Name: Jonas Maldor
God of: The Night
Gender: Male
Age: 2,547
Faction: Pain
Powers:
Obfuscate: Jonas is nearly constantly cloaked in shadows that play tricks on the eyes and wreathe Jonas's exact location within the darkness in uncertainty, affording him protection through evasion. Any foe foolish enough to attempt to fight Jonas head-on will find it incredibly difficult to pinpoint his location, leading to glancing blows and infuriating whiffs. The darker his environment, or the more shadows available to use, the harder he becomes to hit. In total darkness at night, Jonas can phase into the shadows and become invisible, though he is still tangible and may be struck. Likewise, if exposed directly to blinding light, the harder it becomes for Jonas to maintain this defense. This is a passive ability and even remains active while Jonas is asleep, but not when knocked unconscious.
вечерняя ночь: The night is Jonas's domain, the shadows his tools of the trade. While he can produce his own shadows and his own darkness, any naturally-made shadows are his own to use as well. Jonas may draw shadows in an area to him to fuel his abilities; they will return to their natural locations when not in use. Shadows may be solidified to take physical form and be used as Jonas sees fit. This commonly is used as various weapons and armaments, such as blades, knives, hammers, shields, and occasionally armor. Shadows used as blades possess an unnaturally strong ability to pierce armor, but are not universally piercing. Shadows used as shields are physically about as strong as reinforced iron.
Fekete Szurok: Jonas can produce an unmoving 10 foot radius sphere of absolute darkness at any point within a range around him. In this sphere of darkness, no light may penetrate from outside, nor may any light be produced from within, and all caught within are blind to the happenings around them without vision catered to the darkness. In the darkness, nobody can hear you scream; sounds are muted entirely within the sphere of darkness except for Jonas's own voice.
Noční Můra: Just as Jonas can draw shadows to him and use them as weapons, Jonas can merge with shadows to alter his form to other, more powerful options. The more shadows available, the stronger he can be, and in total darkness, his options are near-limitless. The shadows are a part of Jonas-any damage sustained in his altered forms will be translated to Jonas when he reverts to his original form.
Equipment: Jonas travels light, but carries a single dark silver blade with him named Exterri, about the length of a broadsword yet lighter than a rapier. The blade is magically enhanced to be completely mute; no matter how hard he swings or what the blade contacts, it will never make a sound. It remains hidden on his person while he is wreathed in shadow.
Personality:
Generally timid, Jonas often prefers to keep to himself and avoid conflict since the death of his brother. Conflicted and confused, Jonas travels through life as a spectator at times, merely going through the motions as he plays out scenes and thoughts in his mind again and again. Having come to question his very being, Jonas wonders what is authentically 'himself'; is he truly a vicious, hellsraising troublemaker, a peace-seeking denizen merely seeking his own corner of the worlds to himself, or a true creature of the night that thrives on bloodshed and the screams of those he accosts in the dark? Jonas battles his demons in his head daily as he tries to come to terms with who he is.
The world around him frustrates him as he fights to find his true calling and a place he can rightfully say he belongs. No faction is 'right' to him; Order and Freedom are too bright, too unrestricted, and too firmly entrenched in a virtue system he doesn't feel truly encapsulates his morality, but Pain and Chaos have done nothing but lead directly to trauma and mental agony. He remains loyal to Pain not out of love or loyalty to Malphas, but simply to have something to cling to. His family makes his name near-taboo in the virtuous realms of Elysium and Mechanus, leaving Hades Jonas's only place to reside with his hand in Baldramort's destruction leaving him quite unwelcome in Carcari.
Thus, Jonas stays reserved...for the most part, anyways. When stirred to action, an unsettling grin emerges from the shadows as the monster his mother tried to instill in him for eons rises from the depths of his being. Perhaps his brother rubbed off on him just a little...or perhaps his apple never truly fell far from the tree in the first place. But whatever the reason, whenever Jonas lets his mind go blank and tap into his baser instincts, few have been known to walk away from the encounter unscathed...though Jonas himself often looks back on his actions with a silent regard and regret.
Background:
Just what does it truly mean to be a god if they can die? If your time is still finite, how should you spend it? If those you loved and thought immortal as yourself perish by your hand, do you carry the grief through time eternal, or do you eventually move on?
Should you move on?
Is your personality your own, or just a product of the people around you?
Why does Jonas ask all these questions in his head every day?
Born to Belladonna and Petos Maldor, the gods of Murder and Betrayal respectively, Jonas was the younger of two brothers. His brother, ever the achiever in his mother's eyes, was the heavy favorite; Jonas found himself often neglected or downright tortured for not possessing the killer instinct his dear brother Cruor did, nor the sheer bloodlust for murder and chaos of his mother. His father had left before he was even born; he only knew of Petos through stories, and later on as technology improved, blurry photographs taken by his mother in her insane drive to kill the man who had fathered both of her mistakes.
Facing bullying and torture from Belladonna for not living up to the family name of being a murderous psychopath, Jonas began to have an identity crisis. Would he act of his own free will, or try to live up to the standards of his family? Jonas tended to prefer solitude and quiet reflection over senseless violence, and he was was nowhere near the levels of perverseness and violent tendencies his family had. The constant reminders, insults, and physical violence on him were eventually more than he could bear, in spite of the love he held for his brother. Tears in his eyes at the young age of 350, Jonas left to find his own identity.
For years, Jonas struggled to combat the psychological damage he had incurred at the hands of his mother. He wandered both the earth and Hades ceaselessly, searching for a new purpose, a new identity for himself, but coming up empty. A few kills here, an odd adventure with some other gods there, but nothing that truly stuck with him. That is, however, until he accidentally stumbled on a strange realm while exploring an area around the Bermuda Triangle. It was a realm where entropy was the rule; it changed often and dramatically, and was deserted as far as the eye could see. Deciding to make this lonely place his home until he could straighten his life out, Jonas constructed a small home there. The loneliness and solitude, despite the chaos of the place, inspired the name he gave it: the Nightmare Realm.
He lived there alone for a millennium and more. As time passed, he began to delude himself, believe that a higher power was at work within the Realm. He even made up rules for his personality that he blamed on the realm's influence. At first, it was just to entertain himself as he continued his soul search, but in time he began to buy into his own delusions, believing he truly WAS a mad god that could not take a thing seriously.
The fall went almost unnoticed to Jonas as he kept up his facade, trying to maintain a unique personality when he instead alienated the other fallen gods he came across. Even a return trip to a damaged Nightmare Realm with his comrades brought no solitude to him; there was no purpose but to continue the charade, to keep himself from falling to the base delusions Belladonna forced upon him. During his journey, a surprise greeted him; for the first time in decades, his brother Cruor was reunited with him, with the anticipated amount of brotherly love and ribbing alike. After some antagonizing, Jonas eventually settled in as Cruor's pleaser, desperate to earn the acclaim of his brother, the one connection to the past he still had that didn't try to kill him on sight. A dysfunctional, but somehow still happy family. It surprised Jonas deep down that, even despite the bullying, he still loved the god of bloodshed as a brother; on another level, he knew much of it was truly Belladonna's fault, and he was able to forgive Cruor internally for many faults.
All this was ripped away from him in one soul-crushing instant. During a desperate struggle with the Monarch of Chaos, Baldramort, Jonas launched a massive shadow ball at the god, but instead found it hitting Cruor instead. Even with the power of the Destroyer within him, it still damaged the god nearly beyond repair, leaving him wide open to be killed. In that moment, realizing it was HIS fault the one thing he had left-his brother-was gone, the facade broke once and for all. He was being facetious, hiding behind a mask to protect himself from the cruel reality that he had no purpose or meaning. With his barriers broken, Jonas once again set off on a journey, this time truly trying to find himself. Why was he here? What did he want from his eternity? And could he ever forgive himself for the death of his only sibling?
His journey ended up resulting in him traveling to Carcari in an attempt to find answers both for himself and the death of Suriyel. Tthe group's leader, Vantas, rejected the proposal presented to them to meet with the one known as Diz, and Jonas himself had seen little value in meeting yet another unknown god he had no dealings with. Regardless, as time passed in Carcari, Jonas grew disillusioned as the voices in his head grew louder, more insistent. So many directions he was being pulled in, all by himself in his own mind. Disorienting at best, agonizing and torturous at worst.
He didn't know when he was separated from the group, but he and Requiem, the goddess of death, ended up being visited by the deity himself. Diz seemed particularly interested in Jonas; he was able to recount Cruor's death in surprisingly effective detail, and the recounting struck clarity in Jonas enough to listen to his requests. Join him...undo the Monarchs that had put the realms under their boot. While Jonas didn't understand his motives, nor what he gained from it, Diz seemed sympathetic to the loss of his brother. As Diz had said himself...if he truly loved his brother, the god of bloodshed, why not enact some bloodshed of his own? Let the man live on through him, he said. Jonas harbored suspicions, but voices in his mind agreed with the logic Diz held...and the other option was complete and utter destruction at his hand. Given the choices, Jonas opted with the former, choosing to ally himself with the God of Ruin for his own protection, as well as a look into the other side of the coin, the opposite side of morality. His mother would be here. His mother would be on the frontlines of Diz's armies if he had ever found her. Something to perhaps live up to her name...or perhaps see who he
truly was.
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