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Let’s start with my main protagonists: DiamondFire and Crimson Shadow:
Dakota “Kota” Hartigan/DiamondFire: The main protagonist of Savage Beautiful Worlds, and a wall guard for the backwater Nightlight community, Kota is a friendly and warm-hearted young man who will not hesitate to throw himself into danger to make sure one more person lives; however, he’s also quite naïve, socially-awkward, and quite dense in the head. Once, he dreamed of exploring the universe and obsessed over the magic and monsters and gods dominating Atlas’s mythology; now, personal traumas have quashed that little spark in him and he now works a dangerous job spearing nocturnal Ferals, keeping his community safe. But when a group of strange people with even stranger abilities, led by a gorgeous undead redhead, show up on his doorstep, Kota’s life is turned upside-down; not only does he find out the legends are true, but he also has a personal connection to a missing god. Now, Kota finds himself thrust into an adventure he finds himself completely and truly unprepared for…
DiamondFire’s Toolkit centers around the divine empowerment he receives from his trademark broadsword, Steelfire. He is capable of flight and superhuman feats of strength/durability/agility far exceeding the capabilities of a human being. The sword also allows Kota to summon and manipulate powerful blue flames, but it is quite clear he hasn’t unlocked the true potential of his abilities just yet. Kota is also an incredibly adept fighter and is highly skilled in various swordfighting styles. He serves as the audience surrogate, and the story chronicles his journey from a faceless guard to the figurehead of a new breed of heroes.
Emmeranne “Emmie” Grace/Crimson Shadow: Once the heir to the kingdom of vampires on the enchanted planet Coinerth, Emmie is the physical antithesis to fairy-tale royalty. She’s a crass, bad-tempered, rude, and snarky woman, suffering from severe PTSD and what may very well be BPD; her attempts to cope with her issues have led her down a path of severe alcoholism and bad choices, leading to the unceremonious stripping of her royal titles and banishment to Atlas, where she lost a wing to the vicious beasts wandering the planet’s nighttime. In spite of her harsh nature and seeming apathy to everything around her, Emmie isn’t heartless; still haunted by the choices she’s made, she has resolved to make up for everything she’s done and she has discovered her greatest strength is her ability to self reflect. Also helping is her compassion for victims of circumstance and her genuine care for her friends… especially DiamondFire, her relationship with him blossoming into something MORE than just a friendship. Emmie still may have a ways to go… but she’s getting there.
As a fully-blooded vampire, Emmie has all the same abilities as her species; she is capable of lifting well over 300 tons of solid material, can run at at least 600 miles an hour, and is incredibly durable, able to withstand immense firepower and harsh conditions easily. Her senses are also incredibly sharp, to the point she can tell one’s heart rate or hear a bird chirping from miles away. She is also armed with retractable claws and can withstand sunlight (daytime is more or less the equivalent of staying up all night to a vampire). Emmie must sustain herself on the blood of living things, but her bloodsucking also serves as a multitool based on her emotions; beyond nutrition, it can also serve a variety of functions such as healing physical wounds or even sexual gratification; her strong bite force also allows the fangs themselves to be dangerous weapons. Emmie can only drink a certain amount of blood, or else an overdose will cause her mind to regress to a feral animal state. She later receives a cybernetic wing to replace the original; this wing is armed with incredibly sharp razors and small railguns, and Emmie eventually builds a fighting style around it. She was originally able to shapeshift into a bat, but losing her wing also took this ability.
Cato McKinney/Brown Recluse: If Kota is Harry Potter and Emmie is Hermione, then Cato is essentially Ron Weasley. In contrast to his edgy “emo” aesthetic and love for dark places, Cato is an open-hearted and kind young man whose only expectation is the best of everyone he meets. His ability to mediate the most severe personality conflicts and his inability to TRULY hate anyone is perhaps one of the biggest reasons why the dysfunctional Nightlighters have stayed together for so long, and his caring, nonjudgemental nature extends to even the villains his team tussles with daily; Cato has a bad habit of empathizing with the circumstances that led them to evil.
Despite this, Cato isn’t entirely squeaky-clean; he’s quite prone to comparing himself to other people and has a tendency to think only of the NOW instead of the FUTURE. He also feels quite overshadowed by DiamondFire, but for the sake of his best friend, he keep it to himself. But despite his own issues, Cato does everything he can to make sure the team dynamic of the Nightlighters runs smoothly, and it’s only a matter of time before it’s clear to him he’s FAR more important to the team than he thinks he is.
Cato’s Toolkit revolves around a poisonous spider; not only is he capable of crawling across walls and ceilings, but he is also immune to disease and is capable of manipulating silk he generates from his fingertips, camouflage himself, make his footsteps and movement inaudible to people (his voice remains unchanged), has enhanced agility/speed/endurance/senses/reflexes, and can generate a venom that he can either spit from his mouth or directly inject into someone via “stingers” he can protrude from his palms; he can change the lethality of the venom at will. Cato is also capable of using his own bio-electricity as bursts of powerful static shock; his Toolkit ensures he is an essential choice for stealth missions, and he has built his hero career around stealing and getting info from villain strongholds, similar to an RPG Rogue/Thief character. Cato is also a skilled escape artist with knowledge on how to pick a variety of locks, and when all else fails, he just uses his silver tongue to talk his way out.
Crud… I should put up some REAL bios for the characters I posted above. First things first though, new character:
Yikuma Watanabe/Sharpshooter: A native of the jungle planet Centune, now living on Atlas with Diamondfire and his team, Yikuma is defined by her insatiable drive to just keep moving; she is used to (and very much prefers) the nomadic, wandering, hunting lifestyle of her home world, and it truly infuriates her having to stay in place for long; as a result, she’s developed quite the dark sense of humor and a distinctive lack of respect for authority. Though she genuinely loves her teammates, her issues with teamwork have followed her to Atlas and she stays a lone wolf at heart; Diamondfire has found out the hard way that getting her to listen to orders just DOESN’T WORK, so he’s resorted to pointing her in a direction and letting her go do her own thing. She’s also well known for striking out on her own into the wild surrounding the Nightlight and not returning for hours on end, sometimes even days; it causes her team annoyance, Diamondfire migraines and Cato no small amount of terrified worry. But Yikuma isn’t just a lone wolf; she’s also a survivalist, and she ALWAYS returns home safe and sound, often dragging a freshly-slain wild animal behind her. She is in a dedicated relationship with Cato; the union first began when she dropped a giant Centunian mango on his head and took him captive.
Yikuma is the ranged fighter for the Nightlighters, and thanks to years of training, is considered the deadliest markswoman on both Atlas and Centune when armed with her characteristic recurve bow. With focus, she can score a direct hit on a small enemy fighter moving at extraordinarily high speeds, and even put an arrow through a small, inch-wide hole without even looking; she often jokes she could aim the complete wrong way and STILL not be able to miss. She has an excellent perception of wind direction and uses it to direct her arrows, and as the series goes on, she modifies her arrowheads with poisons, explosives, smoke bombs, and various other types of tech.
Alright, I’m back. Sorry.
This is Roberto de Anza/Volcanitar. He’s a confident and roguish goof, and one of the Nightlighters’ heaviest hitters. Though he’s looked up to as a role model for aspiring superheroes, there’s a LOT of skeletons in his closet; it won’t exactly be very pleasant if and when everyone else finds out about them…
Don’t mention his lips. He’s kind of touchy about them.
Roberto’s powers are magma and thermal manipulation, fire immunity, (technical) size-shifting, and an enhanced jump; he can control the viscosity of molten rock and solidify it, and build stone and magma around his own body to create a towering giant form of himself.
Midori Strand/Bombshell. The youngest Nightlighters at 16 years old, but still one of their most powerful members. An adventurous and fearless girl full of youthful overconfidence, her impulsive nature often causes more problems than she solves. Midori idolizes many of the older members of the team, and her greatest fear is that she will do something that destroys the trust and faith they have in her.
Midori’s Paradigm ability is absorbing kinetic energy from nearby detonations/repeated hits/etc, and reflecting it back as a devastating explosion through a simple touch; the power of the conflagration depends on how much energy she absorbs. Midori also has experience in different kinds of handheld explosives and fantastic aim, making her effective for ranged attacks as well.
Endrew Granger/Promisekeeper: The mysterious “big brother” of the team and the one they turn to for advice. Despite his calm and stoic kindness, he is incredibly rigid in his values and is one of the most ruthless heroes on Atlas; he will always keep his word, no matter what it takes, and he has absolutely no problem with using lethal force to keep innocents safe.
Endrew has two Paradigm abilities; one is teleportation, allowing him to cover incredibly long distances in under a second. The other is a paralyzing gaze that induces rigor mortis.
Catherine “Glee” Scannell: The great-granddaughter of an outlaw legend and a former member of a band of ruffians. Glee is a friendly, easygoing, and chatty motormouth with a crippling inability to shut the hell up, often irritating her teammates to the point of pain with her incessant jabbering. What many don’t realize is that her talking is a coping mechanism for her rough and traumatic past as an outlaw, and her willingness to apply what she’s learned as a criminal makes her a force to be reckoned with. Like her teammate Endrew, Glee is among the group of superheroes willing to use lethal force.
Glee’s Paradigm ability is rusting away any metal except for gold with a simple touch. She cannot turn the power off and must wear specialized gauntlets to keep from destroying anything important.
Hannibal Williams/Brutus: The Nightlighters’ heaviest hitter, and a 9-foot tall suit of mechanical armor containing the remains of his original human body inside. A hammy and childishly-excitable gentle giant who absolutely LOVES being a Nightlighter, but his short attention span and problems with memory loss often cause his team some trouble… and for Brutus himself, no small amount of insecurity. Despite this, Brutus’s earnest kindness and cheeky honesty makes him a beloved member of the Nightlighters, and he’s among the four members to serve as the dysfunctional team’s moral center.
Brutus has no true Paradigm abilities of his own; he is instead one of the strongest and most durable heroes on Atlas, capable of lifting over 600,000,000 tons of solid material and smashing through anything standing in his way.
Jody Bowen/Osmosis: The Nightlighters’ “science girl”, a geek to the core, and one of the few Paradigms to absolutely LOVE being one. A kooky and spacey oddball with stars in her eyes, but also an unmeasurably kind, empathetic, and all-loving woman whose motivation for being on a superhero team boils down to “I just want everyone I meet to feel loved”, placing her firmly in the group of members that hold the rest of the team together. Despite her eccentric personality and inability to truly hate anyone, Jody is nowhere near as airheaded as she seems; she is one of – if not THE – most intelligent members of the team, and she’s capable of a truly terrifying ruthless streak and cold professionalism when properly motivated.
Jody is a sentient clump of slime taking the form of a young woman; her consciousness is contained within a single molecule of protoplasm. As she can no longer eat or drink, she gains her sustenance through photosynthesis, and can last for 36 hours without sunlight before becoming immobile and lethargic. Jody is a master shapeshifter, capable of changing the pigment, solidity, and form of her body on a molecular level to flawlessly mimic another person or object. Jody has also demonstrated the ability to form a variety of different weapons from her own limbs, and can turn herself into a liquid form that allows her access into normally inaccessible areas.
Kyle Janners/Absolute Zero: A shy and panicky pacifist in charge of evacuating civilians from a battlefield. His tendency to avoid fights often marks him as a coward among the general public; in reality, he just REALLY doesn’t want to die. When pushed to his limit, Kyle proves himself to be one of the most powerful Nightlighters, throwing aside his pacifism to freeze whatever’s threatening his friends with a devastating blizzard.
Kyle has the ability to blast jets of snow and ice from his palms whenever he’s near a water source. He can also freeze pre-existing snow into ice and make structures out of it.
Vivian Barkridge/Witchcraft: A witch who’s slowly and steadily becoming more adept in the dark arts, and the only member of the Nightlighters to use functional magic. Blunt, aloof, stoic, and emotionally-withdrawn, her tendency to use terror against her opponents and “evil” powers has won her more fear and wariness among the general populace, and few friends among her teammates. Deep down however, Vivian yearns for love, and her sinister demeanor hides an anxious but ultimately empathetic and compassionate heart.
Vivian is not only a Paradigm, but a Mystic as well; a Mystic is the official term for mages and magic users, and they can choose the specific category of magic they want to learn, such as nature magic, time magic, space magic, etc.; Vivian’s category is black magic. Vivian’s Paradigm abilities include invisibility, telekinesis, telepathy, and force field generation. As the saga continues, she learns to (briefly) reanimate the dead, manipulate and cast curses, conjure objects and summon demons, open portals, manipulate one’s mind, and so on. Given patience and practice, Vivian has the potential to be the most powerful Mystic of all time.
Fig Upton/Hangman: The shortest member of the Nightlighters at 4’8 and possibly even smaller than that, Fig is often considered by some the “runt” of the team… and by others, an irritating pest with a useless superpower. Despite his goofy, irreverent and fast-talking nature, his big grin hides a sad and lonely kid with a terrible childhood and an even worse life, holding on to his smile because it’s the last thing he has. What he doesn’t realize is the effect he actually has on other people; his ultimately kind nature and silliness help lighten the mood of many on the team and he’s one of the four members (along with Cato, Jody, and Brutus) to help keep them all together. One can only hope he realizes it before something finally breaks him…
Fig’s superpower is controlling rope, but his TRUE skill is in improvising; he’s been known to use them as grappling hooks, lassoes, living nets, and in a variety of his traps. He also has a vast knowledge of knots and how to untie them, and he’s good with thinking on his feet.
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