PLAYER NAME: Sam
CONTACT: verities

CHARACTER: Ery
CANON: Original
CANON POINT: During their own death

BACKGROUND:

WORLD SETTING

Avania is a general high fantasy world. It was a very lush world with lots of greenery and vast oceans, divided into many kingdoms and different political groups. The world relied heavily on the magic of witches, belonging only to women who were treated as near saints for the works they did to support their various kingdoms. The world developed through magic, rather than technology. At the outskirts of the universe, Avania was near the border of the known realm. Beyond that border of space and stars lives a creature known as the Eryfel. The Eryfel inhabits all that is beyond the universe, a darkness unlike any other with only mild sentience. However, with it's little awareness it invaded the quickly developing Avania to try to fight the expansion of the universe. After it's invasion, Avania has become a desolate wasteland. Whole kingdoms have been destroyed, the greenery killed to dead trees, and monsters now roam the desert landscape. However, some bastions of humanity still persevere. These societies tend to be smaller, built within protective runs left by the last witches before their defeat at the hands of the Eryfel. Realizing the folly in leaving everything witches, technology has begun to develop in the absence of witches, mixing ruins with technology where possible.

PERSONAL HISTORY

One day, Ery simply existed. A piece of the Eryfel, split and put inside a bodyguard named Ovia, Ery woke one day with their own separate sentience from the Eryfel. This separation allowed Ery to remain connected to their original self, communicating back what they learned on Avania, but the biggest effect was that Ery began to develop separately from the Eryfel.

Ovia was chosen for her proximity to a royal family in one of Avania's largest kingdoms. El-Farel was at the forefront of development and one of the largest nations in the world, making the royal family an essential target in the Eryfel's plans to invade Avania. Ery became the bodyguard, Ovia, of one Princess Minelle, also called Mina. During this time, Ovia/Ery worked closely with the young princess to prepare her for her duties one day. Ery accompanied Mina to many of her training lessons and even to meetings involving her ruling mother, giving Ery insight into the kingdom's deeper functionings.

While working with the family, Ery slowly began to grow close to Mina. The longer Ery was away from the Eryfel, the more her own individuality began to develop. This allowed Ery to develop affection and relationship with Mina through the guise of Ovia. Believing her feelings to be leftovers of Ovia's own feeling for Mina, Ery began to bury her feelings as heavily as possible. They threw themselves into her mission, and one day enacted the Eryfel's plans to invade Avania.

Acting as a door of sorts, Ery brought darkness to Avania. They infected trade routes with monsters that spread the darkness across the land. They infiltrated the military through her bodyguard connections, putting more people under Eryfel control, or infecting them with disease that would eventually kill them. Worst of all, Ery infiltrated the systems that governed and tracked witches in Avania. These were her largest targets, often involving Ery's personal touch to find and kill as many witches as possible. Slowly, Ery dismantled the country of El-Farel. And her infection spread across the world as it did. Ultimately, Ery become a monster herself to destroy the last remnants of the royal family. This included facing Mina down before the Eryfel drove Ery to finish the job and kill the young princess. Outside of El-Farel, few countries had little warning of the impending destruction devastating the nation of El-Farel. These countries used their time to prepare wards to protect cities. These wards required many witches and a vast amount of strength and power to make runes powerful enough to defend against the Eryfel. These runes typically killed the witches who prepared them, and even then several did not hold up. Thus, only a handful of cities across Avania still remain to this day.

In a manner of months, the Eryfel had invaded and taken over a large portion of Avania.

While the Eryfel had possessed others, it took the lives of those it had possessed until only Ery remained. Ery was different in that they held a larger portion of the Eryfel than the soldiers once had held. Considered a "reward," Ery was allowed to live in the chaos and destruction they had created. A sort of test of individuality surviving in the world of the Eryfel. As if the Eryfel might one day make more like Ery.

For years, Ery travelled the desolation of Avania. At first, they had felt they'd fulfilled her duties in full. But the gnawing feeling of regret and sorrow began to grow stronger. Slowly, Ery found it harder to reach the Eryfel. With time, they lost her connection to the Eryfel entirely. This left Ery alone, and worse it left her with her own thoughts. Ery had time to reflect and witness the destruction they had had a personal hand in. They were haunted by the memory of Mina's death directly at her hands. Ery's "reward" became her torture, and Ery regularly wondered about why they continued on. However, Ery wasn't positive they could die without the aid of the Eryfel, a being they lost contact with.

During her travels, Ery discovered a baby in the wilds. Not far from a human bastion known as Elimin, Ery realized the baby had been left in the wilds intentionally. They took the baby for herself, and brought her to the ruins of a small house on her own. Ery slowly cared for the child as best they could in the wilds. They discovered that the child was a witch herself, hence her abandonment in the wilds. Realizing this, Ery knew they had to protect the child with all her being.

Ery braved the travel to Elimin, and when they passed the boundaries they were surprised to see they weren't stopped. This further contributed to her identity crisis.

Still, Ery raised Baby in a small off-village at the outskirts of Elimin. They gathered knowledge they'd collected in books during her travels and reconnaissance before the fall of civilization, and used it to teach Baby how to be a witch herself. Ery used her knowledge of the Eryfel to train Baby how to fight the darkness, teaching her its weaknesses and giving Baby every advantage they could give her. Their relationship was strained through these years, as Ery made certain Baby would be strong. After all, Elimin feared the trouble witches brought with them and the Eryfel simply feared witches. Baby would need to be stronger than all of them to survive. And even to flourish.

After years of training, the first runes of Elimin fell to time and constant beating from the Eryfel. When baby was twenty, Ery was forced to send her out to war. Ery watched over her daughter, fighting the beast they'd been raised to, only to see her daughter nearly fail.

This forced Ery to step forward, revealing her true self to Baby in the process. Ery sacrificed herself to the Eryfel to buy time for Baby, naming her daughter Sola, for the light that would destroy the Eryfel.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Ery is at her heart a shadow monster.

This means Ery has the ability to manipulate the shadows within herself. They can use them to form weapons they can wield, including things like blades and whips. They can also create long, tendril-like appendages (tentacles sure whatever). These appendages can act independently of each other, moving in any direction Ery wills. They can also sharpen to points to slash and stab. They have the ability to grab things, cover, etc. Ery can use these or her shadows purely to summon darkness to blind as well.

Beyond the ability to manipulate shadows, Ery can call the full darkness out of her. This involves engulfing herself in the darkness. When they do this, they become a wolf of the shadows, with her ability to still manipulate her shadows. Her appearance looks similarly, though large and independent. Her tendrils can still slash and pierce, but her teeth and claws can as well. They are stronger than most any human in this form, but it exhausts her and leaves her nearly entirely passed out after.

Because they are all shadow, Ery technically is "soulless". They are an entity that is infinite and will likely return to the Eryfel at the time of death, but they also has no ability to die. If her body is destroyed and the Eryfel cannot recall Ery, they will find another body to possess.

Ery also has decent survival skills from living outside Elimin after the destruction of El-Farel. This includes hunting, skinning and cooking her own food, setting up camp, and other similar type survival techniques.

PERSONALITY:

Lost is the word Ery would use to describe themselves.

Ery has always felt abandoned by the Eryfel. Despite their individuality being a "reward," Ery has always felt it was more of a curse than a reward. Separated from humanity, who would fear them as the monster they are, and the Eryfel, who was a true monster, Ery had always been down the middle lane of the whole situation.

This has led to Ery feeling very isolated in themselves at a time of extreme vulnerability. Gaining a consciousness and the feelings along with it has been hard on Ery. Individuality has not ever set well with the woman. And Ery has often gone back and forth between debating their need to live, and their own fear of death and what that might bring. They recognizes that fear in general is a strong emotion for a supposedly emotionless being, but They also can't help themselves.

Because of the confusion in themselves, Ery has retreated inside. They do theirbest not to let themselves feel too many feelings, as that's not what they're supposed to feel. Ery can come off as aloof, even cold and uncompassionate, to people they meet. Especially for the first time. They try to show as little emotion as they can to others. This can also lead them to be easily annoyed with people. Particularly people who try to engage them overly much. They don't enjoy being forced to show emotion, so their coldness can double down and they can almost become cruel if pushed too hard.

However, in recent years their patience has been extended some.

Raising a child has changed Ery significantly. On the surface, they still try to display the same woman. Someone who's too removed from live to be bothered. However, small things have changed more evidently. Their cruelty is less sharp, Their annoyance longer to come. They seems to have more patience, or their annoyance can seem mild at times. They're a little easier to get along.

Deeper down, Baby has made Ery more sympathetic to humans. This sympathy had slowly developed over years as they witnessed the horrors the Eryfel inflicted on the world. Individuality brought with it fear and pain. And Ery felt that fear and pain humans felt. Baby only deepened those feelings. Ery experienced fear of the world they might leave behind to their child. Of the danger that might come for her. And when Baby suffered, Ery truly learned what it was to suffer herself.

Ery has learned more compassion towards others. Despite her visible annoyance, Ery can feel deeply for people under it all. She might resist helping, but ultimately will always try to do what they can to help. Especially humans. Ery feels guilt over her part in the destruction of humanity. And that guilt leads Ery to train Baby to become the potential savior.

SAMPLE:
ONE
TWO

Ery watched as the sun set. Night was soon to come. They hated the night.

The caravan was slowly setting up camp for the evening. Ery did her best to pretend they couldn't notice what was going on, but a man approached her. He asked them for their help, and Ery rolled their eyes. The man waited, a little more awkwardly, then quietly disappeared back to his work.

Ery sighed as she sat on the tree stump. She kicked off her shoe and ran her toes through grass. It had been years since she'd seen grass. It was strange, but she never expected to miss something so nice. This world didn't know how lucky it was for even this patch of it. They dug into it for spikes to keep the caravan still and stable. And Ery felt herself ache at the thought of ruining the earth.

But that was just sentiment. A feeling Ery also hated in themselves.

With another sigh, Ery slipped wiped the dirt from their foot against their other leg, then slid their shoe back on. They rose from the stump and turned to join the crew in their work.

INVENTORY: The clothes on her back, a dagger, a bow and arrow, and a grimoire of spells she currently can't use.

NOTES: Ery's pronouns are they/them and she/her, so I do fluctuate between the two sometimes but they wouldn't mind being identified either way.