Plant Eidolons (Binding Universe)

For today's foray into the Binding universe the author has compiled a few of the more well known or interesting magical plants known in the first three timelines of the Binding universe. It does not include any native to the Second Timeline, and those will likely be the focus of a later post.
Enjoy!

Bellweed is a small shrub, with tough, not quite barklike stems. It’s leaves, stems, and blossoms are all the same light silver green, and also small, round and boxy, it’s blossoms resembling sleighbells or paper lanterns. Its main feature of interest is the ringing sounds it makes, which imitate the emotions of creatures that get close, and induce them in others that hear it. This is its primary defense, alerting the presence of things that would eat it to predators.

It is very closely related to Chimeblossom, and they have been known to change into each other in the course of one generation, as appropriate to the environment, suggesting them to both be forms of the same plant.

They are valued for their application in telepathy enchantments, and are a common base ingredient in emotion inducing potions. Less frequently, they will be used to boost musical skill, although they are generally too small to craft instruments from.

Chimeblossom is a tree of moderate size, that very closely resembles Bellweed. The major differences are in size, as Chimeblossom can grow nearly as tall as an oak in the most extreme cases, and in the fact that Chimeblossom actually has proper bark rather than just a tough, leathery skin. Slightly more subtle is the difference in blossoms, which resemble pears or raindrops in shape more than balls, and the leaves also get longer and broader at the ends. The cadence and volume of their ringing are also different from Bellweed, but its effects are not.

Chimeblossom are a somewhat popular choice for carving instruments from, although many people prefer a more natural sound for their wind instruments, stringed instruments are considered far more compatible.

Willowvein, as the name implies, is a relative of the weeping willow. It has a clear skin, thin bark, and red sap. It can be eaten by carnivores, and has some use in healing potions. It is probably artificial.

Oreseeker is a plant that begins as a shrub and can grow into a tree, if it has sufficient materials. Its unique aspect is that it only grows in high metal environments, as it absorbs those metals through its very extensive roots, which actively seek out veins of ore granting it it’s name. When it absorbs metal, it purifies it and grows. It may be entirely metallic, with no organic portions at all, but either way they are highly prized for their rarity, beauty, and mining value.

They do not, despite rumors to the contrary, feed on the iron in blood, unlike some plants.

Widowroot is a mild toxin, a depressant, and has a death aspect. It is so called because it is traditionally gathered by widows and spinsters who can never bear children, and it carries aspects of loss and lacking. It can fetch a moderate price, as it is frankly one of the most benign things that can be found with a death aspect. It is also quite rare in the wild, and generally only shows itself to those who have lost something very precious.

Reclusive Breachweed, also known as Durnwort, is a small grass that grows in crevices. it hides from predators by turning itself invisible, and is sometimes harvested for this property, but is otherwise very benign and inoffensive. When all observers are properly concealed, it is a light, clear green similar to onion shoots, with light brown roots. Like many reclusive plants, it may be approached by most elemental spirits without triggering its defensive properties.

Project Bloodspiller's Kill Team (Binding Universe)

Hi. These are (some of) the guys Project Bloodspiller employs to hunt monsters and interesting mages who won't share their tricks. Because of course the logical thing to do, if you need magical research or crafting materials, is to hire guys to go hunt them down with magic weapons.

Silent- A red haired, probably female killer who uses a Muramasa II heavy assault katana. The sword has a Bloodforged Jet Stone in its pommel, this may or may not be a standard feature. Her default fighting style is hyperfast melee dueling, doing constant damage, using her superspeed to stay close, and denying opponents the opportunity to react. She can use her sword to deflect all types of stab wound she can see incoming, negating most types of ranged attack that can overwhelm Miracle Dodge, although she was still vulnerable to Electric Moment until she added gloves for the specific purpose of not getting electrocuted through her sword.

Her clothes are loose, sturdy, and black, and her gloves and hair are the color of scabs, and she’s not a Lord of Shreds and Tatters, although she has killed several. Her hair and outfit are implied to have been colored by the blood of many, many opponents, and true to her name, she never speaks or even grunts onscreen.

Liarboy: Takes the form of a stocky boy who appears to be between eight and twelve years old, but where he falls between them varies from moment to moment, although the change is subtle. He is both an accomplished illusionist and a suspected shapeshifter, and provides most of the support role for the team. He’s probably a large part of why Silent was able to corner Charnel, although he certainly had help.

Dreamer: Brown haired, heavyset man in his thirties. Mainly interesting for his ability to connect to unguarded minds by means of an inviting dreamworld. One of the closest things to a forcible telepath in the world, he is generally kept away from combat where possible. His face is quite plain, and he resents being called an incubus.

Waif: A dark haired girl in a suit of Wraith derived armor, with wings/scarf made of Bluefire. Fairly durable, can fly, enhanced strength, other powers mostly undeveloped. Armor is bonded to her, and makes her look thinner than she really is.

Shroud: Black haired, age and gender unknown. Bonded with their black cloak, which they can feel and move freely, and preternaturally light. Feels naked with the cloak exposed, at least initially, and probably related to research on Hundred Year Spirits. Probably not an actual member of the team, but rather one of the only prey that’s managed to stay ahead of them.

The Legend Units (Awesome Normal Universe)

The author rejects the foolishness that is Daylight Savings Time, and insists that this means he didn't actually miss this deadline.

That said, he hopes to fix this up a bit later.

The Legend Units are a robotic army, designed as multipurpose, networked, extremely versatile combat androids. They have been remarkably successful, but this is mostly limited to their basic combat functions, and individually, they are exceptionally inept at most tasks. Said functions are the initial programming module, which amounts to being able to load, aim, and fire their custom Glock 20 handguns with reasonable accuracy, aim at areas their fellows aren’t, and get back off the ground if they fall over. More was planned for the core programming, most notably the ability to recognize and execute commands from authorized personnel, but this proved unexpectedly complicated, and had to be drastically scaled back from the initial concept.

In their first deployment, they had very limited programming, and their greatest capability was to cover a largeish area at least as well as most Slasher teams could with the same weapons. This is only possible by exploiting their primary advantage, which is to say their network. The network also allows them to identify friends from foes, albeit to a rather limited degree, and they were told to shoot anything on base larger than a small dog that moved and didn’t have a valid IFF transponder. They were capable of using slightly customized Glock 21s with speed and accuracy above the average for dedicated soldiers, and could use most handguns with a similar profile and caliber with much poorer reliability if directed to, although this never.came up. They were slightly more proficient with the police surplus Tasers they were being trained with at the time, chosen for their similar profile to their Glocks (as they were originally designed to fit the same holsters,) but this also never came up.

They had the basic grasp of how to maintain weapons with which they have been trained, initially limited to the Glocks customized for them and later expanding to several more types and models of weapon, but could not and cannot do the same for others without a great deal of trial and error, and in many cases cannot even load them.

Their hardware is simple enough, being primarily pneumatic in nature, and they are customized heavily in favor of dexterity, as such focus is critical to operating simple tools effectively. They are not expected to keep themselves maintained, let alone perform advanced tasks such as live capture or unarmed combat, alone. Their arms are, in fact, not mirrors of each other, as it was realized that some sections would require individual parts anyway. Hence, the left arms are customized for more rapid precision movement, and their right arms are designed for more brute strength and shock absorption. This allows them significantly better accuracy when using firearms with their right arms, and their left arms tend to be better at reloading or wielding melee weapons, as well as typing.

Many, many supplementary programming modules have been planned, including vehicular repair and driving protocols, advanced hand to hand, movement protocols for various situations and terrains, code optimized to condense coding of similar skills (beyond what’s already been provided by the Von Becker heuristic framework), a much wider variety of weapon proficiencies, allowing the Legend units to fulfill multiple combat roles, and the ultimate endgame of most AI engineering, which is to say an adaptive social skillset capable of passably emulating a human being.

The general consensus on the Legend units during their first deployment, an emergency sortie of all armed units immune to Lady Psyanide’s Miasma, was that they could hold chokepoints admirably but were embarrassingly prone to being squished by Mesh’s much simpler, significantly cheaper robots, which were also mostly immune to small arms fire.

In light of this, the project has been given significantly less hardware budget and a lot more programmers, with the orders to make their remaining prototypes worth the already massive investment. It was nearly scrapped, but their effectiveness against the human opponents they faced was enough grounding for the clever people in charge of the project to get it renewed.

This eventually brought dividends, some four years later, when they were next involved in a major incident. During the brief invasion of the city, the Legend units were deployed as disposable assault and heavy fire support teams, and did nearly as much per unit as the Slashers, albeit with significantly higher casualty rates. During this incident, they were able to use rocket and grenade launchers, assault rifles, and even cars, although they seem to have been limited to their own jeeps. Their battery life was not extensively tested, but it was observed that they could charge themselves with wall plugs or live wires connected to their new palm tasers.

Herbert and Koenig Pharmaceuticals (Binding Universe)

Herbert and Koenig was a small pharmaceutical company in the 1990’s. Their presence was limited to the cities of San Gregor and it’s nearest neighbor, Rentonsville. The attempt to turn themselves into a chain had stalled, and while it had yet to fail spectacularly enough to drive them under, they had still been barely breaking even for several years. Then the explorers from the First Timeline made their very public appearance, and Binding was discovered soon afterwards, rapidly destabilizing the market and severely threatening their position.

They were both desperate and fortunate enough to back Veronica Williams in her research, and were pretty much set to corner the market in biological manipulation when the the newly formed Department of Supernatural Administration attempted to detain her and steal her research. She fought her way out with Windblight, and took the majority of her recent work in order to keep it from them, but H&K managed to keep the bits she’d already given them.

These alone were more than pretty much anyone else had, and by a combination of business acumen, flexibility, and being larger than anyone else with the first two advantages, they were able to secure a deal to supply the newly formed Project Bloodspiller. This in turn led them to greatness as the largest supplier of biological modifications on the planet, and their Teratotech division maintains very close relations with Project Bloodspiller to this day. They also own the original patent for healing pills, which was the first patent in over a century that the government has used its authority to forcibly buy, although it’s far from the last, even in that decade .

Lucas Donovan's Last Favor (Binding Universe)

This is an early draft of a short story, or possibly the prologue to a longer one. The author hopes to revisit and expand it at some point, to clarify a few details, but at the moment it's an attempt to write a scene clearly with dialogue alone.

Enjoy.

“What did you do?

Ah. I see. That shouldn’t be possible.”

“At a baby’s level of development, their souls are still incomplete enough to add bits without breaking the Absolute Rule. Naturally, you can’t force it, but they will instinctively reach for simple ideas that shape their nature. It’s the creche principle. They won’t develop in quite the same way as a proper Nephilim, but they come remarkably close. The proper term  for them is Changeling, I believe.”

“I said that it shouldn’t be possible, not that I didn’t know how it worked. Turning a child into a Sleeper King is, if you’ll pardon the use of an idiom, sick.”

“It will protect him. It isn’t my prettiest work, but his safety is all I really need.”

“He’s hardly human anymore. He may well never develop language, if he sleeps for too long in between his waking periods. Is his safety really all that important if he isn’t capable of living a proper life?”

“You, of all people, should think before you condemn life outside of civilization.”

“I rejected the majority of it’s trappings because I knew enough to realize that they were wrong! He wouldn’t even have that much.”

“For a shaman, you’re quite hung up on human upbringings. He’ll have a nanny, and I can trust her. She should live as long as he does, if she’s careful, and she can raise him during his waking periods.”

“A lonely existence, to be sure.”

“She’s willing. If nothing else, she’s willing.”

“You offered her immortality. But no, it was another favor, immortality alone wouldn’t have been enough, not for you. You saved her life, perhaps?”

“Her mother’s. She knew the type of favor I would ask in return, and came to me of her own free will.”

“So may I meet this illustrious girl? Considering how she’ll be using my home for the next several centuries?”

“She’ll be here soon enough. I agreed to let her live out her mortal lifespan before I took her. It was her condition for agreeing.

And how did you know what I was going to ask you, by the way?”

“Don’t be stupid. I knew what you wanted as soon as I saw him.”

“Then your complaints earlier?”

“All true. Only slightly exacerbated by grumpiness.”

“This makes us even, then.”

“Even? I suppose it does. But with you, that’s tantamount to saying we’ll never meet again. Feeling your age?”

“You know I’d watch over my child rather than leave him to another’s care if I could. I made a promise, and It’s one I’m not willing to break.”

“I see. Even that you’d consider it speaks volumes. I presume it was one of the conditions of your deal with the demon lord?”

“Yes. I am not to make myself immortal, nor live longer than my natural lifespan, lest he return before his exile is complete. I harbor the hope that by the time he awakens, he will no longer be so great a threat.”

“A thousand years can be a long time.”

“And yet so short, as well.”

“Fare ye well, old friend.”

“God by ye.”

Character Bio: Johann Hexenhammer (Awesome Normal Universe)

The author is sorry this is so late, and hopes he'll actually remember to schedule the post next time. Oops.

There is no official record of when Johann first appeared. Conspiracy theorists can trace a series of arsons and unexplained bombings back more than two thirds of a century, but he certainly seems extremely spry for someone who’s lived that long. Most guesses put him down as starting twenty years ago at the earliest, but they all have conflicting ideas of where, as well as his exact methods. What the evidence does confirm is that for some time, a man in a black trenchcoat appears at the sites of major fires, always accompanied by explosions, and miraculously survives unharmed. Some witnesses report that he’s spoken to them, usually warning them to run, and he has been connected to the confirmed deaths of two experienced Slashers.

Theories as to his origins abound, including: him being the product of a decommissioned supersoldier program, an alien invader now stranded on earth, an angel sent to punish mankind for its sins, a fallen angel, a former bomb disposal technician on a crusade against crime after his family was killed by the mafia, a high school chemistry teacher in desperate need of a hobby, a displaced volcano god, Death, a wannabe superhero, a freed Prometheus, a time traveler, a mercenary, and the former partner of Slasher Academy’s headmaster. One or two of these is probably true, if only due to the sheer variety of guesses, and the multiple sources stating his chosen name has only added to the metaphorical fire. Nevertheless, his past, and his personal details, remain a mystery.

As a social phenomenon he is almost more interesting; he is an established part of urban myth across north America and parts of Canada, but too much fairly reliable evidence exists to all be faked, and therefore his popularity has stayed consistent and even grown, rather than forgotten with the next fad. It also provides a number of interesting case studies in the genesis and spread of urban legends, as the reliable evidence can be compared with the retellings fairly easily, and both the speculation and even the unmentioned facts can be isolated and tracked.

The most consistent details are listed as follows:

• A man in a black trenchcoat, sometimes closed but never buttoned. The coat is sometimes described as moving oddly, and seems quite a bit less flexible than it first appears.
• His hair is dark, as are his clothes, but the exact colors vary for each. His shoulders are a bit too broad to be feminine, as is his jaw, but his build is neither slight nor stocky.
• An apparent sense of extreme ease in the presence of fire, likely related to the fact that it never seems to burn him, even when he walks through it.
• Some significant expertise with explosives and incendiary compounds. This is less often reported, but widely believed, as there would naturally be fewer things that witness it and survive to tell the tale.
• Moderate benevolence toward bystanders. There are a number of reports of him warning unaffiliated people to leave or going out of his way to save them.

Anything else is limited to speculation, at least until he arrives in St. Halsburg.

Walpurgis Base (Awesome Normal Universe)

Walpurgis Base is located in Antarctica, and hides the heat signatures of both it’s geothermal and nuclear power generators with a local volcano. It has several purposes, the first being as a very well protected shelter, as it is buried deep enough in the ice that it could probably survive a direct hit from an intercontinental nuclear missile, and secondly as a site for mining and refining fuel for the Orion drive stored on the base, still in construction. It has a combined internet and radio tap located seven miles away, camouflaged and under a small lake, and two backups, all maintained by remote drones. The taps are in line only, which naturally means it requires an actual signal to intercept in order to receive new data as it cannot send packet requests. Fortunately, there are several broadcast satellites that pass over it. Walpurgis also houses several redundant backups of as much of the internet as possible, as well as the majority of the US government database, which is what the local computer terminals mostly search. Two fairly large tankers and an excavation mission were mysteriously lost along with all hands in order to import the materials, and roughly twelve people still alive know about it outside the base crew. The base currently contains fifty people, but could theoretically hold as much as two hundred, and there is a plan for potential expansion, although it would require drilling through more than a mile of ice to mine the necessary raw materials.

The real interest, at least storywise, is that half of the staff are some flavor of madmen, not actually trained to be there, and/or capable of making random and wacky devices to inflict upon their coworkers, usually with some enthusiasm. The series takes place in the Awesome Normal universe, with several iconic characters getting minor references in the background, but the actual time it takes place is uncertain, and any influence it has on outside events is far from obvious. The base is known to have been in the works since well before the St. Halsburg bombing or the formation of the Idle Hands, although either of those may have contributed to the frankly ludicrous amount of secrecy surrounding the base, and it is strongly suspected that Walpurgis is not the only base of it’s kind, or even the only one operational. There is a reasonable chance that Fergus did find out about it, though, based on a short scene where he mentions the optimal positioning of several boat disappearances and a geothermal power source to his colleagues. This scene takes place after he embraces his persona as a supervillain, and probably assumed de facto command of the group.