Still developing all these ideas. Criticism, commentary, feedback are all welcome. (Headweather has an eponymous gmail account for contacting)
Cin is a large man, with some furry features, limited to largeish animal ears and bit of a muzzle. His face is unexceptional, unless he smiles, revealing a wide mouth filled with large teeth. His grin is very intimidating. His arms and legs appear heavily muscled, and because of his enhancements he is stronger than even someone of his size would normally be. He has chosen to replace much of his flesh with artificial materials. Even the parts of him not obviously mechanical have been replaced with a durable, heat-tolerant polymer that resembles flesh. Despite its high durability, he still has to replace these parts of himself often. He is warm to the touch, often slightly above normal body temperature, sometimes quite higher. His most striking modification is the door in his chest, a metal door with a glass window. A constant glow shines through the thick glass, its color variable. The door leads to a chamber containing an incredible power source he salvaged from a decaying military robot he found in the Robot's Graveyard. The heat can be made high enough to incinerate almost anything put inside, though running for long periods at the highest temperatures tends to damage his softer parts, as the chamber's insulation isn't perfect. He will sometimes wear an asbestos vest to protect his surroundings from the heat. He has high control of the power core, through long practice and excellent self-control, and can change the nature of the blaze within in some very interesting ways. He usually has a device of some kind on either wrist. He typically is clothed, in practical, durable work pants and a jacket on a normal day. He doesn't wear shoes, and doesn't need to. He keeps a several pets, including a large dog-like creature and several mechanical beasts.
Though he is a native to the Mess, in his early life he must have been raised by ascetics, because he has a strong, deeply ingrained sense that overuse of the instantiator is "cheating". The modification of his own body is one of the few exceptions he has made to this ingrained rule. He enjoys making things in a hands-on, mechanical way. He will gladly spend days tinkering with something he could have finished in minutes with a bit of concentration. He is most comfortable living around those with similar inclinations, and would scarcely think to live anywhere but in Downwarp, though he has no problem with travel to the other warps. He has come to love Down, and since arriving has made himself a home, and all his current physical mods. (or perhaps he was born here and never left? considering).
Though he loves the public spaces of Down and elsewhere, he needs a private place he can go to. (I have some ideas for this also.) Though he may have internalized some ascetic values as far as the instantiator is concerned, he is in no way an ascete in the rest of his life. He likes things loud, big, impressive. He frequents pockets of Down where communities of people have built pre-post-scarcity-like lives for themselves.
He is definately of Eisenstimmen leanings, though I hesitate to jump right into that faction at the getgo. (though I do admit I had the Eisenstimmen concept strongly in mind when concieveing this character).
He is strongly male, but also gentle and sensitive. He can be easily embarassed, and on his occasional visits to Bottomwarp will try to stay to the dimmmer, quieter, more intimate locales, if they can be found.
I am, unfortunately, new to MUCKs. I realize there are probably better places to start with MUCKs than PB, simpler places, but PB caught my imagination more strongly than any of the others. I have been enjoying the wiki, and have built up several character concepts in my head as I've gone along. All are Downwarp-based characters, as that locale has the strongest attraction to me (Bottom and Up as seconds, I suppose). The prevailing urban feel, world as construction. The sense (even if the warp was just instantiated into existance) that in every direction, for an incredible distance (forever) every bit of material was placed there by someone. Not a single omnipotent mind, but an incredible number of independent beings over incredible periods of time.
Of the characters I have been mulling over, this one is the most completely developed at present.
Example:
Cin sits in what passes for his living room, the bare concrete floor only softened by filthy drop cloths beneath the workbenches. He sits in an ancient but still intact reclining chair that appears to be upholstered almost entirely with duct-tape. It appears very comfortable, and is reading, his book illuminated by the light from a dingy white square mounted to the ceiling. He holds his book in his left hand, allowing his right to dangle limply down to the floor. His pet is gnawing relentlessly on his fingers, leaving tooth holes and gashes in the surface.
...
"What are you doing over here so early?" asks Cin. "I wanted to get an early start. I've made some important advances, and I'd like your help." "Gladly, but let me get through my morning routine, alright? It takes a bit to wake me up." He flipped a heavy mechanical switch, starting up a device that looked like the filtration system from some ancient pump. It ground heartlessly for a few moments before dropping to a low hum. He dug around in a pile of random trash in the corner of his lab, finally pulling out an old, broken chair. He smashed it, and opened his chest hatch, tossing the pieces in. A fire flared briefly behind the thick glass. He returned to the grumbling machine, which now offered up a thick black liquid, which he drank. The first swallow brought a broad grin to his face. He went into the back room, his visitor following. Morning light shone through seams in the heavy metal plates. Suddenly, a blast rocked the wide room, billowing in one of the armor sheets. The blast knocked his visitor off his feet. "Damn, he got the jump on me." He gulped down the rest of the sludge, dropping the metal cup, and strode to the corner, where an impressive arsenal of huge, rocket launching weapons was heaped. He selected one, and hefted it to his shoulder. It was almost as long as he was tall, and bigger around than his arm. He released a latch, and swung open a door, revealing a dizzying drop, and flooding the room with light. He carefully took aim, and with a gout of fire, sent a return volley on its way. He tossed the launcher back in the corner, and cheerfully reached out to swing the door back closed, whistling as he latched it. "What a fine morning!"
Themes... Individuality, Conflict with Post-Scarcity, Urbanism... Oh, yeah, Creation and Destruction. Definately. Maybe I don't get that across well enough here... He has a curiosity about the limits of the backup system. How often it acts, when it kicks in. What level of sentience a being must be for it to activate (would a barely intelligent computer system qualify for its services? honestly: that's for a different character)
He has dug out a home in the hollow chest of a great male statue. It stands, buried to the waist in ancient construction, its arms crossed against its chest. Water cascades onto the face of the statue from a huge broken pipe hundreds of feet up, and runs down its chest, pooling in the crossed arms, before running out of the many gaps. A large metal shield strung with numerous cables hangs to the side, ready to be swung into place, blocking the waterfall should the flow turn polluted. This flow of water forms a constantly moving reservoir larger than a swimming pool, and one of the giant hands, cupped under the opposite arm, has been made into a heated pool, relatively calm. The statue stands inside a building, facing a spacious interior park, completely in ruins, and well lit through the many holes in the collapsing walls. The only apparently stable wall is to its back, and his home has been extended into this wall. The backside of the wall, on the exterior of the building, commands an incredible view, high above a far-reaching field of skyscrapers far smaller than this. The nearest building in sight to rival this one fades into the distance. The wall immediately behind the statue is heavily armored, with thick sheets of metal bolted to the concrete structure in a patchwork fashion, and with several armored doors and windows studding the plates. A door in the arm of the statue leads inside.
The inside of his home is scaled to fit him perfectly. He keeps a several pets, a large dog-like creature, and several mechanical beasts. He has numerous projects going on at any one time, and though he tries to keep order, the entropy of Down infests his workshop as much as anywhere else. Among these are his nest of mechanical ants, which he is very proud of, that are solar powered, and only operate when light is focused on them through a large magnifying lens. In a corner of the room is an experiment of a friend of his, which has been running for years. It is a hermetically sealed box, with a mechanism inside intended to measure precisely the entropy of Down. Amidst the junk are a pair of arms, a gift from the same friend, that play drums exceptionally when given the chance. He pulls them out when he gets the urge to practice his guitar. They may or may not be sentient in their own right; they can understand instructions but don't really have much avenue for communication.
The mad scientist's experiences in Strange. monofilament wire.
Cin checked the watch on his wrist, tracking the action of the backup system as is invisibly touched all the residents of the Mess. An orange light, blinking. It passed.
"Wake up."
"Hmmm?" Thorn rolled on his cot as his blanket was tugged away. Some gentle shaking roused him, and he blinked in the darkness. It was early, very early. The light was still out, the windows were dim. His eyes focused on the dim glow in the dark beside him. Cin's nightshirt was loose, and the pale blue glow coming from below his collar softly illuminated his hard jaw.
"Awake? Come here, I want to show you something."
"What is it? It's so early-"
"I know. You have to see it at night, while it's still dark." He took Thorn's hand, pulling him to his feet. The floor was cold, unrelieved concrete, and then, steel, as Cin lead him out to the balcony jutting out into the cold night. A warm breeze blew up through the gaps in the steel deck, then abated, leaving Thorn colder than before. He moved closer to the warm, dark form before him. Cin's broad back filled his vision, and he could see his profile lit by his own glow when he turned. "We're here. Look around." His large hand softly tilted back Thorn's head, towards the darkened sky.
He strained to make out what he was supposed to be looking at. As his eyes adjusted, more details coalesced out of the cold black. He bagan to make out lights in the darkness. As he watched more and more became apparent. They seemed to trace patterns through the night. "Stars? But, that isn't possible..."
"No, not stars. Just lights, windows." They filled the sky, arcing overhead. "See those, in a horizontal line? That's a market atop the Grace Flatiron. And there?" He pointed to a dark spot, with only a few ruddy,, flickering lights. "They haven't has power there for ages. Those are their campfires." He then pointed upwards. "Can you see that? It's late, so it's harder to see, but the glow is still there."
Thorn craned his head upwards, shivering as the chill air ruffled his fur. There was a glow overhead, faintly visible, but obviously huge, for the distance off it must have been. A dim red ring, like cooling metal. "The light never really cools off. The filament stays warm enough to glow right up until it switches back on. And when it's on, whoa! I was on the team that fixed it when it burned out a while back, when we got it switched back on, more than half the team were burnt to a crisp." He picked up an old train seat that was lying on the deck and turned it over, sitting down and reclining to see the sky better. "You can see the domes the greenhousers have set up on the ceiling around the light if you look at it through a welder's shield during the day." Thorn sat on the armrest of the seat, leaning back into Cin's warm shoulder, trying to get closer to his warmth.
"Are you getting cold? Come on, sit on my lap, I'll keep you warm." Cin extended his left arm, inviting Thorn down. The young shaman hesitated a moment, then slid down off his perch and onto his warm friend's lap.
Thorn leaned close to him, feeling the heat in his chest through his thin nightshirt. Cin put his arm around him as they gazed up into the night sky. He pointed out many constellations of lights to his smaller companion. A bright clump, a marketplace, a moving strip, a vertical highway. Nearby, only a few buildings off, showers of sparks were visible as some Eisenstimmen repaired their building, not stopping even for the dark. Lights traveled through the great empty space, daregliders, propaganda blimps, advertisments flitting through the night. Even this relatively abandoned corner of Downwarp hummed with life, if one watched closely enough. As they lay there, the night slowly grew colder, and Thorn nuzzled against Cin's chest.
In the dark, Cin grinned. The light weight of his companion was comforting. It made him feel strong, protective. The small hand pressed against his chest, searching, until it found the edge of the hard glass window. Thorn pressed his hand against it, feeling the heat inside, trying to get closer. "Do you want to feel it?" Cin asked, and Thorn jerked against him, startled by his deep voice breaking the stillness. The night was filled with the subaudible echoes of activity far off, the hissing of sparks, the creak of buildings settling and decaying, and the endless rush and hum of water and power coursing through the urban landscape, all adding up to a peaceful near silence. "What?" "The heat. The fire." Cin gently liften Thorn up, and carefully unbuttoned his shirt. Thorn sat on Cin's knee, watching as the glow slowly grew, revealed by the parting opaque material. The warm blue square drowned out the night, it's silent fire heating his skin even from a distance. He reached forward and put his hand against the glass, watching the glow dance around his fingers, not quite steady, but throbbing, scintillating, like the dance of a bonfire.
The dancing light flickered more as he gazed into it, and the light glinted off of Cin's wide smile, a Cheshire cat grin in the darkness. "Do you want to feel it, feel the fire? You can, you know." Thorns eyes were anxious, but there was also a yearning there, to get closer to this trapped fire. "It won't hurt. It's not just any fire." His hand came back up to his chest, as his companion drew back, and he gripped the edge of the door, slowly pulling it open. Strangly, the heat did not increase. The flames were exposed now, dancing into the air, licking the edges of the opening in his chest. Like a child to a shiney toy, Thorn was drawn to them. He knew he'd get burned, but, Cin wouldn't let him get hurt. He knew that. Cin always protected him, like a powerful guardian. He could always trust him. And he reached towards the flames. They licked his fingers, painting his hand blue, the glow curling through his fur, but not burning him. There was almost no heat now, but he wasn't cold. He was facinated by the dancing flames. He could feel the touch of the fire, not pain, but something pleasant, tickling him. He leaned in, reaching into the light, the fire dancing across his fur, swirling up his arms. Childlike joy crossed his face as he drew close to the hatch, but he hesitated. He looked up to Cin, looking for something. Cin only smiled, giving a gentle nod. He knelt on his firm stomach, and crawled through the door, the blue light lifting his hair, its almost cool touch thrilling him as he fell into it. There was no way there was enough room for him, his friend wasn't that big, but he was inside the fire, floating. The blue glow washed over him, filling his eyes, his ears, the silent roar of the flames almost deafening, a white noise filling his mind. The flames grew more excited, geting between his clothes and his fur, licking at the seams, finally starting to consume them, wrapping tigher around his body. The fire rushed, fed by invisible bellows, holding him tightly, prisoner in a strong wind. He struggled, his heart not in it, with no wish to be anywhere else. There was a dark rectangle floating before him, it was the door. He reached out, to grab the edge, but his fingers hit something, the glass. The door was closed. He pressed his hands to the glass, the fire curling around his fingers, regaining its lost heat.
Cin watched the small hands press against the glass, imprisoned inside him. He smiled, feeling his fire lap across his prisoner, reveling in his protective instincts. He put his hand to the glass, feeling his own internal heat rise, the fire changing color, growing more yellow. He could barely see Thorn's face, calling out silently, the sound muffled by the window. His mouth was open, his eyes closed, as he called out, not from pain, but ecstacy. The flames flickered across his body, painlessly singing away his fur, laping at his bare skin, bathing him in heat, caressing his body. He drifted away from the glass, floating in the ravishing fire, being torn from himself, the orange glow filling his vision, through his closed eyelids, feeling the heat in his body, in his mind. The burning, blazing bliss.
Cin reclined on the deck, the heat blazing off of him, softening the plastic armrests. His shirt was still open, and the red glow shined brightly into the night, another artificial star inside this massive structure. He could feel every flame, every glowing spark inside him, as he consumed his willing fuel. He basked in his own glow, until finally the blaze diminished, shortly before morning. He consulted his watch, buttoning his shirt, as the bang of massive relays echoed through the incredible chamber. The light blazed on, switching on a new day, as he went inside. His friend, Thorn, was lying in bed, still sleeping. "Wake up! Breakfast time!" Thorn blinked drowsily, sitting up in bed, reinstantiated while sleeping, now rested for a new day. As he went to make something to eat, Cin smiled contentedly to himself. He always enjoyed starting his day this way.