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and i walked a thousand miles to prove it
INFORMATION.
( i’ll be your favorite drug, i will get you high )
godhood | abilities | nightmares
history.
Michael is one of the many souls left adrift in the world, someone who doesn't quite fit anywhere but has no where else to go. Considered something of a demon but most of society because of his above average height, dark hair, and black eyes, he was shunned for most of his childhood. But that is nothing new, anyone who doesn't look like the average citizen is considered to be something disgusting and foul. Children are often abandoned because of these things, ignored by society and mostly forgotten. Expect for those who display unusual abilities, they are hunted down like dogs. For to allow such a demon to live would surely bring calamity to the whole world. Although, not all are killed, some are taken and used as tools to frighten people into submission, or trained to be attack dogs for the unsavory sorts. If you are lucky perhaps the army will get their hands on you, though it is hardly a kinder fate.
He is one of those children, tossed out by his parents for his abnormalities, he lived in the streets for a while surviving however he could. Inevitably someone thought he looked scary enough to pick up off the street and take him under their wing, so he went from street rat to the scary demon that they kept around to looked threatening. Michael circled through the underworld rings of Depthwater, specifically with the group know the as the Wolf's Maw, it wasn't much of a life but it kept him feed and breathing. His tasks went from intimidation to full blown hunting down people, that was when he shined, and earning him something of reputation for the viciousness he displayed hunting down his targets.
Of course this eventually reached the ears of the army, who were swift in their acquiring of him. They weren't kind. For months they kept him in a near dark room for reason they would divulge, they poked and prodded him with burning hot metal, breaking bones and trying to beat information from him. They pushed him to his limit and then right over it, they sought to break him and mold him into a puppet for their uses. Whether they succeeded or not was hard to say, but soon after the army ceased burning his flesh they enlisted him into their forces. His job was no different than it was in the Lower City gangs, he hunted and killed targets, fought in battles against armies he did not know the names of. Michael hardly realized that war had broken out until much later into the fight, when Depthwater began to burn so bright you could see it miles away.
It was during the Battle of the Shaded Plains that the war would end, but it was also the battle that nearly killed Michael. Overwhelmed by enemy forces and the weapons they wielded he was struck down by a surprise hit and left to die, expect that he didn't, he woke later amongst blood and bodies and death. His injuries were so severe even with his accelerated healing that he lost everything; memories gone like a puff of smoke, he could barely stand and pull himself free from the bodies that surrounded him. ( Little did he know the true reason for his memory loss was not because of his injuries. ) Michael screamed, he howled that night until his throat was raw. Only later after he could no longer speak was he found and taken from the battle field, taken to a small village far from the plains and the burned down city to rest and heal.
He spent years in that village, this apparent safe haven from the rest of society. Learning how to do basic things again; talk, walk, eat, some things came back to him without issue thanks to muscle memory while others took long and hard work. But it was a good place to recuperate and plan his next step. Eventually he was convinced to join a band looking for an extra sword, a meat shield, a tank in D&D terms; someone who can run into the frey and soak up most of the damage. They didn't tell him what they needed him for and honestly he didn't ask - didn't really care, he needed the money and they needed the sword. It worked out for everyone involved.
peronsality.
His childhood has left an impact on him, scars but physical and mental are present even though he doesn't entirely remember what caused them. He is harsh, distrusting, and needy all at the same time, latching onto people out of a selfish desire for company. Michael is fickle and possessive, when he has classed something as his he will thrown something of a tantrum when it is taken away from him. And he will easily toss things or people aside if his mood shift or interest wanes. He is something of an asshole, terrible at social cues possibly by choice, he can be overbearing and demanding when he wants to be to the point that it frustrates people more than it endears him to them.
Michael very much a product of his experiences. His lack of memory has left a very noticeable impact on him, leaving him with something of a identity issue, he cannot be certain the person that he is now is the person he has always been. He shrugs it off, but it does bother him. He has a hard time trusting his own memories, half convinced that what he has will one day slip his fingers - which is precisely why he is so possessive. He wants to hold onto what he deems important, believing if he holds tight enough than there is no way he could ever forget it or them. This can be a chore to deal with, making him appear smothering. Michael acts like a child, he knows he acts like a child, and he doesn't care. He rarely takes things seriously. Approaching most things with a lazy sort of attitude, not caring whether or not his actions could make things blow up in his face or better.
His regenerative abilities make him reckless, careless, when he stands on the edge of a cliff and looks down at the spiky rocks at the bottom that he knows will hurt like a bitch - he isn't anymore careful. If anything he moves closer to the knife edge. He dances with death. He does not care about the consequences of his actions; acting first instead of thinking things through. He also has a terrible case of foot-in-mouth disease, never thinking before he speaks just blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. Regardless of if it can be considered offensive or not.
He has a mean streak a mile long. When he thinks he has been slighted he will do everything in his power to get back at the person, not really in a obvious way but in the quieter shittier ways. He holds grudges for a long time, and can get pissy over the most selective things ever; you stole his cookie? Fucker he is going to tear you down and bury you alive, you stabbed him in the chest after he came back from a three month long nap? Eh, that's fine.
Oddly enough he is honestly terrified of forgetting again, he is terrified of losing who he is and everything he has. Because of this fear he writes things down, keeps a journal of chicken scrawled information should he ever forget again. He writes down who he is, how he talks, who he acts, how he thinks, he writes down who he meets and how he feels about them. He writes down anything he thinks is important enough to record, which is a lot, and as such he has multiple journals. Michael wont talk about his journals, gets embarrassed and annoyed if they are ever brought up. So don't.
abnormals.
He's one of what the people of his world call an "Abnormal" ( or demons if they are feeling particularly derogatory ); they are people who do not look the same as everyone else, people who generally taller than most, shorter than most, their hair and eye color are different, and they display bizarre abilities. Abnormals are shunned by society, usually hunted down and killed for sport. The stronger ones are taken in by either the military or one of the many underworld organizations and used as weapons, soldiers, lambs for the slaughter. They are not considered human, they are considered less than human, worth little more than dirt.
Michael comes from a particularly strong bloodline of Abnormals. People from this line are not common but not particularly rare either. When found these Abnormals are usually drafted into the military, used as front line soldiers or as spec-ops. Their skills vary from person to person, though Michael's lean heavily towards combat. He is an especially effective killer, able to wipe out groups of men on his own. Added with his accelerated healing, he is incapable of dying, not completely. As long as a piece of him still exists Michael is capable of regrowing himself, this is not a particularly pretty process, it is dangerous and leaves him vulnerable for a great deal of time, so should not be witnessed by the faint of heart.
What is not know by most is that because of the strength of his blood, he is capable of and has accepted the gift of godhood. That, in fact, is part of what kept him from dying upon the field on that day. Michael has no knowledge of this, as while strong Michael was not strong enough to go through the process unharmed and thus the knowledge was wiped from him along with the memories of his past. He does not know what god passed on it's godhood to him, or for what reason, and he is unlikely to ever know unless he manages to figure out that he is now in fact something of a god. All bloodlines are capable of accepting the godhood of god, eventually ascending to the position themselves, but it is never guaranteed - there is a level of risk involved. Should their strength not prove sufficient they would burn up from the inside due to the immense amount of power such a thing holds.
Bloodlines are commonly passed down through mothers, though sometimes it can be passed through the father, majority of the human race are carriers of this blood, making it impossible to predict whether or not the child will be born normal or with an abnormality. An abnormal child tends to only occur under specific circumstances, should two humans carrying the same sort of blood mate there is a 90% chance their child will develop as an abnormal. If two of different bloodlines mate, there is a 45% they will be born abnormal. If carrier and non-carrier mate, there is a 25% chance of an abnormal child. Couples that are known to have birth an abnormal child are often ridiculed, ostracized, condemned by the community and cut off by their peers and family. Thus why many of these children are secreted away to whoever is willing to take them, or out right abandoned. Some children do not live past their first year because of how society views them, others barely make it past their teens. The lucky ones live long enough to become weapons or worse, depending on their skills.
gods.
The gods of his world are bizarre creatures, their existence is often doubted and when they appear they only do so as savage and grotesque beasts. They are by no means pleasant or kind, they are forces of nature; savage, wild, chaotic, unpredictable, the source of all life and the destruction of it. They could care little about what the children of their land do, so long as they continue to worship and sacrifice to them. There are 8 in total, all with names that are mostly forgotten by the average person. They are ancient, immortal, and fickle. And while immortal they can die, if they abdicate their godhod to another, or if another god decides to strike them down.
Friduwulf ─ Stories say Friduwulf appears as a hulking black beast with a bloody coat and maw. Should you see him your days are numbered though his domain is not death, he intrudes upon the domains of the other gods, waltzing about without a care. He likes to hunt, to play with his prey before tearing them apart limb from limb. He is one of the few who interacts with the humans and Abnormals, to taunt and gloat and leave riddles to torment their minds. He has disappeared of late, no longer appearing as he once did, and no one knows why.
Nihthróc ─ Death's Lady, Queen of Vengeance. She is who takes to dead to their rest, who women pray to exact bloody vengeance against those who wronged them. Those who remember the stories say she takes the form of a great bird, black and rotted, yet strangely beautiful. They say all black birds are under her command, her minons, her agents, her spies, for she sees all and none shall escape her gaze. Nihthróc does not appear often in front of mortals, yet she is the one who remains most in the memory of man.
Leóna ─
Naedrecynn ─
Byren ─
Alésend ─
??? ─
??? ─
Once society was centered around these gods; temples, shrines, whole cities were built to worship them, sacrifice to them, and so forth. No one truly knows when worship in the gods began to decline, only that it did. The cites and temples built for them started to fall into decay as the years passed, even the shrines dotted amongst the land fell - save for a few diligently tended to by the most faithful. As far as humankind knows or cares, the gods abandoned them long ago, as such they may as well be damned.
Little is truthfully known about these gods, no one can truly pinpoint when they came to be, how long they have existed, what stories there are in the world are varied and can never seem to agree. But what if these gods are not actual "gods" at all, but beings far more powerful than anything else in the world. What if they live exceptionally long lives thanks to their "godhood", what if they bleed and die like any other man?
godhood.
A godhood in something of a strange thing; it is something that can exist entirely separate from a god, something that cannot be destroyed, and something that can be passed on from one god to another. It is like a soul, a essence, bristling with a power beyond anything any mortal man could hope to acquire. Should a human being manage to get their hands on this power it will kill them, tearing their body apart with sheer amount of it. Even Abnormals have difficulty handling that amount of power, thought it has been known to happen.
Once obtained it must be absorbed into the body, a process that can easily kill a man. It is painful process that leaves the host screaming, bleeding, exceptionally weak for an unknown amount of time. Sometimes it will burn the host body from the inside out, sometimes it will tear part their mind and leave them completely brain-dead for the rest of their life. Either way, it is not something someone should shove into their body without a heavy amount of thought.
Possessing it does not grant you power; no, first you must unlock the power but there is no telling what this process actually is. It changes depending on the godhood and the host, more often than not you have to go through an series of tasks before you can unlock it and begin you ascension to godhood. There is no records of anyone ever accomplishing this feat, likely because it has never been done before. Most men die before they even get to that point.
abilities.
Accelerated Regeneration ─ One of Michael's more prominent skills is his incredibly accelerated healing. Superficial wounds heal in an instant, anything larger takes moments, and life threatening wounds can take up to ten minutes to recover from fully. He is able to regrow his limbs, or piece them back together if the limb is nearby. It is nearly impossible to destroy him, for as long as there is enough of his body still functioning - say for instance his torso - he can generally ...regrow himself. However this process can take hours and leaves him extremely vulnerable, and for at least 24 hours after reconstituting himself he will be physically weak. If he is "killed", say by being stabbed directly in then heart, his system shuts down to focus on repairing the damage. This process usually takes no longer than twenty minutes to happen, and much like reconstituting himself it leaves him quite vulnerable and weak for some time afterwards. There are a few ones to kill him; do enough damage that his body cannot regenerate all of it, set him on fire, crush him, tear him into little pieces, and so forth. You have to be thorough and very creative, just don't give him a chance to heal.
Combat Expertise ─ He is naturally gifted in combat, killing and all that surrounds it is one of few things he picked up with absolute ease. This makes him quite the perfect weapon when doubled with his regenerative abilities. Michael good at thinking on his feet, moving with the flow of battle, he uses everything he possibly can to his advantage. This does not make him undefeated however, he can be overwhelmed and tricked, even out skilled - it simply means he is really damn good at killing things. Like really good. And he likes it too.
Berserker State ─ When an extreme amount of emotional, metal, and/or physical trauma is applied Michael goes into something of a berserker state, it is an defense mechanism that appeared after unknowingly accepting the godhood within himself. And while he cannot die, when this essence believes the host to be in jeopardy it effectively "takes control" to eliminate the threat. In this state he cannot differentiate between friend or foe, and puts a great strain on his body and system. It does not last very long, as the strain is so great that his body cannot take it for longer than an hour. In the end the only way to knock him out of it, is to either wait until the strain becomes so much that he passes out, or hold him down and knock him out yourself. Either way he'll have a headache when he wakes up.
Godhood Essence ─ While not an entirely an ability it is still important to note while he does in fact have the essence of a god inside of him, it does not grant him any extra abilities and he is in fact not yet a god. Aside from being able to trigger a berserker state the essence cannot influence Michael and he cannot tap into it. It simply sits in his body, radiating a power and heat that Michael himself does not notice. There is a process to becoming a god, after all, and it generally requires the receiver of the essence to unlock it themselves - something Michael is unlikely to even attempt until he actually becomes aware of it. It does however make his blood super trippy for any vampire types - it is like drinking liquid lightning, filled to the brim with power that has no defined taste aside from being simply delicious.
nightmares.
Michael suffers from chronic nightmares; dreams of things he cannot explain, images that flicker from one thing to another, voices that speak in tongues, quiet lullabies that he sometimes hums to himself when he isn't paying attention. What causes these nightmares he does not know. It might be the essence buried deep within his body, or a residue of past traumas he doesn't remember. Either way Michael isn't about to talk about them, much less scribble them down in the many journals that he keeps.