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[necrolord]

Character info

Character name: Emperor John Gaius
Canon: The Locked Tomb
Canon point & release date: Nona the Ninth (September 2022) | post-canon
CRAU (if applicable): N/A
Powers (no more than 150 words):

Our boy devoured and subsumed God, but let's narrow this to stuff he can do without any skill regains. He can passively perceive life-energy, death-energy, and souls in his vicinity; he can insta-heal from wounds; in moments of heightened emotion, he can manipulate living matter to heal or harm beings in his vicinity. His speed, strength, and reflexes are mildly superhuman.

In canon he can also light stars, destroy worlds, traverse the afterlife, and similar bullshit. He can't do that here.

Personality

What is your character most afraid of? How are they defined by this fear? (100-300 words)

Emperor John Gaius is what happens when you put the sunk-cost fallacy in a pressure cooker for ten thousand years.

In a moment of rage and despair, John made a hideous mistake. He ended the world; he killed what he most loved; he turned a divine gift into a weapon, then wielded it against the God who had chosen him. His actions were so monstrous, and he is so utterly horrified by them, that he cannot bear to face what he's done - or to let anyone truly understand the scope of it.

He wiped the memories of his loved ones so they could never judge him. He sent them to their deaths rather than give them the freedom to leave him behind. It terrifies him to lack control, especially over the people in his life.

John has spent ten thousand years doubling down on every crime he's committed. Because he ended the world, he betrayed his family to keep them from finding out; because he betrayed them once, he had to keep up every lie. He swore undying vengeance on the only people he can bear to blame, because he is terrified to accept the blame himself.

What is your character's greatest desire? How are they defined by this desire? (100-300 words)

Someone said to John, back before the end of everything, that he had to get his priorities straight: he always said he wanted to save the world, but what he did was dole out punishments for the wicked. He has always been in love with the world, and he has always been profoundly ambitious, but his vengeful streak corrupts his potential.

John craves love and forgiveness. The most important figure in his life is "Annabel Lee," Alecto, the bound soul of the Earth - God herself. She is the only one who remembers all he's done, and he cherishes her like a mother and a lover and a beautiful monster he created. He removed everyone else's ability to understand his crimes, so they never had the option to condemn him, but she remembers. Alecto holds special importance because she has never forgiven him, but still claims to love him.

Sealing her away turned him into a depressive shadow of himself, and he's lived that way for nearly ten thousand years.

In the absence of genuine, fully-informed love and forgiveness, John fixates on vengeance. He wants closure. He wants to wipe out all traces of his crimes, wipe out the very civilizations of his enemies, wipe the slate clean. With true mutual love off the table, he craves control.

How will not having memories change your character? What core personality traits, if any, will change? How? (200-300 words)

In canon, we get to see John before he ruined everything - admittedly through the unreliable narration of the John from after - and we can see what ten thousand years of regret has warped him into. By continually doubling down on his worst actions, by dwelling on every mistake and using it to motivate his next steps, he has become his worst self: isolated, vindictive, incapable of real intimacy.

Without the memory of what he's done, John will resemble his youngest self. He will let people in and make himself vulnerable with an ease he lost millennia ago. He'll be genuinely excited, ambitious, willing to engage with the world as a scientist and not a god.

Alecto, a bitter and miserable monster, loses her memory in canon. She becomes Nona: young, eager, loving. Free from the weight of her trauma and betrayal, she can accept and amplify the love of the people in her life. Maybe John, whether or not he deserves it, can have that too.

That is, until he remembers.

Memories

You have 10 memory points. How will you use them?

Relationship core: 3 points.
John retains the emotions associated with his pre-apocalypse inner circle. He can't recall names or faces, but he knows that he had a loyal team of friends. He is haunted by the certainty that something horrible happened to them.

Relationship core (partial): 2 points.
He loves someone profoundly. He did something unforgivable to her.

Relationship trappings (partial): 2 points.
He can recite all the words to Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee.

Minor memories: 1 point.
All the stupid memes go here.

Minor memories: 1 point.
He retains fragmented memories of working in a lab on human cadavers.

Minor memories: 1 point.
John knows that he regularly livestreamed to a global audience. He's aware this was a deeply embarrassing use of time.

Player info

Name: Rona
Pronouns: she/her
Age: 28
Contact: ochrona
Permissions: Permissions

Link to invite: Invite
Character in game: Jon Sims