long as the Priest has without being observant, opportunistic, and canny. The Priest has a great well of patience, a keen eye, and the resourcefulness to make the best of very bad situations.

- Alien. The djur are a eusocial species with a strict caste system that dictates social role and licit interpersonal relations. They have emotions analogous to those of humans (dwarves, elves, qunari), but these attach to very different experiences. While the translation process through the rift has given the Priest the roughest idea of what "being human" is, the Priest is not human, does not wish to be human, and does not wish to understand or get along with them further than is absolutely needful.

- Altered. The human form is vastly smaller and more limited than a djur body. The Priest will be some time adapting to being shorn of certain senses and crippled in important ways.

- Determined. The Priest is so committed to the Divine Shadow and Their path for the djur as to admit no other possibility for the race. Likewise, the Priest is slow to appreciate the idea djur virtues may not apply globally--may in fact not be virtues at all, to other races.

- Truthful. As a religious rule, the djur do not lie or engage in active deception against other sapients. (Ambush hunting of beasts is acceptable.) The Priest may withhold information entirely, or offer only parts of it, but will never tell an untruth.

Abilities: The djur were made to eliminate Rymning's beasts and terraform the planetoid for alfar occupation. A "typical" djur of the soldier caste is nearly the size of a mature Thedosian dragon and the queens rival high dragons in size. They are strong, and swift, and have a predator's array of sharp senses (sight, hearing, smell) and natural weaponry. They also have voices that range into the infrasound, touching frequencies that cause anything from mild unease to stark terror in humanoids; worse, they can summon the ghosts of their own dead to aid them in battle.

Smaller and leaner than the queens they're meant to police and the beasts they're meant to slay, djur Priests are venomous and endowed with magic that enables them to perform their function for djur society. They have a supernatural sense for social organization and loyalties between individuals known as raveling, allowing them to quickly detect when a hive has begun to fall to disorder or heresy. Likewise, they know a lie when it is uttered and can pierce through knowing deception to find the truth. Priests also practice a form of magic-empowered hand-to-hand (claw-to-claw) combat that makes them particularly deadly with unarmed strikes and capable of extreme feats of acrobatics and dexterity. Think your archetypical spirit-empowered monk, albeit instead of chi they draw on ~~DARK ENYRGYES OF YE VOIDE~~.

Suggested Nerfs

The Priest will not retain most of the djur package of supersenses & "being a macropredator from a hellworld" because that's all contigent on unique biology that goes away on hitting Thedas. Raveling will be line-of-sight only like Thedosian magic and won't reveal links to anyone that's beyond the Priest's line of sight, even if they are previously known connections, and the Priest will only be able to intuit whether a connection is emotionally positive or emotionally negative, not any details.

I am not sure if it would require an opt-out (I feel like it probably warrants one because it's another way of gaining knowledge passively about characters without them deliberately disclosing it) but can provide one if required. I can axe the lie detection entirely if it would be too much trouble to play around even with an opt-out, though I would like to keep it at the "knows a lie was uttered but not what it was" level if I could!

The ghost-summoning and infrasound creepiness are also biologically mediated but I would like to keep them at a reduced level where the Priest can only creep people out for short bursts (similar to a Fear spell from the Entropy school) and only briefly summons weak spirits for a combat assist at first, with better ones possible through sustained practice.

MOD NOTES:

↠ You’ll need an opt-out post for her raveling and lie-detecting abilities. Both will be limited in terms of detail: the raveling will be able to sense general positive vs. negative but not pinpoint the precise emotion involved unless a player approves it, and her lie detection will be limited to a general sense someone is lying, with no ability to pinpoint precisely what they're lying about. (If multiple people are speaking at once it may even be difficult to tell who is lying, precisely.) If it didn’t already, this ability will also depend on whether or not someone believes they’re telling the truth or not, rather than objective facts.

↠ Neither will work with the reliability she may be accustomed to and can be interfered with by things such as lingering ambient magic, Veil fluctuations, or anti-magic abilities/wards/objects—whatever is necessary to explain why they won’t work on everyone who opts out or during plots/mysteries that would be made less fun rather than more fun for the other participants if she were to immediately see through deception.

↠ The creepy voice is fine, but whether characters are unnerved by it will be up to their players. (This is also the case with spells like Horror.) The use of spirits is okay but only on the same scale as those routinely used by native mages—wisps/wraiths, horror, etc., but not the more complex kind requiring summoning rituals or specific specializations.

Arrival Inventory

I want the Priest to arrive totally naked and unequipped except for one extremely large tooth.

Unless I'm also allowed to bring a bunch of elder gods along, since that's the only other thing in there when a Priest is dreaming in the void.

'Human'ization

Djur Priests are beetle-shark-bird hybrids approximately the size of a small bus--so obviously the Priest should come through the rift as a dragon.

More seriously, human. Suspiciously androgynous human.

Fit

We've got a lot of rifters who see similarities with elves or mages (or both) and so latch on to and support their causes. I'm interested in playing a rifter who finds the qunari vastly more sympathetic than any other political faction, who wants to see the world reorganized not to render justice to one or another group but because a world ruled by the Qun is simply more correct. (And a world ruled by the djur would be the most correct of all, but the Priest needs to work out how to bring that into being.) Basically I'd like to play a rifter who kicks things over and wrecks them in a way less popular way. The Circles are a proportionate response to mages, the Qun is good, everyone rebelling left and right because they don't have freedom is a heretic at best, etc.

Being very alien relative to Thedosian society and most rifter mentalities is icing on the cake!


1 & 2, the Priest adopts Vandelin and argues with a bird about sapience.