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What Has Gone Before....

The birth of magic...three goddesses were banished here. In time they began quarreling, which led to all-out war. Those unlucky humans who got in the way were transformed to Espers, and used as living war machines...

The goddesses finally realized that they were being laughed at by those who had banished them here. In a rare moment of mutual clarity, they agreed to seal themselves away from the world.

With their last ounce of energy they gave the Espers back their own free will, and then transformed themselves......into stone. Their only request was that the Espers keep them sealed away for all eternity.

The Espers created these statues as a symbol of their vow to let the goddesses sleep in peace. The Espers have sworn to keep the goddesses' power from being abused...


1) Kefka Palazzo was a kitchen boy "taken in" by the Emperor Gestahl at the age of ten after his mother's untimely death. She was the poorest of poor, one of the Palace's lowest servants, and missed by no one save her son. His father's whereabouts or even his identity were unknown....perhaps even by his mother.

Kefka was a good child...else the change after the failed testing wouldn't have been so noticeable. But, he was filled in his grief with a little boy's rage at the world for his loss.

In the first experiment, he was given a large dose of the living essence drained from the Espers....far too large. It allowed the Espers' full awarenesses, not merely their magic, to enter the boy.

They had been killed in Cid's lab, and watched others die before them....then were pumped full-strength into a child's bloodstream, mad for understandable revenge.

Put yourselves in their place. You were taken from your home, stuck in a tube and robbed of your lifeforce along with your loved ones...then cast away like garbage to die. How would you feel towards the perpetrators?

I, myself, would be insane to lash out and make them pay....and given the Espers' general attitudes towards humans and vice-versa, I would say that would extend to all humanity. "Them or us"....with Kefka as their only means to, now.

The overdose had another effect, though....it made Kefka the most potent of all the young Magitek Knights-to-be. So power-hungry Gestahl kept him, and kept him close, despite his clearly "damaged" mind....leaving the way clear to make humanity pay more than would have been hoped.

The Espers found it easy to control the boy in such an isolated, cold environment, and through the child's own fury at everything over losing all he knew. The man he grew to be has never been able to be really more than the most basic impulses and emotions, superceded or manipulated by the essences coursing through him. He has never had opportunity to feel anything more than the hate and rage they feed him and feed on from him.

The extreme dosage also permanently left his eyes reddened and gave his skin a sickly, bruised pallor.

2) In FF6, Kefka absorbed the power of the three Esper Deities.

When he was destroyed, much of that power was scattered, and pulled back into the Esper realm as all magic left the human world.

But half of it resurrected him, as the essences already in his body fought with all their might to keep their host alive, to keep themselves alive within him as he faded into Limbo.

Roughly a third of the essence left then latched onto a living being in the human world...Gogo, an enigmatic figure, powerful even without magic, now living in the Dark Ruins where Kefka's Tower had stood. Gogo was a fourth deity banished here, lost to the ages....a god of the dead. He was stripped of his power by the three goddesses...and then, after the statues and Kefka fell, that small part of the power came back at last to one its original owners....him.
Kefka finally leaving Limbo is the reason the balance was disturbed, drawing the rest of the energy back from the Esper world.

That last, largest portion then fused with the petrified Queen of Ancient Castle, Runako Inani, and revived her to flesh and blood.

They are the three new Esper Deities.

Next to Kefka, Runako is the most powerful, and then Gogo.

The Deities are the source of magic. When the three are awakened, any human with magic in their blood finds their powers returned, and all can learn spells from the Espers. However, they are not ALL the magic in the worlds, powerful as they are....else the heroes wouldn't have been able to use their spells in the final battle and such. ;p They are merely the catalyst that allows its use. Magically-created beings such as Espers do not need their proximity to use their magic....humans do. But Espers need the Deities' presence in the human world to be able to go there themselves.

3) Runako basically has two flavors: insane rage for the world that went on as all she knew crumbled around her, and desperate need for what she lost....or never had....although in her grief she has all but blocked her memories of the past.

She destroys the Ancient Castle in a fury of anguish when the spell is lifted from her.

Edgar and Figaro find her unconscious on the return trip from Kohlingen.

After she awakens, she begins to attack in a blind rage.

But the boy Kael freezes her in her tracks. A child....a family....how she had wanted that....

Runako grabs the unconscious Kael from the destruction, and flees.

She looks to escape someplace secluded...away from the hated world, with her "son".....

Triangle Island, known to be uninhabited, even in her time. Someplace to clear her mind, in such a turmoil.....

Kael comes to and goes "exploring" in the deep caves of the Zone-Eater's nest, and she follows.....

And there's a man there....needing her help. All her unrequited desires for romantic love are then projected upon Kefka....and soon, she will "bare her soul" to this new "noble, elegant man". razz

The Espers within Kefka recognize Runako is one of the other two Deities with certainty when she uses her magic...the Empowerment spell, her tear lending him her strength....in an effort to heal him.

Gogo is basically good. He seems to innately know the goodness in a person, and will help them if they need it, as he demonstrated when complete strangers decided to enter his home unannounced.

Seeking out the holders of the other Deity power, Gogo sensed the goodness that remained in Runako, as well as the secret of the murderous urges driving Kefka, and decided that the best way to help all was to join them.

4) The Esper Elder, left barely alive from the spell that sealed their world from humanity, stays in secret to move as he sees fit against the humans, away from his much more pacifistic fellows. Eventually, he had become involved in the control of Kefka during his murderous command as a General of the Empire....and was finally able to raise him from Limbo when Strago and the expedition to Ebot's Rock opened the Gate there. His "lieutenants" are Shadow Dragon, Ogopogo and Wyvern.

Shadow Dragon: The son of Gogo and an Esper, Shadow Dragon is essentially a demigod, and able to move about in the human world without the Deities' energy. Having escaped the soldiers who dragged him off in Gestahl's invasion of the Realm, he has acted as the Elder's eyes in the human world since, and also aided in Kefka's control during the Empire's reign. He hates humans as his mother did, and hates Gogo for not feeling the same and for not staying with his mother. He is the "archaeologist" that discovered the Ebot's Rock Gate, setting all their plans into motion as the open gate allowed the Esper Elder to raise Kefka from Limbo.
Main Attack: Disruption, insta-kill, non-reflectable, single attack. Life2 practically required to keep party alive.

Wyvern: Twin of Bahamut.
Main Attack: Megaflare, radiation attack, reflectable, single or multiple.

Ogopogo: Twin of Leviathan.
Main Attack: Tidal Attack, water attack, non-reflectable, multiple attack, weak against thunder.

Five of their known underlings are Saracen, Chronos, Baba Yaga, Jinn, and Kisamine.

Saracen: Though not a Dark Lord, is considered equal in power.
Main Attack: Storm Edge, non-elemental sword slash attack, non-reflectable, insta-kill, multiple, power-up. Weak against water. Life3 is a good idea, as are Dragoon Boots.

Chronos: Main Attack: Time Split, multiple, Slow2 on group, Haste on Chronos, reflectable.

Baba Yaga: Main Attack: Witch Curse, multiple, non-reflectable, multiple status effects, weak versus fire, weak versus holy.

Jinn: Bent on vengeance for his brother, Ifrit.
Main Attack: Inferno, multiple, flame attack, double damage vs. ice based enemies, more powerful than Ifrit's Hellfire attack. Magic: Firex10, Fire2x5, Fire3x2, Drainx1.

Kisamine: Child of Ifrit, orphaned by humans, raised by Jinn, also bent on revenge. Electric element, weak to earth-based attacks.
Main Attack: Cloud Slash, multiple, lightning attack, reflectable, fair chance of causing paralysis.

Their goal is not merely to cleanse their kind of humanity, but those Espers seen as human-loving as well....and any Esper not among their ranks is considered such. To them, it is much like a holy war....prevention and punishment. They see the Goddesses' magic as being abused or betrayed by the humans and human-lovers alike. But first, they need the new Esper Deities' aid to let them back in.
Once their goals are reached, they intend on killing the human Deities, finally returning the power then to "true" Espers alone.

(This outline needs Ultros. razz )

The story begins with partings and reunions....the funeral of Stragos, and the mystery behind his death at the reopened Esper World Gate....and the mystery of the reawakening magic in the world.

Name: Runako Inani.

Age: Lost to history.

Gender: Female.

Background: According to legend, the queen of the ancient castle was in love with an esper known as Odin. One day, an evil sorcerer and his followers invaded her realm...Odin obliterated the followers, but was slain by the Mage Master, who later became the leader of the Kefka Cult. According then to the tale, the Mage turned both Odin and the Queen to stone.
It was her Magicite Tear that turned Odin into Raiden...a tear of true love. Even after being turned to stone, her love for Odin endured to lend him her power.
In FF6, Kefka absorbed the power of the three original Esper Deities. When he was destroyed, most of that power dispersed. Two-thirds of the essence went out into the world, the remainder resurrecting Kefka.
A third of that essence latched onto Terra's Esper energy, which left Terra a few minutes after Kefka's death. That became the deity known as the Mortal.
The last third freed the Queen and infused her with power which drove her mad. She now remembers nothing of her past, or her love...only the desire to control or destroy.

Personality: Erratic, driven only by her passions of the moment...kiss you one moment, kill you the next. She tends to be far more extroverted than introverted, though.

Fighting Ability: The skills of her doomed lover, Meteor and Quick, are among her spells. She uses the Wing Edge skillfully if all else somehow fails...or her fast feet.

Physical Description: Of average height and lushly female, Runako now does not hesitate to show it, if she ever did. Her milky ice blue eyes and rich crimson hair are a shocking contrast to her warm brown skin. Her manner of dress tends to reflect her moods...always changing.

eek And here she is.

eek Organizing on Gaia is different. And for me, harder. sweatdrop

redface This'll take a while.

eek

xp

4laugh