![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
app doot doot
CHARACTER
Name Forneus / Sen Yan'an
Canon Original
Age 34
Birthright Jewel Opal
Dreams made flesh The purging of the Dominion hierarchy in America
Canon point Early 2016
Canon Powers
Personality
Half-demons borne from a violent death are picked for a second life by Gaia for their strong will. Sen is no exception - she is confident, assertive in her manners, and ready to defend what she believes is right. She is earnest without being grating, with a firm disposition in discussions. This leads to her being seen as reliable for tasks that she volunteers herself for. In a team, she is quick to jump to a fellow's defense - that is, if she believes if they are in the right. her polite and attentive attitude is capable of changing at a snap if she decides that she is dealing with someone she shouldn't be. She doesn't take very well to liars and betrayals, tending to hold grudges after being wronged.
Her devotion and stubbornness for a cause is both her strength and weakness. She is very loyal as long as her contractor does not violate her sense of morality, and prioritises her duty above herself. However, this makes her harsh and disinterested to anything that might threaten her duty. If she values a task, she will strive to complete it to the best of her ability. However, if it is not essential, she is not likely to do it. She will not assist someone who has nothing to do with her and will not give her an incentive. In this way she is selfish to those outside of her circle, and devoted to those who are. This line between 'self' and 'other' is something integrated into her as a survival skill but also from the resentment that she bore due to the circumstances of her death.
Sen's peaceful childhood in the countryside was torn apart by the invasion of war by people she deemed as 'irrelevant' to her family. The act of being forced into conscription, having her family separated from her, left a deep-seated hatred of tyrants and 'people who don't mind their own business' in her. She doesn't like busybodies and people who annoy her to waste her time, but she'll just tell them off. Her rage is directed more towards dictators and those who wilfully hurt others for their own ends. Once she finds out that someone has that kind of habit, she will not conceal the fact that she detests them. The more extreme their deeds, the more extreme she is willing to go to to avoid them... or hurt them, should they lay a finger on her or her allies.
Animosity towards humanity is a common belief amongst demonkind as humans bear the souls of angels (the mark of the enemy). Her lingering resentment from her past life also plays a part in her adoption of this attitude. She is suspicious of adult humans but will look out for children, especially those with a good heart and are from marginalized communities. It is easier for young people to get her favour by being willing to help and learn. On the contrary, she bonds easier with fellow spirits and nonhumans.
Most demons are expected to shed their ties to their past life after being given a second chance. Sen still struggles with letting go of her resentment towards what happened decades ago - the fact that 'we did not deserve this' is still etched on her heart. Much of her dislike of plunderers is from projecting her past experience onto their victims, to assume that others share her hatred at a peaceful life broken for no reason at all. She tends to speak over people once she believes that she has a good handle on what they want, which may not be what they actually want. To favour the act of getting revenge over the fact that the situation is not so clear-cut is one of her weak points.
Demons are agents of the Earth. Sen has never forgotten that, and she constantly needs a task to keep herself occupied. While she is one of the younger demons in her area, her experience before her death was from an era that has long since elapsed. As a result she is still a little unfamiliar with many things of modernity. Her identity is built strongly around serving Gaia; without anything concrete to do, she becomes listless and irritable. Frustration at being unable to complete a task also really gets under her skin; compounded with her tendency to tell people only what they need to know, she ends up shutting herself away from others out of habit.
At the end of it all, Sen is someone who craves a life of peace and quiet with the people she cares about. However, she is unable to let go of her resentment and her passion to serve, and as a result she feels compelled to carry out her duty and be at the frontline of the demonic battlefront. If she is ever capable of making peace with her bitterness for the past, she will mellow down and be more able to consider other aspects of her well-being other than just 'doing what I should' and 'seeking revenge'.
History
Sen's world is quite similar to ours, save for the caveat that a hidden war between two aliens has been influencing the fate of the planet.
The Progenitors are vast alien lifeforms that take up residence on planets of suitable temperature and condition. They carry Authorities of their own and are in turn subjected to rules set down by beings even higher than their existence. One Progenitor made landfall on Earth billions of years ago and diffused into the crust, where it lay dormant until life emerged within the primordial sea. Then, it used its Authority of Time to encourage the life forms to evolve and gain complexity. Over time Gaia's health became intertwined with the condition of the ecosystems, turning it into the Earth's sentient representative.
All Progenitors are bound by the Authority of Time, which enables them to perform impressive feats. However, the caveat presented by this Authority is that it forces them to obey entropy, eventually resulting in their death. Gaia sought to surpass death by imparting parts of its life force to the planet it resided on, giving the animals residing on it higher and higher intelligence.
Several million years ago, a second Progenitor arrived in the Solar System. This progenitor had decided to stave off death by siphoning the life force of its compatriots, and Earth was its next feeding target. Naturally, Gaia mobilized its defenses against the other Progenitor's attempts at cannibalism, thus Gaia and Alaya were at a standstill for a long period of time. Unable to directly consume Gaia, Alaya had to resort to indirect strategies to gain nourishment.
Eventually, Alaya decided to implant seeds of its will into the newly-evolved human race, granting them further intellect. Humans became differentiated from other animals by carrying a soul - Alaya's mark, in addition to their native vitality and sentience (which were given by Gaia). This soul would be harvested at the time of the human's death, carrying the mana and vitality that they had accumulated over their lifetime back to the unseen body of Alaya within the moon.
Alaya also sent down messengers to Earth, masquerading as angels and divinities to gain humanity's trust. Gaia countered this threat by forming spirits from nature, who acted against Alaya's agents. Thus began the millennia-long conflict between the Progenitors. The influence of Gaia and Alaya seeped into humanity's cultures. Angels spread word that criminalised earth spirits, leading to them being named as demons. Other cultures embraced the Earth and based their philosophies upon protecting nature.
This persisted even unto modern day. Angels masquerading as humans can be found within corporations and the government, infiltrating within to carry out Alaya's will. On the contrary, demons congregate within more eco-friendly factions and NGOs in a bid to preserve the lifestream within the Earth. Both factions are under a creed to not reveal their existence to mortals, as it would result in great upheaval and damage to the territory they are fighting over and the humans (cattle) that live upon them.
The courts of angels are divided into two factions, the Dominion and the Harmonious. The Dominion faction espouses victory at all costs, while the Harmonious faction prefers to give allowance to Gaia's agents in pursuit of sustainability. Currently, the Dominion hierarchy holds more influence on Earth. As a result, Gaia's life force is declining at an alarming rate, and soon the slumbering Progenitor may be pushed into breaking their creed of secrecy out of a need for self-preservation. Both the Harmonious faction and demonkind seek to prevent this from happening, as Gaia's awakening has the potential to fracture the entire planet. It is a race against time to stave off the prophesied doomsday.
Humans cannot become angels even if they hold an angelic soul, as they lack a vessel given by Alaya. However, by rescinding their soul, they are able to form a covenant with Gaia and become half-demons. Some humans end up inadvertently becoming half-demons due to their strong identity and emotions that they experience at the time of death, causing their soul to linger within their corpse and not travel to the Moon. Sen is a product of this process.
Sen's life as a human was a difficult one. She was born as a boy in early 20th century China, and lived in the countryside helping out the village farm. He was caught in the conflict between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, where his father was forced into conscription by the Communist army. Sen followed his father into the army, and died in a skirmish during the Long March. His strong will caused his soul to be trapped within his body as he burned to death. Gaia beneath him sensed his resentment and recorded his spirit, giving him new life as a half-demon.
He remained within the Earth's mantle while his mind recovered from the traumatic ordeal. After almost half a century, he was deemed fit to be released on the surface again and awoke in Shanghai under the care of two senior demons. He spent a couple of years coming to terms with himself before deciding to pledge his cause actively to Gaia's preservation, earning the title of Forneus - Authority of the Flame. He also forged his human form to a female one, which was closer to his identity.
Unlike angels, demons do not answer to anyone except those they respect, or to Gaia itself. Thus Sen took on an assistant's job to her mentor and was eventually dispatched overseas to America, joining forces with the demons amassing against the Dominion hierarchy's plans to taint the continent further. She arrives in January 2016 to assimilate into the Californian branch and conduct monitoring on the coastline.
Name Forneus / Sen Yan'an
Canon Original
Age 34
Birthright Jewel Opal
Dreams made flesh The purging of the Dominion hierarchy in America
Canon point Early 2016
Canon Powers
Sen is a half-demon - a former human whose soul lingered on Earth after death and signed a covenant with Gaia. This grants them the use of Authority; rules by which they are able to project their abilities.
âž› Authority of the Self
Demons are able to restructure their physical form as they like, sourced from their sense of personal identity. Thus they can present themselves in the way that they wish to be seen by others. The 'true form' of many demons are inhuman - they can take on the form of abstract geometries, of half-human half-animal hybrids, or of natural objects. Some demons choose to also have a human form which allows them to blend in and interact with humanity as a whole.
Injuries sustained by a demon are repaired faster than that of humans. By consuming their internal life force, they are able to restore their flesh and blood to prime condition. This ability is hindered by mental confusion, as it requires the demon to focus on their sense of self. However, as the prerequisite for becoming a demon is to have a strong identity, they are naturally resistant to mind control and illusion.
Sen's true form is that of a versatile octahedral prism. It looks like this except red and a metre in diameter. She is able to communicate telepathically in this form.
As she is a relatively young demon, her Authority of the Self is still weak and she can only assume these two forms.
âž› Authority of the Earth
Demons receive this Authority from Gaia, the sentience of the Earth itself. Gaia is a member of the Progenitors, an alien race that travels through the stars and reside on planets capable of raising life. The Progenitors come to rest on these planets, and use their Authority to impart sentience into the lifeforms that arise. Demons are thus 'children' of Gaia, and their connection to Gaia allows them to sense the 'life force' of their terrain. On Earth, this allows demons to hear the voice of Gaia and utilize the ley lines of the Earth to augment their magic.
There are several rules that all demons are bound by as a result of their covenant:
1. A demon cannot disobey the will of the Earth.
2. A demon can draw upon the life force around them to augment their other Authorities.
3. A demon shall accept that they are destined for death. They are barred from attempting to pursue immortality.
4. A demon shall not harm the Earth. This excludes humans.
Rule one and two are enforced to absolute while rule three and four are more lax. Using rule two, a demon can sense other sentient, living creatures as well as whether they are human or not. Experienced demons can become magic detectors but Sen is not trained in this.
In the game setting, as the Earth lacks sentience, Sen will not be able to commune with it. However, she will be able to sense the condition of the land around her (the extent of pollution, salting, any curses on it, how much greenery and animals are living in it) to some extent.
âž› Authority of the Flame
The Authority conferred upon Sen as the bearer of the title 'Forneus'. Only one demon may occupy a title at any given time. Upon the death of a demon carrying a title, the title and its accompanying Authority will be transferred to another demon by Gaia's will.
The Authority of the Flame covers the classical definition of fire, heat, and also the process of oxidation. Sen is able to ignite combustion as long as oxygen and a suitable fuel is available. She is also immune to burns and high heat. If she understands the chemical composition of something, she is able to force oxidation upon it provided she is physically touching it and there is a suitable reducing agent nearby. An example of an item that can be oxidized is causing rust to form on iron, or souring wine. However, if she does not know the mechanism by which a material is oxidized, she will not be able to force the chemical process to occur.
She is also able to transfer heat from one source to another, such as having one hand in a fire and another hand inside a cup of water. Physical contact is required for this process to occur. With enough focus, she can fire lasers from her hands, but this requires siphoning the Earth's lifestream as a back-up magical source due to the high cost. She can create explosions or damaging light rays without a back-up, but this will cost her own life force and render her weakened afterward.
Assuming her true form strengthens her ability to express this Authority; namely, it removes the requirement for physical contact so she is able to manipulate heat even without hands and at a faster rate. As maintaining her true form costs less energy than maintaining a human body, she can use more of her personal life force for casting. However, drawing mana from the surroundings is still preferred.
After decades of practice, Sen is able to adapt her Authority to use in combat, either by igniting streams of fire or by superheating a small area to produce shockwaves in the air. The most high-end form of this Authority is the conversion of matter to pure energy and back again - as it is a process that requires intense concentration, it is rarely employed. Any distraction or mis-calculation can result in uncontrolled heat release and injury.
Personality
Half-demons borne from a violent death are picked for a second life by Gaia for their strong will. Sen is no exception - she is confident, assertive in her manners, and ready to defend what she believes is right. She is earnest without being grating, with a firm disposition in discussions. This leads to her being seen as reliable for tasks that she volunteers herself for. In a team, she is quick to jump to a fellow's defense - that is, if she believes if they are in the right. her polite and attentive attitude is capable of changing at a snap if she decides that she is dealing with someone she shouldn't be. She doesn't take very well to liars and betrayals, tending to hold grudges after being wronged.
Her devotion and stubbornness for a cause is both her strength and weakness. She is very loyal as long as her contractor does not violate her sense of morality, and prioritises her duty above herself. However, this makes her harsh and disinterested to anything that might threaten her duty. If she values a task, she will strive to complete it to the best of her ability. However, if it is not essential, she is not likely to do it. She will not assist someone who has nothing to do with her and will not give her an incentive. In this way she is selfish to those outside of her circle, and devoted to those who are. This line between 'self' and 'other' is something integrated into her as a survival skill but also from the resentment that she bore due to the circumstances of her death.
Sen's peaceful childhood in the countryside was torn apart by the invasion of war by people she deemed as 'irrelevant' to her family. The act of being forced into conscription, having her family separated from her, left a deep-seated hatred of tyrants and 'people who don't mind their own business' in her. She doesn't like busybodies and people who annoy her to waste her time, but she'll just tell them off. Her rage is directed more towards dictators and those who wilfully hurt others for their own ends. Once she finds out that someone has that kind of habit, she will not conceal the fact that she detests them. The more extreme their deeds, the more extreme she is willing to go to to avoid them... or hurt them, should they lay a finger on her or her allies.
Animosity towards humanity is a common belief amongst demonkind as humans bear the souls of angels (the mark of the enemy). Her lingering resentment from her past life also plays a part in her adoption of this attitude. She is suspicious of adult humans but will look out for children, especially those with a good heart and are from marginalized communities. It is easier for young people to get her favour by being willing to help and learn. On the contrary, she bonds easier with fellow spirits and nonhumans.
Most demons are expected to shed their ties to their past life after being given a second chance. Sen still struggles with letting go of her resentment towards what happened decades ago - the fact that 'we did not deserve this' is still etched on her heart. Much of her dislike of plunderers is from projecting her past experience onto their victims, to assume that others share her hatred at a peaceful life broken for no reason at all. She tends to speak over people once she believes that she has a good handle on what they want, which may not be what they actually want. To favour the act of getting revenge over the fact that the situation is not so clear-cut is one of her weak points.
Demons are agents of the Earth. Sen has never forgotten that, and she constantly needs a task to keep herself occupied. While she is one of the younger demons in her area, her experience before her death was from an era that has long since elapsed. As a result she is still a little unfamiliar with many things of modernity. Her identity is built strongly around serving Gaia; without anything concrete to do, she becomes listless and irritable. Frustration at being unable to complete a task also really gets under her skin; compounded with her tendency to tell people only what they need to know, she ends up shutting herself away from others out of habit.
At the end of it all, Sen is someone who craves a life of peace and quiet with the people she cares about. However, she is unable to let go of her resentment and her passion to serve, and as a result she feels compelled to carry out her duty and be at the frontline of the demonic battlefront. If she is ever capable of making peace with her bitterness for the past, she will mellow down and be more able to consider other aspects of her well-being other than just 'doing what I should' and 'seeking revenge'.
History
Sen's world is quite similar to ours, save for the caveat that a hidden war between two aliens has been influencing the fate of the planet.
The Progenitors are vast alien lifeforms that take up residence on planets of suitable temperature and condition. They carry Authorities of their own and are in turn subjected to rules set down by beings even higher than their existence. One Progenitor made landfall on Earth billions of years ago and diffused into the crust, where it lay dormant until life emerged within the primordial sea. Then, it used its Authority of Time to encourage the life forms to evolve and gain complexity. Over time Gaia's health became intertwined with the condition of the ecosystems, turning it into the Earth's sentient representative.
All Progenitors are bound by the Authority of Time, which enables them to perform impressive feats. However, the caveat presented by this Authority is that it forces them to obey entropy, eventually resulting in their death. Gaia sought to surpass death by imparting parts of its life force to the planet it resided on, giving the animals residing on it higher and higher intelligence.
Several million years ago, a second Progenitor arrived in the Solar System. This progenitor had decided to stave off death by siphoning the life force of its compatriots, and Earth was its next feeding target. Naturally, Gaia mobilized its defenses against the other Progenitor's attempts at cannibalism, thus Gaia and Alaya were at a standstill for a long period of time. Unable to directly consume Gaia, Alaya had to resort to indirect strategies to gain nourishment.
Eventually, Alaya decided to implant seeds of its will into the newly-evolved human race, granting them further intellect. Humans became differentiated from other animals by carrying a soul - Alaya's mark, in addition to their native vitality and sentience (which were given by Gaia). This soul would be harvested at the time of the human's death, carrying the mana and vitality that they had accumulated over their lifetime back to the unseen body of Alaya within the moon.
Alaya also sent down messengers to Earth, masquerading as angels and divinities to gain humanity's trust. Gaia countered this threat by forming spirits from nature, who acted against Alaya's agents. Thus began the millennia-long conflict between the Progenitors. The influence of Gaia and Alaya seeped into humanity's cultures. Angels spread word that criminalised earth spirits, leading to them being named as demons. Other cultures embraced the Earth and based their philosophies upon protecting nature.
This persisted even unto modern day. Angels masquerading as humans can be found within corporations and the government, infiltrating within to carry out Alaya's will. On the contrary, demons congregate within more eco-friendly factions and NGOs in a bid to preserve the lifestream within the Earth. Both factions are under a creed to not reveal their existence to mortals, as it would result in great upheaval and damage to the territory they are fighting over and the humans (cattle) that live upon them.
The courts of angels are divided into two factions, the Dominion and the Harmonious. The Dominion faction espouses victory at all costs, while the Harmonious faction prefers to give allowance to Gaia's agents in pursuit of sustainability. Currently, the Dominion hierarchy holds more influence on Earth. As a result, Gaia's life force is declining at an alarming rate, and soon the slumbering Progenitor may be pushed into breaking their creed of secrecy out of a need for self-preservation. Both the Harmonious faction and demonkind seek to prevent this from happening, as Gaia's awakening has the potential to fracture the entire planet. It is a race against time to stave off the prophesied doomsday.
Humans cannot become angels even if they hold an angelic soul, as they lack a vessel given by Alaya. However, by rescinding their soul, they are able to form a covenant with Gaia and become half-demons. Some humans end up inadvertently becoming half-demons due to their strong identity and emotions that they experience at the time of death, causing their soul to linger within their corpse and not travel to the Moon. Sen is a product of this process.
Sen's life as a human was a difficult one. She was born as a boy in early 20th century China, and lived in the countryside helping out the village farm. He was caught in the conflict between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, where his father was forced into conscription by the Communist army. Sen followed his father into the army, and died in a skirmish during the Long March. His strong will caused his soul to be trapped within his body as he burned to death. Gaia beneath him sensed his resentment and recorded his spirit, giving him new life as a half-demon.
He remained within the Earth's mantle while his mind recovered from the traumatic ordeal. After almost half a century, he was deemed fit to be released on the surface again and awoke in Shanghai under the care of two senior demons. He spent a couple of years coming to terms with himself before deciding to pledge his cause actively to Gaia's preservation, earning the title of Forneus - Authority of the Flame. He also forged his human form to a female one, which was closer to his identity.
Unlike angels, demons do not answer to anyone except those they respect, or to Gaia itself. Thus Sen took on an assistant's job to her mentor and was eventually dispatched overseas to America, joining forces with the demons amassing against the Dominion hierarchy's plans to taint the continent further. She arrives in January 2016 to assimilate into the Californian branch and conduct monitoring on the coastline.