Difference between revisions of "Beastlord"

Jon was tired of horrible dates and deceptive profile pictures. So he did what any intelligent person would do in their search for true love and turned to the occult for guidance. He picked and chose various parts of lore and ritual from torrented metaphysical PDFs, Google image search results on ancient sacred texts... and from crudely drawn anthropomorphic animal images on Deviant Art. Jon created the ultimate spell to call forth a benevolent astral guide, at least by his own opinion.

One cool, starry night he set out to his favorite park and started building his spell circle--sacred stone by sacred stone freshly purchased from Pier One. He worked throughout the night, naming and acknowledging the houses of Oberon, the aqueducts of Babylon, the territories of Faerie, the layers of Hell and the Gates of Heaven. He wove a tapestry of prayers, sutras, incantations and curses. However, when it was over he felt no different. Feeling rather silly, he packed up his things and returned home.

His first transformation caught him unexpectedly. Instead of summoning an astral guide during the ritual he had become one instead. He tore out of his clothes, let out a savage lion roar, scared everyone away, chased a few pigeons and took a nap in a tree. He woke up in a cage at an animal shelter for super hero pets, although the friendly staff said they were used that sort of thing.

Eventually he learned to mostly control his powers and was quickly swept up into a superhero role due to local crises.

Beastlord has the ability to transform himself or others physically, usually subconsciously without effort. In fact, in battle when he's focusing on channeling his energies he tends to transform into a large anthropomorphic god-like lion creature. Those that spend too much time around him and his Aura of Primal Majesty may begin to find their beards growing faster, their muscles larger, and in rare cases their tails wagging. He can usually undo most changes consciously if and when he becomes aware of them. Usually.

As he channels more dimensional energy he gains superhuman physical prowess increasing his size and power. Whenever he assumes the super hero role he consciously shifts to a larger humanoid form with a tail and dons his gear. However, throughout battle he continues to change. Sometimes he gets caught off guard and a emergency forces him to start a battle in his smaller civilian form. Since most news cameras only reach the scene of a fight after he's already half lion most people don't recognize him on the street, even in his super hero gear.

He can manipulate otherworldly dimensional energy to either heal himself or others. It comes from an unknown source deep in the Astral World. He has learned how to spread his power & influence in the Material World which can result in a mystical zoomorphic epidemic.

Beastlord can travel freely to places in the lower astral plane as well as limited travel to the more accessible reaches of Yesod including Faerie, Babylon, Netherworld and Elysium. The deeper he goes into the astral, the harder it is for him to return, and if he travels beyond Yesod, he may not be able to return. He is, however, able to bring a few traveling companions along with him.

Beastlord has an unusual ability to intuitively cast advanced spells. He can't say how or why they work, unfortunately.

Curious, Easy-going, Introverted, Compassionate, Sensitive, Shy but agreeable. He either talks too much or not at all.

He will sometimes loose himself to the dimensional energies and "go wild." Also, his non-powered up form is essentially human and vulnerable. Plus there's always the chance that he might get lost to the Astral World and forget he ever was human.

To protect himself when not powered up, Beastlord wears enhanced regenerative textiles from the astral realm of Babylon, City of Man. In particular, he is fond of their clear hyper-plastic shielding, designed to absorb kinetic energy and disintegrate upon massive impact. The textiles are not as strong as "regular" powered armor, but strong enough to save him from serious injuries until he's fully powered up. Within nanoseconds of Beastlord returning to human form the textiles reconstruct to pre-configured form. He has a few outfits loaded into the textiles and can alter between them with some tinkering.

Advanced touch display tech from Babylon, this tablet connects to active servers in several astral realms, notifying him of emergencies in the Astral World. Designed for use in the astral realm, it continues to work in even the most magical of places where the laws of physics may not apply. It automatically connects to most networks in the Material World, which has gotten him into trouble quite a few times after clogging a few restricted encrypted emergency channels (in particular ones used by the Champions, UNTIL, UNITY and NATO) with selfies. So he usually keeps it in "airplane mode" unless his regular cell phone gets bad reception. It is, however, always connected to the astral realm. Since it is a technological device it tends to get overlooked by most mystics. Quite possibly one of the world's strongest super computers, he keeps the tablet in a messenger bag next his other devices and manga.

The tablet contains a sentient AI that Beastlord tweaks incessantly, forcing it to respond to terms of endearment with a deep resonating masculine voice and an idealized form that would give the Faarnese Hercules serious competition. No one seems to know the name of the AI as Beastlord only ever refers to it as his husbando.

Beastlord has a tendency to bring back interesting items from his trips to the Astral Planes. He has yet to learn that gifting these items to others is rarely a good idea. Protip: Never Drink any bottles of Satyr wine he may gift, unless you enjoy the scent of goat fur.

Ever since his initial transformation he feels a subconscious call towards the Astral World and has some ability as a Dimensional Traveler. This desire to find something he can't describe has fueled many of his (homeward) journeys which usually end back in Millennium City.

As a character he is a bit of a Woobie and a literal Cowardly Lion. Beast is actually a hidden badass and can get dangerous when the stakes are high, usually as a last resort. Teammates would describe him as an Inept Mage who doesn't really know how to control his wild magic--it just works. His Aura of Primal Majesty works as a localized background magic field that boost the powers of his allies but also occasionally affects innocent bystanders, sometimes turning average citizens into animal-morphs or fantastic creatures.

Spoiler Warning
The following details are about a player-created storyline, or is information currently unrevealed about a character.
Please do not use this information ICly unless given permission to do so.

The "Astral Animal Guide" spell that Beastlord cobbled together was actually a variation of the Loom of Space, a spell to create a plane of existence from scratch. He is actually now a lesser Dimension Lord, and a being whose existence is the entirety of a world. Beastlord's consciousness remained in the Material World but his "world-body" lies somewhere in the Astral World in Netzach, beyond Yesod. Since it evolved separate from his mind, it is a fairly stable and happy dimension, unlike most worlds created by the Loom of Space. Unknown to him, it is a world filled with glorious beings known as "Hunks" who only desire to worship him and/or kidnap him. However, if Beastlord ever did fully enter that dimension he would become a full and true Dimension Lord and might not be able to return to Earth. He does not know this, but continues to search for his unknown home anyways. There also seems to be a few paradoxes in his story: how did he "guess" how to become a dimension lord originally? Perhaps the birth of universes is a complicated thing that puts effect before cause sometimes.