nojusticeonlyme: (Default)
Player Name: Maskdt
Contact: [plurk.com profile] Maskdt
Referred by: Kaiya
Other characters: none

Character Name: Death
Series: Discworld
Canon Point: After the events of “Raising Steam”
Summary/History: http://discworld.wikia.com/wiki/Death

Personality: Death, contrary to many popular depictions, is something of a kindly soul even if he carries out of his duty with a kind of professional pride and efficiency. He sees his work as essential to the proper functioning of the universe, and actually finds the concept of the personification of death as some kind of terrifying tyrant insulting. He cares deeply about the well-being of his “harvest,” rather than seeing the collection of souls as some kind of game or a sign that he’s some kind of superior being. On more than one occasion, he’s actually helped thwart the efforts of outside forces that would see all life or humanity extinguished.

He’s become fascinated by humanity over the millennia, and attempts to mimic them. However, he lacks the necessary comprehension behind why people do they things they do, so his attempts at humanity are, at best, flawed (eg: deciding that he should have a proper bedroom with all the amenities even though he doesn’t sleep, has no need to shave, and has no hair to use his hairbrush on). He knows that he’s an outside observer when it comes to humanity, but his attempts to mimic them have brought him some understanding about how people work. At times he can be wise and deeply caring, and at others he can be as awkward and naive as a young child. 


In his interactions with his granddaughter, he’s been shown to be quite protective of her while still trusting her ability to take care of herself. He’s even demonstrated a strong understanding of how she thinks, and has been able to persuade her to perform heroic but necessary tasks with reverse psychology. He treasures the few times they’ve been able to simply act as grandfather and granddaughter, and tries to play his role as a grandparent as best he can. This included making toys for her and letting her play his ribcage like a xylophone when she was a young child, offering her advice as an adult, and giving her a home made Hogswatch card (the snow on it melted and the robin refused to stay put). Although he trusts her to be able to protect herself from mundane dangers, he’s more than willing to step in and defend her should she find herself in a situation she can’t get herself out of.


He’s very fond of children in general, and tends to feel some remorse when he has to collect the souls of children. He was actually quite happy to work with children in a more positive context in “Hogfather,” especially since he got to see them smile and make them happy by giving them gifts. Under the circumstances of that event, he was also able to save the life of a young girl freezing to death, reasoning that since the Hogfather (whose role he had taken on in order to ensure that the Sun would rise in the morning) gave gifts, then he could give her the greatest gift of all: a future.

At heart, Death is a very lonely individual. He has been made more human than necessary for his role by the form that humans gave him (form defines function in the Discworld) while still being beyond immortal. He desires companionship, but most beings simply live and die too quickly. He has expressed some remorse at being unable to stop people from dying, saying that he can only grant them immortality rather than delaying their death.

His only constant companions are Albert, a former wizard who chose to live in Death’s timeless home as a servant rather than die, his horse Binky, and the Death of Rats. He has been known to adopt cats in an effort to alleviate his loneliness in the same manner as a Cat Lady.

Powers/Abilities:
-Technical immortality since he’s the personification of a natural event with very strong cultural associations attached to it (although he can be temporarily made temporarily mortal for the sake of role playing)

-Has a unique memory that can allow him to remember some events that haven’t happened yet (can also be nerfed for role play)

-Can stop time by stepping out of it entirely

-Can disappear and be forgotten by all but the most astute observers

-Has a voice commanding enough that even dead bodies can feel compelled to obey his orders because he states them as something that will happen, rather than something that should happen

-Can ignore the existence of walls and doors since he exists at all points in time while said objects don’t exist at all for the majority of Time (which will be ignored here because his personality/consciousness will be fixed to the Present in the castle)

-The ability to sharpen his scythe on anything, including silk, spider webs, and sunlight

Items on your character: A robe of pure darkness, his scythe, and his sword. Both of these weapons are sharp enough to seperate the soul from the body and cleave air molecules in two. Also Binky the horse, if possible.
nojusticeonlyme: (Default)
For the uninitiated, this is Death aka Mort from the Discworld series. As the literal anthropomorphic personification of death, He is in fact immortal in the sense that He will continue to exist as long as living things continue to die. The past, present, and future are not linear to Him, as knowing who is going to die, when, and where are absolutely vital to performing His Duty correctly.

Powers
-clairvoyance (in the above sense; can be somewhat inaccurate due to "quantum," though. Don't expect anything beyond cryptic warnings at best. For rp purposes, Death only gets a very vague sense of the fate of any non-Discworld natives at best.)
-immortality
-can stop time (or rather, can move between seconds)
-can phase through matter (how else could he get to people who've gone and walled themselves in somewhere with no doors or windows?)
-Invisibility. Or rather, a sort of ability to become extremely difficult to notice up to the point of essentially becoming invisible. Extremely strong-willed characters can still, with great effort and eye strain, make him out when this ability is active. Magic can help them to do this, but given that even wizards have difficulty with this, magic only goes so far.
-Not so much an actual power, but "speaks" in people's minds rather than using actual sound. It's more of a weird quirk.

Tools
-Scythe with an edge sharp enough to cut through anything, including the link between the soul and the body
-Sword with the same sharpness as the scythe (reserved for recently deceased royalty)
-Hourglasses (but only those belonging to Discworld natives)

-May come with Binky the horse

He appears indistinct to most people due to human perception; the human mind rejects the possibility of there being a talking skeleton, and substitutes something more logical. They will remember someone tall and very thin being there, but will not remember details about what He looks like or what He sounded like. CHILDREN, ANIMALS, AND MAGIC USERS CAN SEE HIM AS HE REALLY IS. Any character with a means of seeing things for what they really are (eg: the Lens of Truth) will be able to see Him with those means. It's also possible to override the mind's defensive mechanism by touching Him; He will feel exactly like bone, and muses can see Him for what He is if they successfully accept what they're feeling over what they think they're seeing.

Of course, if you want your character to see a 7-foot tall skeleton walking around in a robe made of pure darkness, go right ahead! I'm not gonna kill your vibe.

Interesting note: immortal does not mean indestructible. Death is very destructible. Being a skeleton, he can be knocked to pieces. The pieces will all roll back and re-articulate themselves, but hey. Still destructible.

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