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[marcato]

Character Information

Character: Ariel Knot (or "Aunamee")
Canon: Original character, shortly before his death

Age: 36
History:

Content warnings: mentions of animal abuse, murder, germaphobia, and body horror

the prophecy;

In this world, there is an organization known as the National Institute for Cataclysmic Knowledge and Event Logistics, or NICKEL. NICKEL's job is to predict and aid in disasters, including the foretold end of the world. Their agents always arrive just before necessary, harbingers cloaked in gray who save lives and never answer questions. The leader of this organization is known as the Host, and although the public knows very little about them, they know they are powerful. They know they hold the future in their hands.

At age nine, Ariel Knot was recruited by NICKEL. He bore the mark of a Potential, a deep gray splotch in his otherwise brown eyes. Once the current Host perished, one of the Potentials would inherent the Host's position along with his supernatural abilities. Telepathy. Precognition. Immortality. This strange, socially awkward boy (who secretly ran over frogs with lawnmowers, who obsessively bleached his clothing to remove all traces of dirt) was now one of a dozen children who had a chance to become humanity's next savior.

Ariel's parents, a kind couple who were wholly unprepared to raise a child with a fondness for torturing animals, embraced NICKEL's vision, hoping that their son's strange behavior could be explained by the power brewing inside him. After all, the supernatural abilities of Verity, the current Host, were undeniable. Verity could slice open his own throat and drain the entirety of his blood without losing consciousness. He could narrate another person's thoughts verbatim. He could predict natural disasters, both small and large, with complete accuracy.

Eventually, Verity's powers would wane and transfer to one of the Potentials. In the meantine, the organization taught Ariel how to fight (with his hands, with a gun, with a knife) in order to survive the foretold end of the world and lead humanity to its next chapter.

the ambulance chaser;

Ariel's more sadistic nature did not go unnoticed, especially by the other members of NICKEL. He teased and lied and kept animal carcasses in ziplock bags. He was given intense counseling, but that only taught him how to feign regret and remorse. Instead of killing animals, he chased ambulances for the thrill of rubbernecking at the carnage. He learned to be polite and gentlemanly. He learned to be discrete.

And then he started developing his abilities. They came slowly at first. He would find himself finishing sentences that other people never started. He would hear whispers in his ear. When he closed his eyes, he could feel the world moving forward. He knew how the prophecy went, how the current leader needed to die before he was allowed to become truly powerful. Fortunately, as Ariel was gaining his abilities, Verity was losing his, the ebb so subtle that he didn't even recognize it.

Ariel drowned him in a river.

Ariel feigned distress -- he didn't know the bridge Verity was standing on would collapse, he didn't know that he'd break his shoulder in the fall, that he'd sputter and reach for Ariel's hand and find nothing but water.

(Ah, but, he did find Ariel's hand. Unfortunately, it was little use when the other one was holding him under.)

When Ariel shared Verity's death with his parents, they knew exactly what had happened. Frightened that their sadistic, deceitful son was now a demigod, they tried to poison him with a cup of hot chocolate. With his abilities fully developed, he saw through their plan immediately. He trapped his parents in the room and forced them to drink their own poison. He was seventeen years old.

the reign;

As the new Host, Ariel remade NICKEL in his image. He changed his name to Aunamee, a play on the word "anomie." He lined the walls with mirrors ("for self-reflection," he said) and required all employees to bleach their clothing. So-called Sanitary Marshals now roamed the compound, "cleansing" employees who questioned his vision. While Verity was fond of redemption (he genuinely believed Aunamee could be rehabilitated), Aunamee took no chances, killing almost everyone who stood against him. He sought out his Potentials and had them slaughtered. He predicted -- and caused -- disaster after disaster so that he could swoop in and aid the survivors. He eagerly anticipated the end of the world, hoping to perhaps even bring it on himself.

But like Verity, he was destined to die.

the decay;

The leader of NICKEL is called the Host. This is because the abilities they develop are not innate -- they are granted to them by a faceless, formless entity that settles in their body not unlike a parasite. When the entity grows bored, it slowly draws the Host towards their death so that it can claim a new vessel.

As a man obsessed with control, Aunamee lied to himself. He would be the last Host. He would live forever. But a man like Aunamee collects enemies, and when his abilities started to falter (visions that contradicted each other, thoughts that ran together), other people noticed. One morning, the entity guided him to a windowless room within the NICKEL compound where a group of rebels were already waiting for him. They beat him, and for the first time since he was a child, he felt pain. He felt fear.

He doesn’t remember if he died. He only remembers the blade one of the rebels drew on him -- and the dirt.

Possessions:

- A broken pocket watch inscribed with the words "One Eye to the Past, One Eye to the Wound."

- A (formerly) white handkerchief monogrammed with an "A." It's covered with blood.

- A folded piece of paper with a variety of symbols, charts, and notes outlining potential futures. Unintelligible to anyone who isn't Aunamee, useless in Diadem. Also covered with blood.

Weapon:

- A glass knife

Powers/Abilities:
Aunamee will not have his abilities in Diadem, but their absence will be a wound that shapes his behavior.

Telepathy. Aunamee was capable of reading minds, projecting his thoughts, and altering a nearby person's emotional state to align with his goals.


Precognition. Aunamee was capable of viewing multiple futures at once, and was capable of guiding the world towards the future of his choice via the butterfly effect.


Invulnerability. Aunamee was conditionally immortal, unable to die or feel pain as long as he remained the Host. His clothing and his belongings were always clean, free from contamination of the outside world.

Application Questions

Who is the most important person in their life and why? What might be different if this person hadn't been around?

To say that Aunamee's personality is "off-putting" would be an understatement. He only wears the color white because everything else makes him feel dirty. He practices his gestures in front of a mirror. He stares at people for a little too long, and he asks questions that are a little too personal. He doesn't have friends or lovers -- he has possessions, people who will do what he wants them to. Otherwise, he discards them.

There is one exception: the formless entity that resides in his body. It doesn't have a name, because it doesn't speak. Some people call it The Guest or "the gray inside his eye." Others -- the rebels -- call it The Real One, a blasphemous acknowledgment that Aunamee is merely a husk. Aunamee calls it many different things, sometimes with the tenderness of a lover ("my witness," "the ghost inside my mouth," "what lives behind my eyes") and other times with the longing of an abandoned child ("the one who stayed," "the final parent.") He loves the entity because it chose him, because it confirms that he is perfect in spite of the way people flinch away from him, in spite of the fact that his own parents tried to kill him. Aunamee can't feel love, but he craves it for himself.

Ironically, the relationship is one-sided. Aunamee may pray to it every night; he may mutter to it when he's lost or frightened, he may brag to it when he's victorious, but the entity sees him the way a lumberjack might see an axe.

Without the entity, he would never have become the Host (or "Aunamee") and his cruelty would have remained unrefined -- and unprotected. He might have become a serial killer, or he might have died in a bar fight after prodding the wrong person a little too hard. Either way, he would have been clumsier, weaker, smaller, a violent animal instead of a violent god, and that thought haunts him in his private moments. If you asked him what Hell was -- and if he was inclined to tell the truth -- he would say it would be remaining Ariel Knot.

Is there an event in your character's life that they'd do differently? How so and why?

Aunamee would never admit to having regrets. Regret is akin to fallibility, and he never makes mistakes.

But he does make mistakes. Shortly before arriving in Diadem, Aunamee was attacked by a group of rebels he chose to keep alive. Although he purged most people who were critical of him, some of them -- the ones he believed weren't a true threat -- were allowed to remain. He framed it as mercy, but in reality, he held onto them because he liked the way it felt when they were angry and helpless. Naturally, when the entity started to withdraw from him, these rebels saw an opportunity to make him pay for his crimes. What could he regret more than his own impending demise?

He'd never admit it out loud (and if the thought came into his head, he'd banish it immediately), but he should have killed them when he had the chance. As it stands, he rationalizes everything away as a test by the entity. He was supposed to be cornered. He was supposed to think he was about to die. Otherwise, he would be powerless and weak and abandoned, and how could he cope with that?

What's the greatest challenge you foresee your character facing in the setting? How might this impact their ability to adapt and in what ways will they confront this challenge?

In Diadem, Aunamee will be mortal for the first time since he was a child. Not because Diadem stole his power away from him, but because that power left. He will no longer see the future. He will no longer hear the thoughts of other people who cross his path. His injuries, once capable of healing themselves within hours, will linger, and they will hurt. He will go from a man with hundreds of people at his command to a man who needs to barter for food and shelter. The transition will be brutal, and he will need to fight hard to maintain his sanity.

Denial is the name of the game. He will tell himself that Diadem is a test, a temporary blip in his godhood that he will easily endure. He will play by the rules with a smile, because anything less would be admitting that he has no idea what he's doing. At first, he will seek out people who are experiencing strong emotions in an attempt to restart his telepathy; then, he'll seek them out because he likes it, because he needs people to be feel things in order to feel alive. Like an emotional vampire, he'll drift from disaster to disaster, desperately trying to recapture his feeling of godhood. He will attempt to present himself as calm, clean, and quietly knowing. He will speak gently, not unlike a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis. He will still call himself the Host, although his tone would make it unclear whether it’s a title or a religion. When others talk, he will watch their eyes a little too closely.

What's the easiest thing you foresee your character adapting to in the setting?

The horrors. He will not flinch at that more grotesque sights in the diffusion zones, nor will he cower from the less savory members of society. He is prepared to defend himself, and he is prepared to harm others -- if necessary. As the Host, he prefers to think of himself as humanity's savior, even if he's the one causing the disasters. Aiding his fellow fluxdrifts in various calamities will make him feel right at home.


Samples

Sample: Diadem Test Drive 1

Sample: Diadem Test Drive 2