Futuristic 𝘝𝘌𝘐𝘓 𝘖𝘍 * 𝘐𝘎𝘕𝘖𝘙𝘈𝘕𝘊𝘌 — the cast

[demonology]

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THE CAST.

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LORE 𖥔 PROVINCE​

 

[demonology]

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PROGENITOR 𖥔 You wield the Miracle of Life Manipulation. You are able to transmute any living or once-living object into another object of similar or smaller mass. In practice, this looks like turning a piece of cotton fabric into a frog or a frog into a clump of mushrooms.

HISTORY.​

SOME BELIEVE IN A POLITICIAN OR A GOD. THE ONLY THING YOU BELIEVE IN IS YOURSELF. Born into nothing, you were the scrappiest amongst the other orphans. You saw through the veil of conformity and decided that the life of a rat was for you, even if you had no other choice is the matter. Eventually, you became the chosen child of a king who ruled the streets. In essence, you became a self-made idol. So when you are given life at your fingertips, you find you share a similar sense of irony with Godiva. But you don't believe in gods and monsters, only men and their capacity to step on or cut off eat other's heads.

Still, it surprises even you when abandon your anarchist spirit when offered a place at the table. But that is your secret: YOU WILL ALWAYS BE THAT SCARED, COWARDLY CHILD. A revenant all your life, you grasp onto the rungs of the very social ladder you claim to despise with all your might. The higher you ascend, the less rules apply to you and the less you hold dear your former life. When the man who called himself your father seeks audience with you, backed by the legion of children who once called you their sibling, you turn your back and keep climbing.

Despite time, your sleepless nights bring you back to when you could sleep anywhere, even the alleyways and the Subway. You would watch the lives you lusted after but could never have — women running from camera flashes and howling with glee, families in restaurants eating meals a plenty, and faces of your former family shining down on thee. If you sleep, these memories are reveries that leave you in a cold sweat. Because here is another of your innumerable secrets: EVEN IDOLS WISH TO BE FREE.

STATISTICS.​

HOME PROVINCE: Hellenic
STATUS: Progeny
RÉSUMÉ: Progeny; celebrity; Joined Project VRTU at behest of the Holy Chain following his arrest
KEYWORDS: Elysblessed Heraism, The Holy Chain

CONNECTIONS.​

FOLLY 𖥔 A STAR AND A BLACK HOLE CANNOT OCCUPY THE SAME SPACE.
You recognized FOLLY as soon as you joined. They housed you for a handful of months in your youth, as is tradition with Progeny of the Holy Chain. You are sure this is why their face turns red whenever you tease them, and you take pleasure in this. Your large personality threatens their status as leader, but it is in your nature to usurp and climb higher.

PRUDENCE 𖥔 CAN A PERSON CHANGE THEIR NATURE?
In the days you knew each other, you relived the days you felt most free. You had a family again. The camaraderie you once shared brought purpose back to your life as a celebrity. Yet, when they asked you to testify in their trial, you followed the guidance of your managers and the Holy Chain and declined.

This character is CLOSED. They are played by JACOB ELORDI and written by TEX. They are a TEST SUBJECT.
SHEET 𖥔 THEME​

 

[demonology]

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CRUCIBLE 𖥔 You wield the Miracle of Holy Flame. You can start fire within people's bodies and any natural object. In practice, this looks like setting someone's organs on fire or starting a bonfire from a bunch of sticks and wool.

HISTORY.​

YOU ARE A WOLF TOO STARVED TO CHEW. Every day is lived in favor of getting to the next. Life is cruel and full of yearning for what you can't have. There is a system to surviving it, though, and you are an expert in it.

Still, when the Holy Chain placed you within the limestone walls of an Elysblessed school, you did not go quietly. You were tempered and told that it is for children not like you. Your job is to heal them, and you held onto this fib for the scant warmth it gave. You learn lies and the truth are the same shade in this gray world. You do not have teeth, but you have patience. When you come of age, you enact your escape.

It is years later, when your life has become a road-movie as you drift from town to town, that The Holy Chain arrests you. The very institution that promised to love and protect you — provided you serve them until your last breath. You should have known better. You only survived into adulthood because you became a series of things, depending on which adult of the institution asked: an idol to venerate, a judge of heresy, or a torturer of ceaseless flame. A BYSTANDER is what they ask you to be this time. It is what the judge calls you. You accept the offer of redemption and cast on a new coat of skin.

But laid up in bed with a body indestructible, you are forced to reconcile with who you are and find you do not know. For you, FREEDOM HAS ALWAYS BEEN A CONSTANT STRUGGLE, but have you ever really been free? The cost of this pseudo-liberation was your own moral fabric — your soul. This is where all your caution, meticulous planning, and running has gotten you: ever plagued by your humanity, even when you are no longer human.

STATISTICS.​

HOME PROVINCE: Hartland
LEGAL STATUS: Progeny
RÉSUMÉ: Venerated Progeny of Hartland who was raised in Sacre Couer, an Elysblessed school, which was later investigated and found guilty of child abuse following an journalistic exposé. They were offered a position on Project VRTU in exchange for charges waved.
KEY TERMS: Progeny, Elysblessed school

CONNECTIONS.​

APATHY 𖥔 REMIND ME OF MY LEGS AND SHOW ME HOW TO RUN AGAIN.
It was because of them that you knew you could leave. Trapped in the same hell, they were always kinder and more upstanding than you. Then, one morning, they were gone, and you knew then the nature of this world. Now, when faced with APATHY, you are overwhelmed with emotion. They are the only one who can help you make sense of who you are.

COURAGE 𖥔 FREE FROM CAGES, HOW COME YOU FLEW WITHOUT ME?
You met them after your escape, rolling into Hellenic, exploring the nightlife, and meeting them. From the first moment, they spell-bound you. You still think of them as the free bird they were. But this memory is tarnished. It was a little over a year ago that you asked them, in their celebrity and status as fellow Progeny, to assert your piety. But it was because of those labels that they left you to rot.

This character is CLOSED. They are played by RIVER PHOENIX and written by ZARA3447. They are a TEST SUBJECT.
SHEET 𖥔 THEME​

 

[demonology]

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ORACLE 𖥔 You wield the Miracle of discerning the Future. You receive a Prophecy whenever it is plot-relevant and you can discern someone's intentions.

HISTORY.​

POWER IS THIS: DECIDING WHO GETS TO LIVE. WHO HAS TO DIE. It is elaborate parties and gifts from politicians and prosecutors of frankincense and myrrh placed at your feet. You do not see, as you were only a child, that you have more in common with the cangue, the breaking wheel, or the noose than the priests who weep at your Prophecies.

In your teens, your mind becomes used to divulging the truth from the cosmos. Your dreams are verdant and nightmarish. You relive how the wisemen came to your village. They told you they could make you powerful and praised if only you came with them. You were a child, and you did not understand all you were giving up when you left: your family, your community, and yourself. Home and its memory are a disease of the root you cannot survive without cutting it from you. With the scant freedoms afforded you, you return home, hoping to be free of it once and for all, but instead you are made whole again. It is here you look down the chasm between who you are lauded as and who you actually are.

What happens next is the collapse. You abandoned your post as an Oracle, using your gifts from Godiva to take bolt cutters to chains. They labeled you a terrorist, but you and yours called yourselves freedom fighters. Remember power? It is DECIDING NO ONE IS FREE UNTIL WE ARE ALL FREE. You know what happens to people like you. What happens next does not surprise you.

It is in your cell that you obsess over the potential of a knife. A loaded gun. This is what you and so many others have been turned into. But a weapon can be protection in the right hands and destruction in those unworthy. This is what draws you into Project VRTU, beyond the saving of your own skin: the promise to be both judge and executioner. BECAUSE A WEAPON CAN BE AIMED AT ANYONE, INCLUDING ITS MAKER.

STATISTICS.​

HOME PROVINCE: Mista Glen, Rass
LEGAL STATUS: Progeny; Sheshona
RÉSUMÉ: Former High Oracle before being accused and arrested for treason. They were offered a position on Project VRTU in exchange for not avoiding the death penalty.
KEY WORDS: Progeny, Oracles, Sheshona

CONNECTIONS.​

CORRUPTION 𖥔 WHAT IS REBIRTH IF NOT A REVOLUTION?Here is a face you never expected to find as one of your captors, least of all your creator. There was a time when you respected them: your eyes meeting theirs across the court room and finding only fire. They were unafraid of the consequences of their actions, righteous in their civil disobedience. Now, you are the one who challenges them, hoping to ignite a renaissance within them.

APATHY 𖥔 FIRE STARTS EVEN IN ABANDONED HOUSES.They are a mystery you began to entertain and later determined to solve. Their intentions are unknown to you. You have subsequently spent long hours together, working on your new body. Before long, you started brainstorming with them, gaining their trust and confidence. Will they be a tool or a comrade?

This character is CLOSED. They are played by JARI JONES and written by DEMONOLOGY. They are a TEST SUBJECT.
SHEET 𖥔 THEME​

 

[demonology]

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CREATOR 𖥔 When you agreed to join Project VRTU, you were in the process of developing the Suspended Consciousness Valve (SCV), which gives life to the cyborg bodies. As per your contract, you are Team Leader, second only to Project Director. Therefore, you hold immense sway. All NPCs are significantly more inclined to listen to you and offer up information freely.

HISTORY.​

In your pious, death-stricken home, you were taught that a good child does not speak unless spoken to. Sent to the corner of the room during parties or finding solace in the garden amongst snails and lily pads, you watched life more than you lived it. You were abandoned in your loss of your family member, and the only time it was brought up was when people mentioned the act of heretical terrorism that resulted in their death. It was because of this that HUMANITY WAS YOUR FIRST OBSESSION. The second was your grief, which left you existential and bewildered at Godiva. The third was good and evil, godliness and monstrosity.

Your all-consuming nature, which lets you command a room better than most priests, came to you by a series of processes. First, loss waterlogged your family, spawning mold that threatened to choke you. Second, you adopted the qualities of fungus and decomposed your immense grief until it became artistic energy. Third, you were a bullied child, ostracized by both those who loved you and those who hated you. But adoration is neutral, much like divine inspiration. It comes whether you want to give it or not.

Your Universite years are when you become A BLACK HOLE MASQUERADING AS A STAR. You had always been soft-spoken, but amongst equally aspirational peers, you are demanding and high-achieving. You adopt the callousness that only a gardener of Eden could have. A victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect, you think you know all of life's secrets when, in actuality, you know little of it. Humanity must be made whole, and this becomes your manifesto. You do not question your methods, though they are built off of institutions, a culture, and a bias. In your determination to be original as sin, you fail to see you are just like everyone else, consuming at every turn in order to protect and broaden your small hamlet of power.

STATISTICS.​

HOMEPROVINCE: Lazarus Alley, Central Egress
STATUS: Human; Noble
RÉSUMÉ: L'Universite De Apollonio alum with a degree in Cybernetic Technology or a related field; other careers and accolades UTP.
KEYWORDS: Noble, Elysblessed Herasism, Suspended Consciousness Valve

CONNECTIONS.​

CORRUPTION 𖥔 CAN A PERSON CHANGE THEIR STARS?
You believe in the Golden Rule, but it is rare you find anyone who adheres to it. This is CORRUPTION. Their friendship was a rare kindness expressed to you, and it blossomed between you in University. Twin geniuses, twin flames — you thought to recast the world together. You have a tendency to take what isn't yours without asking, and you've done this many times with them in the past. How long until you consume your friendship whole?

COURAGE 𖥔YOU KNOW ME AS I AM: DARK AND MALIGNED.
Some of the Alley say that housing a Progeny is a great honor, but you know, from your family's years of housing them, that honor is code for profit. When COURAGE came to live with you, you were immediately eclipsed. Now, you scorn their playful jokes and teases. Part of you knows they still see you as the child you were, not the behemoth you are now.

This character is CLOSED. They are played by LUCIEN LAVISCOUNT and written by CELADON. They are a RESEARCHER.
SHEET 𖥔 THEME​

 

[demonology]

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ARCHITECT 𖥔 You are Head Programmer of Project VRTU, having developed the Control Framework, which allows for complete control of the Test Subjects' cyborg forms. Because of this, you are able to exert your will over any Test Subject. (Abuse of this ability will not be tolerated and any writer will be consulted before this is done).

HISTORY.​

You are a child on your parent’s shoulders as you stand in solidarity in the fight for union rights. This is the freest you have ever felt: yelling in tandem and forming a united front. This is community. This is love. But as you will learn, LOVE IS A FORM OF YEARNING. In particular, this is true for your patriotic zeal: always wishing for the wheel to turn or break. In your youth, you were a shit-starter with revolutionary ideas. You saw through to the heart of the problem — oligarchic capitalism — and fought to be on the right side of history. Maybe you still do.

You perceived early on that many people, especially those with more wealth, fame, or prestige than you, only want to hear what they agree with. Your sense of self came in doing the exact opposite of this. Academia called to you, not because you were particularly ambitious, but because it was another sphere where stasis flourished. Who better than you to break the mold? So you shelved away your knack at hacking, toned down the makeup and washed out the color in your hair, and you interviewed for a scholarship at L’Universite De Apollonio. When you received your acceptance, you hoped that the machine had another wrench in it.

But what you discovered is that no one wants your firery speeches or impeccable logic. You are always being snuffed out. Your talents are exploited, and your ideas tend to only gain traction when someone more respected says them. Indignantly you ask, when will you finally get a seat at the table? This desire, which you knew was useless and systemically bred, wore you down. Instead of breaking the machine, it broke you. AFTER YEARS OF REACHING FOR THE STARS, YOUR BACKBONE HAS COLLAPSED IN ON YOU. Your soul has been ground and turned into angel dust for your more esteemed colleagues. This is not wholly by choice — you need to eat. You justify this treatment and your taking of it by saying you need to prove yourself. But that old revolutionary in you still hums workman songs, the sort you sang on the picket line as a child or the chants you screamed as a teenager. That former visionary asks you, IS THIS WHO YOU WANTED TO BE?

STATISTICS.​

HOMEPROVINCE: Rass
STATUS: Human
RÉSUMÉ: L'Universite De Apollonio alum with a degree in Computer Programming or related field; other careers or accolades UTP.
KEY TERMS: Control Framework, economy, government, LUDA

CONNECTIONS.​

FOLLY 𖥔 THE DOOR THAT HAS BEEN LOCKED BEHIND ME.
They were once everything you could have been. They represented the world that could change. Look at you: a Noble and the child of a blue-collar family. Now, they are a reminder of what you can't — or won't — be. Some part of you still loves them and longs to be that inseparable with them again. The other half is tainted by the idea that they hold over your head all your successes as theirs. All the parties you were invited to, all the grants you were given, and all the work you did together. Is this friendship or ownership?

JUSTICE 𖥔YOU ARE MY MIRROR, AND I DO NOT LIKE WHAT I SEE.
In your teenaged days of resistance, you were arrested. In the courtroom, you smirked at JUSTICE, and surprisingly, they redeemed you of all charges. You never forgot their face. In one of your rare moments of power, you demanded they be invited to the Project team in place of death. You said, Why waste a heretic when you could make them into a saint? Seeing them now, you know how those words felt coming out of your mouth, and you cannot look them in the eye.

This character is CLOSED. They are played by JING WEN and written by MINDTHEKAT. They are a RESEARCHER.
SHEET 𖥔 THEME​

 

[demonology]

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SORCERER 𖥔 You are the Weapons Specialist of Project VRTU, overseeing all the designs, manufacturing, and repairs of the cybernetic parts. As such, you are able to design new cybernetic parts and repair any of the Test Subjects.

HISTORY.​

THERE ONCE WAS A CHILD WHO SAW HUMANITY'S BRUTALITY AND CHOSE TO LOVE MAN INDIVIDUALLY. This kid grew dandelions and gave them to all they thought needed to smile: ranch hands, Crusaders, Nobles, miners. It did not matter. Overnight, as your village was left in flames, you learned that there will always be someone to bury the dead. Someone to take up arms to save the living. Someone whose body will remember.

When you were taken to the Elysblessed school, you refused to bend. You were a righteous child who sought to protect the meek and the innocent. But the years weigh on you, and you learned this is how you save a life: sever off the limb before the wound turns into blight. SO IN YOUR ENDEAVORS TO AVOID BEING DESTROYED BY ANYTHING, YOU BECAME NOTHING.

But this is difficult to sustain. You are still a human, even if you think of yourself as something as neutral as a body. You found freedom in moral liberalism. You used this to justify leaving the school behind, enlisting in the Knigthood well before you were of age. Sleeping with your sword, this was the first time you felt safe. Striking with it and drawing blood, this was the first time you felt free. However, when you became the very forces that destroyed your home, you had to cut yourself out once more. This is how you survive in this double-speak world: by making yourself a ghost.

STATISTICS.​

HOME PROVINCE: Hartland
STATUS: Human; Knight
RÉSUMÉ: Former Knight; other careers UTP
KEY TERMS: Cybernetics, Elyblessed Herasism, The Holy Knighthood

CONNECTIONS.​

PRUDENCE 𖥔 YOUR GAZE RUNS ACROSS ME LIKE MY TONGUE AGAINST A MISSING TOOTH.
You were children of Godiva together. Despite the position of power they held, you never made any assertions about who they were. They were just as worthy of protection as all the others you abandoned. In their presence, you feel the severed parts of yourself and grow dissatisfied with who you are.

JUSTICE 𖥔 YOU ARE REANIMATING AN EMPTY BODY.
You have a habit of reopening the same wounds. JUSTICE makes you feel human, and that is your problem. In them is a collaborator and conspirator, which is something you know that must be treasured before you must remove this desire like a tumor. If PRUDENCE causes you to question if you must live again, JUSTICE makes you believe you can.

This character is CLOSED. They are played by SOFIA STEINGBERG and written by CINDERTIDE. They are a RESEARCHER.
SHEET 𖥔 THEME​

 

[demonology]

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ANALYST 𖥔 You are a programmer for VRTU credited for developing the diagnostic programming of the EEG Nanobots; a system that is capable of monitoring the biometrics of Test Subjects and repairing injuries within organs. Over time you’ve learned how to read the emotions and body language of others.

HISTORY.​

YOU TURN YOUR FACE FROM GOD AND THE DOOR CLOSES BEHIND. Resentment. It oozed from every pore in your body almost as thick and cloying as the medicine you were forced to down as a child. A sickly child, you were, but never without. Every moment of pain and misery was a lesson to be grateful; be grateful that you could afford to get treatment, that you had a home in a country such as Espiritú, and food in your belly —even if it turned to bile each night.

Each day, your mother prayed over you and you’d tuck your face away. If a god existed, and made you this way, you’d die before you’d ask for their mercy.

There was no miracle that healed the sickness in your very blood. Only long nights, tearful mornings, and a cycling blur of faces that never looked you in the eye. And then one day, you ached a little less, the tears dried up, and you’re cage switched from the walls of a hospital to something less sterile.

As your strength grew, so did your anger. At nothing. At everything.

You’ve never had a place to call home. The walls that surrounded you each night held the chill of a tomb, not the warmth of a family. While you haunted the halls of your house each night, your parents worked away in factories to pay off the debts they owed… To keep you alive.

Every bridge they’d made burned in their plight to save their only child.

An ungrateful wretch who scorned their gods and refused to look them in the eye to reckon with the shells their parents had become.

There are moments where you’d look at smiling photos and contemplate the kind of people your parents were, but the thought leaves a bitterness in your heart that you have no right to feel.


They’d lost themselves saving you.


But you’ve been lost for much longer…


The fervor in which you dove into your studies was merely an investment in paying back the Herculean debt you owed. And to choke back the miasma of guilt and resentment that smothered the love you knew you once felt so strongly for them.

You were top of a class, a prodigy in every right. But that attitude… Your standoffish on top of your frail constitution made you a hard pill to swallow. So pitiful, but nothing special… When UDA rejected you, the words echoed with the bitterness of truth. A reminder that you were lost, a body without a true soul or form.

All you’ve known is anger. The kind that lives inside your flesh, burning away anything that could attest to your humanity. You are a shell with no true purpose. A pail searching for water with no hand to hold you.

And no way to guide yourself to the purpose you were meant to fulfill. To the person you were meant to be.

STATISTICS.​

HOME PROVINCE: Espiritú, later Hellenic
STATUS: Human
RÉSUMÉ: Academic and well-funded researcher of modern medicine at Umarian University [UEU]. Joined Project VRTU due to the promise of relocating their family to Espiritú.
KEY TERMS: EEG Nanobots, Vitals, Espiritu, UEU, Body language

This character is CLOSED. They are played by LEX SCOTT DAVIS and written by ATHENS. Role written by ATHENS. They are a RESEARCHER.
SHEET 𖥔 THEME​