Post by Miliardo Red on Oct 23, 2010 21:56:12 GMT -5
Miliardo Red
"Just let me put on... my game face."
"Just let me put on... my game face."
NICKNAMES: //[/color] The 1000 Faces, Miliardo Red, countless others he picks up and abandons
AGE: //[/color] 32
DATE OF BIRTH: //[/color] March 4
GENDER: //[/color] Female, but has generally adopted a male persona since taking up The 1000 Faces, and thinks of herself as a man. Always referred to as "he".
ALIGNMENT: //[/color] Neutral Evil
OCCUPATION: //[/color] Freelance Magus, Clockmaker
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Miliardo who? I think you have me mixed up with someone else.
What a strange name. I'm sorry, I haven't heard of them.
I have no idea who you're talking about, son. Have some chicken.
HEIGHT: //[/color] Varies
WEIGHT: //[/color] Varies
EYE COLOR: //[/color] Varies
HAIR COLOR: //[/color] Varies
PIERCINGS: //[/color] Varies
TATTOOS: //[/color] Varies
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: //[/color] Varies
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- Duplicitous
- Miliardo is the first to admit he does whatever suits him, and a promise made is already a promise broken. But only when it suits his needs, of course; a paying customer that doesn't get what they paid for isn't likely to be a repeat customer, after all. But if there's an advantage to jumping ship, Miliardo will do it with a smile and tip of the hat.
- Calm
- The talent for vanishing into a crowd and never being seen again gives Miliardo a streak of ridiculous calmness. What's the point of being worried when you can vanish in the face of any real danger? Infuriatingly flippant in the face of danger, throwing barbed wit at life destroying events...
- Method Acting
- ... and then wandering off to change his personality the way most people change their socks. To go with the 1000 Faces giving him literally any looks he wants, Miliardo has a talent for falling easily into his new roles for the time required. It's no use looking like a different person if you act the same, after all. Without this ability, he would likely be nowhere near as collected; it's that fluid anonymity that lets him keep his cool.
- Proud
- Miliardo is proud of his achievements. The 1000 Faces is a wonderful creation. His clockwork flyers are little metal miracles. He doesn't brag about these achievements to others, because he doesn't like to show his cards. But he is very proud of them, and things that denigrate those achievements make him very, very unhappy. His family accomplished little, and insinuating (even by accident) that he will end up the same way will break the cool.
LIKES: //[/color]
Clockwork
Polished metal
Beautiful faces
Old buildings
Crowds
Idle, pointless chatting
People watching
DISLIKES: //[/color]
Damaged machines
Intrusive questions
Lonely places
Questioning his talents
STRENGTHS: //[/color]
Miliardo is a fluid person, quite appropriate for someone that keeps changing their identity. He possesses a quick mind and can adapt to changing situations. He has mostly broken with his history; Miliardo Red is an obvious pseudonym, and "The 1000 Faces" is apt but not any help with digging out his past. Despite being a classically trained magus with a family line, abandoning his past and reappearing as an entirely different person means nobody's entirely sure what he's capable of.
WEAKNESSES: //[/color]
Miliardo is a coward and his first impulse in any remotely uncomfortable situation is to saunter vaguely away, change his face, and never go back. And his entire persona is built on his ability to get away with this; without the 1000 Faces and the comfort of being able to become a new person any time things get too hard, he would probably break under the strain. He can barely stand the thought of going back to being that dead magi he once was.
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MY FAMILY LINE: //[/color]
Miliardo's family was never all that exceptional, they were just old. 300 years of unimpressive magi, fiddling with their silly illusions. They amassed some power: 4 PrC and 25 circuits at their peak, but otherwise were never of any real notice. Other families were consistently more impressive, or had more effective results from their magic, or otherwise completely overshadowed them; what's the point of something so ephemeral as disguising what something looks like, even if you're very good at it?
While they held no sorcery trait, their crest amassed a large variety of illusion spells, to the point where rendering things invisible was possible. An impressive feat... and nearly useless in practice, since there's little point to invisibility that breaks when you take action. Their specialty being so lackluster, and lacking any other, more credible talents, they were little more than a minor family. Their only assets were solid lineage and respectable prana, useful for marrying off but not really worth anything on their own. Worse, Miliardo abandoned them after becoming head, taking their crest and faking his death, vanishing with 1000 Faces to become a new person (Or many, many new people, really). He's abandoned the family name, and thinks so little of it that it's not even worth mentioning here.
MY HISTORY: //[/color]
Miliardo's early life was like most of his family's: Trained for magecraft, crest implanted over the course of a childhood, spending his formative years at the Clock Tower being impressively unimpressive, chipping away at the obvious problem of illusions not being real and not being all that impressive as magecrafting. The only variation on the theme of quiet inferiority was Miliardo's hobby, clockwork, a touch of modernity seemingly unsuitable for magi and probably earned him more hassle than he would have endured otherwise.
Quiet years, quietly hating his family's lack of impressive talent and quietly hating all those damned magi with their greater family legacies. He tried to justify the clockwork by dabbling in puppetry familiars, but few use puppets and fewer make names at it. His illusions were the same top quality his family always produced, and were just as useless as any illusion ever is. He tried to work on a masterpiece, something to get attention... a mystic code. But their talent being illusions, the Mystic Code was obviously based on illusions.
Upon completion, Miliardo stared at his new work. A mask that can project bodily illusions, making the wearer look like anyone else. Make them anyone but Miliardo. He decided he liked it better that way. Being someone else should be more fun. If he doesn't like that, he can change again. His new work could do it. Named 1000 Faces, Miliardo never revealed it to anyone. He merely put it on, killed a man in a nearby alley, dumped the body in his home, and burned it all. The body would be "him", he would be presumed dead or at least vanished. Miliardo took the man's face and vanished into the night, abandoning his name and history to be someone else. Someone more impressive.
He no longer was officially involved with the Association, being dead, but he hung around. Sometimes he would appear as another freelance hedge-spellcrafter and be able to do some odd-jobs for them; get information, kill an errant person prying too hard into a magus's secrets. Every time he used a different face, a different name, and never bothered giving them his past history, and avoided close scrutiny. One time he even worked as an Enforcer, but the direct danger was a little much for his tastes, and angry magi tend to specialize in things other than harmless illusions and want to put holes in your organs. His most active and consistant persona goes by "Miliardo Red," a classical clockmaker living in west Germany and making customized clockwork for collectors, and known for vanishing for months at a time.
His tenuous relationship to the Mage's Association gave him the news of a new Grail War in Italy. Something in him, remembering the night he put on his 1000 Faces and gave up his old face forever, demanded he try. Winning the Grail War, that would be someone impressive indeed. And the dream of magi everywhere, access to The Root, would give him unparalleled power. He wouldn't have to settle for merely 1000 Faces. He could be anyone. Everyone. All at the same time.
MY GOALS: //[/color] The Grail, and the power at the root of all things. He will be everyone, simultaneously.
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1000 Faces:
Miliardo's Mystic Code, a mask capable of creating powerful illusions over it's wearer. Miliardo wears it constantly, never showing his true face to anyone, abandoning his given name and adopting the "Miliardo Red" pseudonym, when he's not simply calling himself 1000 Faces.
The 1000 Faces has two capabilities. First, looking at someone through the mask can scan their appearance, voice, and basic mannerisms, storing the information. This takes several minutes of watching someone, but once done, this can be used with the second, true function of the mask. 1000 Faces can overlay an illusional appearance over it's wearer, making them look like any of the persons it has stored. This illusion is a complete and perfect fabrication; physical looks and voice are created directly by the mask, while it relays their mannerisms into the wearer's subconscious so they will use them without it looking forced. It does not change the wearer's actual form, but tactile illusions would fool anyone touching them that they are touching the clothes/hand/etc that the illusion is displaying.
The scanning has limitations. It only records things it's seen or heard, obviously, and the mannerisms are simple things like a tendency to swish one's hair or use a particular hand gesture. They reveal nothing of the target's memories, or their mindset. Miliardo looks like them, sounds like them, and may possibly stand like them. He will not know what they know. He will not even know their name, if he didn't hear it or pick a particular form on purpose. Thus it is perfect for becoming a perfect stranger, but not for pretending to be someone specific. It's a disguise kit that can take incredibly detailed pictures for reference and change on a dime, but it is good for nothing else. The cost is cheap and the effect is nigh-instant, but it's still only an illusion. Scanning a person requires 10 prana and time to watch them. Displaying an illusion or changing the current one requires 15 prana but is near-instant.
Actions that stretch the illusion to the breaking point would not be hidden properly, but the illusion would attempt to hold as best it can. This is why Miliardo never removes the mask; very little can disrupt it completely, and he prefers to stay anonymous. Without that comforting layer of anonymity he's grown so accustomed to, he'd probably have a nervous breakdown.
In the War, a servant would have no trouble immediately telling that the image is a complete fake; about as effective for a disguise as wearing a bag over your head with a face doodled over the front. A strong magus would also be able to sense a strong illusion is in effect somewhere, though they would not be able to pinpoint precisely what or where, but they would know something was wrong. If they took time and effort to pinpoint the source of the illusion, they too would know Miliardo is walking around wearing fake faces. But in both of these case, the illusion still holds; you know it's a lie, but that doesn't mean you see the the truth. You can see that Miliardo is cheating with his appearance, but that doesn't mean you can see who he really is under it.
Humans and weaker magi would simply see whatever Miliardo wills them to see when they look at him, and little can be done for it. They're sort of screwed.
Glass Daggers
Simple glass daggers, sharpened to a ridiculous extent though mechanical grinding and high-quality glasswork, sharp enough for quick, single attacks. They have a tendency to shatter when used, but since they're shattering inside a person, this isn't really an issue. It's not like they're intended for long melee combat.
Miliardo has his daggers enchanted for invisibility. This requires very little power; well-made glass is almost invisible already! They can't be seen, modern detectors aren't tripped by glass, and Miliardo can pretend to be any perfect stranger with the 1000 Faces, making them nearly perfect for killing finicky targets. Though similar to 1000 Faces, Servants and strong magi would see through the invisibility... though the glass still rather hard to see even without it, just by being glass.
Clockwork Familiars
Clockwork is long since out of vogue in the modern world, being seen as quaint and old ideas. Mages seen them as almost modern, looking down on the idea. Miliardo finds clockwork automations useful as small, sneaking familiars. He has a handful of clockwork flyers as his eyes in the sky, spying out places that he cannot get into even with the 1000 Faces. In addition, they're very nearly works of art, beautiful tiny brass creatures of ticking gears, springs, and prana. He's very unhappy when any of them are destroyed; as familiars they're unimpressive, but as clockwork they're mechanical masterpieces.
The 5 flyers look like kestrils made of polished bronze, springs, wires, and gears, with small eyes of quartz, capable of spending most of a day airborne without needing to be maintained. From afar, they simply look like brilliant birds with a slightly odd metal sheen. Up close, their artificial nature is apparent, but anyone can tell they are beautiful works of art, their movements strangely lifelike; this is as much from Miliardo's mastery of clockwork as it is from any magecraft. As familiars, their "eyes" see as well as the small bird of prey they mimic, relying the information back to Miliardo. While modeled after hunting birds, their talons aren't sharp enough for attacking; they avoid human contact, but they do not fight or wrestle if someone manages to grab them. Miliardo thinks highly of them, and wouldn't want them damaged by attempting to escape.
RANK: //[/color] Before he "died", he was rank 5th. Not terribly impressive.
ELEMENT: //[/color] Wind, Water
EXPERTISE: //[/color]
Illusions
Clockwork Familiars
MAGIC CIRCUITS: //[/color] 5 PrC, 25 Circuts, 125 Prana
SPELLS: //[/color]
Deceiver's Cloak (Water, Wind)
Rank: B
Cost: 55
Range: 5 meters
Effect: The fabled useless invisibility his family had developed before he abandoned them to the fate of all families without inheritors, Deceiver's Cloak can turn himself or any one object within range invisible, as long as they do not take complex action, or until the illusion fades.
When in effect, the air shimmers like the surface of water, and the shimmering is stronger the more they move. If they're standing still, the shimmer is soft and hard to see, like the top of still water in a small pond. Walking around makes it worse, more like a running creek. Running around stretches it almost to breaking, appearing as the top of a water in the rapids, and anything as complex as attacking someone (Or being attacked) breaks the illusion entirely, crashing like a wave into a cliff face. Seeing a person suddenly appear in a swirl of shimmering ocean spray and stab you in the chest can have an interesting effect all it's own, but otherwise it's not all that useful. On objects this is usually more effective, since they're not likely to be charging around and stabbing people. However this goes, the spell will fade in 6 hours, decreased if the target is running around; light activity will reduce it to 4 hours, and running around like a spooked chicken will reduce it to 2 hours.
One important exception exists: Clear glass objects, being completely unable to move under their own power and predisposed toward being see-through already, will be rendered completely invisible and will remain so until they are shattered. This is why Miliardo chose glass for his daggers; they can be perfectly unnoticeable and he can stock them up since the illusion doesn't fade. When your weapon breaks every time you use it, you'll want to have spares.
Even the most pitiful Servant can see through the invisibility, as will strong enough Magi when they concentrate on it; this renders the effect moot, but only for them. Anyone at all can see the shimmering effects from movement, but unless you're already looking for them or the user is making themselves very obvious by running around and shimmering like a disco-ball, a casual observer simply isn't going to notice.
Deceiver's Masque (Water)
Rank: C
Cost: 15
Range: Self
Effect: Ghetto-version of 1000 Faces, requiring more power for a lesser and temporary effect. This spell provides an illusion of a different face and different clothes, but doesn't effect voices or mannerisms. It lasts 12 hours, and unlike the more complex and tenuous Deceiver's Cloak, it's not broken by the actions going on under it. You're not trying to hide the fact that you are stabbing a man with glass dagger, you're just trying to give the impression you're wearing a red tie while you do it; this makes the spell much simpler and far more stable.
Despite mostly being obsolete with the creation of 1000 Faces, this does have the interesting effect of being able to make an illusion that isn't pre-recorded. No wandering through parks, pretending you're not gazing intently at that one redhead for the sake of pretend to be her later, just deciding your hair is red today. Miliardo uses it in conjunction with 1000 Faces to add variation to his recorded personae by changing minor visual details, like clothing or coloration.
As with 1000 Faces, a Servant or strong magus paying attention to it can tell it's an illusion, though the illusion will still remain. One can know they see a mask, but this doesn't grant the power to see under it.
PLAYER'S NAME: //[/color] Vanderdecken
FACE CLAIM: // [/color] Prussia from Axis Powers Hetalia is his "Miliardo" face, though I used Hungary, Kyon, and Colonel Sanders to demonstrate 1000 Faces.
OTHER CHARACTERS: // None yet![/color]
MISC. INFORMATION: //[/color] Someone called me Mr. Faceless in the chat. Also, no information source talks all that much about illusions, so they must be terribly unimpressive as far as spellcraft goes. Throw those ideas in a blender and this comes out: A faceless illusion master with a deeply seated complex about the worth of their skills.
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