Post by Ze Flying Wraithetti Monstress on Feb 28, 2010 20:42:10 GMT -5
Name:
Castox
Age:
Two hundred and seventy
Race:
Appearance:
Tox doesn’t look like other Shades. Since his transformation was different, his body reacted differently, and several tweaks were made by his mother for purely aesthetic reasons. His hair is completely white from the trauma of the change, and is worn long, hanging just past his shoulders. Anck is fond of styling it, usually sticking little braids inside or rearranging it. Tox himself doesn’t do much with it except put it up into a ponytail when rigorous activity seems inevitable. His eyes are yellow, and the pupils are vertical slits, making him look disturbingly catlike. They only widen when it’s very dark. Tox’s skin, as well, is pale green as opposed to the bone-white pallor of most Shades. His teeth have been filed into points, and his nails are claws. His spine is ridged and sticks out of his skin. Almost dinosaur-like, it is black in colour.
Tox’s last difference is on the palm of his right hand. An oval organ lies on it, similar in appearance to a sucker, and it is about the size of a lemon. This organ is how Castox feeds. He places it on the chest of his victim, where the tendrils inject toxins into their body, used for paralyzing the victim. Then, Tox sucks out their life force, literally making them age rapidly until nothing remains but a desiccated corpse. Unlike other Shades, Tox needs to feed in this manner to sustain himself. Conventional food will give him a moment’s pleasure, but does not sate him. This is because Castox’s spirits are dormant. Since spirits are what give Shades their power, longevity, and other things, Tox needs another way to acquire these things, and so his mother implanted this method. He retains his strength and youth from feeding on anything capable of free thinking, although he usually eats humans since they are the most plentiful and the easiest to take down.
Though that is where the obvious differences end, Tox does have less noticeable ones. For one, he is very tall at 6’4”, and being on the run 24/7 has given him a toned, well-defined slim musculature along his entire body. Since he has a thin frame, however, it’s easy to see him as meek at first glance, especially with the clothes he wears. Tox almost has a goth appearance, both with his paleness and the fact that he very strictly dresses in the colour black. His attire is always elegant and form-fitting, moving smoothly with him. Tox’s body is also laced with black ink tattoos that are all points and swirls. They litter his left arm, chest, back, right leg, and even over his left eye. However, since Tox is usually fully dressed, only the eye tattoo is clearly visible.
Tox’s facial features are odd, but handsome in an unconventional way. He has very pronounced bone structure and sharp features- a wide forehead, square jaw, tall chin, triangular nose, sunken eyes, drawn lips and high cheekbones. His eyebrows are very pale, and even his eyelashes, though long and full, are pure white. Tox is also hard-pressed to shave, and so his chin is usually brushed with a small beard that is snow-white like the rest of his hair.
Naturally, Tox can’t go into civilization looking the way does, unless he wants a pack of soldiers crawling all over him. Usually, he’s lazy and simply casts an illusion easily undetectable by normal humans, but when the situation truly calls for it he magically alters his features. Though his eyes and hair remain the same, his skin becomes a normal pallor- lightly tanned, and his facial features are less prominent. However, this can easily lead to a huge amount of confusion as to what race he is- his features, height, hair and movements are very elf-like, but his eyes and teeth are feral.
Personality:
Castox is under the impression that he is the most terrifying creature to ever walk the earth. In this, he is sorely mistaken. Though his appearance can be frightening, the best Tox can pull of is ‘creepy’. He is the very definition of ‘creepy’. He often speaks and behaves in a way reminiscent of a sleazy Hollywood agent, fast-talking his way out of most situations. Greedy and self-centered, he has a considerable ego, believing himself to be not only the most terrifying, but also the best-looking, the smartest, and the strongest person in the world. He holds himself above all humanoids, even other Shades.
Tox is bright enough, and isn’t particularly ignorant, having been schooled extensively, but his overconfidence usually leads to his downfall. Arrogant and egotistical, this flaw easily makes him fail at everything from spotting hidden enemies to flirting with ladies to even simple things, like climbing branches simply not stable enough to take his weight. He also has a furious temper that he usually shows by making everything and anything explode into flames around him, a homage to the violent and destructive nature of Shades. Another flaw of his is socializing- Tox was very shy as a child, and even today he doesn’t exactly make a huge effort to have a big circle of friends. Besides the uncomfortable air he gives off and his smooth-talking manner, Tox is very cynical as well as perverted, and his ego and spoiled nature make him very little fun to be around.
Tox sees every single humanoid as cattle. They’re simply there to keep him going strong while he plots his return to the Saxon Empire. He is eager to return to his homeland, but in the interest of keeping his deranged mother off his back, he wants to bring his own personal army with him. So far, Tox hasn’t had the chance nor the means to make more creatures like himself. He is convinced that the ‘means’ is finding himself a lady to have his children like his mother did, but so far, he has had no luck whatsoever. For now, he’s comfortable with finding a way to get rid of the spirits lying dormant inside of him.
History:
Tox was not born in Alagaësia. His homeland, far to the southwest, is the Saxon Empire. Though he himself was born amongst the spoiled nobility, the lower-classes, forced to fight the Saxon Empire’s many wars, lived in a state of constant fear and oppression. Tox’s mother, Mercy Venali, was one of these people. Born into servitude, she worked as a maid in the castle of the Saxon Empire’s duke, Othello Lazue. Tormented and forced upon her entire life, she developed a raw hatred for humanity. However, she realized she had one weapon against it- a talent for magic. Magic was banned and punishable by execution in the Saxon Empire, but she honed her craft in secret. Eventually, she became skilled enough to completely reinvent herself. She called the many tortured spirits in the Empire towards her, and became a Shade. Then, she devised an illusion to make her appear like a noblewoman, and made her way into Duke Lazue’s court.
He was enchanted by her. Mercy began to seduce him, plotting to marry him for two reasons. The first was revenge for his oppression. The second was that she planned to have magically trained children, and for that, she wanted them to be born into safety and wealth. With her magic, she convinced him into divorcing his then-wife Lexia Lazue, and married him. Then, Mercy set about making his heirs. Within twenty years, she had seven children; four boys and three girls- Mikaere, Rusalka, Castox, Veela, Sekarr, Laioni and Nazara. All seven children were born as normal humans, as Mercy hadn’t allowed how them to be possessed by her spirits. Tox was the second-born son, and therefore was the ‘spare’ should something happen to his older brother Mikaere.
Mercy allowed her children to grow through childhood normally. All of them were taught extensively in mathematics, literature, and other languages. Castox, who would probably end up as some army commander, wasn’t paid as much attention to as his older brother Mikaere. Though he learned diplomacy and combat, Tox was very shy as a child, which didn’t give his father a lot of hope for his future. Mostly resigned to being picked on by other children, Tox remained the least popular member of his family.
Castox lurked deep in unhappiness until he was thirteen. Going into puberty meant he was physically ready to begin magical training. Mercy leaped onto this new advantage. She cast a spell on Tox forbidding him from speaking to anyone but his family about his studies, and then set him to work. He was told by his mother that all noble children learned magic throughout their adolescence, that it separated them from peasant stock. Believing his mother, Castox worked diligently, as did all of his siblings when they came of age. For every single day for eight years, and under the guidance of his mother, Tox studied every kind of spell from simple fireballs to complicated structural weaves.
Finally, when he was twenty-one, Mercy decided he was ready. At this point, she revealed to him that she was a Shade and her plans. Her entire family would become Shades, strictly controlled by her, and she would make a new breed of human. Stronger, faster, and smarter, but she would need spirits and magic to do it. With them, she would overthrow the monarchy and gain revenge on the humans that had spited her youth. Tox, horrified, refused her demands, but Mercy summoned the spirits to take him.
Becoming a Shade was rigorously painful for Castox. Since he rejected them, they attacked his body, holding him prisoner for several long and excruciating days. Mercy watched over him the entire time, magically making changes to his body and controlling the inflow of spirits. Fundamentally, Tox would remain himself. The spirits would lie dormant, continuing to change his body at Mercy’s bidding. But physically, he was changed. After nearly a week of being tormented by spirits, he was complete.
As Tox recovered, his father Othello became suspicious of his wife. All of his oldest children kept going on ‘diplomatic missions to faraway countries’ and returning very rarely. Mercy decided that her husband was no longer of any use to her. She possessed his mind and tormented him with painful illusions and nightmares. He went mad, and it wasn’t long before he attempted to drive out the illusions by drilling into his own skull. Satisfied, the newly widowed Mercy got control of his lands and his power, and set about marrying another man- Azrael Djinnai, a foreigner who was Mercy’s lover and also happened to be a skilled magician. He soon became a part of the Shade family.
Tox eventually learned to adjust to his new self. Besides his enormous physical changes, although he could easily disguise himself as a human, he now had to feed on his old kind for sustenance. Conventional food no longer sated his needs. Besides that, Mercy had him working on her projects day and night as well as balancing his royal duty. When he misbehaved, he was punished by being locked away in darkness. For well over two hundred years, Castox served his mother. But one day, he found a way out. Nobles from all over the Empire visited the Duchess’s castle, and one of them happened to wander off on her own. The slender, attractive young girl in question caught his interest.
Tox burst out of his chamber and snatched the girl into his arms, making off with her. He used her as a human shield the entire time he made his flight, eventually making it into the woods beyond. There, he deposited her onto the ground and prepared to feed. However, she stopped him, proposing a deal. He needed to get out of the Saxon Empire. He’d never be able to do that on his own, since he had few social skills. The girl promised to help him as well as become his servant on two conditions- the first being if he promised not to kill her, and the second being a resurrection of her mother. Figuring it was a good deal, Castox accepted, and they fled from the mainland and headed south. Interestingly, Mercy made no attempts to pursue her runaway son.
The girl, Anck Seh Namun, was from a collection of islands known as the Antilles. There, she located her mother’s gravesite. Tox, using magic his own mother had taught him, summoned the dead woman’s spirit and poured life into her body. And he succeeded- the body was reanimated, but the soul, he found, had already been reborn into another body, leaving Anck’s mother a soulless doll. Anck decided to let her mother rest in peace, and Tox obliged. However, he had still kept his end of the bargain. Anck was his. So, he dragged her off, and they made their escape into the open world.
They travelled for nearly ten years. Few places were accepting of magic, let alone Shades, and so the two of them were on the run more often than not. It wasn’t until they finally reached Alagaësia that Tox decided he was safe. Being a land built on magic, he wouldn’t be nearly as much as an outcast as in other countries. He and Anck spent most of their time in the wilderness while they learned about the Imperial conflict as well as Alagaësia’s norms. They have since lurked in the forests, away from prying eyes.
