Valhawk posted:

Tyrannus the Fleshshaper



Born to a noble family of some repute, the man who would one day be known as Tyrannus had the grave misfortune of being born with a serious congenital defect. His body was weak and sickly, and he grew up constantly under the care of one healer or another as his family sunk their not insubstantial wealth into trying to fix their only heir. All of the poking and prodding accomplished a whole lot of nothing, beyond sparking the boy’s interest in the flesh. He carried the spark of magic as had his parents, and he took advantage of their libraries and resources to delve into the subject of magical alteration of life. For years all he did was study, ways to shape and alter the body and mind with magic, to create life. It was a subject that was at least nominally taboo, but the boy was both wealthy and secluded so he managed to avoid any stigma for most of his experiments.

However, as he became an adult his experiments continued to grow in scope and ambition. It was one thing when a stray dog had another set of legs, or a servant had a third eye, but eventually the man did something that was beyond taboo in the circles of the nobility he altered his own flesh. Sick of being weak, of being constrained by his prison of a body when he could remake it to his liking, the man began to alter his own flesh. It was small things at first, fixing his body’s defects, but with each success he grew bolder. His changes grew harder to disguise, more alien. He could heal his ailments, but why stop there, he could be stronger, smarter, better, why constrain oneself to being merely human.

All of this finally pushed his family to disown him, strip him of his name, his titles and privileges. Cut off from funds and mana, the man, taking on the name Tyrannus, decided to join with other young wizards and seek new power and opportunity among the stars. After all, there were so many worlds out there, so many new forms of flesh to study and adapt, and maybe eventually he might pick a world for his own to conquer and remake in his image. A universe of possibilities awaited, and the ship needed someone to tend to the wounds they would inevitably suffer on their journey.

Approaches
Energy: +1
Force: +1
Intelligence: +2
Matter: +3
Primal: +2
Void: +0

High Concept: Shaper of Flesh
Magic to create life, to shape it, to alter it to the will of the caster. This is Tyrannus’ specialty. The body if after all a form of matter, and many mages create and alter swords and rings and even continents, but rather than dead things, Tyrannus prefers to study and alter living things. Why make a special sword, when you make make super-human soldiers that grow their own weapons? Creating life of all shapes and sizes has a variety of uses, though it does tend to make one a bit megalomaniacal. On the upside for his colleagues, even if they don’t want to take advantage of his offers to upgrades to their pathetic human bodies, he can still fix them up as good new. As the ships defacto medic, Tyrannus gets to test his craft on new and exciting injuries on top of getting to explore different worlds full of interesting creatures to study and improve.

Trouble: Warped Mindset
Growing up as the secluded scion of a wealthy and noble line, and then developing the ability to create and reshape life has left Tyrannus somewhat warped. He is, to be blunt, not terribly concerned about the feelings or rights of his inferiors. He simply doesn’t understand why it matters if a servant might object to growing extra arms if it better helps them in their job. His fellow wizards are colleagues, and while he might be amused by their quaint attachment to humanity he will respect their boundaries, mundanes not so much. If their inferiors don’t understand their station, well that’s a fixable problem.

Aspect: Enhanced Body
Growing up with a defective body, constantly being poked and proded by healers looking to fix what was broken tends to give one a certain malleable viewpoint on the sacredness of one’s own form. While others might balk, Tyrannus didn’t even have to think twice before using his developing skills one himself. As far as he’s concerned the human body is highly overrated, so as a man who could alter flesh to his liking he might as well make something better. A second set of eyes to see beyond the visual spectrum, stronger muscles, tougher skin, hands that are both stronger and more capable of the fine manipulations necessary for his craft. Some still bound by their outdated prejudices might find his form horrifying, but he sees no need to cater to such constrained thinking.

Aspect: Living Library
Tyrannus grew up in the lap of luxury, powerful wizards for parents and nothing but time to explore their libraries. They served as the basis for his studies into the art of flesh, but his parent’s libraries contained all sorts of tomes and treatises on subjects ranging from common to obscure. Combined with his eventual enhancement of his memory, this means Tyrannus is chock full of an eclectic collection of facts and knowledge from subjects ranging from anatomy to ancient legends to the proper fork to use during the cheese course at a state dinner with the mage-pope. Of course, being drawn from a library rather a course of study at university his knowledge can often be incomplete or out of context, but still if you’re looking for an obscure fact on an equally obscure subject odds are that Tyrannus knows something on the subject.

Aspect: Psychological Adept
You don’t spend years studying and experimenting with creating and altering lifeforms without learning a bit about how they think. Tyrannus’ knowledge is less formalized and more experiential. This leaves him less equipped to explain or extrapolate from his knowledge than if he had a full theoretical basis for his knowledge. However, it serves him well enough for his day to day use in managing his creations, and his general low view of those he views as inferiors means he is willing and able to wield it ruthlessly against them.

Tower Aspect: Flesh Vats

Deep in the ship one can find the flesh-vats. Not only does it provide raw flesh for various experiments and projects, but it also serves as the ship's medical facility. Accidentally blow off your arms with your new fireball spell? A quick trip to the vats and you’ll have new ones grown in no time at all. The vats also serve as the ship’s recycling system, breaking down any and all organic waste and allowing it to be put to use.

Stunts:
Because I’m a Fleshshaper I get +2 when I alter living flesh to Create An Advantage with Mater.

Because I’m the tower’s de-facto healer, once per session I can remove either one moderate or two minor consequences

Because of my altered musculature, I get a +2 when I engage in a non-magically Overcome with Force.