Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lobsopdoy 11-15-07, 04:54 PM	Location:Qua Angelus Vereor calco (Demiplane?) Alignment: Neutral Evil - - - - - - Devastation...pure devastation, that was all Callo could see spread before him. The great city in which he had spent his entire life of thirty years, all reduced to ash and rubble in a single night. A massive army of invaders had struck in the waning glow of the evening yesterday, laying waste to all before them in an unstoppable tide of carnage. He had not been among those killed, he had chosen to hide rather then futilely try to stop what he knew they could not. But his family, they had not come with him they had told him to stand firm and help but they could not have been so foolish no they were all he had no god n- (You hid in a basement) Callo's ash-smeared face looked up in shock, something had come to his mind, a thought that was not his, yet had drowned his out like a huge splash of black paint against a white-washed fence. (You hid in a basement and wept...you could not lift your head for hours, such was your terror) Callo gasped and gripped his thinning filthy hair in terror. What monstrosity could this be? It spoke like someone that was barely awake, but malevolence coursed through it like a smoke from a damp fire. He found his tongue and backed up against a scorched doorframe, not caring about the sharp fragments of shattered rock cutting into the soles of his feet. "Who...what are you!?" He cried in fright to the empty evening. A voice answered him from above, spoken in a whispered mumble. "I am sad...so sad. Life..." It stopped for a moment as if it had forgotten it's place. Callo's head darted upwards and he saw something that should have been impossible. On the underside of a balconey three stories up, still attached to the single wall left of the mansion it had once been, was a large skeletal shape. It stood upside-down like a spider on a ceiling, yet it's back was straight. The thing was too high up for Callo to make out much of it's features, beyond it's basic anatomy. It was about fifteen feet tall, with long spindly legs and arms, giving it a somewhat lanky appearance. The figure was black...yet not the lustrous elegant black of polished onyx. It was the kind of black that was only seen in the streets of sacked and massacred cities, the black that could only be found in a shallow grave of scorched bones. It was the black that covered Callo's city now...his life. As if the figure could tell what he thought, it began speaking again, in a voice that croaked like the death-rattle of an infant alone in it's crib. It was a voice that was the final note of the slow degeneration of alzheimers, the sound of a leprous limb falling useless onto the dirt. It walked towards him upside-down, the very sight betrayed every rule that he had always assumed the universe had to follow. Every gravity-defying step made a footfall of it should not be. "A constant litany of despair...a turgid waterfall that will erode even the greatest dam of stone. To be swept aside by chance while insane and mindless god's scrabble upon the world blindfolded and deaf..." While it said this in a whisper, Callo was able to hear every octave. He found himelf nodding without realizing it, agreeing, but also terrified of what he saw and heard. The words went inside his ear and scraped against his skull. His only respite was that the doorframe he was near was part of another only partially ruined building. The steps up to the door and the roof of the house was not nearly tall enough to contain the thing that had wandered to him. He found the strength to respond, somewhere deep inside him. "Why are you here? Why do you speak to me?!" The words were barely out of his mouth when his brain screamed...his soul shrieked...and his bowels clenched. "I come to witness the truth of my philosophy...the lesson that I spread to all I find. To all who will listen." Something speared into his mind as well, an undercurrent that was like sewage slopped on shore by pounding malevolent waves. (The end of all is a mercy. To crumble into dust is your destiny and all that I see...All that I want...WHAT DO I WANT?! WHAT DO I SEE!?) This last part was said with such blind fury that Callo almost fell inside himself, to never come out or move. The thing was beside him it could not be beside him the arch the arch the roof protection oh Pelor shine upon noooooo!! Callo looked behind him with a shaking face and tried to back away, yet he could not. Something would not let him. The thing was behind him, not three feet from where he stood. The arch and roof was at least 4 meters higher then he remembered it. He saw all of it now, every detail. The head was like that of a cow's skull, with teeth as sharp as death's inevitability. Yet it was not bone...it was not flesh. It was something dull and terrible that Callo had never seen yet would see forever in his dreams afterwards. It's chest was only a set of ribs that was full of that terrible substance with no sign of organs. It was filled completely with the solid matter of nightmares. He had noticed that the arms were long and now he saw why, for they had two sets of joints rather then one, and they were wrapped, one two three ways around a blackened skeleton that it must have found among the wreckage. The things hands were mangled, a large hole in the middle of it's palms that constantly drained blood composed of blasphemy upon the burnt interior of the wrecked house, the fingers were too long as well and ended in ragged nails that seemed to have been chewed sharp. The thing's side was wounded too, a massive gouge that could only have been made with a spear that refused to heal, but instead festered indefinitely. It's legs were long enough to easily stamp upon his skull, and crack it to join the rest of the city's pitiful population. "Why do you resist me Callo Allatede? You knew what to do, didn't you? When the raiders came, you hid. You could not allow yourself to lessen the grip you hold over the dark abyss that all fall into eventually. What is the sin in delaying the inevitable?" (What is the worth of your BASTARD LIFE!) When Callo moaned as the lightning shot through his brain with that gibbering voice, the thing seemed to hear it, because it tightened it's grip around the skeleton and crushed it into powder as easily as Callo had crushed dead brittle leaves in his hand last autumn with his only son. He now looked into it's face saw that it had absolutely no eyes to see with, only a yawning pair of caverns where they should have been. Atop it's head was a dead crown made not of olives, but painful thorns of a type he had never seen before. They had dug into it's skin before going black and brittle as well, and had been grown around. "I tell you now...I come to give you a boon to bring to all men. You do not have to grip above the abyss anymore. For I give you safety. Let yourself fall...release your grip and plunge downwards and I will catch you. I have taken that abyss's ownership of you...I have saved you from your sins." (Crumble with the dying light, as I shall put out your sun one day and then another's!) Callo fell down and sobbed. He could not think. He could not make sense of what was happening. Where was his family? Where was his life beyond this smoking heap? "I give you sense...I will give you purpose." The thing whispered to him haltingly. Callo nodded frantically on his knees. "Yes yes please! Save me, give me purpose, give me a reason!!" The thing stared at him for a long while and then suddenly grasped him by his neck with a grip as strong as greed itself. Before Callo could shout out in surprise, it smashed his head against the brick wall of the house like a man trying to crack a coconut. Callo's skull was already fractured, his gaze rendered vacant and a string of drool was developing on the corner of his slack lips. But the thing pulled back slowly and then smashed his head against the wall again...again...again with moves as repetitive of clockwork. It ranted to itself with a voice unlike it's usual monotone whispering. This was with the mindless fury of a hurricane. "You have no purpose but to rot! No reason but to putrefy! Chaos is your spontaneous life, Law is your firm foundation but both will be sown with salt and reduced to dust!" It screamed into Callo's blank face as the wall developed a bigger and bigger bloodstain But to Callo it looked different. He saw himself drawn towards it's eyes as he was lifted up...and with a terror-stricken impulse he knew he had been wrong. The eyes were there, but dark and greedy portals that would not even allow light to leave it's grip. And they got bigger...larger...he was falling into them. Falling into a blasted landscape with a deep crater where dark insectile centipedal beings stood upright in idiot praise to a writhing 15 foot tall black figure nailed to a huge Y-shaped stand built of eons-old wooden beams. The figure stared upwards with a rope cruelly looped around it's neck. It was neither alive nor dead, but in never-ending death throes. As he fell into the crater among a forest of pathetic vermin...the figure's face moved and looked at Callo with a cow's-skull visage that had no eyes "I have died for your sins, but I have kept them" The next town over from where Callo had lived, which had a name no longer, was visited by a broken man with vacant eyes and a sonorous voice. It exhorted people to stop living and simply end their lives. That it was useless to hang on. In the end, many listened. - - - - - - - From "A Treatise on the Fiends of all types, and Their Tendencies" by Nishakal. Kept in the Library of the 5th Level of Mount Celestia The being known as the Martyr is one of those primordial evils that call themselves the Baernoloths. A strange specimen even for these progenitors of misery, it has been lost for eons. Unfound even by the cabal of Baern known as the Demented, yet not recorded to have joined what would become the Demodand diety Apomps. The thing walks by itself, not interfering with nor assisting the Demented, and neither does the Demented interfere or assist the Martyr. An unwritten arrangement may be the key. Or perhaps the Martyr's goals do not line up with the Demented, and so, it parted with them relatively peacefully. The Martyr's name is lost, even to itself. For eons it has been stuck to a strange cross in a demiplane that cannot be found. What is known is that the Martyr came across the plane in it's travels, centred around a cross left there by some unimaginablely old entity. Whatever the purpose that the Martyr divined from it, it somehow crucified itself upon the cross. Now it stares up at the Great Wheel from some malignant place outside of it, yet not inside the churning insanity of the surrounding Far Realm. It's avatar walks the multiverse in place of it, while the Martyr itself does not move, between life and death. It seems to have subjected itself to an eternity of death throes. When it bleeds from any of it's great wounds, a mindless centipede-like being springs from the blasted soil of the Martyr's realm. Through the avatar, it claims that a drop of blood falls onto the ground to welcome one of it's worshipper's to their eternal reward. Yet whether the blood is what moves the poor damned soul to an eternity around the cross or if the blood itself causes the death of that petitioner is not known. The Martyr claims that it has locked itself in a fugue to allow everything to let down their burdens and be content in death...this is a lie. In truth, the Martyr seeks the end of everything. It would see potential squashed and every good deed drowned out by nothingness. Through it's call to suicide, it attempts to convince others to cut their lives short, so that they never are able to achieve what possible greatness they could have reached. It hopes that eventually, every plane will be wasted by his efforts and fall into the Grey Waste of Hades, a place of despair and nihilism. Hades itself is a land drained of all vitality and potential to become greater, a masterful triumph in the Martyr's mad eyes that it can only hope to someday match.' The Martyr is Neutral as goes Law and Chaos. It will be as logical as a Modron and suddenly as capricious as a Slaad if that will help it. In truth, it despises both. Entropy cares not for ethics or alignment and neither does the Martyr. All that matters is that everything crumbles into ashes that it can dance around. The Martyr is not a god. The Martyr is not an empire-builder. Beyond it's incredible power and eons of experience and knowledge, the Martyr is nothing but a mad capering ghoul that wishes to see reality rot around it and be reduced to despair and mindless malevolence for it to dance in. It only wants all around it to have nothing but their sadness and know...and know that it took all that they could be from them. As all Evil beings ultimately do.
Zousha_Omenohu 11-15-07, 05:01 PM	This, sir, has got to be one of the scariest things I've ever read!:gah:
Bobfred21 11-15-07, 05:38 PM	*Standing ovation*
sciborg3 11-16-07, 11:03 AM	This was really interesting. Though I don't pretend to fully grasp the Demented, I feel like this being is trying to drag Everything into Hades, while the Demented wish to spread Evil and use it to poison the Multiverse. Though I suppose the end result might end up being the same.
Lobsopdoy 11-16-07, 12:47 PM	This was really interesting. Though I don't pretend to fully grasp the Demented, I feel like this being is trying to drag Everything into Hades, while the Demented wish to spread Evil and use it to poison the Multiverse. Though I suppose the end result might end up being the same. Basically, yes. What is most important to him is to make everything around him lose EVERYTHING. He wants order to crumble because it is a firm foundation for building things that last a long time. He wants chaos destroyed because it is what creates spontaneous life and hope and free will. He doesn't want everything to die though. He wants to keep some alive because what's the point of doing all that if no one is around to see it and suffer. To him, Hades is the best representation of his goal. It is a place with no space for good works or hope. It is saturated with despair and blind malignancy Even when people who follow him die, they still don't get free. He takes control of them and makes them worship him even in death. - - - - - - btw, if he was a true diety, I think his portfolios would be Entropy, Nihilism, Despair, and Suicide.
Lobsopdoy 11-25-07, 01:57 PM	Alright, I finally wrote up stats for the Martyr. I used the Baernoloth and Nether Fiend template from Dice Freaks. If anyone has any criticism or comments, I would really appreciate them. The Martyr (Baernoloth, Nether-Fiend) Large Outsider (Evil) Hit Dice: 45d8 Initiative: +10 Speed: 70 ft. (avatar) (0 for The Martyr himself) AC: 64 Base Attack/Grapple: +27/+35 Attack: Touch+35 melee touch (11d6 vile and burning) Full Attack: 2 touch+35 melee (11d6 vile and burning) Space/ Reach: 10 ft. /10 ft. Special Attacks: Burning, glare, spell-like abilities, vile nature Special Qualities: Damage Reduction 30 Epic/Good (true incarnation only), Immunity to acid and poison, Resistance to cold 30 fire 30, electricity 30, Spell Resistance 60, Telepathic communication up to 1000 feet. Regeneration 15/Epic, Good. immunity to polymorphing, petrification, form-altering attacks, and mind-affecting effects, energy drain, ability drain, or ability damage except for those effects associated with their Accursed Gifts defined below. The Martyr is immortal and cannot die from natural causes. The Martyr does not age, and does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. The only way for The Martyr to die is through special circumstances. Finally, The Martyr can sense anything within one mile around the mentioning of its name, titles, or an item or place of importance to it. This power is barred from places associated with gods of goodness or the personal redoubts of other Nether Fiends. Saves: Fort +45, Ref +27, Will+40 Abilities: Str 33, Dex 22, Con 40, Int 50, Wis 45, Cha 40 Skills: Appraise +42, Bluff +56, Concentration +41, Decipher Script +42, Diplomacy +49, Disguise +51 (+55 acting), Forgery +42, Hide +33, Intimidate +47, Knowledge (arcana) +42, Knowledge (history) +42, Knowledge (the planes) +42, Knowledge (religion) +42, Listen +43, Move Silently +33, Search +42, Sense Motive +43, Spellcraft +46, Spot +43, Survival +13 (+17 on other planes), Use Magic Device +41 (+31 scrolls) Feats: Dark Speech, Improved Initiative, Persuasive, Quicken Spell-like Ability (x3), Skill Focus (Bluff) Epic Feats: Epic Skill Focus (Bluff), Epic Skill Focus (Disguise) Climate/Terrain: Anywhere (avatar), Organization: Solitary Challenge Rating: 50 Alignment: Neutral Evil Burning (Ex): Those that are dealt damage from The Martyr's touch attack must make a Fortitude save (DC 34) or take half the original damage each round for the next 1d4 rounds. Multiple touches stack. Glare (Su): Those that meet The Martyr's gaze must make a Fortitude save (DC 34) or become sickened and a Will save (DC 34) or become panicked. Creatures who fail both saves fall comatose for an hour. The effects can be removed only via remove curse or similar effects. This is a gaze attack with a range of 90 feet. Spell-like Abilities: Always active – deathward, detect evil, detect good, mind blank, nondetection, tongues, true seeing, unholy aura; at will – animate dead, baleful polymorph (DC 26), bestow greater curse (DC 29), blasphemy (DC 28), contagion (DC 25), [i]control undead (DC 28), dismissal (DC 26), energy drain[/] (DC 30), [i]finger of death (DC 28), greater dispel magic, greater teleport, horrid wilting (DC 29), improved invisibility,morality undone, mass charm monster (DC 29), permanent image (DC 27), programmed image (DC 27), shapechange, symbol of death (DC 29), telekinesis (DC 26), trap the soul (DC 29), unhallow, unholy blight; 3/day – antipathy (DC 29), circle of death (DC 27), damnation (DC 31), discern location, dominate monster (DC 30), feeblemind (DC 26), harm (DC 27), heal (DC 27), imprisonment, mass hold monster (DC 30), mirage arcana (DC 26), resurrection, screen, sympathy (DC 29); 1/day – legend lore. Caster level 27th The Martyr can cast spells as a 27th level Cleric Vile Nature (Ex): All damage dealt by The Martyr is vile and must be healed in a consecrated area. Accursed Gifts (4): Malicious Murderer: The Martyr is afflicted with sadism that would shock even the foulest of mortal torturers. The Martyrs' insights into suffering causes all creatures struck by it to become preoccupied with the pain it inflicts, imposing a -8 penalty to attacks, AC, and saves to any creature touched by The Martyr. Targets with a Divine or VDvR higher then or equal to that of The Martyr may save at a DC of 10 + 1/2 The Martyrs HD + The Martyrs strength modifier to resist the effect. The affects are curse like and can only be reversed with a miracle, wish, or greater restoration by a caster with HD or levels equal to three fourths that of The Martyr. However, The Martyr’s sadism will cause it to always seek to kill a helpless or dying creature in the most gruesome and painful manner regardless of the danger to itself. When The Martyr is within 30 ft. of helpless or dying creature it must succeed at a will save DC 10 +1/2 HD + Cha mod, to do any action other then murder it's target in the most savage and painful way possible. This quality makes no difference between helpless or dying allies or enemies. Font of Despair: The very presence of The Martyr is anathema to hope or productivity and it's insidious and feral whispers constantly share this mental trauma with those around it. The Martyr's whispers causes all within 60 ft. to lose any magical or supernatural morale bonus unless the victims of the effect succeed at a will save of 10 +1/2 The Martyr's HD + The Martyr's Cha mod. However, The Martyr also lacks the ability to focus on even its own tasks. Thus a Nether Fiend may never take 10 or 20 on any roll, and takes a -5 penalty to Move Silently checks. Oozing Blood: Horrible, gaping wounds cover the base creature’s body, from which jelly-like red or black blood eternally seeps. The Martyr suffers an additional point of damage per die from any slashing weapons. However, when attacked by bludgeoning weapons, the impact of the blow causes corrosive blood to spew from the body, dealing 2d8 points of acid damage/5 HD to all within 5 feet of The Martyr, half of which is vile in nature. Crucified: Through his own will, the Martyr has crucified himself permanently to a Y-shaped cross found when he found (but did not discover) Qua Angelus Vereor calco. As a result, he is stuck in his home realm and his movement rate is 0. However, he can interact with the Great Wheel by sending out less powerful avatars of himself. Avatars are considered to have the same stats as The Martyr, but with 10 less HD and the accompanied lowering of stats. Avatars are able to physically move at a rate of 70 ft. His crucification has tied him irrevocably to Qua Angelus Vereor calco and he can be considered to have the equivalent of 18 VDvR when encountered there. Avatar Specific abilities/ Qualities: Contempt of the Flesh: As a sign of The Martyr's embrace of death and nihilism, even his avatars do not present much defense. An avatar of the Martyr starts with 5 AC and can raise it's AC as a free action only to a maximum of 30 AC at will. The Martyr will often simply allow enemies to attack it and do as much damage they wish, considering the pain transmitted to him through his avatar as the only evidence that he truly is alive. Reconstitution: The Martyr cares nothing for the environment around him or his avatars. As a move action, The Martyr's avatars can abandon it's physical form to teleport anywhere within 120 feet, rebuilding itself with the matter around it, reshaping it so that it takes his form. Because of this, the Martyr's avatars can only be 'killed' if all of their HP is depleted in a single round. An avatar's rebuilt form is identical to it's normal form, and it's HP and other effects are completely restored to normal.
Lobsopdoy 12-02-07, 08:20 PM	From "A Treatise on the Fiends of all types, and Their Tendencies" by Nishakal. Kept in the Library of the 5th Level of Mount Celestia The Martyr does not wish for entropy for it's own sake, but for everything to embrace the belief that their existance is completely meaningless. If he harnesses entropy, then it is only to show the futility of faith and hope. By breaking down anything, be it matter or metaphor, he proves that there is no point in placing your faith in anything, divine or mundane. The diety you worship will not save you, because it will eventually be forgotten. Your empire and civilization will crumble and fall under the onslaught of your inevitable foes. Goodness and hope will avail you nothing when you are faced with the void. The message of The Martyr is that the light at the end of a tunnel is only annihilating fire. His insanity...and the Demented are all in their way insane, is such that he cannot keep his own avatars together when put under any stress. A sword will cut through the skin of the Martyr's projections as easily as it would a rotten plank of spongy wood. This is his curse, he is doomed to be physically incapable of truly effecting the world around him, damned to have to rebuild himself from scrap a million times over. The Martyr will try to spread it's nihilistic message to all that will hear, favouring the survivors of massive catastrophe when they can truly see the random meaningless behind life. Some of them simply kill themselves. Others decide that if existence is meaningless, nothing that they do matters and unbind themselves from morality. Both please the Martyr equally. The Martyr wishes for a multiverse swept of meaning and hope. When this happens, he will finally be content...for a time. He wishes to be able to gloat over the corpse of happiness and love, revelling in the fact that only HE was able to take it away from everyone. The most important thing, though, is that existence goes on inexorably in this state. There is no point in going through all of this if no one is there to KNOW that they are helpless and inconsequential. The Martyr is the face of the slow horrible march towards the heat death of the universe, a shell of it's former glory only kept alive for his amusement.