Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Shaggy_Shaggs 01-17-06, 05:38 AM	Sorry about the formatting or lack thereof, it's late and I jotted this down in a hurry. It's for a human cyborg-like warforged character (low level rogue, alignment to be determined by DM after some play cause I've got no idea), and a gradual semi-revival of a much older dead character. Comments are welcome. ------------------------------------------------------- I jerked upright with a start the moment I gained consciousness. The metal-on-stone clatter in the background of a stray dog knocking a trash bin over rang in my ears, but right then my whole body was a crazy patchwork of agonizing pain and complete numbness, so I ignored it and tried to catch my breath. I couldn't get air, I was choking! I grabbed for my throat to pry away whatever assailant had me, but my hands were so numb, I couldn't get hold. There was that damned clanking again, and... it was the only sound. There was no struggling of my attacker, not even his breathing, there was nothing. I felt I must be close to blacking out, and flailed my arms out wildly behind me in pained desperation to shake off whoever was strangling me, lost my balance and fell. A loud crash... the mutt in the trash had to be mocking me! I stretched my arms up feebly to ward off the attacker I knew had to be coming in the shadowy darkness, and wondered when I got the bulky steel gauntlets that rose and glinted before me. Frantically searching the shadows with my eyes, I saw nothing... where could the assassin be?! I waited a minute... two... there was no sound, not even my held breath. Why hadn't I passed out yet? Why wasn't my life flashing before -- wait, what was my life? I couldn't remember anything. I forgot all about the attacker, the dog and the gnawing pain throughout my body as I stopped to try and remember. I laid there on the floor for only the gods know how long, but nothing came back to me. At long last, after the mugger had apparently given up for a more fragile target, I gingerly picked myself up and dusted off my clothes. Clank, clank, came the sound of the mongrel in the garbage can, but that sounded like it came from right next to me. Had my hearing gone bad? I grabbed one of my gauntlets and gave it a tug to free up a finger for inspecting my ear, but it wouldn't budge. I yanked again sharply, and that time it hurt. I looked to see whether an edge had bent and bruised my flesh -- and began shrieking my lungs out when to my horror I saw that the metal was woven with my flesh like the fibers of a straw basket!! Or tried to... I still couldn't breathe, and all that came out was a hoarse, panicky croak. My eyes wide as saucers, I felt my body over, though the metal on my hands couldn't actually feel much of it. Everywhere my body throbbed in agony responded as flesh, and each numb spot produced that same damned clatter of metal on metal, muffled though it was by the blood-soaked scraps of my clothing. The shock became so great that it overwhelmed my horror, instilling in me a deathly sense of calm, as before a storm. I didn't know where I was, or who or even what I was anymore. Looking around the shadows of what turned out to be a dillapidated warehouse, I found the shattered remains of what must have been a wagon, at some point. Most of its load was destroyed, but the tarp that had covered it was still mostly intact, and I quickly wrapped and covered myself. It couldn't be good to be seen in public like this, and I had to get out of there. Stepping unsteadily out into the evening thus cloaked and cowled, I started walking. To where... I don't know. Someone needs me... I just have to keep moving. Nobody could've denied Darren was powerful. The risky life of a thief had been a charmed one for him, Everything he touched turned to platinum, and lined his pockets. When the thrillseeking malefactor got into the assassination business, strictly for the challenge, he found himself as talented there as he had been in thievery. He was a myth, the voracious shadow, faceless, formless, taking monarchs and matron mothers from their very bedchambers. As his experience and anonymous legend grew, Darren developed an obsession with death. He refocused himself, taking a vampire for a lover, and turning to study of necromancy and other magic. As in all things, he excelled, though this took more effort than his previous choices. It is sometimes said that winning too often is bad for a man, and so it was with Darren, who got it into his mind that he was greater even than the gods. He even believed he had been sired by a greater being than the deities, and was destined to overthrow them. To prove himself, he challenged Lolth, and was duly slain. But Darren was made of sterner stuff, and his spirit escaped and in time, returned as a ghost. Darren was elated with his new situation - he could study death from the other side, and with his incorporeal powers he could bring death to others with even greater impugnity. Though touching his lover proved to be challenging, he accepted and enjoyed this new turn of existance. That is, until his woman went missing. Darren searched for the vampire for all of a winter, attaching himself to a vehicle as a haunting presence in order to overcome the difficulty in traveling that ghosts face. He found that while it was easier to slay in his incorporeal form, it was actually more difficult to interrogate and gather information from the living. He had to find his woman... or her slayer, and exact his repayment. He needed a body. Darren found a suitable body within the day. He was a a lowbrow, low-income slob, the sort Darren had practiced his craft upon in the early days... the sort nobody misses when they disappear. He pursued his mark from a distance, and followed him into an old storehouse to possess him discreetly. Against all odds the slob resisted Darren's malevolence, and in his frustration, Darren once again made a misjudgment. He ran the man down, crushing him under his wheels, thoroughly mangling the body. Worse, he skidded in the blood until he collided with a wall, shattering his means of transportation. Not one to give up so easily, Darren took stock of the situation. He found a crate of scrap iron, ande made his decision. Stretching his arcane and supernatural abilities into dangerous new territory, he reformed and animated the metal, patching the gaping wounds in the corpse, wiring the shattered skeleton back together. Weakened but undaunted, Darren left conventional spells behind entirely, and bent his spirit and magical might to their utmost limits. Flooding the composite carcass with unrestricted arcane and personal power directed only by unbreakable will to life, he saw it begin to twitch, just before he lost cohesion. Darren regained consciousness a minute before his new vehicle did. He found its brain had been partly destroyed... useful for him, as it would make control easier. Still, he was dismayed by the bulky clumsiness of the form, so unlike the lithe grace of his own former body. He was further stunned to realize his magic had abandoned him entirely... he was now little more than a separate consciousness, hidden in a dark corner of the mind of an iron amnesiac. Darren quickly decided on a course of action. He would keep himself hidden while he familiarized himself with the capability and limitations of his strange new body, and not exert direct control. The original owner would take care of the details, which Darren would guide with subtle subconscious impulses, until he was prepared to resume the hunt...
Morka 01-17-06, 11:15 AM	A great background. If I understand it well, you are playing guy who was killed by an assassin ghost, then transformed into a kind of warforged, and you have the assassin ghost possessing the warforged? Kind of tricky...
Harrow Blade 01-17-06, 08:28 PM	Great story! I liked it alot. I am curious as to where you are going to go with this character. Are you playing the newly created cyborg/warforged with no memory or the possesing spirit or both? In a way it opens the door for two very different personalities to contest the control of the body. It should make for interesting gaming.
Shaggy_Shaggs 01-17-06, 09:40 PM	(wakes up and comes back to look at what he left and the comments) Morka, you've got it right. Harrow Blade, the character will be unaware of his past and unaware of the possessing spirit. Every now and then he'll get little impulsive nudges toward certain courses of action that work toward the ghost's goals, without knowing why. Whether he acts on those impulses will depend a lot on how he's shaped by events around him and company he keeps. For now he's mostly a blank slate but it could lead to a great internal conflict for control, if he's taught to be good and stops responding to subtle mental nudges.
WhrenKehrsyn 01-19-06, 01:16 PM	This is a really neat concept. How much control does the assasin ghost have should he choose to exert it?
Shaggy_Shaggs 01-19-06, 01:26 PM	At this point he could have total control if he chose to exert it, the host's sense of self is very tenuous due to the brain damage and subsequent amnesia, it would be essentially impossible for him to resist. If the host should start forging strong connections with people or places, or other things he could use to define himself and reasons to hang on, it will become increasingly difficult for the ghost to exert direct control. It's risky for him to avoid taking over completely from the start, but he's arrogant and overconfident, and wants to take time to get used to being in a body that can't do what his old one could before he himself was slain.
WhrenKehrsyn 01-19-06, 01:30 PM	Should make for some very interesting RP. Is it possible that the warforged may over time recover some/all of his memories of his previous life? Could be interesting later in the campaign if he remembered it all and even discovered what had happened that fateful day, or even that his attacker was now a part of him.
Shaggy_Shaggs 01-19-06, 01:37 PM	Oh that's entirely possible. Certain spells have the potential to regrow missing parts (including, I'd assume, brain matter), there's divine intervention, "missing" buried memories that can be retrieved with strong enough stimulation, even the concept of cellular memory may apply.