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(noct) app
« PLAYER INFORMATION »
Name: Teej
Are you over 18?: yes!
Contact: probabiliteej @ plurk
Other characters, if any: n/a!
« CHARACTER INFORMATION »
Character: Emet-Selch
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon point: The end of Shadowbringers' main story in 5.0, immediately after his death.
OU or AU?: OU
Age: Ancient (over 13 or 14k, no exact age ever given)
Species: Unsundered Ancient - human in appearance, but with much larger reserves of magic and a complete soul, in comparison to the shard souls that mortals of his canon possess. He is closer to a being of magic than to a human, usually possessing a mortal body as a vessel.
« RECORD »
Disposition: Prior to his death, Emet-Selch sees the world very differently from the people who inhabit it-- most importantly, he doesn't see them as people at all. The entire world is a reminder of what was lost in the sundering of the original one, for Emet-Selch, and as the dutiful individual he is, he'll stop at nothing to see it restored; he intends to use what he sees as malformed lives as sacrifices to get his people back, insisting that after spending eons living among mortals, he's found them unworthy of the Ancients' legacy. Emet-Selch doesn't believe half of their population would ever die to save the other half, as the Ancients once did, and that their lack of cohesiveness and repeated wars are proof of their weakness. He holds that it's his responsibility to those he lost to restore them, and considers all their burdens to be his own; he sees himself as holding their hopes, dreams, despair, every unfulfilled hope they had before they were either sacrificed or sundered. This all combines into a degree of arrogance: of course sundered mortal souls mean nothing to him, of course he’s better than them as an Ancient, of course his immortality means they cannot touch or stop him. Death itself is only an inconvenience for him until he possesses a new body, and he can always just create a new scheme; it’s rare for him to feel threatened.
He's seen as eccentric even by those he works with, often difficult to predict; he even joins the player character and their companions to supposedly help them on their quest rather than working against them like they anticipated, though of course he keeps his real motives for doing so to himself up until the end, often appearing to check in on and bother them along the way. He doesn't do too much that doesn't suit his purposes in some way, but it isn't always clear how it works in his favor. Maybe sometimes he really is just bored, like he sometimes claims, but he can be hard for others to read (and tends to be trying to provoke particular reactions). In the original world, even his close friends don't seem to have received much direct care and affection from him, often cloaked in dryness or sarcasm and no small amount of exasperation with their antics... although he would, despite his complaints and scolding, help with whatever they needed. He just shows it in his own way, and the loss of his closest confidants and his people as a whole left him lonely for thousands of years, even driving him to recreate a memory of their civilization deep beneath the sea. A city full of ghosts, a reminder of what he was working for whenever he grew weary; always stuck in the past and fully focused on it, even recreating (intentionally or not) the ghost of his best friend there.
He's still the same sentimental person despite his feelings on the new world, though, unable to stay immune to it-- Emet-Selch was very fond of his mortal firstborn son, until his son's early death reminded him how fragile and weak humans were. He sounds completely different when talking about the past, quieter and more melancholy, sometimes wistful... and while he covers it with a glib facade for the most part, he's been carrying the weight of restoring the world he loves for millenia while living through repeated mortal lives. It’s been stated that holding on to the memories of what one loves helps to resist the enthrallment from a god, and he’s clung to them tightly while enthralled by the god they summoned to try to save their world. He is the Ascian who’s retained the most of his own sense of self and worked around that enthrallment to some degree, managing to give the protagonist information they’d never learn otherwise, remind them that killing him will help end the Ascian threat, watch them gain the power they'd need to defeat him, and even leave help for them after his own death. After dying and breaking his thrall to at least some extent, he’s still likely to look down on mortals, but will be less… you know, murderous. Probably more open to actually using his abilities and knowledge to assist. He won’t be exactly like he originally was, after everything he’s done and been through, but death should take some of the edge off.
Suitability: I'm mostly bringing him here to push him a bit! He's not a person who is normally inclined toward affection or touch, but who has been incredibly lonely and depressed for the last several thousand years; he lost everything and everyone he cared for, and has been focused on getting it all back rather than learning to love anything that did still exist. Putting him somewhere he's forced to acknowledge that as a need will be good for his post-death development, and he'll have a few reunions with familiar people to ease the way... which he'll need for the transformations, as well. Emet-Selch is unused to not being in full control of his body, and his culture perceived transforming around others as something to be avoided, so that loss of full control is going to be the most difficult thing for him to deal with. He's unlikely to be fully accepting for some time, and likely to treat native gems much in the way he did the mortals of his canon: not fully seeing them as equals until proven otherwise. He's not liable to act against or try to harm them, he can coexist, but he won't be particularly friendly about it unless he needs to be.
Condition upon arrival: Since he's coming in post-death, to make that viable I'm essentially sticking him with the mortal body he last possessed prior to it rather than restoring his true form; he needs a vessel to interact with mortals anyway! He'll retain a large scar from the method of his death, covering most of his torso. Coming in post-death will also ease his interactions, somewhat-- he has no pressing duty to return to now, and while he won't be thrilled about his soul not being in the Underworld where it belongs, there's less urgency to that than there was to fulfilling his duty before his death. He's tired, he wants a break-- and while this isn't really one, he's also not going to cause as many problems as a pre-death Emet-Selch might.
Abilities:
-On the non-magical front: many years of experience both guiding and leading imperial nations to suit the Ascians' goals, and a very very long memory.
-Aetheric sight: magic in FFXIV flows throughout the world, and the souls of the dead are a part of this flow before they're reincarnated. He can see the flow of magic and identify individual souls by color, both within the Lifestream and within their bodies while they're still alive.
-Shadow sorcery: he primarily makes use of shadow magic, and he can apply it in multiple different ways depending on the situation. This is shown to include forming exploding projectiles, forming barriers, creating an illusory copy of himself and other varied illusions, and shadow teleportation.
-Creation: The Ancients have the innate talent for creation magic. Rather than summoning things from elsewhere, they form what they wish to create out of magic, by focusing on the concept of the object. They cannot create anything sentient or anything with a soul, and this can be disrupted (for example, one of them trying to create clothes for themselves mentions they got distracted by children playing nearby, and accidentally made child-sized clothing instead.) This ranges from things like making robes to creating new creatures or even, in Emet's case, manifesting a whole city from magic and memory.
-Transformation: He can draw energy from the Lifestream and channel it through himself, enlarging and changing his form as well as amplifying his power.
-Ancient soul: Ascians don't actually have a physical form! They're more or less magical entities, and must possess a host body to be able to interact with most mortals; their souls also don't enter the Lifestream on death, leaving them free to just find a new body to possess and alter to suit their own image, if they want to change how it looks.
As far as immediate nerfs: given the way death works in this game, his usual immortality won't apply and he won't be body-hopping! Shadow teleportation also naturally will not allow him to leave, and will only work to teleport around locations unless you need that nerfed. His transformation is also normally huge, so if he used it at all, it would be limited to taking on elements of it and fully scaled down to human size. I'm totally willing to limit his creation magic as well, let me know if there are any other specific limits you'd like to apply.
Inventory: The red half-mask of the Seat of Emet-Selch; he had nothing else on him when he died.
Gembond: Emerald
Gem Location: On his forehead.
Name: Teej
Are you over 18?: yes!
Contact: probabiliteej @ plurk
Other characters, if any: n/a!
« CHARACTER INFORMATION »
Character: Emet-Selch
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon point: The end of Shadowbringers' main story in 5.0, immediately after his death.
OU or AU?: OU
Age: Ancient (over 13 or 14k, no exact age ever given)
Species: Unsundered Ancient - human in appearance, but with much larger reserves of magic and a complete soul, in comparison to the shard souls that mortals of his canon possess. He is closer to a being of magic than to a human, usually possessing a mortal body as a vessel.
« RECORD »
Disposition: Prior to his death, Emet-Selch sees the world very differently from the people who inhabit it-- most importantly, he doesn't see them as people at all. The entire world is a reminder of what was lost in the sundering of the original one, for Emet-Selch, and as the dutiful individual he is, he'll stop at nothing to see it restored; he intends to use what he sees as malformed lives as sacrifices to get his people back, insisting that after spending eons living among mortals, he's found them unworthy of the Ancients' legacy. Emet-Selch doesn't believe half of their population would ever die to save the other half, as the Ancients once did, and that their lack of cohesiveness and repeated wars are proof of their weakness. He holds that it's his responsibility to those he lost to restore them, and considers all their burdens to be his own; he sees himself as holding their hopes, dreams, despair, every unfulfilled hope they had before they were either sacrificed or sundered. This all combines into a degree of arrogance: of course sundered mortal souls mean nothing to him, of course he’s better than them as an Ancient, of course his immortality means they cannot touch or stop him. Death itself is only an inconvenience for him until he possesses a new body, and he can always just create a new scheme; it’s rare for him to feel threatened.
He's seen as eccentric even by those he works with, often difficult to predict; he even joins the player character and their companions to supposedly help them on their quest rather than working against them like they anticipated, though of course he keeps his real motives for doing so to himself up until the end, often appearing to check in on and bother them along the way. He doesn't do too much that doesn't suit his purposes in some way, but it isn't always clear how it works in his favor. Maybe sometimes he really is just bored, like he sometimes claims, but he can be hard for others to read (and tends to be trying to provoke particular reactions). In the original world, even his close friends don't seem to have received much direct care and affection from him, often cloaked in dryness or sarcasm and no small amount of exasperation with their antics... although he would, despite his complaints and scolding, help with whatever they needed. He just shows it in his own way, and the loss of his closest confidants and his people as a whole left him lonely for thousands of years, even driving him to recreate a memory of their civilization deep beneath the sea. A city full of ghosts, a reminder of what he was working for whenever he grew weary; always stuck in the past and fully focused on it, even recreating (intentionally or not) the ghost of his best friend there.
He's still the same sentimental person despite his feelings on the new world, though, unable to stay immune to it-- Emet-Selch was very fond of his mortal firstborn son, until his son's early death reminded him how fragile and weak humans were. He sounds completely different when talking about the past, quieter and more melancholy, sometimes wistful... and while he covers it with a glib facade for the most part, he's been carrying the weight of restoring the world he loves for millenia while living through repeated mortal lives. It’s been stated that holding on to the memories of what one loves helps to resist the enthrallment from a god, and he’s clung to them tightly while enthralled by the god they summoned to try to save their world. He is the Ascian who’s retained the most of his own sense of self and worked around that enthrallment to some degree, managing to give the protagonist information they’d never learn otherwise, remind them that killing him will help end the Ascian threat, watch them gain the power they'd need to defeat him, and even leave help for them after his own death. After dying and breaking his thrall to at least some extent, he’s still likely to look down on mortals, but will be less… you know, murderous. Probably more open to actually using his abilities and knowledge to assist. He won’t be exactly like he originally was, after everything he’s done and been through, but death should take some of the edge off.
Suitability: I'm mostly bringing him here to push him a bit! He's not a person who is normally inclined toward affection or touch, but who has been incredibly lonely and depressed for the last several thousand years; he lost everything and everyone he cared for, and has been focused on getting it all back rather than learning to love anything that did still exist. Putting him somewhere he's forced to acknowledge that as a need will be good for his post-death development, and he'll have a few reunions with familiar people to ease the way... which he'll need for the transformations, as well. Emet-Selch is unused to not being in full control of his body, and his culture perceived transforming around others as something to be avoided, so that loss of full control is going to be the most difficult thing for him to deal with. He's unlikely to be fully accepting for some time, and likely to treat native gems much in the way he did the mortals of his canon: not fully seeing them as equals until proven otherwise. He's not liable to act against or try to harm them, he can coexist, but he won't be particularly friendly about it unless he needs to be.
Condition upon arrival: Since he's coming in post-death, to make that viable I'm essentially sticking him with the mortal body he last possessed prior to it rather than restoring his true form; he needs a vessel to interact with mortals anyway! He'll retain a large scar from the method of his death, covering most of his torso. Coming in post-death will also ease his interactions, somewhat-- he has no pressing duty to return to now, and while he won't be thrilled about his soul not being in the Underworld where it belongs, there's less urgency to that than there was to fulfilling his duty before his death. He's tired, he wants a break-- and while this isn't really one, he's also not going to cause as many problems as a pre-death Emet-Selch might.
Abilities:
-On the non-magical front: many years of experience both guiding and leading imperial nations to suit the Ascians' goals, and a very very long memory.
-Aetheric sight: magic in FFXIV flows throughout the world, and the souls of the dead are a part of this flow before they're reincarnated. He can see the flow of magic and identify individual souls by color, both within the Lifestream and within their bodies while they're still alive.
-Shadow sorcery: he primarily makes use of shadow magic, and he can apply it in multiple different ways depending on the situation. This is shown to include forming exploding projectiles, forming barriers, creating an illusory copy of himself and other varied illusions, and shadow teleportation.
-Creation: The Ancients have the innate talent for creation magic. Rather than summoning things from elsewhere, they form what they wish to create out of magic, by focusing on the concept of the object. They cannot create anything sentient or anything with a soul, and this can be disrupted (for example, one of them trying to create clothes for themselves mentions they got distracted by children playing nearby, and accidentally made child-sized clothing instead.) This ranges from things like making robes to creating new creatures or even, in Emet's case, manifesting a whole city from magic and memory.
-Transformation: He can draw energy from the Lifestream and channel it through himself, enlarging and changing his form as well as amplifying his power.
-Ancient soul: Ascians don't actually have a physical form! They're more or less magical entities, and must possess a host body to be able to interact with most mortals; their souls also don't enter the Lifestream on death, leaving them free to just find a new body to possess and alter to suit their own image, if they want to change how it looks.
As far as immediate nerfs: given the way death works in this game, his usual immortality won't apply and he won't be body-hopping! Shadow teleportation also naturally will not allow him to leave, and will only work to teleport around locations unless you need that nerfed. His transformation is also normally huge, so if he used it at all, it would be limited to taking on elements of it and fully scaled down to human size. I'm totally willing to limit his creation magic as well, let me know if there are any other specific limits you'd like to apply.
Inventory: The red half-mask of the Seat of Emet-Selch; he had nothing else on him when he died.
Gembond: Emerald
Gem Location: On his forehead.