sometimes when i think about pho and the rest of his postgame like im like ‘he probably picks the axe back up again at some point’ and sometimes im like ‘no he stubbornly spends the rest of his 2000+ years of demigod lifespan being a goofy dad’
@ my secret santa: i am so so so sorry for the ref delay. you already deserve sainthood in advance for dealing with it. without further ado here they are, two of my favorite bastards
Daia Shan- Serenity Caste Sidereal
Once just a troublesome junior bureaucrat in the halls of Yu-Shan, Daia truly gained infamy upon her selection to accompany a strike team of Exalted heroes on a mission into the depths of the worldbody of the Yozi Oramus, and her subsequent escape and return from that impossible prison, nearly a thousand years later. The experience left her profoundly changed; even now, the spite of Oramus hangs like a mantle around Daia, ensuring that the waking world she fought so hard to return to will never feel like anything more than a dream. And then, of course, there is the matter of the power she took from the Sevenfold Peacock willingly… and how that power might be changing her still.
Daia is a somewhat petite woman, belying an athletic build. She is ethnically from the Blessed Isle, with dark grey hair that she prefers to wear up, usually in a bun or a knot. Her face, which she tries but fails to keep free of stress and worry lines, is usually found bearing a smirk or an expression of dangerous faux-politeness. Her eyes bear the iconic starry blue of the Serenities caste, but are also shot through with bands of a strange prismatic iridescence. She bears a large pair of bull horns atop her head, a mutation received during her time inside the Worldbody. The nature of the power bequeathed to her by Oramus is such, though, that her very nature is beginning to blur around the edges, and it is not unusual for her day-to-day appearance to fluctuate strangely as mutations come and go like glitches. She is a bit of a fashionista, favoring blues, dramatic and sharp femme looks (she avoids ruffles and prefers sleeker outfits), and jewelry of all sorts (a lot of it). She rarely wears the same exact outfit twice, so do not feel obligated to stick to the reference- you can get creative! She wears makeup, but prefers cool colors and an understated application.
Daia’s most important accessory is her longfang, the Sevenfold Peacock’s Tailfeather. Forged from starmetal, orichalcum, and a crystalline shard of Oramic essence, the weapon contains knowledge of every martial arts technique known by every user to have ever wielded it, and seems to hunger for more to the point where its obsession has bled over into Daia herself. Even more potently, it bears deep within its core the secret to a martial art concocted by the Dragon of Not himself, whose charms grant the power to ignore the limits of impossibility at the cost of making the wielder more and more alien to the waking world. It is a temptation that Daia has drunk deep of, despite all signs pointing to that being a very bad idea. Daia sees the spear as a trophy stolen from her greatest nemesis, but it’s very possible the Yozi himself sees it as a clever snare for hubristic Sidereals. The blade of the weapon is prismatic crystal that resembles a jagged bird’s beak, the pole is jet black starmetal shot through with an orichalcum starmap of constellations, and the orichalcum pommel is fashioned to look like seven golden peacock feathers woven together into a sphere.
While her exaltation may brand Daia a chosen of the Maidens, the elder Sid is a loose cannon, an agent of Heaven in only the most general of terms. She is mercurial, theatrical, fond of causing petty chaos, and utterly disinterested in the politics of the Bureau, unless there is way for her to stir up drama. She has tendency to get ahead of herself with her schemes, and the vast majority of her ‘downfalls’ can be traced back to her own hubris. Beneath all that, she is a lonely woman who feels adrift in a world that no longer feels real to her. She’s a terrible flirt, a huge showoff (especially where martial arts are involved) and has a weak spot for dangerous women. She’s Creation’s wildest and worst gay aunt.
Side Note: Daia is partially deaf, due to an old and potent supernatural injury. She employs the use of what magic/technology she can to aid her, but relies as well on sign language and interpreters. She’s very used to it at this point.
here’s the link to a better-resolution version of this image bc tumblr kinda fuckt it
Avenging Phoenix- Dawn Caste Solar (Formerly Ravenous Vulture Picks Clean the Bones of Creation, Dusk Caste Abyssal)
Orphaned at an early age, Phoenix was adopted by a Guild mercenary and raised as such. He spent his later mortal life as a city guard captain in Thorns, where he exalted during the fateful siege itself, disillusionment and rage at the circumstances of his death making him an easy recruit for the Mask. His path has weaved far and wide since then, a slow painful crawl from rebellion to eventual redemption; a journey that ultimately gave him a place among the saviors of Creation. Along the way, he played a role in liberating a group of orphaned children from the clutches of the Dowager, and now finds himself settling into the role of an adoptive dad to them, hanging up his metaphorical (and literal) axe and trying to live a gentler life. It’s not always easy. Violence and trauma etched in that deep doesn’t just smooth out perfectly over time. On top of that, he has impostor’s syndrome when it comes to his redemption by the Sun, and still feels uncomfortable thinking of himself as a peer to the other members of the Solar Host. Still, as long as his soul is on this side of Lethe, he is determined to fight against the Void- not because he considers himself antithesis to it, but because he has known it and survived it. And while some days it’s hard to know how to separate that fight from the taste of blood, other days it feels like, maybe, fighting against the void can be planting sunflowers for your children on a sunny spring afternoon.
Phoenix is of Western descent, very short, fat, and beefy, with warm brown skin and a round, open face. He keeps his burgundy hair closely shaved, not fond of dealing with the mess of wavy curls it becomes when allowed to grow out. His eyes are dark brown, almost black, the outside of the iris rimmed with the faintest edge of golden yellow. His nose looks like it has been broken multiple times in the past, and never properly healed. Due to unfortunate wyld misadventures his tongue has been mutated to resemble and function like that of a frog’s, though this is only really apparent when he opens his mouth to use the damn thing. Frogs and toads are a definite motif for him in general- small, grumpy-looking, and round as they are.
Phoenix’s casual clothes tend to be simple, comfortable, loose, and in sharp contrast to his prickly combat garb. He enjoys floral patterns, and the color pink. He’s got a very ‘open hawaiian shirt and flip flops dad’ vibe, basically. He does not dress fancily unless pressed to for big occasions, and in those cases usually grudgingly follows the fashion direction of the one twisting his arm. When he’s on actual exalt business, he’s most frequently found wearing his armor; black jade full plate embellished with cruel-looking spikes, and occasionally a shaggy grey fur cloak made from the pelt of some hunting trophy. A horned skull helm, made from the skull of a nephwrack’s war-body, often completes this ensemble. The helmet is a minor artifact: when worn, it causes his eyes to glow balefully behind its sockets and makes his voice gravelly with deathly menace. He is reluctant to take it off unless he feels at ease in a situation.
Phoenix is somewhat bumbling and gruffly soft-spoken, with tendency to look more tired than he feels. Beneath this is a talent for strategic leadership and a stoic determination that gets fiercer as the going gets tougher. On the battlefield, he is utterly terrifying when he needs to be, but would much prefer to be at home in his garden than on a battlefield these days.
His anima banner starts as burst of gold-and crimson fire that solidifies into the form of a fierce and predatory-looking phoenix, with aspects of a garda bird and a lammergeier both. It moves as he does across the battlefield, swooping and rising with each swing of his axe, its fierce eyes focused on his prey.
Additional refs:
what he looked like as an abyssal | his grand grimcleaver looks like this except made outta fiery golden light | rough sketch of his skull helmet
re: 50 oc questions, 23 and 39 for pho, 18 and 38 for daia
OH SHIT i have a lot of these in my inbox…gonna do em now to stay awake
Pho Are they a good shoulder to cry on?Absolutely. Pho is a very good listener, gets very broody when his friends and loved ones are upset, and is fiercely determined not to let others give into despair. He might not always know what to say, but he tries his best.How do they react to criticism? Pho’s general response to criticism and most negative things said about him is ‘yeah, you’re probably right.” Unless its criticism that hurts someone else he cares about by association (he’s especially not fond of fellow exalts that act like they’re somehow morally superior to mortals). He’s pretty easy to provoke then.Daia
Do they have any love/hate relationships?Oramus…on one hand, he trapped her in a dream world for a thousand years and then cursed her and she responded by stabbing his own spear thru one of his heads and deepening his imprisonment. On the other hand, he’s sort of her martial arts tutor and like who else is she going to visit in a horrific dreamspace to play a game of Gateway with every Saturnday? They are both horrible, impossible creatures trapped within themselves and nobody else gets it.
Are they a good liar?Daia is Schrodinger’s Liar. She’s both extremely good at it but can also very easily get caught up in the Fun of trickery and forget the goal of her deceit, eventually leading to it becoming obvious she’s amused and up to something.
Did i juat send you an ask or did I accidentally send a message to the op of the ask meme OH NO.... 93 for Daia and Saint, 22 for Pho!
93. What’s the most iconic line of dialogue they’ve ever said?GOSH remembering specific lines of dialogue is always a challenge for me but let’s see…for Saint it’s probably ‘the monkey story’, which is less a specific quote and more the fact that Saint once, in-session, subdued a monkey that had gotten ahold of a gun, and now takes every available opportunity to attempt to ramblingly retell the encounter to anyone she thinks might not have heard it. Daia is hard bc Daia says so much but upon going back over some of the written portions of the campaign, this one smacked me over the head:
She said this to a wounded man in the middle of a supernatural train fight.
22. What is their least favorite thing about their personality?
I mean, Pho doesn’t have many parts of himself he does think highly of but perhaps I think he especially falls prey to examining a lot of his actions in hindsight and feeling like he never was brave enough to do the real right thing in any given situation. He’s also always struggling internally with the part of himself that has settled easily into a more peaceful life, as he finds it hard to allow himself happiness.
