Character Information
Oct. 31st, 2015 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
displacediety((With the app still being under construction but a test drive meme already up, I'm throwing up the background and personality sections here for those interested in learning a bit more about Tlaloc. ))
◎ Character's Description: Tlaloc is only as bulky and cumbersome as whatever his salvage-body consists of. Completely unaltered, he's an unstably held together golem of carved gold and mossy debris. A stone (or in some cases jade) mask can be seen where his head should be, while more are stored inside of his (generally hollow) shell of a body.
◎ Background/History:
On a planet burdened with harsh political turmoil, it was no mystery how a diplomatic negotiator with a knack for defusing tense situations could earn their keep. The Strelka's primary line in the sand involved the means to prevent the decimation of their planet, Zivot. While both opposed their world spiraling off into oblivion, the struggle was between those who wanted to risk shattering the planet with globe-shifting-rockets and those who wanted to summon a deal-making eldritch monstrosity. Most negotiators like Vidas cared little for either option and simply wanted to hold off the ensuing civil wars until a more palatable option made itself known. This was the plight of the average peacemaker on a perpetually bickering planet.
Vidas was born the largest sapling of his pod, making him a prime candidate for becoming a harvester once he matured. Unfortunately he quickly realized he didn't really have the necessary proclivity for bloodshed. He was a small bud when he discovered that his natural talents seemed to center more around speech craft than anything physical. He was a perfectly sociable speaker with a penchant for inspiring empathy through his words! So it was, before he had even reached his post-adolescent bloom, that he was planted into the branch of negotiation. It was the makings for an unremarkable but satisfying life, calming down the tempered souls of his people. The kind of life that the young strelka had no qualms with. It was almost a shame when he found his essence violently ripped from his physical body and plunged into a nightmare void.
It felt as though his being had been reduced to just his very core as his extremities were painfully condensed and reduced to nothingness. Was this dying?, he thought. Had he met some sort of sudden premature ending? He wasn't ready. Not that anyone could really be ready for a summoning across universes. Emptiness was all there was for Vidas. Though it was only for a moment, what followed next was far from a relief.
The universe held a strict, inflexible frame by all accounts. Those who had practiced in occultism soon realized that there was simply not any room for spells and logic bending sorcery. It took the determination of an entire civilization. An entire culture collectively willing to defy the foundation of their existence to carve even the slightest irregularity out of this existence. With ritualistic sacrifices to their gods, and temples serving as conduits for their offerings a crack in space manifested. Space enough to transfer one Vidas before mending itself shut. While one can always try to dupe and nudge a rule, it will never truly break. An intangible consciousness manifested, very much alive and in need of a body. It was a living void that needed to reach a natural harmony through the absorption of surrounding matter. Simply put, what had occurred after the ritual was a haphazard re-balancing act. The environment made a "body" for Vidas in the form of pulled stone and carved gold, torn off the walls and ceiling. To the people, they had succeeded where no mortal ever had before.
Their reward was their God, Tlaloc, Aztec patron of fertility, rain, and agricultural bounty. His awareness came back to him suddenly, through unblinking eyes and a face that felt frozen in place. He cast his horrified gaze down at frightening little creatures prostrated before him. Cheers of joy in a foreign language met his... ears? Where was Vidas? What was he? He looked down at arms that did not belong to him. Felt a face that... was not even flesh. Stone? Jade specifically. A low reverberating voice wailed in terror, much to the creatures' oblivious delight. They beckoned him forward. He felt their warm little hands push against his stone carapace. He thought to resist but he couldn't bring himself to it. This body felt as if it could crush them effortlessly. Vidas didn't want to hurt anything. He was taken out to a balcony of sorts and shown to what seemed like thousands of the same little painted creatures.
To them it seemed, his very purpose in life was to exist as a target of their devoted loyalty. Perhaps his being there was lucky for them? He couldn't understand. How did one learn a language with no common ground? They were different in nearly every way! Thankfully, emotion seemed trans-universal. He knew when he had done wrong. With that basic foundation, he slowly regained his ability to speak over the course of years... Albeit through a new language.
For 40 years, behind dwindling barriers of understanding, Vidas lived like a ceremonial monument. He had been drained to the point of accepting the new title 'Tlaloc'. His rocky frame was chiseled and shaped into an intricate Aztec pattern adorned with golden glyphs. He watched performances done in his honor and was made to accept sacrificial livestock during some of these rituals. After 40 long years, Tlaloc no longer had the energy to move against the flow of this culture. It was a short time in his species life, but the months did not pass quickly. 40 years and he did not even notice his sense of self slipping as he forgot that he wasn't some sort of cosmic rain god. Until of course, the crops began to wilt from the increasingly harsh droughts. Tlaloc was known for thunder and lightning when he was displeased. The wrath and violence of a truly ancient being was something to fear. But weak, wilted crops and shriveled fruit trees? It didn't take much for his good graces to run out. It does not take much for hungry believers to cast aspersions on a god that was failing them.
Needless to say he was relegated to "beast of burden" status and made to assist in the creation of the Templo Mayor, separating him from his identity even further. It remained as such for another ninety years, seeing the rise and peak of the empire that he once was a significant element of.
Of course, this temple was no tribute to the Tlaloc that had failed them. There were many deities in the Aztec pantheon. The name Huitzilopochtli reverberated down stone halls and through the marketplace that Tlaloc frequented. The ritual was winding up again and once the temple was constructed, a massive sacrifice was enacted and one more soul was torn into existence. A savage, cruel strelkan that was quite willing to play the roll of war god. A new time of bloodshed was nearing, and Tlaloc would have had quite a time discovering what fate befell his old home. At least before he had found himself once again pulled from this already foreign planet and tossed into Cerealia.
◎ Personality:
Reclusive
Reserved
Soft
Curious
Lonely
Political
Interested in history
Tlaloc, being an outsider in a foreign world, never really found his niche and had thus become something of a recluse in between ceremonies. Nobody was so bold as to try and converse with him directly, making him feel completely ostracized. His public shaming over not actually being the god of rain only exacerbated this passive nature of his. While in his home world he was perfectly sociable, his extended stay on Earth has buried that sociability deep beneath a layer of apprehension and created a shell of tense nerves and distrust. Perhaps things would have been different had he not been drawn into the body of a rocky aberration and shortly after put on display for a crowd of fleshy aliens. In spite of all this, he never truly held any ill will towards those that imprisoned his soul on earth. He felt fear and shame but he never outright despised the people.
On his home world he was a fairly effective peace talker, drawing focus from his empathetic nature. A trait that, though unused for many decades, still remains at his very core. A prime characteristic that Tlaloc bases his existence on. The notion that any sentient being has the capacity to understand others on some level. Tlaloc would much rather avoid violence, but being in his line of work he found himself in the middle of a number of skirmishes. It's simply come to be acknowledged as an unavoidable reality when dealing with differing ideals. Still, that doesn't mean he has to escalate any confrontations!
Of course it can be said for any extra-universal entity pulled through dimensions twice, but Tlaloc has an undeniable curiosity towards the environment around him. As much as the Aztec culture around Tlaloc served as a reminder of his isolation, he found himself very interested in their way of life when he wasn't being pushed around and put on display. Realistically, he could have smashed his way off into the forests the moment he arrived and the fact that he didn't speaks to his innate curiosity... or, again, to his passivity. It can definitely be a mixture of both. It could also be that Tlaloc craves the intricacies of politics and found the Aztec culture to hold a hierarchy not unlike his own planet's. He found the relationships between different classes to be interesting and almost almost comfortingly familiar.
All of this has only been observed from an outsiders view, though. In a position like his, you don't make friends. The hermit lifestyle might satisfy some, but certainly not Tlaloc. Loneliness is yet another core element of his. One that he's not the happiest to have, and would absolutely want to remedy if he could just get past his disorientation and fear.
Finally, in order to truly grasp the politics of now, one must understand their roots. This belief is what lead to Tlaloc's interest in history. Anthropology more specifically. Anything in the past was set in stone; safe and secure now that it was out of the unpredictable wilds of the future. He found solace in the written histories of his world and Earth. Old tales of war only solidified his desire for diplomacy and relics of the past inspired the strelkan to study the mindsets of ancient life. Perhaps unlocking these mysteries could provide some insight into the future. It was a hobby that he rarely had time for on Earth but would likely pick up with some free time.
All of this combined leaves Tlaloc with a very stressed disposition that may even appear exhausted at times. This creature's been through a lot, has missed home for decade upon decade, and has now been pulled incomprehensibly far from his planet once more. He has a stone shell. But it is just that: a shell. It's possible for him to etch out some happiness in this land, but that will take some effort and friends
◎ Third-Person Sample:
The paper cup gave a muffled crinkling sound under the weight of Tlaloc's massive fist as his drink spilled out between the cracks of his stone fingers. Yet another hissing sigh echoed out from the base of his mask. The first day of his new assignment as Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector was going to go off without a hitch, he thought! Yet there he stood, massive stone back arched by the CERES water cooler as he tried to clean up his coffee without carving a trench through the linoleum flooring. "This isss terrible," he whispered to himself, voice almost carrying an artificial quiver to it. "They already think my garments are ssstupid and now thisss." While it was a bit silly, his oversized tie draped loosely around the bottom edge of his stone head, he hardly stood out amongst his interstellar coworkers. That fake crying act served only to benefit Tlaloc as he stood here alone.
It was absolutely absurd to say he missed his previous prison and its long days spent hauling massive bricks or loads of produce, but at least there he had no anxieties over small-talk by the drinking tank. "There is no sense in thisss, Tlaloc. You ssspeak to the hearts of the people." The golem tried to reassure himself as he loudly skulked about the break room. He glanced at his clipboard by the counter, frayed at the wooden edges as though it had been handed to a clawed beast. His assignment, he reminded himself, was to assess the safety of the Pleasure District's automatons. Was that the nomenclature? Auto. Maton. He's also heard "Android" before. Strelka never had such things and the Aztec people certainly did not employ the use of such technology. They weren't sentient, he was told. That meant that they weren't... alive? So he could practice his proper way of speaking as he worked. It had been so long since he could really speak and be listened to. Did he even have that gift anymore? The androids spoke, but there was that distinct difference he had noticed. Could it be that this was how he sounded to the others? Just a voice coming from a statue?
He groaned. At least he sounded more alive than one of them. He attributed that to the fact that he once did have a living body. But then again, that was so long ago, maybe he lost some... essence to his voice? "No, no... You ssspeak just fine. You know how to speak their language, Tlaloc." Fluently, weirdly enough. He still didn't understand that, but he thought of it more as a gift than anything else. He watched the digital clock of the communal microwave, whatever that thing was, and saw that his "union mandated break" was nearly over. Fear gripped at his core, the true center of himself and not the hollow stone cavity. Just get through this day and worry about your social standing tomorrow. He approached the door and cautiously pushed it open, bending the PULL handle and cracking the top hinge clean off it's setting.
◎ Character's Description: Tlaloc is only as bulky and cumbersome as whatever his salvage-body consists of. Completely unaltered, he's an unstably held together golem of carved gold and mossy debris. A stone (or in some cases jade) mask can be seen where his head should be, while more are stored inside of his (generally hollow) shell of a body.
◎ Background/History:
On a planet burdened with harsh political turmoil, it was no mystery how a diplomatic negotiator with a knack for defusing tense situations could earn their keep. The Strelka's primary line in the sand involved the means to prevent the decimation of their planet, Zivot. While both opposed their world spiraling off into oblivion, the struggle was between those who wanted to risk shattering the planet with globe-shifting-rockets and those who wanted to summon a deal-making eldritch monstrosity. Most negotiators like Vidas cared little for either option and simply wanted to hold off the ensuing civil wars until a more palatable option made itself known. This was the plight of the average peacemaker on a perpetually bickering planet.
Vidas was born the largest sapling of his pod, making him a prime candidate for becoming a harvester once he matured. Unfortunately he quickly realized he didn't really have the necessary proclivity for bloodshed. He was a small bud when he discovered that his natural talents seemed to center more around speech craft than anything physical. He was a perfectly sociable speaker with a penchant for inspiring empathy through his words! So it was, before he had even reached his post-adolescent bloom, that he was planted into the branch of negotiation. It was the makings for an unremarkable but satisfying life, calming down the tempered souls of his people. The kind of life that the young strelka had no qualms with. It was almost a shame when he found his essence violently ripped from his physical body and plunged into a nightmare void.
It felt as though his being had been reduced to just his very core as his extremities were painfully condensed and reduced to nothingness. Was this dying?, he thought. Had he met some sort of sudden premature ending? He wasn't ready. Not that anyone could really be ready for a summoning across universes. Emptiness was all there was for Vidas. Though it was only for a moment, what followed next was far from a relief.
The universe held a strict, inflexible frame by all accounts. Those who had practiced in occultism soon realized that there was simply not any room for spells and logic bending sorcery. It took the determination of an entire civilization. An entire culture collectively willing to defy the foundation of their existence to carve even the slightest irregularity out of this existence. With ritualistic sacrifices to their gods, and temples serving as conduits for their offerings a crack in space manifested. Space enough to transfer one Vidas before mending itself shut. While one can always try to dupe and nudge a rule, it will never truly break. An intangible consciousness manifested, very much alive and in need of a body. It was a living void that needed to reach a natural harmony through the absorption of surrounding matter. Simply put, what had occurred after the ritual was a haphazard re-balancing act. The environment made a "body" for Vidas in the form of pulled stone and carved gold, torn off the walls and ceiling. To the people, they had succeeded where no mortal ever had before.
Their reward was their God, Tlaloc, Aztec patron of fertility, rain, and agricultural bounty. His awareness came back to him suddenly, through unblinking eyes and a face that felt frozen in place. He cast his horrified gaze down at frightening little creatures prostrated before him. Cheers of joy in a foreign language met his... ears? Where was Vidas? What was he? He looked down at arms that did not belong to him. Felt a face that... was not even flesh. Stone? Jade specifically. A low reverberating voice wailed in terror, much to the creatures' oblivious delight. They beckoned him forward. He felt their warm little hands push against his stone carapace. He thought to resist but he couldn't bring himself to it. This body felt as if it could crush them effortlessly. Vidas didn't want to hurt anything. He was taken out to a balcony of sorts and shown to what seemed like thousands of the same little painted creatures.
To them it seemed, his very purpose in life was to exist as a target of their devoted loyalty. Perhaps his being there was lucky for them? He couldn't understand. How did one learn a language with no common ground? They were different in nearly every way! Thankfully, emotion seemed trans-universal. He knew when he had done wrong. With that basic foundation, he slowly regained his ability to speak over the course of years... Albeit through a new language.
For 40 years, behind dwindling barriers of understanding, Vidas lived like a ceremonial monument. He had been drained to the point of accepting the new title 'Tlaloc'. His rocky frame was chiseled and shaped into an intricate Aztec pattern adorned with golden glyphs. He watched performances done in his honor and was made to accept sacrificial livestock during some of these rituals. After 40 long years, Tlaloc no longer had the energy to move against the flow of this culture. It was a short time in his species life, but the months did not pass quickly. 40 years and he did not even notice his sense of self slipping as he forgot that he wasn't some sort of cosmic rain god. Until of course, the crops began to wilt from the increasingly harsh droughts. Tlaloc was known for thunder and lightning when he was displeased. The wrath and violence of a truly ancient being was something to fear. But weak, wilted crops and shriveled fruit trees? It didn't take much for his good graces to run out. It does not take much for hungry believers to cast aspersions on a god that was failing them.
Needless to say he was relegated to "beast of burden" status and made to assist in the creation of the Templo Mayor, separating him from his identity even further. It remained as such for another ninety years, seeing the rise and peak of the empire that he once was a significant element of.
Of course, this temple was no tribute to the Tlaloc that had failed them. There were many deities in the Aztec pantheon. The name Huitzilopochtli reverberated down stone halls and through the marketplace that Tlaloc frequented. The ritual was winding up again and once the temple was constructed, a massive sacrifice was enacted and one more soul was torn into existence. A savage, cruel strelkan that was quite willing to play the roll of war god. A new time of bloodshed was nearing, and Tlaloc would have had quite a time discovering what fate befell his old home. At least before he had found himself once again pulled from this already foreign planet and tossed into Cerealia.
◎ Personality:
Reserved
Soft
Curious
Lonely
Political
Interested in history
Tlaloc, being an outsider in a foreign world, never really found his niche and had thus become something of a recluse in between ceremonies. Nobody was so bold as to try and converse with him directly, making him feel completely ostracized. His public shaming over not actually being the god of rain only exacerbated this passive nature of his. While in his home world he was perfectly sociable, his extended stay on Earth has buried that sociability deep beneath a layer of apprehension and created a shell of tense nerves and distrust. Perhaps things would have been different had he not been drawn into the body of a rocky aberration and shortly after put on display for a crowd of fleshy aliens. In spite of all this, he never truly held any ill will towards those that imprisoned his soul on earth. He felt fear and shame but he never outright despised the people.
On his home world he was a fairly effective peace talker, drawing focus from his empathetic nature. A trait that, though unused for many decades, still remains at his very core. A prime characteristic that Tlaloc bases his existence on. The notion that any sentient being has the capacity to understand others on some level. Tlaloc would much rather avoid violence, but being in his line of work he found himself in the middle of a number of skirmishes. It's simply come to be acknowledged as an unavoidable reality when dealing with differing ideals. Still, that doesn't mean he has to escalate any confrontations!
Of course it can be said for any extra-universal entity pulled through dimensions twice, but Tlaloc has an undeniable curiosity towards the environment around him. As much as the Aztec culture around Tlaloc served as a reminder of his isolation, he found himself very interested in their way of life when he wasn't being pushed around and put on display. Realistically, he could have smashed his way off into the forests the moment he arrived and the fact that he didn't speaks to his innate curiosity... or, again, to his passivity. It can definitely be a mixture of both. It could also be that Tlaloc craves the intricacies of politics and found the Aztec culture to hold a hierarchy not unlike his own planet's. He found the relationships between different classes to be interesting and almost almost comfortingly familiar.
All of this has only been observed from an outsiders view, though. In a position like his, you don't make friends. The hermit lifestyle might satisfy some, but certainly not Tlaloc. Loneliness is yet another core element of his. One that he's not the happiest to have, and would absolutely want to remedy if he could just get past his disorientation and fear.
Finally, in order to truly grasp the politics of now, one must understand their roots. This belief is what lead to Tlaloc's interest in history. Anthropology more specifically. Anything in the past was set in stone; safe and secure now that it was out of the unpredictable wilds of the future. He found solace in the written histories of his world and Earth. Old tales of war only solidified his desire for diplomacy and relics of the past inspired the strelkan to study the mindsets of ancient life. Perhaps unlocking these mysteries could provide some insight into the future. It was a hobby that he rarely had time for on Earth but would likely pick up with some free time.
All of this combined leaves Tlaloc with a very stressed disposition that may even appear exhausted at times. This creature's been through a lot, has missed home for decade upon decade, and has now been pulled incomprehensibly far from his planet once more. He has a stone shell. But it is just that: a shell. It's possible for him to etch out some happiness in this land, but that will take some effort and friends
◎ Third-Person Sample:
The paper cup gave a muffled crinkling sound under the weight of Tlaloc's massive fist as his drink spilled out between the cracks of his stone fingers. Yet another hissing sigh echoed out from the base of his mask. The first day of his new assignment as Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector was going to go off without a hitch, he thought! Yet there he stood, massive stone back arched by the CERES water cooler as he tried to clean up his coffee without carving a trench through the linoleum flooring. "This isss terrible," he whispered to himself, voice almost carrying an artificial quiver to it. "They already think my garments are ssstupid and now thisss." While it was a bit silly, his oversized tie draped loosely around the bottom edge of his stone head, he hardly stood out amongst his interstellar coworkers. That fake crying act served only to benefit Tlaloc as he stood here alone.
It was absolutely absurd to say he missed his previous prison and its long days spent hauling massive bricks or loads of produce, but at least there he had no anxieties over small-talk by the drinking tank. "There is no sense in thisss, Tlaloc. You ssspeak to the hearts of the people." The golem tried to reassure himself as he loudly skulked about the break room. He glanced at his clipboard by the counter, frayed at the wooden edges as though it had been handed to a clawed beast. His assignment, he reminded himself, was to assess the safety of the Pleasure District's automatons. Was that the nomenclature? Auto. Maton. He's also heard "Android" before. Strelka never had such things and the Aztec people certainly did not employ the use of such technology. They weren't sentient, he was told. That meant that they weren't... alive? So he could practice his proper way of speaking as he worked. It had been so long since he could really speak and be listened to. Did he even have that gift anymore? The androids spoke, but there was that distinct difference he had noticed. Could it be that this was how he sounded to the others? Just a voice coming from a statue?
He groaned. At least he sounded more alive than one of them. He attributed that to the fact that he once did have a living body. But then again, that was so long ago, maybe he lost some... essence to his voice? "No, no... You ssspeak just fine. You know how to speak their language, Tlaloc." Fluently, weirdly enough. He still didn't understand that, but he thought of it more as a gift than anything else. He watched the digital clock of the communal microwave, whatever that thing was, and saw that his "union mandated break" was nearly over. Fear gripped at his core, the true center of himself and not the hollow stone cavity. Just get through this day and worry about your social standing tomorrow. He approached the door and cautiously pushed it open, bending the PULL handle and cracking the top hinge clean off it's setting.
