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Entry tags:
character musings
Apropos of starting to poke at Deadfire again occasionally, some headcanons on death godlikes in general / Neus specifically:
• I find "their facial growths are transparent from the inside!" a rather silly explanation for how death godlikes are able to see, so I prefer to say there is nothing 'underneath' for Neus - they sprout directly from her flesh like a mole would. The growths are similarly warm to the touch, much firmer and less sensitive than her bare skin, though not wholly inflexible and still able to feel some sensation. When Neus is in the pink of health, they are flush through in veins of amaranthine; when she is unwell, they fade to plainer grey. If broken or scored deeply, they ooze until they scar over and leave the surface paler and more rigid.
• How does she see if there aren't any eyeballs under there? Truth be told, Neus doesn't know either! Godlikes are a bit of a medical mystery. All she knows is she has 360 vision on both a sunny day and in the depths of a lightless cavern, and is particularly good at picking out life signs - all the more so if they're fading. The downside is she's actually quite short-sighted: past about 10 yards details rapidly vanish into blurry absence, so for all that she can't be surprised from behind she's at a disadvantage when facing anyone with range. Paintings of beautiful scenery evoke a certain wistfulness; sunsets and starry nights and distant mountain ranges are not a thing she gets to enjoy in anything but the vaguest sense. She suspects colours are brighter for other people as well.
• No matter how fit and healthy Neus is, she looks one bad spell away from her own grave. Uneven teeth, yellowed and sharp, behind chapped lips that cut into the skin above and below. Brittle discoloured nails. Sharp ridges of bone pressing up underneath blotchily greyed, papery skin. Hair that would have been tightly coiled and buoyant in another life falling limp around her shoulders in a thin, amorphous cloud, further distorting her silhouette in the gloom. She doesn't stink of the most noxious sort of rot, mercifully, but there is an undeniably musty smell following her around.
• I chose the helmet-head growth shape in the game mostly because it let me match an available portrait to the available in-game figure, lol. In actuality I picture something less neatly symmetrical and more polypore, the growths overlapping across the contours of her skull and creeping unevenly down her face, stopping just above her ears and before the horizon of her nose.
• As a youngster she was neurotically self-conscious of her appearance - difficult not to be when her parents kept her hidden anywhere that was not the ship, and her brief time on the streets proved how hostile people could become at a glance - and rarely ever emerged from the security of thick hooded robes. As an adult she's gained enough peace to be able to sit happily in the open with friends, but remains too aware people may find her unpleasant to look at, and too quick to take it upon herself to adjust herself for their comfort. She does at least have some fun when settled somewhere long enough for domesticity - she likes to tie brightly patterned scarves and bandanas around her head.
• Why are godlikes described as 'blessed' by their gods but so often treated with suspicion? Why would you risk insulting Literally The Reincarnation God? I can only assume there are differing interpretations of what it means to be marked. Neus is painfully familiar with some of the unfriendlier beliefs: for example, that it means a twisted soul that has escaped the wheel before its time and should be returned as quickly as possible, lest Berath's growing displeasure at your refusal of this duty bring calamity down around you.
• This was also something that took a lot of overcoming: the fear she really was marked because of some wrongness in her soul, and was a harbinger of ill fortune. No the events of Pillars of Eternity were not at all helpful in this regard thank you.
• Her Awakened past life clearly shared some of those reservations - Kova was aggressively unhappy with the body she shared, and one of the ways the others knew to spot her presence was a sudden, flinching self-disgust.
• Symbolic associations: sea otters, fungi, death's head moths, the colour yellow, friendly skeletons.
• I find "their facial growths are transparent from the inside!" a rather silly explanation for how death godlikes are able to see, so I prefer to say there is nothing 'underneath' for Neus - they sprout directly from her flesh like a mole would. The growths are similarly warm to the touch, much firmer and less sensitive than her bare skin, though not wholly inflexible and still able to feel some sensation. When Neus is in the pink of health, they are flush through in veins of amaranthine; when she is unwell, they fade to plainer grey. If broken or scored deeply, they ooze until they scar over and leave the surface paler and more rigid.
• How does she see if there aren't any eyeballs under there? Truth be told, Neus doesn't know either! Godlikes are a bit of a medical mystery. All she knows is she has 360 vision on both a sunny day and in the depths of a lightless cavern, and is particularly good at picking out life signs - all the more so if they're fading. The downside is she's actually quite short-sighted: past about 10 yards details rapidly vanish into blurry absence, so for all that she can't be surprised from behind she's at a disadvantage when facing anyone with range. Paintings of beautiful scenery evoke a certain wistfulness; sunsets and starry nights and distant mountain ranges are not a thing she gets to enjoy in anything but the vaguest sense. She suspects colours are brighter for other people as well.
• No matter how fit and healthy Neus is, she looks one bad spell away from her own grave. Uneven teeth, yellowed and sharp, behind chapped lips that cut into the skin above and below. Brittle discoloured nails. Sharp ridges of bone pressing up underneath blotchily greyed, papery skin. Hair that would have been tightly coiled and buoyant in another life falling limp around her shoulders in a thin, amorphous cloud, further distorting her silhouette in the gloom. She doesn't stink of the most noxious sort of rot, mercifully, but there is an undeniably musty smell following her around.
• I chose the helmet-head growth shape in the game mostly because it let me match an available portrait to the available in-game figure, lol. In actuality I picture something less neatly symmetrical and more polypore, the growths overlapping across the contours of her skull and creeping unevenly down her face, stopping just above her ears and before the horizon of her nose.
• As a youngster she was neurotically self-conscious of her appearance - difficult not to be when her parents kept her hidden anywhere that was not the ship, and her brief time on the streets proved how hostile people could become at a glance - and rarely ever emerged from the security of thick hooded robes. As an adult she's gained enough peace to be able to sit happily in the open with friends, but remains too aware people may find her unpleasant to look at, and too quick to take it upon herself to adjust herself for their comfort. She does at least have some fun when settled somewhere long enough for domesticity - she likes to tie brightly patterned scarves and bandanas around her head.
• Why are godlikes described as 'blessed' by their gods but so often treated with suspicion? Why would you risk insulting Literally The Reincarnation God? I can only assume there are differing interpretations of what it means to be marked. Neus is painfully familiar with some of the unfriendlier beliefs: for example, that it means a twisted soul that has escaped the wheel before its time and should be returned as quickly as possible, lest Berath's growing displeasure at your refusal of this duty bring calamity down around you.
• This was also something that took a lot of overcoming: the fear she really was marked because of some wrongness in her soul, and was a harbinger of ill fortune. No the events of Pillars of Eternity were not at all helpful in this regard thank you.
• Her Awakened past life clearly shared some of those reservations - Kova was aggressively unhappy with the body she shared, and one of the ways the others knew to spot her presence was a sudden, flinching self-disgust.
• Symbolic associations: sea otters, fungi, death's head moths, the colour yellow, friendly skeletons.