Matthew Gravsend

OOC:

Name: Malicious Insect
Are you over 16?: Indeed I am.
Personal LJ: maliciousinsect
Email: malicousinsect@hotmail.co.uk
Timezone: Whatever the English one is.
Other contact: Aim: Malicious Insect
Characters already in the game: Chouno Koushaku, Shunsui.
How did you find us?: I was here...all along!


IC:

Character name: Matthew Gravesend (pronounced Grave Send, not Gravesend), AKA The Wicked Child
Fandom: Original Character
Timeline: During the construction of his first dungeon.
Age: 10.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
Yes.

Okay, seriously.

Matthew is one of the many millions of magically inclined people of his world. The magic of his world works thusly;
Every person possesses a soul of a colour, a shape, and a quality. If a person does not have a magical soul, none of these factors are important at all. However, the combination of these three things in a magical soul is what decides the five magical classes of the owner, and the potential of the spell caster. Under normal circumstances, a soul’s power does not go up or down throughout the caster’s life, but instead a spell caster learns to better use the power they have always had. Spells are ‘learnt’ on an experience based system-having conflicts and practising causes spells to begin to form in a person’s mind, but they can also be taught from other spell casters or from books/scrolls/ancient runes/back of cereal boxes, so long as they are compatible with the classes one may learn.

A class is a category of magic, containing the spells possible to learn. Classes are sometimes simple, known as ‘Pure Classes’, that contain entirely spells of a certain type. For example, the class Heal contains only healing spells, and the class Fire contains only fire spells. There is both a vast amount of and total lack of variety in these classes-for example, Water contains offensive, defensive, transport and golem creation spells, but they are all obviously, water based. There are also ‘Cross Classes’, which are simply a combination of two or three Pure Classes-usually either with less high level spells or restrictions. For example, ‘Rain’ combines spells from Wind and Water, but does not have access to Wind’s powerful spells such as creating tornadoes, and all pure Water spells take longer to cast. Then there are the ‘Theme Classes’, which usually do not have such simple names, and may contain spells which seem quite random or disconnected without knowledge of the theme. The class ‘Heaven’, for example, contains several healing spells, destructive spells from many other classes (such as fire, lightning, water, light), spells for blessings and spells for curses. Theme classes are different to cross classes, in that they are not restricted from higher level spells, but often have extra requirements for spell casting.
Every person has five classes of magic, one for each finger of their leading hand.

Matthew possess a perfectly spherical, high quality soul (on a scale of 1-100, 100 being completely perfect, he would be an 85)-neither are unheard of, but nor are they common. However, his soul’s colour is the exceptionally rare Black. He is one of the only two in the entire world to possess such a soul, a situation somewhat caused by the attempted genocide of Black Soul blood lines-but even if they run in the family, a Black Soul is a very rare occurrence. If two Black Soul bearers had a child, there would be a one in sixteen chance of a Black Soul child.
A Black Soul carries with it a number of traits which are completely unique to this particular type of soul. These are:

Darkness Communion: Matthew can communicate, and influence the behaviour of a number of creatures-anything which can fall into the category of Creatures of the Night (which includes nocturnal animals of a non-magical nature and mystical beings such as werewolves or Chupacabras), the dead (either the undead such as zombies or simply spirits such as ghosts) and Denizens of Evil (such as demons or, in extreme cases, malevolently insane humans). This ‘stacks’, so something which fits into two categories (vampires are both Creatures of the night and dead) or all three (an incredibly evil vampire) will be effected more than something that fits into one category. This ability effects each being differently, but the general rule is that the more intelligent the being is, the more complex the effect. For example, a typical ‘urgh argh brains’ style zombie will not view him as a food, and if it is has no master, will follow his orders. Beings of animal intelligence will see him as an ‘alpha male’ or similar, becoming subservient. But, to something possessing human intellect, he will stir up feelings of familiarity and friendship, subtly twisting perceptions to place him in a favourable light. If he practices using this power, he can actually completely dominate beings in the categories above without casting a single spell.

Evil Power: Matthew’s power is technically evil-any evil detection abilities will be set off, and evil eradication powers that are stronger than it will totally devastate it with no resistance. But, conversely if it encounters any strictly good powers that it is stronger than, it will wipe it out with no resistance right back. The good and evil of this classification is more the Dungeons and Dragons style of evil-not necessarily morally accurate, but an attribute akin to an element. In a similar way that he gets along well with dark and evil creatures, beings of light and goodness tend to find him disgusting or abhorrent, to the point that most will strongly desire to kill him.

Soul Devouring: In the same way that the colour black absorbs all forms of light, a black soul absorbs other souls. In a manner like a black hole, it simply drags a soul into itself where it is crushed, adding to its ‘mass’ (in this case, magical power). This has the extra addition that if Matthew dies, there is a chance his soul will absorb a living person’s and he will slowly return to life in their body.

He wears a magic ring from his mother on his magic hand which prevents his Black Soul from effecting the outside world, but if he removes it, the effects instantly take place.
Geeze this is so long.

Anyway, Matthew’s five classes of magic are:
Voodoo: A Theme Class which focuses heavily on curses and blessings, with a few miscellaneous spells for healing, mind control and creating creatures later on. Think of it as being an RPG class with almost every status effect and buff capable of being learnt. At the age I’m aping him, Matthew’s curses and blessings are quite weak, generally being little more than an inconvenience. His curses are things like ‘Clumsy’ making people slightly less accurate, or ‘Uneasy’ giving people a bit of an upset stomach, whilst his blessings are things like ‘Glow’. Which makes people glow. To perform a curse or blessing, he needs either a possession of the target or a piece of them, and must perform a short ritual on the object. Voodoo can perform enchantments on objects-he has only learnt one, Drift, which he has cast on his shovel, allowing it, and any load on it to glide, but not produce thrust. He thus builds up momentum by running, and then hops on it, riding it like a witch’s broom stick for short distances. With the aid of his bats to carry him, he can fly for as long as they are able.

Dimension: A Pure Class that possesses spells which manipulates dimensions to in various ways. Matthew only has one spell he can use in this class at present; Hidden Space, which can make something bigger on the inside than out, creating a doorway to the space he has created. He uses this to make his dungeon fit into places too small for it, and carries an entrance with him-at this age, in the form of a bag. Its spells are generally for support and transport.

Absorb: A Pure class which basically absorbs things. He has two spells for this class, Absorb Shield, a small shield which sucks up a single attack and Absorb Spear, which fires out the attacks that Absorb Shield has previously absorbed. Because his shield is so small (about the size of a side dish), he can’t use it for much. Later spells can ‘steal’ other attacks permanently under certain conditions, much like Blue Magic from Final Fantasy.

Melody: A Theme class which basically lets him cast musical magic. As he is now, the most his spells can do is make him temporarily very good at any instrument he casts a spell on, but later spells allow him to combine his other magic with his songs, cutting out a lot of their requirements. This makes his voodoo very dangerous. Mid-level spells allow him to effect the minds of those hearing his songs.

Monster: A Cross class, between the classes Dominate, Life and Transform. It is basically focused around controlling, creating and turning things (including himself) into various creatures. Thus, it has no mind control spells that work on humans, and he cannot transform into anything but monsters. Matthew has some trouble with this class, and so far has only half learnt the spell ‘Batform’, a spell to turn him into a single bat. Until he masters it, he will have mishaps with it, ranging from only gaining a bat feature, to turning a part of him into a bat and not the rest. He also cannot move on to the monster creation spells until he has mastered at least one transformation spell. When he can create monsters, they will be cartoonish and ‘Halloweeny’, and very weak-but they are alive, and can level up.

All in all, Matthew’s spells lack any real personal offensive or defensive skills. Almost all of them are magical forms which are fairly weak until later levels, or are focused on support. For this reason, he is better skilled at using minions to do his dirty work for him.

How is this section still going on? uuugh

Anyway, on the subject of minions, despite his young age, he has gathered up a small collection of weak ‘monsters’, although in reality they are mostly stronger than usual animals. His ‘army’ consists of a family of eagle sized bats, a two hundred year old owl that has learnt to use weak spying spells (but usually falls asleep before it has finished casting), a swarm of hive minded flies, two giant badgers (about the size of a Shetland pony), a young tree spirit whose tree was used in the construction of the dungeon and an elderly goblin who was originally left his clan to find a quiet place to die, but now follows Matthew mostly for laughs and who serves as the dungeon’s final boss. He keeps them in his dungeon, which means he can pull any of them from his bag when he wants them. He takes good care of his creatures, and they are slightly stronger than they would be in the wild.

His dungeon is very small. It’s a two floor cave, the first floor being natural; the second was dug by his badgers and the goblin.

He is very good with a shovel, either using it to dig or break some noses.

In his world’s terms, he would be a level 4 Dark Mystic (most ten year olds would be level 1 just because there isn’t a level 0 in the system, but Matthew has been gaining experience earlier than usual), a level 1 Shovel Swinger and a level 4 Dungeon Master. His creatures are: Bats level 1, Owl level 1, the swarm level 1, badgers level 2, tree spirit level 2 and the goblin is level 3.
How would they use their abilities?:
Matthew’s current life goal is to become a dungeon master of terrifying proportions. So he’ll be continuing to try that. But he’s very nice about it, and generally will be seeking people out to volunteer to help him improve it. If he gets into a fight, he’ll do everything he can to defend himself. Which isn’t much. He’ll also be regularly practicing his magic with the goal of getting stronger.

Appearance:
Matthew is a little short, even for a ten year old, but due to his frequent work in the wilds, he is very physically fit. His preference of night over day means he is also extremely pale. He has fluffy and messy blonde hair and bright blue eyes. As a child of a rich, old fashioned family, he is just as likely to wear dresses as he is boy’s clothes, but he always wears black. He prefers to wear clothes that are easy to move around in over fashion.
Background/Personality:
Matthew’s world is a very unusual place-basically, it runs on the logic of some sort of RPG or DnD game which knows the rules, but does not break the fourth wall. Everything is classified quite nicely with dramatic and interesting names and monsters and magic are an accepted part of the way the world works. Certain people possess souls which fit a certain role-‘Magic Souls’, ‘Fighter Souls’, ‘Thief Souls’ and so on which allow the owner to learn skills or gain abilities which defy all logic. As their potential is unlocked, this is called levelling. Using the levels of the bearers of souls as a comparison, everything else is also given a level. Regardless of the actual structure, be it a castle, cave, boat or forest, dens of creatures ruled over in an (often relatively) organised fashion are called dungeons, and a human who creates and maintains a dungeon is referred to as the Dungeon Master.

The history of this world is mostly a mystery-No one knows for sure if the monsters that live in the world are expressions of nature, or the the result of magic users creating their ancestors in the far past merely living out roles they believe to be true, or if they are they really are everything they believe themselves to be. No one knows if the gods the religions follow are truly divine beings, or possessors of special souls whose potential is unprecedentedly high, or even if they truly exist at all. The constantly chaotic state of the past has rendered most historic records either highly inaccurate at best or outright fiction at worst. Warring nations, species and various crises frequently arose from different sources, for different reasons. The worst of these threats would often be thwarted only by extremely strong, skilled and lucky groups of heroes usually between one to six in number.

However, it would be the defeat of the single greatest threat to the peace of the world that would bring about a period of stability. Reports differ on the exact year differ, but sometime between a thousand and eight hundred years ago, a woman possessing a Black Soul gathered up over 60% of the world’s evil creatures and created an unbelievably strong army. Her purpose for doing so remains unknown, but she was known as the Wicked Ruler, spreading fear, destruction and evil wherever she set her eyes. Her base of operations was an unbelievably huge subterranean dungeon of one hundred levels deep, spreading for miles horizontally. After almost twenty years of the world suffering under her evil ways, she was finally defeated when four thousand possessors of powerful souls were amassed, and sent into the dungeon. Only three made it to the bottom level, a Thief, a Warrior and a Cleric the only three that possessed the obscenely rare White Souls of the entire group. It remains a mystery who or how, but one of them killed the Wicked Ruler, and the three heroes went on to lead an attempt to eradicate any being that could follow in her footsteps.

Successfully implementing a more stable infrastructure in the peace that followed the collapse of her empire, the world became far less dangerous. And between a thousand and eight hundred years later, Matthew Gravesend, the latest in the singular bloodline of the Wicked Ruler was born, at the time the only being with a Black Soul in the world.

The Gravesend family had a tradition of being exceptional spell casters, often with rare and powerful types of soul. Matthew’s elder brother by ten years, John possessed a White Soul, and had already begun his training to become a Peace Keeper when Matthew was born.

However, Matthew’s Black Soul was troublesome. Whilst no law officially said that those with Black Souls should be killed, as the last case of it had been so long ago, his father feared that it could lead to the entire family being culled. His mother on the other hand, feared more for Matthew personally. His father intended to kill Matthew, and claim that he had not been born alive, but his mother protected the baby, in the process turning his father into a high level zombie, forced to act out his wife’s wishes. Matthew was rarely allowed to leave the grounds of the Gravesend estate, and was almost constantly under the effect of a powerful mystical artefact, a ring crafted by his mother, to conceal his soul’s colour. Even so, his natural fascination with the darkness of the world began to grow. He spent most of his young life researching the evil creatures that he felt a connection to in the family library. But one day, he removed his ring, simply because it required a modification to fit his growing finger and it was uncomfortable. When he did, a book in the library reacted, removing a disguise and revealing itself to be a guide and journal written by his ancestor. Containing practical, hands on knowledge of creatures and dungeons, Matthew became an unpractised expert in creature care and dungeon management. But more importantly, the journal sections spoke to him about the secrets of the Wicked Ruler, and it became his wish to meet this fascinating person, unaware that she was his long dead ancestor. Having no knowledge of the Wicked Ruler at all before this point, he searched the library for more references, only to find none, his family wishing to keep all connection hidden for fear of the discovery of their bloodline, only passing the secret on at adulthood.

Unsatisfied with this, Matthew escaped from the Gravesend estate using the magical skill he had developed. Sneaking around in the night, an adult told him that if he was a wicked child, the Wicked Ruler would come and take him away, a warning much like a generic ‘bogey man will getcha if yer bad’. But this had quite an effect on young Matthew. He decided then, that if he followed the guidelines of the book, he could become a Wicked Child, thinking of it like the title held by his ancestor. Routinely sneaking out after this, he began his campaign to create a dungeon and be a wicked child. He successfully began to pick up some weak creatures, finding a cave in the local wilderness which he made his base of operations. Sometimes he would spend whole weeks with nothing but his creatures in his dungeon, plotting schemes, his mother away on business. Occasionally seen by the locals, the question on everyone’s lips was ‘who is that child?’ And his response would always be that he is The Wicked Child.

Matthew’s main personality trait is acceptance. Much like black absorbs all colours, he accepts all things quite happily. For this reason, he feels no fear or sadness, and is very hard to upset-he accepts that pain, suffering and death happen to everyone, and whilst he doesn’t like it when it happens to him, he simply moves on and doesn’t dwell on things. In fact, his response to almost everything is ‘that’s okay.’ It can be quite disturbing to see how little he values his own safety-he will often take dangerous risks, and claim that ‘if I had died, that would be okay’, simply because everybody dies eventually. Similarly this acceptance is one of the reasons he has a dangerous mindset. He accepts that everyone dies, and so he doesn’t see why killing people matters, or why inflicting pain is a bad thing. He also accepts the values of everyone equally-the desire to kill from a murderer is the same as the desire to live from their victims. Thus, whatever the outcome, the result is ‘okay.’ He simply does not put any value on anything above ‘I like it’ and ‘I don’t like it’, because if it is gone, then that’s just a fact of life. He doesn’t enjoy inflicting pain and suffering nor causing death, but it simply doesn’t register on his radar. And since he has no fear, he doesn’t worry about punishment.

This is why he sees no issue at all with being evil. He hasn’t done anything evil in itself yet, but he simply sees evil as another preference he has. He likes evil things. He likes monsters and gore, darkness and the night. And that’s just the way he is, he reasons. It’s fine if he feels that way, and other people don’t. It genuinely confuses him as to why some people find evil things to be frightening or in need of eradication, but he’s fine with people feeling that way.
This basically gives him, in his mind, the right to do whatever he wants-his values are of the same worth as anyone else’s. None at all. Nothing has any objective value-it is all just a matter of personal preference.

Outside of that sort of heavy stuff, Matthew is a very sweet, happy boy, who is extremely friendly. He loves meeting new people and learning new things. His lack of understanding of boundaries, due to his mostly isolated childhood, has resulted in him being rather insensitive, and will often ask difficult or inappropriate questions of those around him. He also doesn’t learn from this-no matter how often he is told he is insensitive, he will just say ‘sorry’ and keep the attitude, mostly because he just really wants to know things, and how else is he supposed to find them out without asking? He also often will asking super natural creatures if he can ‘have them’, meaning add them to his dungeon.

Other than his evil tendencies, he thinks a lot like the average ten year old. Very simply, very directly, and very confidently. The world is his oyster, and he fully intends to pry it open and take a look inside just because it’s there. He can sometimes be quite selfish (what child isn’t?) when the mood strikes him, but usually he is happy to share everything, his food, his fun, his laughter, his happiness, his entire existence with the people he likes. And generally, he likes everyone. And it confuses him, and brings him the closest to sadness he understands when people don’t understand his preferences.

Why should that character be in this game: Because he’s an adorable little fuzz bucket of evil and niceness at the same time, and I think this game has the best attitude in regards to a character like this-he’s serious at times, but adorable and humorous. I also think this is the game that would have the BEST reaction to a little kid trying to create a monster filled dungeon.

Have you read up on how the game works?: Flaming Ferret, missions, freelance, or mooching.

1st person sample:
[Matthew is sitting on a chair that is a little too big for him, in the kitchen of his room.]
I was wondering…If the world was destroyed, what happened to all the people?

Um. I don’t mean the people as people. I mean, where did their souls go? What if they weren’t ready to die, and became ghosts? But there’s nothing to do in space…Are they going to be ghosts forever? That might be really boring. What business can you finish without a world?

[He drums his fingers on his chin, in deep thought.]
And what about the people who were already dead? If I die here, will I go to the same place they did? Or does the Thor have its own after life?

…Hmm…I want some orange juice.
3rd person sample:
Shink. Shunk. Shink. Shunk. Shink. Shunk.
That noise was so familiar to Matthew now. He had heard it for hours at a time. Sometimes it was the only thing he could hear, apart from his own hot, rapid breath.

It was the noise of dirt being shovelled aside. He spent wholes days digging, only stopping to eat if he had a good rhythm that day. The steady growth of his muscles had been so slow that Matthew didn’t even notice that these days it was a lot easier to move the dirt than it had been just a few short months ago. And a few months ago, he didn’t have the old goblin (who still refused to tell Matthew his name. But that was okay.) to haul it away in the little wheel barrow they had stolen, or the badgers (Matthew had not named the badgers, as badgers do not have names. But that was okay.) to cut deeper into the ground than Matthew could manage, rolling rocks out from their resting places with the ease of being born to burrow. The second level of the dungeon was growing larger every day, now shored up by wooden struts he and the goblin had cut and carved. The spirit that had lived within the wood not that long ago was invisible right now, as it almost always was. It was sulking, because it couldn’t dig without its roots and hated feeling useless. Trees were meant to be tall and strong, providers. And no matter how often Matthew told it that it was holding the whole place up, doing the most important job, it still sulked.

After hours of digging, Matthew was suddenly struck by a lack of energy. Had he eaten today? Had he slept? But he had digging to do! He couldn’t…
Stay on his feet.

As he tumbled backwards, he expected to hit the dirt beneath him. Instead, strong, spindly fingers grasped his shoulders, and the old goblin gave him a fanged grin before Matthew faded into a black sleep. He managed one thought before he was gone.
This is okay.
Questions?: Do you hate me for putting in an app this big this late?
Did you put your characters name and fandom in the subject: YES’M.