Ariel App

[parasiteye]

→ OOC
□ Name: Dolly
□ Age: 24
□ Contact:
aim: we were british
email: justadolly@gmail.com
plurk: pterodotyl
□ Journal: n/a
□ Do you play anyone in Ariel?:
Ventus | Kingdom Hearts | didneyworl

→ IC
□ Name: Kaz
□ Journal: parasiteye
□ Series: Original
□ Canon point: After the news of the "White Witch & the Harbinger attacking the capital" reaches him, and before the Growers show up.
□ World: General World info (includes geographical info, species, gov't, magic & brief info on culture)

Tech level: Steam power in Mactech (Industrial city where he lives); electric lighting comes from this & Runes. Most places do not have steam power, & there is currently only one train on the continent which only travels in the Dome region.

The world of Minoa is different from Earth on a very fundamental level, and the continent in which Kaz lives is called Ediacara is the most advanced technology-wise. In general the continent is largely forest, with the plains-type areas in Micah used for farming. There are 5 capital cities with a technical 6th, although it is a capital suspended in the sky and reserved for members of the world's religious order, the Holy Order. It is the main religion of all Humans and Half-Elves and focuses on healing, banishing Demons, upholding the Royal Law, and performing last Rites. In general most cities are governed in some way by the Perpetian Monarchy, the only exceptions being the Elf-region of Evre, the region of Fuggum where Witches resides, Mactech, and Turia, a region filled with demons. I'll touch briefly on Mactech, Turia & Fuggum since they're relevant to Kaz.

Fuggum & Metaphor:
This is the enchanted mushroom forest where most Witches on Ediacara reside. After much feuding and fighting with the humans due to their own mischievousness & the humans' greed, eventually a ceasefire was organized to put a halt to the destruction of their battles & since then the Witches have sealed themselves & their forest off from the rest of the world. This was several centuries ago mind you, but the effects of the arrangement still hold and very seldom will humans wander anywhere near this area.

Mactech:
The industrial City-State that functions almost entirely independently from Perpetia. It is governed by elected representatives of various guilds and research facilities within Mactech, and it is here that most of the world's technological advances occur. Major practices here include Alchemy (which created Homunculi & Golems), Steam power, and Runes. The population here is ~80,000 with members from almost every race prevalent. It's basically the melting pot of Ediacara since laws, taxation and favoritism are lower than most regions.

Turia & Ashvara:
An entirely desert region, this area has by far the most difficult environment to live in. The ancient ruins of a once-thriving society have been covered by shifting sands and large, carnivorous sandworms similar to those in Dune swim the sands. Two types of demons live here: Human-created* (Growers), and natural demons (Stagnants).

□ History:
Kaz was born 22 years ago as a result of a female Arachne (spider demon) coupling with and then eating a human male. He was born in a clutch of about three hundred other offspring and was the only half-demon among them which singled him out right away. Within a week of being born his siblings had already started to venture into the caves and spin their own webs while Kaz...was struggled to do even that much. Being a half-breed he was already inherently weaker than all of his other siblings and quite predictably, the runt of the entire clutch. He was even less humanoid and less arachnid than the rest of him--he literally just looked a grotesque mush of human and spider. Even if Arachne never put much care into appearances the fact that he was such a small male was an immediate disadvantage and danger for him.

His widow had almost no part in his upbringing. In fact the only time he ever saw her was when one of her young strayed too close to her personal web and was eaten. She had no interest in him and he, very little in her. Not even his siblings attempted to secure social relationships with him. What he experienced instead was the usual nipping and biting, territorial skirmishes, and theft of food that occurred between young Arachne. Many times he went to bed nursing wounds.

Thanks to his human side he was much less opposed to venturing outside into the sunny desert climate that surrounded their underground home within the sandy demon region of Turia. Of his first eight years of life he spent much more time on the arid surface than he did below ground--which was both good and bad for him. Good since it probably kept him from getting eaten alive by the other Arachne in the caves but had the unfortunate add-on of being the realm in which many other demons made their home. Kaz was constantly roughed up by other full-blooded demons who thought very little of a half-breed trying to stake claim to any sort of territory. He wasn't pointlessly attacked or anything but there was certainly never any respect and often he became the object of further skirmishes which basically involved much stronger demons pouncing him into the sand and biting at him.

It wasn't anything horribly violent but he didn't feel like a part of anything and he certainly didn't feel as though he fit in. Every time he went outside other demons seemed to come and find him, poking and prodding at him and generally just hassling him for whatever they felt like. So one day when he was fed up with it, Kaz decided that he wasn't going to deal with it any longer; it's not as if Demons in general had any real concept of familial ties and it was even less felt between half-demons. At the age of 8 Kaz decided to forsake demon culture and habitats and venture into the strange land of humans--where green covered landscapes instead of mile after mile of sun bleached sand.

The first area he crossed into was that of Evre, a land of trees the height and width of skyscrapers. There Elves and half-elves dwelled within large tree-cities. It was a fair environment for him all things considered; the elves and half-elves would age slow like he would. But unlike them he did not possess the immaculate perfection that graced their features and he quickly grew resentful of his appearance which so segregated him from the elves themselves.

Kaz moved further north after that into Dome's mountainous region. He travelled mainly at night to avoid alerting anyone to his presence; an adaption both from his time with Arachne. But now it was even more a necessity. Every encounter he'd managed to have with a human ended with either screaming or pain, and Kaz quickly learned to dislike the bright flame humans would wield, and which burnt so terribly. Unfortunately his choice of movement also put him in the same patterns as the local bandits who preferred to do their raiding at night. While moving from one pass to another they happened to come upon him trying to eat one of the wild boars they'd been hunting and set upon him immediately. The fact that he used his webbing to incapacitate several men and poisoned another was probably the only thing that kept him from being killed outright by the bandits; these traits made him useful despite the trouble he'd caused.

Kaz was brought that night to the camp and immediately imprisoned with shackles and cage. Not long after he was forced to produce both venom and silk for his new captors under threat of starvation; he was only fed once he'd given them what they wanted and was...basically treated like some kind of pet. They even branded his face so that rival gangs would know who he belonged to. There was absolutely no one he could relate or talk to; the only creatures that would come near him were regular spiders. And for a long time they were Kaz's only comfort.

While he lived in captivity with the bandits he slowly began to learn. Things like human language, speech (which had been difficult due to his fangs)...and more important skills such as deception, how to kill a man, and the way the bandits carried themselves. All of this was important and fascinating to him as he grew and developed. He wanted the things they had--freedom, a way to fight and protect oneself, the gold and bountiful food they had...and he knew they got it by taking it through any means necessary. So if he wanted to get what he desired...that's what he needed to do as well.

For four years he endured the bandit's slavery until chance permitted him escape; a discarded pick proved to be all he needed to let himself out as the bandits slept and poison them all with the very venom they'd milked from his fangs over and over. With that accomplished? He made sure to bash in each of their heads with rocks while they remained paralyzed and continued to feed off of them for several weeks afterwards. Kaz claimed their territory as his own and lived there for several weeks, practising the very difficult shift from half-breed form to full humanoid. He'd learned by then that living as he had before would only jeopardize the freedom he'd so painstakingly acquired so day after day he practised.

It never came easy to him though, and the change was never complete. His fangs remained just that and one of his eyes would never change to the right colour--but it was enough so long as he didn't grin too wide and worked well for him when he managed to find his way to Mactech, Dome's capital. It was a strange new environment of sounds and people and though initially skittish and fearful of anyone who looked at him, Kaz eventually slipped right into slum life and lived off the streets.

He barely scraped by though and spent a lot of his time eating the leftovers thrown out from restaurants in the high end of town. Here he was exposed to the extravagant lifestyle of the rich and privileged; he grew to covet the comfort he'd seen rivalled in the bandit camp and began stealing instead of scavenging...and act that inevitably brought him into contact with the city's mercenary guild. What started out as a mission to crack down on a band of thieves in town derailed when they found was a dirty, scraggly 13-year-old child hiding in the run-down building they'd been rumoured to dwell within instead. Naturally Kaz saw them as a threat and tried to defend his "territory", attacking them on sight. He was defeated easily but his actions impressed the guild enough for them to recruit him (using the promise of food to lure him out).

For the first time in Kaz's life he was bathed, clothed, and fed--and he'd never been happier. Not for the kindness he'd been shown but for the comforts that they seemed to willing to give freely. He was eager to take advantage of anything they would give and teach him and quickly he rose through the ranks of the lower-level guild members. Now growing into his teenaged body, his inhuman speed and reflexes allowed him to out-perform most trainees and by the age of 16 he was sent on his first missions. They generally ended in disaster. Kaz refused to rely on others, refused to work in a team, and refused to put anyone else before himself; he was entirely egocentric and couldn't relate to the morals "normal" humans possessed. He didn't understand why taking a fugitive to jail instead of killing him was better or why they bothered to worry about the law or...anyone but themselves really. For all his skill Kaz remained unpredictable and essentially wild. He didn't have any qualms dealing with the criminals he was supposed to avoid or capture either, and it didn't take long for him to be expelled.

Once again Kaz was on his own. But this time he was older; stronger; faster, and able to fight and conceal himself. And for the next six years he used all of that to dig deeper into the undesirable aspects of society, for it was the world he knew and understood. One couldn't count on anyone but oneself. Everyone else was a danger or a liability unless you used them for something, and having ties were only a weakness others could exploit. Anything and everything followed the rules of eat or be eaten.

Most recently Kaz found himself roped into one of his usual less-than-savoury jobs: delivering a stolen item from point A to point B. This journey would take him from Mactech all the way to Perpetia to deliver the goods...if he had ever actually completed it. Before he and the others could reach Perpetia news of the capitol being attacked by a White Witch and a necromancer nicknamed the Harbinger delayed them. Forced to wait for further instructions, they loitered just long enough for another group who sought the package to catch up. They were Growers, part of a much larger group and they laid waste to Kaz's. In the end everyone was either killed or eaten--or in Kaz's case, made into a host.

□ Personality:
As serious and cold-shoulder as his background makes him seem, Kaz is actually not so bad ass or accomplished or fatalist about the world. He has major trust issues and sees the world in terms of benefit vs detriment
□ Age: 23
□ Gender: Male
□ Appearance: Right here and here!
□ Abilities/Powers:
Semi-Transformation:
Since Kaz is half-Arachne (spider demon) he has some of their traits. One thing all demons in general have the ability to do is change their appearance from something very demonic, to an appearance more like a human (they however will call it Witch/Warlock form, as humans have no been around as long as the former. Because of his exposure to humans Kaz simply call it 'human form.') Kaz can mimic human form but he is unable to change himself entirely. One eyes remains a solid black (pupil, iris), his fangs are visible if he smiles too wide, all his nails remain blackened and somewhat carapace-like, and he still struggles to make certain sounds due to his vocal chords not being fully transformed and due to the fact that her started mimicking human speech much later in his life. As far as switching between one form and another, it is easier for him to remain in his half-demon form. He can also allow partial transitions between the two, i.e. allowing all eight eyes to appear on his face while retaining a mostly-human appearance.

Half-demon form:
In this form portions of Kaz's body are distinctly more arachnid. This doesn't make him notably stronger than a human though, he simply has more limbs to work with (even if it's just a tiny nubbin arm). He also has eight eyes instead of just two and while his eyes are perceptive they are not actually any better at seeing distance or movement than a human's. What makes them different is the type of light they detect; Kaz's eyes respond to varying types of light, such as ultraviolet. A bright colour under a black light would attract him and instinctively tell him that despite what his other senses tell him, whoever is wearing that colour would likely be female.

Similarly, Kaz's sight is sensitive to vibration. Most Arachne use delicate hairs on their body to sense vibrations in the air which effectively help them to "see." Kaz is no different and when exposed to sounds which would affect waves in the air (explosions, loud bass) his vision becomes blurry and disjointed and he cannot see. His vision at night is slightly better than a human's.

Misc:
Kaz is faster than a human when it comes to reflexes and such, but due to the fact that he is a smoker and doesn't physically train himself his stamina is lacking. He is incredibly flexible due to many of his joints having an extended range of motion compared to a human's, but because of this he is not particularly strong and he must often take an evasive style of fighting; too much pressure on a joint can potentially dislocate it. His sense of smell is better than a human's by far. It's not trained for tons of varying scents like a canine's would be though; it's very selective and is better-suited to detecting things like pheromones (a pheromone-laced strand of webbing is how Arachne find their mates), salt and/or sweat, artificial smells, blood, insects etc. He wouldn't be able to smell nearly as much information as most mammals but what he can detect is better than a human.

Spidery things:
Webbing: Kaz has silk glands which allow him to make a thick, sticky webbing which is very difficult to get rid of. His saliva is able to dissolve it and they are located near his laryngopharynx. Kaz also possesses poison sacks (between the soft palate & nasal cavity) that carry a non-lethal paralytic that can cause fever in varying doses. Normally in a full Arachne this poison would contain enzymes which would break down a body from the inside and digest it but Kaz's venom is much too weak to achieve this. It is possible for him to gather poison in his mouth and spit webbing shortly after, giving his silk a numbing property.

Finally, Kaz is able to crawl up any surface (so long as it is not slippery) and walk/run along it as he pleases.

Weapons:
Kaz has been trained in using a one-handed sword and he's pretty decent at it? But he forwent using it in favour of dual daggers because he thought it looked more bad ass. He is nowhere near as adept with these.
□ Personal Items:
★ x2 curved daggers
★ x1 tacky coat
★ x1 pack of cigarettes
★ 3g weed

□ First Person Sample: Here!
□ Third Person Sample: Here!