application - fade rift

[nonvenomous]

PLAYER

Name: Rockefeller
Age: 30s
Contact: hydrostatic.shark@gmail.com / hackfraud @ plurk
Other Characters:
Interests: I like action and politics and spy intrigue and conflict lots of conflict.

CHARACTER

Name: Alias: Richard Dickerson, Actual: Zseiless Atheris
Canon/OC: OC (DND character)
Canon Point: Most recent sleep was after the party just stopped a gang of fiends from killing a warlock who works for a bad news devil, very probably against the wishes of Richard's employer.
Journal: nonvenomous
Age: 40

Canon World

TASSIA is the homebrew creation of our DM -- there are 4 continental nations oriented NSEW around a narrow land bridge that connects them all a central University/Embassy zone called The Cruxal. A massive storm called the howling eye and a thick mist known as the brume limit travel out over the ocean beyond a certain point; the land is broadly believed to be flat, and has never been circumnavigated.

The 4 nations each house a massive, elemental crystal core at their furthest points from The Cruxal and are culturally and geologically distinct, with biomes representative of the elemental crystal they’re host to (Ifrin to the west with fire, Promias to the south with earth, Sylvica to the east with wind, and Lloryndell to the north with water). The crystals are guarded by ancient dragons and immensely powerful -- they are believed to keep the world in balance, along with supplying the world with its magic via ether. Each continent has its own government, class systems, resources, etc. Broad seas separate the continents from each other.

Tassia is populated with DND races and creatures, and utilizes the pantheon of Faerun with some homebrew spin. There is some in-world prejudice against the most beastial races, who are most densely populated in Sylvica to the east.

Currently there seems to be an organized effort by fiendish entities to cross over into Tassia’s plane and take over running concurrently with a cult-driven attempt to either destroy or exert control over the elemental crystals. A Disturbance in the Force is messing with the crystals’ power over the land, characters have had visions of crystals being sundered and the world in ruin. Real end of the world type stuff that hasn’t made headlines yet -- few people outside of the party really seem to have cottoned on to what is happening.

QUICK RACE BREAKDOWN: The Yuan-ti are an ancient (once great, now fallen) people who performed profane rituals to permanently mingle their blood with that of snakes to better serve and more closely resemble the dark serpentine deities they worshipped.

The Yuan-ti come in different varieties, from many-headed serpentine monstrosities to people with living snakes for arms to Richard Dickersons who appear 90-99% human but have slitted eyes, or patches of scales easily hidden by clothing. The more monstrously snakelike an individual is, the higher their caste in Yuan-ti society.

“Purebloods” like Richard, who appear mostly human, are in the lowest caste and are assigned the worst and most menial work accordingly. They are also utilized as spies, which is in itself an undesirable position, as the Yuan-ti are generally disgusted by the other mortal races. Richard is a pureblood spy currently assigned to reporting on the DND party he’s a part of, unknown to them. This includes BROOKLYN, who knows he’s shady and Yuan-ti, but not what he’s up to.

History

- Live born in Sylvica as “Zseiless Atheris,” mother a Yuan-ti spy, father was (unknown to Richard) an old human flame (and enemy spy), which might account for how well Dick passes at a glance. Yuan-ti don’t typically smash with anything not another Yuan-ti, but they were into each other, which Mumsy Dickerson obviously had no interest in disclosing to anyone.

- Group education, with emphasis on the origin and superiority of the Yuan-ti themselves, and the serpentine deities they worship. Sunday school for snakes.

- Best students had otherworldly dreams and developed warlock powers from their connections with the slumbering eldritch snake gods they worshipped.

- Richard also came into channeling some magical ability. His was different, more utility and healing than horror show, and he didn’t have dreams about Dendar the Nightmare Serpent. He did lie about having them, though.

- Considered the weakest among the casters, Dick believed (from a purely practical standpoint) that they must be right. This would be consistent with his less snake-like appearance.

- Richard was put out on spy assignments from his late teens onward. When he was 19, he was sent to the Cruxal to keep tabs on a professor, made friends and very nearly went AWOL. He pretended not to receive the first order to return home, but chickened out and returned to Sylvica after the second. He really liked it there.

- While at the Cruxal, Dick was quickly assimilated into Oghma’s order. He continued to gravitate to a “cleric of Oghma” personna for many years and assignments after this, as it was easy for him and relatively innocuous.

- Odd assignments of varying intensity and length for 20 years, different pseudonyms and identities, everything from research collection to dungeon archeology to cooking books for gangsters to outright infiltration.

- Eventually assigned to infiltrate, monitor and report on the movements of a group of adventurers who recently blew up a mine in Phandalin, IE the DND party.

- Slow-dawning realization over several weeks of adventuring that the Yuan-ti are complicit in (possibly driving) a scheme for fiends to overtake Tassia, in addition to having a heavy hand in the plot to destroy or assert control over the elemental crystals, bringing about the end of the world. The rest of the party doesn’t seem to have noticed the overlap.

- Richard was recently visited by the David Miscavige of Yuan-ti spymasters after he went too long without reporting in, and was given a little more insight.

- This added insight heavily indicated that this adventuring party has some major role to play in the events unfolding.

- Oghma also helped via a dream that showed him the destruction of Sylvica, while at the same time spanking him for getting it twisted and being too up his own ass to realize that he was intended to work for Oghma all along.

- Quietly losing his mind bc this is way above his paygrade, his party is full of assholes and he has no idea what to do.

- THEDAS???

Personality

Courtesy of their corrupted snake blood, the Yuan-ti are generally cold, calculating, and driven by their desire for power, particularly as it pertains to ascension. Most do not feel emotion at all, and care only for themselves.

AS a Yuan-ti, Richard is low-key and dry and a pragmatist to his core -- astute about the feelings and reactions of others with very little actual emotional/ethical investment of his own. He will often (although less often, lately) put on an air of Rule Following and Coloring in the Lines, in keeping with his cleric of Oghma/adventurer’s guild auditor personna. He can (and will) also be supportive and friendly as part of his helper cleric act, if never exuberantly so, and again -- less so lately, as stress in his life has mounted, and it’s become very clear to him that most of his party is too trusting, self-absorbed and/or dense to think twice about anything he does.

In practice he’s much shadier than he lets on -- he will condone, facilitate and participate in theft, assassination, torture, etc without bother if the mission requires it, or the practical gain seems worth it. He takes calculated risks, especially if someone else is likely to reap the consequences, and generally does not feel guilt or remorse for his actions. I say "generally" because he tends to be just a LITTLE less callous about individuals he develops affection for. He is at least passingly protective of most of his party.

In his deepest heart he likes structure and study and feeling important. More than he wants power, he wants respect, and nobody respects this dude. He’s been trodden on his entire life, by virtue of his caste and by the fact that nearly 100% of the people he interacts with on the daily assume he is a spineless, goober human who does other people’s homework for fun.

The reality that he is definitely kind of a bad Yuan-ti and capable of getting invested in and attached to people he’s had harrowing experiences with, but he’s also god-tier patient about being shat on, doesn’t flinch to intimidation or rise to bait, and holds up inhumanly well under pressure in general. The looming apocalypse he’s contending with is a good example, with his Yuan-ti superiors twisting his arm and Oghma bleeding judgment and disappointment all over him every time he makes a hard move. Apart from that early mishap around The Cruxal, and more recent cracks finally beginning to show, he’s always been a consummate professional in the field -- reliable, timely and dutiful in his record-keeping.

I have a feeling he might let his freak flag fly a little more openly in Thedas, what with the human skin and the big existential question of whether or not he’s even a real person, but the scaffolding underneath is all the same regardless.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Default Settings:

In DND terms, Dick has split levels between Rogue and Knowledge Cleric, which means he’s a sneaky dorkus.

Infiltration, insight and research are Richard’s biggest strengths. He’s unflappable under pressure by his ancestor’s design, a talented liar (and lie detector), and has twenty years of experience being an innocuous, boringly helpful That Guy with a clipboard or book or ruler in his hand. To provide short-term perspective, he is the only “human” in his DND party, and an OOC year into a biweekly campaign, other party members still regularly mock him to his face for being boring Richard “Humanman” Dickerson. This twenty year span also gave him some very close and pinpointed outsider perspective into human patterns of behavior that make him pretty adept on picking up on subtle emotions and cues.

Due to rolling with a cleric of Oghma personna most of the time, he’s spent a lot of time in and around libraries, researching, documenting, etc. He is also a polyglot, largely by virtue of the Oghma connection, can somehow speak 7 DND languages and picks up on new languages relatively quickly.

Conversely, although he’s quick with a knife and strategically-minded, he is not great in martial combat, and typically quick to slither into a position where he’s unlikely to face direct engagement, even if it puts someone else in the line of fire. He might not outright run from a fight, but it’s extremely rare for him to put himself at risk purely to help or save someone else, without some kind of calculated cover or ulterior motive.

He is also genuinely contemptuous of humankind himself, overconfident and shady about emulating them and their dumb human habits accordingly. See: his primary alias, currently. Literally being human for the purposes of this Thedas experiment will likely wear on him some, and may contribute to some uncharacteristic sloppiness.

SIMILARLY, his separation from Oghma is going to be a real bitch for him, without that magical crutch and stability to lean into.

With Magic:

As a cleric in DND, Dick is a conduit for Oghma’s power rather than the source of it himself, which I think could mean a complete nerf as far as spellcasting is concerned, if I’m grokking the FAQ correctly. If I wanted to preserve or adapt anything it’d probably be healing and hurty necromantic magic.

He has a couple of dinky-to-mediocre spells that are enough to take the edge off a fresh injury, get someone who dropped back to very weak consciousness, stop someone from bleeding out from a single deep wound without closing it up all the way, etc. These spells would not be able to set a broken bone or regrow any body parts. This is something that he can cast on himself, but it would be exhausting to do it repeatedly.

The one more powerful heal spell he has is necromantic in nature, where he can substantially improve an individual’s situation, but would take half of the healed the damage himself. So maybe he could save the life of someone that’s suffered grievous injury, but they’d still be pretty torn up, and he’d do some painful sizzling himself, maybe suffering wounds similar to the ones that were healed. Side note -- this would also not regrow anything that got cut off but might be able to lock up a broken bone back together, provided it wasn’t splintered too badly and someone set it first.

He has some (limited by the setting) medical knowledge as well, to where he can stitch and apply pressure and set and stuff like that, wouldn’t close a bunch of glass up in a wound etc etc.

His good good super good personality is the biggest barrier to these spells being used often, or ever. He’s actually never cast Life Transference (the necromantic healing spell) in DND combat in no small part due to most of the party being rude to him.

In the context of him being a slippery dick in general, he might not let on that he is capable of doing this at all, unless pressed or otherwise in dire circumstances.

“Mending” is similar to the healing spells listed above, but is relegated to non-living material. It can be used to repair holes/tears/breaks in objects (repairing a broken key, filling in a tear in the page of a book, patching clothing). This is limited to breaks/tears/holes that are not greater than 1 foot in any direction.

“Inflict Wounds” would require physical contact and is just a big slap of necromantic damage. Not enough to kill (or even half kill) a healthy person, but probably enough to shock them out of whatever they were doing by scorching damage into them, in the same way being shot would make for a compelling distraction. In practice this is kind of like a skunk spray or octopus ink type move where he might use it if backed into a bad situation, or was suddenly pressed to contribute meaningfully to a fight. It could be used to kill someone very frail, or very injured, similarly to how stabbing them would also be more effective in those situations.

There’s an instance of him being in a fight in one of his starters on the TDM and he’s pointedly not using it there because he’s outnumbered and doesn’t fancy his odds if he’s the one to escalate into attempted murder. If it was just one thug he might consider it, but even then it’d be a calculated maneuver triggered by the attacker escalating first.

I can be more detailed about these abilities if you’re ok with him retaining like, an interior dutch oven fart of Oghma god power in his soul place that fuels one aspect of his otherwise complete array of magic.

Other than that I’d like him to keep his natural affinity with snakes and night vision from being a snakeman if possible. Can safely handle snakes with a fair degree of confidence, and can see in darkness up to 60 feet as if it’s dim light. He has poison glands and belly scales, but those will have to go in the humanization. Sad.

Suggested Nerfs

I feel like I mostly covered this in the discussion of his magic abilities above, which are pretty limited as is. Typically he’d have a full range of spells and features that do all kinds of things, including mind reading but that is definitely not allowed so he can just be mad about that.

Arrival Inventory

dark studded leather armor, boots, clothes and stuff you know
2 daggers
a whip
Theives tools (lockpick, little prybar, tinkering type stuff to disarm traps and the like)
a sheet of rain and possibly also tornado destruction style debris that gets dropped through
a red clay talisman to oghma on a leather cord around his neck which previously let him receive disapproval from oghma directly but will now do nOTHING
a weird stick approx. 1 foot long that can turn into a harmless garter snake that follows his commands, worn around the wrist in dream, originally meant to send messages back to his spymaster via a spell but won’t send messages here
“Night vision” goggles that don’t do anything but convince his party that he has a way to see in the dark
Empty journal

Humanization

Richard’s eyes were naturally blue for years but began to fade and yellow when he hit his late teens. Upon cursory examination at home, they appear a pale, goldish grey or a very light hazel. His pupils were also very slightly slitted. Here his eyes will be blue again, with regular human pupils.

He had white belly scales and some additional green scaling on his back that will be gone, poison immunity fro his snake blood, and venom glands in his upper jaw that will go too.

That same blood is arguably to blame for how emotionlessly he operates; I’m thinking his personality and grey matter overall will stay mapped as it is, but he might be a little more vulnerable to having a confusing experience with feelings every now and again while trapped in ape hell.

Fit

I am 100% canon blind but AS IT WAS EXPLAINED TO ME in detail by TK and Brooklyn, I think Thedas seems pretty close to a DND situation to the point that Dick can blend in comfortably and put his skills to good use with minimal culture shock. I like the idea of him being peeled out of a snakeskin that nobody really knew about and having to cope with the strangeness of being trapped in a form he detests while trying to remain productive and functional in a familiar capacity. He has some identity issues to work out and being forcibly, physiologically separated from his race without the distraction of modern technology or outer space or whatever while still having to spy or investigate or alphabetize records is a nice kickstart.

In a way it will be a vacation from the world he left where he feels like he’s the only one who has an inkling of what’s really happening and is caught between his own history and culture and his god and what they want vs what he wants.

Except instead of a vacation it’s really more like being committed I guess, and having what he’s been taught to believe is his entire identity ripped away from him, haha. Party.

As a side note, I will likely lock this app after review because it contains a bunch of character spoilers for Dick and Brooklyn is apping in Loxley from the same DND.

SAMPLES

TDM starters/threads
IC journal kept during the campaign

For the latter, I’d just skip to like page 5 and keep in mind that he often omits details with the awareness that both his party and his employers are nosy as fuck and might read it. There is never any mention of who he really is, who he works for or what he thinks might be happening. Notations about “blank spaces” are places on the page where he wrote something, thought better of it later, tore it out and patched the page with mending.