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 Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 8:55 pm
Welcome to the panel discussion for my two favorite evolving items, Hoarfrost Pass and My Dearly Damned! This panel is about all things Cicero, Stieg, Roseus, and Serotina! NPCs from chance items and evolving items tend to get overlooked in favor of our colorful cast of shopkeepers and manga regulars, but they include some of the most intriguing characters on the site! Many chance items and evolving items feature intricate and unique storylines that leave me wanting to know more about the characters involved, and the characters and plot of evolving items, not to mention the way they explore a variety of settings in Gaia's past, present, and future, have made them one of my favorite types of items on the site. While all NPCs are deserving of love and affection and often overlooked chance item and evolving item characters can always use more attention, this panel focuses on the NPCs from two of my favorite evolving items. Both of them are the creations of reapersun, the artist behind many wonderful NPCs and evolving items! Hoarfrost PassHoarfrost Pass first appeared on July 3, 2013. This item required a choice between two paths - that of the Centurion Cicero, sent to rescue the emperor's daughter, and of the Northman Stieg, an exile from his own people who was defeated by Cicero in combat and agreed to be his guide. Useful Links:Associated Items:         My Dearly DamnedUnlike Cicero and Stieg, angel Roseus and demon Serotina began their Gaian career as NPCs in the chance item Luminous Void in October 2014. They were the source of much speculation, and many of us wanted to know the conclusion of their story. Thankfully the evolving item My Dearly Damned appeared on December 18, 2014 and gave us both their backstory and the resolution of their tale! Useful Links:Associated Items:       Art of both couples also appeared in the February 2015 CI Ships Going Down. Table of Contents: gaia_angelleft Introduction
gaia_nitemareright Hoarfrost Pass: Cicero and Stieg
gaia_angelleft My Dearly Damned: Roseus and Serotina
gaia_nitemareright Contest and Prizes
gaia_angelleft Discussion
gaia_nitemareright Credits
gaia_angelleft Links
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 8:59 pm
 Cicero is a centurion of the Empire, far south of the wastelands. Bade by the emperor to rescue his youngest daughter, kidnapped by a mysterious enemy, he finds himself struggling survive the uncharted wastes. At the infamous pass, he is challenged by a nomadic northern warrior, a barbarian. Cicero's sophisticated techniques best his opponent, but only just; Cicero is startled and impressed by the warrior's raw passion and strength. Although all he knows about the northmen indicate that they can't be trusted, he takes a risk and proposes a bargain: he'll spare his life if he'll help him navigate the land and find the princess. Stieg "the Wretched" has mastered survival in the wasteland. He was once known and feared for his "blood rage" in battle; eventually his ability became so consuming that he lost himself, attacking even his own comrades. His own people believed he was a devil and felt no empathy, and exiled him. One day he cast his runes and read that he would meet a stranger from a warm land who could change his fate. He finally meets him at the Pass, a warrior from the south empire; Stieg challenges him, believing his fate will change through battle, as it always has. However, his opponent's calm and controlled fighting style is new to him, and he finds he's unable to invoke his blood rage against it. Upon defeat, he agrees to the man's terms... with no intent to follow through. He vows to cut his throat at the soonest chance. The warriors travel further into the wasteland, hunting for signs of the stolen girl. Each man keeps a vigilant eye on the other, watching for threats or openings. Since they study little else but their companion, they inevitably notice small details. Cicero observes the way Stieg finds fish under the ice, the practical way he carves animals and cures hide, how he tracks signs across the ice and snow. He realizes the Northman is not barbaric, merely better adapted to the land than to polite society. Cicero begins to wonder how this stranger would react to his homeland in the south, the great empire with its grand stone temples and shining gold sculptures, the likes of which have never been seen by northern men. Stieg, determined to betray his companion, begins to spy on Cicero during his training exercises. He is again impressed by his controlled technique, noticing his scarless body (compared to his own, scarred a dozen times) and recalling the ease of his defeat. He's suddenly no longer ashamed to have been beaten by this warrior, who has obviously seen battle yet never taken a wound. On the twelfth night into their journey, Stieg realizes somewhat uneasily that he doesn't want to kill the Centurion. Meanwhile, Cicero imagines showing Stieg his faraway city, all the while knowing the Northman could never set foot there, where he would be viewed by those less observant as a barbarian, lower than a dog, and executed... Far into the wasteland, Stieg and Cicero find tracks leading to an abandoned fortress on the ice. They split up to search, only to discover the fortress is not deserted... Cicero finds the princess in a high tower. She begs him to stay with her in the Northlands, away from her overbearing father. He refuses, determined to fulfill his duty to the emperor. The Princess' eyes grow empty... Stieg finds the princess in a low dungeon, readying her sword. She smiles darkly and says, "Two brave warriors... Two Princesses. One of us is real, possessed. The other..." She giggles. "My double is with the Centurion now. The Princess is a strong warrior... We have probably already killed him!" With a roar, Stieg launches himself at the woman, and steel meets steel. She's strong, stronger than him, but she's from the same school of combat as Cicero, and so Stieg knows her techniques. Until suddenly, the second Princess appears, face twisted, and Stieg is overpowered, his axe knocked from his hand. The Princesses raise their swords together for the killing strike... At that moment, Cicero bursts from the shadows and intercepts the blow, taking a near fatal wound to protect his friend. Stieg sees the blood, and slips into his berserker state. The Princesses are taken aback, not expecting this display of passion from the lone warrior. The pair suddenly find themselves at his mercy, and just as Stieg raises his axe to slay them both, he hesitates. At that moment, he realizes he can control the blood rage that he had been helpless against before. He chooses then to strike down the Princess with the shifting face, and leaves the other unharmed. She gasps and collapses, relief and gladness returning to her eyes. The Princess is saved! Stieg agrees then to help the Princess and the wounded Cicero return to the southern warmlands. He binds the wounds carefully and they begin the journey back to the Pass, where they will part ways. On the last night, they have a large fire, and the Princess takes leave early to rest. In the early hours of morning, she imagines she hears soft whispering over the crackling of the fire... Upon his return to the city, Cicero is offered the Princess in marriage for returning her safely. He tells the emperor, "We still don't understand the enemy which took her. I would rather have permission to travel north again, to investigate further threats to the empire." The emperor is reluctant to lose the hero, and deliberates for several weeks. At last, he agrees. Meanwhile, Stieg travels west to his homelands. His people recognize that he is no longer enslaved to his blood rage and allow him to live among them again. Now he carries a different weight on his shoulders. One day, an eagle finds him, carrying the latest of many letters. It contains an oath, promising the sender will meet him at the pass before the month ends. Stieg reads runes before he sets out on his journey, and sees the quiet pattern of the dawn stars. Long after Cicero has left his city, a whisper spreads. A shaken servant, a woman responsible for dressing and bathing the girl since she was small, tells it one evening to her close friends. She speaks of a small girl with a birthmark shaped like a cornflower, and a woman who returned from the Northlands who had no birthmark. She speaks of a darkness in the Princess' eyes that others do not notice. The next morning, the servant is gone. Far in the north in a frozen fortress, a woman's body lies, the flower mark on her skin buried and secret with her, beneath the ice and snow. (The above comic was drawn by reapersun as a prize for Kamiki, who won the Hoarfrost Pass fanfiction contest and shared the comic here.)
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:01 pm
From the chance item Luminous Void:You tumble out of the void only to land directly in the lap of a handsome angel. For a moment his face brightens, but his expression quickly falls. “Oh,” he sighs, utterly crestfallen, “for a moment I thought you were him.” You carefully separate from the angel who introduces himself as Roseus. He’s been searching for the right incantation to summon his long lost love for eons without success. Before sending you on your way, he gives you a divine parting gift for listening to his sad story!  You plummet face first out of the void, landing in a heap in front what appears to be a dangerous demon. He fixes you with a hard glare for a moment before finally offering a hand to help you to your feet. “Careful. Your first time traveling is alway disorienting.” he grunts. Serotina -- as he is called -- tells you that he’s experienced at traveling through different realms and dimensions, as he’s been to countless realities. Alas, he can never find what he’s looking for… He offers you a small gift before helping you through the portal back to your realm. From the evolving item My Dearly Damned:Many believe angels and demons are antitheses, enemies destined to conflict for all eternity. But what they don't know is that they are the same ilk, and it is only a long and violent history of deceit and prejudice that separates them. They were once brothers and sisters, families, lovers. And sometimes, this fact reasserts itself... In a dark age, but long after the darkest ages, an angel came to the ground to search for a demon. He was meant to hate and avoid them, as he had been taught his whole youth, but he could not contain a burgeoning fascination that set him apart from his celestial brethren. So one day, he stole an ancient book, hid on the mortal plane, and attempted to summon one. The demon, a lower servant of hell, had never taken pleasure in torture and suffering like his kin, and spent his days avoiding them in the underworld. Perhaps this isolation was why he was the easiest to rip out onto the mortal plane. Startled, then furious, he whirled to find the one who summoned him... and froze. A string of ancient satanic expletives ran through his head, just as the angel uttered a quiet holy word. Both vocalizations roughly translate in modern language to the equivalent of, "Oh no. He's hot." They agreed to meet again, the angel eagerly, the demon reluctantly but unable to resist, and one meeting turned to two, then four, then countless times. They spoke about their worlds, strictly intellectually at first, until eventually they smiled and laughed and talked about anything and nothing at all. They would argue about it later, because Serotina was stubborn and embarrassed, but he was definitely the one who kissed Roseus first, not the other way around. In this time, as their love for each other grew, so did their fear that they would be discovered. They had nothing to lose initially, when they were merely curious about each other, but now, it was everything. One night, the demon overheard one of his brothers talking with another about how the angels were preparing to send one of their executioners, the Wheel, after a rogue who was thought to be consorting with demons; he fled home to Roseus and they embraced, and swore a vow to one another. "Even if we are apart..." Roseus murmured. "We shall never be parted." Serotina finished. Then, just as the Wheel was upon them, they opened the book and banished themselves to the void between worlds. The spell was vicious, and pulled them away from each other. The nature of the void is not fixed, simultaneously as small as a room and as large as a universe. One could wander for eternity and not find something right beside them, or they could be light years apart and suddenly turn and see each other. If they exited, they could be in any universe, any dimension, out of infinite possibilities, and knew they should only do so together. Parted, they had no hope and every hope of finding one another again. They were at the mercy of the void. This in mind, they held out what hope they could, and searched for each other for many years. Unfortunately, the Wheel was also drawn into the void through the portal they made... It had been so long, and not long at all, when Roseus turned one day and saw it. Serotina heard the cry across the light years and dimensions, his name howled into the void, lancing him like a harpoon and reeling him across the impossible space to its source. He threw out his wings and flew as fast as he could, for what felt like ages, and no time at all. When he found his husband, the Wheel was already gone. Roseus had slipped into a pocket of the void, a not quite real secret place, a lovely golden field and warm sky. He lay among the grasses, pink and white and red. Serotina found him, and collapsed, wailed. According to the laws of his people, Roseus had been executed. Serotina wept. He wept until he had no tears left, until he wept blood, until his very essence streamed from him, and his body collapsed, and he became the soil that covered the grave of his lover. They would be together forever. "And then they say that flowers grew there. Maroon and dark red blossoms. And pink butterflies and small birds came to land on them." The child closed the homemade book emphatically. "The end." Father's mouth gaped and Papa's face was pale. "That's a really sad ending, Filaree," Father said. Fil sniffed indignantly. "It's sad on purpose! It makes you think about all the happy things in your life and appreciate them." The parents shared a look. This wasn't the first time the child had shocked them; their offspring would naturally always fall between light and dark, saintly and impish, loving and a little bit wicked. But they had each always been a bit of both anyway, and were all quite content living there together. Aside from the kid's hobby of writing really tragic RPF. That was pretty weird. As they tucked the child into bed with a goodnight kiss, Papa seemed distracted. Later, as they closed the door to their room, in their little dark house on the golden field, Serotina suddenly whirled and drew Roseus into a fierce embrace. "It could have been true," Serotina murmured in the dark. "Fil's story. If I hadn't found you in time and helped you defeat the Wheel... If I hadn't..." "...Impossible." Roseus whispered, holding his husband tighter. "I could never have left you with such an unhappy ending."
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:12 pm
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:15 pm
gaia_angelleft Which of these two evolving items is your favorite and why? gaia_nitemareright Of the four NPCs in this panel, which one is your favorite and why? gaia_angelleft Do you have any theories about how the settings and ideas in these stories are connected to the larger world of Gaia? Is the Void featured in Luminous Void and My Dearly Damned the same as the one Nyx was imprisoned in? Was Mephiste, the villain of many evolving items, responsible for kidnapping the princess? gaia_nitemareright Do you have any favorite NPCs from chance items or evolving items? If so, how are you hoping they will appear again on the site? Loyal was a chance item NPC before becoming a shopkeeper - could you see your favorite NPC becoming a shopkeeper, being featured in an event, appearing in the manga, or getting an LQI or EI of their own? gaia_angelleft Do you ship any of Gaia's NPCs? If so, who? Are there any pairings you'd like to see more of (either involving specific characters or type of pairings)? gaia_nitemareright If you could design your own evolving item, what would it be like? What sort of characters would it feature? What would the plot be? Where would it take place? gaia_angelleft What sort of evolving items do you hope Gaia will make in the future?
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:16 pm
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 2:21 pm
Links In [img]http://tinyurl.com/qx552gb[/img] Links OutWant a link to your NPC-themed panel, thread, or contest here? Please quote me! >>GCA banner and others go here when links are live!<<
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