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brasswroughtgirlDulcinea de Montreal
Canon: The Glass-Maker's Dragon - Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
Academics Skill: Variable
Sports Skill: Ordinary
Favorite Foods: Ramen, hot chocolate, direct current, schadenfreude
Blood Type: Oil
Animal: Tiger
Age: 16 (apparent/mental); 2 (counting from actual date of construction)
[Click for more images]
What you see;;
A tall, thin teenager with dreadful posture and dark circles of bone-deep exhaustion under her eyes; eyes which are nearly black, with a tinge of deep purple. There is a small metal plate embedded along her left cheekbone, an implant of no immediately obvious function. Her habitual attire, regardless of temperature or weather, is a long, high-collared labcoat, pants, solidly built leather boots, and heavy gloves; all in shades of black, white, and grey. The only concession to "formal" clothing she'd make of her own volition is choosing a labcoat with fewer obvious stains.
Listeners tend to hear her native language as whatever mother tongue they speak - in other words, whoever hears her will understand her. The reverse is also true: she would normally understand any language she hears.
She smells of coffee, disinfectant, and hot, well-oiled machinery.
Look closer;;
All of the following is true but not immediately obvious; I leave it to you to judge what makes sense for your character to actually notice.
Her black hair is unnaturally straight and glossy. The skin of her face is smooth, unblemished, and pale, as if she isn't often out in the sun, an odd contradiction to the heavy wear on her boots.
Paying close attention to the actual sounds coming out of her mouth rather than the content of her words reveals that she isn't speaking any known language of Earth. Apart from the occasional distorted-but-recognizable loanword from Russian or Japanese, the majority appears to derive from ancient Sanskrit.
To anyone with an exceptionally keen nose, she smells superficially human but somehow two-dimensional, with no overtones of sweat or emotion.
She shies away from sunlight and avoids being touched whenever possible. If you manage the latter, the tactile sensations are all wrong; underneath her gloves and clothing is something hard, inflexible, and almost feverishly hot even through the fabric. She's also heavier than her slight frame would suggest.
Unmasked;;
Below the clothing and a mask of artificial skin is a finely-crafted brass automaton. The polished metal plating of her face shifts, stretches, and emotes as convincingly as the disguise did. The final joint of her fingers is made of the same flexible, slightly yielding material; the rest is ordinary rigid brass. Her eyes are still startlingly human.
Her flat chest is a silvery ribcage over a cavity filled with intricate, densely packed clockwork.
Powers;;
Her abilities in the original game system are as follows:
Dulcinea is freakishly tough; things that would kill an ordinary human three or four times over barely slow her down. It's only partly because of her robotic nature, and again only partly the regeneration detailed below - she's also just stubborn as hell.
Her conscience, the instinctual sense of right and wrong, is nonexistent. The Mechanism of Original Sin is a prosthetic replacement which imperfectly compensates for the lack.
Most of Dulcinea's abilities are fueled by sacrifice - each wound, literal or metaphorical, ritually sealed away and not allowed to heal, gives her a corresponding power:
The destruction is centered on her body and radiates outward.
I don't know under what the hell circumstances that would come up but it's canon and I may as well list it.
Her life (abridged);;
Dulcinea de Montreal grew up in an orphanage in Town - a peaceful, sleepy village located in a self-contained bubble of reality. She thoroughly loathed the orphanage, its residents, and the people of Town; it was no place for a genius of her caliber.
One day - possibly March 9, 1997, inasmuch as such a mythical, monumental event can be pinned to any time at all - the sun went out.
It was Dulcinea who saved Town and the world from cold, lightless apocalypse by constructing her Abhorrent Sun-Sustaining Superconductor, an essential component of which was her own heart, torn bodily from her chest. She survived; a new sun was kindled into the sky; the recognition she felt was her due for such an act of heroism and sacrifice - never materialized.
She gave up on the people of Town, and made the perilous journey to a school on the far edge of unreality, at the end of all hopes; the Bleak Academy, whose headmaster is Death. They accepted her as a student, taught her dark secrets of nothingness and nightmare, and as the price of that knowledge took away her sense of good and evil, and turned her dreams to worms and rot inside her head.
She did not return; but something did.
What came back in her place was Dulcinea VII, the brass-wrought girl - a masterwork automaton built in Dulcinea's image, with her memories and personality, in order to carry on her work.
VII would rather pass herself off as the original de Montreal for as long as she can. It's easier than facing her creator's death.
What really happened;;
Before she died, the sun was the chariot and the mansion of the goddess Jade Irinka, worshiped in Town as the Angel of the Houses of the Sun. She was murdered by her onetime lover, Death, the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy; the event which the people of Earth and Town saw as a mere solar eclipse was him drawing back his black bow and shooting her in the heart. Dulcinea de Montreal, a fallen angel with wings of blood, feathers, and fire, dwelling in Town as observer and protector, sacrificed her own heart to preserve the life of Jade's daughter and heir, Jasper Irinka. She could not save the mother.
Dulcinea may have loved Jade, herself, once.
The details are lost even to her; half-mad with grief, she stormed the gates of the Bleak Academy alone, and did not return. All memory of her fell away from the world. The thing that came back was a pale echo, disguised as a mortal human but less even than that.
Beneath the plating, the brass machinery of Dulcinea VII is illogical, useless, non-functional nonsense. Beneath the obfuscating gears and clockworks, there is a formless, fluid mass stretched through the "automaton," something like blood and something like fire, providing the true motive force and intelligence. Perhaps this is the wounded remnants of Dulcinea de Montreal, hiding and recovering strength... perhaps.
What really happened;;
The Excrucians, or the Riders, the unreal people of the void, staff and students at the Bleak Academy, are usually distinguished by their eyes, which are mere holes through which a starry night sky can be seen. They once upon a time laid siege to Heaven and made war upon the gods, for according to their philosophy, reality itself is an insult, a lie, and a grievous wound against the void. In recent years the Highest War has mostly calmed, and some immigrant Riders even live peacefully in Town, but not before both sides were decimated by the conflict.
Sometimes, during the war, the Riders would take the corpse of a god and put it back together for their own purposes, creating a Mimic - a perfect imitation indistinguishable from the dead god, but working as a double-agent against Creation. Something is always secretly wrong at the heart of them, an artifact of the unnatural process. Nestled somewhere in their ragged, patched-together fragments lurks a blasphemy that, if the Mimic is revealed or destroyed, would be released in a last maelstrom of destruction.
The nightmare-swamp rotting at Dulcinea's core is such a blasphemy, and Dulcinea VII such a creature, although she doesn't consciously know it, or know the purpose the Headmaster intended in creating her.
Resting in her sockets are something like highly sophisticated glass eyes. If they were somehow removed - difficult to do, above and beyond how Dulcinea would fight with all her strength to prevent it - behind them is a hole into night, full of falling stars.
What happens when you poke an Excrucian in the "eye" is unclear. It's only been described once to my knowledge and I can't possibly top the prose, so I'm just going to quote directly:
"When I finally got Genseric's permission to touch one of his eyes, I felt a coldness, a yielding flatness, and a sense - I cannot explain it! - like a dead finger on the other side, moving, touching mine. It freaked me out and I pulled my hand back and then the bastard wouldn't let me touch his eye again. Still, to whatever degree any information whatsoever gained through any interaction whatsoever with a Deceiver and in particular with Genseric Dace tells you anything, there you have it!" - Jenna Moran, A Diary of Deceivers.
Mun: Karma - they/them - personal journal:caramelchameleon
Canon: The Glass-Maker's Dragon - Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine
Academics Skill: Variable
Sports Skill: Ordinary
Favorite Foods: Ramen, hot chocolate, direct current, schadenfreude
Blood Type: Oil
Animal: Tiger
Age: 16 (apparent/mental); 2 (counting from actual date of construction)
[Click for more images]
What you see;;
A tall, thin teenager with dreadful posture and dark circles of bone-deep exhaustion under her eyes; eyes which are nearly black, with a tinge of deep purple. There is a small metal plate embedded along her left cheekbone, an implant of no immediately obvious function. Her habitual attire, regardless of temperature or weather, is a long, high-collared labcoat, pants, solidly built leather boots, and heavy gloves; all in shades of black, white, and grey. The only concession to "formal" clothing she'd make of her own volition is choosing a labcoat with fewer obvious stains.
Listeners tend to hear her native language as whatever mother tongue they speak - in other words, whoever hears her will understand her. The reverse is also true: she would normally understand any language she hears.
She smells of coffee, disinfectant, and hot, well-oiled machinery.
Look closer;;
All of the following is true but not immediately obvious; I leave it to you to judge what makes sense for your character to actually notice.
Her black hair is unnaturally straight and glossy. The skin of her face is smooth, unblemished, and pale, as if she isn't often out in the sun, an odd contradiction to the heavy wear on her boots.
Paying close attention to the actual sounds coming out of her mouth rather than the content of her words reveals that she isn't speaking any known language of Earth. Apart from the occasional distorted-but-recognizable loanword from Russian or Japanese, the majority appears to derive from ancient Sanskrit.
To anyone with an exceptionally keen nose, she smells superficially human but somehow two-dimensional, with no overtones of sweat or emotion.
She shies away from sunlight and avoids being touched whenever possible. If you manage the latter, the tactile sensations are all wrong; underneath her gloves and clothing is something hard, inflexible, and almost feverishly hot even through the fabric. She's also heavier than her slight frame would suggest.
Unmasked;;
Below the clothing and a mask of artificial skin is a finely-crafted brass automaton. The polished metal plating of her face shifts, stretches, and emotes as convincingly as the disguise did. The final joint of her fingers is made of the same flexible, slightly yielding material; the rest is ordinary rigid brass. Her eyes are still startlingly human.
Her flat chest is a silvery ribcage over a cavity filled with intricate, densely packed clockwork.
Powers;;
Her abilities in the original game system are as follows:
- Weather-Sense 2. You have an uncanny sense for weather.
- Perseverance 2. You’re good at not giving up.
- Nightmare Science 2. You practice a unique form of science.
- Love for the Wicked 1. You believe even the worst deserve kindness.
- Shield 1. You’re oddly familiar with protecting people.
- Dream Analysis 0. Your dream analysis helps only rarely.
- People Skills 0. You’re uncomfortable with people.
- Swimming -1. You’re not good with water.
- Domestic Tasks -1. You’re not good around the house.
Dulcinea is freakishly tough; things that would kill an ordinary human three or four times over barely slow her down. It's only partly because of her robotic nature, and again only partly the regeneration detailed below - she's also just stubborn as hell.
Her conscience, the instinctual sense of right and wrong, is nonexistent. The Mechanism of Original Sin is a prosthetic replacement which imperfectly compensates for the lack.
Most of Dulcinea's abilities are fueled by sacrifice - each wound, literal or metaphorical, ritually sealed away and not allowed to heal, gives her a corresponding power:
- Dulcinea is heartless in a literal and metaphorical sense, as long as she stays out of the sunlight. She is not vulnerable to blood loss, chest wounds, or blood-borne poisons, nor is she subject to the vagaries of emotion. When in sunlight an automatic subroutine kicks in and causes her to act as though she had a heart, to preserve her human disguise; that's one explanation, anyway. In darkness she is free to act with mechanical precision.
She can, given a few hours away from sunlight, regenerate from any damage up to and including death. Severed parts will either retain their mobility and re-attach themselves, or go inert as the main body regenerates the limb, depending on circumstances. If given the choice of multiple pieces to regenerate from, the piece that would have contained the heart is the one that will regrow a complete body, even if the head's not attached or it's not the largest piece. - Dulcinea has vowed to renounce all forms of love and friendship; if she admits to such a weakness, even privately to herself, she loses all access to the following: she can treat wounds that are beyond the scope of ordinary medical science; protect, save, or shelter an innocent; prevent or reverse aging or decay; and, given sufficient time to prepare, she can take on any agonizing, impossible burden and survive it as long as she needs to.
- The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy turned Dulcinea's dreams to worms and rot inside her head. From this curse, a gift: she may harvest simple devices or raw building materials from the subconscious of a person having a nightmare or talking about their deepest fears.
The things she builds this way tend to be uncomfortably organic underneath their metallic external casings. They are fully capable of sensing, manipulating, or being powered by abstract concepts. Careless use of nightmare devices tends to encourage obsession, vice, and corruption in the user, whether that's Dulcinea herself or someone else. Nightmare materials and nightmare devices are fragile and quickly decay into uselessness unless specially reinforced by Dulcinea's Incomparable Nightmare Engine.
She herself is capable of dreaming, but her nightmares are always the same, a morass of poisonous, rotting swamp; and if she sleeps for longer than about an hour or two that nightmare begins to leak into the surrounding reality. Coffee might or might not be a placebo for her mechanical systems, but that doesn't stop her from consuming quite a lot. - Given a few minutes of interaction to take their measure, she can tell how someone is most likely to betray her; the wickedest thought in their mind; or whether they are lying to her, and why. Given longer to pace and ponder and rant to herself, she can gain insight into other people's plans against her.
- Dulcinea can erase all memory of a given event from the world. She is not exempt. She has an uneasy suspicion she's done this before, but obviously can't prove it.
- She can open a gate to the realm of her nightmares, name and call forth a horror, and direct it to complete one task for her.
- She could, if she tried, unfold wings of blood and feathers and fire from some unseen compartment of her casing, and fly. This is an uncomfortable thing to know she might be able to do, because her blueprints don't even hint at such a thing and it raises questions about how and why she was built. She tries not to think too hard about it.
The destruction is centered on her body and radiates outward.
I don't know under what the hell circumstances that would come up but it's canon and I may as well list it.
Her life (abridged);;
Dulcinea de Montreal grew up in an orphanage in Town - a peaceful, sleepy village located in a self-contained bubble of reality. She thoroughly loathed the orphanage, its residents, and the people of Town; it was no place for a genius of her caliber.
One day - possibly March 9, 1997, inasmuch as such a mythical, monumental event can be pinned to any time at all - the sun went out.
It was Dulcinea who saved Town and the world from cold, lightless apocalypse by constructing her Abhorrent Sun-Sustaining Superconductor, an essential component of which was her own heart, torn bodily from her chest. She survived; a new sun was kindled into the sky; the recognition she felt was her due for such an act of heroism and sacrifice - never materialized.
She gave up on the people of Town, and made the perilous journey to a school on the far edge of unreality, at the end of all hopes; the Bleak Academy, whose headmaster is Death. They accepted her as a student, taught her dark secrets of nothingness and nightmare, and as the price of that knowledge took away her sense of good and evil, and turned her dreams to worms and rot inside her head.
She did not return; but something did.
What came back in her place was Dulcinea VII, the brass-wrought girl - a masterwork automaton built in Dulcinea's image, with her memories and personality, in order to carry on her work.
VII would rather pass herself off as the original de Montreal for as long as she can. It's easier than facing her creator's death.
What really happened;;
Before she died, the sun was the chariot and the mansion of the goddess Jade Irinka, worshiped in Town as the Angel of the Houses of the Sun. She was murdered by her onetime lover, Death, the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy; the event which the people of Earth and Town saw as a mere solar eclipse was him drawing back his black bow and shooting her in the heart. Dulcinea de Montreal, a fallen angel with wings of blood, feathers, and fire, dwelling in Town as observer and protector, sacrificed her own heart to preserve the life of Jade's daughter and heir, Jasper Irinka. She could not save the mother.
Dulcinea may have loved Jade, herself, once.
The details are lost even to her; half-mad with grief, she stormed the gates of the Bleak Academy alone, and did not return. All memory of her fell away from the world. The thing that came back was a pale echo, disguised as a mortal human but less even than that.
Beneath the plating, the brass machinery of Dulcinea VII is illogical, useless, non-functional nonsense. Beneath the obfuscating gears and clockworks, there is a formless, fluid mass stretched through the "automaton," something like blood and something like fire, providing the true motive force and intelligence. Perhaps this is the wounded remnants of Dulcinea de Montreal, hiding and recovering strength... perhaps.
What really happened;;
The Excrucians, or the Riders, the unreal people of the void, staff and students at the Bleak Academy, are usually distinguished by their eyes, which are mere holes through which a starry night sky can be seen. They once upon a time laid siege to Heaven and made war upon the gods, for according to their philosophy, reality itself is an insult, a lie, and a grievous wound against the void. In recent years the Highest War has mostly calmed, and some immigrant Riders even live peacefully in Town, but not before both sides were decimated by the conflict.
Sometimes, during the war, the Riders would take the corpse of a god and put it back together for their own purposes, creating a Mimic - a perfect imitation indistinguishable from the dead god, but working as a double-agent against Creation. Something is always secretly wrong at the heart of them, an artifact of the unnatural process. Nestled somewhere in their ragged, patched-together fragments lurks a blasphemy that, if the Mimic is revealed or destroyed, would be released in a last maelstrom of destruction.
The nightmare-swamp rotting at Dulcinea's core is such a blasphemy, and Dulcinea VII such a creature, although she doesn't consciously know it, or know the purpose the Headmaster intended in creating her.
Resting in her sockets are something like highly sophisticated glass eyes. If they were somehow removed - difficult to do, above and beyond how Dulcinea would fight with all her strength to prevent it - behind them is a hole into night, full of falling stars.
What happens when you poke an Excrucian in the "eye" is unclear. It's only been described once to my knowledge and I can't possibly top the prose, so I'm just going to quote directly:
"When I finally got Genseric's permission to touch one of his eyes, I felt a coldness, a yielding flatness, and a sense - I cannot explain it! - like a dead finger on the other side, moving, touching mine. It freaked me out and I pulled my hand back and then the bastard wouldn't let me touch his eye again. Still, to whatever degree any information whatsoever gained through any interaction whatsoever with a Deceiver and in particular with Genseric Dace tells you anything, there you have it!" - Jenna Moran, A Diary of Deceivers.
Mun: Karma - they/them - personal journal:
caramelchameleon