Gender: nonbinary- uses the pronoun 'Dhe' and variations
Specific 'Nature' Doom Raven
Personality:
Lorn is a lonely little bird. A creature of flocks, dhe was happiest when dhe was with all the other nightmares in the wild. But since coming to the city, dhe has lost them, and is so alone. This makes dhim sad, but dhe has to keep going otherwise dhe will never find them again. unfortunately for dhim, or perhaps just for dhis victims, dhis favorite food is other people's suffering. Lorn doesn't yet understand that other people are actually people, not just food, and that their actions when feeding have consequences that can be severe. This dark innocence causes Lorn to have a less than serious attitude about life, and a facination with death (since dhe doesn't entirely comprehend what death is). Dhe comes across as a creepy, maybe malicious child who delights in causing pain to others, but dhe is just a baby bird at heart, constantly needing something, and they just dont understand. As a bird, Lorn is a mischevious and clever trickster like the raven dhe was originally to be. Having no sense of property beyond 'this belongs to this other person and not to me' (and not understanding why stealng is wrong), Lorn frequently steals what dhe needs. Finally, Lorn needs people. Dhe is highly extroverted and, even beyond the whole emotional vampirisim, people energize them. They come off as clingy, at times to people they like, though they persist in seeing them as playthings and food, not people. This may change as they get older.
Breakdown:
Thief: Lorn likes things, especially shiny things, and doesnt care if they don't belong to them yet. With nimble fingers and reflexes, lorn takes what they want. Lorn doesn't understand the concept of people's posessions being inviolable, or even theirs. Everything is either theirs, or not yet theirs, and even if they are trained otherwise the urge to just take something would be hard to manage.
Trickster: Lorn is a mischeif maker, always playing tricks on people. They love deception and especially love to play games. When they are getting things legitimately (to mix things up) they earn money by cheating people in games. Sometimes, though, they like to decieve for it's own sake. Its a huge thrill and, to Lorn, everybody is a sucker and exists for their own amusement.
Curious: One of Lorn's weaknesses is their desire to know whats going on. They are drawn in by the lure of novelty and the promise of something interesting, sometimes against their better instincts. This can be about people as well as objects- they are going to be inquisitive and nosy as hell.
Mocking: As a corvid, Lorn is a natural mimic. They like to imitate what they hear and see, sometimes to an intentionally unflattering degree. They happen to like this skill and think it is funnier than it is. This also manifests as a facination with people and what they do.
Facinated with Death: Lorn loves to watch people. They are fascinating. But whats more fascinating than what people do every day, is what happens at the end. Lorn would love to taste the emotions of someone about to die. Heck, they would just like to watch someone die, that would be great! Whether this evolves into a desire to actually do the killing depends on how they grow up. In the meantime, sneaking into/lurking around morgues and graveyards and hospitals is going to be a common thing for Lorn.
Cruel: Lorn likes the taste of despair, and is happy to cause it. Lorn is not going to be very nice to people they victimize, and they will torment their victims without empathy or compassion however long they want. They would also probably be the sort of person who would watch ants die by putting them in a spinning bucket of water. Things like that.
Creepy: Lorn can't really help being creepy. Lorn is a nightmare creature with a huge basis on creepiness, plus they spent a good bit of their early formative hatching with other nightmares. Their facination with death means they know all sorts of disturbing stuff about it, and their fascination with people means that sometimes they focus a little too much on specific individuals. They also have a tendency to stare and say really unnerving things.
Poetic: Lorn likes words, too. They like to put words together in pretty and evocative ways. Sometimes they just say it out loud, sometimes they write them down. Eulogies are one of Lorn's favorite things, for obvious reasons.
Playful: Lorn is not a serious person. They think in game terms often, and even their malicious acts are all in fun. Lorn really wants to have fun, especially with other people, but they sometimes take it too far and play too rough.
Energetic: Lorn has a lot of energy to spare. They keep going and going and they don't seem to run out of steam. They actually do get tired- when they are alone they sleep like the, heh, dead... but people and being around people give them energy, and not just because of their emotion vampirism.
Sociable: … Lorn just likes people. They are an extrovert. Though they don't mind being alone, they would rather not be so forever. There are times to be alone and times for other people, and Lorn enjoys both, though they are happiest with people.
Affectionate: When Lorn likes someone, they LIKE them. They are very snuggly, cuddly, and clingy. It can be uncomfortably stalkerish at times, but in this regard they mean no harm. They just like people.
Other: At hatching/living out in the wild and alone for a while, Lorn's pwoers include:
~ Able to eat both solid food such as meat and vegetables (particularly seeds and fruit) and negative emotions such as despair, depression, and emotional or physical agony. Emotions are eaten by touching the person with their clawed hands.
~ Able to fly decently for short bursts with their little wings. Can also glide to an extent, but wings and stamina are not mature enough for much more.
~ They can magnify negative emotions in others. Currently, this is an at-will very unrefined power whose magnitude is uncontrollable- they basically just poke it at a potential victim until they get what they want. Later on, this will manifest as a toggleable despair aura, a more modifiable power, and, much later, the ability to directly incite the emotions that they eat
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 9:01 am
Lorn was born a nightmare of the Nightmare squad, and gave themselves their own name. They were one of the 'younger' hatchlings there. Dhe adored them all, especially the Dread Vessel Metus. Unfortunately, when they entered the Dreamery again, Lorn got separated from the other nightmares and, though dhe tried to find them (especially metus) Lorn could not. Lorn took up residence in a cemetary and has been living a rough existence on dhis own ever since, longing to find their friends again.
Complete X A day in Life, ends in death; 1671 words [NANO] X Life; 1147 words [NANO] X Dinner; 1581 words [NANO] X Metus; 897 words [NANO] X Nice Lady; 1581 words [NANO] X a Sparkling Lady; 1421 words [NANO]
Originally, they were going to be a natural Corvis genus manifest. Just a birdie, nothing more. Ravens are clever and pretty and like shiny objects, but they are generally harmless. However, the raven has historically been associated with death, impending doom, and despair, and this is what was brought out by the nightmare corruption.
So, instead of a sleek clever trickster bird hatchling with a love of shinies, it became a fiendish harbringer of doom on wings of terror and dread. Instead of having a strong love of seeds and bugs (yum), it prefers despair and misery, perhaps steeped in terror and flavored with loss. It is an emotion phage- as a vampire feeds on blood this one actually feeds of emotional energy by a touch and, at full manifest, can leave its victim in a state of darkly numb despair afterwards, should it so choose. While less fatal than blood, its not a good state to be in and already unstable individuals might have issues later on. It prefers its victims to already be feeling negative emotions already. Because it was supposed to be a bird, though, it can eat things like seeds and bugs and meat just fine, and can be sustained by them. It's nightmare aspects, though, will make it want to feed off of emotion, almost like an addiction.
It may have some sort of oracle ability later on, likely all doomsaying and used to instill further despair in victims I'm not sure though- this ability is a bit too OP. It could easily be an alt-universe reading ability or just an illusion or bluffing ability, a way to convince them that resistance is futile and their end is either neigh or terrible beyond imagining.
Illusions would be a power it could have- manipulating shadows so that you see... things... lurking just out of view, or see it as more terrifying than it already is.
Despite its ethereal looks, it is quite solid and harmable by normal means, though it would likely try to trick it's way out of such a situation. It's still a raven after all. It can fly fairly nimbly. It's claws, though it's hands look intimidating, are just claws and, depsite looking like shadowy hands, just do what claws do.
Aesthetics: The doom raven looks like someone smushed an anthropomorphic bird with a classic grim reaper, added a bit of creepy necromancer wizard, put a bit of vampire in for good measure, and then upped the scariness to over 9000. It's face is pale and human, though with a too-sharp predatory smile. It's eyes are shadowed and hidden beneath a hood made to resemble a bird's head. Normally this would be adorable, but this bird head is frightening and it's beak is jagged and cruel looking, and it's eyes glow a hellishly spectral red. The hood dissolves into a robe that cloaks the whole body. The robe is very ethereal, seeming to blend and blur with it's surroundings and blow in a gentle wind that is not there. It almost looks like the feathers of a great bird, but most of the time looks like a sort of dread obscuring mist. The doom-raven's feet are, logically enough, a raven's talons, but it leaves no footprints. It's arms seem to almost blend into the coat. They are wings, but can be used as hands (the style here is similar to the rito in legend of Zelda- their wings are sort of like fins when retracted, I think) the feathers on the wings (and on the hood... or, come to think of it I may have been inpired by THIS THING) are more defined and properly raven-like than the rest of the coat, though they seem to shift ethereally along with the coat. With these wings, the doom raven can fly with ease. The doom crow's hands are shadowed, like silhouettes, and clawed like it's talons, though it has 5 fingers and a thumb instead of four claws. It's clawed hands are the way it gets it's energy- it has to touch a victim in order to take energy from them, though not to use it's other powers. Those shadowy claws are not for show- they hurt. When it is flying, it cannot use its hands (they are otherwise occupied). It's talons can grab. Whats under the robe? Nobody knows. What do their actual eyes look like... again. They are there, but who knows?
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Lorn currently is all alone and living in a crypt... Poor birdy