Character(s) Omi's House of Nightmares

[Omikron]

Karnak - the Nightmare Man


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Appearance:

Standing at over six feet tall, Karnak is an imposing figure. A hulking form, intimidating in his bearing, and carrying with him his deadly blade, it is the features that strike most fear into his enemies.

His eyes, deep and blue are cold as ice, promising death to his enemies, an inevitable end that they cannot escape from. His mouth, a thin, hard line carries with it no humour, no kindness, nothing but cold, hard death.

His stance, proud and tall, tell all who come upon him that here is an implacable, unyielding foe that will haunt them to the grave or die trying.

Personality:

There is little that remains of the man that Karnak once was. Knowing that ultimately he was responsible for his own downfall and, ultimately, his own death from the Shadow that follows him relentlessly, he has sunk into a shell of bitterness and self-hatred. His soul is tainted and blackened from the experiences that have destroyed all of the man he once was.

Yet, unbeknownst to him, some unknown entity favours him and calls him their own. Perhaps he doesn't realise that the strength of his own personality, his own indomitable willpower to survive in the face of almost overwhelming odds that would have crushed another is enough to retain some small favour in the eyes of this mysterious agent.

Perhaps someone, somewhere, realises that Karnak is not totally lost yet, that there is still a chance, however small that he may yet become the champion he was born to be. Karnak now is a sardonic, black-humoured individual lost behind the boundaries of his own self-pity. He tries to keep himself to himself and rarely speaks. When he does there is very little humour and warmth in his voice. He was never trained to love or to have respect for his fellow people, only for himself and his own abilities, and his recent experiences have driven out whatever humanity he once had.

And yet, deep beneath it all is a man who, if befriended, will give his all for his fellow and defend them with the ferocity that only he can muster. He is reckless, dangerously so, charging forwards with little regard for his own life, as it is all he has left, and yet, perversely, he spends his entire existence on the run from the Shadow, that posses the ability to end his life at any time it so chooses. He has his own set of morals, twisted that they are.....and loyalty is one of those morals. Karnak is a paradox, a paradox of a man and one deeply conflicted. If he could seek some sort of redemption....something to free himself from the self-imposed curse that has claimed his life then he would do it without a moment's hesitation.

Karnak doesn't trust easily, and certainly doesn't trust anyone with his dark secret. Since he desires isolation, the closer he gets to someone, the more harshly he treats them, trying to drive them away so they don't suffer the same ignominious fate that he himself is. Yet, deep down, all he desires more than anything else is for someone to break through the barriers he has set in front of himself, someone to save him from himself.

Background:

How do I reconcile with my fate? I was once an agent of darkness, Izrador's chosen one, it was my life's duty to seek out and strike down the enemies of my lord. It was my duty to bring to them the divine justice of my lord. Yet this is no longer the case. I have been driven to the depths of the world, to whatever dark corners will shield me from sight. For I am the hunted, not the hunter, cursed to wander the world for eternity lest the agents of shadow that pursue me strip the flesh from my bones and devour my soul. A sad fall for one such as myself, one who once stood high in the divine graces of my liege.

Karnak was once exulted as an agent of Izrador, one of the Legates. He who once stood in his lords favour, as one of the Night King's Lieutenants. How badly things went wrong. How far the mighty have fallen. Karnak was a protege. Marked for greatness at an early age, he was taken as a babe by acolytes of Sunulael, the Priest of Shadow. He could see that this one was special, unlike the rest. His divinations prophesied that he would one day become a mighty warrior, perhaps the greatest that Aryth had seen.

And so Karnak was stolen to the dark citadel of Theros Obsidia, and there he was trained from the day he was strong enough to hold a weapon in his hand. And train he did, each day working long and hard, practising in the art of war, learning the tenets of Izrador, being drilled each and every day in his beliefs. And Izrador watched, and was pleased with what he saw.

When he was ready, Karnak was given his divine mission. He was to seek down and destroy the enemies of Izrador. Karnak revelled in this task, for he had been tempered in war and death, so had little place for love, friendship or humanity. He existed for one thing and one thing only - the death of his enemies. Karnak was unmatched in his ability, and all who stood before him fell beneath the strength of his blade, and the power of his prayers. With the favour of Sunulael watching over him, it seemed that nothing could halt his mission.

As with most things though, the equilibrium would shift eventually. There was one thing that would prove to be Karnak's downfall. His own pride. As he slew one foe after the next, Karnak grew overconfident and cocky. He was tasked with tracking down and slaying an elven channeler by the name of Lucan Stelios. Karnak tracked the Channeler down successfully and, overcoming the defenses in the spellcaster's home, struck a mortal blow to him. As Lucan lay dying, Karnak stood over the fallen body of his foe, mocking him in the name of Izrador.

Lucan wasn't finished though. With his dying breath, the channeler cursed his slayer. The curse, given power by the hand of fate and the wish of the dying, manifested itself and severed Karnak's link with Izrador. Suddenly, his connection with his dark god severed, Karnak, bereft of his powers and abilities as a Legate, felt weak for the first time in his life. Worse, the dying channeler's curse not only severed his link with Izrador, it destroyed the dark god's hold and power over him.

To his eternal horror, the realisation of what he had done and the carnage and death he had been directly responsible for hit him hard. He was now bereft of his god, and his soul was stained with the deaths of countless hundreds of innocents. Izrador would not accept him back, and worse, knowing the secrets he did, he would be damned, and hunted by the dark god's agents. They would not tolerate his existence. Without having a choice, he renounced his divine charge, his life now become one of mere survival. Karnak now travels the world, trying to hide from the Shadow that trails him always, realising that he cannot ever escape. He knows deep down that he is doomed, that through casting aside his charge he will inevitably die.

He has renounced his past, and his time as an agent of Izrador, seeing now, even though it was too late, the error of his ways. Determined that even though he would inevitably die, he would die seeking redemption from his dark past, looking to embrace the ways of the resistance against Izrador.

 

[Omikron]

Cain Harper


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Name: Cain Harper
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Role: Skill Monkey, Silver Tongue (Persuasion and Social)

Appearance

Meticulously groomed, with brown hair coming down to the nape of his neck with nary a hair out of place. Brown eyes gaze with an inner gleam. Cain is slight of build, with not an ounce of fat on him. The only blemish on his otherwise perfect features is a scar running just over and under his lips on the right hand side of his mouth. On his left shoulder, Cain has a striking tattoo of a celtic sun covered by a flaming orange and yellow sun.

Personality

Quiet, softly spoken and mysterious, Cain is every inch the enigmatic high-flying, high-society millionaire's son thrust into an end of the world scenario that he can barely understand or come to terms with. Cain doesn't speak much, but then he doesn't have to. A look from his smouldering brown eyes can make most members of the fairer sex desire to give away their souls for him if he would so desire it -- and this is something that Cain uses to truly devastating effect.

Manipulative and devious, Cain puts himself first and foremost in all situations. He is spoiled, his parents having given him his every whim and desire. To a certain extent, Cain sees other people as puppets and playthings -- objects to be manipulated for his own amusement and entertainment. As long as he gets what he wants out of a situation then Cain is perfectly content.

On the surface that is.

There are those precious few who have taken the time to truly get to know Cain who can attest to the fact that hidden underneath, this strangely tormented individual is more complex than they could possibly even begin to imagine, and this is a trait that manifests itself in the strangest and most random of ways. An act of genuine kindness to a lost child, helping them to find their way home. The sparing of coin to a starving beggar to allow them to eat -- only Cain truly knows what drives Cain, and to most others he is a puzzle wrapped up in the finest cloth.

Motivations

Cain is an empty shell born into an empty, hollow world. He is trapped in the worst sort of cycle possible. Cain hopes to distance himself from his parents and forge his own identity, yet he does not have the faintest idea how to do so. His life is a pristine, manufactured thing - perfect in every way yet lacking warmth and love, just like himself as a person. Inside he is desperately cold and numb, so he seeks to make himself feel something through any exterior means possible. Cain is a hedonist and he does not know how to break it.

Yet his insatiable appetites do not give him what he so desperately needs. As a result of his continued perceived failures and his inability to feel genuine warmth and emotion, so his self-hatred and loathing grows. And as it does, he is spurred onto acts of greater debauchery, his lusts and passions never truly being fulfilled.

A cycle he does not know how to begin to break free from.

Backstory

Cain lifted a finger up to touch his lips as he turned his look to the woman asking him about his past. Fixing her dark eyes with his own, the corners of his mouth turned up in a slight, almost ghost-like smile. As precious seconds slipped like grains of sand in a hourglass in this dying world, the young man started to wonder if things would ever....go back to the way they used to be.

Finally, with a small sigh he bowed his head slightly, looking to the ground as he opened his lips, and the slightest of whispers broke the silence, "My, but aren't you the curious one. You know what they say? That curiosity killed the cat...."

His voice trailed off in a small chuckle as he continued, "I have always lived here in Seattle. I was born here into a life of riches and luxury." Looking around him, Cain gestures to his meagre surroundings. It hadn't always been like this, scraping around for survival with ambitions nothing more than to survive another day. "Ironically, I remember as a young boy thinking that there was more to this life than this.....incessant nothingness. Being a millionaire playboy isn't as easy as one might think. Each and every day being given everything that you ever wanted, never having to fight or earn anything. The strangest thing was....."

Standing, Cain walked over to the run-down shack that he was now forced to dwell within. Touching rotted wood, his eyes took on a faraway look. "......I remember from a early age I'd wished for something more. Adventure. Excitement. All things that I lacked aside from manipulating and turning the poor bastard sycophants who came seeking my favour against each other."

Sighing softly, Cain turned back to regard her, "Strange as it is to admit that, in some ways, as much as I wasn't ready.....I wanted this life we now lead. I grew up in my parents manor. I had the best teachings and tutors that money could buy. I learned how to twist and manipulate to get my hearts desire. There were few who could resist me." Laughing again softly, he continued, "There were many who wanted me to be their friend. There were many whom I took as lover. But even so, there were none who wanted to be with me for me. All they were interested in was the colour of my money. Strange to say, but even as much as I was never alone, I was at the same time the loneliest person in the world. Sad to admit isn't it?"

Fixing her with that irresistible gaze of his, Cain went silent, waiting in turn for her story....

Recent History

Cain sat on the wooden floor. He crossed his legs, leaning down and propping his head up in his hands. His eyes went misty, almost as if he was remembering a time far removed. "I'd actually only just came back home when the world went to hell....." His eyes glistened with moisture, held there for a second removed from eternity before he brought his hand up, wiping away the tears.

Colouring slightly, almost as if embarrassed by his moment of weakness, Cain continued his story. "I went to study abroad. Mother and father's money paid for my education and my trip. Aside from that though, I had something to prove to myself. I was me. Cain Harper. Not my mother, nor my father. I was not an extension of their being.....I was my own person and damned if I wouldn't learn to cope on my own, and not on their coattails."

Cain clenched his left hand into a fist, remembering the cruel taunts of his fathers friends as they mocked him for being "daddy's spoiled little boy". "I was......am......a hedonist. I learned to live life as fully as I could. The best clubs. The most exclusive parties. I would have a plastic faced dolly girl on each arm, baseless, without dignity. I had plastic, cardboard cut-outs masquerading as people wanting to be my friend. They used me, even as I used them to feed my own desires, so that I would grasp, even if only for a second, the blessed illusion that I was alive, that I did breathe. That my heart did indeed beat beneath my chest and pumped blood through my veins. Even abroad, even in England money talked and my family name and reputation spread far, far beyond what I ever thought it would."

His voice was tinged with unexpected sadness and bitterness, and perhaps it was at that moment that the girl listening to him realised the truth about Cain. That yes, he was a manipulative, selfish man, and he was, as he had admitted, a hedonist. Living a life of debauchery, Cain was a prisoner to his own lifestyle and his family name. That as much as he lived life on the edge, it was, in the end, a hollow, empty thing. Cain wished to escape his own heritage, and in that regard he was a prisoner locked away in a cold, stone cell without the key to a door that would set him free.

Regardless, the usually softly spoken Cain was surprised in a lot of ways at his own verbosity. Perhaps this one, this strange girl had found a strange kinship with the isolated social creature manufactured by a fake society.

Noticing the girl staring at the scar on his lip, Cain brought his finger up, tracing an imaginary line across the pale mark that marred his otherwise perfect features. Another of those ghostlike smiles made it's way across his face as he looked down to the floor.

"This.....this scar? That, my dear, is a story for another day." Cain looked down to the floor for a second before continuing, "I returned home, and found my home......and the world, had gone to ****."

Greeting the Apocalypse

Cain lights up a cigarette. It was strange that in this messed up world that had deteriorated as much as this one that the smallest things that were once taken for granted became a blessed relief. As he took a puff, blowing a small ring of smoke into the air, only the slightest tremble in his arms betrayed the depths of Cain's horror as he was forced to relive that terrible day.

"I woke." There was a tremor in Cain's voice as he closed his eyes, taking another drag on the cigarette. "I woke to screams and blood."

Closing his eyes, Cain pictured the scene almost as if it were one unfolding in front of him right now. "I hadn't even been back any more than a couple of days before the world changed....." Standing, Cain walked over to the girl. He drew her in, holding her close, almost as if she was his only link.....his anchor to reality, to stop the horror of the world around them destroying him.

"The screams stopped. When I went out, I found them all......I've -- I've never seen anything like it. They were all.....twisted.....contorted." Holding onto her, he tightened his grasp around her, clenching the fabric of her jacket tightly in his fist. "There was blood everywhere. They.....they had been tearing at themselves......"

As the images flashed in front of his eyes, Cain's voice broke, and he could not bring himself to say what he had seen with his own eyes. They had torn great furrows into their own flesh......tore their own eyes out in unspeakable agony.....

".....Mother, Father.....Miranda. I was the only one alive." Choking back a sob, Cain continued, "I.....I ran. I didn't know what else to do. I ran from the house. And as the world died around me, I just kept running...... And I wondered.........why?"

Why had I survived when everyone else had died?

Strengths

1) Cain is a jack of all trades -- master of none. Perhaps the product of a misspent youth, however there are few situations that he does not have some passing knowledge of. Picking locks? Check. Hotwiring? Done it. He is a useful auxiliary person to have around, just dont ask him to fight.

2) Master of the silver tongue. Cain certainly knows how to use his charm to devastating effect. With that silver tongue of his, there are few situations that he cannot twist to his advantage or talk his way out of. It is what has kept him alive so far.

3) Deceptively tough. Despite being slight of frame, Cain is deceptively tough. He can, and has, taken a beating in his life both mentally and physically. For one such as him to survive in this tough world, he has to be. No matter how many times you keep beating him down, he comes back -- again and again and again. That mental fortitude is invaluable in the apocalyptic wasteland he lives in.

Weaknesses

1) Haunted. Cain is haunted by the ghost of someone he cares deeply for, in a spiritual and emotional sense. A girl, Katy, whom he loved very deeply. The circumstances of her death is something he will never speak of, yet it is something that haunts his every waking moment, and something that he blames himself for. Until he puts that particular ghost to rest, he will never be free of his demons.

2) Addictions. Cain suffers from withdrawals. Needing to take things to block out the horrible nightmarish visions of his parents and families death, and over time he became more and more dependent on them to get by.

3) Self-Loathing. Cain's self-loathing is complex, and it runs very, very deep inside of him. It was what caused him initially to descend into the life of debauchery and excess that he lived prior to the rise of the dead. Seeking an exit from the hopeless, cold world that he lived in, what he found was the reality of the situation he became trapped in was far, far worse than the one he left behind. Yet, he does not know how to escape from it.....

Abilities

1) Charm and Persuasion. Can can be *very* persuasive when he wants to be. It can be difficult to resist his charm, but those who can see past his facade see him for the manipulative liar that he really is.

2) Pick Locks. Cain can open locked doors using thin slivers of metal. Learning the ability during his disaffected use, it is something that can get himself and his companions out of tight spots.

3) Heightened Endurance. Cain is tough. Surprisingly tough. It takes a lot to beat him down, and even more to keep him down. He can keep going when most would give up.

 

[Omikron]

Lethen Mursil



You ask me why I have come here? The answer is simplicity itself. I am cursed, and so is this place. And when two cursed beings come into contact with each other, well, maybe one of us will get the answers we seek.​

Appearance

You would be forgiven for not noticing that Lethen is present. He is just there, and that's the way that he likes it. Standing at a not particularly imposing 5'8", the enigmatic sorceror goes out of his way to merely blend into the background and nothing more.

Favouring robes of black, Lethen will often have his hood drawn up to obscure as much of his features as possible. When his hood is pulled back though, it exposes his single most striking feature. His eyes are piercing twin orbs of brown and they glimmer with an almost insatiable curiosity. A desire to learn more about the world even as the personality behind them seeks to seal himself away from it.

A paradox if you will, one of many when it comes to the softly spoken sorceror.

Lethen does not speak often, and when he does his words are carefully considered and softly spoken. He will often consider every angle before making any sort of judgement on anything.

The other distinctive feature of Lethen is that when he walks, it is with a pronounced limp in his right leg. An old injury that he has never tried to fully heal, the pain often serves him as a profound sense of his own mortality and a constant reminder to always keep his guard up at all times.

Personality

Lethen Mursil is a grave young man that carries the world on his shoulders. He rarely speaks, and when he does so, it is with the barest minimum words that he can use to convey his meaning. He is a thoughtful young man, who takes the time to think about every situation from every possible angle. He is very hesitant to take action, and will only do so when he has considered the action and its possible consequences as far as he can.

Lethen has a limited and uncontrolled ability of foresight. It does not happen all the time, or indeed a lot of the time, but every so often when he sees someone, he will be taken with a vision of a future event in their life.

He takes great pains to conceal from others this ability of foresight. Painful experience has taught him that not only will people seek to use his abilities for their own end, but worse still, that discovery by the wrong party could lead him to his own death.

Lethen is more than conscious of the fact that he is not just in danger himself but also potentially a danger to everyone else around him if his talent was to ever be discovered. There is nothing that he will not do to protect his secret, even potentially kill anyone who was to find out about it. Only a select few trusted souls know of his foresight and divination abilities.

Yet he does not see his talent as a blessing. He sees himself as cursed because of it. There is a deep-rooted bitterness inside of him in regards to his ability. There is no worse fate in all the world than to know what is about to happen and know that you can do nothing at all to change it. To speak to a man and know he will die in the week, to know that two lovers are fated to split and be apart. To know your own destiny and have no control over it - there is nothing worse than that.

His abilities have cost him everything. To grow close to someone and know that he can do nothing to change what is to come from the visions he has has shadowed his soul.

However, it is not all secrecy and gloom for Lethen. He is very loyal to his friends, and although he can count the number of his true friends on the fingers of one hand and still have fingers left over those friends he does have he will die for. But because of his secret, he will not learn to trust easily, and will not trust anyone unless he has absolutely no reservations of their intentions and believes that they will not betray him.

In that way, he is perhaps overly cautious and maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit paranoid.

Backstory

There was a different time, a different life even, back in the early days of Lethen's life when he did not walk with the weight of the future hanging over him like a veiled shroud. There are times that he looks back on those early days and he wishes for a life that he can never have again. He reaches out with grasping fingernails, trying desperately to clutch through the ethereal mists of time for that life.

He fails every time.

Lethen was born in the small mining town, and his early years were as normal and happy as anyone could hope for. Although his mother died in childbirth, his father looked after his only son to the best of his abilities. He worked in the mines and earned enough for them to live a comfortable life.

Everything changed during his teenage years, which was the first time that both the latent magic inside of him and his foresight manifested itself. It began with a nightmare that Lethen had one night of his father dying from a rockfall inside the mines. Haunted by this strange dream, Lethen went to the mines the next morning and pulled his father out of there. Seconds later the portion of the mine that his father had been working in collapsed, killing all those inside of it.

Lethen's father was a magic-fearing soul. He believed all magic to be the tools of evil. Far from being grateful of his intervention, he cast the young man out to fend for himself, believing that evil had taken root inside of him.

That was the start of the seed being planted inside of Lethen for the bitter cynicism and paranoia that would come to define his adult life. He found himself alone and forced to fend for himself at a younger age than anyone should ever have to.

Travelling from place to place with no clear destination or sense of purpose, young Lethen quickly found the world to be full of dangerous and nefarious individuals, all who would look to use and manipulate his prophetic dreams and visions for their own selfish aims and desires. Worse still were those who would seek to hurt him out of a lack of understanding over who he was and the nature of his abilities.

Lethen quickly learned to keep his abilities a secret for fear of reprisals. Fortunately for him, it was around this time that his sorcerous abilities also began to develop. He was able to use his magic to keep himself alive through these difficult times. Yet, inasmuch as he feared what discovery of his abilities would do, he was also lonely and he yearned the company of others.

Denying himself this, his bitterness deepened. After all, he had not asked for this "gift", and he had not asked to be cursed to this life and wandering and solitude.

Eventually, his travels took him to an abbey, and there he found some small amount of peace....for a time. Cloistered amongst the monks there seeking spiritual enlightenment, Lethen did not find that enlightenment, but he did find some relief from the dreams and visions, at least in the short term.

As all things invariably do though, this didn't last. It began when the nightmares returned. Nightmares that intensified day after day, the longer that he ignored them. He saw his father first, cut down and dying. Over time that image changed to the monks at the sbbey, and he watched it burn again and again and again.

No longer able to resist the call of the nightmares, and knowing that here, as always, the future called, one night Lethen woke to find that he had delayed too long. The sbbey was on fire, and pursued by mysterious attackers clad in black, he fled, once again leaving the peace of an illusory life long behind him.

His course was clear, and as much as he tried to deny it, he could deny it no more than he could deny his own destiny.

That day he left, and the next part of his life would begin to unfold in front of him