memories............................... for event 11. yea.

Applicant Info

Name: Elia
Contact: tuchanka
Current Character(s): Ochako Uraraka (thriftea)

Character Info

Character's Name: Mogget / Yrael, the Eighth Bright Shiner
Character's Canon: The Old Kingdom Trilogy
Character's Age: 2000+ years? At least.
Canon Point: Post-Abhorsen, after he leaves the Old Kingdom and heads north.
Background/History:

A long, long time ago, before humans were really a Thing, Free Magic creatures roamed and ruled the world. The most powerful of these creatures were known as the Nine Bright Shiners, and while they generally did as they pleased, the Ninth Bright Shiner, Orannis, sought to rid worlds of Life and fill them with Death. Orannis destroyed six worlds before seven other Bright Shiners joined together and sealed him away. To ensure that he remained sealed away, and to ensure that Life was able to flourish, these seven Bright Shiners—Ranna, Mosrael, Kibeth, Dyrim, Belgaer, Saraneth, and Astarael—combined forces and formed what is known as the Charter. The Charter is... essentially a way to bring order to magic? Free Magic, which is magic's natural state, is wild and untamed; the Charter, however, is organized into various symbols/marks, and is therefore both safer and easier to control. Humans can use Charter magic; humans are often consumed by Free Magic. It's tricky.

Anyway: The Eighth Bright Shiner, also known as Yrael, refused to help form the Charter and/or seal away Orannis! He somehow managed to hide until the fight was over, which is when the seven remaining Bright Shiners tracked him down, bound his powers, and forced him to serve the Abhorsen (the anti-necromancer) until... the end of time, presumably. He's two thousand years into this gig when he's first introduced in the books, so in an attempt to keep this short and to the point: Summary of Sabriel, Summary of Lirael, and Summary of Abhorsen! He plays a major part in all three books!

I'm taking him from the very end of the last book, after he helps the other Bright Shiners seal away Orannis and earns his freedom in the process. No longer bound to the Abhorsen, Mogget heads to the cold, barren north... which is as far away from those pesky humans as he can possibly get.

Strengths:

Manipulative
Manipulating others is rarely seen as a positive thing, but Mogget is undeniably good at it. Maybe it's because he spent two millenia observing humans and their many emotions, or maybe it's because his cat-like appearance allows him to easily hide his intentions? Maybe it's both! When he's around humans, he tends to observe them as they interact with one another, or ask them needling questions just to observe their response; then, when he's confident that he understands what makes them tick, he'll push all the right buttons to get exactly what he wants. Sometimes this is as simple as, say, capitalizing on someone's fondness for animals in order to snag a tasty fish, and other times it's as complicated as convincing a grief-stricken, emotionally vulnerable girl that the best way to avenge her family's deaths is to abandon everything she knows to become a necromancer. Someone loses a fish, another person loses their very soul, but as long as Mogget gets what he wants in the end... who cares? Not him!

Intelligent
Aside from Mogget's innate mastery of magic, the two thousand or so years he spent serving humans allowed him to absorb a great deal of non-magical knowledge. You'd think that a good deal of said knowledge would be lost over the centuries, but he possesses an excellent memory. Rattling off the names of the Abhorsen's ancestors? Piece of cake. Drawing a detailed map of the Old Kingdom from memory? Child's play. His intelligence also allows him to easily read people and/or situations. Where other individuals tend to focus on a handful of "key" things and draw their conclusions from them alone, Mogget likes to take a step back and view things from every possible angle. He's the type to notice the small things that others miss.

Level-headed
It's difficult to fluster Mogget, mainly because he's a powerful, ancient magical being. Things that cause his human companions to panic—like, say, the reanimated bodies of a dozen dead men appearing out of nowhere—are almost always things he's run across before; therefore, it usually falls to him to calmly assess the situation at hand and find the course of action that a) produces the maximum effect while b) requiring the least amount of effort. He's... practical to a fault, honestly, and others frequently find this frustrating. Sameth, for example, was unwilling to leave his foundered horse while being chased by a pack of Dead, but rather than waste time arguing, Mogget simply killed the horse himself and ordered the boy to run. Cold-blooded? Yes, but it did save Sameth's life. Mogget has no problem making such split-second decisions.

Weaknesses:

Proud
After spending two thousand years as an unwilling servant, Mogget has a rather large chip on his shoulder. He knows that he's smart, he knows that he's powerful, but humans take one look at this talking cat and either view him as a novelty or treat him as an afterthought. It's rare for someone to take him seriously! It's even rarer for someone to treat him with the respect he believes he deserves, and therefore he's all too eager to one-up someone's intelligence/cunning/what have you when the opportunity arises. He did, for example, help Lirael subdue a tricky Dead creature when her own magical companion was busy, but not because he was concerned for her welfare; he simply wanted to rub his knowledge in the face of her companion, and he never stopped to think that perhaps this was exactly what said companion was hoping would happen. He likes for others to recognize his perceived superiority, even if this means he unwittingly plays into someone else's hands.

Self-Centered
Mogget is interested in one thing and one thing only: himself. He believes others—especially humans—are beneath him, so why should he entwine his fate with theirs? It's better to sit back and observe as things unfold, because then he can continue doing as he pleases without worrying that he'll be punished for choosing the wrong side. Even when another magical being was destroying worlds over two thousand years ago, Mogget refused to join with his so-called "siblings" and attempt to seal it away; instead, he ran away and hid, hoping that both parties would forget about him entirely. They didn't, of course, and the winning side soundly punished him, but he didn't really learn his lesson! He remains wary of choosing one cause over the other, offering only the tiniest bit of assistance—the type that can't be traced back to him—to those he actually cares about. Convincing him to help with something, or to care about an event's outcome, is an ordeal in and of itself.

Suspicious
Charity? Friendliness? What are such things? Mogget believes that selfish motives lurk behind every "good" action, probably because he himself is... incredibly selfish. He very rarely offers anything without expecting something in return, so when others show him genuine kindness he just, you know, assumes the absolute worst and keeps them at an arm's length. This makes becoming his friend all but impossible. He expects others to use him for their own personal gain, or to turn on him the moment they stand to lose something, or to boss him around like the humans he was forced to serve for two miserable millenia; this is why he prefers to keep his distance and manipulate others before they have an opportunity to do the same to him. It sucks! He's lonely! And he rarely gets anything that he really, truly wants, but being miserable and alone is better than being miserable, alone, and betrayed.

Powers/Abilities:

Mogget was once considered to be one of the nine most powerful beings in the universe. He still is powerful, of course, but he freely admits that he isn't as powerful as he once was. He's old, okay! Plus he's spent the past two thousand years in a weakened, bound state, so his ability to use magic is a little... rusty. His main abilities for the game are as follows:

Shapeshifting
Theoretically, Mogget should be able to transform into just about anything, but he strongly prefers to take the form of a white cat. That's what he'll be 99.9% of the time: a boring ol' cat. When he's caught in a fight he can't escape from, or when he really wants to intimidate something/someone, he can shift into a huge big cat, one that's apparently "three times the size of a nomad horse" (Goldenhand, 328). I should also note that he can take the form of a small albino man, but he will never assume this form in Chroma. Who needs thumbs when you have, like, twenty humans with thumbs you can easily boss around...

When it is absolutely necessary—i.e. it's truly a matter of life or death—he will revert to his true form: an impossibly tall, impossibly thin creature composed entirely of blue-white fire. He's practically invulnerable in this state? Physical attacks bounce right off, so it will take some seriously strong magic to injure him. The chances of him taking this form in game, however, are very, very slim! Mogget prefers to use his brain rather than rely on his brawn!

Offensive Abilities
By simply slashing his paw, Mogget can send forth thin lines of white fire that cut and/or burn his intended target. This is his primary attack in both small!cat and large!cat forms. When he's in his true form, well... he can still slash, and he can also grow extra arms/tendrils as needed, but his main attack is shooting fire at his target until he obliterates it.

Other Noteworthy Traits: Even though Mogget isn't really a cat, he sure does act like one! He likes to bat insects around, he loves eating tasty FISH, and catnip knocks him the heck out.
Weapons & Other Special Inventory: Mogget shows up with one (1) can of sardines!!

Color: BLUE! Mainly because he's blue-ish in his unbound form, but also because he was bound with a red collar for the past two thousand years. Blue represents a chance to start anew! But he's a giant pain in the ass, so I'd love for him to have a super light blue, like... #E0FFFF, or something equally obnoxious.

Sample: One and Two!

[ OPTIONAL ] World Aspect: Death as a place is an interesting concept! In Mogget's world, trained mages/necromancers can enter Death at will, although it isn't always easy to find their way back. It's full of Dead trying to fight their way back to Life, it's broken into nine highly specific areas, and it's just... cool.