Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Weresnakes

Weresnakes:
Were-snakes are reptilian shapeshifters. Alphas are almost always female and it is rare to find a male alpha, but it has happened. When those rarities do hapen, they are highly prized as potential sires of children, for it helps to assure that the offspring will be alphas as well. Their origins may hail back to the ancient Minoans with their snake goddess and sensual culture. Their Leaders are called Archons, and can be either male or female though they are normally female, other female alphas are Basilissa or Basilissas if plural, while Betas are Defteros and Omegas are Diarkos and they refer to themselves as a group of Ophidians. Male Alphas are called Basilias or Basilios (pl) and the head of a family is the Matriarch.

Their culture is a meritocracy with Matriarchal overtones. Children are birthed and then raised in a creche and they do not form permanent attachments or take mates the way other groups do. As snakes they mate seasonally, sometimes in groups. While the children are raised in a créche, their mothers often do take an interest in them, and bloodlines are carefully written down and tracked to prevent to much interbreeding. They are considered adult at the age of 16 and at that time are welcome to participate in 'family' gatherings and such things.

As humans they treat sex casually, as just another recreation. Their ideas of sexuality and is what is acceptable have more to do with eastern and archaic thought than modern 'western' morality. Collectively a group is called a nest...

Because this is a meritocracy, the Ophidian who is most able and capable of making decisions for the Nest is the Archon. The Archon may be male though it is most often female and the archon may be replaced by the will of the Nest as a whole or by age or if they choose to step down for a successor who they feel is more capable. The position is also not hereditary and when an Archon steps down, they frequently remain as an advisor for several years to the new Archon to help smooth over the shift in power and leadership.

The Nest lives in a large compound outside of town and their children are home schooled in the créches. That is not to say that they do not also have houses in town or rent apartments for they often do, just that their main home is the compound

Ghosts

Ghosts are the sprits of humans or other creatures which have been unable to move on after death. There is some form of unfinished business which consumes their soul so totally that they are bound to this world. The only race that can not become ghosts are demons.

Ghosts are part of this world, but hidden to most around them. Due to their lack of physical body their senses are limited, they can no-longer smell, taste or see in color. They walk through the world unseen by anyone other than clairvoyants and demons. They can wander from place to place freely, but they tend to linger around the familiar. Their time is usually spent trying to resolve their unfinished business or watching over those they loved.

Powers & abilities:

Ghost are incorporeal so they can wander through any substance. Walls are no barrier to a ghost.

Older ghosts can sometimes even 'blink' themselves from one place to another, the distance depending upon the strength of the ghost.

Ghosts can, with decades of practice, learn to move items short distances through sheer force of will. However, this is extremely difficult and it is the rare ghost who can move a heavy object even a few millimeters.

All ghosts can take over a clairvoyant's body when invited and a few have been known to force their way in against the will of the host. However, they are usually expelled by the body within an hour.

All ghosts can speak to clairvoyants, demons and any magic user which has summoned them.

Ghosts regularly try to interfere with our world often with the assistance of clairvoyants, and occasionally by bargaining with demons. As a ghost they have proof that there must be some afterlife and they come to value their souls dearly. Nonetheless, there will always be some ghosts so desperate to resolve their unfinished business that they will sell the only thing they have left.

Ghosts do not eat, drink or sleep. They have nowhere to go and spend each day watching others live their lives. Unsurprisingly many older ghosts are completely insane.

There are various rumors, spread from ghost to ghost, about what happens to those who 'move on'. No ghost is totally certain where the souls go on to, and why exactly they move on. The most common theory is that ghosts will move on once they have resolved their unfinished business; however stories abound of ghosts who have never been seen again, despite the fact that they never resolved that which tied them to the earth. Some ghosts have questioned the demons that they come across, but who can ever truly trust the answers given by a demon?

Psychics

“Psychics" is a loose term for someone
with extra sensory perception. Powers
include but are not limited to:

Mediums: can speak to the dead and can channel the dead

Clairvoyants: have the ability to know things from touch

Precognitive: knows the future. Different degrees, some may only know immediate future, other will be able to see far, but at a price for their sanity.

Post cognitive: knows the past

Telepathy: Can send thought

Clairaudient: can hear thoughts

Telekenetic: can move things with their mind

please be advised that these arent the only powers out there, just the most common ones.

Witches

Witches are men and women, who practice magic in the human traditional sense (herbs, stones, incantations, spells, prayer and divination). Their powers are inherent and passed down through the generations. Magic is coveted, along with the secrets belonging to the family, and they rarely share their secrets with outside clans. Family magic is filtered through the deity the family pledged themselves to eons ago in exchange for knowledge and power. Sacrifice in the traditional sense is frowned upon, although deities ask that the acts that are carried out in their name and to honor them be sexual, maternal, and political or business related.


Witch Deities: Witch clans have deities that they glean their powers from. There is only one deity per clan and the deity does not belong to more than one family, or clan. Occasionally a Deity will take on a lone witch, as a first time acolyte, but mostly they stay were they will have the most influence. Please look in the links for the sites you can use to find a deity, as they can be any type of deity, (Celtic, Middle Eastern, Sumerian, Babylonian, roman, Greek, Japanese, ect.)


Witch Powers: Powers Vary from clan to clan, and certain witches are proficient in specialized things, others have a broader basis of powers to choose from. Magic for them is more of a specialty then book learned. While most clans and families teach the basics to their younger members, many do go off on their own for what interests them. Specialties include but are not limited to:

Silence spells


Atmosphere spells (calling the elements)


Healing spells


Pain spells


Defensive and offensive spells.

Witches have been known to bargain their souls for increased power, sometimes at the advice of their family deity (who do things for their own selfish reasons)

If a witch invokes a Royal demon then that witch becomes a sorcerer or A sorceress with very powerful spells and servants at their disposal

Sorcerer:

Sorcerers are witches that bargain with a royal demon for more power. The bargain is done by contract, and a binding is performed, by way of sexual contact or bloodletting. there are other ways but those are the most used.

A witch that deals with a common demon becomes a banshee, with a litle more power, but never as much as a sorceress.

Sorceress gain much of their power from their demon and take on the demons powers and characteristics. they are taught control and have higher tolerences to death.

On the eve of the binding, be it by blood or by sex, the bargain is struck and finished, and the binding commences. Most choose a sexual binding, unless they are bargained with a same sex demon.

A binding is very hard on both parties, a sexual one incorporates a good amount of magic and strength, the bloodletting a fair amount of blood. Both methods will effectively bind the sorceress/er to the demon, however they share a more close and intimate bond and power transference if the binding is sexual.

The powers they are granted mostly depend on the bargain struck and the demon they struck it with. Depending on the Element of the Royal demon, the sorcerer/ss will gain what the bargain states of that element. Please be advised that a sorcerer/ss will not gain full powers from their demon, only smaller ones, with very few high-level (calling ice, full teleportation, commanding fire, ect)

When you make the bargain:

State what the character wants and is willing to give and then state what the Demon will gain from the bargain. also state if the binding will be sexual or bloodletting in nature, as that is important to the plot and storyline. Please also include how the power structures between the two will play out.

Side effects:

Sexual side effects may occur. IF the binding is done with a lot of magic, the witch in question will start to crave their demons touch and body, and the demon will gain some of the witches’ emotions for a time. The treatment if this is either casual touching that most demons do not do, or a continued sexual relationship until such time as the witch can draw off the demon and not crave them.

Bloodletting side effects are minor and include fatigue and heightened appetite. They can here their master’s call in their head and have to learn better control of the powers flooding them.

Fey

The fey, (fairies) race is a species more closely related to true demons than humans. Because of this, breeding with humans makes fey blood week over time in most cases.

Fey are the topside cousins of the demons of the Afterverse, having powers that the various demon races were in fact jealous of.

Fey are irresistible to demons, both sexually and power wise, as they possess abilities the demon races do not. Full blooded fey are rare but few have intermarried with humans (normal humans, psychics, weres and hybrid demons) giving their offspring varying degrees of power.


POWERS:


All fey possess innate abilities, and many of the same powers but a few fey possess latent and individual abilities.


Personal powers A: These powers can belong to more than one fey at one time, as they are generalized and don’t have a specific area of expertise that is a singular power:

*

underwater breathing
*

causing and inflicting pain
*

transformation into more than one entity
*

accelerated healing
*

helping things grow (fertility)
*

haunting and beautiful voices that can both sooth and terrify
*

powers tied to the moon


Personal Powers B: these powers can only belong to one fey at one time, please get a hold of a mod to ask what is available. If you have a power that isn’t listed here but is classified as an only one fey type of power, please get a hold of a mod for approval. They are from the previous list and a few more:

*

Calling storms and weather
*

Powers over the elements
*

Dominion over the dead
*

Dominion over a certain element (fire, earth, water/ice, air)
*

Manipulation
*

Ability to manipulate natural elements (i.e.: spider webs, darkness, )


Common abilities:

*

Dimensional travel
*

Seeing into the immediate future
*

Seduction
*

The ability to conjure clothing and useful items from think air
*

Voices are pleasing to the ear
*

Can dance and move with fluid grace, almost like their floating
*

Sniffing out a lie
*

Ability to create spoken oaths and promises (words have power)


Fey relationships and procreation:

Fey can mate with any race, but with different outcomes. If a full-blooded Fey mates with a human, and isn’t a royal fey, the children they produce will be human with minimal abilities. These abilities will remain dormant unless awakened by a Fey or enhanced by a demonic bargain. They will have very watered down versions of the most basic of the common Fey powers (Seduction, wishing, pleasing voices, ECT)


Human Fey hybrids:


A lot more common than fey themselves retain a measure of the latent powers, but also have the innate powers or their sires. The powers that are innate are more of what they are, not what they have learned. These powers include but aren’t limited to : Luck, Seduction and prowess with a particular weapon, i.e., knives.

This category also includes:

*

Fey/Psychic: offspring will have more control over their psychic powers
*

Fey/Witch: offspring will have more control and be able to master more than one specialization should they choose to be a witch in truth and have a deity.
*

Fey/Weres: offspring can easily master partial changes and more often than not will have the will and drive of alpha and group heads.
*

Fey/Demon: a full fey and a full demon are a sterile pair. They cancel each other out.


Royal Fey/Humans:

A royal Fey that mates with a human has a different outcome with their offspring. Royal blood is very strong and the offspring will manifest a lot of what their sires have as powers. The common powers will be prevalent, but specialized (IE: one line of royal Fey could have seduction as their prominent common power, while another could have dimensional travel). These powers don’t have to be awakened as the blood is stronger in the offspring of a royal, and the generations after that will have the same strength in the blood as the first generation. No matter what the combination, the royal blood will always prevail



Offspring Growth:

*

Fey/Human: Normal human growth cycles
*

Fey/Psychic: Normal human growth cycles, However Psychic abilities manifest early, and are very strong thought growing.
*

Fey/Weres: Normal Were Growth, shifting abilities come earlier than puberty.
*

Fey/Demon: As fey and demon cannot procreate, they do not have a growth cycle.
*

Fey/Bargained Humans: As a bargained human of a family pact, these offspring grow as fast as Demon children, becoming aware and walking, talking and manifesting powers at a very early age compared to human children. These children begin speaking around six months and the rest follows suit within a year, and they grow at twice the rate of human children.


INFORMATION:


Fey keep track of their numbers and descendants by keeping a BOOKE OF NAMES. Only full blooded fey have these books, but both full blooded and hybrids are recorded inside. While full blooded fey just appear when they are born in the book, hybrids must be recognized, and their latent and innate powers awakened before they appear in the books.


Fey/Humans that make a Demonic Bargain:

If a hybrid human makes a bargain with a demon, the bargain for the powers is elevated. For example, a human that makes a bargain for Glacies powers will in effect be able to do things Glacies cannot normally do, such as lower room temperatures and shoot ice shards in abundance or form ice out of thin air. They would in effect have Conglacio powers but still be regulated to the halls upon death.



APPEARANCES:

Fey look like humans in physical appearance, but have unblemished skin and vibrant hair and eyes. Eye color ranges from deep brown to almost blue-white and resemble human eyes except for the bold coloration. Fey hair is still normal natural colors that occur in humans but with highlights of gold, silver, plums, reds, blues and oranges.


Eyes:

Eyes are of normal human appearance, except for the colors. They have a normal black pupil and the iris is what the color is, like a humans. Colors vary in shades and intensity, to every color known to man and beyond.


Hair:

Hair is normal human coloring with vibrant highlights of odd and beautiful colors. Highlights of blues, purples, plums, reds, gold’s, silvers, greens are all very common, and they reflect their special abilities. A Fey with blue or turquoise highlights might have abilities with water and one with purples and plums with storms and weather. Greens indicate powers having to do with nature and fertility and oranges, reds and gold’s powers involving, heat, the sunshine and fire. Silvers and whites and pale colors, powers having to do with the night, the moon and other heavenly bodies.



Skin:

All Fey, whether full blooded or a hybrid of a sort, have unblemished skin with little or no lines ever appearing on them. They do get brands and or tattoos. Human fey hybrids have been known, when the blood of the fey is weak, to manifest moles and beauty marks on their skin.


Height and body type:

Fey are tall, between 5ft 9 and 6 ft 7, and are thin, lithe, muscular and lean. They rarely get fat and have little to no body hair except for their chests, faces, and head hair on men, and head hair on women.


Fey blood enhances, it doesn’t make other races "other", just more. While Fey hybrids will have mostly human characteristics (Appearance wise). They will exhibit small similarities to their Full blooded Fey sires and cousins. It can be as small as more vibrant human colored hair and eyes, to large blocks of color in the hair of the individual and non human colored eyes. Fey Hybrids have been known to have unique hair color and eye color, and highlights, and unique colored skin, either moon kissed or sun kissed, or with very pale colors like translucence to their skin. With undertones of what looks like pearlized color in some, they are the easiest hybrids to spot.