HandofOmega/Abyssals

The Abbess of Dust

Concept: Death's Nanny
Nature: Caregiver
Caste: Midnight
Anima: Rain of Blash Ashes
History: The head of an isolated nunnery, The Abbess would have been forced to watch all of her girls abused by maruading barbarians had she not accepted the Black Exaltation and massacred the raiders herself. Then she enslaved both the girls and the bandits' ghosts (whom she had learn the Fertile Soul Endowment Arcanos) and bred them together at the bidding of her Deathlord master. Now, she contently watches over the Dark Nursery, instructing an entire generation of fanatical Ghostblooded assassins raised on the Malfeans' creed of annihilation...

Image: Also called "The Mother of Ash", The Abbess a small woman whose dried, papery-thin flesh constantly flakes off which each movement; this has the effect of shrouding her in a continual cloud of dust wherever she walks. Appearing to be little more than a worsening mummy, she still wears the voluminous white habit her former rank earned her, although whether in blasphmous parody or wistful remembrance none dare ask...

Notes: This Midnight caste is still, at heart, a caretaker and instructor as she was in life. Despite her appearance, she is still polite and patient, yet stern and strict with her charges. All of this quickly falls away with any apparent threat to her children, upon which she becomes a snarling, bestial monster out for blood. An effective martial artist and Necromancer, she still prefers to let ghosts do her fighting for her, particularly the Nemissaries who animate the many modified stillborn some of her girls had...

The Executioner of the Dying Light

Concept: Weapon of Mass Destruction
Nature: Bravo
Caste: Dusk
Anima: Guillotine
History: Wrongly accused for a crime he didn't commit, the burly, dimwitted strongman was but hours away from the chopping block when he accepted the Dark Offer. Slaughtering his accusers, he made his way to his new Liege and has never looked back. A simple creature, he hasn't the time or understanding for the gospel of annihilation, but then as a Dusk, he was made to Do, not preach.

Image: A hulking monstrosity of a creature, The Executioner's skin is a grey pallor that shows the movement of the muscles and veins beneath with gruesome clarity. Draped in chains, his most notorious feature is his black executioner's hood, beneath which is a visage so horrible that it is whispered any who see it die of fright (the Dusk anima power may have something to do with this...).

Notes: As dim as he was in life, The Executioner is content to be a mobile battering ram, slaying and destroying all that his master commands. His favorite weapons are his Soulsteel Grimcleaver and fighting chains; he has also mastered all of the Abyssal Brawl Charms and most of the Resistence ones.

The General of the Last Trump

Concept: Commandant of Undead Armies
Nature: Leader
Caste: Dusk
Anima: Skeletal Eagle
History: The woman who would become The General was a Lookshy officer, whose expert competence was overlooked because of her unExalted mortality. Dying senselessly on a field of battle that she could have won had she been given the chance, she eagerly accepted a Deathlord's offer to conquer all in the name of Death. Now, this Dusk caste leader has all the armies at her beck that she can handle, and means to put them to good use...

Image: The General of the Last Trump is a tall woman, whose severe but average looks are slowly growing more harshly beautiful the longer her Abyssal nature takes hold. Her pale-blonde hair is cropped short beneath her general's cap, and her most striking feature is the skull-emblazoned eyepatch she wears over her still-decaying right eye. She sports a darker, more fascistic mockery of a Lookshy General's dress uniform, wears a staff officers' greatcoat about her shoulders (treat as an Artifact Reinforced Buff Jacket), and is never without a riding crop in her gloved hands.

Notes: The General is a military genius, and has earned the extensive use of her Liege's resources. She prefers to guide her forces into combat, but if forced to, makes devastating use of Hungry Ghost-style Martial Arts. Her favorite weapon is a Soulsteel Thundercracker (Artifact Whip, similar to a Lightening Chain, that drains Essence upon striking or entangling a target (per turn)). She also keeps her Familiar, an albino strangler serpent named Sweet Release, coiled around her until an enemy is near enough for it to strike. While proud of all her crack troops, her special darlings are The Innocent Irregulars, a fanatical squad of children that she had abducted from her enemies and turned into psychotic murderers with the Hardened Killer Training Style.

The Grandmother of All Pestilence

Concept: Old Crone
Nature: Savant
Caste: Daybreak
Anima: Cockroach
History: Few are certain if the Grandmother was one of those few who Exalted late in life, or if the Abyssal death energies turned a young and vibrant woman into the harridan she is now. Only her Deathlord knows for sure...Either way, she now contents herself with happily spreading madness and malady everywhere she goes...

Image: The oldest, ugliest hag imaginable. The Daybreak's eyes are cloudy and vastly different sizes, and she has iron teeth and a couple of false limbs she gave herself with Bone Graft Technique.

Notes: The Grandmother is chief Occultist to her Deathlord, who delegates most matters of a sorcerous or necromantic nature to her, tho she also enjoys torture more than is seemly. She loves to play up the "mad old woman" image, cackling obscenely as she wallows in gore and blasphemous ingredients. Her major weakness is beauty: She both loves and despises it, especially in her Abyssal fellows.

The Huntress of Shadow's Favor

Concept: Renegade Huntress
Nature: Thrillseeker
Caste: Dusk
Anima: Shadow Lion
History: Few know the origins of the Huntress, tho it is clear that she comes from the Linowan nation and she is said to be one of the Dowager's few Abyssals, and a renegade, at that. Those who would speculate on such things believe that the Dowager is simply allowing her her freedom to sharpen her hunting skills, and that when she is ready, the Dusk will become the prey of the fiercest hunt of all...

Image: A tall, lean Eastern woman, The Huntress still seems vibrantly healthy, if a bit on the pale side. She normally wears her long, pale-green hair in a ponytail, and still dresses in sparse skins and bone jewelry after the fashion of her people, the Linowan.

Notes: The Huntress speaks little, save to her white tiger Familiar. Adept in the use of all hunting weapons, she prefers Black Ash throwing spears and war boomerangs. Survival Charms allow her to thrive by hunting both in the lands of the living and the dead...

The Last Laugh

Concept: Harlequin
Nature: Jester
Caste: Moonshadow
Anima: Tolling Bell
History: While travelling bards are often exempted from violence by bandit and government alike, nature has made no such commitment, and the wandering actor and entertainer who would become The Last Laugh was nearly killed in a landslide, if it weren't for a Deathlord's intervention. Now, he travels the lands of the living and the dead, bringing news, laughter, and the blissful release of Oblivion...

Image: Dressed in the motley colors of a travelling bard, this Moonshadow eschews the traditionally somber cast of most Abyssals. Tall and dignified, he carries himself with a polished, professional air, and yet is still not above the occasional pratfall. He is expert in using his patchwork cape to conceal and misdirect, which also comes in handy in battle. Sometimes wears a painted porcelain smiling face mask.

Notes: The Last Laugh now applies his considerable charm and talent for winning others over (and for making rivals look foolish) to a dedicated cause. That that cause will end in Creation's embers draws a dramatic sigh from him, but the show must come to a close sometime. The Last Laugh conceals his weapons artfully within his musical instruments and juggling toys, such that an opponent may not even know that he is under attack until it is too late...

The Silence of Emptiness

Concept: Identity Thief
Nature: Conniver
Caste: Day
Anima: A Murder of Crows
History: No one knows the tale of The Silence of Emptiness, save the Deathlord who crafted it. None even know its true gender, only that it shows up when least expected and that it can be anyone at all. Even you...

Image: The Silence of Emptiness normally appears wrapped in bandages, little of its decaying flesh visible. Its limbs crack and pop and move at odd angles and it speaks in a whispering sing-song that hints at a mind as broken as its body. However, it is quite capable of assuming the form and manner of another, and so skilled at stealing their lives and identities that no one realizes the difference until it is too late...

Notes: This Day caste has mastered most of the Abyssal Athletics, Stealth and Larceny Impersonation Charms, making it a frighteningly effective spy. It has a unique and disturbing fighting style, where it attacks from all sorts of odd angles and positions, skittering around like a broken marionette of a spider while harassing its prey with all manner of Thrown Charms...

Sweet Lily of Despair

Concept: Innocent Little Home Wrecker
Nature: Hedonist
Caste: Day
Anima: Spiderweb
History: The young daughter of an upper-crust family in the loftier Nexus districts, fate intended for this 10-year old to be the latest victim of her degenerative family's insane ways. But a Deathlord stepped in and gave her another chance. Murdering her parents as they tried to murder her, Sweet Lily keeps their animated cadavers on as the new help in the upkeep of her ancestral manor (which is now redocorated in a suitable manner). Excepting when her Liege has need of her, her principal form of entertainment is pretending to be lost, allowing good samaritans to take care of her, and then, the fun and games begin. Among the living, Sweet Lily still refers to herself by her living name, Lolette, if only because she enjoys the havoc invoking Resonance brings among those who take her in...

Image: The cutest, most well-mannered little girl ever. Sweet Lily always wears black formal frilly dresses, bonnets draped with elaborate ribbon and lace over her long, pale-blonde hair, and a hooded cloak of velvet violet that matches her large eyes. She has a dancer's grace and an angelic singing voice, all the better to use Withering Dirge with. She also enjoys using Irresistable Succubus Style on those who are not normally prone to such vices, to make them question their own moral fibre...

Notes: Sweet Lily plays the ingenue to the hilt of the Soulsteel dagger she leaves in the bodies of her victims when done "playing" with them. She keeps a raven as a Familiar and has an enslaved poltergeist for an "imaginary friend". Permanently moliated into the form of a stuffed toy rabbit, "Mr. Flopsy" often appears (using the Weighted with the Anchor of Flesh and Ghost-Devil Charms) to rend her lesser enemies apart.